Loser's view after war on Christmas

Life was different before the war. But of course, anyone who has lived through war knows that – particularly when you're on the losing side.

Now all that's left is to hide the scars and rebuild our lives as shattered, broken people.

And hope to someday recover.

It seemed unlikely we would lose. How could we, when we were right? We had the power. We had popular support. We had 2,000 years of history. Or so we thought.

Who could have known that it could go so wrong, that our strategy would backfire and that we would give up everything?

Now we live in humiliation, the land of the conquered in which the winners write the history. Nobody will know our story, because we are the vanquished.

The war on Christmas is over and we lost.

The battlefield is littered with "Jesus is the reason for the season" buttons and "Keep Christ in Christmas" coffee mugs.

I'll never forget when it became official. Now we'll never say "Merry Christmas" if we're working at a store and management forbids it. We can no longer force others to sing songs about Jesus. We can't complain when we get cups at Starbucks that don't acknowledge Christmas.

We lost the war.

Oh, sure, there are some who say it's making too big a deal of it to call it a "war."

They say veterans of World War II or Korea or Vietnam or Iraq survived real wars, but they don't know how it feels to go into a Starbucks and NOT GET A SPECIAL CUP THAT SAYS "MERRY CHRISTMAS."

They don't know how it feels when a cashier says "Happy Holidays."

They don't know the anguish of listening to a radio station that plays Christmas music without traditional hymns.

I experienced all those things and know as much about war as any bomb survivor or soldier who was trapped in the trenches during World War I. They had to breathe poison gas and face constant bombardment, but we have to work at places that call the Christmas party a "holiday party."

It's heartbreaking. I suspect I will have post-traumatic stress disorder for the rest of my life because of this war.

The war on Christmas is over. We lost.

Now we believers retreat to all that's left: A commemoration of the birth of Jesus.

The admission that the crass commercialization of the traditional holiday has little to do with the birth of a savior 20 centuries ago.

Recognition that artificial trees and peppy songs and wrapping paper and special coffee flavors have less to do with the arrival of a promised savior than they do with making money.

How could anyone survive in a nation that doesn't recognize and celebrate Christianity as its official religion?

Just think of how Jesus would have suffered if he faced that. What if first-century Rome was a pagan, non-Christian nation that was filled with other traditions and didn't welcome a savior who came to the world as a poor baby?

Wait. What?

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

Don't panic, but the Black Death may be returning

Don't panic. Don't go crazy. Don't do anything dangerous.

I'm sure the health officials are keeping things quiet for a good reason. I'm sure there's no reason to get anxious.

BUT A GIRL IN OREGON HAS THE PLAGUE!

Pardon me while I get a paper bag into which I can breathe to prevent hyperventilation.

The plague.

In a neighboring state.

Specifically, Bend, Oregon, where my in-laws live and Mrs. Brad and I occasionally visit.

SHE HAS THE PLAGUE. Seriously.

According to news accounts on Halloween (HALLOWEEN!), the teenage girl went into the hospital after she apparently contracted the plague from an infected flea. . .

A GIRL.

HAS.

THE.

PLAGUE.

. . . while on a hunting trip. She appeared to be recovering, so things seem OK.

I felt good after reading that. Until the reporter casually mentioned that it was the 15TH CASE OF THE BUBONIC PLAGUE IN THE UNITED STATES THIS YEAR.

FOUR PEOPLE HAVE DIED.

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

This is the PLAGUE. This isn't the flu or a common cold. It's the bubonic plague, which could bring a recurrence of the Black Death, which killed one-third of humanity in the Middle Ages.

Sure, it was a long time ago, but think about this: It killed one-third of all people. If it happened in the 19th or 20th century, we would have had just two Bee Gees, two Stooges, the Kingston Duo and only the "Good and Bad" – no Ugly. What if Destiny's Child had no Beyoncé? Tragic.

