The Big Super Bowl Game

 

 "Football combines two of the worst things in American life.  It is violence punctuated by committee meetings"   -George Will

 

How old am I?  I am "I remember when people talked about The Super Bowl, they talked about the game and not the commercials or the Half Time Show" old.

Believe it or not, I remember the first Super Bowl, which saw The Kansas City Chiefs playing the Green Bay Packers.  The game was on two different networks, NBC (which only showed that Communist League, The AFL) and CBS (which broadcasted the only sanctified league, The NFL).

This is important.  The game was broadcasted "in color" because that was the latest in modern technology. It is important because we were one of the first homes in Beverly Hills (the subdivision in Marietta, Georgia-not the fancy city in California)to have a color TV set.   It was one of the few times (actually, it was the only time) when the Manis family was an early adopter of any new technology.

If memory serves me right, it was not called "The Super Bowl" back then.  It was called "Watch The Green Bay Packers Kick The Tail Ends Of The Other Stupid League" or something like that.  I was in the second grade, so give me a break. 

The first Super Bowl game was important because of this picture of Chief quarterback Len Dawson smoking a heater and drinking a Fresca at the end of the game.  Fresca was considered an energy drink in 1967.

Green Bay was in "The Big Game" again the following year, playing the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders were led by a guy named Darryl Harmonica or Lamonica or something.  The Packers were led by Bart Starr, who I saw one time at Town Center Mall. I kept saying, "BART STARR! BART STARR!" like Scooby-Doo said when he met Don Knotts. (Trust me, this was a hilarious episode.)  I was an adult by this time, and my wife kept hiding her face for some reason. But, Bart looked at me and that's all that matters. 

The following season was the pivotal Super Bowl. The New York Jets, whose quarterback was a known hippie named Joe Namath, beat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts. There was only one person in my fourth-grade class who thought the Jets would win, and it was a boy named Craig, who reminded everyone in East Cobb about this for the next fifty years. 

One fact about the Big Game that gets lost in the commotion is that it used to occur in mid-January. After it was over,  you would have to watch either pro basketball or college basketball or (take this cup from me, Lord) hockey for your sports entertainment. Since I'm from the South, I've never really understood hockey until they began to fight. I'm too short to understand basketball.

The Super Bowl began to grow into the most important date on the calendar, right after Christmas.  I've always considered it the actual New Year's Day. 

The date of The Super Bowl began to push forwards in January.  I thought it was terrible that it happened on the first Sunday in February.  Now it is the second Sunday in February. Mark my words, the Super Bowl will be soon held on the first Sunday of March.  

Way back in the early Super Bowl days, the Half-Time shows were really lame. High School Bands.  There were several years in which a group called "Up With People" sang at the Half-Time Show, which was called "Half-Time."

Now it is known as THE PEPSI SUPER BOWL LVI HALFTIME SHOW BECAUSE COCA-COLA SUCKS FEATURING FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT LIKE SNOOP DOG AND EMINEM.

For some reason, I don't think the Halftime show became a big deal until Michael Jackson did it.  Then each Super Bowl tried to outdo the last Super Bowl, culminating with a cameo appearance of Janet Jackson's right bosom due to a wardrobe malfunction.

After that, The Super Bowl had a series of Dad rockers like Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, and Tom Petty. Their bosoms, thankfully, never made any appearances.

 When people forgot about the Janet incident, The Super Bowl began to update their half-time shows.  One year, they had the group Oasis because you think of Oasis when you think of football.

This year it is the first time it will be an all Rap artist half-time show.  I'm looking forward to it because I can review all of the commercials with my wife when it is going on.

I want to say it was 1984 when commercials became a big deal at The Super Bowl.  Now the ads are about as big as the game.     

Now get this:  some companies are running "trailers" (what we in the South call "previews" for their commercials to generate excitement over their Super Bowl commercials.  Pretty soon, they will run a trailers of the trailers, and the goobs on TV will talk about which company has the best trailer.

