School Shootings and random thoughts

Reposting a previous Post. 

Since I didn't have a chance to post a prayer for the victims of the Minneapolis church shooting before A) leftwing journalists and politicians circled the wagon around the shooter and the shooter's activist group and B) those on the Left, including clergy, swung into attack people turning to God rather than the state:

I hope that's not Pope Leo's opinion, I really do hope

I thought I would repose this musing about mass shootings in our society that I wrote in 2018.  

My prayers and thoughts are for the victims and their families.  I can't imagine what they are going through. I pray for all people of good will joining them and seeking consolation from God and guidance for how to handle the demonic levels of evil we see all too often in our Godless society today.  

Here is the post: 

These are just musings.  They are not based on science or studies.  Just me observing the nation in which I am raising my sons, and the current topic of guns and shootings and the desire to narrowly define the problem based on a single solution.

Did Roe v. Wade have an impact?  The essence of RvW: 'that is your definition of human life, not mine.'   Could generations raised in a nation coming to that conclusion be impacted by it?  Especially after WWII?  The entire point of legal abortion is that America has officially allowed us to define a human when we feel like it.  I can't help but think somehow it could be connected.

Divisions.  We are in what many are now calling a Cold Civil War.  Even the Cold War had hot casualties.  My son said that the kids at Parkland will be asked to surrender their freedoms for safety.  I said no, that's wrong.  We are a divided country.  They will be asked to surrender someone else's freedoms for their safety.  Increasingly we don't love our neighbors, but we fear and hate them, just as we feared or even hated the Soviets back in the day.  We're taught that they are the problem, and whatever happens to them?  Eh.  Being taught that our neighbors are our enemies must make an impact.

Rhetoric.  In following up on the divisions, I'm hearing and seeing chilling things from the Gun Control advocates.  Kill the NRA, exterminate the NRA, Wayne LaPierre is a seriel killer,  Ban guns, Gun owners are next.  And this is from the side ostensibly all bent out of shape by the violence and death at Parkland.  And what's worse, it's par for the course. That level of rhetoric exists on the highest levels down about any one of a million topics today.  It's not just gun control activists of course, nor is such rhetoric new.  Just note the irony of where some of it is coming from and how that must say something bigger about where we are versus where we might think we are.

Mental health.  After Sandy Hook, I heard a fellow on the news (can't remember the station) say something I've not forgotten. He said  that mental health went through a massive overhaul between the 1950s and the 1970s, and in the 1980s, the mass shootings began.  A connection?  I think that's a bigger elephant in the room than we're admitting.

Isolate events as universals.  Fact is, if you manipulate any data, you can arrive at different realities. Take the most dangerous cities in America off the burners, and America sounds much safer.  Likewise, many of these school, or mass, shootings were based on specific sets of circumstances that might unpack the stats.  Broward County looks to have dropped a dozen balls.  That would be the same county where educated adults were perplexed by the unsolvable mysteries of the paper ballot.  It could be connected.

American Craftsmanship a thing of the past. Speaking of dropping balls.  Parkland is the latest case where warning signs were missed and the official safeguards that should have been triggered weren't.  There is a decline in quality in America overall, with everything from the latest household products to the Secret Service being plagued by incompetence and a general lack of care for quality.  Could these have long range connections to any efficacy where new laws or even existing laws are concerned?  If we're becoming bumblers in making cabinets, will we do any better with laws?

Isolation through technology.  When news came that Amazon was going to have a people-less store, one of those interviewed in the story said he was glad.  A young fellow of likely college age, he was happy not to have to deal with people when he shops.  Several of the students at Parkland guessed who the shooter was before it was announced.  Could it be that we are becoming so isolated that all notions of human interaction are collapsing, and that is a problem?

Violence for fun.  Popular culture of mass violence everywhere. I mean, look at what kids are playing at the age of 5.  I know people who let 9 year olds play first person shooters, or watch rated R blood and guts movies.  I remember seeing old black and white movies when I was little where someone died a particularity gruesome death, and it impacted me.  What do kids today experience?  Also the not so subtle Hollywood meme that people who are really bad (like people who disagree with me) have it coming.

Post-Christian.  We were told America has no right to have a particular culture and moral basis, and so jettisoned it for whatever was nearby.  Could it be that when we say people can make up their own realities those realities aren't always going to be good?

Fortress Educationa.  If we are talking about having to turn our schools into fortresses with armed teachers and guards, what is next?  Barbed wire fences?  Could it be we've turned a corner if this is what we have to do?  And do we think it will really work?

