Triad Today

I had only known Cloris Leachman for less than thirty minutes when she asked me to take off my clothes. More on that in a moment, but suffice to say it was one of those things that sort of sticks in your head, much like everything Cloris did, and she did a lot. Cloris passed away on January 26. She was 94.

Cloris Leachman was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1926, and grew up during the Great Depression. She once told me that she got her sense of humor from her mother. Said Cloris, “She was quite magical and a darling woman, and she told funny stories.”

Cloris attended Northwestern on a drama scholarship, where she appeared in plays alongside her pal Charlotte Rae. And while she had a natural talent for acting, it was her natural beauty that opened some early doors. At age 20, Cloris was crowned Miss Chicago, then competed in the Miss America pageant, after which she immediately boarded a train for New York City, where she landed a job as an extra in a film. That lucky break launched her into television, where she racked up a number of cameos in live dramas and anthology series, until landing a starring role in Lassie. Feeling that the part did little to challenge her as an actress, Cloris left the show after just one season, and stayed busy in episodic television, on such programs as The Twilight Zone, The Untouchables, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

After playing a prostitute in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, she was cast by Peter Bogdanovich to play a neglected housewife in The Last Picture Show. While filming one day, Cloris had a particularly emotional scene to play in which she had to get angry and throw a coffee pot at Timothy Bottoms. She told me of her shock at only being allowed to do one take.

 

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We ran through the scene, and Peter said “CUT”, and I said, “Wait a minute, aren’t we going to do it again?”

He said, “No, you’re going to get an Academy Award for that.”

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And so she did.

Cloris followed that film with her signature television role as Phyllis Lindstrom, first on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and then in her own series, Phyllis. Leachman won two of her nine EMMYs while appearing on Mary’s series. I spoke with her co-star on “MTM”, seven-time EMMY winner Ed Asner: “She was a sophisticated rebel who broke all the rules, and it was a fun ride being with her while she was breaking them. Cloris was also a real hottie.”

Another member of the MTM gang was Gavin MacLeod, who later went on to star in The Love Boat. Gavin recalled his affection and respect for Cloris: “I first saw her when she toured with Kate Hepburn, and I was enamored by her. Later, we ended up shooting an episode of The Road West, in which I had to pretend to slap her. She thought I was really trying to hit her, so after our first rehearsal for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, we all sat down together for dinner, and Cloris said, ‘I’m not going to sit next to Gavin, because he tried to hit me once.’ Despite that, we became friends, and on days when her car wasn’t working, I would drive her home.”

From 1986 -1988, Cloris took over her friend Charlotte Rae’s job as the house mother on The Facts of Life, a show that was written by Academy Award-winning writer/director Paul Haggis (Crash). He shared his thoughts with me about the experience: “It was my first attempt at being a head writer, and I had always been a fan of hers. Cloris was such a versatile actor, and always found the truth in the characters she portrayed. She was an absolute marvel to watch, as she took my ridiculous dialogue and highly questionable plots, and somehow grounded everything in reality, simply by her talent and belief. I feel blessed to have worked with her.”

Not surprisingly, Cloris’ talents continued to be in high demand, both in film and on television almost up until the time of her passing.

I first met Cloris in May of 2008 when she participated in “A Mother’s Day Salute to TV Moms”, which I produced and moderated for the Television Academy. Needless to say, Cloris took over the event, and kept everyone in stitches. She talked about the time she posed naked for a health magazine, and then suggested that I disrobe right there on stage in front of 800 people. After things settled down, I asked the panel (which included Marion Ross) if there was a TV Mom they most wanted to be like:

 

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Cloris: I wanted Marion Ross’ job.

Jim: You mean you liked Marion in Happy Days?

Cloris: No, I just wanted the job.

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Marion, still laughing, then mentioned a film in which Cloris had played a female trucker with huge breasts. Said Marion to Cloris, “You had the lowest bust I ever saw!”

Cloris: Yeah, I put a pack of cigarettes up in my sleeve, and I had been taught to drive this big semi. Anyway, I had this great big chest, and a woman with a baby came up to me on the set, and I said, “Get that baby away from me because he looks hungry.”

Dressing up like a trucker was no problem for Cloris. Neither was donning witch-like make-up to play a sadistic nurse, or Frankenstein’s Frau. She was a beauty queen who only cared about how the performance looked. Perhaps Gavin MacLeod said it best when he told me, “As an actress, Cloris could do anything.” And I’ll sure miss seeing her do it.
 
 

I have lived through the last 17 presidential inaugurations, including one I attended in person and another that I was assigned to cover. In each case, I was struck by the majesty and awe of the occasion, and that includes our most recent inauguration, despite its scaled-down nature.