 I haven't read what the theme of the commercials will be this year.  I remember one year the theme was "men are bad," and another year it was "horses fart." 

I don't know if people are doing Super Bowl parties this year.  I heard Len Dawson is having one. He's serving Fresca.

Hey, Hey, My, My

 

Raise your hands if when you saw Neil Young trending on Twitter, you thought he had gone to that great concert hall in the sky.

We've been losing famous people by the droves, like Betty White who sang "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad".  Check that.  It was Meatloaf who sang that song and he died too.  I mainly use Twitter as a high tech obit page.

But ol' Neil wasn't gone and not forgotten. Instead, he just gave an ultimatum to Spotify (a music streaming service for all of you born during the Eisenhower administration) that if they want to keep his catalog on their platform, they would have to dump Joe Rogan.

Rogan is a comedian who was the fifth banana on the great sitcom "News Radio," which led to him being the host of another program, "Fear Factor," which led him to be an analyst/fighter in MMA. He has a popular podcast called "The Joe Rogan Experience".

I can understand why it is popular. Rogan interviews one guest for two and a half to three hours.  He interviews famous people and not-so-famous people. He asks questions, lets them answer, and engages in something (hold on to your hats) called dialogue.  Crazy, isn't it?

Rogan has some controversial opinions. For example, he supports using LSD, mushrooms, and DMT like some old hippie to expand your consciousness.  Nobody has ever batted an eye about this.

It was only about Covid-19, that he began to get really controversial. 

Here is what Jill Fillpovic posted on the CNN website about Rogan. I have added some comments in Bold.

"Rogan and guests identified as experts have said that vaccination isn't necessary for the young and healthy (they are) [They are now]; that ivermectin is an effective treatment for Covid (it isn't [It hasn't been "proven" to be effective which is different from saying "it isn't" and using it in large doses poses serious potential health risks Taking any drug in large doses poses serious potential health risks that's why there's a recommend dosage]); and that people who have Covid face health risks from getting vaccinated (they don't).{But they should really discuss it with their doctor and not a writer or comedian]"

Get ready to clutch your pearls because it gets worse.

 

"Rogan's misinformation campaign, which reaches millions of listeners, has been so dangerous that hundreds of public health officials have signed an open letter asking Spotify to intervene."

The same public health officials apparently don't think using LSD to enhance your consciousness is a big enough deal to write an open letter to Spotify.

But don't worry guys, Neil is here to help out. He wrote "I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform," he wrote. "They can have Rogan or Young. Not both."  I'm not sure why they can't have both.  It is like telling Dunder Mifflin they can sell paper to the school board but not Blue Cross.

 

 Ms Fillpovic continues, "If Spotify chooses Rogan over Young, hopefully Young's fans -- like me -- will take a stand along with him. That may mean buying Young's albums, and it certainly means letting Spotify know that you're dissatisfied with their decision. And even if Neil Young isn't in your typical Spotify rotation, this is a good moment to recognize the power artists wield, and to support those who use their platforms for good -- even if you never listen to Young's albums. "

 

Well.  For one thing, it wasn't a matter of Spotify picking or choosing. It was Neil.  It was Neil voting with his feet.  Neil de-platformed Spotify, not the other way around. 

That's Neil's choice and bully for him.  He posted on his website, "I support free speech.  I have never been in favor of censorship. Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information. I am happy and proud to stand in solidarity with the front-line health care workers who risk their lives every day to help others.

 

Exactly how much Neil's music supports Spotify is open to question.

 

He also has complained in the past about the sound of his music on Spotify. He says it is "do-do" or words to that effect.  Joe Rogan may have provided Neil a convenient way to bolt from Spotify and still sound highly principled.

Now about Spotify.  I have never been able to get Spotify to work on my PC or my phone. The main reason for this is I am a moron.

 

Here's the important thing though. There is basically one way to listen to Joe Rogan and that is to get Spotify.  There are many ways to hear Neil Young.  So this is a way to censor or at the very least, marginalize Joe Rogan.

