by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Feb 12, 2026 | Featured, Personal, Politics
I know exactly why America hasn’t risen up together — Democrats, Republicans, and Independents — to protect our midterms and our country. It’s all based on my personal experience as a middle school ice hockey goalie.
I played hockey goalie before face masks were used, back in sixth grade. I was fearless. Bad stuff happened to other people, not me.
The best game I ever played was the first game I ever played, because the sixth graders could barely skate, and most importantly they hadn’t learned how to lift the puck.
I had a simple strategy: When they would skate toward me, I would drop down to my knees and lie down, because if I lay down I could cover the entire face of the goal and most importantly the people trying to score on me couldn’t lift the puck over me. All I had to do was lie down and think bad things happened to other people.
It never occurred to me that lying there with the ice at eye level I could have taken a puck to the face.
My hero was Jacques Plante, the goalie for the Montréal Canadiens. No goalies back then wore face masks. I saw a picture of Plante in a National Geographic about Canada. His face looked like a spider’s web of scars.
In the winter of my sixth-grade year before our first game, I was invited to a birthday party to watch the Boston Bruins play the Montreal Canadiens and Jacques Plante took a puck to the head.
The Canadiens trainer skated out to Plante with a towel to stop the bleeding above his left eye, then guided him off to the dressing room to get stitched up.
The organ played as they mopped up the blood on the ice in front of the goal and we waited for his return. He showed no pain. He was tough and brave. Nobody ever envisioned that anything would ever change.
Early the next season, the coach handed me a flesh-colored plastic face mask. The seventh graders could now lift the puck and they had developed super fast slap shots.
That night I took the mask up to my room and put it on. It fit nice, snug and tight, but then everything changed.
I found a hockey puck and put on the mask and put the puck into the holes for my eyes and felt my eyeball pushed back into its socket. It fit like a key in a lock. I imagined the power at impact of a slap shot into my eyeball. It became real and a shiver went through me.
Even though I had never thought of it before, I started thinking seriously about basketball or, god-forbid, wrestling.
That’s us right now. That’s America. We’ve been lying flat on the ice, telling ourselves bad things happen to other people.
Why did we not rise up together when Trump sent the National Guard into LA and other blue-state cities? When he sent masked ICE agents to arrest just about anybody who is not white under the Kavanaugh doctrine? When ICE was told they had immunity from prosecution for illegal excessive force? When Trump and his administration argued away the two killings by ICE of American citizens in Minnesota, despite contrary video evidence? When Trump and the Republicans voted for $83 billion to fund ICE when $6 billion a few years ago was enough?
More and more it’s looking like ICE is becoming Trump’s masked private army. What if ICE is standing at every voting station?
Why did we not rise up together when Jack Smith recently testified that his investigation found “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Trump himself led the insurrection on January 6 — and has continued to campaign on “Stop the Steal,” even though he lost 61 court cases and won none, and has given all the insurrectionists pardons? You don’t think he might try it again if he has the funding?
Why did we not rise up together when it was reported that he increased his net worth in the first year of his four-year term by over $4 billion at the country’s expense?
We’ve been watching the blood get mopped up in front of the goal and waiting for normal to return.
T.S. Eliot wrote that “humankind cannot bear very much reality.” Reality is all around us as the midterms approach. Jacques Plante’s blood in front of the goal as he’s being stitched up becomes personal.
Once you wake up your mind, everything is real when you are terrified.
I think we’re gonna be OK for the midterms, if everybody who can vote gets so frightened that they show up at the polls — mutually aware of their danger and sharing it — and refuses to leave until they vote. If we are united, we will be OK. United, we will be the real America that we are — the United States, not the Divided States of America.
Imagine your life and the life of all the people you care about if we lose the House and the Senate, with the Supreme Court offering no check to executive power. Imagine the puck going through the keyhole of that mask into your eye socket, the pain and the darkness.
Wake up. Be terrified. Bad things happen to everyone if we don’t stop lying flat on the ice.
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Jan 27, 2026 | Featured, Law, Personal, Politics
As our country has become more and more divided over the last 10 years, I go back to this little story from a long time ago.
Back when I was practicing law, I was hired to represent a brokerage firm that sold huge airplanes. The firm believed it had been deprived of a commission by the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN), in particular Pat Robertson, who had just run for president.