My family’s history with presidential inaugurals dates back to January 1953, when my parents were invited to attend General Dwight Eisenhower’s first swearing-in. Mom and Dad were life-long Republicans, and Dad had even been one of Ike’s campaign directors in North Carolina. I still have the engraved invitations that my Dad received to attend the ceremony and formal ball that year. Publicly, Eisenhower made history by taking the oath on two different Bibles, one that had been used by George Washington, and the other that Ike had kept from his days at West Point.  Behind the scenes, there was tension between the Eisenhowers and the Trumans. Ike agreed to ride with Harry to the Capitol but refused to come in for refreshments beforehand. Still, President Truman observed tradition and attended his successor’s big event.  Back then, outgoing presidents didn’t dare break protocol. Not so today.

Sixteen years later, on Monday, January 20, 1969, I accompanied my parents to Richard Nixon’s first inauguration. It was 35 degrees outside, and the rain wasn’t the only thing freezing that day.  After about a half-hour, I could no longer feel my feet. Those were the days before TV weather forecasters talked about wind chill, but it felt more like 10 degrees than 35. On that day, Nixon gave the nation hope that he would end the Vietnam War, and he made good on that promise. In doing so, he probably saved me from coming home in a body bag. During his six years in office, Nixon would do many other good things and one very bad one. I first met Richard Nixon when I was just ten years old, at which time I told him that I had been his campaign manager for a mock election held at my grade school four years before, in 1960. I scored a win for Nixon at Brunson Elementary, but JFK won the national election. Upon hearing of my service to his campaign, Mr. Nixon touched his finger to my face and told me that one day I would become president. It was the first time that a president ever lied to me, and, as it turns out, it wasn’t the last.

Perhaps the busiest news day in inaugural history was on Tuesday, January 20, 1981. As Ronald Reagan prepared to take his oath of office, 52 American hostages, who had been kidnapped a year earlier, had just been released by Ayatollah Khomeini and were on a flight bound for Washington D.C. On that day, CBS was short-staffed, so the network hired me to stake out the State Department and cover any announcements that might be forthcoming. I had covered candidate Reagan during the campaign, but this was different. It was Inauguration Day, and history was unfolding on two fronts simultaneously.  As it turns out, the hostages landed safely, and my journalistic services were barely needed. However, I did get to see a lot of celebrities who paraded in and out of the State Department to attend a pre-inaugural party. Among them were Jimmy Stewart and Ginger Rogers, the latter of whom I had met when I was 12 years old. On that occasion, I had told Ms. Rogers that she had great legs. On the day of Reagan’s inauguration, I reminded her who I was, and believe it or not, she remembered the incident and laughed loudly during our brief reunion. That evening, I watched fireworks from my hotel room and reflected upon what had transpired on that historic day.

I suppose I’ve watched every inaugural ceremony since then, but only from a distance. Still, I felt a personal connection to the recent Biden/Harris festivities, almost as if I had worked on their campaign or was a friend of the family. The reason is that, like millions of Americans who witnessed the Capitol insurrection, which occurred just two weeks earlier, I was heavily invested in wanting those thugs and the rest of the world to see that our institutions and traditions were still in place. That’s why, on that day, Lady Gaga’s rendition of our national anthem held a special meaning for me. On that day, Joe Biden’s speech gave me hope that we could defeat two pandemics at a time—one medical, one social. And on that day, I was reassured that America would have many more inaugurations in her future. To paraphrase our new president, we endured, and we prevailed.
 
 

Donald Trump stirred up a bunch of angry white people, asked them to storm the Capitol building, and disrupt a Constitutional proceeding. It was a sickening site to see as these Trump sycophants breached a secure area, yelling and creating chaos. No, I’m not describing the siege on January 6. I’m referring to the mob scene from October of 2019, when scores of Republican Congressmen pushed their way into a closed hearing, in which testimony was being taken in the first impeachment of their maniac president. On that day, unhinged Florida representative Matt Gaetz, who had just recently been reprimanded for intimidating a witness, led the charge to disrupt the deposition of Laura Cooper, a Pentagon official who was sharing her knowledge of Trump’s quid pro quo call to the Ukrainian president.

Gaetz and others had lied to the Trump base about the hearing, saying Republicans had been denied access to the secured room. Not true. In fact, Ms. Cooper was being questioned by GOP and Democratic lawmakers alike, and any Republican Congressman not involved in the questioning could have observed the proceedings. But Gaetz and company weren’t going to let facts get in the way of a good story, so they characterized the hearing as a “Soviet-style process”, in which they were denied access.

Trump and his enablers lied about one thing or another for the past four years, always for the purpose of inciting their base, while also fleecing that base of hundreds of millions of dollars in donations.

In that regard, the white-collar mob scene of 2019 was much like the white-trash mob scene of 2021, except absent the violence. The 2019 breech should have informed us of how easily Trump can snap his fingers and command others to do his bidding. It should have also warned us that a violent siege was not only possible, but probable. In an ironic twist of fate, some of those same congressmen, who once stormed a House hearing room, got a taste of their own medicine when they had to flee from a mob who stormed the Capitol. For the Gaetz clan (including Cruz and Hawley), it was a case of cowards running from the cowards they had helped to incite.