 

I must admit I smiled at Ms Fillpovic's hoping the Neil's fans will "stand with him" and buy more of his records.  It's probably better if you just send a check to Neil instead of buying "Trans".  

 

 

 

But I can like Neil Young without liking every opinion and if he wants to limit his exposure to a particular audience, more power to him.

I also can like Joe Rogan without agreeing with every opinion (He voted for Bernie Sanders, gah.)  I think I'm smart of enough to make up my own mind about Covid without the help of Neil, Joni Mitchell,  Nils Lofgren, Jill Fillpovic, and Joe Rogan  I am "up-to-date"  (three vaccinations) and we just bought some N95 masks for a trip we are taking.

Don't worry if I can't get my Spotify to work.  I have an 8 tract player around here somewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

One Year In

 

 

 It may have escaped your notice, but we are officially one year into the administration of President Biden.

Back when I was coming along, people used to speak with reverence about "The President," no matter who it was and no matter if they agreed with him or not.

We had books by Theodore White called "Making Of The President..." and it would go through the campaign and make you realize that, yes, only special men become President. Men with the charisma of Kennedy. Men with the legislative insight of Johnson. Men with the experience of Nixon

It was like God reached down and touched the man, and he was anointed.   That explains Jimmy Carter.

Hugh Sidey covered the Presidents, from Ike to Bill, and there was no silliness from him. No, you didn't get Dumb Ol Jock Jerry from Hugh. Instead, he presented Gerald Ford: Yale Law Graduate, Warren Report Commissioner, House Minority Leader, and a serious man of substance.

You don't get that now because, honestly, do you think any of these guys were anointed after the past thirty-some-odd years?

It is easy to forget that in the early days of President Biden's administration, the news media and popular culture went ga-ga with excitement.

The News Media and Popular Culture always do this when a Democrat takes over.  I remember when Obama became President, people were writing songs for children to sing in school about how great it is that Obama came out of nowhere to lead us. 

Last year at this time, journalist John Heilemann compared President Biden to Lincoln. Rachel Maddow talked about how many Kleenexes she used (half a box) when Biden was inaugurated.   Chris Wallace said Biden's inaugural speech was the best he had ever heard.   

Please quote a line from it, Chris.

Now Biden's poll numbers are in the tank, the low thirties.  There are numerous reasons for this. 

The first is the most obvious one.  Biden forgot or ignored the reason why he was elected: he was not Trump.  The daily Trump Circus had simply worn the country out.  Acting like a brat might work in the developer business, but it gets real old fast coming from the Leader of the Free World.  Journalist Matt Taibbi said, "Against Trump, the standard of “technically alive” worked for a lot of voters." 

Biden was "technically alive".

Instead, Biden came in acting like he won a landslide victory and had an overwhelming majority in Congress.  He believed all the horsefeathers that he could push through Bernie Sanders' agenda. The problem was the only people in favor of Bernie's agenda were Bernie and his fellow travelers.

Secondly, people are seeing the real Joe Biden.  He is an old man and he acts like it.  Sentences start, and sometimes they don't finish.  He gets angry for no reason.  He shouts.  He's stubborn and not in a good way.

In one way, he is like President Orange in that he never admits to a mistake and then continues to double down, making the error even worse. Case in point:  Afghanistan. 

Biden's third problem is the economy.

Bill Maher spent a good bit of airtime saying the economy is actually pretty good.  The problem is inflation.  Things cost more now than they did last year.  Presidents always get tagged when this happens and it doesn't matter if there is a (D) or (R) by the name.  Biden's first response was, "What inflation?"  Then it was, "Oh, there is inflation, but it is transitory, which for all you Kennestate State graduates means temporary." Then it was, "Well, Jill's friend Madge says ground round is five dollars a pound. We have a problem with Big Meat in this country."

Add to that "the supply chain" crisis.  The same song and dance.  No big deal. Adjust your expectations. Trump.  

And, of course, Covid.

 
Biden said he was going to believe "Science". This is unlike the other guy who probably never passed a science test in school without buying the answers.

