In the words of Will Rogers speaking about the Democratic Party of the 1920s and 1930s, the Colorado Republican Party is “a firing squad that stands in a circle and the command is given ‘ready, fire, aim.’” If the people who run the Republican Party in the state of Colorado would lose three or four more IQ points we would have to water them twice a week. First there’s Scott McInnis whose act of charity is to give away a dead elk, followed by Dan Maes who said he’d take the elk. Both of these guys are as good as tapped out as I write this on July 19, 2010.

Enter the dragon: Tom Tancredo. One of the things that German philosopher Friedrich “Freddy” Nietzsche tells us is that you’re not known by your friends, but rather you’re known by your enemies and that in life, one doesn’t necessarily need good friends but what one needs is good enemies.
So without further ado I’d like to list the people who hate Tom Tancredo. And when you’re done reading this list, decide if you like the people on the list who hate Tom or if you like Tom. In not necessarily any particular order, here we go:

• Media Matters
• The Denver Post (and their columnists):
Mike Littwin
Tina Griego
Susan Greene
Bill “Floorboards” Johnson
• The Colorado Republican Party and their major fundraisers and movers and shakers; you know like they used to say about the Japanese, “those wonderful people who brought you Pearl Harbor.” Bruce Benson, Pete Coors and the ever popular “Both Ways” Bob.
• MoveOn.org
• Progress Now
• Mayor John Hickenlooper and the Denver City Council aka the illegal alien marching band and drill team.
• ACORN
• The ACLU
• Brady Bill Advocates
• John McCain
• La Raza
• Keith Olbermann
• Chris Matthews on Hardball.
• Karl Rove, who has told Tom Tancredo to keep his mouth shut (you know, Bush’s brain). And by the way George Bush is not a big fan of Tom Tancredo.
• Rick Sanchez, who says that Tom’s words are hate speech.
• Ed Schultz
• Dave Barry
• Senatorial candidate Ken Buck, who no longer wants Tancredo’s endorsements.
• Daily Kos
• Talk show host Tom Leykis
• A number of women on The View.
• Dani Newsum
• Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton
• Harry “The Body” Reid
• A bunch of people in Mecca after Tom said he’d like to bomb them if they struck America again.
• The people who went absolutely bonkers when Tancredo said citizens should be able to read and write in order to vote.
• Howard Zinn
• The Jersey Jihadists who said they’d like to kill Tom because he threatened to bomb Mecca.
• I’m sure Barack Obama isn’t crazy about him, nor is Eric Holder.
• All open borders advocates.
• Helen Thomas….we all remember her.
• Tom advocates the legalization of drugs although you’d never read that in any of the left-wing values columns so the anti-marijuana lobby can’t be counted in the grandstands either.
• Advocates for the North American Union, GAT and NAFTA.
• College students on weird campuses who won’t allow him to speak.
• Michael Chertoff
• Bill Ritter
• Stephanie Villafuerte
• Illegal aliens
• Denver Chamber of Commerce
• Southern Poverty Law Center
• Jesse Jackson
• Al Sharpton
• I don’t think Mitt Romney is a big fan after Tom challenged him to a shoot off when they found out that a couple days before that Mitt had bought an NRA lifetime membership which he used to claim he was a longtime member.

So we can conclude, as you can plainly see, these are the people who hate Tom Tancredo. I ask you: How can you hate a guy that people on this list hate? Are you kidding me? There is not one person on this list that anyone would really like to have dinner with, particularly the high-powered Republicans. Remember as this is being written, if Tom manages to get on the ballot in November for governor, we’re in for a hell of a ride.

If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.

See ya at Sturgis!

Peter Boyles is a nationally acclaimed radio host who can be heard Monday through Friday on 630 KHOW 5 to 9 a.m. He has a monthly column in the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle. Visit Peter’s blog and comment on his column, or let him know anything else that’s on your mind, by going to the Chronicle Web site at www.glendalecherrycreek.com.

Thomas Jefferson, as you know, was adamant about the First Amendment being the cornerstone of keeping the republic free. That of course includes your right to assemble and petition the government for any and all grievances. As you can see history is replete with examples of people losing their rights as free people and slipping into the darkness of the totalitarian regime, or in case of the transition between czarist Russia and Lenin’s Russia, the change was virtually seamless. In a number of the places in the world today, the state controls the media. Those are also nation states where the individual rarely, if ever, has access to a gun.

