BRUCE McCANDLESS II

Retired Navy Captain and Astronaut Bruce McCandless II stepped into the clearing at the end of the path on Thursday. He was the first man to fly untethered in space and had a remarkable life. A step further out than most of us will ever make, he stepped off with a quip for his wife, "It may have been a small step for Neil, but it’s a heck of a big leap for me."

CAPTAIN EUGENE CERNAN

Another good man, one of the rarest, has stepped into the clearing at the end of the path. He was the last man to step foot on the moon when he followed Jack Schmitt into the lunar lander for liftoff and return to earth. I join most of the Americans of my generation who never thought that the last man on the moon would be Cernan in the year 1972. It took years for me to accept that the lightness of being that had one time gripped America had slipped away, almost unnoticed until the Challenger brought the fact home to us all that America had given up on the space race and was no longer interested in pushing out the phyical frontiers.

EUGENE CERNAN SALUTES THE FLAG ON THE MOON DECEMBER, 1972

JOHN GLENN

Has stepped into the clearing at the end of the path. He was the last of America's first. All of them shared a sense of humor. The world is lesser for their passing.

RON GLASS

Another good man has stepped into the clearing at the end of the path. I really enjoyed the old TV show Barney Miller where Ron played a dapper detective who was policing until he sold his book. He returned to my screen as Shepherd Book in Firefly. He was a gifted actor and I enjoyed his appearances over the years.

STEPPED INTO THE CLEARING AT THE END OF THE PATH

On weekends I attend to the real news and so I stop and linger at This Aint Hell. I cue up the music and then I read. I would say that it is not an addiction but I've been wrong before. There's a dozen blogs that I don't have on my page that I attend to on the weekend.

In this house, we have only a few rooms that don't have bookshelves. I came here in a vw jetta of a certain blue color (now more blue colors) and I didn't bring more than a handful of books but the house is as full of them as any place I ever called home. I don't understand how people can live without books. They are my fleet. One of my trusty frigates suffered an irreperable injury. It fell all the way to the bottom of the tub. It's sitting in cat litter in the window in the faint hope that it will be ressurected and join the the 2 iPads, 7 kindles and the offshore squadron. I don't think it will make it. It looks pretty dead to me. Not pining for the fjords. Dead. If so it joins the other sony that was a favorite that didn't survive replacing the battery. The late sony was on its last elbows since it needed to be plugged in every day since the battery was fading away.

This is a post about one of the good men who just stepped into the clearing at the end of the path.

Master Sergeant Richard Pittman

While Company 1 was conducting an operation along the axis of a narrow jungle trail, the leading company elements suffered numerous casualties when they suddenly came under heavy fire from a well concealed and numerically superior enemy force. Hearing the engaged marines’ calls for more firepower, Sgt. Pittman quickly exchanged his rifle for a machinegun and several belts of ammunition, left the relative safety of his platoon, and unhesitatingly rushed forward to aid his comrades. Taken under intense enemy small-arms fire at point blank range during his advance, he returned the fire, silencing the enemy position. As Sgt. Pittman continued to forge forward to aid members of the leading platoon, he again came under heavy fire from 2 automatic weapons which he promptly destroyed. Learning that there were additional wounded marines 50 yards further along the trail, he braved a withering hail of enemy mortar and small-arms fire to continue onward. As he reached the position where the leading marines had fallen, he was suddenly confronted with a bold frontal attack by 30 to 40 enemy. Totally disregarding his safety, he calmly established a position in the middle of the trail and raked the advancing enemy with devastating machinegun fire. His weapon rendered ineffective, he picked up an enemy submachinegun and, together with a pistol seized from a fallen comrade, continued his lethal fire until the enemy force had withdrawn. Having exhausted his ammunition except for a grenade which he hurled at the enemy, he then rejoined his platoon. Sgt. Pittman’s daring initiative, bold fighting spirit and selfless devotion to duty inflicted casualties, disrupted the enemy attack and saved the lives of many of his wounded comrades.

President Johnson awarded him the Medal of Honor on May 14, 1968 and Pittman, born on May 26, 1945 in French Camp, San Joaquin County, California, retired from the Marine Corps as a Master Sergeant on October 27, 1988.

