Tips from a scarred Mother's Day veteran

It's Mother's Day, which is time for two reminders:

1. Mother's Day is important.

2. All greetings aren't equal. You don't get credit for simply remembering.

Trust me. I know. Or ask Mrs. Brad. She knows.

It goes back to a Mother's Day many years ago, right after our first son was born. We'd gone through a few years of infertility, with all that encompasses – particularly for women.

I figured "something" would happen sometime, but I was also ready to accept a childless life. I was also preoccupied with whether the Giants could contend, whether the 49ers would keep winning and when M.C. Hammer would become bigger than Elvis.

Mother's Day was especially painful for Mrs. Brad. The annual reminders that she wasn't a mom yet, combined with what felt like condescension from those who realized it (". . . oh, this is a day for you, too!") made her want to avoid Mother's Day at all costs.

The year before our son was born, I scored big time. We had a fish tank with several small fish, so on Mother's Day, I gave her a card, "signed" by all the fish – each with different handwriting. It was clever. She liked it.

I won.

Then we decided to adopt and our son was born in November. We went through all the tension and excitement of having kids, along with the extra drama of adoption. When that first Mother's Day came, I figured I was on a winning streak.

Remember the fish card? I could do even better!

At the grocery store a few days before Mother's Day, I perused the cards. There were cute ones, old-fashioned ones, Bible verses, corny ones "to my wife." I looked around and saw . . .

Cards in Spanish!

This would be hilarious! I would get Mrs. Brad a card in Spanish for her first Mother's Day! She doesn't speak nor read Spanish, so this would be even better than the fish card! Hilarious!

Of course it was a bad idea, but it didn't seem so at the time. Many bad ideas don't seem so at the time.

Me writing a column about the possible outcomes of that Malaysian airliner that disappeared a few years ago didn't seem like a bad idea.

My late-1980s mullet didn't seem like a bad idea.

I'm sure investing in a time share doesn't seem like a bad idea.

And that Spanish card for Mrs. Brad's first Mother's Day didn't seem like a bad idea.

The big day arrived and I placed the card in the crib next to our son. Mrs. Brad saw it, her face lit up and she opened the card.

Then she read it. And cried. I had taken a landmark day in her life and made it into a stupid gag by giving her a card that she couldn't read.

There's no way to really recover from that. You apologize, admit your failure and don't repeat it.

I didn't repeat it.

I've had many Mother's Days since then. Mrs. Brad still doesn't like the holiday and I know not to make it worse with a dumb gag. (To be clear: I still go for the dumb gags, just not on Mother's Day.)

So there's your lesson on Mother's Day, 2016. Remember the holiday, but don't go for a cheap laugh when it's really important to the recipient.

It's no bueño.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Ranking recent decades: Official list, in order

We live in a world of rankings. Nielsen ranks television shows. Media members and coaches rank college sports teams. A website called Ranker.com claims that it ranks everything. And Rankin-Bass ranks Christmas TV specials.

Get it? That joke ranks high on a list of 40-year-old pop culture references.

Anyway, today I break out my latest rankings. A few months ago, I ranked the generations – with early favorite "The Greatest Generation" finishing behind the much-knocked Millennials. Today? We'll rank the decades.

Using a purely scientific method, I will rank the 1960s through the 2000s (the 2010s aren't done yet, so it's a nice cutoff). While everything is in play, we'll pay particular attention to pop culture, sports and world events.

It's science, so don't argue. Here are the rankings, starting at the bottom.

5. 2000s: It's hard to feel great about a decade that included the Sept. 1, 2001, terror attacks and the Great Recession: The worst attack on U.S. soil followed seven years later by the worst recession in 70 years. And in between, we had two major military engagements and the start of the New England Patriots dynasty. Ugh.

On the plus side, we did have the best years of "American Idol," the birth of social media and all those "Harry Potter" books and movies.

