A New Star In The Cosmos

 If you have access to the Hubble telescope tonight, check out a new shining star that will be bringing a special brilliance to our harmonious universe.  Its name is Lawrence Alden Aschenbrenner.

Larry departed his long run on this small planet yesterday morning and what a legacy he designed in those 90 years. When most of us confer with our better angels, how much inconvenience their counsel will create is alway figured into the resulting decision.  With Larry it was always, "We'll do the right thing."

He and his wife, Katie, brought together a family of Ted, Dan, Connie and John. His larger family of school classmates, professional colleagues, client admirers, and ordinary friends would fill his beloved University of Oregon football stadium.

In his childhood years Larry was the proverbial preacher's kid with seemingly endless escapades of harmless mischief but that Methodist environment of his home marinated Larry's moral core into a life-long mission of crusading for social justice for every citizen.  From his at risk adventures in Jackson, Mississippi (he called it the most racist city in America) giving legal assistance to African Americans at the height of the '60s and '70s Civil Rights movement, to his advocacy for Native Alaskans rights in Anchorage,  Larry Aschenbrenner fought the good fight.

Through all his serious career in righting what he saw as wrong, he had a rollicking fun-factor in his German heritage and would recite Casey At The Bat with or without a pint of beer to lubricate his delivery whatever the occasion.  He was just a great companion and his was a magnificent life.  Star light, star bright...

The Name Game

A sociological study conducted by the Harvard School for Serious Studies in 1996 found there to be a vague correlation between a person's name and success or failure in his/her life pursuits.  They put all names into three major groupings: Unfortunate Names, Common Uninteresting Names, and Exotic or Captivating Names.  The study focused on the first and third categories explaining it was counter- productive to deal with all the Mary Joneses and Jim Smiths because they led ho-hum lives and didn't merit wasting resources and the time of researchers.

In the Unfortunate Name group the findings of the researchers can be summed up by two or three examples.  A baker, Norman Shitt, moved from job to job and had issues with schools trying to deal with his children's social relationships with their fellow students.

Researchers found a deputy sheriff in Arkansas whose parents, Harold and Amy Head, named him Richard.

A number of females, most of them from southern states, having Squatt as a surname, were found to have consistent tendencies to marry young (some at nine or ten years of age) apparently as a way to get a name change.  It was found that two of the Squatt girls married twin brothers named Downs.

In the third category the researchers agreed the most success-connected name ever was attached to the American President, Abraham Lincoln.  No other name was close for positive association.

In sports a football player had the perfect name: Joe Montana. Did they say perfect?  Perfect.

In pornongraphy-tainted journalism the perfect name goes to National Inquirer publisher, David Pecker.

The best lawyer name ever goes to the mouth-piece for recently seven-back-holes-drilled Jacob Blake, B'ivory Lamarr.  Whatever case B'ivory is associated with will give him a lock-down jury when the court introduces them to (drum roll) B'ivory Lamarr.  That name sings.

There are so many more names out there but so little space left in my allotted allowance.  Let me know any I missed. 

A Road Too Far

Bernard Daley was an immigrant who was born in 1858 and came to America with his parents where he lived the American dream.  He became a medical doctor, opened his practice in Lakeview, Oregon. Became a rancher, a banker, and a businessman who accumulated a large fortune.  In 1922 Dr. Daley established a foundation, the Daley Fund, that paid the expenses of every graduate of Lakeview High School who chose to attend four years in any of Oregon's institutions of higher education.  

In 1962 the institutional executives of Oregon's public colleges and universities elected to hold their annual meeting in Lakeview to honor Dr. Daley on the 40th anniversary of his gift. There are three ways to get to Lakeview, Oregon: Walk.  Ride a horse or bicycle. Use a car.  For Arthur Flemming,  President of the University of Oregon, Lakeview was beyond his walking range and he owned neither a horse or a bicycle, so that left an automobile. Arthur did not drive, so as the professional Executive Secretary of the U of O's Alumni Association I was selected to drive him to Lakeview.

Gene Lewis, a pal of mine from my fraternity days, lived in Lakeview and was delighted to learn I would be there on a late Friday afternoon.  President Flemming joined his fellow executives after we checked in to our motel as did I with brother Gene.  We retired to a cowboy bar & grill. (Walls decorated with displays of Indian arrowheads and at the bar each stool was a saddle.) After a few thousand old frat stories and an equal number of beers, Gene and I closed the bar at 2:30 AM and he dropped me at my room, where it was my plan to sleep until 9:00 or 10:00 AM and then treat myself to a fine Western Buckeroo breakfast.

                                                       Wrongo in the Congo

A note was on my door.  Dr. Flemming let me know he had arranged for me to be with him at breakfast (8:00 AM) and at the day-long meetings (down and down I go, round and round I go).  It gets worse.  Arthur invited the President of Oregon State University to ride back with us. Of course,  that meant little Willy could drive him on over to Corvallis (another 50-plus miles). Not good.  NOT AT ALL GOOD.  We left Lakeview for the 242 mile drive to Eugene in the late afternoon and I had no trouble staying awake at the wheel for the first 14 miles out of town.  From then on it was down and gritty.

The one terrible fear that gripped me was the newspaper headline in the Portland Oregonian I kept reviewing in my mind:  Presidents of University of Oregon and Oregon State University Die In Tragic Car Plunge Off Cascade Mountain. Driver of car, William Landers, uninjured and found peacefully sleeping in the tangled bodies of the two presidents.

A few sleepless years later I pulled into the driveway of Dr. Flemming's home, painfully aware that less than two miles away, across the Willamette River at 315 Van Duyn Street was a king size bed and a world-class pillow.  OSU's President chose to ride with me in the front seat to Corvallis where I fought to stay alert in his driveway, knowing that sleeping there would be bad form.

Corvallis, Oregon is way down my list of favorite Oregon towns, but on one of its quiet residential streets, in a pinch, a guy can grab a couple winks with no trouble.  Lakeview's not high on my list either.

Who Remembers John McKay?

In 1948 Oregon football coach, Jim Aiken, had put together a juggernaut team composed of many WW II vets from all across the country. If Aiken challenged you to a duel you could be certain one of his handlers had loaded your weapon with blanks.  Jim liked to shave the odds but that '48 team with Norm Van Brocklin went to the 1949 Cotten Bowl after getting shut out of the Rose Bowl when a tie with Cal was decided by the University of Washington voting for the Golden Bears.  That decision by the Dawgs still resonates with Duck fans.

John McKay was a star running back on that Cotton Bowl team.  After Aiken was asked to leave Oregon, new Athletic Director Leo Harris hired Len Casanova to replace him.  Casanova brought McKay onto his staff in 1950 and after nine years, his talent as the offense coordinator was recognized by other programs including USC. which hired him as an assistant in 1959. They appointed him head coach the next year, after which he would go on to win four national titles.  McKay considered Casanova his mentor and his affection for Cas lasted throughout both their lives.

When you are the head football coach at USC, it's like being King with a really good army.  After Cas retired as Oregon's Athletic Director in 1969, I went with him to LA where Oregon would play the Trojans in the Coliseum.  Friday before the game, McKay invited Cas to have lunch with him and I tagged along. We went to a restaurant-bar across the street from the USC campus and it was apparent this was a royal gathering place. McKay had a round table on a raised landing in the back of the room and it was obvious only John and his guests ever dined there.  After lunch we went back to McKay's office (no tab for the lunch ever came to our table).

Did I say office?  Let's define it as a large,  impressive reception chamber. One side of the room was dominated by a window overlooking the practice football field two stories below. On the wall behind McKay's massive desk at one end of the room was a huge oil painting of O. J. Simpson. A number of comfortable chairs surrounded a low table in the center of the room where we sat and I remember John telling Cas, "If you can't win at USC you should find another line of work."

John's son, JK, came into the room and after introductions said to his dad, "I need new tires for my car so is it OK to charge them to you." "How about using your Rose Bowl ticket money for your tires?"  Rose Bowl ticket money?  You mean wealthy USC alums might pay generous money to players for their Rose Bowl tickets?  Shocking!

John McKay would move on to coach the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and USC  replaced him with another Oregon coach, John Robinson. We know about O..J. but what happened to that oil painting of him? The frame looked expensive.

Let's Hear It For Bill Gates

 I watched that Sunday CNN guy whose name I can't spell interview Bill Gates today.  Bill Gates.  What an exceptionally fine man he is. Look at his face (you can't hide what's on your face). High intelligence. Friendly. He is obviously comfortable being Bill Gates.  Watch him respond to questions and he might reach up and readjust his glasses. Also,  he has a habit while talking of reaching over with his right hand and twisting his wedding ring.  Is that a way of touching bases with Melinda?

If I could get every living American to line up according to the contributions he/she has made to their fellow humans on the planet Earth, brother Gates would be very close to the front of the line.  The remarkable accomplishment of his entrepreneurial creation of Microsoft has been topped by the amazing impact his philamprothy to international causes has had.  

Gates has also used the excellence of his mind to consider problems in our national life and offer intelligent opinions that could solve them.  Of course, this gift from Gates can only be valuable if there is someone smart enough to recognize its worth.  He recognized the coronavirus threat years before it happened but his warnings went unheeded.  The brilliance of Bill Gates's mind has not been a secret for many years and why political leaders would not seek his counsel is hard to understand. Maybe some important clout-meister will come along in the next few months and see the light.

Order In The Court

I must admit that I have never made a plea before the Supreme Court of the United States of America, but I do have a close friend who has done that. His name is Lawrence Alden Aschenbrenner and his issue before the court concerned the native tribes of Alaska whom he represented.  In his career, Larry stood before the Supremes three times. 

That lofty bar of justice is not like the court where you are defending some poor miscreant for driving while seriously drunk.  No, no. To work in that historic room you must have been sworn in as a credible practitioner of the mystic codes of jurisprudence. In 1966 Larry was sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren after being sponsored by Oregon U.S. Senator Robert Packwood in a class of five other attorneys that included then Attorney General of the United States, Bobby Kennedy.  Packwood introduced Aschenbrenner to Kennedy which allowed Larry to check off one more box in his bucket list: Have a chat with President John F. Kennedy's brother.

So my lifelong friendship with Larry Aschenbrenner has given me two separations of personal contact with a President of the United States, John F. Kennedy.

The Wayward Bus

In my senior year of high school I turned 18 on February 4, 1948.  This made me eligible to get a chauffeur's license which I did because the principal of the high school, Frank Thomas got me a job driving a school bus. The principal liked me because I played football, was his student body president and was not a trouble-maker. My route to pick up and deliver young scholars to the schoolhouse conveniently followed the roads leading to my home seven miles west on the Redwood Highway.  After my last student was safely delivered to his/her home I would park the bus in a field across from where I lived and then retrace the route the next morning.  With a $50.00 payday that was one sweet deal.

My young bus riders were enthusiastic fans of the driver (me) because every after-school day was race day between our bus and a bus driven by another Frank Thomas favorite student that went south and east of town.  Grants Pass at that time had 6th street with four traffic lanes going through the center of town; two going north,  two going south and both of us had to go south through town where two lanes became one to cross the Caveman Bridge. The race was on to challenge that bottleneck.

Another factor affecting the race was all the citizen drivers who were desperate to not get stuck behind a school bus that stops at every mailbox to let some kid off.  They, too, joined the race to the single lane bottleneck at the Caveman bridge.

Those busses were real rattlers, big yellow hulks that let you know they were coming.  As the two drivers jockeyed for lanes to arrive first at the bridge, the occupants of both busses were wildly into the action with stomping feet and pounding on the metal side panels under the windows.  Not to mention  screaming at the driver by both boys and girls to go faster.  Rolling pandemonium. YeeHaww!!!  Some days we won.  Other days we lost (some citizen stopping in my lane to park). Those appointed rounds were never dull.  Hell riders to the bridge.