In the aftermath of January 6, much has been written about how our republic has suffered here at home, and how our image abroad has been forever damaged. But over the past few days my thoughts have turned to the children of America, and what they must have thought about the images of our Capitol under siege. Dave Anderson, a clinical psychologist with the Child Mind Institute, told the Washington Post, “We need to assume our kids are internalizing their emotions after learning of the events at the Capitol…it’s affecting them, and making them think about ‘What does this mean about the world we live in?’”

Of course, each parent must decide how best to deal with their child’s internalizing, but most experts agree that it’s always better to talk frankly about a disturbing event. Given that the President incited the recent Capitol riot, author Kate Messner suggests discussing stories from history and reminding kids “what a good leader looks like”.

Speaking with CNN.com, Ken Yeager, director of the Stress, Trauma, and Resilience Program at the Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, said, “There are many teachable moments from this [riot]…and how much you tell the child depends on their age and maturity level.”

Meanwhile, after interviewing a number of educators, the AP’s Michael Melia and Carolyn Thompson wrote that most high school teachers focused their lessons on the importance of the Capitol riot, but also “pushed back against the creeping sense that violence is the inevitable end to political division”.

Perhaps, though, Ms. Messner offered the most succinct civics lesson of the week, telling the Post’s Amy Joyce, “We’re raising kids, but we’re also raising citizens and voters and leaders. They need to be well prepared and informed, and capable of critical thinking.”

In other words, we need to teach our children to know the difference between fact and fiction, and right from wrong. Sadly, those simple lessons were never taught to the Capitol insurgents, nor to many of our elected officials.
 
 

Four years ago, Hillary Clinton made a statement that backfired on her. While enjoying a comfortable lead in the polls, she showed disdain for Trump supporters by referring to them as “deplorables”. Not surprisingly, that slur served to motivate millions of folks to show up on Election Day and vote against her. At the time, many of us thought it was unfair for Hillary to stereotype all of Trump’s followers in that way. But that was then, and this is now. Following last week’s insurrection and assault on the national Capitol, we must now conclude that Hillary had it right all along.

The Trump followers who stormed, then vandalized the Capitol and caused the death of at least five people, are, at the very least, deplorable. More than that, they are murderers. They weren’t protestors, they were rioters. They weren’t activists, they were lawbreakers. They weren’t patriots, they were insurrectionists. And guess who made them that way? Guess who told them to march on the Capitol? Guess who told them that their country had been stolen from them, and that they should help him overturn the election? None other than their hero, Donald J. Trump, leader of their cult. Like Pavlov who made his animals adhere to his will by having them salivate over food, Trump controlled his deplorables by having them salivate over lies. The more lies he told them about a “stolen” election, the more his followers salivated. Every time he tweeted, they responded. If he said march and disrupt, they obeyed. Then, after Joe Biden admonished the President to call off his dogs, Trump tweeted a message for them to stand down and go home, and they did. But in that tweet, Trump also wrote, “We love you. You’re very special.” This is the same man who praised the Charlottesville Nazis as “some very fine people.”

In the days ahead, pundits and prosecutors will be consumed with assigning blame for the Capitol riot, and there will be plenty of it to go around. Trump is to blame for what happened last week because he is the one who fomented the insurrection. The deplorables are also to blame for blindly following their leader. Others share the blame too, like Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. Those two clowns kept Trump’s base fired up by continuing to lie about voter fraud, thus giving the mob reason to believe that they could help overturn the election by disrupting a joint session of Congress. Finally, EVERYONE who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 is partly to blame for what transpired last week. They knew of his boorish, erratic and mean-spirited behavior from the get-go, but excused those dangerous qualities as harmless eccentricities. It shouldn’t have taken a violent siege to make them realize that they had backed an egocentric maniac.

So what now? First thing’s first, the FBI should continue to identify as many of the Capitol trespassers as possible, and have them arrested for committing a federal felony. These under-educated, white trash cowards deserve no mercy when caught, and they deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison. Next, we should punish the man who incited the insurrection. It is rumored that some White House officials are saying the President is insane, and are considering removing him by activating the 25^th Amendment. Long-time presidential adviser David Gergen suggests Congress should issue a formal censure of Trump. Others say Trump should be impeached so that if convicted, he would be disqualified from running for president again. But my favorite punishment comes from social media giants Twitter and Facebook, in which the latter blocked Trump’s account indefinitely, and the former did so permanently. Other social media platforms are considering similar bans. That means going forward, the outgoing president will have no readily accessible platform for lying to and mobilizing his deplorables, and they, in turn, will have no one in the White House to fuel and encourage their Negrophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, Hispanophobia, xenophobia, and epistemophobia. January 20^th can’t come soon enough.

Postscript: Once calm was finally restored at the Capitol last Wednesday night, lawmakers worked into the next morning to officially count electoral college votes, and declare Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election. Trump then pledged to leave office peacefully, but still claimed that he won, and added that his was, “the greatest first term in presidential history.” Deplorable. Simply deplorable.
 