I arranged a deposition of Mr. Robertson at CBN’s corporate offices in Virginia. The offices were opulent. When I entered, several TVs in the waiting room all showed the same image: Pat Robertson, raising money.
I was kept waiting for over half an hour, and I realized that I would know when the deposition would start when Robertson was no longer on TV and had let somebody else continue the fundraising.
Eventually, I was ushered into a large conference room where the court reporter had already set up. The lawyer representing Robertson and CBN was about ten years out of law school and a sole practitioner. He stood and warmly greeted me as I entered the room.
When Robertson entered, everything changed. My first impression of Reverend Robertson was his extremely elegant bejeweled cowboy boots. All of a sudden, I was in a war room with everyone but me standing at attention.
My impression was confirmed when I asked the court reporter to swear in the witness. The court reporter immediately turned to Robertson and said, “do you prefer to ‘swear’ or ‘affirm?”
I’m still not sure what the difference is, but I insisted he be sworn in and, of course, his lawyer came over the table at me. I fully expected this to be a contentious proceeding, but this seemed a little ridiculous nonetheless. He was in battle mode.
I started out asking whether the airplane that had been purchased had been used for political trafficking, which would, if Robertson admitted it, have put the tax exempt status of his religious organization at risk. Robertson refused to answer the question and of course his lawyer again came across the table at me.
This is not unusual behavior for a young lawyer, particularly if he happens to be representing an instrument of God in southern Virginia. We could not have been more different, but somehow I liked his youthful, pugnacious representation.
I was pretty happy with the deposition. I got everything except that question about the political use of the airplane. (My prior research had revealed that, in fact, my assertion was true.) Robertson had been forthright with his other answers and over the next two hours his lawyer demonstrated nonstop hostility toward me, showing off to Robertson.
At the end, I told them I would be scheduling a conference call with our federal judge to see if my question should be answered. It was a close call whether it was even relevant but the stakes were high for them, and I respected the young man for his tenacity.
When it was over and I was headed back to the parking lot, I was surprised to feel a tap on my shoulder. It was the young lawyer who had been representing Robertson. He was a different person now, returning to the person who warmly welcomed me before Robertson arrived. He invited me to have a drink with him and join him for dinner not far away in Virginia Beach, to go see his favorite zydeco-band, The Subdudes.
Over the rest of the evening he couldn’t have been friendlier. He had gone to a local Christian law school and was looking for work for several months before so he went to a Christian retreat, where he claimed he got this client because he was extremely good at “speaking in tongues.” As we talked, I was convinced that his Christianity was real, even though his marketing strategies were suspect. Anyway, The Subdudes were great and the beer was cold. I bought their CD. He refused my offer to buy him dinner because he said it was a conflict of interest, which I guess meant he thought I was Satan.
Although we were from different worlds, he introduced me to his music as an act of kindness, and perhaps because of the beers we drank, we laughed, asked each other lots of questions about our entirely different lives, avoided conflict, and opened up to each other.
About a month later, the federal judge’s video conference call was scheduled and the case was diplomatically settled.
I never saw him again, but we shared our lives for a short time and the supreme polarization and differences disappeared.
In the end, I think it was because we shared what we both liked: the music and, eventually, each other’s company. We could not have been more politically different. Maybe it was the beer, but I thanked him for a fun evening and actually commented on how different he appeared from when we first met. He smiled and shook my hand and said, “We’re not that different. We’re Americans having fun.”
If we all really want to fix this country’s polarization we should ask each other real questions and not preach to our chosen choir. You might find common ground and make a friend.
You might even get a good CD out of it.
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Nov 12, 2025 | Featured, Personal, Travel
There is nothing sadder than the moment that you realize you have missed the chance for an apology or an “I love you” that can’t be delivered because it’s too late.
At the end of my recent guided trip to Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina I had back-to-back realizations of long-lost opportunities to apologize and to say “I love you.”
I have previously written about the trip that my friends and I took a year and a half ago to witness the history of the nonviolent practices of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the effort to enforce the civil rights laws in the western part of the south.
The focus of this trip was to follow the American slave trade pretty much from its beginning at two of the entry points and places between — from its beginnings to its end. It was a powerful experience and an amazing trip because it shook me to my roots and changed my understanding.
