Surprise!

Billy Blanks surprised by a hook kick 

They say surprise is the secret to humor, or at least the Facebook meme says it, and some of them are pretty funny.  But I'm even more certain that surprise is a key component for victory in combat. 

Pearl Harbor, and our payback six months later at The Battle of Midway, Israeli liberation of hostages at Entebbe, or the unsurpassed devastation inflicted on our country that clear blue 9/11 morning, all relied on the element of surprise.

I was always known on the karate circuit as a strategic counter fighter -- letting my opponent make the first move and then catch them on the way in -- although the more derogatory term used by the blood and guts fighters was "runner".  But I could stand my ground or blitz with the best of them when necessary.

In the opening seconds of my match with Billy Blanks, fighting for the division title, I hit him with a clean quick uncharacteristically offensive hook kick, which was sort of like waving a red flag in front of an already angry bull.

So for the next few minutes I revert back to my counter offensive style and catch him a few times to the body (although the judges missed it, the sidekicks still probably hurt enough to get him thinking about protecting his body). Thus setting up the coming-full-circle final move.

The exact same kick I scored with in the opening seconds of the match.

Art vs Signage

"Signs for wayfinding" on bike path bridge over downtown Northampton

Little White House, Hampshire College front yard

Free At Last

As an added attraction to shop local on "Small Business Saturday" the town is offering free parking throughout the downtown.  And since the schools are not in session on Saturday, shopkeepers do not have to worry about students and employees of the University of Massachusetts, our number one employer, parking in the downtown and hopping a PVTA bus to school.

And most small businesses train their staff not take up prime parking spots.

So hopefully the downtown parking lots will fill up with shoppers in a good mood to spend money.  A dollar spent in the local economy returns many times over vs the one spent at national chain stores at the nearby Mall (and they always have free parking).

Now if we could just get the Chamber of Commerce or Business Improvement District to rent or borrow a large electronic flashing sign and plant it in the downtown to inform shoppers of the good news.

A Roof Over Their Heads

 AFD Central Station is getting a new roof

Town Meeting approved $186,00 last spring for repairs to Amherst Fire Department Central Station top to bottom:  The leaky roof and crumbling apparatus floor.

Still, the station is too old and too cramped for a modern day fire department with the call volume of AFD. Six years ago the Fire Station Study Commission came up with three scenarios for the town to seriously consider to address this public safety issue and virtually all three options included building a new station.

One concept would sell Central Station to help finance the new South Amherst fire station, the other two scenarios would keep Central after multi-million dollar renovations.

A $10 million line item for a new fire station briefly appeared last spring in preliminary budget paperwork, but never made it into the pipeline for serious discussion.

Follow me

49 Years

My dad was only 49 years old when he passed away suddenly in the dead of night the second week of September,  49 years ago.  He had come home from a job uncharacteristically early that day, a mid-week school day, after whacking his head particularly hard while working in cramped dark quarters -- rather routine conditions for a plumber.  He died from a cerebral hemorrhage.
 
Forty nine years ago today, as he rode in an open car down a Dallas street before a huge throng of adoring fans, President John F. Kennedy was fired upon in sudden spectacular fashion.  Television news was still relatively new compared to radio and newspapers, with the Internet not yet even born.

But television came into its own during those dark days. The urgent initial reports from numerous eyewitnesses confirmed that the President had been grievously wounded in the head.  One CBS reporter in Dallas quoted a surgeon from Parkland Hospital who was in tears saying the president was gone, but the reporter still dutifully used the word "unconfirmed". 

Walter Cronkite, the must trusted man in America, confirmed the horrible, shocking truth that seemed to momentarily stun even him, a consummate professional.   And for next few days tearful Americans huddled in front of their grainy, black-and-white televisions, sharing their grief.

Even now, 49 years later, I can still remember the anguish.  The overpowering anguish.

1945: A Historic Thanksgiving

Mother and Son Peeling Potatoes Saturday Evening Post cover, Nov 24, 1945

Original concept Rockwell abandoned because it was "too sad"

One of the more beloved Norman Rockwell prints would not nearly be as memorable -- especially on this festive family holiday -- if he had used the original concept of posing his Arlington, Vermont neighbor in a wheelchair looking deadly serious.

Dick Hagelberg had beaten the onerous odds, surviving 65 daylight bombing missions over Germany without suffering a scratch.  Perhaps why the happier pose, sitting beside his mother, resonated with Rockwell ... and soon thereafter, the entire nation.  

The Back Story

 

A Matter Of Taste

The New York Halal Food cart, North Pleasant Street

Most small business owners would agree that competition is a healthy thing, because when products compete they get better.  At the same time, however, most small business owners would prefer their competition die an instant unhealthy death.

So it comes as no surprise -- especially in this treacherous economy -- that some downtown restaurant owners don't like the idea of a couple of competitors rolling into town every morning and setting up shop for the day, selling relatively cheap hot food to customers on the go. 

Kind of like the Athenian fleet outmaneuvering and mercilessly pounding the larger lumbering Persian fleet at the battle of Salamis.

But is that really direct (unfair) competition with our bricks-and-mortar establishments, who pay (or the owners of the property who pass it along) the ultra high $20/$1,000 valuation tax rate, plus the additional extra overhead of a Business Improvement District tax? 

Chance are the people who grab a quick bite to go were not about to spend the time and extra money for a fancier sit down meal anyway, so probably not.  This tempest in a teapot has arisen numerous times over the past thirty years and usually goes away when winter sets in, making outdoor dining far less hospitable.

The street vendors pay for their town license, pay for the gas to get to their location and run the generators and,  mainly, put in all the time necessary to make it work.

If the town is going to limit those food cart licenses as a form of protectionism, then perhaps they should also think about limiting the number of taxi business licenses sold (now at nearly a dozen) as cutthroat competition has led to maintenance short cuts and bottom of the barrel drivers providing unsafe driving conditions for customers.

As long as the business playing field is level, then let the unmerciful market decide.