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Fat Tuesday Musings

Fat Tuesday Musings

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At my job, on the day before Ash Wednesday the talk around the water cooler would not be about how many beads you received.

No, it would be more like this:

“Ash Wednesday reminds us of our mortality and of our need for repentance and amendment of life, so that we are truly ready to meet our Maker,” a quote I read from a publication I received in my email.

I work at a church in case you didn’t know.

I don’t know that I need too many more reminders of my mortality especially lately, but maybe the need for “amendment of life” on this Fat Tuesday eve of Ash Wednesday wouldn’t hurt.

And thanks to social media that’s been reinforced by a couple of recent reminders of just how many years have gone by for this aging nobody that in some weird way have made me a little depressed.

I was contacted on Facebook Messenger by someone I went to high school with who had posted an old photo on a Shore Regional Alumni Facebook page that she thought might have included me in the picture. Shore Regional is the name of the high school I graduated from in 1974. I went to the page and checked it out and it was me, in 1973 or 74 probably.  So I messaged her back and confirmed it was in fact me and she encouraged me to join the alumni page which I did.

A few days later another old photo was posted on the Facebook page of my hometown’s 100th anniversary organization Oceanport Centennial.  My hometown of Oceanport, N.J. will celebrate its 100th anniversary this year and so the page is for information and the sharing of old photos.  This photo, I would guess, was taken around 1975 and was a group photo from an Oceanport Hook and Ladder Fire Company event of some sort.  I was a volunteer fireman back in those days.

Where did all those years go?

Though my hair is getting a little long it’s certainly not that long.  And the once blonde locks are now white and gray and a lot thinner.

But it was fun that the photo also included by father, my brother Carl who also needed a haircut, and two of my uncles.  And upon closer examination, those same blonde Frye boots I was wearing that evening in that photo from 1975 or so, were actually on my feet that Thursday all these years later as I carefully examined the cast of characters from my past with a rush of memories.  Those same blonde Frye boots I wrote about in “He Restoreth My Soles” that I bought in 1973.

But the reminder on this Fat Tuesday that the “need for… amendment of life” might be on account of some other things that also might be characterized as “fat” and getting larger, like my body.   Those amendments included the introduction of plain yogurt and strawberries for breakfast and tuna fish on super whole grain bread with seeds that could practically choke you.

And while mixing up that tuna fish this morning I was also reminded that there some things in life that aren’t getting larger like my can of tuna fish.  I remember when I was a kid you could feed yourself and your buddy lunch with one can of tuna and a little Hellmann’s (of course) mayonnaise.  Like my flat stomach, those days are gone.  You get one sandwich from the little cans now.

Though I long for my loaf of French bread, I don’t really think that losing ten pounds is what the author of the quote was referring to as proper preparation to meet my Maker on this eve of Ash Wednesday.  And I don’t need any more reminders of my mortality.

Or the areas of my life where I need to change.

I have my wife for that.

But the truth is I probably could do some repenting after all those years.

But there is a lot to be thankful for as well.

On that same Thursday, the day of that photo post, I got a call on my cell phone from my Dad.  It’s always unexpected when my Dad calls, and once I realized there was nothing wrong that triggered the call, we tried to have a conversation.  Unfortunately, since my father’s hearing is no longer good, we eventually agreed to hang up to try again some other time.  But I was still glad he called.  It’s a blessing that I can still receive phone calls from my dad even though we can’t have a conversation.

And hey it’s also kind of cool to know I have a pair of boots that may outlive me.

Recently I was surprised to find out that I may actually live on in one of the happiest places on earth.  Because you see the photo of me with the mandolin is me in likeness but really not me.  That photo was taken a few weeks ago by Alexa on a trip to Disney World where she found me immortalized as an animatronic in the Spaceship Earth Ride in Epcot.

So, I guess I can thank Jesus for everlasting life, and Disney for my everlasting likeness and for preserving the flow.

I hope your Tuesday was fat and happy.