 

In the annals of pop culture there have been three great debates: Coke or Pepsi?, Ford or Chevy?, and Ginger or Mary Ann? The answers to the first two questions may never be settled, but the third is a no-brainer. The overwhelming majority of men and women everywhere prefer girl-next-door Mary Ann Summers, a fictional character from the ‘60s comedy series, Gilligan’s Island, played expertly by Dawn Wells. Dawn was a stage and screen actress, a teacher, and author of What Would Mary Ann Do? Dawn Wells passed away on December 30 from complications of COVID. She was 82.

Dawn Wells was born October 18, 1938 in Reno, Nevada. Her father Joe was part owner in a Las Vegas hotel, and her mother Evelyn was a homemaker, and a bit overprotective of her daughter. “My mother knew where I was every single second. My junior year in college, I’m driving from Reno to Seattle with my boyfriend, and the highway patrol pulls us over. I rolled down the window and the policeman said, ‘Is there a Dawn Wells in the car?’ ‘Yes’, I said. ‘Call your mother,’ he said. [laughs]”.

Dawn won the Miss Nevada contest in 1959, competed in the Miss America pageant, then caught the acting bug in college. Soon afterward, she found steady work on television, often guest starring in Westerns like Cheyenne, Maverick, Wagon Train, and many others. She was a natural fit for Westerns because her great-great-grandfather was a stagecoach driver, and Dawn had ridden horses since she was a child. “I remember one of the first western episodes I did, they asked me, ‘Can you drive a buckboard?’. I hadn’t driven a buckboard in my life, but I said ‘Of course I can!’ My horse got away and they had to come get me (laughs).”

Dawn portrayed Mary Ann from 1964 until 1967, but thanks to syndication, Gilligan’s Island has been playing somewhere in the world ever since. As a result, Dawn became one of the most recognizable actresses on the planet, and was in constant demand at nostalgia conventions and on talk shows.

I first met Dawn in 2013 when she attended the Western Film Festival in Winston-Salem. We re-connected five years later when she performed at the High Point Theatre to promote her book.

 

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JL: Why did you write the book in the first place?

DW: Because we don’t have a Mary Ann today, and I think it’s very difficult being a parent, or a best friend. There’s no guidelines. My generation was pretty black-and-white. There were no drugs, no sex before marriage. Now with all of the temptations and all of the permissiveness everywhere, it’s much harder to raise a child. But there still needs to be a guideline behind it, and I think that’s Mary Ann.

JL: Mary Ann herself had a pretty good upbringing because she never engaged in intimate relations with the Professor on Gilligan’s Island.

DW: Back then there was never any romance. They couldn’t even show my navel. We’ve come a long way. If we were doing the show today, we’d all be living in the same hut (laughs)”

JL: Your touring show is for the entire family, especially for fans of Gilligan’s Island, but what do you want the audience to take away from your presentation?

DW: When you’re in the audience, I want you to know that I’m relating to you. I’m not talking to you, I’m one of you, and that’s what I feel Mary Ann is. And what do I want you to take away from it? Don’t lose the values you’ve been raised with.

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That’s pretty good advice from America’s girl next door. Rest in peace, Dawn.

 
 

Looking back on 2020, no one would disagree that COVID-19 was the biggest story of the year, but for much of the first quarter, it wasn’t a story at all. We began the year with President Trump being impeached for alleged abuse of power. Not surprisingly, the Republican-controlled Senate voted not to convict. Trump was emboldened by the verdict and looking to ride a strong economy into a second term. Ten months later, he was denied that prize by Joe Biden, then spent his lame-duck period trying to prove the election was rigged.

Speaking of politics, North Carolina was in the national spotlight as Democrat Cal Cunningham mounted a challenge to incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis in what would turn out to be the most expensive Senate race in history. Coming down to the wire, Cal had the race all but won when his campaign was derailed by a sex scandal. Meanwhile, Congressional candidates were scrambling to figure out which newly gerrymandered district they might run in. GOP Rep. Mark Walker decided not to run for another term because his 6th district had been redrawn to favor a Democrat. That left the Triad with an open seat, and five Democratic challengers, including Greensboro attorney Kathy Manning, and former Guilford Commissioner Bruce Davis.

Over on the Republican side, local party chair Lee Haywood and data analyst Laura Picardo vied for the nomination. Manning would go on to trounce Haywood in the general election, and Walker would announce his intention to run for retiring Richard Burr’s Senate seat in 2022. Burr made headlines himself early on in 2020, as the FBI launched an investigation into his dubious stock trades based on alleged insider information that he had heard about a new disease called COVID-19. Ironically, as the pandemic grew, Burr’s scandal was all but forgotten. By all rights, the two stories should forever be linked because Burr’s silent greed and failure to share what he knew about the virus probably cost lives. So did Donald Trump’s endless delay in taking COVID seriously.