I doubt that a single Marine would agree with this but, Master Sergeants of Marines must be spectacularly rare.That, or they all hung out at Henderson Hall and I used to go there often enough when I went home because it had the even more rare NFCU ATM in the basement. I worked with the FAST, a lot and I worked with more gunnies than you could shake a stick at in places like NAVCENT and SURFPAC (combat cargo, yes they were Marines in the office next to mine at SURFPAC), ADAK, Camp Snoopy, Kuwait, everywhere. I never saw a single Marine Master Sergeant. I don't think they're real. They're like witches. You hear about them but you never see them.

I suppose if Mabus has his way with the Marines, they'll just be sergeants.

I think his uniform is instructive. I remember EN2 Anderson quizzing the commodore at captain's call and asking if we were likely to get any medals if we swept some mines in the Persian Gulf. He said, "I've been in the Navy for 6 years and I don't have a single ribbon or medal. I stood on the train platform at Euston to catch a train finding its way to Mildenhall AFB where I needed to be and the young man next me was fresh out of Air Force Bootcamp and already wearing two rows of ribbons. Me, I'd just left a ship where I had spent 12 months in a warzone, swept mythical mines in the Red Sea and had a grand total of two ribbons. (I learned about the third one about 20 years later.)

Hail and farewell Master Sergeant Pittman.

THE ECHOES LINGER

There are worse things than dying. The echoes linger in the heart long after its tones have ceased to vibrate in the air.

It was a tough week and I like to think that the families of those who died in the attacks in Belgium could see the ones they loved, relaxing in the shade of those trees, on the other side of the river, in the clearing at the end of the path.

She has stepped into the clearing at the end of the path

ANOTHER GOOD ONE

Stepped into the clearing at the end of a very long path.

These Californians were somehow lightyears away from their counterparts I knew in the East. After I went there to live for 30 years, I found out why. They were so far from Hell and so close to Heaven. The difference between the tightly controlled hive minds of the eastern seaboard compared to people who can head off individually to Santa Monica, Malibu, the shore in Encinitas is not to be denied. They were like midwesterners. They were all way more likable....and nobody is actually from California.

COL FRED CHERRY

They fall fast the generation that survived a brutal interregnum in their lives. Another 7 years in the wasteland of North Vietnam, but came safely to the clearing at the end of the path,

Colonel Fred V. Cherry, an Air Force fighter pilot, was downed by enemy fire over North Vietnam in 1965, and he spent more than seven years as a prisoner of war. He made it home. For certain values of home. 

He was a man who survived the worst sort of demons. I could describe the betrayal he suffered at the hands of the Air Force, but won't. I have enough belief, there is a clearing at the end of the path.

COLONEL JERRY DRISCOLL

Stepped into the clearing at the end of the path. He was an Air Force officer who was shot down on his 112th mission over Vietnam. He endured over 2000 days of captivity. Of course, it was never ever over 2000 days, it was 2,487 days of captivity. 7 years. It wasn't really 7 years. It was 2,487 days. One doesn't count the days until they really count.

JERRY D. DRISCOLL
Captain - United States Air Force
Shot Down: April 24, 1966
Released: February 12, 1973
                                     