Biden wore a mask, because of "Science".  Biden urged everybody to get the vaccine and tried to "mandate" vaccinations using the greatest power known to man: bureaucracy. He did this because of "Science".

Well, "Science" is now saying cloth masks don't do anything except make the wearer feel like they are doing something. You should really wear a N95 mask which are meant for use a single time. But don't worry, the first one is on the house, says the President. 

"Science" is now saying vaccinations won't prevent you from contracting Covid. It prevents  you from dying of Covid.  Maybe. 

I can't figure out why people don't want to get vaccinated. I am  "up-to-date" with my vaccinations, thank you very much. But when up-to-date people come down with Covid, you will have a problem getting unvaccinated people to get vaccinated. 

We were supposed to be out of the pandemic because we now have a better President. That hasn't happened.

On top of all of this, people still seem to be at each other's throats. Biden promised to "bring people together".  Alarms should ring when a politician promises this. Nixon promised to "bring us together" fifty years ago.  It didn't happen then and it won't happen now.

Can Biden turn it around?   It would take a special person.  I don't think Biden is special. 

 

 

Glory, Glory

 

Things have changed.

Back in the old days (before November 2021), you could almost set your watch to how a team (baseball, basketball, football, hockey, tiddlywinks) based in Georgia would lose a championship game.

Let's review.

The Braves went worst to first and then lost to The Minnesota Twins in the World Series because the second baseman deked out Lonnie Smith.

Then, they couldn't even beat a team from Canada in the next year.

The Hawks would make the playoffs and would have to play the Boston Celtics that Larry Bird led. Every dang time.

The Falcons finally go to the Super Bowl. One of their star players was out catting around and got arrested for solicitation of a prostitute. On the night before The Super Bowl. Dude, what were you thinking?

As long as I'm talking about the Falcons, they led the satanic New England Patriots in the Super Bowl in 2017 by 25 points, going into the fourth quarter. They lost.

The University of Georgia Bulldogs? Now, they have invented new ways to mess up.  Clay Travis coined a term for it. He called it "To Georgia." He said you could always on Georgia to Georgia an important game (SEC championship, etc).

 You could always count on Georgia to Georgia in a game against Alabama.

One year, the first time Nick Satan Saban led The Crimson Tide into Athens to face the Dawgs, Georgia decided to wear their Black jerseys instead of their Red ones. It was going to be a "blackout"  and would mess with Alabama's head. It didn't. Alabama won big.

The Dawgs saw the light and fired Coach Mark Richt.   He was a good coach, a nice guy, and he won a lot of games but could not beat Alabama.  So they went out and hired Kirby Smart, an alumnus who was also an assistant coach to Nick Satan Saban.

It was Georgia versus Alabama one year for the FBS Championship.  The Alabama quarterback was floundering, Satan Saban changed quarterbacks after halftime. He put in a freshman with the first name of Tua.  Alabama won on the last play of the game.

Another year, Georgia played Alabama for the SEC Championship. Tua started and went down with an injury. He was replaced by the quarterback he replaced the year before, Jalen Hurts.  Hurts took over the control of the game and Alabama won again.

We know what happened in December.  Georgia comes in undefeated with the best defense in college football and Alabama scores two hundred points against them.  (They didn't really, but it seemed like it.)

The Lord works in mysterious ways.  Lo and behold, Georgia was playing Alabama again for the Championship, like it was predestined.

Everybody was uneasy. The Alabama quarterback won The Heisman Trophy as a freshman. He was cool in the pocket and could flat throw the ball.  Will Anderson, an Alabama linebacker, is described as "a generational player" by people who know such things.

Georgia's quarterback was Stetson Bennett IV, which sounds like he went to high school with Biff and Buffy at Snooty High.

I'm not going to recap the game. I'm not going to criticize the referees just because it seemed that Alabama got the breaks and Georgia didn't. 

I'm just going to thank the Lord that Bryce Young either overthrew and underthrew a pass and Kelee Ringo intercepted it and ran it back 70 yards to seal the win for Georgia and win the Championship.