Can you imagine? Oh, sure, you can say things are different now. We have modern medicine. We have global communication. We have frozen pizzas and big-box stores. We have Oprah Winfrey.

But is it possible that THE BLACK DEATH STARTED THIS WAY? Were there perhaps just a few people in 1340 who had it, but then it spread? Did they ignore it – like the mainstream media largely ignored this year's 15 CASES OF BUBONIC PLAGUE – and let it spread?

I'm sure it's nothing. Except for this: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently also announced that the Pentagon may have mislabeled, improperly stored and shipped samples of potentially infectious plague bacteria.

DID YOU READ THAT? Good, because I don't fully understand it and I don't work in a Pentagon warehouse. Since I'm not interested in searching for the ark of the covenant that Indiana Jones found, it should be OK.

Right? RIGHT?

Let's all calm down. I'm sure it's nothing serious. I'm sure they're in control. And even though the Black Death killed 75 million to 200 million people in the Middle Ages, none of them would be alive today, anyway, right?

We've got plenty of reason to be confident. The girl was hospitalized. The medical people seemed calm, at least publicly. Only 15 people have . . .

Only 15 people have . . .

FIFTEEN PEOPLE HAVE CAUGHT THE PLAGUE IN THE UNITED STATES THIS YEAR.

And the girl in Oregon likely got it from a flea bite, just like millions of people in the Middle Ages.

And I'm "middle-aged."

Uh-oh. Did I just sneeze?

I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.

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

Sandwich Islands: Best thing since sliced bread

Aloha and hand me some lunch meat between two slices of bread!

Mrs. Brad and I recently returned from the Sandwich Islands and this seems an appropriate place to share our memories.

The Sandwich Islands? Well, you may call them something else – most likely the Hawaiian Islands. I've got nothing against the people who call them "Hawaii." I'm just old-school.

And to those who think it's baloney to call them the Sandwiches, a reminder they were named that by Capt. James Cook, who "discovered" them in 1778. By "discovered," I mean it in the same way that I "discovered" "Mad Men" five years after it debuted on American television.

I call them the Sandwich Islands for a very simple reason. They are named after John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. When Cook named the islands after Sandwich, it was an honor, multiplied by the fact that there's very little chance that anything else could ever be named after him. If we stop calling them the Sandwich Islands, the name Sandwich probably goes away.

I told that to Mrs. Brad as we ate some peanut butter and jelly, smeared between two slices of bread on Kauai, the northernmost of the Sandwich Islands.

(Side note: If I read about witches while I sat there eating that food, it would be about a "sand witch," right? Too bad for John Montagu that it never stuck. So he gets the islands named after him.)

The islands, of course, widely became known as the Hawaiian Islands in the late 19th century, which created a po' boy in Sandwich.

The beauty of the Sandwich Islands is that the weather is predictable. It was our third trip there – a triple-decker Sandwich? – and the climate has been the same every time. About 85 degrees as the high, 75 as the low. Humid. Residents – Sandwichians? – likely don't need long pants or jackets as they enjoy their cold desserts.

I know that because Mrs. Brad and I spoke about that while sitting at a local restaurant, enjoying one such treat. It was two thin slices of chocolate biscuit with vanilla ice cream between them. It's an ice cream-between-slices item, I presume. Don't know for sure, but it was good. It was the perfect kind of ice cream dessert for the Sandwich Islands.

The best thing about our entire week was relaxation as we enjoyed beaches, hikes, swimming and food while sleeping at a place I called the Club Sandwich.

The food? Delicious. We had bacon, lettuce and tomatoes between slices of bread; we had cheese between two slices of toast; we had several other great meals between (I wish there was a word for the process of inserting something between two other things!) the aforementioned meals. The one thing we didn't have? We ate no tuna on Sandwich.

So if you ask what we liked most about our trip to the Sandwich Islands, it's this: The variety of lunch food and delicious ice cream desserts.

We give a big salute to John Montagu. Thanks to me, no one will forget him, even Inspector Clouseau. Because even a French dip will now remember Sandwich.

