June 2023 – Everydave Life

Regular readers here know that gratefulness is a quality I try to cultivate, and value highly. I once wrote a book about it! Among the top things I’m always thankful for are my lovely wife and her love for me, my reasonably good health and the first responders who keep us safe day in, day out. Recently, one of my friends had these good fortunes reminded him in a rather unpleasant manner. He had a “Sudden cardiac arrest” – a severe heart attack, to most of us. And he’s trying to put a positive on it all, and do some good in the doing which is why I’m going to give him a little plug today.

Colin (Cee Tee) Jackson is a formerly-healthy-as-a-horse Scotsman who loves sports, pets and music. Through the latter I came to know him (online), he is one of two interesting and rather humorous blokes who run the Once Upon a Time in the ’70s website, which looks back at the decade and in particular its music. Many of you might know I also run a daily music blog and in the last year, at times I’ve invited guest writers to weigh in on musical topics. Colin’s written some great pieces, from a Scottish point of view that at times is an interesting contrast to North American ones.

Anyhow, not long back I got a troubling e-mail from his buddy Paul (the co-runner at that website of his) saying Colin was going to be unable to write anything for awhile – he was in hospital after suffering a major event. Soon Colin himself managed to write, in his characteristically chipper nature that he’d wondered where his good luck had been – he’d never won a lottery, his favorite football team never won championships… but he’d found his lifetime’s alotment of luck all in one swoop with the heart attack. (Plus he noted, he’d won a tennis match that day so might end up undefeated this year!)

Life-threatening heart attacks don’t seem like good luck at all, but Colin was quite correct in his assessment. He’s noted that less than 10% of people who have that happen survive it. He did. Thus the luck. Lucky his wife was with him in the car as he began to drive and she noticed something was off with him. Lucky the car didn’t careen out of control with him suddenly immobilized at the wheel. (Easily could have been the Stephen King novel-in-the-making ‘ dead guy’s car runs at store at 100mph. Ramones play as he crushes shoppers…’) Lucky they were near a store. Luckier still, two on-duty police were sitting in that store parking lot, having a lunch break and noticed Colin’s wife’s frantic waving and yelling. They rushed over, began to give him CPR and ran for a defibrillator to shock his heart back to pumping. It worked, and he was rushed to a nearby hospital. The younger cop had only completed his CPR training days earlier. Here in the U.S., there are beyond question, some bad, aggressive poorly trained cops. But they are the minority. Most are very decent and do a thankless and difficult job trying to keep the peace. I salute them.

Nowadays, heart attacks may seem a little routine to many of us. No biggie, and quite easy to work with for medics, but he points out in the book he wrote, No Laughing Matter, that’s far from the case. He initially thought he might be prescribed a few pills and after a day or two rest be sent home. Instead it turned into a month-long ordeal in hospitals with surgery and other at times scary treatments required to finally get him on his feet again.

As I write, Colin is back home but still in some pain from injuries caused by the life-saving CPR and defib. He’s not able to drive not do his job, dog-walking for some time, but he realizes, in typical “glass half full” fashion that he’ll save on gas on the car and docs told him he still can enjoy a beer or two. (Knew there was something about the bud that I liked!) Light-hearted but he’s deadly serious in his understanding of how blessed he is and his whole-hearted compliments and thanks to the cops who saved him and all the medical staff who took good care of him in the hospital are heart-warming. As is his gratefulness for his wife’s dedication as well as their friends who kept driving her to see him in hospital.

I mentioned dog-walking, That’s another message in here. Colin used to be a banker, but he retired and now walks dogs around his neighborhood. That’s his gig. For a 64 year old, he seemed to be in great shape. He exercises daily. He didn’t have chest pains for days leading upto it. But still he was knocked down, dead until a kid cop smashed his ribs and got an electrical paddle onto his chest to ‘Lazarus’ him. A good reminder to us all that keeping in shape is well worth it, but sometimes your number is up… unless you’re very lucky and are surrounded by smart loved ones and capable first responders. A reminder to treat every day like it is special, because it is.

As I said, he wrote a book about it, and I recommend it. Not a Laughing Matter is an interesting read, not too time-consuming (he terms it a “Short read”) and is available as a download or in paperback. Best of all, he’s donating the proceeds to heart-related charities. If you want to check it out, by all means do so . And may your heart be healthy and happy today. And Colin, I say a prayer for you regularly and hope you are back up and able to let your tennis winning percentage dip to .500 before 2024! Cheers my friend.

Some people want to live forever. Some tell me a kid born today will live to 250 with the way science is advancing. I don’t necessarily believe that, nor do I necessarily want to live to 250… especially if my love and my friends didn’t do so. But one thing I would love to live that long for would be to see if the U.S. government ever released the real story about the Roswell UFO crash and the Kennedy assassination. Without ¾ of the pages being blacked out and redacted.