That’s me front row second from left. My dad is front row four from left. My brother back row center under the light. This photo courtesy of Oceanport Centennia Facebook page.
Back Biters and Syndicators, Home Again

Back Biters and Syndicators, Home Again

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Back biters and syndicators
Standing all around the door
An’ it wished ’bout ev’ryday
Hopin’ I’d go way to stay
Ooo-ooo-wee, ooo
Almost ruin my happy home
Ooo-wee-ooo
Almost ruin my happy home

(Al Smith and John Lee Hooker)

 

 

It’s Friday and it is now about 9 PM and I am about to exit on to Route 18 for the last leg of my trip home to New Jersey.  With Little Steven’s Underground Garage set on my XM radio, I hear John Lee Hooker’s Back Biters and Syndicators begin to play.  I grab one of the three harmonicas on the console,  an “A” harp and it blends right in, happy that I got it right the first time.

Six hours earlier I had left work, got gas, and hit the road.

More than two hours later I was just getting off the DC beltway and heading towards Baltimore on I-95.

One hour later I was stopped in gridlock north of Baltimore where the express lanes converged with the four or five normal lanes.

Somewhere in this mess on the overpass above with a chain link fence, climate control advocates were holding a sign and waving their arms trying to get the impatient drivers below to beep their horns in support, or maybe, I thought,  trying to dispel the carbon monoxide being pumped out of the sea of cars below them.

It reminded me of what driving the beltway and interstates in late September of 2001 would have looked like.  You could barely travel under an overpass that didn’t have an American flag on it with people rallying support for our country recently attacked by terrorists.

What a difference eighteen years makes, I thought.  You don’t see too many American flags anymore.  Maybe we have just forgotten, or maybe some are just afraid of being labeled.

When I first moved to the Washington DC area, I used to drive home to Jersey pretty much every weekend.  I had an old 1969 C10 pickup truck and off I would go.  Generally it was a three and one half hour ride.

Now forty years later the trip I started at 3PM doesn’t begin to wind down until six hours later.  Thankfully around 9:30PM I arrive.

 

It’s now Sunday afternoon and I am ready to start my trip back, hoping this time the drive won’t be so long.

But before leaving I decide to take a trip past the stretch of Long Branch beaches I used to hang at.  I passed the Church of the Presidents, now closed for renovation and remember the time when I was twelve or so and spent the day sitting with my grandfather as he displayed his paintings.  He won a gold medal for his portrait of John Kennedy.

Then on down Ocean Avenue to West End, back in the day it was once referred to as the Greenwich Village of the Jersey shore and past the restaurant where I got my first job.

Finally at the North End beach where I spent most of my teenage years, I got out and took a photo.  It has all changed now.

Now ready to start my way back home I hope for swifter travel and line up my harmonicas for this ride.

It was a good trip.

Now I am ready to return to my happy home.
Ooo-wee-ooo

A Sentimental Racetrack Journey

A Sentimental Racetrack Journey

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Since the time I mucked my first stall fifty years ago on the “back side” (stable area) of Monmouth Park Racetrack in Oceanport, New Jersey I have had many racetrack related experiences.   Most good, some not so. Some of those I shared in a post called A New National Obsession in February of 2017.

But as a result,  this is one of my favorite times of the year, the first Saturday in May, the Kentucky Derby, the first of the Triple Crown races.

The sport of horse racing has had a rough winter with the deaths of 23 horses at Santa Anita Park in Southern California since December.   Efforts are being made to try to determine why that unfortunate situation occurred there.  Some blame the unusual amount of rain and unusually cold weather changing the racing surface.  I remember a similar situation at Monmouth Park in the 70’s when the entire racing surface was peeled off and replaced resolving the problem. But beyond correcting the racing surface, efforts are also being made industry wide to make changes to the sport that will make it safer for horses and riders nationally.

The following is a story I mentioned in  A New National Obsession, that I wrote in 2014, one of my favorite racing stories:

 2014 Horse of the Year

(Written May 23, 2014 and edited for this essay May 1, 2019)

 

Sir Sidney is the 5 year old son of Ghostzapper.

Ghostzapper was the Horse of the Year in 2004.

Sir Sidney, at five years old had only raced three times in his life and had never won a race. In fact it had been almost two years since Sir Sidney had even been entered in a race.

Sadly, Sir Sidney was five years old and still a “maiden”…horse racing’s term for a horse who has yet to cross the finish line first.

The third Saturday in May, famous for the second jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown, The Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Racecourse in Baltimore, was to be Sir Sidney’s coming out party after a two year break.   He was entered in the 13th race, the last race of the day, the race after the big attraction. The race after the Preakness. It was the race that no came expecting to watch, the one that would be run while everyone was leaving the infield, the grandstands, the parking lot and sitting in traffic as they made  up “horse stories” to tell their friends about what could have been, what should have been… if only I had done this or bet that.