My military service started when I entered the United States Air Force Academy
in June 1959, graduating on June 5, 1963. In October 1965 I volunteered to go
to Southeast Asia. On April 24, 1966, on my 11 2th combat mission, my F-105
jet fighter bomber was shot down. When I was on the ground my helmet was
ripped off and I had cuts all over. Twenty people surrounded me, some with
guns and some with bamboo sticks. You know, a sharpened bamboo stock will kill
you as fast as a gun. I had a sprained ankle and a twisted knee. I never once
saw a doctor, but the body has great recuperative powers when given a chance.
On July 6, 1966 I was the head of the second group of the infamous "street
march". It got out of hand. They were a raging mob, throwing sticks at us. I
was punched and kicked; it got so bad it was even a matter of survival for our
guards.
There are still circular scars on my wrists which will serve as a life-long
reminder of the torture endured in the ancient French walled prison in the
center of Hanoi. This was the one dubbed the Hanoi Hilton.
I had learned at the Air Force Academy never to make a harmful statement about
your country, but I was also told "Don't let them do any permanent damage to
you." When I kept telling my captors I would never sign their statements, they
forced me to sit on a pile of bricks for 24 and 48 hour periods, hands
handcuffed behind my back and then hoisted up to the shoulder blades. They
would then twist the handcuff chains as tight as they could. Then they would
make me lie on my stomach while they pounded the handcuffs tighter with their
feet. If you brought your hands down at all, the handcuffs would cut deep into
your wrists.
Once I sat like that for 90 hours, with no sleep. I passed out. I still would
not sign, so they used ropes to bring the elbows together behind my back and
cut off the circulation. I lasted six days like that, with the cuffs and
ropes. That's when I thought I would go crazy-I signed an apology for dropping
bombs over their land.
I kept in shape with push-ups and lifting weights made by rolling a bunch of
our bed mats (made of elephant grass) together. We were given three cigarets a
day, and later, six. That was the only warmth in the place. There was no heat
even in the winter. It got very cold.
When one is placed in the situation we experienced in North Vietnam, there
comes the great, painful realization that what we all take so much for granted
is no longer available. In such a situation you can't help but appreciate what
we have in this great country of ours. That appreciation became even greater
when, after seven years of living under Communism, I returned to find a very
grateful nation welcoming us as we stepped off the airplane. 

There is but one word which best describes the United States of
America-FREEDOM! 

Jerry Driscoll retired from the United States Air Force as a Colonel. He and
his wife Sharon reside in Minnesota.

I think there is shade over there under those trees and, if you should pause for just a bit, a beer fairy will be along in her golf cart and offer you something fit for heroes.

ANTONIN SCALIA

Another good man has stepped into the clearing at the end of the path. He was an originalist and my kind of jurist. I had a great deal of respect for the man. His dissents were always gleaming towers infused with the shiny majesty of the Constitution and the written meaning of the words that were used in its creation. He did not skulk around in the shadows hiding in the penumbras of an unwritten constantly evolving document. He upheld the basic law of the United States.

He was a man of the middle America. His most diseased enemies often referred to him as 'right wing' as if somehow any jurist or American who clearly stood by the actual Constitution was somehow on a "wing" of extremism. He recognized that America has just one extremist wing which makes it a rather lopsided but no less dangerous beast. The only extremist we have to fear here is tyranny and there is only one wing of tyranny left over the mind of man that satisfies those who believe that they alone have the power to compel their fellow citizens to bend to their will. People who support and defend the Constitution are not extremists anymore, they are Americans. They stopped being extremists when America shed its King and created its own nation.

Hail and farewell.

ASTRONAUT EDGAR MITCHELL (CAPTAIN USN, RET)

Another good man has stepped into the clearing at the end of the path. He was one of a tiny handful of men who rode ships to another world and returned to talk about it. I can't do better than NASA on his accomplishments there and elsewhere so, NASA on Astronaut Edgar Mitchell.

Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell, Apollo 14 lunar module pilot stands by the deployed U.S. flag on the lunar surface during the early moments of the mission's first spacewalk. He was photographed by astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., mission commander. While astronauts Shepard and Mitchell descended in the Lunar Module "Antares" to explore the Fra Mauro region of the moon, astronaut Stuart A. Roosa, command module pilot, remained with the Command and Service Module "Kitty Hawk" in lunar orbit.

Credits: NASA

And some more from NASA.

Edgar Dean Mitchell (Captain, USN, Ret.)
     (Astronaut, NASA, Ret.)

Born September 17, 1930, in Hereford, Texas, but considers Artesia, New Mexico, his hometown. Resided in Palm Beach County, Florida since 1975. Divorced. Four daughters: Karlyn Mitchell, Ph.D Elizabeth Kendall, Kimberly Mitchell, Mary Beth Johnson. Two sons: Paul Mitchell, Adam Mitchell. Nine grandchildren. 

