What's in Dave's Head

2018 has been an odd year for me. There have been some amazing highlights, such as t he birth of my second grandchild, Cormac Douglass Swanekamp; t he marriage of my son Jack to the wonderful Erin; and t he emergence of Corinne Mae Swanekamp as a remarkable little girl full of personality, humor, and love of her Granddad and Nana.  However, the year for me seems to have been characterized by a general malaise, or more accurately, a general lethargy. I wasn’t able to do much physical exercise for much of the year, and for whatever reason, besides work and  doing some fun things with Donna and some of her siblings , I didn’t seem to do much else at all, except gain weight, watch television and read (okay, and do a lot of Sudoku and crossword puzzles). I’m looking forward to getting back in the saddle. In January I’m starting back in the pool if there are no more spinal issues and I hope to start training for my fifth Chesapeake Bay swim in June – I’ll find out in January if I

Two hundred forty-two years ago we declared our independence from Great Britain, which the American Colonies rightly accused of tyranny and despotism. The list of our grievances is recorded in our Declaration of Independence , which is on permanent display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. While I’m not quite old enough to remember the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I am old enough to remember the calamitous Nixon presidency (1969-1974) that caused a Constitutional crisis and greatly damaged our nation. Nixon’s assault on our democracy Richard Nixon, as president, faced charges of obstructing justice by covering up illegal activity of his re-election committee, such as the break-in of the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate office. He fired attorney general Richard Kleindienst amid a Senate investigation into the Watergate scandal (special prosecutor Archibald Cox also was investigating Watergate). Nixon later fired Kleindienst and his d

Donna and I visited Santa Barbara for a few days before Jack and Erin’s wedding to explore the coast town before relocating to the more remote resort where the wedding festivities would occur. Santa Barbara, which bills itself as “the American Riviera,” is not Columbia, Maryland. It is comprised exclusively of beautiful, tanned residents. The weather is required by law to be sunny, dry and warm (but not too warm) every day. The majestic Santa Ynez Mountains to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south sandwich white mansions with stucco roofs nestled on irrigated, emerald-green lawns adorned with swaying palm trees. There are walking paths, biking paths, parks, and wine tasting rooms on every corner with fine restaurants in between. Unlike its neighbors, L.A. to the south and San Francisco to the north, the traffic is not bad. And everybody owns a Bentley, a Mercedes S class, a Range Rover, a Maserati, or a Ferrari. Most people own one of each. Nobody works. The thing is,

This past weekend Jack married Erin Breslin in Santa Barbara. Erin is smart, sassy, strong, funny, and beautiful. She and Jack are nearly inseparable, and when they are together, they talk and laugh nonstop like two school kids. As Donna noted in her beautiful, heartfelt remarks at the rehearsal dinner, it's hard to know what they have left to talk about after carrying on this continual conversation for more than three years. It is obvious to anyone who sees them that they are head over heels in love. Donna and I had met Erin's parents last December in Philadelphia. We immediately became friends and found that we shared a lot of common values -- particularly the importance of family. It was great to see them again in Santa Barbara and to meet their son Gerard and many of their siblings and in-laws. It also was great to meet some of Jack's fellow YouTubers. There's a culture of camaraderie in the industry, and many of them were eager to help Jack when he was g

Over the weekend of April 14, our son Jack won a prestigious award for his work as a YouTuber – a “Shorty” award for YouTuber of the Year. It’s an honor that recognizes his contributions as an entertainer and his success: Jack’s channel, www.youtube.com/jacksfilms ,   recently topped 4 million subscribers, putting him in the top echelon of YouTubers. He recently posted his 1,000 th video and has received more than 1.6 billion views since launching his site in 2006. I’m proud of Jack’s success, but I’m especially proud of how he has achieved it. In school, Jack was really good at math, and I assumed he would major in math in college and get a job in that field. But Jack had other ideas. In high school he made a video for a school project, and that was it. He fell in love with video, and any thoughts of a math career were in the rearview mirror. It took a lot of courage to decide to try to make a living making videos, then moving to California where he knew one person – Y

I enjoy doing the Sunday crossword puzzle in the Washington Post Magazine. The puzzle was created each week by the brilliant Merl Reagle from 2008 until his death in 2015, and is now produced by Evan Birnholz, at least as clever and funny as Mr. Reagle, but more devious. The April 1, 2018 puzzle is a masterwork in creativity and was like peeling the layers of an onion. Five of the 21 X 21 square puzzle’s clues asked for the name of an historical personality: Cold War leader (Harry Truman), “Rebecca” producer (David Selznick). Answers to six other clues helped you piece together a website URL, which got you to www.devilcross.com/ . But that wasn’t enough information. You had to go back and determine the missing middle initial of each of the five personalities. They spelled out S-O-L-V-E. The puzzle’s directions explained that once you had the correct link, go there and enter your name and email address for a chance to win a prize. I did. I entered www.devilcross.co

On Saturday, March 24, Donna and I met up with Monica at her house in Silver Spring and we, along with John, Susan and Beth, walked to the nearby Metro station to begin our journey to participate in the March for Our Lives event in Washington, D.C. We were in one of a thousand tributaries feeding people into a powerful river of humanity onto Pennsylvania Avenue, along which sit those two most important institutions, the White House and The U.S. Capitol, 1.6 miles apart. Time, Inc. and other news outlets estimated the crowd at 800,000. It was an amazing gathering of diversity – young, middle-aged, elderly, white, black, war veterans, hipsters, men, women. Many, many teachers. It brought to mind the antiwar protests I attended as a teenager – peace signs, posters with slogans from Crosby, Stills & Nash, and a vibe of togetherness and empowerment as we exercised our democratic right to peacefully congregate and advocate for change. Why did we come? To listen to the inspiring sp