Aloha.

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

Really: Some things are worth keeping

When I was a teenager, my dad had a container for tortilla chips. They were his favorite snack, so my stepmom would buy him massive bags of Bien Padre chips (made in my hometown) and he would eat them nearly every night.

The funny thing? His container.

It was an aluminum box about the size of a slice of bread that was assuredly intended for some other use. Maybe to hold food. It was aluminum and clearly intended for a single use.

My dad didn't get rid of it. He used it every night. Week after week, month after month.

Year after year.

That aluminum container held literally hundreds of thousands of tortilla chips through the decades as he watched the evening news or golf or read the latest racy Harold Robbins novel. He kept it year after year, refusing to use a bowl or even get a new version.

When Mrs. Brad and I moved away from our hometown decades ago, my dad still had that chip holder. I don't think he still does, but I wouldn't be surprised if I visited and he pulled it out.

He is a child of the Depression: He kept a cheap, replaceable container that could easily have been thrown away. Because it worked.

Fast-forward a generation. I'm older than he was when he started using that container. I've raised two sons, who when asked in their teens about my values, said that I didn't waste money. (It probably wasn't phrased that way. It probably included the word "cheap" and an accusation that all of their friends had fathers who more freely handed out money. I consider those charges to be unsubstantiated and won't dignify them with a response.)

Recently, while Mrs. Brad and I were traveling, she noticed my daily pill holder. (OK. So I've admitted I'm old, cheap and have a container to remind me to take my assortment of cholesterol and arthritis medicine. Get off my lawn!)

It's one of those plastic versions, with the first letter of each day of the week on the compartment. Nice and big, so the old eyes can read it.

"Is that broken?" she asked, looking at the container that appeared to have been run over by an 18-wheeler.

"No. I fixed it."

Then I tried to change the subject. But it didn't work. She asked some more.

It was fixed! It wasn't broken! The lid for one of the dates (Thursday) broke off, which is admittedly unacceptable. You can't have a random statin pill migrating to the wrong day. Or a low-level aspirin slipping into Friday's slot and causing an aspirin overdose!

Rather than throw out the container, I fixed the broken lid. I used Scotch tape.

I told Mrs. Brad this. She looked at me skeptically.

"Why don't you just get a new one? Or you can have mine," she said, offering me her "travel" pill container.

"No. Mine is fine," I said. "Yours is too big. It won't fit as well on my shelf. This is fine."

She raised her eyebrows at me.

But I didn't want to buy a new pill container. It would be a waste of money. The taped-up version works fine.

Of course, those containers cost $2. I could easily replace it and not suffer financial hardship.

I don't know why I don't just get a new one. I guess it's the same philosophy that my dad had all those years ago: If it works, don't change it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if it does break, fix it with tape and keep using it.

It's a philosophy that leads to hoarding, I guess. But let's be honest: His tortilla chip container was ridiculous.

My pill container? It makes sense.

Right?

Right?

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

Color me excited for Hall of Fame announcement

Like most Americans, I'll be clicking "refresh" on my Internet browser Thursday morning, awaiting the big announcement.

This is no game! It's time to find out the new inductees to The National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York.

My money is on the scooter and Twister. But I hope that Wiffle ball makes it and won't complain if coloring book gets inside the lines.

Induction into the Toy Hall of Fame, of course, is one of the biggest stories of the year. And this year's field of 12 nominees for just two spots is one of the strongest in memory. In addition to the aforementioned four nominees, there's also American Girl dolls, Battleship, Jenga, Playmobil, puppet, super soaker, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the top.

Can you imagine a Hall of Fame without puppets? Or the beloved top? You will likely have to, for at least another year. Because they're unlikely to get enough support for enshrinement.

My support for Twister comes from my childhood, when it was a boxed game that was physical, unlike The Game of Life (2010 inductee) or Aggravation.