The thirteenth race, just the sound of it made you want to skip it, like not having a 13th floor in a high rise, or staying in bed on Friday the 13th.  But there was Sir Sidney, the only five year old in the company of nine three year olds reaching the starting gate for the first time in a long while.

The twelfth race, The Preakness, had proven to be just what everyone had expected or hoped for. California Chrome who had won the Kentucky Derby so convincingly didn’t disappoint in the Preakness. He won the race as the overall favorite, the crowd letting him go off at odds that would only return 50 cents on every dollar bet. Now, the only question that would remain, could California Chrome win the Belmont Stakes and be the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978?

While everyone was pondering that and heading home, the 13th race went off at 7:10 PM, Sir Sidney broke well from the gate and took the lead on the backstretch. However, going into the turn, three horses passed him and he fell back to fourth. Coming out of the turn and into the stretch Sir Sidney dug in deep as a hole opened up in the leaders and he charged into it. Now three horses head to head charging down the stretch! As they approached the finish line Sir Sidney pulled away and won by a length! The unlikely runner, the old guy in the race, never having won before, finally was a winner.

Thrilling stuff right?

C’mon I am getting goose bumps writing about it!

So right now you are wondering “okay Curt, where are you going with this? Why should I care?”

Well maybe you shouldn’t.

 

But let’s just say hypothetically you are me and a passionate fan of the sport, and an occasional recreational bettor. And let’s also imagine that you/me, like a lot of other people thought California Chrome was the best bet of the day, maybe the best bet of the year. And let’s just say you/me thought real long and hard about making that recreational wager on California Chrome to win, number 3 in the twelfth race, the 2014 Preakness Stakes.

But let’s go a step further in our hypothetical situation. Let’s just say that wager that you/me thought long and hard about, the one that you/me so carefully and confidently placed on number 3, California Chrome in the 12th race , and cheered loudly for as California Chrome crossed the finish line in spectacular fashion only to find out………

That your/my horse didn’t win, because, by mistake, the horse that you/I  bet was actually number 3 in the 13th race!

 

I think you/me are probably feeling pretty silly right now huh?

 

Silly that is…until about 7:12 pm.

 

I don’t know about you, but Sir Sidney, number 3 in the 13th race, would be my vote for 2014 Horse of the Year.

 

The End

 

That betting mistake, instead of returning $3.00 on my $2.00 California Chrome bet, returned $26.20 on the win by Sir Sidney.

The following year Kim and I would stand under an infield tent at Pimlico and watch American Pharoah win the Preakness in a downpour. Unlike California Chrome,  he would go on to win the Belmont and be the first Triple Crown winner since 1978.   Coincidentally, my horse of the year for 2014, Sir Sidney was on the card that day.  For sentimental reasons I felt inclined to place a bet on him.

And as a result of those sentimental reasons, I lost that bet.

Horse racing is a sentimental sport.  The beauty of the animal, the lure of a name, the story of the journey, the memory of a past encounter.  That is part of what draws me to it.

Sir Sidney is now ten years old and he is still racing. As a gelding there would be no cushy stud future for him.  In fact he ran this past Sunday at Philadelphia Park and finished fourth going a mile in a claiming race.  Going off at odds of 20 to 1, he earned his owner $1,400 and could at least say he beat the favorite, who finished last, earning him some track cred the next time he sees that guy out on the track exercising in the morning.

It’s hard to not get sentimental about Sir Sidney.

I feel reacquainted, he is part of my journey.

The old guy, in spite of the aches and pains of growing older, he is still out there working.  Having to prove himself to the young guys, doing something he still enjoys, having fun.

I get it.

I hope you take some time this Saturday and watch the Kentucky Derby. I hope you pay attention to the stories, enjoy the majestic beauty of these animals, get caught up in the drama.

I hope you find something sentimental in the experience that makes you want to return.

I hope you find your Sir Sidney.

 

 

 

 

Easter and the Funky Dollar Bill

Easter and the Funky Dollar Bill

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Last Sunday Alexa sent some photos and videos of Christian participating in the Hollywood Hills United Methodist Church Palm Sunday procession.

It was awesome.

He was waving his palm and dressed in a green robe.  The text Alexa sent us afterward said “Christian said at Sunday school they talked about Jesus.  The people who didn’t like him deaded him.”