History also tells us that men revolt on their knees, not on their backs. When someone gets to his knees in an oppressive society, generally, in revolutionary situations, that man has a gun in his hand. Be it at Concord Bridge or Louie’s France, or Cromwell’s England or the IRA throwing off the yolk of the British, it’s done with guns.

Consider this: One of the first great examples of gun control existed in African-American communities in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Former slaves and freeborn men and women were denied access to guns in Dixie.

Imagine now the first night rider Klansman riding up on a sheet-covered horse at a sharecropper’s cabin to light a cross or to lynch a man and had his ass blown off the horse by the business end of a 12-gauge shotgun. That would only have had to happen half a dozen times and Jim-Bob and Earl would have gotten the lesson. But of course, the lynchings went on, the burnings and beatings continued and black people had no way to fight back.

If we look at the most violent cities in the United States today, they also have the strictest gun control laws. It’s a fascinating equation; we don’t let you have a gun and you become a victim of a crime because you cannot defend yourself. You are law-abiding and a night rider criminal is not.
You are also guaranteed rights by the Constitution. These are not granted by the state, they are granted by God to you. Remember the big number two, the Second Amendment, guarantees you the right to a gun. So why is it that you have to ask city, state or national governments for your right to access the Second Amendment? I don’t recall a letter writer to the Chronicle asking Bill Ritter, Barak Obama or John Hickenlooper for permission to call me a moron. Are you starting to get the picture?
Arizona has recently introduced legislation that you won’t even need to request permission for a conceal carry permit; you can simply carry a gun. If you look at crime statistics, where conceal carry permits are issued, violent crimes against persons drop. This one isn’t even tough anymore. Some of the early legislation in New England mandated that you owned a gun. The Swiss and the Israelis somehow have understood that for a long time.

Israel has been under siege since the creation of the state by the same fun-loving groups that would love to kill you, your immediate family, your friends and the people who call me a moron. What do the Israelis know that you don’t know? In the words of Al Capone, “You can get a lot farther with a smile and a gun than you can with just a smile.”

I have changed my mind a lot in the last decade about the Second Amendment. Give it some thought and I’m looking forward to reading all the letters and listening to all the phone calls to the Chronicle, both of which the Constitution guarantees you.

God bless The Duke.
Peter

If you recall when you went back to school in the fall in many grade levels, a teacher would ask you to write something titled, “What I did on my summer vacation.” Like I said before, we went to Grandma’s. Other kids went to other places but to me going to Grandma’s was a big deal. As I’ve written about before, Grandma had a TV and an electric fan. In Pittsburgh, that is the equivalent to the Waldorf Astoria and the opening of West Side Story.

The same thing holds true for spring break. Other people go to Mexico, Florida, San Diego, or some other all-inclusive resort. If you have kids then you go to Orlando, and visit the rat.

Not me boy, I went to Haiti. There is nothing in the world, no experience I’ve ever had and nothing I’ve ever seen that could have prepared me for Haiti. I read as much as I could, attended a few lectures, had dinner with some people and got my shots. But nothing prepared me for Haiti.

I think as most people know, Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake in January of this year. No one is sure of the death toll but it’s estimated that 250,000 to 300,000 people died in 28 seconds. In fact, most of the flattened buildings in Port Au Prince still have dozens of bodies inside.

Before I went I really thought that perhaps we could make a difference in one place, St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Port Au Prince, Haiti. I was going to sell bricks with peoples’ names or families’ names or corporate logos to help rebuild a really wonderful institution. Thirty seconds outside the airport I knew that was all wrong. Nothing prepares you for Haiti. Most people have seen the file footage of the fall of Saigon; that’s what it looks like outside the airport in Port Au Prince. People screaming to get inside or to get you to give them something as you get off the plane. In fact, a day later, a man offered me his baby to take with me.

The Haitian people are some of the very best people to be with; kind and generous with whatever they have left and believe me, that ain’t much.

