Making Mary smile

I woke up a little early this morning and so went downstairs early for my early morning routine, very much the favorite part of my day. Thankfully, after a drought, the Post Office finally decided to start delivering my Economists* again so I don't have to bring my laptop down to have something to read while eating breakfast. 

So I made coffee, meditated, did a small increment of stretching and core work, sampled the Tao and some Emerson, ate breakfast, and then did a little Japanese on Duolingo. 

Then Mary came downstairs. I kissed her good morning and then made some witticism or something, I have no idea what it was. She smiled and laughed a little.

It's hard to describe how much this means. After 30 years together, half a lifetime, coming up on 28 years of marriage. After the innumerable instances of my "wit" to which she has been subjected, to be able to still elicit a warm smile and laugh on occasion (not at every joke, to be sure. She quails and rolls her eyes not infrequently) is incredibly meaningful.

Later OneDrive threw some memories at me. "On this day in 201X" Photos from spring breaks in Austin, college travel with Natalie. I am such a sucker for that stuff.

*Still no relief on The Atlantic, which hasn't come in months

DOGE at Kitty Hawk

While Mary and I were down at the Outer Banks over the weekend we stopped into the Wright Brothers National Memorial. First off let me just plug it. It's a really great museum. It focuses on the Wright Brothers' process of achieving flight through various stages. Four years in a row they came back to Kitty Hawk from their home in Dayton, Ohio. After the second year (1901) they were despondent at their lack of progress over that summer, then they were invited to speak at an event and they discovered that they knew more about flight than anyone else there and they had been learning through their struggle.

At some point in time I looked over at the front desk and the young guy there had his right hand raised and was talking to some young children there with their parents. It looked very much like he was swearing them in as honorary park rangers, something like that. A really good touch.

There were some tributes there that seemed like they might get wiped away by DOGE's furious drive to wipe DEI from all things US government. There was a picture of a black guy -- I think his name was Dunbar -- who collaborated with the Wright Brothers back in Dayton. There was a portrait of one of the Tuskegee airmen.

Later I went up to the guy at the front desk and asked if there had been an effort to wipe some of the DEI stuff from the exhibits, like the portrait of the Tuskegee Airman. I should clarify that the guy at the front desk was not of exclusively European descent. He looked like he might have a Latino parent or grandparent or something. He surprised me when he said he would honestly prefer it if that stuff was taken out, then mentioned that they had briefly lost a couple of employees, including the people who took payments at the booth at the entry to the facility. Instead they had put a QR code where people could choose to pay. Apparently their receipts diminished and they quickly changed course.

Part of me wanted to stop and discuss his earlier response about removing the portrait, but he was at work and needed to focus on that so it would have been inappropriate. Interesting nonetheless.. 

Tax $ @ work

Fabulous spot at Merchants Millpond State Park in the Great Dismal Swamp.

While sitting here a park ranger came out to get a canoe some people had rented. He looked like an oversized Boy Scout in his olive shorts and ranger shirt and was carrying a can of Sprite, which he deposited on a tree stump. On his belt he had a walkie-talkie and, to make all of us feel safer, no doubt, a handgun.

Which got me to wondering. How much does it cost us to outfit public employees with guns? The guns themselves cost some hundreds of dollars. Training employees to use them, per the internet, is not a big expense for most public safety organizations. So the biggest cost is likely legal settlements when someone gets shot in error. And paying the defense attorneys. Maybe some insurance.