Scooters get my backing because of the late-1990s Christmas when every kid in my neighborhood (including the two Stanhope squires) received Razor scooters. There were 12-wide races down our street – the kind of signature moment that Hall of Famers need.

As you likely know, there are already 56 toys in the Hall of Fame. Twister (or Battleship) would be the fifth board game, joining Candy Land, Life, Monopoly and Scrabble (I don't consider checkers, chess or dominoes – all inductees – board games).

Hall of Fame watchers speculate that puppet could create the kind of controversy that erupted when cardboard box (2005) stick (2008) and ball (2009) were inducted as general items. More than one critic wondered if invisible friend or rocks might be future inductees – a chorus that only got louder when blanket made it in 2011.

Although this year's field is very strong (expect some significant protests from Generation X members if super soaker and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are left out for a baby boomer toy), it still will pale in comparison to the strongest classes since the shrine opened in 1998.

Other than the initial class of 11 (including Barbie and Legos, the Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb of toys), most Toy Hall of Fame experts consider the 2000 class the best ever. That, of course, was the year of bicycle, jacks, jump rope, Mr. Potato Head and slinky.

All we can hope is that we avoid the debacle of 2013, when chess and rubber duck (neither of which have been a part of this columnist's life) made up the entire class. There were rumors of a rebellion among the other toys, which conspiracy theorists cite as the reason for last year's induction of green Army men into the shrine: A bargain to keep the military on the sidelines.

Here's what we know: Whether it's a board game, a doll or a old-school item, this year's field guarantees two happy toys that will be high as a kite (2007).

But making the final choice is as difficult as solving a Rubik's Cube (2014) or jigsaw puzzle (2002).

Play time ends Thursday.

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

Time capsule musings of a 13-year-old me

Editor's note: The following column was found in a time capsule that indicated the author was 13. The thoughts and predictions contained are not necessarily those of the Daily Republic or even the present-day Brad:

Hey everyone, I'm putting this column in a No. 2 mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnalls' back porch (like Johnny Carson says!), so I can tell you what I think sometime in the future. Like maybe the year 2000.

• I read "The Sporting News" every week and Dick Young never runs out of column topics, so I can't image the older version of me ever running out of things to write about. I love notes columns, although Herb Caen in the San Francisco Chronicle writes about stuff I don't understand.

• Other than that, I'm like J.J. on "Good Times": Dyn-o-mite!

• So what should I write about? How about the most influential person in my life: Al Michaels.

Yes. Al Michaels. You might know him best from "Wide World of Sports," but I know him as the San Francisco Giants play-by-play announcer. Since that's what I'm going to be when I'm an adult, I pay close attention to everything he does.

When I sit down in front of the TV and practice announcing games into my awesome tape recorder, I think about Al Michaels. How he announces things. The stories he tells. I suspect that he'll still be the announcer for the Giants when I get the job as the No. 2 man.

• I just hope I'm there in time for John Montefusco, my favorite Giants player, to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

• Al Michaels isn't the only thing I know. For instance, here are five people who will still be stars when I'm old:

5. Carl Douglas. "Kung Fu Fighting" will be the first of many hits for him.

4. John Lindsay. The former mayor of New York is going to be president.

3. Lynda Carter. You can't tell me that "Wonder Woman" isn't going to be a great, long-running TV show. It has everything!

2. Pete Rose. His style of baseball will never get old and his attitude guarantees him a place in the game after retirement. He's "Charlie Hustle!"

1. Gabe Kaplan. He's not only a great actor, he's funny! Every week on "Welcome Back, Kotter," he tells great jokes about his relatives.

• Here's something you may not know: If you chew a bunch of saltine crackers and don't swallow them, they stay in your mouth and can make it look like you're chewing tobacco. Like a baseball relief pitcher.

• My AM radio picks up stations from as far away as Denver and Seattle. I like listening to sports talk radio shows when I'm supposed to be asleep.