It’s estimated that three to four million people are living in tents. The population in Haiti is estimated at 12 million people. There is no sewer system, no running water, electricity comes on an hour a day (generally at night) so there is no refrigeration, no health precautions and it’s believed that at least half the population is HIV positive.

Half the population of Haiti is under the age of 18 and average life expectancy is 48-years-old. People stay in tents for two reasons: One, because of aftershocks they are afraid to go back into their homes that are on the verge of collapse, and the second reason is because while you’re in the UN camps you can get at least one meal a day.

At St. Joseph’s our big meal was at noon and it was usually rice and beans with a special sauce they make in Haiti, which by the way was great. We ate with the kids and the orphans and that was going to be that.

If you know the story of the Restivicks, a Creole word for child slave, the Restivicks were slave house boys and in the collapse of peoples’ houses the owners kicked them loose. So now St. Joseph’s runs a daycare for one-time Restivicks.

I took cases of power bars and granola bars to try to substitute for a little bit of food we were promised at night. They have a rule that if you eat, you share. I left all the food and everything else I took, including my clothes except for those on my back, for those kids at that house. You’re embarrassed to leave with anything, except for the price of a cheeseburger in Ft. Lauderdale on the way back.
Haitians are really fine, decent people but it was one of the few times in my life where I realized that there might not be a solution to this. What happens now to the people in those tents when the hurricanes come? They literally have nowhere to go. If I ever saw a place that is ripe for a revolution, it’s Haiti. Gangs run the docks and I saw only one or two Haitian military. The Brazilian military seems to run the airport and there were soldiers from Taiwan there who, the Catholic brothers told me, rape women. It’s a nightmare scenario that seems hopeless.

One of the wonderful things we did do was sit on the roof at night, when it was pitch dark and very hot, and talk. I think that was what it must have been like in the U.S. at an earlier time when all you had for support was your friends and your family. There is so much sadness in an extremely raw and beautiful country that has perhaps the most tragic history of any country in our hemisphere.

There are many ways to help the Haitians. Do it in the manner in which you feel comfortable with. I’m not here to tell you who to give money to or who to support but I can tell you this: nothing will prepare you for Haiti. I’m definitely going back and indeed please find a way, even it’s just a small amount, to help.

Peter

The army may be forced to court-martial Lt. Col. Lakin because he refused to deploy to Afghanistan, because he considers orders from President Obama to be illegal. Lt. Col. Lakin believes, as do a growing number of American citizens, that Barack Obama does not meet the constitutional requirements to be President of the United States of America and subsequently, Commander-In- Chief. Lakin refused to report to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to deploy to Afghanistan. So he is instead doing something in the Pentagon, although he has been relieved of duties. He is being charged with things that include “missing a movement” and “conduct unbecoming an officer” and has now been dubbed “Lt. Col. Birther.”

Now remember everyone, this story goes back well over two years when some investigative reporters began questioning a lot of missing documents from the life of our president. Up to and including: the still-concealed documents and records such as Punahou school records, Occidental Col-lege records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis records, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review records, passport records, medical records, baptism records and adoption records, to name but a few. Another interesting factor is the estimated $1.7 million to $2.5 million the president has spent to prevent any documentation of his life to be revealed to you. So a billboard campaign began across America asking the musical question, “So, where’s the birth certificate?”

As you can see above, this is the Obama defender’s confirmation of the president’s American citizenship status. But let’s you and I look closely at the document. This document which Obama’s campaign released to satisfy his critics was not a Hawaiian “Birth Certificate,” nor was it a “Certificate of Live Birth,” nor was it a “Certification of Live Birth.” Instead it was simply a photo of a document titled “Certification of Live Birth.” A birth certificate would give the name of the birth hospital, the birth doctor’s name, the birth witness’s name and the birth certificate number. Now look at the birth certificate number — it has been blacked out. The document clearly reads at the bottom, “Any alterations invalidate this certificate.”

The man has spent, people believe, over $2 million to prevent the disclosure of public records such as a health department copy. They have also spent as much in government money and tax dollars, if not more, in court costs. I know, maybe it’s just me. So I ask again: Don’t you think it’s interesting that neither columnists nor political cartoonists throw rocks at birthers any longer? People who question the covered footprints of the President are no longer portrayed as people wearing tin foil hats. In fact, they are not spoken about at all anymore.