Honors and Awards: Presidential Medal of Freedom. USN Distinguished Service Medal. NASA Distinguished Service Medal. NASA Distinguished Service Award. Three NASA Group Achievement Awards. USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School, First in Class Award. Medal of the City of New York. American Astronautical Society, Flight Achievement Award. Arnold Air Society, John F. Kennedy Award for Space Exploration. Carnegie Mellon University Alumni, Outstanding Man of the Year (1972). Kappa Sigma, Man of the Year Award (1972). Adventurers Club, Gold Medal Award for Exploration. Explorers Club, Lowell Thomas Award for Explorations in Human Consciousness (1980). Drexel University, Engineering and Science Award for Explorations in Consciousness (1974). Space Hall of Fame (inducted 1979). Astronaut Hall of Fame (inducted 1995). Nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize (2005). 

Captain Mitchell's experience includes Navy operational flight, test flight, engineering and engineering management, and experience as a college instructor. Mitchell came to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston after graduating first in his class from the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School where he was both student and instructor. 

He entered the Navy in 1952 and completed his basic training at the San Diego Recruit Depot. In May 1953, after completing instruction at the Officers Candidate School at Newport, Rhode Island, he was commissioned as an Ensign. He completed flight training in July 1954 at Hutchinson, Kansas, and subsequently was assigned to Patrol Squadron 29 deployed to Okinawa. 

From 1957 to 1958, he flew A3 aircraft while assigned to Heavy Attack Squadron Two deployed aboard the USS BON HOMME RICHARD and USS TICONGEROGA; and he was a research project pilot with Air Development Squadron Five until 1959. From 1964 to 1965 he served as Chief, Project Management Division of the Navy Field Office for Manned Orbiting Laboratory. 1965-1966 was spent at the U.S. Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School in preparation for astronaut duties, and certification as test pilot. Mitchell served as an instructor in advanced mathematics and navigation theory for astronaut candidates.

With NASA, Captain Mitchell was a member of Group 5, selected for astronaut training in April 1966. He served as a member of the astronaut support crew for Apollo 9 and as backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 10. 

On January 31, 1971, serving as lunar module pilot, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, then a U.S. Navy Captain, embarked on a journey through outer space of some 500,000 miles that resulted in becoming the sixth man to walk on the moon. That historic journey terminated safely nine days later on February 9, 1971 and was made in the company of two other men of valor Admiral Alan Shepard and Colonel Stuart Roosa. 

Maneuvering their lunar module, Antares, to a landing in the hilly upland Fra Mauro region of the moon, Shepard and Mitchell subsequently deployed and activated various scientific equipment and experiments and collected almost 100 pounds of lunar samples for return to Earth. Other Apollo 14 achievements included: first use of Mobile Equipment Transporter (MET); largest payload placed in lunar orbit; longest distance traversed on the lunar surface; largest payload returned from the lunar surface; longest lunar surface stay time (33 hours); longest lunar surface EVA (9 hours and 17 minutes); first use of shortened lunar orbit rendezvous techniques; first use of color TV with new vidicon tube on lunar surface; and first extensive orbital science period conducted during CSM solo operations. 

In completing his first and only space flight, Captain Mitchell logged a total of 216 hours and 42 minutes in space. He was subsequently designated to serve as backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 16. In 1972, Captain Mitchell retired from NASA and the U.S. Navy.

Dr. Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences in 1973, one year after retiring from government service. It is a foundation organized to sponsor research into the nature of consciousness. He is also co-founder of the Association of Space Explorers, an international organization founded in 1984 for all who share the experience of space travel. Both are educational organizations developed to provide new understanding of the human condition resulting from the epoch of space exploration. 

Dr. Mitchell is author of Psychic Exploration: A Challenge for Science, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1974, a major reference book; and The Way of the Explorer Putnam 1996. He is also author and/or interviewee in dozens of articles in both professional and popular periodicals. 

As a lecturer, Dr. Mitchell delivered 25 to 50 addresses annually on cosmology, human potential and topics relating to the evolving future of the species on planet Earth. His last lecture series discussed the implications of recent discoveries in science as they affect our individual lives in the home, the workplace and society-at-large. He was a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows and has been featured in several documentary films relative to his interests.

As I read here and there through the tubes tonight to learn more about the man, I found that he was one of almost all the astronauts who brought back souvenirs from the moon or from space. He had the somewhat surreal experience of being sued by NASA and the Federal Government for keeping a camera that he had been told to leave behind and let crash into the moon inside the lunar module when it de-orbited and crashed after they started the return to Earth. Yep, NASA, who destroyed or lost all the mission tapes of the first moon landing, wanted/needed/pined for a 40 year old camera.