Brats and narcissists.  Kids are raised today to think that if someone disagrees with them, or doesn't talk the way they want them to talk, or give them what they want, then that person is evil, hates them, and wants them dead, since the world exists to affirm them as gods of their own creation.  Might that make an impact?  Could kids raised in that manner develop unhealthy ways to react to a world that doesn't treat them way the way they want?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  What would Aretha Franklin say?  Respect, like manners, common sense and common values, went out the window decades ago.  Yes ma'am and no sir are as rare as Cuneiform word processors.  We love it when all the cool people flip the middle one to all those not-cool types who aren't like me.  Could it be a nation almost proud to not respect anything or anyone and yet told to respect everyone (sometimes) is facing an identity crisis where dealing with people is concerned?

I don't want to grow up!  Rush Limbaugh once pointed out that the Baby Boomers were the first generation that never had to grow up.  Hearkening back to the point about television and Boomers, could it be a generation of adult children raising more adult children who then raise another batch of children bent on staying children is not a healthy way for a society to function?  Could kids surrounded by and raised by kids have unintended consequences?

It's the Spirit stupid.  Assuming for a minute that the Christian Faith is actually true, can we expect much from a nation that goes out of its way to purposefully and officially expel it from all corners of our public domains?  That's what the Soviets did, and look what happened there.

Radical individualism.  In piggybacking on the narcissism above, could it be we're seeing in individual form what the nationalism of the 20th century saw on the battlefield?  As we allow people to think they are a nation unto themselves, that there is no 'Our country', and sure as hell not 'their country' (I call it the Kaepernick syndrome), could this be a logical extension of such a view - bad countries (people) warring with their neighbors?

As long as it doesn't impact me.  Following decades of misusing the notion of being judgmental (mainly, you can't judge me, or obviously you're wrong), and convincing people not to care unless it impacts them, could it be that we've let this go because it doesn't impact most of us?  After all, what is our approach to Islamic terrorism (only Islamic, not domestic) but 'as long as terrorists kill other Americans, it's the sacrifice I'm willing to make'?  That must say something about us, and perhaps why we're not really shaken to our foundations and willing to look at the hard realities when these tragedies strike.

The world.  Let's face it, the world is a violent place.  It always has been.  See the last century for an example.  In the end, gun violence might simply be the logical extension of everything we've been doing as the world continues to change.  Change it might, but many of the old characteristics - like sin - will remain and will find a way.  Like my son says, to paraphrase Ian Malcolm, destruction will find a way.

What of legalized drugs? If, in fact, liberals insist that laws against illegal drugs haven't helped the drug problems of our country, can we believe that more gun laws will do anything about the illegal use of guns in our country?

Car laws. Keeping with that thinking, we hear some gun owners point out that cars kill more people than guns.  But we have laws regulating cars!, is the answer.  Yes we do, and yet cars still kill more people than guns.

A little learning.  A dangerous thing, according to Pope.  We wage ideological warfare and I'm not always convinced we're as smart about all the topics we spew about as we think we are.  Armed with undergrad degrees and a semester of history 101, we suddenly become experts in every nook and cranny of human history - whenever convenient. I don't think this causes a society of mass shootings, but could it be what hamstrings our ability to solve the problems?  Or  worse, makes us schmucks easily manipulated by those who see shootings as a step toward some political end?

All those careless gun owners.  Guns are dangerous, look at the accidental shootings! I hear that if there is a story of an accidental shooting.  Gun accidents are, given the tens of millions of gun owners, relatively few.  Accidents happen, and you get the careless ones.  But on the whole, those isolated YouTube videos that show someone doing something stupid with a gun don't seem to fit the stats.

Wo ist Education?  Speaking of a little learning.  My wife was a teacher, and my undergrad was in secondary education.  I had three boys go through public schools. Let me tell you, it's a hot mess.  And not just because of STEM scores.  Half of what they teach is rubbish, the rest is based on teaching hatred and contempt for the Christian West, America, the latest designated ethnic groups, traditional values, and common sense notions like sex and babies are related or one's genitals have something to do with gender - but we can all make up our happy worlds where everyone affirms our self-affirming affirmation of our self affirming selves!  I wouldn't let those working within the current train wreck of educational philosophy teach a dog, much less kids.  Has to mean something.

Can we stop using the 33,000 killed by guns.  There are so many parts to that stat, there are so many dimensions that don't account for the numbers that are never mentioned.  Like saying 'Four years and 40 million dollars', it's a meme, not a fact, and if we care about the problem of violence, we'll never misuse it again.