What will happen if truth and justice are presented in a military court room? Will the president offer his original birth certificate or leave Lt. Col. Lakin to the mercy of the court? The question is whether the mainstream press or the Democratic Party, when the convention was here in Denver, ever really vetted Barack Obama for the presidency.

Stay tuned.

Peter

Peter Boyles is a nationally acclaimed radio host who can be heard Monday through Friday on 630 KHOW 5 to 9 a.m. He has a monthly column in the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle. Visit Peter’s blog and comment on his column, or let him know anything else that’s on your mind, by going to the Chronicle Web site at www.glendalecherrycreek.com.

For those of us young, blue collar males whose childhood was in the ’50s and ’60s, automobiles were the dominant force in our lives, along with rock and roll music, the Pittsburgh Pirates and 16-year-old girls that we knew we would never have (see last month’s Valentine’s Day column that said you’ll never get the cheerleader). As I’ve said before, the arrival of the new model automobiles in my young manhood was like the secrets of the atomic bomb — we knew they would be there but we weren’t sure what they looked like or how it would happen.

No one, repeat no one, drove a Japanese-made automobile. There’s an old throwaway line that held true in the ’50s and ’60s — “Those are the wonderful people that brought you Pearl Harbor.” And anything, repeat anything, made in Japan was cheap and probably was indirectly used to kill Marines on Saipan.

My father — and you can see (above) a picture of his car — always did two things: looked for the union label on anything he bought and didn’t allow foreign made products in the house.
One of the largest mistakes I made in my life was the third car I bought. It was a used Triumph TR3 sports car. I’ve written before about working at the Edgewater steel mill on the outskirts of Verona, Pennsylvania. Pulling into the parking lot the first morning with the top down on my Triumph, all the mill hunkies came over and stared at me and said, “Hey boy, how many American workers did you put out of work buying that car?”

Now believe me, I love sports cars and still do, but other than a beat-up Volkswagen when I was in grad school, I’ve never bought another foreign car.

I really get a perverse pleasure watching the Japanese automobile industry take a dive. I know that’s not politically correct, but every time I see someone driving one of those I go back to the parking lot at Edgewater Steel and think to myself, “how many American men and women did you put out of work building that car?”

Now the Japanese build cars in America, as do other foreign-owned companies, but it’s only because the American Congress forced them to do so. But always remind yourself that any profit goes back to that home country.

Cars to us as kids meant one thing, actually two, freedom and sex. Don’t you think it’s fascinating that drive-in movies, a function of the automobile, have become a thing of the past? Don’t kid yourself; it isn’t because of Pay-Per-View movies that you can get at home.
I remember my favorite drive-in growing up was called the Hamarville Drive-In, home of the Hamar-Villains, the first authentic outlaw motorcycle club I ever came in contact with. We made jokes that the speakers didn’t work in the last four rows of the Hamarville Drive-In and no one noticed. On a soft summer night in the Hamarville Drive-In someone would say, “Listen, you can hear the crickets” and someone else would say “Man, those aren’t crickets, those are zippers.”

How about a show of hands of anyone over the age of 50 whose first sexual experience occurred at a drive-in? Ok, put your hands down. For me I can tell you the title of the movie. I saw the beginning of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I’ve never seen the end of that movie to this day. But it was the automobile that I thank for introducing me to one of the sweet mysteries of life.
So much for the rest of my driving experiences which included car crashes, DUIs, getting towed and impounded and every alcoholic’s most difficult questions on Sunday morning: “Where is my car?” and “Whose car did I bring home?” Or one of my favorites from my childhood, “What’s your uncle’s car doing on the lawn?”

Automobiles meant something…they had meaning. Today I have a Ford Hybrid. I’ve never liked a car this much but I really don’t love this car. The cars that I’ve loved seemingly are like the women I’ve loved — something’s always wrong with them and you can’t help yourself — you always want to get in and go.

So now my passion is motorcycles (see photo at left). For the uninitiated that is called a Boss Hoss — a Chevy V-8 automobile engine put on a motorcycle frame, which really is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. Which leads me to ask this question: Who did shoot Liberty Valance?