• The price of gas keeps going up. If we don't do something about the Arab Oil Embargo, it could cost more than $1 a gallon – and it's already caused my dad to cancel our plans to rent a Winnebago for our family vacation this year.

• I will never get sick of eating macaroni and cheese. And when I'm an adult, I'll eat Appian Way pizza and Kraft cheesecake every day. I love food that comes with all the ingredients in one box.

That will  be dyn-o-mite!

• Until next time, keep on truckin'!

Brad Stanhope is a former (and future, for the 13-year-old Brad) Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Creative solutions for House speaker quandary

One of the most powerful jobs in America is open and nobody wants it. With good reason.

It's about politics, but stick with me. It's worth it!

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives spent the past few weeks hoping that a good candidate – anyone – would step up to succeed John Boehner as speaker of the House. Boehner announced Sept. 25 that he was stepping down after realizing he couldn't unite the party behind him. It looked like Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California would take the job, but he decided not to do it.

Then . . . nobody. Paul Ryan is the top candidate, but he doesn't want the gig.

It's third in line to the presidency and nobody wants the job!

Admittedly, politics is an uncharacteristic subject matter for this space, which more often focuses on how to exploit Mars' water supply or how great it would be to have a monkey servant. But stick with me, because I have suggestions that could solve everything.

For the Republicans.

For Congress as a whole.

For the American public.

I have some nominations for speaker of the House, based on something I uncovered in my research (thanks, Wikipedia!): The speaker of the House doesn't have to be a member of Congress.

That's right: While all 61 speakers in history have been members of Congress, there is no rule requiring it. The speaker can be an outsider.

And this might be exactly the time that we change things. We could be like George Mikan, who gets credit for popularizing the 3-point shot in basketball. Or Charley Douglass, who invented the laugh track for radio and TV shows. Or Barry Mann, who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp.

We could change history.

If the leaders of Congress want to be famous for something other than adding to government gridlock, they should consider appointing an outsider from the following list:

• Samuel L. Jackson. We would watch every press conference by the speaker of the House if it was Samuel L. Jackson. Seriously. Can you imagine him presiding over a congressional hearing? You would never know when he might go off and drop a profane, amusing, sinister threat. To anyone.
• Hugh Laurie. He played the titular character on "House," so he's already a speaker on "House." Why couldn't he be speaker of the House?
• Tony Wade. My rival Daily Republic columnist could likely persuade Congress to do anything. If not, I'd enjoy seeing him under attack.
• Don Rickles. Same as Samuel L. Jackson. I'd watch every session of Congress to watch him work.
• Don Draper. Really, it's actor Jon Hamm, but I'd be comfortable also hiring the writers for "Mad Men" if it meant we get a speaker who goes to a meeting, lets things get out of hand, then comes up with a brilliant, last-second idea that leaves everyone shaking their head in wonder.
• Snoop Dogg. The spizzle of the hizzie!
• Jed York. Anything to get him away from running the 49ers. Even if it means making Congress worse.
• Sara Lee. One of the biggest problems for the speaker of the House is automatic unpopularity. So why not Sara Lee? As we learned from advertising, nobody doesn't like Sara Lee!

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

Mars presents solution to our problem

Scientists think there might be water on Mars, making it the greatest opportunity since gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill 160 years ago. Or when Lewis and Clark explored the West. Or when Lewis and Martin perfected the buddy genre during the 1950s.

This is Manifest Destiny for the 21st century. It could be a game-changer for Earth, if we play things right and seize the day.

And the water. As much of it as we can.

Stick with me on this.

The initial report came from NASA, which was bold, if naive, about the discovery. At least according to a report in The New York Times, which I read every day while wearing a sweater and smoking a pipe.

“This is tremendously exciting,” said James L. Green, the director of NASA’s planetary science division, at a news conference. “We haven’t been able to answer the question, ‘Does life exist beyond Earth?’ But following the water is a critical element of that. We now have, I think, great opportunities in the right locations on Mars to thoroughly investigate that.”

