Ian arrived in the area yesterday. Just a bit of wind and hardly any rain so far. Guess it was raining harder west of us. Probably shouldn’t complain.

People in FL are still trying to comprehend what happened to them. Sanibel Island is decimated and cut off from civilization, parts of Fort Myers Beach have been reduced to piles of matchsticks. There’s video of a normal looking street at the beginning of the storm and then sometime later when the 15-FOOT STORM SURGE arrived– at sea level.

Seeing something like this, one might figure folks down there have made peace with playing the percentages, figuring it won’t happen where they are, intent on enjoying the sand and surf and lifestyle while a near-Category 5 isn’t wreaking havoc on all that’s been built in a place where it probably shouldn’t have been built.

When the freakish thing happens, there’s not much to do except sift through the wreckage and decide whether to stay or to say “the hell with this.”

I was watching an NCAAF matchup between San Diego State and Boise State, and was thinking I wouldn’t last one play. I’d probably be seriously injured or killed if I got hit one time by any defensive player. It’s vicious, it’s one high-speed collision after another.

The SDS QB left the game after a helmet-to-helmet hit that wasn’t called. Not sure what the refs were looking at. I could see the head jolt as plain as day. Apparently, it wasn’t flagrant enough, or the camera angle was inconclusive, not enough to send the defensive player to an early shower—even though he’s probably thinking he got away with one and the quarterback never returned to the game.

There’s a very fine line between unavoidable and intentional. The refs have their hands full.

So, what happens if Aaron Judge breaks Roger Maris’s record? Technically, he would break Maris’s record and will set a new American League record. Actually, he will set a new Major League record, if he’s clean. Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa are out of this conversation. They all have the permanent asterisk next to their bogus hauls, and rightfully so.

I hope Judge doesn’t turn out to be just the next cheater who found a way to take HGH use to another level. I hope he’s just a naturally big man, a rare specimen perfectly capable of hitting all those round trippers on his own.

Tua Tagovailoa takes a merciless hit from a defensive lineman, and immediately manifests neurological trauma. The “war” comes to a screeching halt, the stadium grows quiet, and players, seemingly on cue, gather together and keep vigil as their gladiator hero is gingerly immoblilized and strapped to a gurney.

The Cincy fans offer polite applause in relief and appreciation, despite witnessing what they may have privately hoped they’d see—a key opposing player getting obliterated on the field. Football, or whatever this American version amounts to, is nothing but a basket of contradictions.

Fans in the stands and at home got to witness, perhaps, the end of a promising career before it had a chance to really get started. How much physical abuse, how many hits to the head can even a well-conditioned athlete safely(!) take?

I wonder if Teddy Bridgewater was thinking, “Hey, it comes with the territory. Let’s play ball,” or, if only briefly, it was more like, “Oh shit.”  

Hurricane Ian is a reminder of how quickly things can be taken away. Comprehension of what has been lost in Florida will take some time. Right now it’s just empty gazes. Folks must simply be dumbfounded, speechless.

Devastation is an overused word, but it fits here. The devastation is physical and emotional. All the things that people work for and spend their money on and put stock in are broken or destroyed. What we’re seeing before our eyes is the loss of so much that, in many cases, will not be restored. Large swaths of real estate will simply lay in ruin, probably for years, if not forever. Some will rebuild, but many others will part with their attraction to the sea and move inland.

What are the takeaways here? Is anyone thinking that climate change might have made things worse? Wrong place at the wrong time? The earth gives and takes away? The important thing is we’re still alive? Maybe some are wishing they were taken along with their possessions.

Starting over must be a daunting prospect. Once again we are all called upon to offer a hand in any way we can. Hopefully the insurance companies will come through for folks. Time for those money-making behemoths to put their money where their mouths so often are.

What’s somehow sad is that I can get caught up, emotionally involved, in a TV show much easier than I can real life. Well drawn characters, interesting story lines, and whole seasons of episodes go by too quickly. I guess I’ve always been amazed how that works—we can get caught up in make believe way easier than we can the life we are actually living on this earth.

I suppose it’s the power of story, it’s the ability of writers and producers and directors and actors being able to cut to the chase, to distill, to evoke recognition and resonance and emotion. They are remarkable and powerful media—TV and movies.

