When will things get better?

Forgive me, but I have misplaced my optimism. I’m sure it’s somewhere, because it has stood me in good stead for these many years: Boost don’t knock...Keep your sunny side up.
For sure, my Aquia Harbour is a great place in a fine county in a great state.
Yet, my recent columns have had a grouchy feel. From dissing the merit pay idea for county supervisors to grousing about tax cheats, I may be getting codgery. That’s how Susan Stimson , in a recent letter to the editor, described my stuff. The Stafford GOP Committee leader claimed my published account of that recent Gingrich dinner she organized was “codgery.” That neat made-up term nicely labels my senior-citizen tendency to look with disdain and to reminisce over how good things used to be.
Truth is, they were. Today’s recession is a reminder of how well many of us were doing as recently as a couple of years ago. Our savings were growing along with our homes’ values.
Things will get better sooner or later. Yeah, but here’s my codgery take: It’s liable to be later than we think. Despite Obama’s “glimmer of hope” happy talk in recent speeches, another old hand at the analyzing of recessions is codgery, too.
Here’s Barron’s Alan Abelson: “Even the most unfavorable news... is all too often blithely shrugged off...What would cause us to change our minds is some credible evidence that the dark forces that wrought this dreadful recession are starting to dissipate. Instead, it pains us to relate, we see rough going in the months ahead...he unbroken monthly decline [in home prices] since they peaked in July 2006 will continue to make buyers hesitant and sellers desperate, while the ‘tsunami of foreclosures’ will maintain the huge imbalance of supply over demand.”
I’m also dismayed because President Obama, instead of focusing on the financial mess, goes on about overhauling this year both the health care system and taxing our energy use to the hilt so we can stop global warming (which has stopped anyhow). (Now they want to stop "climate change," a futile effort if there ever was one.)And he apparently can’t stop talking. He’s on TV more often than the weatherman. His words, predictably, are tripping him up. For instance, as a candidate last fall in Richmond, he pledged, “If you make less than a quarter of a million dollars a year...you won't see your taxes increase one single dime. Not your payroll taxes, not your income taxes, not your capital gains taxes- - nothing.” Item: Federal cigarette taxes jumped by 62 cents a pack in April. And his cap and trade scheme will raise all our energy costs a lot.
Another thing. On Tax Day, April 15, Obama pledged he’d simplify the income tax regs before the end of the year. Yeah.
As a long-time writer for the Wall Street Journal put it in his final column, that won’t happen with mere tinkering around the edges. “Our federal tax system is ‘so shot through with credits, exclusions, loopholes...that it fails in its essential job of raising revenues efficiently,’ says Charles Rossetti, a former IRS Commissioner.”
“The complexity and instability of the tax system also leads people to believe that the average person always gets stuck, while the big hitters find ways to avoid paying...”
Raise your hand if you think the system will change in our lifetimes. The hopelessness over reining it in undoubtedly fueled the crowds waving signs on Tax Day, April 15 this year. But I suspect it also reflected the frustration of folks being told by Washington how their toilets must flush, which light bulbs to use and whether paper or plastic will be allowed for bags.
Are you still nevertheless optimistic that things will improve in the coming months and year(s)? Then check what Kathleen Parker wrote in her recent column.
“Nobody knows...Whether one is talking to a Ouija board, an economist or the president of the United States, the answer is the same. Nobody knows.
“The question: Will the U.S. economy bounce back after trillions in rescue, recovery and spending? It’s all a gamble. The Republican attempts to...slash taxes and force government spending cuts didn’t work because spending never got cut. So now, apparently, we’re going to feed the beast.”
At my age I should feel secure regardless, and do most of the time. But it’s a shame that I’m passing down to my heirs a fat government nobody seems to know how to make work.
Despite such codgery prose, I’m also a contrarian, hoping to laugh soon at my own forebodings as I profit from the bank stock I bought last month. Wanna bet?

Read it while you can

Someday soon, oldtimers may regale their grandkids about the good old days when there was a daily paper upon which many words were printed, one which arrived at the doorstep or nearby. Use of the past tense may be appropriate all too soon, I fear.

Fear because without newspapers, we’ll not have such handy access to numerous and often contrary notions that provide some balanced perspectives on the day’s happenings here and elsewhere. (Item: Both of Chicago’s major daily papers are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.)

You may respond that TV and our marvelous PCs can run circles around what you can get in the paper. True. But odds are you self-select mostly the PC Web sites you enjoy and thus shut out less pleasant things that could give you a better sense of the real world.

Granted, I’m an older American who speaks only for himself and who understands there are lots of younger folks who seldom pick up, much less value newspapers at all. They increasingly want to watch, not read, except perhaps for text messages from friends.