Peter

A lot of Old English traditions speak about a guy named Jack Valentine who would come to the back door and deliver gifts for children. A lot of kids were afraid of Jack for good reason. As any teenage boy knows, the cheerleader is not going out with you, your heart will break and Jack Valentine does come to the back door.

Valentine’s Day, according to some historians, is a holiday named after an early Christian martyr named Valentine who was martyred by shooting arrows into his heart. Now I think you’re starting to get the picture. Having recently experienced someone reaching into my chest, grabbing the pump with both hands and saying, “Here, you won’t be needing this,” I understand the Arabs, the kids who are afraid of Jack Valentine and the people who shot the Saint in the heart with bows and arrows.

One of my father’s theories is that the Jews created Christmas to sell Christians presents to give to each other. He could never prove it but it was like so many things with the old man, I guess it just didn’t matter. Many people believe that Hershey’s, Hallmark, the floral industry and blood diamonds helped create February 14th as Valentine’s Day. And here’s a shock, it’s estimated that American men spend twice as much as American women on Valentine’s Day.

Having gone into “hock for rocks” in the past, I know there’s some guy in South Africa that tips his cap to me every year but given this last year and a half, it obviously did no good. So I thought I could give some advice to the lovelorn. As one of my dearest friends in the world has always said to me, there is only one rule of foreign policy: never go to war in places that end in ‘nam’ or ‘stan.’

Using that as my guideline let me give you the Boyles’ rules for modern day romance:

1) Don’t date married women. It’s not smart. It always has a bad ending.
2) Always date someone younger so you can tell those same lies a second time, but stay within three generations of your own.
3) Don’t date outside of your species, although it’s clear that a dog or cat will love you more and probably hang around longer because you feed them.
4) Always slow dance with the woman you think you love because dancing is just making love to music. It’s a real indicator.
5) Before you get serious, check out what the mother looks like. You can see your future.
6) Never go out with anyone who won’t give you their home phone number or won’t let you see where they live.
7) Ask someone at the Denver D.A.’s office to do a criminal background check and get a Dun and Bradstreet.
Hit the door the first time the other person says they just want to be friends.
9) Find out if they’ve ever used any other names, aliases or a DBA.
10) Ask them what their stripper or Vegas name was.
11) Make sure you’re pretty cinched up in the relationship before you bring them around any of your good friends.
12) Check their purse for a handgun and their wallet for a medical marijuana ID card.
13) The first time you go to her house, check the bathroom to make sure she doesn’t have any crazy pills.
14) She should have a sense of humor and needs to be willing to laugh at a funeral.
15) Make sure they can ski.
16) Make sure they like motorcycles and are not offended by your outlaw friends.
17) Make sure they like the rodeo.
18) She should like to read and watch old black and white movies.
19) And one of the most important, make sure they never listen to talk radio.
20) Last but not least, the most important one of all, make sure she is willing to put up with you when the world has caved in and you’re at your flat worst.

So after you go down the list and she runs her own list on you, still run away.

Happy Valentine’s Day from the King of Hearts,
Peter Boyles

Peter Boyles is a nationally acclaimed radio host who can be heard Monday through Friday on 630 KHOW 5 to 9 a.m. He has a monthly column in the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle. Visit Peter’s blog and comment on his column, or let him know anything else that’s on your mind, by going to the Chronicle Web site at www.glendalecherrycreek.com.

Keeping in the tradition of Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce and the Great Carnac, I, Peter Boyles, astrologer to the stars, or at least to half a dozen of my closest friends and associates, have decided to go out on a limb on this, my final column written during 2009.

Predictions and Resolutions: As a little boy I always remembered the Pittsburgh Press would have a cartoon this time of the year that had a little baby with a banner for the New Year over his shoulder kicking an old man, with a nightshirt on and an hourglass in his hand, in the pants. Goodbye 1954, welcome 1955.

I used to believe the New Year began in the fall when A and Z Chevrolet on Allegheny River Blvd. would put the brand new Chevys in the window. But like so many other things in my childhood, I can’t tell you how wrong I really was.

So in keeping in the tradition of being wrong, here it goes:

First of all, Predictions:

1) If it hasn’t already happened, Stephanie Villafuerte will never become the U.S. Attorney (mind you we are writing this the second week of December 2009).

