By Bob Gaydos 

Don Sr., Don Jr. and Bettina, the new Mrs. Trump

RSVP: I regret that I will be unable to attend your wedding because the timing is bad and I have a lot of important stuff to do at home and people would be angry if I took the time away from that stuff.

Love, Dad

       No, he didn’t write that email to his first-born son, named after him. He just said it out loud for the world to hear. At least he didn’t say, “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

        Donald Trump Jr., also known as “Dumb,” from the Dumb and Dumber duo, was married Friday on a small island in the Bahamas. His second marriage. A small, intimate affair. Just 50 family and close friends. Daddy, who once said, “The family is really the foundation of a prosperous and good society,” couldn’t make it. He was, he said, too busy. 

        Trying to wreck the New World Order. There was this annoying war thing in Iran. And, you know, that 30-year-old murder charge to file against Raoul Castro. Maybe even invade Cuba for some reason. And the Congress wasn’t buying his slush fund for the criminals who invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020, trying to overthrow a newly elected government

        Stuff.

        It was simply too much to deal with just for a second marriage of your oldest son. Besides, there wouldn’t really be any voters there to try to impress. And the Bahamas have some kind of silly law about being able to deny entry to anyone convicted of a serious felony. And there was that speaking appearance in the Hudson Valley to support a loyal congressman who was elected by a small group of enthusiastic, well-organized supporters apparently pretending to be Democrats.

       Important stuff.

       Funny coincidence: Don Jr.’s new wife, Bettina Anderson, described as a “sociaIite,” is the daughter of the late Palm Beach banker, Harry Loy Anderson Jr., who had a mutual friend with Trump Senior — Jeffrey Epstein. The banker reportedly socialized with and helped Epstein get major tax breaks for his own special island.

       Talk about synchronicity. It’s too bad Trump had too much important stuff to deal with to attend his son’s wedding. Dad might have had some stories to share with his new daughter-in-law about her father and their fun days with Epstein. 

        Better luck next time.

By Bob Gaydos

There’s a rooster crowing somewhere and a tree groaning in the wind. I know. It sounds like the opening of a poem. It’s not. I have no rhyme. I have no reason. I have frustration, anger, sadness, impatience, embarrassment, outrage, despair, resentment, and, to some degree, utter disgust.

It’s 95 degrees and I’m sitting by the pond, not feeling poetic. Not really energetic. Sorry for the rhyme. It’s sometimes automatic. Helps to dull the static.

See what I mean?

This is going to be short and not at all sweet. You know the drill. Different day, different insult. No need to repeat. Trump sued himself, in effect, over taxes. His returns were leaked along with thousands of others. His hand puppet attorney general “negotiated” a deal. Trump and his family never have to go through a tax audit ever in their lifetimes. Oh, and the criminals who attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2020 will have a $1.7 billion slush fund from which they can try to claim “damages“ for trying to overthrow the government.

Republicans in Congress, of course, think this is all just fine. Cowards toeing the line. (Sorry).

It gives me no great joy to repeat that I wrote a column in 2016 predicting that Trump would be the death of the Republican Party. It’s been proven many times over by now and reinforced on a daily basis with every embarrassing “speech“ he delivers. Each one is testament to his ego and ignorance and increasing mental instability. But the real MAGAS don’t care and the Republican politicians know they’re stuck with it now. No guts, no glory. Same sad story.

I’m coming up on 85 and still glad to be alive. But the America I grew up in and lived through most of my life has been raped and pillaged by Trump and his henchmen and women and, yes, it is depressing. Writing relieves the stressing.

It also nourishes hope. Hope that the Epstein files will soon indict every co-conspirator. That Clarence Thomas will receive the justice due him. That the millions of Americans who don’t bother to vote will realize what their apathy has done. That the mainstream media regains its spine and its voice. That future generations will be able to read the true history of this dark chapter.

There’s more, but you get the drift. Keep fighting. I’ll keep writing. If this were a poem, it would be an elegy, if not a dirge. I will continue to resist the urge.

