Puffs

Tommy Lasorda . . . I suspect that unless you’re a baseball fan of a certain age, you are not familiar with the name.

However, I can remember his name very well and remember him as the coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and was greatly successful as a coach for the Dodgers. From all I’ve read about him over the years, he was greatly loved by all his players and his fans.

He passed away last week at the age of 93.

A O

Now, I don’t bring up his name to bring more attention to him. He has earned enough on his own and he will receive enough through the media.

I bring his memory up to remind myself of something he had to teach his players whenever they won . . . or loss a ball game.

That is whenever you lose a game, you lose with pride. Whenever you win a game, you win as a gracious winner.

Most every coach I’ve ever known tries to pass this bit of wisdom on to their players. It is an important part of playing any game. If you are a child, a young man, or women, or an adult, there are ways to win, and to lose.

By extension, this lesson is expected to be carried on in life as adults in our everyday activities of work, family and play.

Have we, as a society, forgotten this lesson?

For four years now, that ‘won-loss’ philosophy has certainly been absent from our political lives.

Go back and read history and for the most part, election results were generally accepted and the people and political parties moved on.

Up until four years ago that is.

Republicans seem to be taking a lot of heat for the current unrest and questioning of the 2020 federal election results. However, to fully understand 2020, you have to understand all that happened between 2016 and today.

President Trump won the election in 2016 and I thought he was gracious in winning. The Democrats, however, never took their defeat well at all.

It all started right after the election when the Democrats tried time after time to discredit Trump and the Republicans. They did it with impeachment attempts; promoting rumor after rumor against Trump; refusing to work with Republicans in handling the nation’s business in Congress, etc.

They refused to believe they could lose to Trump and the Republicans.

Coaches would call that “poor sportsmanship.”

OK, the nation’s affairs are more important than a baseball game, but still the same theory applies.

2020 . . . The Democrats won. There seems to have been a lot of evidence they won by voter fraud in some states and that is what Trump has been fighting to prove. Right up until last week when the final nail was put into the coffin and the Republican Party knew nothing more could be done to change what happened in November. At least nothing before the January 20 beginning of the new term of the new president elect.

Then came last week.

The losers in the election (the Republicans) wanted to demonstrate in Washington, D.C. to show their disagreement with what officials said were the election results.

Most all came to Washington to peacefully demonstrate, but some had other thoughts. President Trump talked to them all and wished them luck and wished them a good demonstration and told them to be peaceful and to go home safely.

We all know what happened. A few people (out of the many there) turned the peaceful demonstration into a violent demonstration.

That was wrong and I hope those people receive the punishment they deserve.

However . . .

I can’t help to be amused at how the “media” (and the Democrats) are handling the mess.

President Trump and the Republicans are being blamed for the violence and property damage. Everyone heard him wish them a “safe and peaceful” demonstration. The Democrats are doing their best to destroy any Republican pride.

The reactions of the Democrats was not the same last summer when all the demonstrations were being turned into riots and millions of dollars of damage was being done. Those riots were justified, the riot last week were not . . . according to the Democrats.

To me, riots are not the way we solve most problems today. At least that was what I was always taught. In today’s world riots are incited by a few for some purpose other than what the obvious is.

To keep from rambling on, one thought keeps coming to mind. Remember all those nasty things the Democrats did over the past four months. Republicans may have to regress and do the same things. Only with honest actions, unlike the last four years by the Democrats.

A O

Could not help but comment on the following: (These are the people who are going to manage our federal government for the next two years.)

“On Sunday, January 3, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver led the opening prayer for the U. S. House of Representatives.” Cleaver is an ordained Methodist pastor who served for 37 years as the senior pastor of St. James United Methodist Church in Kansas City, Mo. and he ended his prayer with “Amen and a-women.”

I know what ‘Amen” means, I have never seen a word like ‘a-women’ before.

‘Amen’ is a Hebrew word whose root meaning is ‘truth.’ The word was used in solemn ceremonies to express consent to the truth of what was said, meaning, ‘it is true’ or ‘so be it,’ depending on context. ‘Amen’ is not gendered. It does not refer to male or female.

‘A-women’ is word-play for comical or political effect.

I really wonder about some of the people in Congress, and I worry about the people who voted them into office.

May God bless them all. Amen!

A O