Sunday Morning Coffee — January 5, 2025 — Sunday Morning Scramble

By Roy Berger, Las Vegas, Nevada

Good morning and Happy New Year! Hope your holidays were wonderful. Ours were nice but a little chilly. And welcome to the first SMC Scramble of 2025 and our first on the new Substack platform. If you are reading this via Facebook, X or Instagram feel free to subscribe at bergerr.substack.com. It’s free because who in their right mind would pay for this stuff? Let’s Scramble:

I’ve been exercising regularly for the past forty years. I’ve never had a more secure workout than the one I had with former President Jimmy Carter. Well, we didn’t exactly work out together but close enough for me to get all his protection and have a story to tell. It was fifteen, maybe eighteen years ago, in the fitness center atop the Peninsula Hotel on Fifth Avenue in New York. I was running on a treadmill. The machine to the left of me was vacant. Two gentlemen in dark suits approached. They didn’t have exercise shoes or shorts. Instead, ear pieces and radios. I was a little baffled. One stood to the left of the empty machine, the other to its right, which was next to me. An elderly gentleman approached sporting sneakers, shorts and a tee-shirt. He got on the treadmill. I did a double take. It was Jimmy Carter. I stared for a long second, nodded my head and said, “Good morning.” He exchanged the pleasantries. The agent closest to me approached, his body language saying ‘okay, that’s enough, leave him alone.’ Didn’t have to tell me twice. I finished about twenty minutes later; Mr. Carter was still walking. I defied the Secret Service and told the President it was a pleasure. I banked this story from that day until today. Mr. Carter died last Sunday at 100, which means he was probably 85 or 88 at that chance encounter. Jimmy Carter’s legacy will not be as a great president. He was in over his head in a screwy world, but he will be remembered as a great humanitarian. And that’s more important.

Andi and I returned last weekend from the holiday week in London. It was my 23rd visit to one of my favorite cities. The previous 22 were in spring or summer for business, save for one this past October. This was my first winter visit and with all respect for son Scott and daughter-in-law Cayla who live there, my last. It was cold and dreary. The sun must have been on holiday because it never made an appearance. The only ray of sunshine was seeing the kids and that first sip of a martini at legendary Duke’s. Mass transit takes a break on Christmas Day and is limited on Christmas Eve and December 26, Boxing Day, a UK holiday. Traffic was abhorrent, cab fares double the norm. The dank weather makes people grumpy. Summertime fun London becomes winter bleak London. It’s not for me.

I did get to go to an English Premier League (EPL) soccer match while in Europe, which has become a sporting favorite of mine. Don’t snicker. Chelsea is my adopted team, and they were home to play local rival Fulham. Boxing Day is an EPL day of rivalries. Chelsea and Fulham, two teams separated by two miles or three tube stops. We’d call it a Subway Series; perhaps it’s a Tube Tussle to them. I was accompanied by Cody Kondo, Cayla’s dad, while the ladies went to tea at Raffles. Don’t snicker but watching soccer live is really watching art. It was my third time. Chelsea’s home field, Stamford Bridge, has been around since 1887 or half a century before Pele was born. It seats a compact 40,000 with not a bad view in the house. We should know. We were three rows from the top, which actually turned out to be a great sightline. It was cold. Mid-40’s on the pitch where the lads played in skivvies; maybe low 40’s, the damp air made it feel colder, where we sat bundled up. Chelsea was a surprise second in the EPL standings; Fulham in the middle of the 20-team pack. Fulham had not won a game at Chelsea since 1979 when Jimmy Carter was still in office, not on a treadmill. In fact, they haven’t scored a goal in their neighbor’s yard since 2011. That’s a long time. With eight minutes remaining it looked to be more of the same as Chelsea sported a 1-nil lead. Then for the first time in 13 years Fulham scored. They liked it so much they did it again with five minutes remaining in the match. Then Fulham reveled in handing Chelsea a bad and surprising home loss. Leaving the hallowed grounds both the home fans and the sky were indeed cold and gloomy.

Coming soon to an airport near you: London’s Heathrow Airport charges a six-quid ($7.50) fee to drop someone off for a flight.

Should we be concerned? Susie Wiles, incoming Trump administration chief of staff, popped up on my Facebook page a couple of days ago. I looked at her profile. Naturally she says she likes football. No surprise. Her dad, Pat Summerall, played 10 years in the NFL for Detroit, Chicago and New York before becoming a legendary broadcaster. Ms. Wiles’ profile says she is a fan of the Gaints. Yep, the New York Gaints. Looks like some overtime hours coming for the White House proofreading staff.