Meanwhile, other lives were being lost, not just by the virus, but by out-of-control cops and violent white supremacists. George Floyd’s death and the shooting of Breonna Taylor became rallying cries for much-needed reforms in police and sheriff’s departments around the country. In that regard, at least those tragedies served to awaken a majority of Americans to the inequities of criminal justice. Unfortunately, though, racism is ingrained in other Americans, like the three Georgia rednecks who chased down and murdered a black man just for jogging through their neighborhood. That kind of hate can’t be fixed systematically, but it might be less emboldened by new leadership in the White House.

Speaking of race, 2020 marked a year full of debate over Confederate statues and over buildings that were named after slave-owners. One by one, many of those monuments were taken down, and objectionable names were removed from buildings. Confederate flags even disappeared from NASCAR, thanks to Richard Petty and his young driver, Bubba Wallace. Perhaps now, we can begin to erect long overdue monuments to African-American leaders, such as Larry Womble, a pioneering former state lawmaker who led the fight for compensating victims of forced sterilization. Larry passed away this year, but the legacy of his work survives.

Had my friend Larry lived a little longer, he would have been angered (but not surprised) by voter suppression efforts here in North Carolina and throughout the nation. Those included efforts by Greensboro’s own Louis DeJoy, who, as Trump’s postmaster general, removed mailboxes and high-speed sorting machines, in addition to cutting back on employee hours, all of which could have resulted in mail-in ballots arriving too late to be counted. When these and other actions were widely reported, DeJoy denied trying to suppress votes and quickly began to restore human and technical resources in local post offices.

All of this comes full circle with a record number of people voting by mail because they didn’t want to expose themselves to COVID. In fact, avoiding in-person gatherings became a way of life for most Americans. Governor Cooper closed schools, put thousands of small businesses out of business, and threw tens of thousands of folks out of a job. Parents had to become at-home teachers, and students had to forfeit social interaction in favor of online learning.

As this column goes to press, over 300,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. The good news is that vaccines are being shipped to our area, with a promise that we might really turn the corner on this deadly virus by late spring. In the meantime, Gov. Cooper has put new curfews and restrictions in place in an effort to minimize the spread of COVID until such time as vaccines are available to all who want them.

2020 left us with two unresolved pandemics, one clinical and one racial. It left us with a bad taste in our mouths about politics in general, and sycophant politicians in particular. And, it left us a divided nation with deep wounds that need to be healed. It also left us with hope that things can get better in 2021.
 
 

As we do our best to celebrate this holiday season, let‘s not forget that there are people beyond our immediate circle of family and friends who are suffering, and could benefit from our love and generosity.

Party-going restrictions of COVID-19 notwithstanding, this holiday season is still the perfect time to remind folks not to drink and drive. Unfortunately, it’s a reminder that needs to be uttered in every season. That’s because, according to the Centers for Disease Control, intoxicated drivers get behind the wheel no less than 112 million times per year, and cause the deaths of 30 people each day. The CDC also reports that one person dies every 48 minutes due to an alcohol-related crash, while the National Highway Safety Administration says 16,000 people die each year in such crashes. No doubt, making it illegal for kids under 21 to buy booze has helped to keep these statistics from growing at a faster rate. However, the number of young people who drink and abuse spirits is still a major problem, and that brings me to the recent hare-brained scheme by New Mexico State University.

Last month New Mexico State became the first university in America to launch its own brand of booze. Pistol Pete’s Six Shooter Rye Whiskey, as it is called, is bottled by Dry Point Distillers in Las Cruces, who is also a partner in the venture. But hold on. Pistol Pete Rye is not NMSU’s only foray into spirit making. The University began offering golden ale in 2017, and this past October, added wine to its roster of drinks. Speaking of which, the Associated Press reports that over twenty colleges now license their own brand of craft beer, while several others (including Wake Forest) have entered the wine market. The question is why? The answer, according to NMSU athletic director Mario Moccia, is simple: money.

“For us to be the first, I think it’s a source of pride…because in today’s day and age when the budgets are being reduced, it’s incumbent upon us to do things to generate our own revenue,” Moccia told the AP’s Susan Bryan.

Moccia justifies the new business by blaming pandemic-related cutbacks, but how does he justify saying that making whiskey is a source of pride? What’s next? Post secondary craft cigarettes? Hey, I get that a growing number of colleges have ties to the wine industry, but that’s usually because they are located in an area replete with local wineries, and can better offer courses to students who seek employment in that field. But licensing your own brand of hard liquor is something no university should be engaged in, especially given what’s going on today with binge drinking. In fact, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) published a report in which college presidents say binge drinking is their “most serious problem on campus.”

Together, CSPI and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism offer us a litany of statistics and consequences to ponder, among them:

• 7.2 million students are binge drinkers;
• 44% of students attending a 4-year college drink at binge levels;
• 600,000 college students receive unintentional injuries while under the influence of alcohol, and each year over 1,800 of them die from those injuries;
• Nearly 700,000 college-age students are assaulted by another student who has been drinking;
• Nearly 100,000 college students are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape;
• 30,000 college students require medical attention after binge drinking;
• About 25% of all college students have academic problems due to alcohol use, including missing class and poor grades; and,
• Each year, more than 150,000 students develop an alcohol-related health problem, including depression, anxiety, and suicide. The CDC concurs, adding high blood pressure, stroke, heart and liver disease, and cancer to the list.

