Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Those who know me know that I am bit of a political junkie, though I also find other stuff to do with my time.

I don’t watch much political news on television, preferring the well-written articles in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

And I did not watch last night’s “State of the Union” speech by Donald Trump.  I preferred not to listen to his nearly two hours of lies and invective.

So it was that I focused instead on good quotes from Yogi Berra, the great New York Yankee catcher who died in 2015.

Besides being a solid baseball player, he was known for good quotes, sometimes malapropisms – and, if you don’t know what that word means, here is a definition:

“The mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often with unintentionally amusing effect, as in, for example, “dance a flamingo,” instead of flamenco.”

It is possible that no one in history was better at malapropisms or mis-speaking than Berra.  So, here are some of his best ones.

• “It’s like deja vu all over again”
• “We made too many wrong mistakes”
• “You can observe a lot just by watching”
• “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore”
• “He hits from both sides of the plate.  He’s amphibious”
• “If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be”
• “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might end up some place else”
• Responding to a question about remarks attributed to him that he did not think were his: “I really didn’t say everything I said”
• “The future ain’t what it used to be”
• “I think Little League is wonderful.  It keeps the kids out of the house”
• On why he no longer went to Ruggeri’s, a St. Louis restaurant: “Nobody goes there anymore because it’s too crowded”
• “I always thought that record would stand until it was broken”
• When giving directions to Joe Garagiola to his New Jersey home, which is accessible by two routes: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it”
• “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours”
• “Never answer anonymous letters”
• “The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase”
• “Half the lies they tell about me aren’t true”
• As a general comment on baseball: “90 per cent of the game is half mental.”
• “I don’t know if they were men or women running naked across the field. They had bags over their heads”
• “Yogi, you are from St. Louis, we live in New Jersey, and you played ball in New York.  If you go before I do, where would you like me to have you buried?” — Carmen Berra, Yogi’s wife. “Surprise me”
• “It ain’t over till it’s over”

Yes, and now this blog is over.