2) Sometime in 2010, some featured columnist in The Denver Post might even recognize that there’s a cancer in the governor’s office, the district attorney’s office and tragically, a lot of spillover into the Denver Police Department.

3) Somebody may actually see Pat Bowlen. I think he’s Denver’s answer to Punxsutawney Phil. If Pat Bowlen sees his shadow, we may actually have another year of Broncos football in Colorado.

4) By the way, where is Pat Bowlen? Not that we really need him…

5) Tiger Woods will join Pat Bowlen and disappear. We will see a new bumper sticker will say, “Honk if you have not slept with Tiger Woods or seen Pat Bowlen.” BTW…What do Tiger Woods and a baby Harp Seal have in common? They’ve both been clubbed by a Scandinavian.

6) John Hickenlooper will make a great leap backward in his political career by becoming a gubernatorial candidate for the Democratic Party in 2010.

7) I probably won’t introduce two other people that will get married. Congratulations to Julie and Chuck.

My pending divorce will be final in 2010 and I too will discover my inner niece.

9) I will probably get a vasectomy, turning the 2010 Peter Boyles into the all-new Peter Boyles sports model.

10) Andy Romanoff will replace Michael Bennet as the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate this fall. (Remember Michael Bennet became a U.S. Senator by one vote — Bill Ritter’s. ’Nuff said. Winky winky).

11) Jeannie Ritter may buy a set of Pings.

12) After Dave Logan’s Mullen beats CU, then CU will hire Logan as coach. Go Buffs, take State!

And now for Resolutions:

Since I’m almost perfect, just ask any of my ex-wives, it’s difficult to improve on my personality, health and well being. However, I’m going to:

1) Return to music lessons on my guitar.

2) Attend the motorcycle racing school run by Ricky Orlando.

3) Go back to the ring at Fight Club.

4) Do my level best to continue to be the pain in the ass that I’ve become to so many of the city and the state’s most powerful.

So, ring out the old, bring in the new and make sure you sit there with your dad and watch the ball drop in Times Square with Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians playing “Auld Lang Syne.” It’s the song every drunk knows at midnight but no one knows the words to.

P.S. I never knew that the Royal Canadians wore red sport coats until I was in a bar one night that had a color TV.

Peter Boyles is a nationally acclaimed radio host who can be heard Monday through Friday on 630 KHOW 5 to 9 a.m. He has a monthly column in the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle. Visit Peter’s blog and comment on his column, or let him know anything else that’s on your mind, by going to the Chronicle Web site at www.glendalecherrycreek.com.

The only thing that really changed around our house for Christmas was the emergence of the Old Granddad bottle. That replaced my father’s Chinese Whiskey that he called “shen-lee” (Schenley), a cheaper form of whiskey. But then again once you get off the beer and on to the brown water then you know it’s the true holiday season.

Now when I hear my first Christmas carol of the year (if you go into Target that’s shortly after Labor Day), I have to fight off several forms of depression. The ghost of Christmas past always comes sneaking in. The tradition in our family is to put the tree up on Christmas Eve. We were long- needle people. I married into two short-needle families; maybe that’s why my being a long-needle man may have caused the demise of two marriages.

My brother discovered that you can buy Christmas trees on Christmas Eve afternoon a lot cheaper than you can on December 1. Subsequently, I think that’s why the old man always brought the tree home on Christmas Eve. There was a little Bob Cratchit/Uncle Ebenezer type thing with that.

“Boy, what day is this?”

“Why, it’s Christmas sir.”

“Well I bet they’re giving those Christmas trees away.”

If only my dad waited until Christmas morning, we could have had a much bigger tree. In the late 1940s my father won a Lionel Train gambling. The train was a wonderful aspect of our Christmas because the train would go up on a piece of fiber board and the stand would be sitting there all by itself, maybe 10 days to two weeks before Christmas, just awaiting the tree. My sister and my brothers and I would ride the miniature Baby Jesus around on the train. At the time the popular song was Teen Angel, about some girl getting killed on the railroad tracks after going after a ring. I can’t tell you how many times the three wise men and a statue of a camel got “Teen Angeled” in the Boyles household.