4. 1970s: The most dramatic musical decade, with the collision of rock, R&B, disco and punk. The 1970s also saw the end of the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon. In entertainment, there was a weird contrast between a major improvement in movies (more realistic films, plus the advent of blockbusters) and horrendous TV shows ("Happy Days," "The Jeffersons," "Three's Company").

Sports, a major factor for me, wasn't great in the 1970s. And you have to deduct for the hair, styles and food. To be fair, we really needed a breather between two epic decades (spoiler alert!).

3. 1990s: The tech boom, Bill Clinton's presidency, the emergence of hip-hop and grunge music as mainstream and, most significantly, the birth of my two sons makes this a really important decade. The 1990s saw the Gulf War, the O.J. Simpson trial and dynasties by the Dallas Cowboys, Chicago Bulls and New York Yankees – all of which troubled most of America.

If you liked boy bands or Brittany Spears, the late '90s were remarkable. The decade was high-tech (AOL, pagers), but it was the last gasp before we all got fully connected. No Twitter or Facebook, which made it better or worse, depending on your perspective.

2. 1980s: Some really remarkable music (Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, U2) and a second wave of youth movies/TV shows in a decade dominated by Ronald Reagan. While it's funny to think of the technology of the decade (the Walkman, VCRs, early cellphones), the 1980s were when we made a leap into the information age – even if it was with old game systems and CDs.

TV gave us "The Cosby Show," (which seems creepy now, but was great at the time) "Cheers," "Seinfeld" and the dawn of modern drama with such programs as "Hill Street Blues" and "L.A. Law." The 49ers won four Super Bowls while Michael Jordan and Nike created a new partnership between marketing and sports. Oh, and world communism collapsed, too, for which the decade gets bonus points.

1. 1960s: America's most-heralded decade is the greatest decade of the past 50 years since it gave us the Beatles, Woodstock, the moon landing, the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam and a bunch of assassinations (clearly a mixed bag). It gets a lot of credit from baby boomers, who are overrated (see generations-ranking column), but in this case, they're right.

This was the decade that saw us transition from the post-World War II culture to modern culture. Like it or not, the 1960s shaped modern America. Oh, and I was born.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Nonsensical problem with the term 'nonfiction'

One of the enduring mysteries of life – along with how Tom Cruise doesn't age and what makes hot dogs taste good – is the fact that the two types of narrative (usually in books) are fiction and nonfiction.

Fiction. Nonfiction.

Fiction, of course, make sense. Fiction is made up. But the other stories – which covers everything else – are nonfiction?

All that we can do is describe it by what it's not? It's not fiction.

The irony is crazy (nonsane?): An industry of people who work with words – authors who gave us "The Grapes of Wrath," "The Origin of Species," "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and "Not Quite Camelot" (check it out on Amazon!) can't come up with a word to describe a book that's not fiction.

I almost nonbelieve it.

Writers constantly create. "Beatnik," for instance, wasn't a word until San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen (that newspaper's Tony Wade) used it in 1958. Joseph Heller's novel "Catch-22" created the phrase to explain a no-win situation. "Cyberspace" first appeared in a 1982 novel. Heck, "serendipity" was part of a novel from the 1700s. "Blatant," "robot" and "chortle?" All made up by authors.

And it's not just authors. Think about other words that have come into use since 2000: Selfie. Emoji. Tweet. Sexting. Hipster. Currific. (I just made that up to explain a ridiculous basketball shot.)

Cooks have an alternative to "sweet." It's savory. (If that's nonright, I apologize. On TV shows, they always present options as savory or sweet, so I presume they're nonsame.)

But go to a bookstore or library (or website) and you have a choice: Fiction or nonfiction.

This needs to change. There is no reason that we should be stuck with a 12th century way of dividing books (I nonresearched it, so the 12th century is a guess).

Part of the problem, of course, is that the logical opposite to "fiction" is "fact."

Nonfiction books aren't necessarily factual, they're just presented as such. For instance, a book that heralds the greatness of the Oakland Raiders is considered nonfiction, even though the premise is fanciful. The author (and, presumably, the audience) treat it as fact, which is nonsmart.