Escapism, yes. But sometimes a mirror reflecting our humanity, or inhumanity. We relate to the struggles, celebrate the victories, and are perhaps inspired or comforted along the way. Maybe even somehow changed, affected by what we’ve seen and heard to the point of vowing to live differently.

That might be giving too much credit to the entertainment industry. But stories well told leave their mark.

Ever notice how people who have dangerous jobs like to play up that danger in PSAs? It sometimes seems like a not-so-subtle form of bragging, like they enjoy letting people know how dangerous their work is as they prey on peoples’ fears, hyping worst case scenarios and feasting on peoples’ fixation on Doomsday.

That’s probably overstated, but the other day’s power company demonstration at the county fair gave me that feeling. The presenter obviously knew his stuff, but the content bordered on fear mongering and unnecessary drama, a presentation of a perfect storm of untenable situations. I laughed at one point, and not because I have a perverse sense of humor. It just struck me as being a bit over the top, sounding unnecessarily dire, like the old skit on Prairie Home Companion, the ad for Bebop Rebop Rhubarb Pie.

In the end, of course, it’s all good and helpful information that I hope never has to be retrieved and put into practice.

Furries. Baby killers, human trafficking and other abominations. And so much more. All spun from the same cloth, the broken and damaged offspring of fear and gullibility and ignorance.

It can’t really come as a surprise that this country is in the shape it’s in because people believe the swill they want to believe, even if there’s a tiny voice shouting, “You should know better!”

The internet is a remarkable, indispensable tool, but of course it was only a matter of time before it became an effective weapon and platform for every deprived impulse and warped worldview.

Rachel Maddow was particularly on point the other night, even more so than she regularly is. She was focused on the events in Italy, tying current election results there to what transpired there a hundred years ago, with Benito Mussolini’s arrival and his surprisingly speedy and largely bloodless takeover of the government.

The upshot is that the recently elected far right candidate there is a member of the same party started by Mussolini sympathizers after his unceremonious death and public humiliation, which unfolded in that order. The same sentiments of a far-right authoritarian have reemerged and won the day in Italy, reported Maddow.

Then Rachel went on to speak to her audience and hopefully maybe a few others who just happened to tune in in time to hear her offer an impassioned, insightful commentary on the connection with and reality of what we see happening right now in this country. Beware, she says, of anyone who wants to take away your ability to vote, anyone who minimizes the importance of free and fair elections, because these people want to rule without your having a say. They don’t care about you, they don’t want to work for you. They just want the power.

Which isn’t exactly the way she said it—her version was much more succinct and thought-provoking, and powerful in its own right.

Maddow also interviewed a writer who offered another attention-getting observation: the dysfunction in our current political parties is asymmetrical. With few exceptions, there is no corresponding dalliance with off-the-wall extremism among Democrats. The Republicans largely own and have owned—and expediently embraced—that distinction for the past 70 years.

History doesn’t repeat, as another writer recently reminded, but it does rhyme. It remains to be seen whether or not we as a nation appreciate and grasp the implications of not keeping these ever-present threats at bay. They’re not exactly unprecedented.

Went to a local fair the other day, a big, well-established event that’s been around for over a century and a half. We’ve been to previous editions of it and in some ways it’s always the same itinerary—searching out some good food, maybe trying something new, perusing the exhibition buildings, avoiding the myriad hawkers of over-priced wares, perhaps running into someone you know. In some ways, it has the look and feel of a circus, but in general, it’s just taking in the sights and sounds and aromas.

In one of the buildings, there was the inevitable display that could be entitled “A Trip Down Memory Lane,” the kind of stuff one can find hanging on the walls in Cracker Barrel, only the real things, not manufactured facsimiles. Seeing this stuff always gets me thinking about why it is that we need such displays, or why they often conjure such warm and fuzzy feelings.

Yes, it’s about nostalgia, a longing for times that, from our current perspective, seemed simpler and somehow better. I’ll admit to liking that feeling, wanting to linger in it. I guess it’s one of the charms of such an event— it fills the senses, sparks the child in us. We get to reminisce and indulge our appetites, we ooh and ahh at the talents of local artists and craftspeople of all ages, marvel at the size and majesty of a work horse, or simply gaze at the more pedestrian blue ribbon-worthy plate of zucchini and artful arrangements of zinnias.

We walked a lot, eventually had our fill of the crowd and the noise, and will probably be back next year.