Best TV shows ever

I was thinking today of some of the favorite television shows of my childhood, and suddenly realized why I might be so messed up. Consider:

Petticoat Junction: A elderly madam and pimp (Uncle Joe) run a stable of Joe Ho's at the Shady Rest Motel. Betty Jo, Billie Jo and Bobby Jo attract customers by hanging their underwear from the water tower. This is a show young Elliott Spitzer also watched.

Family Affair: Bachelor engineer and his man ``servant'' live together in New York and suddenly acquire three chuildren. This was an early endorsement for gay marriage, with gay adoption thrown in! It led directly to Stonewall.

The Munsters: A veiled attempt by television to push for integrated neighborhoods. After all, who would mind a black or Mexican family moving in, if the alternative might be the Undead? Unfortunately, this prompted the urban riots of the late 1960s.

Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.: This was an effort to make the Vietnam draft more popular by showing Americans what an all-volunteer military would look like.

Green Acres: The hallucinogenic fantasies of a drug-addled New York City attorney who, off-screen, drops LSD after work each day and imagines an alternative life as a marijuana grower in the country. This show spawned the widespread recreational drug use of the 1970s that led directly to Americans paying $4 for coffee at Starbucks.

A Year of Nickfest

Those of you who love me know that Sunday is my 49th birthday, a time to celebrate and reflect on all the good things I bring to your life.

Today is the beginning of a year of festivities leading up to my 50th birthday. This will be a time of escalating gifts and parties culminating in an epic celebration on March 9, 2009.

Lets call the whole thing Nickfest.

It's not too early to start planning. In fact, a key opportunity was lost last weekend, when we were out to dinner with friends and I suggested that someone pick up my tab as the ceremonial first act of Nickfest. No one did. People, we can't have to many of these letdowns.

Anyway, I foresee Nickfest as a moveable feast involving all manner of activities, played out in Spokane and on vacation at many tropical paradises. I'm going to suggest to my boss that my work assignments in the coming year involve Cancun, the Bahamas, Greece, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. And, of course, Las Vegas, without which it would hardly be worth turning 50.

We had a much smaller Nickfest a decade ago, when I turned 40. Family and friends gathered at my house for a weekend of modest activities and even more modest present-giving.

Lets make that Nickfest look like the first Super Bowl, and next year's be the latest Super Bowl.

``There's no reason this can't be the best Nickfest over. If we all just work together, I foresee great things.''

Tennis Nightmare

Absenteeism is wreaking havoc on my plans to make the USTA 3.0 playoffs for the 10th consecutive year.
Last week, we were down one guy and had to forfeit one match, but won three out of the four remaining matches to post a 3-2 win over the other team from our club. Your obedient correspondent came up huge with his partner Mark A, winning in two sets.
Last night, living on the edge did us in. For the third consecutive weekend, we were short a guy and had to forfeit one match, this time against a tough team from North Park.
Still, John G. easily won his singles, and John S. and Mark C. pulled out a heroic No. 3 doubles win from deep in the bowels of the club on Court A, where much of the movie ``Alien'' was filmed.
That left our No. 1 doubles team of Kevin and John W., or the No. 2 doubles team of Charlie and myself to get that one more win we needed for a 3-2 victory.
Alas, our No. 1 team got throttled. Then, with all of the players and entourages of both teams watching from the gallery, Charlie and I lost a 7-6, 7-6 nailbiter to give the match to the North Parkers.
Our effort was not helped when one of our female fans in the gallery tried to spur us on by hoisting up her shirt to reveal her (t-shirted) bosoms. As much as I generally encourage such behavior, it didn't help our concentration in a tie-breaker.
The loss dropped us to 2-1 on the season with 3 matches to go.
The bitter taste of defeat was washed away later by Mexican food and margaritas, but, like Khan in ``Star Trek, the Wrath of Khan,'' I will have my vengeance when we meet again.

Tennis season

Last weekend also marked the first weekend of the new U.S. Tennis Association season. This year I am captain of two teams, one at 3.0 (my true level) and one at 3.5 (my target level).

My 3.0 team won its match 4-1, with our only loss being a forfeit because we didn't have enough players. El Capitan was himself absent, skiing in Whitefish.

The 3.5 team lost 0-5, but put up a pretty good fight.

I foresee a season of destiny

Whitefish

My family took the Amtrak from Spokane to Whitefish, Mont., last weekend for a spectacular weekend of skiing at Big Mountain. Amtrak is definitely the way to go, even though the train departs Spokane about 1 am and reaches Whitefish at 7 am. We stayed at the Meadow Lake resort, and enjoyed three days of prime conditions in the Montana Rockies. I forget sometimes that the reason I moved to Spokane in the first place was to be close enough to recreate in my home state of Montana. That's some members of our party at the Tudor-style train station in Whitefish, waiting for the return train.

We went with the Crumpackers, whose kids are the same age as Tom and Eli, which always makes it easier for the adults to have a good time. The kids played cards in the club car on the way back, while I read my book and fell asleep.

The only downside was that Ann picked up a bad cold and was under the weather for much of the trip. You wouldn't know it to look at her smiling face on the pix below, where she appears to be grading my talents as a husband. That's her friend Min on the left. The picture on the right shows reluctant skier Eli taking a turn on the slopes.

Whitefish was the scene a couple of years ago of a legendary scene in my ski career. I was riding up the lift with a guy who introduced himself as former NFL quarterback Bobby Hebert, the Cajun Cannon. We had a nice chat, but when we got off at the top our skis got tangled up and Hebert fell down. As he struggled to get up, the chair hit him in the helmet and knocked him down again. I wanted to say ``That's the way we hit in Montana, Cannon, not like those pansy NFL types.'' But instead I helped him up and skied away.

Slopes of Spokane

Went to Silver Mountain Ski Area outside Kellogg, Idaho, on Sunday and it was the best day of the season so far. Silver Mountain used to be called Jackass Ski Area, which alone makes it worth patronizing. We went with some friends, and the blue ski and good snow lifted everyone's spirits during what has been a long, gray winter. That's Peggy (friend), me, Tom and Eli, friend Saige, and Ann about to go down Silverbelle.

You get to the top of the mountain at Silver via a 20-minute gondola ride from the parking lot. Here I am on the ride down, contemplating fajitas and brew after a long day riding the blues.

Ruled By Women

With Hillary Clinton coming to town to campaign tomorrow, I have had occasion to reflect on how completely ruled by women we are in this part of the world.

Setting aside the whole issue of Mom, I see that women are the authority figures in many aspects of my life.

In Washington state, we have two women as U.S. senators, a female governor, and a congresswoman who represents this area in Washington, D.C. The mayor of Spokane is a woman. My boss is a woman. My wife and I work for the same company, but she is in management and I am not, so she is sort of a boss also.

So what difference would a female president make?

Fortunately, as a Greek male, I am well schooled in the proper place of women in our society. Honey, would you edit this?

Photo at Right: My throne awaits.