Which leads me to this one. The best new, albeit short, TV series I’ve come across in a few years. White House Plumbers. You like American history? White House Plumbers is for you. You like conspiracy theories? White House Plumbers is for you. You like to laugh until you fall off the chair? Well, you’re probably getting the picture. White House Plumbers is for you. No, sadly, HBO doesn’t have me on their payroll, but that six episode show is that good.

White House Plumbers is the B-side of the great ’70s movie All The President’s Men. It is the story of Watergate, told from the inside. While the ’70s award-winner told of how two hard-nosed reporters and their salty editor broke the news of Watergate to the world, this one tells of how the whole scandal unfolded…and went awry.

It tells the story of the motley crew of people that were rounded up (by who?) to break into the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington, 1972 at the Watergate Hotel. Actually, an office building within the same building, but “to-may-to, to-maw-to”. A scheme that was led by ex-CIA, FBI “spooks” Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. With a handful of Cuban national volunteers pitching in. They tried to break into the Dem’s offices to plant bugs and steal files and help Richard Nixon win re-election as President. The incredible irony of it all was that this wasn’t 2000. It wasn’t Bush V Gore, the presidency coming down to a few re-counted ballots and court cases over “hanging chads”. This was a popular incumbent president, rolling an express train towards re-election. He could have literally hung a “Gone Fishin’” sign on the White House that summer and won. He won the ’72 election by the widest margin of any presidential election. Out of 50 states, only Massachusetts opted for his rival, George McGovern. Yet Nixon, or at least his high ranking minions, chose to try dirty tricks anyway to ensure the victory.

Which leads us to White House Plumbers. Liddy is a diehard, and … enthusiastic… supporter of the Right. A CIA guy who once arrested Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan on drug charges. A family man who loves guns, his family and if push comes to shove, says he’ll take a bullet to the head to protect his Republican prez. And Howard Hunt, an aging family man having money problems and battling his teenaged kids while trying to keep his wife – an ex-spy too – happy. They get enrolled and the story of the show is the story of how the two men try to usurp Democrats plans for the White House.

Hunt, played by an aging Woody Harrelson – not much to say “Cheers” to you with his present self or his role – is intelligent, and at times understandably more worried about his family than his role in the government. But his country clubs keep mentioning how many months behind he is in paying dues. But ex-Mr Jennifer Aniston, Justin Theroux steals the show as G.Gordon Liddy. It this portrayal doesn’t grab him an Emmy, there’s something seriously wrong with the awards. Liddy is an over-the-top, ridiculous but scary clown of a “spook” who comes up with the whole Watergate idea. He is however, royally pissed off that his other plans to help Nixon win, like hiring hookers and paying them in cocaine to seduce prominent Democrats or paying Hippies to wear McGovern shirts and pee on camera on the Congress floors, are ixnayed. He pulls a handgun on Hunt’s eight year old son who was playing Cowboys and Indians, warning “toy guns. A recipe for disaster” before calmly resuming his dinner at the Hunt’s dinner table. He listens to Hitler’s greatest motivational speeches to relax.

Things unravel when they try to break into the Democrat offices; their Cuban locksmith fails to bring his lock-picking tools, someone forgets to remove tape over a door lock which alerts a security guard that something’s amiss, a burglar has a letter from Howard Hunt on him when he’s caught breaking in. It’s all so ridiculous it would be farcical and dumb… if it weren’t real. All that really happened.

And of course, the pair tried to stay loyal even while it was clear White House bigwigs like John Dean were going to hang them out to dry. Before long though, the chain was running upstairs to Nixon’s top advisors and counsels and in time, led to the resignation of the president of the United States when it became clear he was at least aware of the whole folly if not directly involved.

Real events, as was (Spoiler Alert!) Howard Hunt’s wife dying just after she had told him she was leaving him. A plane she was on, talking to a TV reporter, crashed mysteriously coming in for a landing in Chicago. A flotilla of FBI agents arrived at the plane crash before city fire fighters and ambulances did. Again – this really happened. G-men were searching through the rubble before the nearest fire truck could drive there. The show is rife with innuendo that ties the whole event in to the killing of JFK a decade earlier. Did Mrs. Hunt know something about that killing? Her husband’s name had come up time and time again the media among people who didn’t believe Oswald did it, or at least did it on his own.

I’m Canadian. And I was born in the ’60s. Watergate to me was still shocking, and I remember the news talking about it day after day. I literally thought Richard Nixon had put on, like black-and-white striped costumes and a mask and broke into someone’s house. But it was big, and he resigned, and I thought clearly, “Wow! The president of the USA isn’t supposed to be a burglar!” He shouldn’t be. But back then when he was found to be a lying scoundrel who OK’d crimes, if not committed them himself, he did the decent thing and quit. Lately, the world hasn’t been so lucky. It seems to me, to quote Don Henley, that was “the End of the Innocence”. If we can’t trust the president, who the hell can we trust?

White House Plumbers. Truly a mind-blowing, interesting history piece that will leave you laughing all night… but perhaps crying later for what it represented in American history. Catch it if you can.

Month: June 2023

Heart Attack? No Laughing Matter? Colin Would Know

Plumber’s Story Leaks & Will Crack You Up