The Gun Cult!  Please define.  From what I can tell, this radical bunch of gun nuts is typically not involved in most of the mass shootings.  Same with the dreaded militia (which is the cause of terrorism done in its name).  In fact, the worst killing attributed to the dread American militia movement used a bomb, not guns.

Gun Violence versus Violence.  Do we actually care?  As horrific as they are, mass shootings account for a barely measurable number of overall murders in our country. While murder rates have gone down, they are still far too high.  And yet not only do we hardly ever dwell on it, during the 2016 campaign, I heard the press insist things were getting hunky-dory.  Well, not to those murdered and killed.  Or do they not matter?

Stop comparing the US - to anyone.  We are a unique nation.  It does no good to pick out a dozen countries that help your case while ignoring other countries that don't.  And why don't gun control activists ever cite nations like Mexico, but only reference decidedly white European nations to compare America to?

Raising kids.  At the end of the day, it's not just kids raising kids, but broken homes, fatherless boys, wacked out psychological theories and science that looks common sense parenting straight in the eyes then turns around wand walks the other way.  I have no time to list the connections between broken homes and crime.  Much less screwball theories of raising kids and crime.

Exploiting vs. Memorializing.  If we are using a tragedy to advance certain solutions, then we should at least be able to demonstrate how those solutions would have prevented the tragedy in question.  To me, that's common sense.  If not common decency.

Sucks to your thoughts and prayers.  I just can't help but think that when we've come to a point where a sizable chunk of our nation now insists prayer and God are only worth a dime if put second to a singular political policy, we've officially shuffled off this Christian coil.  That so many Christians appear to agree only makes it that much clearer.  See my point about the truth of the Spirit above.

Those are just thoughts I've had over the last couple days in no particular order and with no particular weight or purpose.  Musings only.  Just the idea that maybe the problem of school shooting, that didn't happen when I was growing up, is beyond limiting a single type of gun.  We can do that, of course.  But I think it's foolishness to think anything will ultimately change.  The carnage might end up different, but it won't change until other things change.

The wizard of Ozz

At least according to this article's rather positive spin on the legacy of Ozzy Osbourne.

Here's the thing, and I've reflected on this for some time.  In Robert Altman's film MASH, there is a scene that pretty much summed up where the postwar liberal revolution was going.  The arch-villain Frank Burns (an early Robert Duvall role), was sitting in the surgeons' tent.  Hawkeye, and his companion who would not transfer to the TV series, Duke Forrest, first arrive and bring in their belongings and meet their new tentmate.  

When they arrive, they see Frank overseeing reading lessons for a young Korean boy named Ho-Jon.  Ho-Jon is being taught to read from the Bible.  Duke and Hawkeye share a glance, and Duke points out the obvious. Duke mentions that he's learning to read from the Bible, then somewhat sardonically states 'that's nice.'  

Then, the next moment, Duke goes up and leans over Ho-John and, pulling the Bible away, says 'you might like this instead.'  The 'this' is an adult magazine - likely Penthouse or Playboy.  At that point, seeing the bare chested girl on the cover, Ho-Jon eagerly looks at Frank and asks if he may be excused.  Frank, apparently not noticing what went on, says yes.  

At that point - at that one moment in our history - Christians in America and anywhere the movie was released should have risen up and in one voice said, "OH NO YOU DON'T!!!  We see what you're up to and you're not going to lure our children and their children away from God and Christ and into a Sodom and Gomorrah orgy of debauchery and decadence, of catastrophic levels of misery and hopelessness.  This scene is practically a commercial for everything you have in store for our little ones!" 

But they didn't.

Somehow or another, no matter what this postwar revolution against the Christian West did, there was always the feeling that 'someday they're going to go too far!', and yet that day still hasn't come.  Oh, we vote sometimes and we'll fuss online.  But now those same forces are carving up the bodies of children.  The Left's pushing of drugs and sex is as common in our modern schools as the Golden Rule was in early 20th Century American schools.  Abortion by the millions.  Mass killings in schools.  Cataclysmic violence, suicide, drug addiction and basic hopelessness define the generation of our modern youth.  And the biggest religious news is the unprecedented numbers that are abandoning religion and religious living altogether.  

I thought of all this when I read the Word on Fire's tribute to Ozzy Osbourne.  Quite a guy, that Ozzy.  Some mention of his drugs and all, but he worked to get over that, didn't he.  Not that I think shortly after someone's death is the time to trash and hash them.  But must we make him so - honorable?   