Oh, yeah. A great opportunity. The greatest opportunity ever to solve our water problems.

Scientists, taking a break from conducting studies about whether coffee is healthy or unhealthy, said that the water on Mars is not in oceans, lakes or rivers – although those all existed in the distant past (the 1970s). They say the water is in the small patches of damp soil, indicating Mars may be a lot like drought-stricken California.

The scientists indicated that they are unsure of from where the water came, saying it comes from "above or below," an answer that would be disqualified on most game shows.

Anyway, here's the opportunity: Water. On Mars.

Think about it.

We need water and a neighboring planet has it. Mars could solve our drought problems.

I suggest that we launch a plan similar to President Kennedy's in 1960, when he announced that we would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade (a less-known Kennedy guarantee during the same speech: That we would wear bell-bottom pants by the end of the decade. Both were right.).

This is our time. Mars is ripe for exploration and exploitation. It's floating in space, with plenty of water, taunting us.

Let's take it!

If we launch a spaceship to Mars, carrying drills and 35 million miles of pipe, we can mine that planet for water and use it to fill our hot tubs, water bottles and hanging planters. Imagine a long pipe, like the proposed XL Pipeline – but have it running from Mars to a huge set of reservoirs in California.

It's simple. We have rockets. We have plenty of PVC pipe. In a zero-gravity environment, the wear and tear on the pipes would be minimal, so they'd last much longer than the Bay Bridge.

This solves several problems:

It gives NASA something tangible to do.
It creates jobs in the construction industry.
It gives us water.
And if we foul up Mars' atmosphere, who cares? It's just Mars – and the start of "global warming" there might bring the average temperature from the current 67 degrees below zero to something like Earth's. Does anyone else think it might be a vacation paradise?

If we don't mine Mars for water, we're missing a huge opportunity, because where else are we going to get water?

Uranus?

That's would be gross.

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

Getting through grief of a bad commute

The only thing slower than morning rush-hour traffic is navigating an emotional response to it.

I've got a five-speed. Not a five-speed vehicle, a five-speed reaction. I think I'm in fifth gear now, which is acceptance.

But I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. In fact, it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong about gridlock.

I thought last spring was a reasonable example of what to expect in traffic on my way to Walnut Creek.

I was wrong.

It goes back to mid-August, when normally slow morning traffic along Interstate 680 (and I-80, as well) got even slower. And slower. My drive, which takes 40 minutes with light traffic (almost always the situation when I come home in the afternoon), took about 50 minutes in the morning for months and months. And months.

In mid-August, it jumped to 70 or 80 minutes. And not just for me. There are four other Fairfield-Suisun City-Vacaville residents at my office, and all were shocked.

Our first reaction was simple: We told each other that it was a coincidence. There must have been an accident. School was starting. Once we got a couple of weeks into the academic year, parents would get off the road and it would go back to the way it was all last year – heavy traffic, but tolerable.

We knew it wasn't really a permanent change.

We were in denial.

As late-August arrived and things didn't change, denial gave way to anger.

"This is stupid!" I said several mornings after arriving late. "It's ridiculous. Weren't these people driving their children to school last year? How could it make this much difference?"

We complained about construction and bad drivers and inexplicable slowdowns. It was absurd. It didn't make sense!

We were angry.

By the time Labor Day passed, most of us began to think this might be a permanent change. We began to look for ways to navigate it.

"I would be willing to accept more traffic on Friday (when there's typically little traffic) in exchange for fewer drivers the rest of the week," I proclaimed.

We also began to look for alternate ways to get to work, thinking that if we took side streets or came another way (would going to Vallejo, then taking I-780 to the Benicia Bridge make sense?), it would be better. We would give up something – almost anything – in exchange for a shorter commute.

We were bargaining.

By mid-September, nothing changed. Maybe this wasn't a start-of-school event. Maybe this wasn't going to go away. Maybe this was the new normal – that it would take us 80 minutes to get to work, 40 minutes to drive home. Maybe we would be stuck in stop-and-go traffic before the Benicia Bridge day after day, month after month.

