Louis Roney: Random thoughts

• Some two dozen of Gene Hawkins’ friends and neighbors gathered in the Hawkins’ elegant Winter Park home on April 7 to remember the anniversary of Louis Roney’s induction into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame last year. This group had such fun together in Tallahassee that they decided to extend the gaiety of that special occasion!

• A happy message arrives by email from Europe this week: “Dear Sir, I remember your singing in Mannhein National Theater many, many years ago. Your Radames in ‘Aida’ was the best I ever heard, so you are still in my heart.” Uta von Sohl, Konzert und Tourneeplanung, Don Kosaken Chor Serge Jaroff. Wörther Str. 35, 31582 Nienburg/Weser, Germany … My MY!

• “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” — Thomas Jefferson

• The guys I roomed with at Harvard all prepped at Exeter, and were all much readier for Harvard than I, who had just graduated from WPHS. They were also at least a year older than I, which means a lot in terms of maturity in one’s late teens. I note, lamentably, that I am the last still among the living, for no particular reason that I can think of.

• Barack Obama, to lots of us, seems to grow more and more tiresome as he spouts the self-commercials that comprise his public speaking. Even his usual “cheering section” (always seen directly behind him) seems subdued. The intellectual content of his parlance has never been much more than a sales talk that runs out of gas close to the finish line.

• Neighborhood bits: There is this guy across the street from our place who is pretty zippy and he knows it. That’s a lot better than being a stoop and staying that way. Anyhow, the guy is kind enough about answering questions, and I guess he has kept my foot from stepping in many a hole. Give me at least credit for asking good questions. Staying the way you are seems to be a worldwide attitude at this time, and, lord knows anyone who is stuck in the Okefenokee Swamp and finds something there to like has got troubles enough already.

When I listen to the news these days I immediately think of the effects on people who have in mind doing away with themselves, and are waiting for only a slight push. I myself have enough curiosity to want to see how this game turns out.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men don’t usually give enough of a damn to put things back together again. Families are like this, God knows, and the word is that the family is the most suicidal — these days we finally got weapons galore that will do the whole job in one fell swoop. Anyway, brother, we’re in plenty of trouble everywhere you look, and there are no “way out” signs posted anywhere.

I still think that the U.S. is the greatest country in the world, but that possibly isn’t the size compliment it used to be. We have the most powerful military force in the world, but do we use it to threaten even the worst scoundrels? When the Japanese dropped bombs on Pearl Harbor we acted quickly, and I was pretty soon caught up in the fray. By the time the Japanese signed the surrender on the USS Missouri, if the Americans sneezed, every Japanese pulled out his handkerchief. Today, do America’s sound and fury signify as much as it once did? Where is a Reagan …