In thinking of Ozzy's life, and the world in which he lived, think of the damage done.  Think of the millions of lives - mainly of young people - that have been ruined, weaned away from God and Christ, plunged into despair, AIDS, overdoses and ruined existences, not despite our pop culture for the last 70 years, but because that is exactly what our pop culture has been telling them to do.  And all while we have stood by and let them. I mean, the message that religion is for losers, there's probably no God anyway, so get high, get laid, and someday drop dead was aimed at the last half century of children like a Death Star laser beam. 

But no real solid or concerted effort to stop it.  Or, to be honest, at times we stepped in and helped out by buying the songs, seeing the movies, watching the shows, while making endless excuses for doing so.  I stand accused.  I thought of my series on the Beatles from some time back. I acknowledged then that their staggering influence on Western culture was far from universally positive.  But think on that. Think on the symbolism of intent from that scene in MASH.  Think of Ozzy's 'bout' with drugs, which the article itself merely calls mythological. 

And think of the children, the teens.  I mean, we have spent decades wondering why kids leave Church when they grow up, and now why so many are officially renouncing their belief in God and religion altogether.  Should we be surprised?  I'm shocked the numbers doing so are as low as they are.  The targets have been youth and children all along since, let's face it, if you want to own the future you seize the little ones as fast as possible.  Because like the wise man once said:

Perhaps that is why Christ Himself said this:

Jesus called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And He said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.  But if anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!  Matthew 18.2-7

Think on that.  You hear that Duke?  Next time an itch to watch Animal House, or listen to Black Sabbath, or even She Said, She Said, or anything on television today, or make excuses or shrug our shoulders, think on that passage in Matthew.  It seems the Almighty takes a dim view of those who would corrupt and lead to apostasy the least of these who, within the context of this passage, are the little children. I imagine God's opinion of those who stand by and allow it to be done is only slightly better.    

Oh, I'm not saying go burn your books and movies and DVDs and damned Beatles albums.  That's a dangerous path in its own right. Even if the movement (post-war liberalism) that once screamed fascism the minute anyone thought of challenging a scene like the one in MASH is now more intolerant and destructive to free speech than a witch council in Salem.  

No, it's to say we should have stood our ground more then, since the whole 'but all morality is relative, everyone should tolerate all things in an enlightened democratic society' was always more fertilizer than fact.  After all, the ones who championed such scenes and wanted more, think nothing of dropping the hammer on the Bible, love of country, resistance to mass abortion, or any other sacred cow of that modern movement of tolerance. And for all of it, look at the results all around us. 

As a side thought, some years ago when we still had cable, MASH was shown on TCM.  This was shortly after Ben Mankiewicz replaced the late Robert Osbourn as host.  Usually, before each film, the host would give a brief history and some fun tidbits about the movie in question.  The same happened that night.  In a sign of the times, however, Mankiewicz also did what I never saw Osbourn do, and that was apologize for the movie.  Specifically, apologize for the way in which women in the movie were portrayed and treated.  The odd part is, I'm sure it wasn't seen as good back when it came out.  I know my parents were never fans of the show, much less the movie.  Given the reputation of being controversial in its day, I'll bet people then didn't like much of that either.  They also, I'd like to think, would have been just as outraged at the other parts - like the vulgarities, the drugs and sexing up a young boy just the same.  Things Mankiewicz notably did not apologize for.  Thus 'woke' defined, even in its earliest days. 

RIP My Father in Law

I received word that my Father-in-Law Mike passed away.  He has struggled with ill health for quite a while, and was diagnosed with Leukemia a couple years ago.  But the downturn was sudden.  We got news a few weeks ago that he was beginning to have problems.  At the time our focus was on my own mom, who just had her fourth stroke. On top of that, our dog was diagnosed with cancer the same week.  But then out of the blue came the news of his spiraling health problems.  By last week, it was beginning to look grim.  On Friday afternoon, we found out that he was being moved to Hospice.  And today, at around 3:30, he passed away. 

As men of God goes, he's one we always joke and say if he doesn't make it in, I don't stand a chance.  As a former pastor, I can say he was everything you wanted in your parishioners.  A fascinating fellow, a chemist by trade who also spent much of his life in the world of higher education and academia, he was serious about his faith, dedicated to his denomination, very well read and able to converse about a variety of topics.  He was what we used to call a good witness where the Faith was concerned. He will be missed.  