Our conversations about traffic were punctuated with sighs and groans. I told one co-worker that pretty soon, we'd have to leave home Monday morning to get to work Tuesday. Then I sighed and walked back to my desk, looking down, shoulders slumped.

It was depression.

Finally, we got to October and realized this: It isn't changing. Last year isn't coming back. We won't breeze through traffic and get to work before 8 a.m., unless we leave Fairfield-Suisun City at 4:30 a.m.

There's no use complaining, no use being mad, no use being sad. It takes more than an hour to get to work. That's how it is.

We reached acceptance, although there were still flashes of anger, bargaining and depression.

Especially anger.

But there was one day last week when traffic moved better. It only took an hour.

Is it possible things could go back to what they were before?

Or is that denial?

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

Secrets of El Niño winter, including forecasts

Our long California drought may soon be over.

In case you haven't heard, weather experts are nearly unanimous in saying that we're about to have an El Niño winter, which could mean the end of the drought and the arrival of flooding.

Or maybe nothing will change.

That's where I come in. I follow the tradition of Ben Franklin, who wrote Poor Richard's Almanack (Franklin lacked a copy editor to tell him that within a couple of centuries, the "k" wouldn't be needed) before he stopped publishing it to launch his famous late-18th-century blog "Ben There, Done That." Later, the Farmer's Almanac picked up the mantle, but without the brilliance of Franklin's lightning commentary (pun fully intended).

In the spirit of Franklin ("it's all about the Benjamin," I always say), I now take responsibility to explain and predict the weather months ahead of time.

First of all, some education: El Niño is a weather term that means "The Niño" in Spanish. It is based on the career of former Major League Baseball pitcher Niño Espinosa, who was noted for his ability to "make it rain" while attending clubs in New York City when he played for the Mets. Thus, the idea that a "rainy" year is an "El Niño" year.

You're welcome. Never forget Niño Espinosa, who died of a heart attack in 1987 at age 34.

Now the forecast, to give you time to prepare for the deluge of 2015-16.

October will be fairly dry, although an unexpected amount of Starbucks pumpkin spice latte will make it more humid than normal. We'll frequently be warned by TV talking heads that the drought is far from over, as if we didn't know.

November will bring the first hints of precipitation, with the chance of a deluge around midmonth – enough to bring a national day of thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday.

As December comes, the wet stuff will become more regular, to the point that you'll be able to get polite chuckles from your co-workers by saying "It's raining cats and dogs. I know because I just stepped in a poodle!" However, news media members will be unanimous in reminding us the drought isn't over. Not by a long shot.

As 2016 begins, we'll have our first wet January in years, with a few gully-washers. We won't be tired of it, although we will tire of hearing that the drought isn't over. And you'll break out this one for your co-workers: "When is Monday coming? MonSoon!" They will ignore you.

By February, we'll start getting cranky as the cloudbursts continue, making the Super Bowl at the 49ers stadium in Santa Clara even sadder than expected. In an effort to lighten the mood, you'll spring a new joke on your co-workers: "It's raining dogs. I know, because I just stepped in a pile of shih tzu!" That gag will result in a trip to HR and some mandatory classes on appropriate workplace language.

By March, we'll curse Niño Espinosa (see Paragraph 6) and wonder if it will ever be sunny again. It's the time we start breaking out references to "liquid sunshine," as we go through our second set of windshield wipers of the year.

April will, of course, bring showers, which will give you a chance to break out the line for your co-workers: "If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring? Pilgrims!" Their anger will make you wonder if it's politically incorrect to use the term "pilgrim."

May will bring the end of the El Niño as pilgrims invade America and force us to wear black, buckled shoes. Your co-workers will ignore you when you tell them you predicted this, but as we dig out from a winter of rain, one thing will remain true: The media will remind us that the drought is far from over.

Ben Franklin wouldn't have written that!

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