(Note: The little red marks on my forearms attracted attention and questions, so I thought it was time to explain, again. An afternoon of weeding and pruning left the garden looking more approachable. Me not so much. The pruning included gooseberry bushes, notorious for thorns. I wrote about the not so common berry a couple of years back and it appears to be the appropriate time for a refresher on tasty gooseberries. Enjoy.)

                                      ***
By Bob Gaydos

Almost ripe gooseberries. RJ Photography

  Change is inevitable, they say, so the best course is to try to learn from it. For example, moving from an urban environment, which I lived in for most of my life, to a rural one required learning some new skills.

     Some are more important than others. Pruning and harvesting gooseberry bushes without getting cut up by thorns is one of the more esoteric ones.

     I’m learning.

    “How’d you get those scratches on your arms?”

     “It’s gooseberry season.”

     “Huh?”

     “Thorns.”

     That was a recent conversation. With temperatures in the high 90’s, I went after the spreading bushes while wearing a T-shirt. Good thing the berries are juicy.

        But not just that. They also have history. I’d never heard of gooseberries before becoming countrified and I imagine a few of you haven’t either. That’s because they were banned in America for decades.

      Early in the 20th century, federal and state governments banned the growing of currants and gooseberries to stop the spread of white pine blister rust. Basically, the fungus was killing white pine trees, which were vital to the construction industry in the country.

     It seems the blister rust fungus completes its life cycle only when gooseberries or currants and pine trees are living in close proximity to each other. Rather than cut down all the pine trees to save the gooseberry bushes, the decision was made to stop growing gooseberries to save the pine trees. Hard to argue with that.

      Yet here we are with seven very healthy gooseberry bushes waiting to be harvested. What happened? Are they illegal? Not anymore.

       Science saved the gooseberries as well as the pine trees. By mid-century, cross-breeding programs had been developed using remaining pine trees to develop varieties resistant to the rust. That meant gooseberries could be living safely in the neighborhood with the pine trees.

    The federal ban was lifted in 1966, although some states still have restrictions on cultivating or shipping gooseberries.

      But not ours. 

     In 2003, New York state passed a law to allow commercial growers and home gardeners to legally grow red currants, gooseberries and immune or resistant cultivars of black currants throughout the state. We’re legal.

     For the record, according to info I gleaned from the Cornell Cooperative Extension, the berries I’ll soon be picking are the “Pixwell” variety developed in North Dakota in 1932. They are “easy to propagate, commonly sold three-foot bushes with small thorns … that bear medium-sized fruit that starts out green and turns purple upon ripening.”

       Right. Funny how they kind of just glided through that “small thorns” item.

                           ***

(Note: “The word ‘gooseberry’ comes from the old German name for the berries, Kräuselbeere, which means ‘curled or crimped berries.’ This name became grossularia in Medieval Latin, then groseille in French, and finally ‘gooseberry’ in English. The ‘r’ may have been dropped at some point during the transition.” 

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping stand together as they tour the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China,

By Bob Gaydos

   Donald Trump cut his trip to China short, returning to America with his planeload of billionaires, family and sycophants with no obvious “deals” on the war in Iran or commercial trade while also saying he had not made any commitments on Taiwan one way or the other in his private talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which surely worried residents of that independent island who have received guaranteed U.S. military support for more than seven decades, all of which made most Americans wonder what the heck was the purpose of the surprise trip in the first place other than for Trump to marvel at the number of Chinese restaurants in America and be impressed by China’s great hall (See?) which all took place while the Justice Department back home was talking about indicting Castro — Castro!? — no not that one, the brother, Raul, former Cuban leader who is 94 years old, for his supposed role as defense minister at the time in shooting down two civilian U.S. planes carrying a humanitarian group, over Cuba in 1996, the murder indictment to serve as a warning to the communist country (like China, by the way) that the U.S. might just have to take over control of the energy-starved Caribbean island, apparently because Greenland is too big and well-defended and China is really strong and still lusts for Taiwan and the U.S. might consider not stopping all the oil tankers from Venezuela from making deliveries to Cuba, which depends on those shipments to function, or just taking over the island, if Cuba would accept $100 million in humanitarian aid and allow U.S. economic and security investments in the island, a mixed message delivered to Cuban leaders personally by whomever is now head of the CIA, all of which happened as Rudy Giuliani, yes that Rudy Giuliani, was having “a very serious spiritual experience” while in a coma due to pneumonia, in which he said he was in a line leading to a “trial by St. Peter” but was saved when his friend and former deputy NYC mayor Peter Powers intervened, saying some “very significant words,” thereby apparently saving Rudy’s soul, allowing him to survive to talk about his ”miracle” on his broadcast show, which few people knew existed until now, and which apparently is not housed off the parking lot at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping business in Philadelphia, where Giuliani, now 81, previously was in a coma but didn’t know it … all of which happened in a couple of days and is proof positive that the world is totally out of sync.

   I needed the break.

(I had a moment of clarity last year and realized how my mom in her own subtle way had profoundly influenced my life. The column below was the result of that moment and I am happy to share it again this year.)

By Bob Gaydos

Anne Sokol Gaydos

I generally didn’t post something on Facebook on Mothers Day because my mom has been gone a while now and I always have trouble finding old photos. But as I read posts a few years ago, and looked at photos of other mothers, I started thinking about what Anne Sokol Gaydos, a typical, post-war, stay-at-home mom in Bayonne, N.J., gave me that had a significant influence on my life.

As I scrolled, nothing unusual came to mind until, suddenly, there it was, staring me in the face and sitting in a neat pile on the end chair of the kitchen table back in Bayonne. Each and every morning: The Bayonne Times, The Jersey Journal, The Newark Star-Ledger, The Daily News, The Mirror. The routine morning reading.

As I got older, I added to the pile: The Herald Tribune, The New York Post, The Journal-American.

With this constant immersion in the news of the day, I naturally went to college to study electrical engineering. For one semester at Cornell. Then mom’s influence came into play.

A wise counselor suggested that I major in English. At another college. Something about low grades and no attendance.

Me, Max, Mom and Zack. Mid ‘90s.

Long story short, I did. I went to Adelphi College (now a university) and majored in English. Specifically, writing. After college, I got a job at The Bayonne Facts, a weekly, then worked as a journalist for daily newspapers in Binghamton, Annapolis and Middletown for more than 50 years. Obviously, I still write and I still identify as a journalist.

So, in brief, that’s it. Basically, that stay-at-home mom who taught me how to play 500 rummy also gave me my entire career, which I have thoroughly enjoyed and still do.

Thanks, Mom, happy Mothers Day and happy birthday coming up May 17.

Love, Bob

By Bob Gaydos

      “Thanks, man.”

      Maybe he said “chief.” Or “boss.”

       It wasn’t “pal” or “bud” or “dude.” But it might just as well have been for the casual way it was tossed. At least it wasn’t “ace” or “bro.”

        This column will fall in the category of unsolicited advice (from me) and other stuff (from elsewhere).

        Before I get to the advice, let me say that I’m well aware of the pitfalls surrounding that activity. But I’m also creeping up on 85 years old and have been labeled a curmudgeon by my former newspaper colleagues years ago. I choose to look upon it as a recognition of experience and a license to, if not kill, be truthful and possibly helpful because please don’t waste my time and maybe what I have to say will prove useful to you in the future.

       Dude.

       So I took care of some personal stuff the other day that was long overdue in that category. The young man who helped me was maybe 20. Could’ve been older, but looked young and talked a lot about super heroes and video games. I take those as clues.

        He did a nice job but he saved me some money and cheated himself out of a bigger tip by not offering some extra available services which I would have been happy to receive. When it came time to pay, I handed him the cash and signaled to keep the extra as a tip.

     “Thanks, boss.”

     No. (Here comes the advice.) I’m at least 60 years older than you. I was not insulted or offended by what you said. More surprised than anything else. I am not your “man.” Or “boss.” Or pal, dude, ace, bro, chief or bud. Seriously. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase, “Thank you, sir?” Especially since you work in a service job where it literally pays to be polite to older clients? Age has its limits, but it also merits some recognition, unless you’re a serial killer or delusional politician.

     Since it’s more likely that the parents of young men who talk about super heroes movies will be reading this than they will, maybe you can try to pass on some useful advice to your sons (for some reason, I think the daughters get this) on how to interact with clients who are significantly older than they are. I know it can sometimes be challenging, but somebody’s got to do it. 

    And finally, young man, when it comes to accepting the tip, there’s an old newspaper saying that may be useful: When in doubt, leave it out. Drop the “chief” or “man” or “boss.” You can even drop the “sir.”

    “Thank you” is a complete sentence. It always works and it never gets old.

      Alright, getting the ego in check. That’s it for curmudgeoning, bros.

                              ***

     In the other stuff category,:

— Maybe it’s just me, but: I see that the Senate recently had a rare great idea. It has moved to ban participation in so-called prediction markets by all senators and staff members. The House should also approve, on the rare occasion when it’s actually in session.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: The life of a baseball manager may not be as enjoyable as some may think. May had just begun, but the season had already ended for Boston Red Sox manager, Alex Cora. He’d been fired. But barely had he finished packing his bags when he was offered the job as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. They had fired Rob Thomson, the most successful manager in the team’s history, a couple days after Cora got canned. Cora thought the offer over and immediately decided he’d rather spend the summer with his family in Puerto Rico than in Philadelphia. He turned down the job. The Phillies then looked in-house and offered the job to Don Mattingly. The former Yankee great was bench coach for the Philadelphia team. Mattingly took the job on an interim basis, saying he wasn’t sure he wanted to do it full-time because he’s getting a little old and wasn’t sure he had the energy for it. Some endorsement. He also might have been thinking of the problems he might run into as manager since a lot of decisions on who to play, when to play them and how to make up your batting order often come from the front office. The Phillies general manager and Don’s boss is Preston Mattingly, Don’s son. Hmmm. Wonder how long this arrangement will last.

    — Maybe it’s just me, but: I’ve come to think that not everything that comes from the government is the pure truth. You know all those gold coins you’ve been collecting that were produced by the U.S. mint from pure gold mined in America only? Guaranteed? The New York Times recently ran an investigative piece detailing how the mint for decades has been using gold produced in other countries, some in fact mined by drug cartels. The gold is apparently still pure, thankfully, but the rest of the story is pure BS.

By Bob Gaydos

Firing squads? Really? As in line them up and guess who has the real bullet? Blindfolds? A last cigarette? A special viewing section for special guests?

Lost in news of the war (are we still at war?) and the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting, Trump reinstated the use of firing squads as a means of capital punishment in federal crimes. Because of course he did.

The Justice Department, which is currently seeking the death penalty for 44 defendants, is in a mood to speed up executions. It said the melodramatic method would apply to undocumented immigrants who commit murder and those who murder law-enforcement officers.

The Justice Department also recommended reviving the electric chair and the gas chamber as approved methods of execution, but apparently stopped short of calling for the guillotine. Too French perhaps.

And just to cover all bases, the Justice Department reinstated the use of pentobarbital for lethal injections, a protocol that had been halted by the Biden administration due to concerns expressed by human rights groups over pain and suffering. Not Trump’s concerns.

The Biden administration had paused federal executions because of the unavailability of other, less-cruel if you will, lethal injection drugs. Some drug companies had become reluctant to provide alternative drugs because of the complaints about pentobarbital.

Let me pause here to be clear. One measure of a society, in my opinion, is the manner in which it treats the worst among it. People who commit murder would fall into that category. Currently, 27 states authorize the death penalty, while 23 states and Washington, D.C. have abolished it. Even where it is legal, a relatively small number of executions are actually carried out.

And the enduring argument against the death penalty is that the poorest among us, those least able to afford top caliber legal representation, are the most likely to receive the death penalty. People who can afford expensive lawyers tend to escape with their lives. With Trump, they could probably buy their way out of the firing squad.

In any case, whether one approves or disapproves of the death penalty, the firing squad as the means of execution is pure Trump. A dramatic show. A show of domination. A show where Donald can show up to say, “Fire!”

Five states currently authorize the firing squad to carry out capital punishment: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah. Not a surprise in the bunch.

The expansion of the methods of execution has been denounced by human rights groups and the pope as an attack on human dignity. Ours, not the guy with the blindfold and cigarette.