Reading the story about the camera I was struck by an interesting parallel. What if, 40 years after a man had boarded a lifeboat from off his sinking ship, maneuvered it around to pick up other distressed seamen and then sailed it 3000 miles to the nearest land, the shipping company that owned the sunken ship came after him in court for "stealing" the sextant from that lifeboat?

An interesting man. Hail fellow and farewell.

SAY GOODNIGHT MR SLOAN

If asked what I think, I would say that writing this song encompassed his own destruction. Forgive me for using a rag like the New York Times as a source material. You'll note, if you read the obit scribbled by Bruce Weber, that he couldn't be bothered with boring details like date of birth, death, etc. Typical of the Times. You'll note he blathers on and on guessing where he was born. Again, typical for the paper of record.

It is interesting how often this song has been played since the events of 9/11. More so after the attack in Benghazi. It was a protest against an earlier war but the opening sequence call to mind our President's approach to the current wars in which we are engaged.

ROBERT CONQUEST

A man with a rare vision for his time. He saw communism for what it really is and clearly perceived that Stalin was a monster. Stepped into the clearing August 3rd aged 98.

To understand the moral and literary power with which Robert Conquest wrote, consider the second sentence in his book Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine, a study of the 14.5 million deaths that resulted from Joseph Stalin’s murderous takeover of his nation’s agricultural sector: “We may perhaps put this in perspective in the present case by saying that in the actions here recorded about twenty human lives were lost for, not every word, but every letter, in this book.” . . .

As Conquest's friend, the British novelist Martin Amis, would later observe with a palpable shudder, "The sentence represents 3,040 lives. The book is 411 pages long." The math is too terrible to contemplate.

True for all values of truth

 Speaking of secret cabals....

The communist revolution, Peter wrote, seems to have burnt itself out in two long decades of flaming arson masterminded by disguised Okhrana survivors and low level tsarist functionaries of the old service apparat operating out of closet Moscow rooms and communicating through secret drops in public trash cans. 

Early in 1921 reactionary plotters devised their master plan while accidentally reading The Collected Works of V.I. Lenin which was in use as their secret code book for the trash can messages. Lenin's major theme was a vituperative insistence upon the one correct line—his. This, the plotters deduced correctly, would lead to squabbles upon Lenin's death which could be cleverly exploited in the revanchist cause. 

The critical Okhrana files on the Bolsheviks had been saved during the disastrous October days and were hidden away in the mattress of an ex-Moscow prison guard. After hushed discussions behind black-shaded windows and the delivery of many messages on non-garbage collection days inside hollowed-out sausages, it was recommended that Joseph Dzhugashvili (Stalin) be set up as the plot's principle dupe. 

He was seen as an opportunist with no tolerance at all for men superior to himself which meant that with careful provocation he could be used as a deadly tool to destroy all Bolsheviks more able than himself. Thus the entire socialist organization could be liquidated. For the purposes of the plot Stalin was assessed to be lacking only in intelligence and organizational ability, but these necessary commodities could be supplied by infiltrators who would do his thinking and organizing for him. Such a man was very dependent upon help. 

It must be remembered that the tsarists were decimated at this time. Their entire first rank of leadership had been wiped out, they were badly organized, disunited, and thousands of them were acting independently, unaware even that there were others of the same sympathy. They sat home and drank vodka and complained about the price of food. This gave them time to plot while the socialists were busy rebuilding the nation.It was slow work at first but the restorationists used divisive technology effectively enough to fragment the socialists into isolated cadres. By promoting different "correct lines" and using Stalin as a tiebreaker they lifted their dupe to power. The reactionaries weren't able to place any of their own in high places but by being the actual physical people who controlled Stalin's files they were able to bring to his attention a sufficient number of scoundrels whom they knew would appeal to him, Stalin being Stalin. 

