Gandalf: Are we back to the Volvo thing again? Dude, it’s gotta be silver, and dump that KPBS license plate holder in favor of the black Oakland Raiders version. It’ll make that Volvo baaaaadasssss.

Joking aside, I’ll profess to having a few “oh, shit” moments when I watch these events unfolding. I’ve got two kids and the thought of what might happen scares the shit out of me.

My uncle, who was a Marine fighter pilot in WWII and Korea and an investment banker later, had two pictures on his credenza. One was of Pearl Harbor a few days after the Japanese attack in 1941 when it was a smoking ruin and the other was of Pearl Harbor in late 1945 after the Japanese surrender, when the base had been completely rebuilt and was filled with hundreds of US Navy ships. He told me he kept those pictures as a reminder that, no matter how bad things appeared, with hard work, persistence and sheer dumb luck, you’d pull through. I’m hoping that’s true.