So that’s where our tax dollars are going. The Department of Health and Human Services spent $419,470 on testing to see if lonely rats seek cocaine more than socialized rats. There’s been no update on the outcome yet except for the lonely ones excessively pawing at their noses.

Well, that didn’t work out very well did it? The conference champions in the College Football Playoffs that received a first round bye— Georgia, Oregon, Boise State and Arizona State— were all one and done.

Comings and goings. According to The Wall Street Journal the United States population grew by 2.6 million in 2024 to a grand total of 341 million. The 2025 forecast says there will be one birth every nine seconds and one death every 9.4 seconds. International migration will add one person to the U.S. population every 23.2 seconds. The Census Bureau says all totaled the combination of births, deaths and migration will increase the population by one person every 21.2 seconds this year.

Baseball great Rickey Henderson died on December 20, five days before his 66th birthday. Rickey played for nine teams during his great 25-year career. It’s gonna take someone special to break his all-time stolen base record of 1,406, some 468 ahead of the late Lou Brock’s next best. Henderson is also the only player in baseball’s long history to steal five bases and score four runs while officially going 0-0 at the plate. On July 29, 1989, in Oakland against Seattle, he got on base all four of his at-bats by walks during a 14-6 A’s loss. Henderson was a character who liked to talk about himself in the third person. No doubt about that accomplishment he would have said, “Only Rickey could do something like that!”

A couple of happy December 30 birthdays. Former Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers ace Sandy Koufax celebrated his 89th. A true class act. And LeBron James had 40 candles on the same day. A night later he became the only player in NBA history to play in his teens, 20s, 30s and 40s.

From the music world, Mike Brewer died on December 17 at age 80. He and Tom Shipley teamed as a folk-rock duo and brought us the 1970 anti-establishment hit One Toke Over The Line, which now, a half century later, most are doing legally.

One more Jimmy Carter note. When the little known governor of Georgia was struggling to get his presidential campaign off the ground and just about out of money, he befriended the Allman Brothers, constituents of his living in Macon, Georgia. A bit unconventional but he and Gregg Allman hit it off and Allman agreed to have the band, the most popular act in the country in 1974, play a series of fundraisers for the presidential wannabe. It was capped by a November 1975 concert in Providence, Rhode Island, when the little known politician took the stage and told the overflow crowd, “I have just four things to tell you. My name is Jimmy Carter. I’m running for president. I need your help. I’m gonna win. And now I want to introduce some very good friends of mine from Macon, Georgia…the Allman Brothers!” When questioned afterwards he told the media, “Anybody who wants a president who doesn’t listen to music like this should simply vote for another man.” It worked. Jimmy Carter became mainstream. He was elected president of the United States one year later.

There are good bosses, bad bosses and Taylor Swift. It’s not shabby working for Ms. Swift. Over the past two years, Swift gave out $197 million in bonuses to everyone working on her tour — including truck drivers, caterers, instrument techs, merch team, lighting, sound, production staff and assistants, carpenters, dancers, band, security, choreographers, pyrotechnics, riggers, hair, make-up, wardrobe, physical therapists and video team. Good for her. Good for them.

Tomorrow is Bloody Monday in the NFL. It’s cutdown day for head coaches on the bubble. A handful will be let go. There are already openings with the Jets, Bears and Saints. More will follow. Some will get stays but they are normally short lived. Are the Jets serious about Rex Ryan? Why not? Will Tom Brady, a new minority owner of the Raiders, have enough pull with out-of-touch boss Mark Davis to make a change and move on from Antonio Pierce, an experiment that went wrong, and maybe get his old pal Mike Vrabel to the desert? Stay tuned. It’s time to make headlines for the non-playoff teams. And there is no truth to the rumor the Jets have called Vince Lombardi for an interview. He’s been dead for 55 years. But then again, so have the Jets.

Loved this shirt at the gym: An American flag. Above, it reads— Back To Back. Below the flag: Two Time World War Champs.

Leave the GPS turned off and just think about where you are going. Research from the University of Pennsylvania Alzheimer’s Disease Center reports U.S. taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest percentage of deaths attributed to Alzheimer’s disease among the 400 occupations profiled.

Finally, this one really hurt. The Final Jeopardy! category was Super Bowls and the clue read: "It's the only team to play in the Super Bowl before Neil Armstrong's Moon Walk that has not been back to the big game since." Nobody got it right. Apparently, none were Jets’ fans.

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I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at Medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger