Showing posts with label 100. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 100. Show all posts

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Bike Year Begins with a Great Week!

Times Square at Rush Hour

I love to ride.  This past week I had had the chance to ride in some of my favorite places--places that are almost completely opposite in terrain and character:

--An isolated hill in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

--Three boroughs and 30 miles in New York City: rain in the day and clear skies at night 

--Skyline Drive in northern New Jersey: 51 mph on the descent.

Last Sunday, I ended the week for the first time this year with more than 100 riding miles, 110 to be exact.  The ride that brought me to the three-digit distance was up the gentle three-mile climb of Snyder Hollow Road in southern Lancaster County.  This beautiful, narrow, winding road follows a stream most of the way up. Trees line the road from bottom to top.  In the summer it is several degrees cooler than any other road in the area.  


On Wednesday I rode from Woodside, Queens, NYC, to Manhattan then north almost 200 blocks to the Bronx. I started in mid afternoon. An hour into the ride in Harlem, the skies opened and the wind howled in my face out of the north. I went down into a subway station and rode the train 28 blocks from 135th to 163rd. When I emerged the rain let up so I rode the rest ofthe way in scattered showers. I had coffee at 239th Street, then rode back to Woodside, mostly in the dark.  

The lights are synchronized on avenues, so although I passed through more than 450 traffic lights, they were mostly green when my speed was good.  

The next day I rode from Woodside to Penn Station with a 25-pound pack. That was six slow miles.  I drove to Skyline Drive in Ringwood, New Jersey then rode up and down the steep 2.5-mile hill. I turned around at the top and rode the first mile of level or gentle hills before the steep drop the last mile and a half. Just as I went over the crest, a flat-bed truck went past carrying four gray Port-a-Potties. 

The descent is winding. He went far ahead, but at first hard-right bend he slowed and I caught up. On the straight section he sped away, but as the road bent left he braked and I was back to about 20 meters behind.  We were an accordion until the very bottom of the hill when he turned left and I continued straight.   

Strava told me I went 51mph (82.1kmh) in the middle of the hill. It was the Port-A-Potty draft for sure! 

Three hours later I turned off the PA Turnpike at Morgantown.I was going to ride up and down the 1.5-mile hill on Route 10.  But when I got halfway upthe hill there was a line of stopped vehicles. I rode up along the right shoulder to see an overturned truck halfway down. I turned around and drove home. 

Today I rode 15 miles and brought my miles for the week to 115.  

I rode as much in the last two weeks as in both January and February. So far in March I am close to 300 miles.  My bicycle year starts now. 

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Walking and Creating Habits


Aristotle was the first philosopher to say that we are what we do.  I have brilliant friends who disagree with this premise, but I believe it.  All of my adult life I have begun new habits to reach goals or simply because it seemed like the right thing to do in the moment. 

On May 14, 2020, I took the first of 19.9 million steps as I left Lancaster General Hospital and walked home from surgery. The surgery reassembled the 20-odd pieces of my shattered elbow to 70 percent of its former function.  

I decided on that day I would walk 40 miles per week.  Importantly, I decided I had to walk at least 40 miles per week, not and average of 40. More on that later.

Starting New Habits

For me, making habits often starts with a decision in the moment that lasts for years.  

In February of 1986, I quit smoking. I had a cigarette after breakfast and never had another one.   I started running a few months before I quit--about eight miles per week.  The two weeks after I quit, I ran 65 miles so I would be less likely to start smoking again.  Eventually running injuries led me to begin riding a bicycle.  

In 1987, I went from riding 1.5 miles and gasping afterward in the spring to 40-mile rides in the fall.  In 1992 and 1993 I rode from Lancaster to Canada.  The bicycle habit reached 10,000 miles per year from 2002 to 2006.  I still ride every week and whenever I can.

In the fall of 2007, when I re-enlisted in the Army, I started training for the Army fitness test.  I ran sprints and shorter distance to increase my speed on the two-mile run--the Army standard distance. I also did 100 pushups and 100 situps every other day.  

In November of 2012, my wife told me she was going to do an Ironman Triathlon. I decided I would too. I had never swam the length of a pool. I never swam at all except dog paddle as a kid and in Army Water Survival Training. I got a coach and swam five days a week until I could swim 2.5 miles without stopping (176 lengths of a 25-yard pool).  I also had to run long distances. 

Ending Old Habits

Since every week has just 168 hours and for much of this time I had a job, making new habits meant ending others.  When I started riding a bicycle seriously, I sold the last of the 12 motorcycles I owned between 1972 and 1992.  Motorcycles are so inherently dangerous that I practiced panic braking and high-speed figure 8s twice a month. When I rode the bicycle so much I did not ride the motorcycle regularly, I sold it.  

I took my last Army fitness test in 2014. By 2015, I stopped doing pushups and sit ups and pretty much stopped swimming.  By 2017 I stopped running. In 2019 I got a knee replacement, so I will never run again.  

In 2016, I started doing Yoga. After two years, my bad knee kept me from practicing. I tried to start again after my  2019 knee replacement, but the other knee hurt, so yoga ended. Around 2019 I started Duolingo language practice and I started meditating. Both of those continue to this day.

What Do You Do?

We ask each other what we do for  a living because what we do for 40 or more hours per week defines who we are.  I retired nine years and quickly found  it is much less defining to say what I did than what I do.  

For the first years of my retirement I often answered parent when asked the "What do you do?" question.  From 2015 to 2021 the first job in my life was either caring for my struggling sons or getting help with caring for my sons.  
 
In 2022 I started making combat medical kits for soldiers in Ukraine. I worked in a warehouse in New Jersey 2 to 4 days a week for most of the year.  Since November of 2022 I have had no central focus, just helping with Ukraine when I can. Later this year I will be all but full time working for President Biden, Senator Casey and all who support Ukraine. I will also work against all of Putin lovers. 

After that I am likely to move to Panama for a while and make new habits.  But not walking and riding. They will very much continue wherever I am.  In the 46 months since I left the hospital, I have walked just over 10,000 miles or just over 50 miles per week.  The weather in equatorial Panama is either hot or hot and raining so I should be able to walk and ride a lot.  





 



Saturday, March 2, 2024

Honor Guard: Real Military Life

 


I recently had a Red Rose Veterans Honor Guard service on a cold afternoon in Lancaster. We all arrived before our time to report. The time we gather is a half hour before the graveside ceremony begins.  

We practice the ceremony for a few minutes. We concentrate on the very precise way we fold the flag.  Then in a very military way, we wait.  This particular ceremony happened right on time. I have been to others that were delayed from a few minutes to almost an hour.  

All of us are required to leave our phones in the car, so we actually talk to each other. And we don't take selfies.  I have my phone shut off in my jacket pocket because I ride a bicycle to the ceremonies. I am the only one who has ever ridden to the ceremonies, so there are no bike rules.  

At the most recent ceremony I attended, I met another Tanker.  He is younger than I am so we trained on and served in different tanks.  But we still spent years in turrets and had a lot of fun talking about "the best job we ever had."

After I left the active duty Army at the end of1979, I grew a beard and was a civilian for almost two years.  Then I joined a reserve tank unit for three years. I was not ready to re-enlist in the active-duty Army, but 12 weekends and two weeks in the summer sounded just right, especially because I could fire tank guns at least twice a year.  

Now that I am well past any sort of military service, participating in a ceremony to honor fellow veterans a few times a month gives me a lot of joy, and just enough feeling of being back in the military. 



Sunday, February 25, 2024

March for Ukraine on Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia

 

More than a thousand people gathered on the famous steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art today to support Ukraine in its war against the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. 


The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote about the event today. A very good article. 

The marchers lined up with three long flags forming a procession that stretched several hundred meters along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway between the art museum and the Franklin Institute.






Saturday, February 24, 2024

More than Two Thousand Mark the 2nd Anniversary of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine at the Lincoln Memorial

 



Today more than two thousand people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on the Capital Mall in Washington DC to mark the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  
The event celebrated the courage and tenacity of the people ofUkraine in their struggle against Russian invasion and atrocities.  
It was clear from the signs, that while the majority of Americans, more than 70%, support Ukraine in its defense of its own nation, Trump and the cowards who worship him want to abandon Ukraine and all other American allies.  



Glory to Ukraine!!!


Monday, February 19, 2024

President's Day Standing with Ukraine at the Pennsylvania State Capital



Today I went to the Human Chain of Solidarity with Ukraine on the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capital in Harrisburg.
We stood from 5-6 p.m. facing the setting sun in the west.  The Capital dome was lit in rose and amber by the setting sun as the assembled group sang the Ukraine National Anthem.  
Many of those attending are Ukrainian, some refugees, some American citizens working help Ukraine from here.  



On Saturday and Sunday this week, many of us will be in both Washington D.C. and Philadelphia at events marking the second anniversary of  the Russian invasion.  


Tuesday, February 6, 2024

David Bentley Hart in 2011: "the devil is probably eerily similar to Donald Trump—though perhaps just a little nicer."


David Bentley Hart, Eastern Orthodox Theologian

From 2003 to 2020, the Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart wrote a column for First Things magazine.  

In 2011, Hart ended one of his columns with a comment on Donald Trump.  Hart continues to hold his low view of the former President. The essay ends with a 46-word sentence comparing The Donald to The Devil.   

By the way, First Things magazine now leads the worship of Trump for conservative Catholics.  

Here is Hart on Trump:

... Donald Trump... You know the fellow: developer, speculator, television personality, hotelier, political dilettante, conspiracy theorist, and grand croupier—the one with that canopy of hennaed hair jutting out over his eyes like a shelf of limestone.

In particular, I recalled how, back in 1993, when Trump decided he wanted to build special limousine parking lots around his Atlantic City casino and hotel, he had used all his influence to get the state of New Jersey to steal the home of an elderly widow named Vera Coking by declaring “eminent domain” over her property, as well as over a nearby pawn shop and a small family-run Italian restaurant.

She had declined to sell, having lived there for thirty-five years. Moreover, the state offered her only one-fourth what she had been offered for the same house some years before, and Trump could then buy it at a bargain rate. The affair involved the poor woman in an exhausting legal battle, which, happily, she won, with the assistance of the Institute for Justice.

How obvious it seems to me now. Cold, grasping, bleak, graceless, and dull; unctuous, sleek, pitiless, and crass; a pallid vulgarian floating through life on clouds of acrid cologne and trailed by a vanguard of fawning divorce lawyers, the devil is probably eerily similar to Donald Trump—though perhaps just a little nicer.

 

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman

 


Reading Richard Feynman gives me the feeling that I can understand a little bit of the mystery and beauty of science.  I thought I would read the short introductory paperback before deciding whether I should attempt the three-volume Feynman Lectures on Physics.

After reading QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, I wanted to read more of Feynman and again have that feeling I could really comprehend modern physics. It is like riding in a strong tailwind on a bicycle.  I am zipping along above 25mph and can think for a moment I am really that strong, at least until I turn into the wind and feel merely human again. 

Feynman give me a science high.    

In the first lecture, Atoms in Motion, he says, 

    Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation, because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet. Therefore, things must be learned only to be unlearned again, or, more likely, to be corrected.

On page 2, I know what science is. Two pages later the section titled Matter is made of atoms begins:

If in some cataclysm, all of the scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creature, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact whichever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms--little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling each other upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.

Entertaining and brilliant.  The rest of the book bubbles with insights, elucidating basic physics, showing the connections of all the sciences to each other, then a chapter on energy in its many forms, followed by gravity--the weakest force, ending with quantum mechanics. 

I am going to read another Feynman book this week. 

Thursday, January 18, 2024

Supporting Ukraine on Capital Hill--Meeting Lawmakers


At Congressman Lloyd Smucker's office 
(my representative), advocating for aid for Ukraine

Yesterday, I joined members of the American Coalition for Ukraine to ask members of the Congress representing Pennsylvania to support the Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression.  The group I was part of visited the offices of Congressman Lloyd Smucker, Senator Robert Casey, Senator John Fetterman, and Congressman Guy Reschenthaler. 

Our message: Ukraine needs ammunition and missiles urgently.

The response from each of the staffers we met with was support for Ukraine, but then came the various expressions of regret.  The Republican congressmen face opposition within their own party.  The phrase "in the current climate" summed up that regret saying in effect, We wish we could do more, but..."

Both of the senate staffers were in support of Ukraine and fighting against Republican opposition in both the Senate and the House. We heard Senator Fetterman is "extremely disappointed" with the "dysfunctional House of Representatives."  He considers the abandonment of Ukraine support by Republicans "reprehensible" and "unAmerican."  

When I was at the last Ukraine Action Summit October 22-24 of last year, the Fetterman visit was the best. He stood with us on the steps of the Senate and declared complete support for Ukraine. I wrote about that visit here. For those of us who spent six years protesting Senator Pat Toomey, the best result of our protest is that Toomey did not run for re-election and John Fetterman took his place in the senate.  

Fetterman is just as strong on his support for Israel.  The walls of his office are covered with posters of the hostages taken by HAMAS terrorists on October 7. Those released are on one side, those still held are on the other.  

I have another Congressional visit tomorrow. I will write about that as soon as I can.  

I believe Ukraine is the front line of the defense of freedom and democracy against Russia and her authoritarian allies in Iran, China, North Korea, Hungary, Turkey, and all of those within America who support tyranny.  




Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Top Blog Posts of 2023: Meeting Friends and Perennial Favorites

 


In 2023, various stories from my blog were opened more than 20,000 times. The two most popular with more than 1,500 reads each were the story about Larry Murphy's amazing rear-wheel-only landing of a Chinook Helicopter on the roof of a shack on the side of mountain in Iraq.  A local artist turned the photo into the painting above. The story is here.

The other most-popular post is titled "Task, Conditions, Standards" the basis of all Army training.  That story is here.

Next are several stories about meeting friends, new and old.

The Summer Social at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College this summer.

In Paris, following a Facebook post, I went to a gallery opening featuring my high school classmate and artist Paul Campbell and his wife Susan

Several years ago, I was a guest on the Cold War Conversations History Podcast. I visited Ian Sanders and got a tour of Cold War and World War II Manchester, UK. He also treated me to lunch with fish and chips and mushy peas!

On the same trip I caught up with Katharine Sanderson, a writer for Nature magazine I have know for almost 20 years. 

I write often about books but they are not usually popular posts.  But this post about the book and HBO video series Band of Brothers has been read every year since I wrote in 2017.  

In 2016 I wrote a post based on an essay by C.S. Lewis. He says during most of history in most places, men looked at military service with dread.  The American all-volunteer Army is a big exception.  The essay got a few hundred readers in 2016. Not much since, then all of a sudden in December 2023, more than 120 new readers. Who knows why now? 

The most popular post I ever wrote was about Myles B. Caggins getting promoted to Colonel.  He retired early this year, but I still get people reading his story. 

Happy New Year to all. 



Saturday, December 16, 2023

Books of 2023, Part 1

With just two weeks before the year ends, I should finish my usual fifty books in 52 weeks. I am currently at 47, but very close to the end of a book The Lion and the Unicorn a book of essays by George Orwell and The Ionian Mission the 8th book in the Master and Commander series of novels by Patrick O'Brian. I started re-reading the series this year.

I hope to finish Churchill and Orwell by Thomas Ricks before midnight on December 31 for the final book.

In addition to the eight Master and Commander novels, I read two naval histories by Ian Toll.  One is about the birth of the American Navy titled Six Frigates. The other is The Conquering Tide about the war in the Pacific between 1942 and 1944. A total of ten books about war and life at sea.

Six of the books I read were on science including The Dawn of Everything the long book about the origins of life and humanity--with some very tough criticisms of the most popular books in the genre: Sapiens and Guns, Germs and Steel. 

Eight were on politics, including the delightful How to Spot a Fascist by Umberto Eco and Identity by Francis Fukuyama.   I also re-read The Prince for the 11th time and On Tyranny for the 5th time. 

That adds up to 26 books and the three largest categories. Next Post will include poetry, fiction, philosophy and faith.

Monday, December 4, 2023

Austria 1938--The Sudden Betrayal

 


In September I walked through this square in the center of Vienna where Hitler spoke from a balcony announcing the Anschluss (joining) of Austria and Nazi Germany.  This sudden tragedy haunted "The Sound of Music" one of the annual movies of my childhood.  

When Trump was elected, I read many books and articles about how The Holocaust happened. Each country was different.  Each was a tragedy. In some ways, Austria was the worst.