I've always said that if there is anything worse than Alabama winning, it is Alabama losing.  There was some whining,but for the most part the Alabama fans were gracious. You can't win them all. I guess you can feel that way because as long as Satan Saban is around, they have a good chance of winning it all again.

It is weird. The Braves won the World Series and The Dawgs won the NCAA championship within two months. 

Now comes they hard part. Both of them have to do it again next season.

Yellowstone

 

 

The biggest show on television right now is "Yellowstone"

In 2021. "Yellowstone" finished first in broadcast, cable, and premium viewership in the 18-49  age demographic.  At a recent party I went to, I found "Yellowstone" is number one in the Old Fart demographic (men over 60 years in age).

"Yellowstone" is a modern-day western that takes place in modern-day Montana. The story revolves around the Dutton family. Here is a brief description of the family.

John Dutton:  He is the head of the family and is played by Kevin Costner. He owns Yellowstone,  the largest ranch in Montana, and everyone hates him because he is rich.  He is a widow and sleeps with the governor, who is a handsome middle-aged woman. (In real life, the governor of Montana is Greg Gianforte, Gianforte once body slammed a reporter to the ground.)  Costner speaks in a low voice, sort of like he is a Cowboy Batman.  However, he is a Tony Soprano in blue jeans

 

Kayce Dutton:  John's youngest son who was a Navy Seal and has no job except he "trains" horses.  He is married to a Hot Indigenous Woman.  They have an annoying son (Tate) who is always falling into rivers and picking fights with rattlesnakes. Kayce doesn't get along with John.  Kayce kills about four hundred people in the first four episodes.  However, most of them needed killing.

Jamie Dutton:  John's adopted son who is considered soft because he has read a book.   He is a lawyer whose highest ambition is to be the Attorney General of Montana which is sort of like wanting to become the assistant night manager at Wal-Mart.

Beth Dutton:  She is the worst person in the family. In fact, she is the worst person in Montana  She drinks like a sailor on leave. She says really,really bad words. She smokes like a chimney. When Beth isn't drinking, cussing, or smoking, you can usually find her naked. She likes getting "nekkid", as Lewis Grizzard used to call it, because Beth somehow accidentally killed her mother. Beth deals with this by taking baths outside and letting all of the ranch hands see her nude body. In fact, we all see a lot of Beth because they show more on "Yellowstone" than on other Basic Cable shows.   You see her hiney as she's walking back to the house. I'm not sure if it was a stunt hiney or not. But it was glorious.  They also show all of her kabooms, including the Cheese-Its.

Rip Wheeler:  He is John Dutton's right-hand man at the ranch. He's not adopted like Jamie. When Rip was thirteen, he killed his low-down, good-fer-nothing pig farmer of a dad with a frying pan and John Dutton thought this is exactly what we need at the ranch. He also has an on-again off- again relationship with Beth, even though she treats him like dirt. When she gives him her lust eating a saltine cracker look, he is putty in her hands.

Chief Thomas Rainwater:  A Harvard-educated Chief of the Broken Rock Indian Reservation who acts like he is The President of Indigenous People.  He wants everything John Dutton has because Dutton's ancestors took it from Ranwater's ancestors and that was wrong.  The fact he would become very wealthy is besides the point.

Dan Jenkins:  One of the hoody-do people from California that wants to be super-duper rich like John Dutton.  This gets on John's bad side and he sends his cowboys to fake hang him.

Jimmy Hurdstrom:  He's a mouth breathing ex-con who Rip decides would be a pretty good cowboy except he's not the brightest brightest bull in the herd. Jimmy is always doing something stupid, like falling off his horse at inopportune times like when there is a bear four feet from him.

Walker:  He's not a Texas ranger, but just another ex-con with a guitar and a song.  He's played by Ryan Bingham, who has won an Oscar. Really. He won it for the song "Weary Kind". His genre is Americana, which is country music that went a community college.  He challenges Rip for the affections of Beth which isn't very hard to do when she isn't in one of her awful moods.