Thursday evening, Holy Thursday, I sat on my deck and watched the full moon rise.  The pink moon it’s called from what I have read.  That moon is significant because Easter always occurs on the Sunday following the rising of that full moon.

Today being the day after Easter, I had off from work.  Today turned out to be Earth Day as well, which I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t heard on the radio while on one of my multiple trips to Home Depot to buy dirt and plants.  I think every weekend that it is not raining and I am not traveling this time of the year, is “Earth Day” at my house.

This weekend and today was particularly intense with earth activities.  We spent most of the weekend working on the yard, the koi pond, and the gardens.  As we usually do the day before Easter, we took a break from the yard to go to the cemetery and plant new flowers at Donny’s grave site.

 

Each spring when I clean up the yard and the gardens I cut down last year’s now brown and dry ornamental grasses so that the new growth can occur. In one such grass I cut down I found a long overlooked relic from an Easter past.  Stuck deep in the stubble of the now trimmed grass was a plastic Easter egg.  I opened it up and inside I found this funky old dollar bill, weathered from the years it was hidden and overlooked in its colored plastic shell.

 

Funky dollar bill.  I had to laugh a little when I thought about it.

When I was a freshman in high school, a kid down the street used to drive a few of us to school every day.  One day he had a new eight track tape for us to listen to by a band I had never heard of called Funkadelic.  It was a little out there, but it was awesome.  We would be head bobbing all the way from Oceanport to Shore Regional High School.

Funky Dollar Bill was a song written by George Clinton, a name that meant nothing to four white kids in 1971 but George would go on to be quite influential in music.

The song was from the album titled Free Your Mind and Your ♦♦♦ Will Follow (sorry, this is the redacted version of the title).  A now classic album in my opinion, it included a song by the same name. Of course I wouldn’t have known it in 70’s but I read recently that the album was said to have Christian themes.

 

“Free your mind…, the kingdom of heaven is within,” the opening lyrics repeated over and over throughout the song.

 

The kingdom of heaven is within.

 

The kingdom of God is within.

 

The kingdom of God is amongst us.

 

The Bible tells us Jesus would say that when asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come.

 

Jesus knew God had come and was already among them.

 

In the next chapter of Luke, Jesus would tell his disciples for the third time what was about to happen to him as was written by the prophets.

And then a few chapters later, as Christian learned, Jesus was “deaded.”  But it didn’t really have so much to do with those who didn’t like him, it was as it was meant to be, as it had to be.

And three days after that, prophesy was completely fulfilled.

 

So, I think George had it right.

Free your mind…

Because there is much that can follow.

Veterans Day Musings

Veterans Day Musings

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My dad with his brother Ted during the Korean conflict

He blesses the boys
As they stand in line
The smell of gun grease
And the bayonets they shine
He’s there to help them
All that he can
To make them feel wanted
He’s a good holy man

Sky Pilot
Sky Pilot
How high can you fly?
You never, never, never
Reach the sky

Sky Pilot.

A song from 1968 by Eric Burdon and the Animals.

Though the term dates back to the late 1800’s, Sky Pilot is a slang term for a military Chaplain.

Lately, in my quest to reduce some unnecessary stress, I have been avoiding listening to or watching the news as much as I can. On my XM radio I have discovered Little Steven’s (Steve Van Zandt) Underground Garage.  If you have any appreciation for rock music and its origins, this is the station for you.

Last week on a trip out to visit my parents I heard this song.

 

It was the early 1940’s and the World War II was raging on.  Rumor had it, the British were taking fourteen year olds as sailors on their Merchant Navy ships. At fourteen years old, there was no other option to get into the war.  So a couple of kids from Jersey made the trip up to New York City, eager to get involved anyway that they could and serve their country in any way they could.

Sailors in the British Merchant Navy were classified as civilians. Germany had declared that every vessel of the British mercantile marine was to be regarded as a warship, meaning that the sailors of the Merchant Navy faced tremendous risks. An estimated 30,248 merchant seamen lost their lives during World War II, a death rate proportionally higher than in any of the armed forces.

Unfortunately or fortunately, for these two young teenagers, the rumor was not true, and they were turned away.  Disappointed, the two boys returned to their home town in New Jersey.  They would be left out of this war.

It’s Veterans Day.