Jews in Austria, Vienna in particular, had very good lives. They lived in a country of long cosmopolitan tradition. So when the Nazis took over on March 11, 1938, the change was sudden, dramatic and terrible.  Teenagers planning to be in college the following year were in ghettos.  Many lost one or both parents to suicide or beatings. Doctors, lawyers, professors, artists, writers and others middle class professionals were broke, shunned by all, their property confiscated, humiliated in public.  

While no one could have believed in 1938 how bad The Holocaust would be, Jews in other countries had experienced years of prejudice and open violence.  German Jews knew that rural white Christians, Catholics and Jews, led the coalition that put Hitler in power, knowing that Jews would suffer and die if he took office.  Once the Nazis invaded Poland, Jews across Europe knew they were in mortal danger. They had months, sometimes years, to adjust to knowing the entire world hated them.

Austrian Jews went from citizens to pariahs overnight. Which is why, I believe, the suicide rate was so high among Austrian Jews. Their world collapsed overnight.  

As an American Jew, I can barely imagine what it felt like to be a Jew when Nazis ruled much of Europe and had millions of sympathizers here in America.  Anyone who thinks it was easy for Jews in America between the World Wars should read People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn

Since 2016, I have experienced an emotional kinship with Jews under the Nazis. When Trump was elected and put the Nazi-enabler Steve Bannon in the White House, I was alarmed. When Trump winked at the Nazis in Charlottesville, I thought America would show the true Nazi basis of "America First."  The Tree of Life Synagogue shooting by a Trump lover is so far the worst violence against Jews.  

From Trump's election to October 7 of this year, I joined more than 300 protests from New York to Washington, but mainly in Philadelphia.  The only protest I have been to since October 7 was the Pro-Israel Rally on the National Mall. 

Beginning on October 7 and since, many organizations I protested with have become open Jew haters.  They have cheered HAMAS. The Jewish babies burned in their cribs, the Jewish women raped and killed, the slaughter of families in their homes is not even tragic, it is an acceptable cost.  

So I can no more ally with those groups than I can join with the Republicans who want to abandon Ukraine and support Christian Nationalism.  

Since October 7, Black Lives Matter, the Democratic Socialists of America, the World Workers Party, all of whom I have joined at protests, are now my enemy. If I am to ally with any feminist organization, I will want to see their condemnation of the barbaric violence against women on October 7. 

HAMAS celebrated their rape and torture and murder on videos they posted on social media. A transcript of one is here

The feeling I had on October 7 hearing BLM, DSA and other progressives is the sudden betrayal with an echo of Anschluss. Anyone who can cheer for HAMAS is the same as a swastika-wearing Nazi to me.  



  


Sunday, November 19, 2023

Nigel's 24th Birthday

 

Nigel turns 24 today

My youngest child and youngest son is Nigel Garrison Gussman. He was born November 19, 1999, in Pittsburgh where he lived until he was six weeks old when we brought him to Lancaster. He was officially adopted a year later.

Nigel lived in Lancaster until 2021 when he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he lives now. His sister Lisa Stanton lives just a few miles away. 

Nigel is named after 1992 Formula 1 World Champion Nigel Mansell and the writer Garrison Keillor, host of Prairie Home Companion and author of several books, and his Mom's favorite pop culture personality.

Like me, Nigel is a fan of Formula 1 racing. We have both followed and cheered for 7-time champion Lewis Hamilton since his rookie year in 2006.  We are both hoping he will get one more championship before he retires at the end of the 2025 season.

Nigel raced bicycles and played basketball when he was in school and coached middle school basketball recently in Minneapolis. 

We won our age groups in Sunbury
At the start in Farmersville
Nigel rode the tandem with me beginning at 5 years old
Nigel was great at cheering. He cheered for Lisa on every lap at 3 years old.
Dressed up for a dinner
Visiting the Major Dick Winters Memorial in Ephrata

Family photo almost a decade ago

Visiting his brother JacariWaddell
5 years old
With favorite stuffed animal Elmo

Happy 24th Birthday Nigel!!!













Not So Supreme: A Conference about the Constitution, the Courts and Justice

Hannah Arendt At the end of the first week in March, I went to a conference at Bard College titled: Between Power and Authority: Arendt on t...