Various Cowpokes:  The ranch has several ranch hands. There's one who sort of looks like Sam Elliot's stand-in who takes terminated ranch hands to the train depot.  You do not want to go to the train depot. There's a girl ranch hand who used to be a stripper but she's really good with horses, so the kid just needs a few breaks.   There are others, but mainly they are there to drink, play poker, and to ride horses. 

We have recently finished season one and we are right in the middle of season two.  Things are a mess at the ranch. Kayce's wife has become a professor at Montana State University where she teaches a History survey course about how the white man sucks.

John has an ulcer. John demotes Rip and places Kaycee as the boss man. Chief Rainwater and Jenkins go into business together.  Someone kills a bunch of cows. John selects the next Attorney General of Montana. We find out that Beth wears a bra. Sometimes.

My wife said it best. "Yellowstone" is "like " Dallas" with a splash of "The Sopranos".

Scorecard:

Violence:  Lots and some of it is gross.

Sex and Nudity:  Yep

Cussing: Lots and Lots.

Any Funny Cussing?:  Yes, there is a line about a monkey and a football

Soundtrack:  The soundtrack is great. They play Chris Stapleton, The SteelDrivers, and The Turnpike Troubadours.

Bottom Line:  It is a very good show despite the violence, nudity, and cussing. At least it is not a "Real Housewife" reality show.  Hopefully, this show can take reality programs to the train depot.

2021: A Variant Of 2020

 

Remember last year at this time when we couldn't wait for 2021?

Putting on my history major hat, I can safely assert that historians in the future will say the year 2020 "really sucked" and  2021 "sucked too but not as much."

We started the year with a vaccine that promised to almost, kinda, sorta, maybe protect us from the dreaded COVID-19 disease. Of course, everybody was tired of COVID-19, except maybe Dr. Anthony Fauci because he got on TV a lot, and all of the whoody-do TV talking heads thought he was dreamy.

My favorite moment in the early rollout of the vaccine was when Saint Anthony explained that we might need to wear two masks instead of one even if we were vaccinated.  

My question: How about we wear three masks and triple our protection?

We never got to that point because it was hard enough to convince many people to wear one mask, much less two. Lord, don't talk about how hard it was getting some to get the vaccine.

But don't complain about anti-vaxxers when Dr. Smarty Pants is running around talking about wearing two masks, and the vaccines might/might not work, but you should get it anyway. Oh yeah, they come in two doses, and they have various side effects that range from a sore arm to spontaneous combustion. 

2021 began with, and this was a big surprise, Donald Trump acting like a big old baby.  Everybody accepted, as fact, that Trump lost to Joe Bident. Everybody except Donald Trump.  

He held a STOP THE STEAL rally, which somehow morphed into a HANG MIKE PENCE rally.  The whole thing was a mess and could have been avoided if only Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia had just listened to the My Pillow Guy.

On January 20th, President Joe was inaugurated and promised to take two naps and hit the early bird special at a local restaurant. He vowed to launch a full-scale investigation of why they took "Matlock" off the air.

Despite his age, President Joe inspires the American people with his rhetoric which said (and this is a direct quote), "I have never been particularly poor at calculating how to get things done in the United States Senate. So the best way to get something done, if you, if you hold near and dear to you that you like to be able to, anyway."

 

The year brought many challenges to President Joe and he responded in the way only President Joe could. Inflation (President Joe:  "What? Naw.")  Skyrocketing gas prices. (President Joe:  "Listen, pal, walk or buy an electric car".)   Supply Chain crisis.  (President Joe:  "So your kid doesn't get the GI Joe with Kung-Fu grip, big <bad word> deal".)  Small business labor shortage. (President Joe:  "Pay them more money. Gah, do I have to think of everything?")

President Joe had a big idea called "Build Back Better" which could have been titled:  "Shut Up And Give Us The Money".   It sort of petered out because people didn't elect President Joe to rubber stamp every goofball idea that Bernie Sanders  and AOC have flying out of their pea brains.  They elected President Joe because he was not Donald Trump.