And to tell the truth, my own PC’s blogs have become habit forming. I most likely spend more time at the computer than in reading my three daily papers and three magazines.
It’s also fascinating what Nicolas Kristof wrote in a recent New York Times piece: "[T]here’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices. We may believe intellectually in the clash of opinions, but in practice we like to embed ourselves in the reassuring womb of an echo chamber."

You can get plenty echo-chamber rants on the Internet, regardless of your political or social leanings. I prefer the more conservative Web sites. They nearly equal my 15 neutral, liberal and nonpolitical ones combined.

If, as a dedicated lover of newspapers, I can be swayed so much by the Internet (and certainly TV), it’s obvious many younger readers have given them up altogether. Thus it should be no surprise that newspapers most everywhere are cutting back and going under.

Kristof warns that the shift away from newspapers will “accelerate the rise of The Daily Me, and we’ll be irritated less by what we read and find our wisdom confirmed more often.”
He believes it lulls us into a “self-confident stupor through which we will perceive in blacks and whites a world that typically unfolds in grays.”

That’s a bit over the top, since my own “self-confident stupor” surely has been fueled quite well by 14 years of comfortable retirement. Indeed, folks 65 and older watch TV some 420 minutes a day, more than any other age group, while young adults record only 210 minutes a day, according to a Ball State University study.

The newspapers’ problems didn’t just start with the Internet, though. The peak in daily circulation came roughly in the late 1960s and early 1970s both in numbers and in percentages of the population, according to Ross Mackenzie, a veteran writer and editor for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“Just as newspapers...never could figure out how to stanch the circulation hemorrhage, so they never could determine how to make...money on the Internet. In almost all cases they are giving their content away...Simply not enough people seem to care about local news and opinion to make many local news enterprises viable. It's a huge and compelling sadness.” Having been a paper boy on a bike and then an avid reader ever since, I agree.

He argues that the sense of community is bound to suffer with the decline of newspapers. If the decline continues, people will have to shift for themselves. Maybe they will come up with a handy substitute. Any suggestions?

Meanwhile, I must admit that the Internet has been a huge trove of information for the writer, at least for me. It’s where I found Kristof’s and Mackenzie’s ruminations about the press.
Although I have benefited, finding a print outlet in the future for writers could become increasingly difficult.

Well, boo-hoo. While I feel real sadness for the younger newspaper reporters, writers and editors, I won’t be around much longer in any event, despite my heroic efforts to deter the onset of a malady I can’t quite remember at the moment.

Oh yes, now I do. It’s called “age.”

Doggone Birthday Party

Only a wuss--the kind of sissy guy we old codgers used to call a Caspar Milquetoast--would ever venture out in public with one of those fluffy little pooches the dog shows classify as toys.

So, with apologies to my son Bud who clearly prefers German Shepherds as MAN’s best friend, I must confess a certain fondness for, not all of those small fluffy canines, but at least my own 11-year-old pet. ( Note: I’m too old and codgery to call them “companions”.) She’s my Lollipop--a puppy-farm Yorkshire Terrier who‘s also pleasantly codgery and set in her ways. Suits me fine.

(Editorial aside: Codgery is a term coined maliciously by Stafford Republican Committee head Susan Stimson to describe a column I wrote about a dinner reception for Newt Gingrich recently.)

Anyhow, last Saturday night found us there at another “toy” pooch’s birthday party, both of us costumed especially for the occasion. (That loud thud you just heard was my father, a totally somber Texas rancher, turning over in his grave--especially since he had been a Dallas Cowboys fan and because Lollipop and I both sported Redskins duds for the party.)

We didn’t look so bizarre, though, alongside Andrew, the little Maltese puff of white who strutted her stuff last summer on CBS-TV’s America’s Greatest Dog Contest20(winning second place), and whose owner-trainer, Laurie Williams, is a fellow columnist here at the Stafford County Sun.
The party at her central Stafford business (Pup ‘N Iron) attracted a lot of tail waggers like my wife Carole Lee, together with their fancy dogs, and even some tagalongs and otherwise macho husbands like me.

It was a scene to be savored, everyone happily comparing their own charges with others their proud owners had dolled up for the occasion. The canines in attendance must have numbered some 100 and seemed well behaved, with lots of sniffs but few growls and no major “accidents“ as far as I could tell.

Even so, to our surprise as soon as we arrived, we saw that Andrew’s birthday celebration was also a benefit for a Maltese dog rescue service. It was immediately obvious. Lollipop was among the minority of nonwhite pups there. Maltese dogs galore, with a smattering of other breeds, even a big Dalmatian which turned out be as docile as Lollipop.

The only other Yorkie there turned out to be an invited performer, Jilli, who with her trainer Rick Caran wowed us humans.