There are people who pass through your life and then before you can truly understand the dignity of their life and the kindness which they showed you before they are gone. In my case, one was Florine and the other was Jane. Both were Black women.
There is a fair amount of written material that documents the slave trade in America but it only becomes real when you are standing in a slave cell in which human beings were held for extended periods of time before they were auctioned into slavery, and after they had withstood the travel, in which 20% of the cargo are lost by the end of that journey.
Ten percent died on the ship and the other 10% were the unruly who couldn’t be sold. Sharks followed these ships across the waters to their destination.
As usual, I had read the dates and about the places, but to walk into slave quarters or visit buildings which have been inhabited during whippings, and experience the culture of slavery made it all real for the first time.
Slave women were forced to be kept pregnant, because they were producing product and this product was valuable. When they were old enough, the children would be sold and be lost forever. At birth, they were given only a first name no last name. After emancipation, they often just assumed the last name of their owners.
Chewing cotton roots was known to be an abortive for female slaves who did not want to bring their children into a world of degradation, however, if a pregnant slave was caught chewing cotton roots, they would receive 36 lashes, which is an unthinkably cruel punishment, especially for a pregnant woman.
Whipping was also administered to punish both slaves and their educators if it was discovered that a slave was being taught to read or write or learned mathematics such as the multiplication tables.
Florine Burk took care of my little brother and I in the late 1950s when we were kids in Washington, DC. She was a heavyset African-American woman in her 50s who had grown up in the South and had gotten her education in a single room school.
She was a force.
She could sing the alphabet and the multiplication tables. She was an avid reader who never spoke about her politics but you could feel by her presence what she thought.
She loved and knew a whole lot about Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers. My brother and I were required to memorize and recite the lineup for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
My brother and I loved her. She would hoist up her skirts and hit long fly balls in the backyard. If my brother or I hit a ball over the fence and through a neighbors window, she took our hand, walked us around the block, got us to knock on the door, made us promise that we would fix the window, and then she took us out to buy the glass and the caulking, and we would put in the window as she watched.
Eventually, we asked her to take us to a Washington Senators baseball game. She refused, and there was no doubt we were never gonna go with her to a Washington Senators baseball game.
Her reason, she said, was that Washington was “first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League.” She said she did not want us to witness bad baseball.
It was the 1950s, but it wasn’t her real reason and you could feel it, but I didn’t know what the real reason was until the last day of our recent trip.
Some things you have to learn late in life, and this trip taught me to look deeper into for Florine’s logic.
The morning before the end of the trip, I went online and researched the Washington Senators and found that they were one of the last teams in baseball to ever hire an African-American. They had drafted a black Cuban pitcher and identified him only as Cuban.
Florine knew her stuff. But this trip made me realize that I did not understand the depth of her character or what life must have felt like to her as a domestic raising white children in a brutally segregated city.
After she retired, she went to Los Angeles to be with family there. My brother and I wrote her birthday cards each year and sent her Christmas cards. After a few years, they would be returned to us unopened. I never told her face-to-face how much we loved her and respected her before she died.
That morning, I also realized the pain of a court clerk at the first trial I ever did in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City. I had been told that if you don’t know the judge or what to expect in the courtroom the first thing you do after you unpack is talk to the court clerk and try to make friends.
The court clerk was an entirely professional Black middle-aged woman who shook my hand and welcomed me to the courtroom when I offered my name and explained why I was there.
I put out my hand and said “I am Bob Bowie. What is your name?” She replied, “My name is Jane Bowie.”
She was instructive throughout the case and helped me when I asked my naïve questions. After the trial, I went over and thanked her and said how much I appreciated that we both had the same last name, and I had “a family friend in the court.” She smiled and laughed and patted me on the shoulder.
Over the next few years, I would see her on the streets around the courthouse and we would stop and talk. We became friends.
On this trip to South Carolina, we went to a museum that had only people‘s first names engraved in the walls at the entry room. I asked why were there only first names and the guide politely said during slavery, there were no last names, only afterward did many of the slaves just pick up the last name of the slave holder.
My family owned slaves in Prince Georges County. Much to my horror, I realized that Jane Bowie most likely came from an enslaved family that my family may have owned.
I was stunned and ashamed, but then I realized, and deeply respected, the kindness that she had offered me in the face of this country’s white supremacist history. Jane, like Florine, vanished 20 years ago and I never had the chance to recognize what she knew and the courage she had in dealing with me.
