Papa Pontificates

  From January 14, 2021 Dad Joke :   My grandkids were very upset when our neighbor’s bunnies escaped.   (Pause)   They’re too young to deal with hare loss. Weather – generally a safe topic to start-off:    It has been an unseasonably warm and wet end of 2020 and start to 2021.   I have only had to shovel snow and use the snow-blower two times thus far this winter season.    I don’t know – along with most other old-timers – what a normal winter is anymore.   Yesterday, along with almost spring-like temps, a weather front with 70 mile-per-hour gusty winds roared through to blow over many trees and blow out the clouds.   Thus, today we bask in bright sunshine under glorious blue skies from horizon to horizon and not cold temps by any sense for mid-January.   Religion – generally a topic to approach with caution:    “You have to get right with Jesus; stay right with Jesus; don’t blow the ashes of a wasted life into...

  Date:    1/13/2021 Dad Joke :    I hate jokes about German Sausage.   (Pause)   They are the wurst.      What do you call the boys that tell these jokes?   (Pause) Brats       (Oh, that is bad!) More to see than can ever be seen :     It was pretty extraordinary watching five Bassier Kids being born.    The first three (Eric, Emily and Brian) each came into this world with more than a modicum of excitement.   Each worth a tale recording another time.   Kathryn (the fourth) was a planned Caesarean-born baby who arrived with the associated trauma for her Mom, but for me came into the world in an astonishing fashion and fascinating process that was the most calm of all the children’s births.   If “calm” is an appropriate description of this great birthing process.     Elaine (the fifth) was relatively more measured in her arrival…but certainly the delivery...

 Date:   1/10/2021 Dad Joke :     (This one came from Alyssa.)   Why did the cookie go to the Doctor?   (Pause)   It was feeling a little crummy. More to see than can ever be seen :     I stood on the shore of a dried-up lake to the north of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.    I was assured that this extensive shallow lake held a lot of water during the rainy season.    However, at the time that I was there, the vista was miles and miles of hard-pan sand (clearly not the rainy season) with no water in sight!    On the “weirdness scale”, at this same Lake, I followed a line of man-sized rusty iron sculptures for roughly a half-mile out into the lake-bed.    These sculptures – something of a local attraction – were stylized human-figures in various poses, almost robot-like as I recall.   If you have seen the sculpted runners in Spokane’s Downtown Park, you get the idea.    ...

  Date:    1/9/2021 Dad Joke:     My friend drove his expensive car into a tree.   (Pause) He found out that Mercedes bends. More to Do than can ever be Done…. ·          Event Horizon:   Met Janet Lee Ohnsman in the fall just before her 18 th birthday. ·          This was in the living room of the Newman Center – the off-campus housing I was living in. ·          I was vacuuming the house – a sign presaging the clean-aholic I have become. ·          I don’t recall what she was wearing – she was with a friend Eileen (?). ·          I know she smiled at me and, although unbeknownst to me just then, my life’s course altered. ·          (I was wearing one of those old white tank-top T shirts – aka...

  Date:  1/7/2021 (Received by the editor late evening - posted a day late - sorry!) Random Thoughts on a Passing Scene - in this case, the present unprecedented turmoil in our nation's Capitol. Fundamentals of a Functional Democracy: 1. High literacy rates in the population (I think Japan has one of the highest at 90% plus literacy). 2. Recognition of the right to oppose government policies and regulations and  work through and within the system to change the same. 3 .  Tolerance of differing viewpoints. 4. Acceptance of being out-voted and not in control of the reins of power. 5. Protection of the rights of those without political power. (How do we score on those in America today?) Pursuant to the above, as an individual, I recommend the following civic duties: 1. Exercise your essential right to vote. 2. Read the foundational American documents:  Declaration of Independence, Constitution (with its Amendments and the Bill o...

  1/6/2021 (1/6/1973 - 48th Wedding Anniversary)  Of  course, today is a special day for each of you Bassier children.   Additionally, something to learn about the date 1/6.  The 6th of January is the 12th day of Christmas as in the song "A partridge in a pear tree....five golden rings....twelve drummers drumming...  In Christian and Christmas traditions, the 6th of January is also the day that the three Magi / Wise Men / Kings arrived to give Jesus the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  In Catholic Feast Days, this is called the Epiphany. As a Bassier / Avender tradition on "Tri Keina" (Three Kings Day - something like that in Germanic) Big Grandma Avender hid a quarter or half-dollar in a few of her freshly homemade donuts.   This was for a special surprise for her ever-greedy grandkids!  For the Biblical record, the Magi actually did not arrive at the Christmas of HIS birth, but a couple of years late...

1/5/2021 Dad Joke:   Jan said I should try to do lunges to stay in shape and help stretch my bad leg.   (Pause).   That would be a big step forward for me.     (Jan did not really say this, of course!) Today's learning topic is on LEADERSHIP To begin, from early adulthood, I stepped into leadership roles in school and sports. Later in life my career led to positions of greater and greater leadership in the organizations I was part of.    Why did this happen?  Why did I "attract followers”?  Was this a combination of innate abilities or learned traits?  Were my leadership tendencies a combination of personality, directive nature, bias to take charge, arrogance, a strong sense of self, ability to quickly organize, use the COPE method instinctively, (the COPE is "consolidate, organize, plan, execute”), and/or ability to get the job done?    I see in all the Bassier Children similar tra...