So to categorize books as fact (or factual) implies truthfulness, which isn't always there.

What do we do? Do we throw up our hands, say it's too hard and pick the lazy way out? Of course not.

Did Dr. Seuss give up when he couldn't find a rhyme for "sofa" in "There's a Wocket in My Pocket?" No, he wrote about a "bofa."

Did J.K. Rowling give up when she couldn't come up with a name for the fourth house at Hogwarts? No, she just let one slytherin. (A "Harry Potter" joke!)

So there's no reason that those who work with words should be so lazy as to define half the books in the world by what they're not. Nonfiction is a nonstrong way to define a massive genre of literature.

The solution? A new word, which contains enough accuracy to define it and make it obvious what we're talking about.

I suggest that from now on, books are either fiction or faction.

Faction. It's the opposite of fiction. Brilliant, right? Because "faction" also means a small, dissenting group within a larger group.

Embrace it and become a part of the faction faction.

You're welcome. It was nonproblem.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Of drains, dentists, irrational fears

When I was a little kid – maybe 2 or 3 – I had an embarrassing, irrational fear: I was terrified that I would be sucked down the bathtub drain.

Looking back, it's absurd. Those holes were tiny. I could never fit in them. (And even if I did, I'd likely be in the P-trap, where my parents could hire a plumber to rescue me.)

But every night, I would finish my bath and my mom or dad would pull the plug.

Lil' Brad would scramble out of the tub in a panic, barely escaping a horrible death. So my little brain thought.

It made no sense. It didn't matter.

Fast-forward several decades and it's deja vu – except instead of a bathtub drain, it's a trip to the dentist.

My name is Brad and I have dentalphobia. I've written about it before, but it's still there.

There's no reason. I haven't had a bad experience at the dentist in years. I visit every six months. The dental assistant is gentle (although she could vacuum the spit-water out of my mouth a little more frequently).

I still stress out.

Last week, I made my semiannual dental trip.

I entered the office and made my requisite appointment for six months from now (my personal schedule: Once at the beginning of the baseball season, once in the playoffs. Every April, every October). Then I went back to the torture cham . . . er, cleaning chair.

The assistant was nice. She confirmed my medical history. She asked about my job. She began cleaning my teeth. And . . . I felt sweat rising from my scalp. And my back. And my legs. They all tingled. The pace of my breathing picked up.

Nothing hurt. She was careful. My gums were safe.

I sweated some more.

"Is everything OK?" she asked after a few minutes, seeing my dilated pupils. "Yeah," I replied, trying to swallow.

She went back to work. I went back to perspiring. It was irrational. It was insane.

It was unavoidable.

My T-shirt got damp. This was ridiculous. She wasn't hurting me. I wasn't in pain.

"Are you OK?" she asked again. I told her I was OK, that it was mental, not physical. Time passed slowly. Five minutes. Fifteen. Thirty.

To distract myself, I watched "Good Morning America" on the TV. I tried to focus on whether ABC News was seriously airing a five-minute segment on a fashion magazine editor doing a "seven-day high-heel detox" by wearing flat shoes.

It didn't work. I kept sweating.

Finally, it was done and the relief was palpable.

I went into the next room to wait for the dentist.

Then I started to shiver. I had a chill, because I sweated to the point that my T-shirt was damp.

It's absolutely absurd. I'm a grown man who gets psyched out by doing something that never hurts.

Why is it? I don't know, but I do know that after my appointment, I relaxed because I was six months from the next sweat-in-the-chair session.

Actually, I sweated so much that I should have gone home and showered. Which would be nice, because when I'm standing in the shower, it's easier to get out of there before the drain sucks me to a horrific death.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Fashion advice from Vidal Suisun

My fashion guru isn't Christian Dior, Coco Chanel or even the estimable Tim Gunn. The person with the most influence on my fashion lives in Suisun City.

In fact, she lives with me. Like many men, I trust my wife with fashion choices. (Mostly.)