The Bolsheviks classified rich peasants as kulaki; medium peasants as seredniaki; and poor peasants asbedniaki. Under Lenin, authority in village affairs was delegated to the poor peasants who were recruited to inform the government when the kulaki and seredniakihid grain from the Bolshevik tax men. To destroy peasant resistance to the revolution's taxes Lenin turned class shadings into class war. 

"Attack rich peasants!" was a slogan that Stalin preached. By then, on the say-so of informers, peasants were being arrested wholesale by OGPU agents with large kulak quotas. Meanwhile the Bolshevik baskaks of 1930-31 were confiscating food for export (to be sold on foreign markets at below-cost depression prices), leaving next to nothing in the countryside. What did it matter if those who objected to working for nothing were tortured for withholding grain they had never dared grow, were shot, were sent to the Gulags to build socialism with their free labor? Their neighbors had denounced them. That was enough. A peasant's rights had never been guaranteed by tsarist law— why change? 

The Bolsheviks made their first fatal doctrinal mistake by disavowing socialist comradeship with the peasants. The Bolsheviks needed the surplus value that the peasants could supply if properly milked, but didn't relish the dirty work of collecting it, especially since it meant that to do so they would be forced to face the peasant families they were robbing. Thus The Bolshevik City Workers hired tax collectors. Hundreds of counterrevolutionaries, most of them acting independently, seized upon this opportunity like starving wolves at a fawn. The tsarists, as unorganized and demoralized as they were, had plenty of people who knew how to squeeze taxes out of the countryside. 

By 1935 the counterrevolutionaries who had started out in Ivan jobs murdering peasants for the OGPU, now had respectable jobs in the NKVD, plenty of vodka, enough money for girls, and each one of them had his own room in Moscow. It was decided after much trash can searching that the time was ripe for the great offensive. 

Letter writing squads, patterned after the congressional letter writing clubs of the United States, began to complain about wrecking and sabotage, named names, and demanded action. Writers from the Washington Post were imported to write articles for Pravda about dishonesty and hypocrisy in high places. A few arbitrary arrests were made to satisfy "the outrage of the masses" and some torture begun to prime the restoration fuse. 

There was no danger of backlash. The NKVD's victims were carefully picked to appeal to Stalin—they were in every way superior to him. At first only journalists true to the masses were executed. Socialists connected to a free press were very dangerous to the counterrevolution and so all honest voices had to be destroyed during the first strike. Then came the big offensive. In NKVD backrooms, hordes of counterrevolutionary troops began to fabricate false testimony and forward it on to the vain Stalin-tool for approval. 

Here was one of the strangest things that Kaissel was learning about the Russian culture during his prison studies. Russian villains had long mastered group solidarity, while the legions of brave Russian heroes, hordes of them, continued to fight on as individuals,with no understanding at all of the power of union. Working Americans read Marx avidly while that shaker of men was alive. Presto, powerful American labor unions sprang up. Yet in a hundred years no Russian had ever organized a successful labor movement. Why? 

Perhaps in a sea of informers it was impossible.

                                                ----The Moon Goddess and the Son by Donald Kingsbury

ANOTHER GOOD MAN

He was always irrepressible to me. Yogi Berra has stepped into the clearing at the end of the path but not before leaving behind some important words of wisdom for the rest of us.

The well-known book "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" lists eight of Berra's witticisms, but we've gathered 53 below attributed to the baseball great.

