GEORGE ARCHIBALD

THE VIOLIN, PIANO, GUITAR, AND GREAT VOICES

A lady friend of mine plays the violin, as do her three lovely young children, brilliantly.

As I grew up, my parents gave me a Zenith radio to wake me up every morning to get ready for school. The alarm went off at 6:30 a.m., and there was WGMS-FM Classical Clock with Bill Cerri, my eye-opener each day.

I liked piano –- Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Gershwin.

But one day, Bill Cerri ran ran a marvelous Nicolo Paganini violin concerto in D-major on Classical Clock, played by Italian violinist Zino Francescatti with piano accompany Artus Balsam. I was blown away. I laid there and listened for half-an-hour to Francescatti’s soaring violin and Balsam on piano, and missed the school bus.

I had a little red Hillman convertible, and so had to drive to school –- passed the school bus on U.S. Route 15 around Oatlands, a few miles before Leesburg and Loudoun County High School. It was altogether one of my favorite days.

The car radio was tuned to WGMS. My favorite girl at the time, Mary Trone Gulick, liked classical music, and she let me take her home after school listening to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. A real treat. And Mary Trone and I smooched for an hour on the side of the road near her house as we listened to the music. She was special indeed.

Depending on the music, the violin is sad or happy, excited or melancholy. It is one of the most enjoyable instruments for a listener.

Whether it is Bach, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Paganini,, Copeland, Stravinsky, Gershwin, or blue grass: Give me the fiddle. Or Eric Clapton on guitar with his inimitable voice, or Paul McCartney, Sarah Brightman, Kiri te Kanawa, Annie Lennox, Billy Joel, Elton John, Celine Dion, Celine Dijon of  Nous Non Plus, Bon Jovi.

Zino Francescatti  and Itzhak Perlman are true equals as violinists despite the difference in time. Senator Robert Byrd from West Virginia plays a mean fiddle. Watched him at the county fairs. Van Cliburn and Glenn Gould are true greats on piano, as are Julius Katchen, Cyrus Chestnut, Katia and Marielle Labeque.

The voices: Kanawa, Brightman, Joel, John,  Jessie Norman, Enrico Caruso, Lucianno Pavarotti, José Carreras, Placido Domingo, Julie Andrews. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang the best Handel’s Messiah I ever heard.

Just go for the violin, piano, guitar, and great voices.

GRANDPA

My firstborn daughter, Leslie –- one of four -- born on April 29, 1982, was the first Washington Times baby –- the newspaper where I worked as the first hired national news reporter for 21 years.

Ben Bradlee, then editor of The Washington Post and I walked the halls of George Washington University Hospital together in Washington, D.C. as his wife, Sally Quinn, and mine, Blair, both birthed our firstborn children the same day.

Now daughter Leslie, 24, who married Noah Ree on October 20, 2007, has told me she is pregnant and expecting their first child. That was fast.

Leslie wrote me that her new married life with Noah has been “an interesting but fun adjustment.” And: “Hey Dad, we have some exciting news. We’re going to be having a baby –- the first grandchild. It’s a little scary but we’re happy and excited.”

Going to be a grandpa.

To Noah and Leslie, you have my full love and support.

Some thoughts and observations:

Leslie will be a wonderful mother. She is very loving, gentle and thoughtful person, has a natural maternal instinct, so she’ll work into motherhood quite naturally.

Noah is a nice and thoughtful lad, loves Leslie dearly, and I’m sure he will adjust well as her pregnancy progresses. It’s a bit soon in their marriage, but hopefully they will both cope and have lots of family support.

Leslie, don’t be scared. This is God’s gift, a new member of our family on the way.

Just take care of yourself, listen to your doctor, eat well, drink lots of healthy fluids, don’t worry or get stressed, get lots of rest. And understand as well the adjustment that Noah is going through and love him with all your heart.

Noah, take care of your lady.

Some days as the pregnancy progresses, she’ll be uncomfortable and grumpy. Just understand and go with the flow. Love her with all your heart and be there for her. You’re her man. Show her every day that you are her loving man. This is your mission.

DUMMKOPF

Dummkopf is the German word for "dumb-head."

There are lots of those around us, counting most members of the United States Congress, state legislators, governors, selfish preening politicians at all levels.

U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the respective Democratic leaders of both houses of Congress certainly qualify as selfish preening dumhead dummkopfs. They couldn’t find their way out of a brown paper bag.

Look what they’re doing with year-end spending legislation in the United States Congress. Complete buffoonery. They can’t get the job done because they’re so partisan and against each other. The government is again stalling to a halt because of their dummkopfery.

Stupidity run amok.

They didn’t do their job to pass thirteen regular appropriations bills so as the session of Congress ends have to wrap everything into a massive last-ditch multi-trillion-dollar supplemental appropriations bill, with riders that every pork-barrel politician can cram into the must-pass bill.

It’s true craziness and incompetence. They should all be fired by the voters, but they have all these well-monied hacks keeping them in office.

In particular dispute right now is eleven billion dollars worth of pork-barrel earmarks placed in the must-pass multi-trillion dollar year-end appropriations bill by members of Congress from both parties. Such an insult, and the president unfortunately does not have the cajonés to veto the bill and send the Congress back to work on a clean appropriations bill.

In Congress and the White House, they’re running around like chickens with their legs cut off and can’t focus on priorities and come to agreement on the bill.

They must pass this appropriations legislation or shut down the government –- a collection of dummkopfs, 537 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate who cannot get their act together.

Anyone for cleaning house of these dummkopfs and elect a whole new slate of elected representatives in every state and congressional district who are willing to get the job done and don’t just rip us off for their own selfish political reasons?

Why not get rid of all the political hacks and bums and have a fresh start?

These guys in Congress are a bunch of self-preening idolators in love with themselves more than their oath and love of country. And all their preening supporters and fundraisers are the worst of the worst selfish people.

What political action committees are willing to lead the way to clear them out? I hear a big silence. No one will step up to the plate. Everyone out there is kissing each others you know what.

Too many people are tied into the idolatry political system. We need a new American revolution.