By Bob Gaydos  

The pond in which the frog plopped.
RJ Photography

 I took the day off yesterday. Social media told me it was May Day and, in honor of workers, there was a nationwide strike called for to protest against the Trump administration‘s economic policies. Indeed, all of its policies. We were supposed to not work and not spend money on anything.

   Full disclosure: I actually had planned to do very little writing, but I was definitely looking forward to going out for lunch. Lunch got canceled, not by me. It kind of threw my whole planned schedule out of whack.

    Then I remembered something else I had seen in my social media feed – a post from my old Times Herald-Record colleague Brendan Coyne about Maurice Sendak, legendary children’s book author.

   Sendak, at age 83, was watching his partner of 50 years slowly dying and told a reporter, “I did not want to die with him.“ He said that’s why he had written his latest and final book. He said he wasn’t sad about growing old, but rather about the people he missed. In fact, he said it was a blessing to grow old and to be able to enjoy books, music, quiet moments and the trees outside his window. He gave the interviewer this bit of advice: “Live your life. Live your life. Live your life.”

    So I took a walk out back. Actually two, one with each dog. I enjoyed the welcome sun and the slight breeze. The dogs ran and a cardinal, blue jay and red-winged blackbird peacefully shared the spilled food together under a bird feeder. Would that humans could do the same, I thought.  A woodpecker hammered away.  A frog plopped back in the pond.

   I came back in the house, gave the dogs and myself some water and sat down to write this. I guess this is what I call taking the day off in retirement. 

   Sendak died a few months after that interview. His book, “Where the Wild Things Are,” was one of my sons’ favorites. They’re in their 30’s now. A friend I miss from long ago used to say, “Isn’t it great to be present in your own life?” Yes, Victor, it is.

  It pays to pay attention. Back to work tomorrow.

  Thanks again, Brendan.

By Bob Gaydos

Trump ( center) is led out of the hotel after the sounds of shooting.

It was fast.

Government officials were still semi-scrambling over their wives to get out of the room, hotshot White House correspondents were still on their knees under tables turning on their phones and the older gentleman with glasses seated up front was still munching on his salad when reports started popping up on social media that the latest assassination attempt on Donald Trump was, like the first one, a fake.

Just as quickly came the response from the MAGA crowd and the too-cool-to-take-sides crowd that people should stop spreading conspiracy theories about such a serious occurrence.

Fine.

I happened to be on my phone when the news was thrust upon me. I was not watching the White House Correspondents Dinner because I didn’t want to listen to a half hour or more of Trump rambling and berating the press while they sat there in their tuxedos and gowns pretending to laugh as he dumped all over them as he has for the last 10 years.

The group lost my respect when it agreed not to have a comedian roasting the president at the dinner, as was the custom, but rather let Trump be the only roaster. That’s the only grounds on which he would agree to be there. Capitulation for the sake of access. No guts, no glory, no sense that this man had indeed made them his enemy many years ago.

That’s fact one on my list of why conspiracy theories sprung up so quickly. It was so convenient.

Then there’s the fact that someone apparently managed to get into the Washington, D.C. Hilton, where the president, vice president and assorted top Cabinet officials were assembled in one room and get off a bunch of gunshots (reportedly ten) before being stopped by the Secret Service. How could this even happen if the first two reported attempts on Trump’s life were legitimate?

And then, back in the safety of the White House and looking none the worse for wear, Trump praises the security detail and then immediately invokes whatever happened as a reason for the construction of his gaudy ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to stand because it will include a secure bunker.

Huh?

The Hilton ballroom holds about 3,000; Trump’s proposed ballroom would hold about 1,000. Also, is this to suggest that all future presidents would never venture out of the White House to events? That’s ridiculous. The fact is that a judge had recently ordered construction of the ballroom stopped because of a lawsuit claiming it was illegal and the only option the judge offered to let the construction continue was that it was deemed to be a necessary secure site. How convenient.

Trump did not talk about the need to tone down the political dialogue. No talk about there being no place for violence in politics. No talk about that because, well that’s the way Trump always talks. Anger, insult, retribution, accusation and blame. It’s his whole game.