1. "I never said most of the things I said."
2. "It ain’t over till it’s over."
3. "Mickey Mantle was a very good golfer, but we weren’t allowed to play golf during the season; only at spring training."
4. "If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them."
5. "Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical."
6. "I can see how he (Sandy Koufax) won 25 games. What I don’t understand is how he lost five."
7. "In baseball, you don’t know nothing."
8. "I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?"
9. "I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids out of the house."
10. "I wish everybody had the drive he (Joe DiMaggio) had. He never did anything wrong on the field. I’d never seen him dive for a ball, everything was a chest-high catch, and he never walked off the field."
11. "It’s deja vu all over again."
12. "I usually take a two-hour nap from 1 to 4."
13. "Never answer an anonymous letter."
14. "We made too many wrong mistakes."
15. "You can observe a lot by watching."
16. "The future ain’t what it used to be."
17. "If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else."
18. "You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there."
19. "It gets late early out here."
20. "Even Napoleon had his Watergate."
21. "Pair up in threes."
22. "We have deep depth."
23. "Why buy good luggage, you only use it when you travel."
24. "Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded."
25. "All pitchers are liars or crybabies."
26. "A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore."
27. "Bill Dickey is learning me his experience."
28. "He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious."
29. "I always thought that record would stand until it was broken."
30. "I don’t know (if they were men or women fans running naked across the field). They had bags over their heads."
31. "I’m a lucky guy and I’m happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary."
32. "I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did."
33. "It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility."
34. "So I’m ugly. I never saw anyone hit with his face."
35. "Take it with a grin of salt."
36. "We were overwhelming underdogs."
37. "The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase."
38. "You should always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise, they won’t come to yours."
39. "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
40. "It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much."
41. "If you ask me anything I don’t know, I’m not going to answer."
42. "Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets."
43. "You don’t have to swing hard to hit a home run. If you got the timing, it’ll go."
44. "I’m lucky. Usually you’re dead to get your own museum, but I’m still alive to see mine."
45. "If I didn’t make it in baseball, I won’t have made it workin’. I didn’t like to work."
46. "If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be."
47. "No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded."
48. "You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six."
49. "You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you."
50. "Slump? I ain’t in no slump . . . I just ain’t hitting."
51. "How can you think and hit at the same time?"

ANOTHER GOOD MAN

Mr. Felix Kumi has stepped into the clearing at the end of the path. He was selflessly sacrificed by a New York City police officer in order that the police officer might survive an illusory bullet not fired from what may be a BB gun that looked like a gun.

Greater love hath no innocent bystander than to be gunned down by cops intent on their own safety.

GRAY LADY DOWN

I know, it sounds like a Farley Mowat title. It's worth noting when certain people pass. The New York Times took a little over 500 years to note the passing of Richard III at Bosworth Field. Because they are the New York Times, they gooned it.  If you read the interesting article about the reburial of an ancient King, note the last bit which I have captured here.

That theme was pervasive in the reburial service, perhaps captured best when Archbishop Welby, standing beside the grave as the coffin was lowered, invoked forgiveness for Richard. “We have entrusted our brother Richard to God’s mercy,” he said, “and we now commit his human remains to the ground, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” 

Correction: March 26, 2015 
An earlier version of this article misstated the title of the most senior member of the royal family in attendance at Richard III’s reburial. She is the Countess of Wessex, not the Duchess. 

With this article, John F. Burns concludes a distinguished career spanning 40 years with The New York Times, 39 of them with the international desk. Beginning with South Africa in 1976, Mr. Burns reported from 10 foreign bureaus and was chief of the Baghdad bureau during the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Along the way, he wrote more than 3,300 articles and collected two Pulitzer Prizes for International Reporting, one in Afghanistan and the other in Bosnia. His portrait of a cellist playing on Sarajevo’s main pedestrian concourse while artillery shells exploded nearby is considered a classic of modern journalism. He will continue to contribute to the international and sports desks, among others.

Yeah, that's how I want to go out as a newsman, with a 'correction' for the sloppy journalism I got away with for almost 40 years.

Of course, you'd want some dignity to accompany your reinterment. Instead, you get:

BUCK PENNINGTON

Another good man has stepped into the clearing at the end of the path. I don't know what kept the Casa Movil docked in Portales of all places but Buck was there for a long time. One could, I suppose, write a story about dark forces, evil overlords, Cold War treaties and such but there is no real explanation for why he exiled himself to the high desert of Portales.

We both toiled, for a time, in the radar gardens of our Uncle Sam. Buck worked primarily in the air search radar realm while I stayed more focused in the Continuous Wave and Doppler Pulse Fire Control Radar world.

You could tell he was Air Force because he covered a lot of ground in life and made a blessedly speedy departure. An exit like his is a blessing beyond price. I am going to miss him like I miss the man who introduced us. Good men who got the greatest things out of life and who suddenly, one day, stepped into the clearing at the end of the path.

I had hoped to one day see son#3 join his blog roll. I don't think he will ever know what he missed.

Pass and farewell friend. Until we meet again.

Everybody slept easier when Buck was on the job