The reason for our fashion relationship – where Mrs. Brad lets me know, either clearly or subtly when I need a fashion change – is simple: I have no fashion sense. I don't recognize changes. I resist being a hipster, but don't want to be old-fashioned.

So she is my adviser.

Sometimes, it's obvious. A few years ago, she burst out laughing when I emerged from our bedroom wearing what was apparently a garish sweater. Her laughter doubled when my oldest son called me "Cosby."

Mrs. Brad also occasionally blurts out "no" as I appear before her in mismatched clothing.

More often, though, it's a delicate dance. She doesn't tell me something looks terrible, she just suggests that it's not the best choice.

My workplace dress code calls for slacks and shirts with collars. No ties are necessary, but it's a reasonably formal workplace, compared to my work history (I spent the 1990s as the Daily Republic sports editor, wearing shorts and sports jerseys).

I have a fairly large collection of shirts, collected through the years by trips to Goodwill. They vary in style, although I remain loyal to the button-down look of my college years.

The most common way that Mrs. Brad communicates my style mistakes is simple: "You look kind of pale," she'll say. Or "that shirt makes you look washed out."

I nod. She continues to go about whatever she's doing.

I don't wear the shirt again.

I learned in the 1980s that I was a "winter," someone who can wear a variety of colors that Mrs. Brad (also a winter) carried in a swatch in her purse (I'm guessing. I don't really know what "swatch" means). I can't identify the colors, but I know they don't include yellow. Or pink (thankfully).

Armed with this knowledge, I occasionally pick a shirt that I think is in my "winter" range, then learn that it makes me look "washed out."

I don't want to be pale.

I don't want to look sickly.

I want to be healthy and hearty and robust! I want to look like a professional golfer or a 1970s game-show contestant!

So if Mrs. Brad tells me in the morning that I look pale, my ego makes me refuse to change a shirt, but my vanity means I won't wear it again.

There is, however, a recent exception. I bought a yellow shirt on the streets of San Francisco during the Golden State Warriors' championship run last year. It says "Strength In Numbers."

Mrs. Brad has told me more than once that it makes me look pale.

I scoff, because sometimes, despite what Billy Crystal said while impersonating Fernando Lamas, it's better to feel good than to look good.

Only sometimes, though. Most of the time, looking washed-out is bad.

Right?

Brad Stanhope is a fashion plate and former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Time for baseball to become more 'exciting'?

A half-century ago, there was little question about America's favorite sport: It was baseball, as it had been for decades.

Fifty years ago, baseball was so popular that it was considered "America's pastime" (surpassing protesting the Vietnam War and listening to AM radio while smoking).

Now baseball is an also-ran. When it comes to sports, it's the NFL's world – we all just live in it.

Baseball is no better than a distant second to the NFL and may be as low as third or fourth in America's consideration.

This is the opening week for baseball and maybe it needs a boost. Maybe it needs something to move it back up the list.

Fortunately, I have suggestions to appease those who say the game is boring, tradition-bound and will soon be surpassed by mixed martial arts, mountain biking and lawn darts.

Ready? For starters, baseball can eliminate down time. Instead of having several seconds between pitches and several minutes between innings, Major League Baseball should require action. Give pitchers two seconds between pitches! Don't allow batters to step out of the box! No pick-off moves! Make it faster! Faster is better!

It may be time to  increase violence, too – make it more like MMA and football. Baseball should allow runners to plow over fielders. Encourage pitchers to throw at batters. Rather than penalizing teams for bench-clearing brawls, encourage them. You want exciting videos? Watch a collection of brawls and collisions from baseball last night!

Baseball could also open up access. Take social media to the next level and require players to Tweet during games. Strap a camera on each player's head and send us to a website to watch the game from Buster Posey's perspective. Open up the clubhouse to live coverage, like a reality show. Vote a player off each week.

Baseball can't let itself die! The sport should become more violent, more exciting, more tangible.

Then . . .

Then . . .

It will be worse.

Here's the thing. Baseball remains what it's always been – a slow, interesting, intriguing sport for fans who have the patience and interest to follow it. It's less popular than it was three or four decades ago, but it's still popular.

Baseball just requires more attention than other sports. Not only during the game (try watching a three-hour Giants-Marlins game in May with a non-baseball fan and see how they react to long at-bats, batters stepping out to slow down the pitcher and all the scratching), but because it's an every day game.

NFL teams play once a week. NBA teams play three games a week. Mixed martial arts and boxing have championship fights every few months.

Baseball teams? Six or seven games a week. Every week. From April through September.

Week after week.

Month after month.

Being a baseball fan requires paying attention for long periods of time. It requires years to get familiar with the traditions and culture of a team.

In 2016, we think everyone wants new, different, unusual. While baseball has plenty of each, its defining quality is consistency.

For the next six months, the Giants, A's and the other 28 major league teams will play. Over and over and over. Stars will struggle, then recover. Young players will surprise. One game will last 15 innings. The next will have a rain delay.

It requires attention.

That's why baseball is so great. It's also why the percentage of people who consider it their favorite sport has declined.

Being a baseball fan takes patience and dedication. Maybe it's the tradition. Maybe it's my age. Maybe it's realizing that faster and shorter and flashier isn't always better.

I'll keep baseball the way it is. Patience and attention are their own reward: You get to follow a great sport.

Now get off my lawn, punks!

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

How watching TV prepared me for life

As a child, I was often told watching TV was a waste of time. It was the "idiot box." My dad said that our eyes would become rectangles if we watched too much, something a little scary when you're 5 or 6 and watching "The Merv Griffin Show" after school.

Adults told me that you don't learn anything from TV.

Oh yeah? I beg to differ. I can make the case that TV shaped my life. Sitcoms like "Happy Days," "Sanford and Son," "Bewitched" and "Hogan's Heroes" taught me about conflict resolution. I learned how to be a man by watching "Rockford Files" and I learned how to gamble by watching "Let's Make a Deal."

Decades later, I still profit. The lessons I learned watching TV have guided me through life, as reliable as the applause that greeted Fonzie when he walked into a scene and say "ayyyyyyyyyyy."

Don't believe me? Check out these lessons:

Double-takes work. The correct way to express surprise is the double-take. Probably the best at this was Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show" – he mastered the google-eyed double-take anytime something weird happened. I still use that when someone catches me off guard. Sometimes, I go triple-take. Hilarious.

Problems generally solve themselves in less than an hour. No matter the problem, television difficulties got settled in one episode. The same thing is true in life. Most of my life issues have concluded in time for the final commercial break – except for a few times when a day ends with ". . . to be continued."

Most things are special. From the time I saw my first "ABC Afterschool Special," I was aware that in life and on TV, there are times that you encounter unusual circumstances to the point that it become "special." That's why, for instance, I said recently, "Today, on a very special 'Brad,' the lawn gets mowed," and Mrs. Brad wasn't bothered. She'd seen specials, such as the very special episode when I got sick and the episode when I got in a car wreck. The last one included a special guest star, our insurance agent.

Catch phrases are key. We all need catch phrases, something I learned from Jimmy Walker, Henry Winkler, Redd Foxx and even Jackie Gleason. I spent much of my life developing catch phrases. They change now from time to time, but my current catch phrase is "Brad says that won't work," followed by a glance at the "camera" (or whomever is near), with my eyebrows raised. Always gets a laugh.

Be suspicious of new people. On pretty much every show, the special guest star brought problems (see the mention of the special episode with the insurance agent, earlier). Because of that, I don't warm up to people much. I figure anyone who isn't a regular "cast member" of my life probably is just there to create tension for the "episode" that I'm living.

Foreign languages are easy. German isn't a different language, it's just English with a harsh accent. On "Hogan's Heroes," the characters  spoke harsh, German-accented English and the German people understood them. Same with French and Italian. Foreign languages are really just accented English.