The new administration's foreign policy took a hit when we left Afghanistan and forgot to turn off the lights.  President Joe insisted that it was the right thing to do and we looked good bugging out in a dumpster fire sort of way.

In off-year politics, the state of Virginia elected a Republican governor mainly because the people of Virginia realized that the education industry hates children and hates their parents even more. 

Former President Trump still shows up from time to time to chew the fat with Hannity.  He has stuck his big fat face in the Georgia gubernatorial race by convincing former Senator Perdue to run against Governor Kemp because "Kemp can't beat Stacy Abrams".  All Kemp needs to do is note that he has won an election in the past four years and the other two have not.

Hollywood held the Oscars and nobody can remember what film won "Best Picture".

Disney+  showed the documentary on The Beatles making the "Let It Be" album.  In it, Ringo admitted to the legendary producer George Martin that he (Ringo, not George Martin) has just "farted." We always thought it was Yoko.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers won The Super Bowl led by 108-year-old Tom Brady, whom we still continue to hate because he's won 400 Super Bowls and cheated on a Super Model girlfriend with another Super Model.

The most crucial event in the history of mankind occurred when the Atlanta Braves won the World Series. As a result, belief in God is currently around 99.9 percent in the state of Georgia.

 

 

 

 

Bob Dole

 

 

 If you thought anybody would beat death, it would have been Bob Dole.

Here's a small Wikipedia account of what Bob Dole went through as a twenty-two year old man in the last days of World War II.

"Dole was seriously wounded by a German shell that struck his upper back and right arm, shattering his collarbone and part of his spine. "I lay face down in the dirt," Dole said. "I could not see or move my arms. I thought they were missing." As Lee Sandlin describes, when fellow soldiers saw the extent of his injuries, they believed all they could do was "give him the largest dose of morphine they dared and write an 'M' for 'morphine' on his forehead in his own blood so that nobody else who found him would give him a second, fatal dose."

Dole was paralyzed from the neck down and transported to a military hospital near Kansas, expected to die. Suffering blood clots, a life-threatening infection and a fever of almost 109 degrees; after large doses of penicillin were not successful, he overcame the infection with the administration of streptomycin, which at the time was still an experimental drug."

If you want a fuller, complete account of Dole's wartime injuries, pick up the book What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer. Dole out-lived Cramer by almost nine years.

Dole defeated prostate cancer too. Unfortunately, that victory made him unable to win the marital New Hampshire primary, if you catch my drift. He was given another "experimental drug": Viagra. 

He was known as a caustic politician. In addition, he was considered a hatchet man. However, today he would probably be considered the nicest man in Congress.

He was a funny, witty man. My favorite line of his:  "Jimmy Carter gave a fireside chat yesterday, and the fire fell asleep."

Despite his heroics and wit, Dole always seemed to be on the losing side.

Gerald Ford picked Dole to be on the ticket in 1976. Dole did okay until he called World War II a "Democrat war" in the Vice Presidential debate with Democratic vice-presidential candidate Walter Mondale, who he outlived.

He ran for President in 1980 and lost to Ronald Reagan.  He ran for President again in 1988 and lost to George H.W. Bush.  He ran for President in 1996 again and lost in the general election against Bill Clinton.

Dole was the last of "the greatest generation" to run for President. Clinton was the first Baby Boomer.  Dole really didn't have a chance due to a combination of a good economy, the advent of the internet, and the usual mainstream media drooling over a young Democrat. 

A new cast member of "Saturday Night Live," Norm McDonald, perfected his Bob Dole to include Dole's habit of referring to himself in the third person.  When Dole appeared on the program after the '96 election, he said, "I don't run around saying Bob Dole does this and Bob Dole does that. That's not something Bob Dole does."  Incidentally, Dole outlived McDonald too.

Dole was a tough old bird who loved his country and gave it everything he had. What a life!