Meanwhile, the CDC reports that more than 95,000 Americans die each year from excessive alcohol use, and that binge drinking specifically is most common among younger adults. Maybe I’m missing something here, but given these statistics, I just don’t get the whole “source of pride” thing that New Mexico State University officials espouse when describing their involvement in a whiskey-making venture. To my way of thinking, any college president who claims to oppose binge drinking while being involved with a distillery, is guilty of and is engaged in a dangerous hypocrisy. It’s akin to Melania Trump excoriating bullies while being married to one, only worse.

I dare say that every college in America now has a stated or implied zero-tolerance policy when it comes to things like sexual harassment and racism, and most have also taken a stand against drinking on campus. Therefore, licensing and selling your own brand of whiskey is, at best, inconsistent with those and other moral prohibitions, and is, at worst, being an enabler of deadly behavior.

 
 

As we do our best to celebrate this holiday season, let‘s not forget that there are people beyond our immediate circle of family and friends who are suffering, and could benefit from our love and generosity.

Over the past decade, I‘ve been able to showcase scores of community organizations on my Triad Today television show, and in the process, I‘ve learned that there are several ways we can help these agencies help others. The first is to donate goods. Second is to donate money. And, third is to donate our time. Of course, some nonprofit groups can benefit from all three types of giving. Here, in no particular order, are just a few organizations to which you might lend your support.

Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC: Even prior to the pandemic, the Piedmont Triad had one of the worst food insecurity problems in the nation, and that included the problem of childhood hunger. Now, with thousands more of our neighbors out of work, the problem has worsened. Meanwhile, at-risk students who had to learn from home much of the year, found themselves without the nutritional safety net that schools provided. To help alleviate the hunger problem, Second Harvest Food Bank has stepped up its efforts to distribute food to churches and nonprofit agencies that feed hungry people in an 18-county area. The Food Bank also partnered with a number of area companies to provide meals for kids. You can write a check directly to the food bank, or you can drop-off non-perishable food items at a number of locations in our area. For more information call 336-784-5770, or visit HungerNWNC.org.

Cancer Services, Inc.‘s stated mission is “to enhance quality of life for those living with cancer, and to provide the gift of life through education”. Their services include patient advocacy, medication and financial assistance, providing equipment and supplies, offering peer support groups, and much more. 90% of funds donated to Cancer Services, Inc. goes directly to providing client services. In addition to money, you can also donate used equipment and supplies. Call 336-760-9983, or visit CancerServicesOnline.org.

Greensboro Urban Ministry is on the front lines when it comes to providing emergency assistance. Greensboro Urban Ministry provides homeless families in Guilford County a safe, temporary environment. Volunteers are needed to prepare and serve meals, manage shelters, tutor children, and perform a variety of other duties. Monetary donations are also much appreciated. Call 336-271-5959, or visit GreensboroUrbanMinistry.org.

Mtn. Valley Hospice is a nonprofit agency that serves an 18-county area in North Carolina and Virginia, and provides personalized care for patients at the end of life, as well as comfort to families. Mountain Valley Hospice has six regional offices, and operates two hospice homes. They also specialize in care for terminally ill children and veterans, and offer grief support for kids and adults. To give money or inquire about volunteering, call 1-888-789-2922, or visit MtnValleyHospice.org.

The Petty Family Foundation: NASCAR legend Richard Petty and his family support a number of charitable organizations including Paralyzed Veterans of America and Victory Junction Camp, the latter of which provides an uplifting experience for children with severe disabilities and terminal illnesses. To make a donation or learn more, visit PettyFamilyFoundation.org.

Say YES to Education Guilford provides qualified students with college scholarships, and much more. Say YES to Education Guilford also provides students with support services that are designed to help them be successful in life. Their equity-based program begins in kindergarten and includes everything from tutoring to career counseling. Say YES relies in part upon donations from companies and individuals. To learn more about scholarships, or to make a donation, visit SayYesGuilford.org.

Carolina Donor Services and Red Cross … There can be no greater gift at this holiday season than the gift of life, and that‘s why you might consider donating blood, and signing a donor card. Either gesture requires only a few minutes of your time, and will almost certainly result in saving someone‘s life in the future. You can reach Carolina Donor Services at 1-800 200-2672, or at CarolinaDonorServices.org. You can call the Red Cross at 336-333-2111, or via the internet at RedCross.org.

Please remember that your donations of time, money, or goods to area community organizations is vitally important, not just now, but throughout the coming year. It‘s also a way for us to expand the circle of people we care about, and that‘s something worth celebrating in this season of giving.

 
 

I applaud President-elect Biden for moving quickly to create his own COVID task force, and for stacking it with people who actually know about and recognize science. Among other things, the task force is assessing the development of effective vaccines, and making plans for distribution and administration of same. That’s all well and good, but keep in mind that a vaccine is a preventative, not a cure, and that brings me to the here-and-now.