Moving right along…I was also an altar boy in my misspent youth. Many people who read this can relate to Christmas Eve midnight services. There were these people that we dubbed the “Twice a Year Christians” — those who go to church only on Easter and Christmas Eve. There is always a joke that the only difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish funeral is one less drunk. As they said when the incense was swung, someone in the back would say, “Hey lady your purse is on fire!” The kid that did the altar across from me was the infamous “Squeaky” Fitzory. Next time I heard anyone named Squeaky was a member of the Manson family.

Anyhow, one spectacular Christmas Eve, Squeaky passed out on the right side of the altar. I think we were 13-years-old at the time and I don’t think I ever got to the bottom of why Squeaky overdosed. But seriously folks, if you understand the pragmatism of the holiday season, it has its roots in a Pagan Europe where the Yuletide really was a debauched time of the year but really hardly holds a candle to Easter when you get outside with your clothes off and really rock and roll.

I miss Christmas and really what people want you to know is the magical wish that I hope someday comes true. Peace on earth, goodwill toward men. God bless us all. Everyone.

Tiny Peter

P.S. Christmas never put a patch on New Year’s. If you really wanted a good time there is nothing better than sitting in front of the black and white, watching Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians and the ball drop in Times Square. Your dad is smoking a Lucky Strike, sitting on the couch and the neighbors are shooting off handguns. But that is for another column.

Peter Boyles is a nationally acclaimed radio host who can be heard Monday through Friday on 630 KHOW 5 to 9 a.m. He has a monthly column in the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle. Visit Peter’s blog and comment on his column, or let him know anything else that’s on your mind, by going to the Chronicle Web site at www.glendalecherrycreek.com.

When I was a kid Thanksgiving time signaled a couple of different things. Kids were recovering from the World Series flu, which meant you stayed home and either listened to the World Series on the radio or watched it on TV. Now, as sure as the leaves are falling, begins the systematic announcement of the death of a grandparent which signals the beginning of deer hunting season. It goes something like this:

Question: Why isn’t Tom in school today?

Answer: I think his grandma died.

Question: Is that the same grandma that died last year at this time?

Explanation: No, that was his other grandma, but that one will die again next deer season.

I never took into full account that you really are supposed to give thanks for things that happened in your life so for 2009, here it goes:

1) I still have a job.

2) A new tattoo that I will tell you about in a future column.

3) Motorcycles.

4) Ski season is pending.

5) My recovered mental health. (Damn this has been a tough year).

6) My sobriety.

7) The team of crack physicians that took the end of 2008 and so far all of 2009 to save my wretched carcass.

Flat screen televisions.

9) My trip to Sturgis (see photos).

10) My new cat Blanket (I think I adopted a crack baby). By the way, can you feed a cat Prozac? What would happen if you gave a cat Valium?

11) Somehow the Sheik of Cherry Creek (Greg Hollenback) has recovered from a bad ATV crash and is still on the job.

12) I got to see Van Morrison live.

13) My friendship with some of the best people I’ve ever known in my life — you know who you are.

14) MY Broncos, MY Rockies, MY Nuggets, MY Avalanche and MY 20.

15) I thank God I got to turn 66 years of age (remember the only guy who wants to be 97 is the guy who’s 96). If only I could add a six I could be the beast.

16) Laura Lieff. Without her there would be no column.

17) I currently have no blood relatives in prison.

18) I have underwear older than the girls in these pictures.

19) Handguns and mean dogs.

20) I don’t have swine flu. Yet.

21) People I’m not.

22) Nieces in the lobby at Washington, D.C. (When I was in a hotel in D.C. recently, I noticed a lot of older men saying goodbye to their nieces in the lobby).

23) Medical marijuana — you never know.

24) Dr. Armodios Hatzidakis, orthopedic surgeon to the stars. (On behalf of Chuck “The Baron” Bonniwell and me).

25) The general manager of the Glendale Center of the Performing Arts — the master himself, Matt Dunafon.