Spinoffs are OK. Sure, my kids will move out and start their own lives. That's fine – it's like "Laverne and Shirley" or "Maude" or "Rhoda." It's not the end of anything, it's a spinoff and I'm glad I could help launch their "shows." But I still get the 8 p.m. time slot.

I am still "Dragnet" to their "Adam-12."

Could it go differently? Brad says that won't work. DOUBLE-TAKE!

Brad Stanhope is the star of "The Brad Stanhope Show." Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Password quandary is . . . confusing

Of all the things required in a digital world, there's nothing as difficult as passwords.

Not that it's hard to come up with them – that's easy. We use our kids' names. Our pets. A favorite year. A band or team. A nickname. A combination.

The difficult thing is mixing them up and remembering what password goes with what website.

How many times have you gone to a website and been asked to put in a user name/password combination that you created months ago? You might be able to figure out the user name, but maybe not.

And what was the password?

Did they require a certain number of characters? Did they require you to mix numbers and letters? Use at least one alternate character? Did capital letters matter?

Unfortunately, we're not always smart. I know that because I read SplashData's annual list of most popular passwords. The conclusion was based on leaked data (which might explain why "Target" was a popular password).

The top choices? You can probably guess. They might be yours!

But first, do you think the creators of the TV game show "Password" are angry that their show title has become a tech term?

You remember "Password." It was on both ABC and CBS and the host on both networks was Allen Ludden, who was married to the ageless Betty White. It involved celebrities and civilians on teams, which alternated efforts to guess the "password." If, for instance, the password was "mountain," the clue-giver might say "Rocky," "hill" and "big" in an effort to help their teammate. The point values dropped as more clues were given.

The best part was the voice-over when the password was revealed. It was a whisper, despite the fact that they added it in post-production and the competitors couldn't hear it if it were yelled.

"The password is . . . mountain," the voice-over man would say.

It led to a generation of people using that as a catchphrase. "The password is . . . dork," they would say when someone embarrassed themselves. (I know. I heard it plenty.)

Then came the age of technology and the need for user names and passwords. For some of us, the game show legacy lives on . . . every time I sign into a website, I whisper "the password is . . . " and then say my password (and hear Mrs. Brad say "dork.")

But anyway, back to the most popular passwords. What would you think are the top two choices?

They are "123456" and "password." Clever, right?

Based on that, we can presume that the most popular user names are "123456" and "user name."

So what should we do? Password experts remind us that we should change our passwords frequently (my alternate choice is "Match Game," which is ironic). They tell us we should have a combination of characters. There should be a nonsensical nature to them.

Of course, they don't tell us how we're supposed to remember them.

For me, it's simple. I've kept the same password for years – and it's easy to remember. And it certainly isn't "123456" or "password."

Promise not to tell anyone?

The password is . . . AllenLudden.

Now you know, so it's time to go change all of them to "MatchGame!"

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Daylight saving time, Rubio, Oreos and more

Time for me to clean out my notebook on the shortest day of the year. Literally. Today is a 23-hour day, since daylight saving time starts.

This is the best of all days, including Christmas, baseball opening day and the day the new phone books arrive on my doorstep, confirming that I am still alive.

It's the perfect combination of anticipation and a dramatic change in rhythm. The start of daylight saving time (and once again, why not call it "standard time," since it covers nearly eight months of the year) makes it still sunny at 6:30 p.m. When the 8-to-5 workers of the world come home, we have a few extra hours of daylight every day.

It's also the start of the ramp up for summer. With daylight saving time comes warmer weather, baseball spring training, car windows rolled down and barbecues. And summer re-runs, like "The Mac Davis Show."

Daylight saving time. The best day of the year.

On to the topics du jour . . .