And of course, referring back to that first “attempt” in Pennsylvania, in which an innocent bystander was killed, we have the miraculous healing of Trump’s right ear and the virtual disappearance of any mention of the shooter, motive, etc. Gone with the wind.

Pack all this up with Trump’s addiction to lying, his background in television and his love for theater and staged events, creation of conspiracy theories about what happened in Washington was, in my opinion, inevitable.

Now, as for the facts. The so-called “manifesto” of the shooter, which was reportedly released by two unidentified law-enforcement officials not authorized to do so, says he was surprised that no one bothered to check his baggage when he checked into the Hilton the day before the scheduled event with his guns and knives. Seems like a flaw in the security arrangement.

Also, he managed to get within one floor of the ballroom before being stopped by security, but not before firing about 10 shots. The manifesto suggests the accused shooter was aware security officers will be wearing bulletproof vests and hoped they worked. The one person who was shot was indeed wearing such a vest. It worked.

These could easily be interpreted as failures of security or part of a script to save a ballroom.

One part I’m sure was not in any script was Norah O’Donnell on “60 minutes” Sunday night reading from the so-called manifesto in which the alleged shooter, in explaining his actions, said he was no longer willing ”to let a pedophile, rapist and traitor coat my hands with his crimes.”

O’Donnell asked Trump what he thought about that. Predictably, he called her “horrible people” for reading it and said, “I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anyone. I’m not a pedophile.” To which she replied, “Oh, do you think he was referring to you?“

Since Trump’s buddy now owns CBS, Nora’s job may well be on the line for that little bit of legitimate journalism. But let the White House Correspondents Association take note.

By Bob Gaydos

Southern Poverty Law Center literature.
.

I wrote a check to renew my membership in the Southern Poverty Law Center this morning. Thanks, Trump.

The renewal notice had gotten lost in a pile of bills to be paid. I would’ve eventually gotten to it, but the Justice Department’s surprise notice to go after the respected civil rights/human rights group reminded me that I had been remiss.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the Justice Department’s action either. Their job under Trump is to go after Trump’s perceived enemies and Pam Bondi got fired as attorney general for failing to do so. The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, Trump’s personal attorney, is apparently smart enough to try not to repeat this mistake.

And as far as Trump’s enemies go, the non-profit SPLC would be high on that list. Not only does it fight all his illegal actions in court, but it compiles an annual list of hate groups in the country, state by state, county by county. These are Trump’s people. His foot soldiers. His boots on the ground in your hometown.

The 11-count federal indictment returned by a grand jury in Alabama (surprise!) against the SPLC revolves around its now-disbanded program of using paid informants from 2014 to 2023 to provide what the group called “credible intelligence“ about such white supremacist groups as the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations and the National Socialist Movement. The SPLC says it shared its information with law-enforcement agencies to contribute to the safety of law-abiding citizens.

But the Justice Department alleges that the SPLC committed fraud because it misled its donors by giving more than $3 million to the leadership of these violent groups and helping to manufacture the extremism it said it was dismantling. It said some of the money was used by members of the extremist groups to carry out other crimes, but no specific examples were listed in the court papers. That’s kind of par for the course with Trump, allegations but no specifics.

I don’t know, the SPLC seemed to do a pretty good job of dismantling the Ku Klux Klan. And the use of paid informants, of course, has been common practice for the FBI and CIA. It’s dangerous work. I think most people who contribute to the SPLC would not be surprised that it used paid informants. In fact, I would have been surprised otherwise. And it’s kind of counterproductive to announce publicly that you’re doing it.

Bryan Fair, interim CEO of the SPLC, said the allegations are “nakedly political“ and just part of Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department against his critics. I agree. I also find it deeply troubling that, instead of going after hate groups, the Justice Department is going after the very people who are fighting to get rid of them.

And just as an aside, I also noticed that Kash Patel, the out of his league FBI director who is facing public criticism for allegedly drinking on the job, not really knowing what he’s doing and flying around the country with his girlfriend on a government jet, stood quietly by Blanche’s side when he announced the indictment. No words. Maybe Kash doesn’t know about using paid informants. Or maybe he just had a hangover.

Anyway, I’m not buying the whole story and I’m still waiting for Blanche to release all the Epstein files.