I fear that even in this generation, our children will look back and wonder how we could have looked the other way when immigrants came to this country and, as punishment, they were separated from their children when all they wanted was a chance to be free to raise them.
If you’ve ever had a blood transfusion, you never know whose blood it was. It was given as a gift from one human being to provide life for another. It’s a reminder of our common humanity, but we never quite live up to the obvious.
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Oct 21, 2025 | Featured, Personal, Politics, Travel
This past weekend, I was reminded of this excerpt from my book, “The Older You Get the Shorter Your Stories Should Be” (page 169):
As the lions slowly approach, my fellow riders in the safari jeep become either “believers” that the jeep is safe territory or “nonbelievers” who, with every step of the lions, seem to be counting down the last seconds of their lives. They can’t move and the fear becomes palpable. The eyes are wide and the breathing becomes slightly labored.
On the other hand, the believers are happily photographing and silently adjusting their telescopic lenses. The lions grow closer and closer and, within 10 feet, three veer to the right and one veers to the left so that it will be behind us. Everyone in the jeep recognizes that they must keep their eyes on the three lions that will pass to our left within several feet of the jeep, but we will not be able to turn and watch the one lion that is moving behind us on our right.
The believers continue to happily photograph adjusting their telescopic lens to catch the reflection of the jeep in a lion’s eyes. The nonbelievers are breathing softly, their eyes closed, waiting for death.
After a few moments they were past us and we started the engine and continued our day.
(You can find the book on amazon or support local bookstores at bookshop.org.)
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Sep 9, 2025 | Featured, Humor, Politics
Last week Putin told a joke and the whole world laughed, except for America.
This was remarkable.
Have you noticed that there aren’t a lot of jokes in foreign policy? Jokes have to be told in the same language for both parties, which is hard in foreign policy.
(There are not a lot of jokes in boxing either. Different punch lines… sorry.)
So foreign policy jokes have to be not what you say, they have to be what you do .
A couple of weeks ago, Trump invited Putin (a spy during the Cold War who Trump admires and has assured us is his BFF) to meet as a guest of America in Alaska. He was given the red carpet treatment: gun salutes went off, he rode in the presidential limousine with his friend the American president, and received full and complete respect from the American military.
He had been invited by our president to negotiate the end of Putin’s takeover of Ukraine, a free country and ally of the United States.
Putin accepted this invitation, held a press conference upon arrival on American soil, then skipped the planned meetings and flew back home before lunch. Then he bombed the hell out of Ukraine.
Trump declared victory. Now that’s funny!
We are all safe because Trump will always get the last laugh. Ask him. He’ll tell you. I’ve never seen him laugh, but I’m sure he’s funny.
Several weeks later, Putin joined a parade in China with North Korea and some other Eagle Scouts of the totalitarian world to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the defeat of Japan, without inviting Trump.
But in the alternative, the world‘s antidemocratic countries invited India, the largest democracy in the world and an American trading partner upon whom Trump had recently artfully imposed 50% tariffs, which drove India into the arms of the totalitarian world leaders.
It’s hilarious because obviously Trump got the last laugh, showing off his well-known genius for “the Art of the Deal.”
It was kind of like a junior high school “mean girl” movie and Trump was the only girl not invited to the party. What really made the joke work was Trump made it look like his feelings had not been hurt. It was a perfect foreign policy joke because his actions spoke louder than words. He definitely got the last laugh.
I used to think he wasn’t subtle.
We have midterm elections coming up in a year, so guess why Trump brings in the military and plants them in Los Angeles, Chicago, and our nation’s capital, Washington DC. My guess is all the polling stations will be guarded by his police by the midterms, so we can happily celebrate our Constitution.
Why shouldn’t we believe the President of the United States? The economy must be safe even though the deficit has skyrocketed with his tax cuts for the rich, because he also has doubled his net worth over the last nine months since he was elected, so that he is now worth $5 billion.
Ya see? He’s one hell of a businessman and he’s also president of the United States. He must be an excellent straight-faced jokester because I’ve never seen him laugh.
His best jokes are often at our own expense. Nobody’s threatened and everyone seems to believe that the military buildup in our major cities isn’t really serious and, do we really even need those midterms anyway?
It’s the art of the joke.