Last month, less than a week after the CDC first reported 100,000 new cases of COVID in one day, that number jumped to 185,000, and by the time this column goes to press, we’ll probably be well over 200,000 cases per day. Experts predict that unless we take steps to curtail the virus, we’ll see half a million cases per day by March. And guess what? Young adults are contracting COVID at a higher rate than the elderly, and they’re taking longer to recover than when the pandemic began. Meanwhile America’s death toll continues to rise, with over 2,000 people dying each day. The reason for these spikes is simple: as more and more states relaxed their guidelines for closures and public gatherings, people began to congregate in larger numbers, AND doing so without wearing face masks. That means until such time as a vaccine is readily available, only three things will stop the spread: social distancing, keeping everyone at home, or mandating the wearing of face masks.

The problem with social distancing is that there is no medical consensus on how far apart we should be. At first we were told to stay six feet apart from other people, then that was upgraded to ten feet, then back to six. Now, some reports indicate that COVID droplets hang in the air much longer than originally believed. Translation? Maybe even ten feet apart isn’t enough. So what about a lock-down option? Thus far, Biden hasn’t embraced the idea of shutting down the country, and I hope he never will. First of all, it would throw us into a major depression. Second, it would only delay the spread of COVID, not wipe it out. In the early days of the pandemic, a number of states, including North Carolina, operated under stay-at-home orders, primarily to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed, and to that extent, the strategy was effective. However, the various shut-downs and limits on crowd size proved devastating to businesses, and to millions of people who depended upon those businesses for a living. By process of elimination, then, our only hope to save lives over the next six months is a national mask mandate, and that’s something Trump will never call for. Therefore, cities and states are stepping up to the plate in the interim.

Over the past week, an increasing number of Governors and Mayors have issued mandatory mask orders which carry with them stiff penalties for anyone who doesn’t comply. For example, North Dakota’s Doug Burgum, a Republican, was one of the first governors to enact a $1,000 fine for anyone not wearing a mask in public, and last week, Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines went one better. He added jail time to the fine. Given that our unmasked breath could kill someone, I think these penalties are reasonable. So do researchers at the University of Washington, who just released a report in which they concluded that if 95% of Americans would wear masks consistently, over 68,000 lives would be saved by March 1.

Of course, there are those who say mask mandates would violate their individual freedoms, but the fact is, we already live under a set of laws that do just that. We do not have the freedom to run a red light or drive drunk, or at high speeds. We do not have the freedom to smoke in most buildings, or carry a loaded gun into most stores. We do not have the freedom to take whatever we want without paying, or hold a parade without a permit. In truth, we would be a much freer society under a mask mandate. If everyone wore a mask, we’d be free to once again attend indoor concerts. We could go to bars, hotels, restaurants, gyms, tourist attractions and sports arenas. And we’d be able to attend large family gatherings, fill up a church pew, and be better able to visit immediate family members who are hospitalized or home-bound. Our economy would rebound faster, and so would our mental state. Best of all, under a strictly enforced mask mandate, the American people would eventually kill off COVID, instead of the other way around.

 
 

Presidents are only human, so they make mistakes. Bill Clinton hooking up with Monica Lewinski, or Donald Trump calling neo-Nazis “very fine people.” I’m talking about John Kennedy, and how he misread history, unintentionally insulted the Commonwealth of Virginia, and was compelled to make amends.

The story begins on Wednesday December 4, 1619. That’s the day 38 English settlers from the London Company navigated their ship down the James River and onto Berkeley Hundred (Harrison’s Landing), in what is now Charles City, Virginia, just 20 miles upstream from Jamestown, which had been settled twelve years prior. The landing party was led by Captain John Woodlief, who, as prescribed in the company charter, ordered a day of Thanksgiving to be observed upon their arrival, and every December 4th thereafter.

Over time, Berkeley became known for its historic firsts. The first bourbon whiskey was made there in 1621 (by a preacher no less). “Taps” was played for the first time while the Union army was encamped at Berkeley in 1862. And, of course, it was the site of America’s first Thanksgiving. More on that in a moment.

In 1907 Berkeley was purchased by John Jamieson who had served as a Union drummer boy during the army’s encampment at the plantation. Ownership later fell to his son (and my friend) Malcolm, who passed away in 1997. Mac loved Berkeley and was aggressive in marketing the historic site, including through the use of promotional videos and commercials which I helped to produce. He invited the public to tour the house and grounds, sold Berkeley boxwoods and bourbon, and held an annual Thanksgiving pageant which attracted tourists from across the country. But the celebration wasn’t always widely recognized.

One hundred years after his father beat the Yankee drums at Berkeley, Mac was upset by something another Yankee did. In the fall of 1962, President Kennedy issued his yearly Thanksgiving Proclamation in which he recognized his home state of Massachusetts as the site of America’s first Thanksgiving. And so, on November 9th of that year, Virginia state Senator John Wicker was prompted by Mac to write to the President, and point out Kennedy’s faux pas. In his telegram, Wicker referenced historical records about Berkeley’s celebration, which took place one full year before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620.