Owing to circumstances, Covid, post-Covid, health issues and family issues, for some time we weren't able to get down to Florida, where they lived and where I met my darling wife.  At least we had a video call on his 80th birthday last year where he saw my daughter-in-law and little granddaughter.  You grab what you can in these situations.  I could write more, but things are a bit busy now.  

Prayers for him, prayers for my wife and her family, and for the whole Griffey gang would all be appreciated. 

Friday Frivolity: Happy Anniversary

Twilight Struggle!

Yep: 

It was 20 years ago this year that this little gem hit the shelves.  I'm not one to gush over things.  I like things, and will talk about those things that interest me or that I like.  But not all the time.  Sometimes things I like fly under the radar, so to speak.  I like them and that's good enough for me. 

This is one of those cases.  As I've said, if I ever had anything close to a sustained, long running hobby, it would be strategy games.  Wargames fall into that category.  But I like strategy games as a whole.  Usually my preference is for historically based games, my love of history being the factor there. 

We bought this some years ago.  By now I'm thinking it must have been around its 10th anniversary, give or take.  As the artwork suggests, it's a grand strategy game based on the Cold War.  My sons are fond of asking how bad do things have to be today for people to be nostalgic for the Cold War.  Yet when we consider the state of the world today, it's easy to see why some would look at those days with a sense of yearning.  Nostalgia sometimes gets a bad wrap.  Though I sometimes think the worse things are the more we trounce on those people who try to find the good of the past.  You might say, the level of hostility to nostalgia might say much about how well we're doing with the present.  

Anyway, if there was one trait from that time, especially the late Cold War, it was Optimism.  That was the thing.  Though the progressive movement was turning our attention more and more to the increasingly irredeemable sins of the West, America, Christianity, and pretty much anything west of the Urals, it was still wrapped up in a bundle of 'but look how much progress we've made!'  Oh, there was still the insistence that we focus on those who 'fall through the cracks', or the insistence that we admit there is still work needing done.  But the uber-narrative was that we were getting better, moving forward, and had much to be happy about. 

Plus, though it's easy to look back and remember the stress and strain of the Cold War years, and it's not difficult to see we were already being weaned into thinking that the best we could say in the US was that we were no better than the Soviets, there was still the reality of the USSR.  It was there.  And despite the developing cultural emphasis on how cool the communists could be, we couldn't help but notice a dearth of those same people falling over themselves to move there. 

Fact is, no matter how we sliced it or tried to blame Reagan, we still had the idea that over there was Mordor, and we were at least Gondor.  As flawed and sinful as we were and as the focus increasingly was, we were still on the right side of the conflict.  

And it looked like we were trying to learn from the past.  Lofty ideas of putting behind us judging based on skin color or any group identity, being tolerant of differing views and lifestyles, restraining from judging either the past or the present, putting the pains and hurts of history behind us, being free to live and speak and think as we choose - those were mighty appealing social promises. Appealing, even if, in hindsight, it's easy to see those making such promises had some pretty long lists of provisos and qualifiers attached to those high ideals. 

Now, I expect little from the games I love.  Really.  I don't get hung up on accuracy or details or really much of anything. Sometimes a design decision will leave me scratching my head.  But then I remind myself that I'm looking at a playing piece on a board that is supposed to vaguely represent in often unimaginably abstract ways the complexities of the human experience, entire historical events, and often in the worst of circumstances.  I'll usually give a pass to the designers. 

What I do love, however, is when a game strikes that right vibe; that feeling that matches what the game is attempting to evoke.  It might be the vast long term and complex logistical focus of World in Flames that allows you to sympathize with the massive organizational undertaking that was the Second World War, or the excellent mood of ancient Roman cloak and dagger that comes with The Roman Republic, or even a very broad sense of medieval feudal wranglings in that boardgame Fief.  The game 1776 catches the scale of that Revolutionary Colonial era war feel, and Victory Games' The Civil War was the first Civil War game I played, and still the best for putting you in that time from a bird's eye view, at least IMHO.  As I wrote some time ago, I even like the game Eldritch Horror for that Lovecraftian aesthetic it hits so well. 

That's why I love Twilight Struggle.  To borrow the old saying, it 'Gets' the Cold War and the whole feeling of that period in history.  Even the parts of the game that tap into events long before I came along manage to pull me back to that time when we weren't fighting about reality, but instead were still trying to struggle for the right over the wrong in basic, common sensical ways. 

The game itself is a pseudo-card driven game.  The goal is to get the most points, and this is accomplished by pushing your side's influence into as much of the world as possible. And don't forget those obscure African countries in the middle of nowhere, they can make a difference.  The one game ender is if certain events could cause the Defcon Rating to drop, and we all know what happens if it hits one (game over, both lose - a fun mechanic). 