Because Trump has been so funny, we should set up a joke in return and see how he responds.
Let’s get Congress to vote against funding the government in exchange for bringing back our democracy to make America truly great again.
Maybe that will give us all the last laugh.
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Jun 17, 2025 | Featured, General, Humor, Law, Personal, Politics
When I started to practice law, Jimmy Carter was elected president. To avoid some unimaginable conflict of interest, he sold his family farm for peanuts. Since I retired from the practice of law 10 years ago, apparently the ethics have changed.
President Trump for his birthday last week gave himself a military parade, which which cost the American taxpayers approximately $25 million and tore up the streets of Washington.
Several news services have recently reported that since the early days of President Trump‘s reelection campaign he has made more than double his net worth, about $5.4 billion dollars.
In the past, I would’ve been horrified, but now my reaction is that it’s a shame I didn’t somehow make a bigger profit back when ethics prohibited me.
Back during those ethical times I would preach to the lawyers at my firm that the easiest way to check your professional ethics is to ask yourself if what you were about to do would be embarrassing if it would become a headline in the New York Times. If so, don’t do it.
President Trump has re-organized and turned upside down the professional ethics of the presidency and the ethics I was used to. Everything unethical or untrue that Trump has done now is routinely front page headlines on the New York Times, which nobody reads anymore.
I have gone back to thinking about how rich I would be if I’d taken on cases that I ultimately rejected long ago because of ethical concerns.
Consider the amount of money I could’ve made if I had taken that case long ago of two Hindu businessmen who came into the office and told me they wanted to incorporate (for personal liability reasons) an ongoing business that provided Hindu Americans a chance to bury their families in the Ganges River for about $5,000 per loved one.
They told me that the contract that they offered guaranteed that the loved ones ashes, with which they were entrusted, would be respectfully sent to the Ganges, a boat would be hired as well as a videographer to make a movie of the ceremony as the ashes were transported in a beautiful urn, and a man rowing the boat out in the Ganges would be filmed opening the container and emptying it so the ashes were visible as they were were gently poured into the river.
The $5,000 would be collected in exchange for the video of the ceremony.
I will admit I was intrigued by this novel, religious practice and I asked about the heavy cost of the procedure and the profit they were making per contract.
Without batting an eye both businessmen looked at me and said it was about 95% profit. I asked them how could they possibly make such a profit and they answered: “We send everyone the same video.”
If you’re using the same video and you are making a 95% profit you certainly don’t have to be greedy. You could include a beautiful hologram of the soul rising from the Ganges and fluttering off into reincarnation.
Also they completely missed the opportunity for relics, swag, and real cool T-shirts.
When you include the total Trump’s family and political friends have made in the “pay to play” access and favors, which have included the opportunity to show your personal love and respect by purchasing Trump bitcoin and Trump Bibles, and such gifts as an airplane from the government of Qatar, no wonder Trump wants a third term.
I was so stupid I refused to represent the two Hindu businessmen, even though they generously offered me a free burial in the Ganges.
I could also have befriended the President by referring him to another client who I rejected. For a while, “viatical contracts” were easy money. Several people had the idea at the same time. During the AIDS epidemic several entrepreneurs were going into hospitals or hospices and offering to buy life insurance policies at about 10% of their face value from those who would soon die. There’s nothing illegal about that, but for me it didn’t pass the smell test.
There is some justice in the world. Once effective HIV treatment became available, they were stuck continually paying for ongoing life insurance policies.
I suspect that the Trump family has already seen the future of medical profit as is evident from the appointment of Robert Kennedy, Jr. and the future of TMD (Trump Measles Deterrent). This is not a vaccine. it is free and called “The Trump Blessing,” which is administered over a Zoom call after you buy some of the remaining overstocked Bibles that will become collectors items soon.
I think the only benefit Jimmy Carter received from his presidency was a gift given by his brother: a couple of cans of Billy Beer.
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | May 27, 2025 | Featured, Humor, Personal
Have you been following the economics of this country recently?
Guess who was invited to President Trump’s private event for customers of his cryptocurrency business on Thursday and given a White House tour on Friday?
I wasn’t!
I called my friends, Peter, Belinda and Liza, to see if they had been part of this same oversight by the President.
Peter, Belinda and Liza and I were neighbors during our middle school years and have been friends ever since for over 60 years, and all of us were there from the beginning of cryptocurrency.