But on a serious note, if this year was a fish, I’d throw it back. But there are some very wonderful things to give thanks for: a good divorce attorney and that my children have come through a tough year (but then again haven’t we all). So when the turkey hits the table, thank God you’re still in the land of the free and the home of the brave. You can make a mistake or two or the five million that I’ve made and still go ahead with your life. And remember this: Frodo failed, Bill Ritter’s got the ring.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Peter

Peter Boyles is a nationally acclaimed radio host who can be heard Monday through Friday on 630 KHOW 5 to 9 a.m. He has a monthly column in the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle. Visit Peter’s blog and comment on his column, or let him know anything else that’s on your mind, by going to the Chronicle Web site at www.glendalecherrycreek.com.

Not unlike Jackie Robinson, the great Brooklyn Dodger, who was the first African American to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball, Barack Obama breaks the color ceiling of presidential politics. And just like Jackie, it won’t be an issue for the next black man to seek the highest office. It’s been done. But, what Jimmy Carter has done is interesting. He throws up the reverse barrier. Now if you’re a critic, you’re a racist.

A few Thursdays ago, on our radio show, we were discussing Tiger Woods and Barack Obama. These are both black men and people want to say, “Oh well, Barack’s mom was white and Tiger’s mom was of Chinese ethnicity from Thailand.” So the claim is made that they’re not black. The point that I made was let me get in the time machine, take both of them back to Pittsburgh in the late 1950s and early 1960s and let me try to take them to the swimming pool. Nobody at the gate is going to say, “Ok, but only the Chinese part gets in the water.” Let me try to take them someplace like Cherry Hills Country Club to play golf. I don’t think they let black people caddy. Or better yet, how about if I try to get them into medical school or law school. I’m sure the dean of the University of Alabama law school would have said, “Sure, let’s let these Chinese boys in.”

As a boy and a young man, I witnessed the real, true racism that the ugly part of America was willing to show. As the kids now say, “Back in the day.” As a young man, and I’ve written about this before in my column titled “Fight Club,” I fought on the traveling martial arts team out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We qualified to go to Ft. Meyer gymnasium in Washington, D.C. Which by the way, is to this day, a United States Army post.

Probably the toughest guy on our team was a black man by the name of Joe Pennywell. Joe is no longer with us but it would be wonderful if he were alive and able to read this column today. Joe was known just as “Penny.” He was fast, tough, hit you like a ton of bricks and at all times, was a gentleman. As a boy, I revered Joe.

Our first morning in Washington, D.C., our team had breakfast in a greasy spoon diner. There must have been eight or nine of us on the team, all of us from Pittsburgh, with different ethnicities and skin colors. We plopped down in one big booth together. The waitress immediately came over, pointed to Joe and said, “We don’t serve him.” I was a kid and at first, I didn’t get it. I’m not telling you that I didn’t hear all those things said at home or at school or in the steel mill and I’m not going to tell you that I never laughed at an ethnic joke or someone making a racial slur. I think the same people who say they never did that are the same people who, upon meeting a black man, say, “I don’t see the color of your skin.” That’s total crap. Of course you see the color of a man’s skin; but it’s what you do with it that matters. It’s like meeting a female person and not seeing a woman.

But on that day, when Joe was told to leave that diner, I found myself appalled. As an 18-year- old kid, Joe was a fighter, a mentor and a teacher, who just happened to be black. One of the toughest guys on our team was a big 6’ 3” guy who fought heavyweight. His name was Hal Wrigley. As we got to the cash register, Hal tried to start a fight with the guy behind the counter and Joe called him off. Hal would have taken the guy’s head off and I remember wanting to apologize to Penny for somebody being that stupid. I didn’t relate to the waitress or the cashier owner; I related to the injustice that was done to Joe. Now as the man said, “That’s racism.” Not the way Jimmy Carter described it.

Racism is ignorant. Criticism, if correctly done, is anything but. Whether Barack Obama succeeds or fails, really doesn’t have anything to do with the color of his skin. Just like Jackie Robinson, he’s the first. But, neither he nor Tiger, or for that matter Joe Pennywell, would have been served breakfast that morning in Washington, D.C.

Peter

Peter Boyles is a nationally acclaimed radio host who can be heard Monday through Friday on 630 KHOW 5 to 9 a.m. He has a monthly column in the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle. Visit Peter’s blog and comment on his column, or let him know anything else that’s on your mind, by going to the Chronicle Web site at www.glendalecherrycreek.com.