The whole affair was very enjoyable, but Lollipop was more than happy to get back to her old sniffing place. Mate Carole Lee took a shine to the little Maltese critters. Uh, huh. If we ever get one, I’ll let her try to train it.

Finally, a footnote for younger readers: In case you wondered, Caspar Milquetoast was a wimpy male character created by H. T. Webster in 1924 for his comic strip, The Timid Soul

Visit a different world nearby

So the writing is on the wall and in your bank statements: Times are tough.
So scrimping is in. Start a recession veggies garden, says friend Art Hart. Michelle Obama did. Go on a dessert-free diet. Cancel that long trip. And then just sit there? Of course not. Beyond visiting the library or obsessing on wild Web sites, get out and take a Discover Stafford break.
I recently did just that.
Enjoying one of those rare, free afternoons from my busy retirement pace, I motored north on U.S. 1, past that really big new hotel under construction and the slowly awakening fancy home development, Hills at Aquia. Then I leaned rightward (as you’d expect) at the Peace Cross and onto developing Telegraph Road. Still a countrified version of Mountain View road, it’s lots more twisty.
Whereupon the new Heim middle school that grandson Jason attends loomed very large. But my destination was far more exotic: The Wilds of Widewater.
(Note to my non-Virginia friends: That part of Stafford County is where George Brent and family landed from Maryland and established the first Catholic settlement in Virginia. It's where, on nearby Aquia Creek, Abraham Lincoln visited aboard ship, and off, with his generals figuring out how to get to Fredericksburg and whip Stonewall Jackson's Confederate troops. They didn't, until much later and elsewhere.)I had ventured there before, but not in a long time. Has development ruined it? Not by a long shot. Even the spacious new Patawomeck county park has plenty of uncrowded room as I pass by. I’ll go nearly 10 miles off U.S. 1 on Widewater Road plus Arkendale and then to the very end at Brent’s Point, where the Potomac flows past Aquia Creek.
The last time I drove out there, the trees must have been in full leaf, because this time I enjoyed seeing through them the lovely stretches of Aquia Creek, and before that the Potomac River. They soon will again be concealed by the dense greenery
Generally the overall scene looks a bit forgotten. I thought perhaps there might be signs somewhere touting the proposed VRE rail station pretty close to where Widewater Road takes a sharp right at the railroad track to become Arkendale Road. But no. Also, there’s no sign locating that 1,100 acre state park to be. Nowhere, I’d guess until the state gets back into the black, budget-wise, after paying some $6 million for the tract three years ago.
On my return trip towards U.S. 1, a small deer sauntered across the road. It was one of the few signs of life I saw. Passing cars were a novelty. It’s that remote out yonder.
There still being a few daylight hours left, I turned left at the old store across from the fire house and onto Decatur Road. Backwoodsy for sure. It has the look of rural20West Virginia (check out Hoot Owl Road) except when you pass the entrance of the new winery and the old Oak Grove Baptist Church. It’s not easy to stay on the route, given its intersections with other winding lanes, virtually unmarked except for Hovnanian’s for-sale signs pointing the wa y to the broad pavement of its newish Aquia Overlook. That‘s another ultra-pricey development oddly at the very end of funky Decatur Road, some three winding miles off Widewater Road.
Tooling along past the new mansions, I passed two strollers walking their dogs. They (the strollers) looked familiar. Sure enough it was friends Debbie and Phil Ramsey, Aquia Harbour residents. At first I wondered how they had ventured so far from home. Then it dawned on me that the far southeastern end of Aquia Harbour is just a short walk from Aquia Overlook’s boundary.
Some trip advice: Returning to U.S. 1 from Widewater via Telegraph Road, you have a choice. When you come to the fork in the road, take it, as Yogi Berra once said. That is, turn right off Widewater Road, not left towards the Peace Cross. That intersection is a bear to get out of. The right turn lands you shortly at the red light on U.S. 1, at Boswell’s Corner. Simple.
I later learned something else in musing over a Stafford map. It seems that Quantico Marine Corps base is a far piece up U.S. 1, at least the entrance. But it’s just over a mile from the north end of Aquia Harbour to the base’s border, alongside the north side of Widewater Road for a short stretch.
Thus can reality play tricks on perception, I am once again reminded. Still, the isolated Widewater community is a far piece from Aquia Harbour, both in mileag e and in community environment.
Out of that nice afternoon’s diversion in driving around in a less traveled part of Stafford County, I gained a greater appreciation of the county’s diversity and its large helping of unspoiled scenery. We’re getting paved over? No way.
Ben Blankenship is an Aquia Harbour resident and career journalist. Reach him at info@staffordcountysun.com".