They weren’t invited either!
We concluded that this oversight by the President was not his fault and was due to only one possible interpretation.
Our President does not know a lot of American history or, to be a little more polite, he has not yet become aware of the true history of cryptocurrency.
As the rest of us already know, cryptocurrency was quietly created after Nixon took the country off the gold standard. Quite conveniently, it was the same time the first Topps baseball cards were issued in five-card packs with a card size slab of bubblegum included.
The retail cost was five cents per pack. A penny for each card and the bubblegum was free — age appropriate pre-pubescent genius marketing.
A half century before cryptocurrency entered the world stock market, Peter and I were both early investors in baseball cards, and then found another lucrative market in marble monopolies. We were early traders in pre-crypto middle school cards and marbles during recess.
Peter cornered the marble market so effectively that the marble market collapsed after he won all the marbles.
I tried to make a run on “big marbles” so I dressed up my little middle school self and went to pawn shops and antique stores looking for clear round door knobs.
Regrettably, no door knobs are completely round and thus valueless in the larger marble markets.
As a result — for the good of the market — Peter gave a written announcement handed out to the neighborhood that he would be emptying several boxes of marbles to the neighborhood market for free one late spring Saturday afternoon. It happened out of a second floor window with the driveway below. It was an early example of flooding the market.
Peter emptied five bankers boxes of multi currency marbles, including “puresy boulders” and several stunning “jumbo spirals.” The market was saved and Peter had made recess fun again.
Baseball cards back then were “to die for,” particularly if you had a complete set. Peter had a complete set of baseball cards for the years 1957, 1958, and 1959.
Even in middle school, you knew these people were serious people! Peter was a born collector and became a well known New York art dealer. Liza became a respected museum curator in Washington DC, and Belinda became a brilliant art writer and critic.
In the alternative, when I went off to college, my mother emptied my closets and threw away all of my marbles and baseball cards… and I became a lawyer.
At the same time as Trump’s cryptocurrency banquet and tour of the White House, his administration announced that they would be retiring the penny because it was not cost-effective to produce it anymore. They had determined that it took four cents to produce a penny. Think about the appreciated value of just one card, bought for a penny. Or even better, a complete set.
Ever since Nixon took us off the gold standard, our currency, stocks and bonds, like cryptocurrency, have no value other than the theoretical value according to the market.
However, with marbles and baseball cards, unlike cryptocurrency, there is the added component of artistic beauty. They are self valuing and hold a valuable historical record on the flip side of the picture — batting average and stolen bases and other stats.
Also, the bubble gum is great for the dental economy.
Hold onto your baseball cards and don’t lose your marbles!
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | May 20, 2025 | Featured, Personal, Travel
When Susan and I flew to Paris again this year for three weeks this spring, I had planned to watch the Bob Dylan movie, “A Complete Unknown” on the flight that night, but I was too tired so I slept instead.
Paris was warming to its spring as we landed at Charles De Gaul airport and traveled into the heart of Paris to a beautiful flat with its view of the Seine from its fifth floor living room and bedroom windows on the Île Saint-Louis.
The six hour difference in the time between the East Coast of the United States and Paris delayed the news reports that poured into my cell phone at three in the afternoon Paris time as America woke up and went to work.
The distance and the time change diminished my obsession to keep up with America’s politics, but nothing could uncouple it from my daily concerns.
Over our three weeks, Susan and I committed to walk the city, but for longer trips to Montmartre or the outskirts of Paris to the Louis Vuitton Museum to see the huge new David Hockney exhibit, we took the Metro.
Each evening, we would go to one of the little restaurants on Île Saint-Louis and then climb the stairs or take the little elevator to the flat to read the news before bed.
Last year. we had taken three days off from Paris to go to the LaVar Valley to stay in a beautiful Château and visit the region’s medieval history. This year, we went to Normandy and, as I observed the beaches and cliffs, and finally the dramatic American cemetery, the pride I’ve always felt for America rekindled with my respect.
On the morning that we flew back in mid May, Paris was in full bloom as we got on the plane to fly into the upcoming day on our return to the United States.
I again committed to watch the Bob Dylan movie on our way home.
Even though it had been out for some time, I still had not seen it, but I knew enough from the reviews that it was about the transition from Dylan’s early folk years to the electric folk rock that Dylan made in 1965.