• In case you're wondering, the other top days of the year include baseball opening day, the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, Thanksgiving, Mrs. Brad's birthday and that day every other year when the Giants win the World Series.
• Who will win "The Bachelor?" I say Lauren, but that's just a guess.
• More TV: I get reminded of how old I am every time I watch an episode of "House Hunters" and am impressed by a home – only to hear the people on the show talk about how old it looks. For instance, when did ceiling fans go out of style? And why?
• If you want to be confused, go to the store to buy Oreos. There are 50 different flavors. How did that happen?
• More Oreos: What happened to Hydrox, the old-school, low-budget alternative?
• If Marco Rubio drops out of the Republican presidential race, I'll be OK. Not because of his politics, but because I have repeatedly called him Ricky Rubio, the name of the Minnesota Timberwolves point guard.
• More NBA: If Stephen Curry retired today, he'd do it as the greatest shooter in NBA history. But a Curry retirement would also surprise his teammates and his fans, since there is another month left in the regular season.
• If you told the teenage Brad that a long beard, skinny jeans and shiny shoes would be stylish, I would have laughed so hard that I might have split my leisure suit.
• Mrs. Brad had left-shoulder surgery recently, which means one thing: There's a new southpaw arm-wrestling champion in our house!
• No one asked, but I consider people who named directional states lazy. North Dakota? South Dakota? West Virginia? North Carolina? South Carolina? There's no reason that they couldn't come up with a new name, is there?
• Along the same lines, is  York, Pennsylvania, the "old" version compared to New York?
• Why didn't Liza Minnelli star in a remake of "The Wizard of Oz?" It would have been much more dramatic, if that's possible.
• I can't formulate a great answer if someone asks me why it's OK to eat beef, but not to eat horse or dog meat. But please don't tell my dog.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Dogs, mankind: 40,000 years of love

I thought I had an "old dog" story from my childhood: Calico, the leg-humping beagle who would have turned 50 last spring had she not been taken too soon.

Calico was old. She lived to be 15, despite being obese and hideously out of shape.

But it turns out that Calico was far from an old dog. So was George Washington's dog. Or any dog from the time of Jesus (think there was a generation of dogs named "Judas" in the late first century?).

Heck, a dog in ancient Greece can't be considered an old dog.

That's because research published in the journal Current Biology suggests that dogs were "man's best friend" as far back as 40,000 years ago.

Our relationship with dogs goes back 400 centuries! That goes back to when (according to my estimate) your great-great-great-great grandparents were alive.

The old-dog theory comes from science: An ancient bone discovered in Siberia.

Without getting too scientific (which would require me to learn), researchers say the Siberian bone shows that dogs and wolves split long before originally thought – with dogs becoming pets.

In that way, the dog-wolf split is like your aunt and uncle, who have been living apart for a decade, but still came to family events together, acting like they were a couple. Finally, they admitted that they lived in different places.

Dogs and wolves now admit they split up.

There was no real reason given for the dog-wolf split, but one scientist said it was because of creative differences. A rival group of scientists insist that it was due to Yoko Ono.

I think that's just unfair. I suspect dogs and wolves were simply forerunners to Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth. Or Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers. They just had to go different directions.

But that doesn't really matter. This does: Dogs appear to have been close to mankind 40,000 years ago, which goes back to the year 37,885 B.C., three years before Betty White was born.

A young Betty White may have had a dog!

Like many scientific discoveries, this timeline is an estimate. Scientists can't say for sure when humans began domesticating dogs, but sources say that further evidence suggests that an ancient man named "Grog" had a dog – there are drawings on a cave wall of a stick figure with a sad face picking up dog poop. "Grog hate poop" is written in ancient text.

Is that true? I'm not sure. But I'm not not sure, either. It's possible.

If you love your dog, take heart. Humans have loved dogs for a long time.

We have 40,000 years of telling them to stop barking, 40,000 years of arranging for someone to watch them while we vacation (or hunt/gather), 40,000 years of taking them for walks, 40,000 years of saying (in a variety of languages) "who's a good dog?"

If that seems like a long time, consider what it seems like to dogs.

Since they age seven years for every year we do, it is 280,000 years to them.

Or, in dog terms, "more than two."

They still haven't learned how to count beyond that after 40,000 years. That's because you can't teach old dogs . . . . Well, you know.

So did Grog.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.