The cards themselves are drawn randomly, and played back and forth by each player.  There are different sets of cards per era of the Cold War - early, mid, late.  The cards have a point value that you can play to push more influence into an area, or invest in other nifties, like the Space Race or even the Olympics.  The cards also have historical references printed on them that can be played instead, and they give a tremendously broad amount of benefits for your side or penalties for the other.  The various historical references vary greatly from Woodstock and The Soviet Pact, to Sputnik, The Truman Doctrine, or heck, the whole of the Korean or Vietnam Wars.  In the instructions, in keeping with the best of historical strategy games, there is a section that explains the actual historical basis for each card and the overall time period.

All in all, it seeks to unpack that era after WWII that changed how the era after such a catastrophic war might have unfolded, even if at the time we didn't realize that. And the game manages it on almost every level.  A relatively fast game, it can be wrapped up in an hour or so.  Or it can drag out.  But once you get the hang of it, it's a fast play for two players.  One that manages to pick you up and deliver you back to a time when you didn't need an explanation for the picture on its box. 

Why did scenes like these from my college days make a young, liberal
agnostic like me feel secure and confident even though
they weren't supposed to?  Because I wasn't an idiot, that's why.

The days will soon be gone

The Catholic Bard muses on the sudden string of well known celebrities passing away.  Chuck Mangione, Malcolm Jamal Warner, Ozzy Osbourn and Hulk Hogan.  

Those were names loomed large in that pivotal time my life as I began transitioning from childhood to adulthood.  Mangione came first, though I didn't know him by name at the time.  It would be years later before I attached his name and larger body of work to that delightfully ubiquitous song that became his trademark. I mean, a flugelhorn?  Who tops the charts in the age of Disco and 70s rock with a flugelhorn?  His picture adorning the record sleeve was one of pure elation. I mean, I dare you to look at that picture and not smile: 

Happiness personified

Malcolm Jamal Warner became a big name in my later high school and college days with his turn as Bill Cosby's TV son (a loosely inspired character from Cosby's own real life son).  Like Michael J. Fox and Michael Gross on Family Ties, his easy chemistry with Cosby at times almost overshadowed the rest of the show.  Since Cosby was such a cultural juggernaut at a time when America still had strands of homogeneity, it wasn't difficult learn Warner's name, even if only as part of the day's larger cultural tapestry.

Then there was Ozzy Osbourne.  A lightning rod for self-made problems, Ozzy's was one of ups and some catastrophic downs.  Not all were of his doing.  Originally part of the provocatively named Black Sabbath, he dipped when, in 1978, an obscure group who opened for them on tour came to steal the show every night.  That group was Van Halen.  Finally, Osbourn formed his own group around himself, tapping into a young guitar virtuoso who gave Mr. Van Halen a run for his money - Randy Rhodes and the legendary Blizzard of Ozz and Crazy Train.  Thus began the famous 'Guitar Wars' featuring Rhodes and Eddie that were broadcast in our area on 96.9, home of the Buzzard, and were required listening for most of my peers in my school.   But alas, young Mr. Rhodes died tragically in the same manner as Buddy Holly and his fellow passengers, leading Ozzy down another spiral.  This was after Ozzy was hospitalized for biting the head off of a rabid bat during a drug fueled concert appearance.  Such was Ozzy's life.  Part poster child for the sex, drugs and rock and roll Me Generation, part cautionary tale, part individual trying to scrape out a positive legacy before he passed.  

And of course, there was Hulk Hogan.  In my lifetime, never has Professional Wrestling been so famous with the wrestlers being household names - almost parodies of  characters - than the early to mid 80s.  And Hogan was the spokesman.  Though I never cared for the wrestling gig, I had to admit that however inauthentic you might say wrestling was, give credit to a man who can pick up Andre the Giant and twirl him about.  Like the WWF of the day, and the 80s in general, Hogan was larger than life. It was an odd time of excess, decadence, godlessness and strangely the last gasp of a somewhat pre-post-modern society. 

It's easy to forget how much of a giant he was

With the exception of two musicians of wildly different musical genres, none of the four had much if anything in common.  And yet they all loomed large - very, very large - in that time of my life when such things mean so much to a youngster.  Well, Mangione's song loomed large since you heard it all the time.  Like You Light Up My Life, but more agreeable.  Yet they all made an impression on a time in my life I will never forget.  Even if that time, like all times, must pass.