In the fall of 1965, I had started my first year at the Cambridge School of Weston, a progressive high school that knew something about learning disorders and thus was unlike the boarding schools and summer schools I had attended previously.
It was my second try at 11th grade. My new school was so very different in so many ways, but as my classmates wore sandals and blue jeans and played guitars out on the quad or went off to the ceramic studio and the wide range of classes offered, I attended my classes in a sport jacket, but eventually gave up on the tie.
I believed I was in transition to a better place and I believed that from the start. I was hoping that repeating the 11th grade would rekindle my love of learning in a new environment with a fresh start.
Within weeks of my first day, a sign-up sheet went up in the dining room, which offered tickets and a bus ride provided by the school to see Bob Dylan play in a Boston theater.
I signed up with about 15 of my fellow students and we got on a little bus to go down to the theater.
When we got to the venue in downtown Boston, we were told that it had been sold out almost immediately and, though we had paid for our tickets, no seats had been assigned for us.
The theater instantly took action and placed folding chairs in a semicircle on stage directly behind Bob Dylan.
The first half of the performance was all Bob Dylan singing his folk songs in front of an adoring audience with us directly behind him.
When the audience returned to their seats for the second half of the program, however, a rock ’n’ roll band was now set up to back up Dylan. We pushed our seats back further to accommodate the instruments and cables.
When Dylan entered, he was met with catcalls. I could not believe what was happening in front of me. I sat, self-conscious and a little bit frightened, as Dylan faced the catcalling audience.
Dylan played the first few songs with the electrical back up in the midst of the continuing catcalls.
Somewhere in the middle of one of those songs, a very loud voice broke through and yelled something like, “You sold out!”
Dylan stopped the performance. After a very awkward moment, the silence was broken by Dylan’s voice over the microphone:
“I don’t believe you!” he said, and there was a smattering of applause as he signaled to start the song again, resuming the concert.
As the movie portrayed the transition at the Newport Folk Festival from folk to folk rock, Dylan spoke those same lines to that hostile audience and I returned momentarily to being a teenager on the back of that stage. But I was proud to be there rather than surprised and frightened by the event.
As we landed at Dulles Airport in Washington DC, and returned to our political world, I felt reborn and re-nourished by the experience.
I had this very odd feeling that these juxtapositions had reawakened me to the messy but resilient democracy in which I have been fortunate to have lived and prospered.
Somehow, America, through its history, has been endlessly capable of being reborn, newly appreciative of what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution have provided for each generation.
Shortly thereafter, I laughed when the news reported that Harvard University had discovered in its archives an original copy of the Magna Carta, which had been presumed to be a copy, purchased in England for less than $30 after the Second World War. It turned out to be the thing itself.
It was a great trip to Paris, which taught me yet again how much I love this country.
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Apr 16, 2025 | Featured, Humor, Personal, Politics, Travel
I’m not really worried about Trump taking over Harvard, so Susan and I are going to Paris this Saturday for a couple of weeks.
Why is everybody so upset? It seems like all the commentators have completely overlooked Trump’s leadership skills when he ran Trump University.
Trump has been very vocal about his business acumen and, by his own account, he ran the university brilliantly for the five years before its bankruptcy.
There was some unsubstantiated criticism about gold toilet seats, but he claimed he was always very hands-on and was good at keeping the overhead low.
For example, despite its name, Trump University was never an accredited university or college. It did not confer college credit, grant degrees, or grade its students.
Think about the savings on the cost of paper.
In contrast, the data from the 2023–24 academic year, 72% of Harvard University’s first-time, full-time undergraduates received financial aid. In the alternative, Trump University was apparently so popular, it never needed to offer scholarships. And Trump has already said that he wants to get rid of Harvard’s nonprofit status.
Really! So where is the art of the deal?
Harvard is not effectively selling its product! No. Harvard has been giving it away for free.
What is also great is that Trump has the experience to navigate these litigious times. In 2011, Trump University became the subject of an inquiry by the New York Attorney General’s office for illegal business practices, which resulted in a lawsuit filed in August, 2013. It was also the subject of two class actions in federal court. The lawsuits centered on allegations that Trump University defrauded its students by using misleading marketing practices and engaging in aggressive sales tactics.
Of course!