Later that year, Kennedy confidant and noted historian Arthur Schlesinger sent a reply to Wicker with a tongue-in-cheek apology from the President. According to Berkeley records, Schlesinger “attributed the error to unconquerable New England bias on the part of the White House staff.”

The following year, on November 5, 1963, President Kennedy had to eat crow during his annual Thanksgiving proclamation, saying, “Over three centuries ago, our forefathers in Virginia and Massachusetts, far from home, in a lonely wilderness, set aside a day of thanksgiving.” Kennedy’s New England bias wouldn’t allow him to disavow Plymouth entirely, but Mac was happy that Berkeley finally gained official recognition for holding the first Thanksgiving, even if it was a shared honor. Sadly, it was to be Kennedy’s last proclamation. He was assassinated seventeen days later in Dallas.

The holiday season is now upon us, and because of the pandemic, many of us will have to forego our traditional Thanksgiving gatherings. We’ll celebrate with loved ones via Zoom, Skype, and old-fashioned phone calls, and we’ll remember those who are no longer with us. And despite the tragedies and restrictions of 2020, we will find a way to give thanks for what we have and whom we’re with. Perhaps we would also do well to emulate those weary English settlers, and just be thankful for surviving another day of our long journey. So here’s a Berkeley bourbon toast to Captain Woodlief, a little drummer boy, old Mac, and to that Yankee president who finally set the record straight.

God bless, and Happy Thanksgiving.
 
 

Not too many years ago, North Carolina was considered to be a politically inconsequential state. That’s because our voting patterns were predictable, and our presidential primaries were held so late that we hardly ever figured into the nominating process. But as our population grew in both numbers and diversity, we became known as a “purple” state, and when we moved our primary from May to March, suddenly our 15 electoral votes became a valued prize for anyone seeking to occupy the White House. It is no surprise, then, that as 2020 began, North Carolina was deemed by many pundits to be THE battleground state to watch. In fact, both Biden and Trump made so many trips here in the closing days of the campaign, that they could have qualified for in-state tuition. In addition to our importance to the presidential contest, North Carolina was also home to America’s most highly touted U.S. Senate race, in which our votes could decide the balance of power in Washington. But a funny thing (or two) happened on the way to November 3rd.

First, the courts allowed us to accept military and overseas ballots up until November 12, and that delayed our being able to certify final outcomes until after the presidential election had already been decided. Second, the polls were wrong about everything, including that Biden would win North Carolina. But when the dust settled, we had changed colors again, this time from purple back to red. Finally, our aforementioned Senate contest lost steam over some steamy infidelities. Cal Cunningham, who had presented himself as a straight-arrow patriot and family man, managed to cheat on his wife with not one but two different women, one of whom was married to a disabled veteran. Cal’s double-digit lead over incumbent Republican Senator Thom Tillis dissipated amidst the sex scandals, he ended up losing the race, and Democrats ended up losing a legitimate chance to control the Senate.

Our gubernatorial contest also lacked suspense as Roy Cooper predictably beat Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, but the race was closer than had been expected. Democrat Cooper had been up by as many as 12 points in one poll, and ended up beating Forest by only 4. Still, I wonder if Forest might not have closed the gap had the news media focused more on Mrs. Cooper’s middle finger and less on Cal’s indiscretions. It seems that just days before the election, Kristin Cooper shot the bird to a group of Christians assembled for a get-out-the-vote rally because one of the families was holding a Trump flag. Later she arrogantly tweeted, “Was flipping off a brainwashed kid my finest hour? Probably not, but I can live with it.” Clearly the state’s First Lady had a dislike for Donald Trump supporters, but there was plenty of disdain to go around in this year’s elections.

Forest, after all, had sued Governor Cooper for overstepping his authority in handling the COVID pandemic. Meanwhile, Forsyth District Attorney Jim O’Neill is suing Democrat incumbent Attorney General Josh Stein for airing TV ads in which O’Neill was accused of mishandling rape kits. And just about every other North Carolina candidate accused their opponent of being corrupt. One thing’s for sure: these candidates spent a ton of money to spew their accusations, and I don’t just mean on TV. I went to my mailbox on the afternoon of November 3rd, and there, awaiting me, were no less than ten brochures advocating for Joyce Krawiec, and four more opposing her. My mailbox was so full of political ads that I couldn’t hardly get to my junk mail.

The only bright spot in this vitriolic campaign year is that we North Carolinians turned out in record numbers to exercise our right to vote. According to the State Board of Elections, over 5 million people voted, and that means nearly 75% of us made our voices heard. In addition, most of us split our ballot to vote for the person rather than the party, a not-so-surprising fact, considering that “unaffiliated” folks like myself now rank second among all registered voters. Perhaps North Carolina wasn’t the swing state that everyone had predicted for 2020, but that might change in four years, at which time we’ll probably all be voting by drones, and I will have collected over 15,000 Joyce Krawiec flyers.