Everyone knows that Trump is a marketing genius! Okay, let’s get down to what Trump‘s real motives may be.
Both schools have one thing in common.
Neither school has a mascot.
Everybody knows that Trump is a master marketer. I think the hidden agenda will be that Trump will insist that Harvard finally adopt a formal mascot, befitting our country’s white Christian heritage: a Pilgrim, of course!
But even more importantly, this way he can get rid of that out of date logo “Veritas” and change it to “If you piss off a pilgrim, you’ll get yourself a witch trial.” Then he can raise money at halftime with a raffle where the winner gets whisked away for a lifetime in El Salvador.
Anyway, just like last year, Susan and I will be sending back Parisian commentary and pictures to celebrate our spring time and hopefully brighten yours. À bientôt!
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Mar 25, 2025 | Featured, Humor, Poetry
If you’re like me, the best memory you ever have had is an act of self-deception that you can’t remember. However, if you happen to stop forgetting for only a fraction of second it will be abrupt recollection.
It is like if you have ever accidentally slammed a door in your own face. It’s not easy to do, but you’ll remember it if you succeed.
On the first day of spring this year, I had one of those abrupt remembrances.
My New Year’s resolution this year is to get into better physical shape this spring. Unconsciously, of course, I have been getting less and less inclined the closer I get to springtime when I must start fulfilling my commitment to myself.
The truth is this New Year’s resolution has been the same New Year’s resolution I have made each year for over 20 years, but each previous spring I had successfully forgotten that years’s resolution.
Then I stumbled upon one of the sonnets in the book I wrote more than 20 years ago, entitled “Marathon Man.”
This year the door slammed in my face. Coincidentally, it occurred on the first day of spring last week, at a doctor’s appointment when I was told I must start exercising. I had forgotten that over 20 years ago I wrote “Marathon Man.” which made it much worse.
It starts:
The Marathon Man
“In a world of educated guesses
About one’s loves, integrity and health,
It is my custom to keep promises,
Even if they are only to myself.”
This is the perfect example of delusions of grandeur, which I had pleasantly forgotten into a magnificent memory of never committing to exercise, which is regrettably false.
As early as I can remember, I have consistently joked that I was so lazy I played goalie in all sports to avoid running laps. (The coach always shoots on the goalie while the rest of the team runs laps.)
But in my defense, technically being a goalie is not about the commitment to never exercise. It is a commitment not to exercise that I practiced religiously. I never committed to exercise. That’s entirely different.
Nonetheless, I’m highly competitive.
My memory is that I have saved myself from exercise to avoid injury so I will be ready for the senior Olympics when some doctor finally tells me I must exercise.
I have been told this before over 20 years ago when I was the marathon man but still as lazy and competitive as always.
Back then, I challenged a friend who is a very good runner to a 10 K race, but I got a 10-minute reduction of my time as a handicap to even the odds. For about three weeks before the race, I committed to run a mile around the high school track and, as a further commitment, I would eat four raw eggs poured out of a blender because I had seen “Rocky” the movie and Rocky did that.
It didn’t go well, which led to the delusion of grandeur in the form of a marathon. As is indicated in the third stanza:
“I trained on a treadmill, March to July.
Got my first runner’s high at 55.
Depleted my life‘s endorphin supply,
and blew out both knees and begged to die.“
So this time the doctor prescribed a certain number of steps as a target for each day. The doctor reminded me hopefully that it would also get me outdoors and into sunlight neither of which happened.
At the end of every day around midnight, before bed, I would find myself doing endless laps around the dining room table to meet my minimum requirement of steps.
Covid helped me along. My wife, who exercises regularly, proudly told me one evening her total steps and asked me about mine. I had decided to take the day off, so I happily worked and read pretty much all day. My total step count was around 50. Which probably is two trips to the bathroom and one to the kitchen.
Then I ran into this damn poem and I don’t feel good about getting ready for the senior Olympics. I feel my lethargy has not sufficiently ripened.
The sonnet ended with this final couplet:
“Oh yes, but the hell with all this fun;
Next year, for sure, I’ll be ready to run.”
— “An Accidental Diary: A Sonnet a Week for a Year” by Robert Bowie, Jr.
https://a.co/eg2uDCx
That was 20 years ago. No escaping it now. The door slammed in my face.
I guess I better go try to find my shoes.