I spent some time while I was with my parents last weekend asking questions as I typically do.

My grandfather, my father’s father was born in Norway.  He entered the United States illegally in the early 1900’s.  He was a sailor who jumped ship in New York and headed for Norwegian communities in the mid-western US.  In spite of how he entered the country, he served in the United States Army during World War I in France as a motorcycle messenger.  Though my father thinks he may have been discharged early, but honorably, due to his inability to speak English well enough.  I remember as kid seeing his discharge papers hanging on the wall.

When World War II broke out, living on the New Jersey coast, my grandfather was trained to identify enemy aircraft silhouettes and manned the coastal spotting towers along the beaches.  Some of those towers still remain today.

My mother’s oldest brother Bill served in the Seabees in the south Pacific in World War II.

My mother’s other brother, my uncle Bob, was a sergeant on a mortar crew in the Korean conflict.

My father’s younger brother Ted served in the Navy during the Korean conflict.

My dad, after returning from that ill-fated attempt to join the British Merchant Navy with one of his Oceanport buddies in World War II, found another way to serve his country at home.

It was estimated that by the end of the war more than 6 million men had left farm work to go off to war.  The USDA’s Farm Corps was a solution to that problem.  It employed 2.5 million patriotic teenagers who wanted to serve in some way.

USDA official Meredith C. Wilson wrote at the time that “manpower for agriculture is of equal importance with manpower to produce combat weapons for our fighting men.”

And farm worker recruitment materials from the Office of War Information insisted that “bread is ammunition as vital as bullets.”

It may not have been as exciting as crossing the Atlantic dodging torpedoes from German U-Boats, but at least it was something.

During the Korean conflict, my dad served in the US Army and his unit was assigned to coastal protection and he was stationed at posts in Brooklyn, Long Island, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

My parents were married while my dad was in the Army and they looked for places to live in Brooklyn so my mom could be closer to my father stationed in New York.  But after being turned down as tenants, she returned home and lived in an apartment in my father’s parent’s house in the Hillcrest neighborhood of Oceanport. My mother didn’t think people wanted to rent to young GI’s at the time.

 

 

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany during my grandfather’s war, World War I.

In 1926, Congress passed a resolution that the “recurring anniversary (of this day) should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.”

I like that.

Thanksgiving…I am kind of thankful the British Merchant Navy didn’t take fourteen year olds.

Prayers for peace, good will, and mutual understanding between nations.

And maybe those same sentiments amongst ourselves as well so I can take my head out of the sand and go back to watching TV news again.

Happy Veterans Day.

Thanks to all those who have served!

You’re soldiers of God, you must understand
The fate of your country is in your young hands
May God give you strength
Do your job real well

(from Sky Pilot, by Eric Burdon and the Animals)

My dad in the Army with his mom and dad
Bell Bottom Blues Revisited

Bell Bottom Blues Revisited

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That’s me on the left in those WT Grant Jeans circa 1973.

My August 29, 1969 copy of Life Magazine came in the mail today.

The summer of 1969 was a significant one.

The Who released Tommy.

I watched Easy Rider at the Eatontown Drive-In without a car.

I watched with my immigrant Norwegian grandfather, the first man walk on the moon.

The New York Mets began their comeback that would ultimately make them World Series Champs that Fall.

Sharon Tate met Charles Manson.

The United States Gulf Coast met Hurricane Camille.

Woodstock.

And for me maybe the most important thing to happen that summer,   I got my first pair of hip hugger, bell bottom blue jeans.

WT Grant was a department store in Little Silver, New Jersey back in the 1960’s.  Little Silver was the next town over from Oceanport across the small bridge over the Oceanport Creek, then a short hop through the Army’s Fort Monmouth, and across the Little Silver Bridge.  Little Silver had Mike’s Toy Store, the Dairy King drive up ice cream, and a small WT Grant department store.

On one of those trips to WT Grant late in August, in the summer of 1969,  before school started the following week and I would begin the eighth grade,  I convinced my mother to buy me a pair of bell bottom blue jeans.  They were a little big but I didn’t care, I had my first pair of bell bottoms.

In addition to my bell bottoms that day, I also convinced my mother to buy me a copy of the Life magazine that I had picked up from the magazine rack. The one about Woodstock, with Norman Mailer on the cover, and the Manson murders inside.

I remember the ride home, flipping those pages and absorbing the photos.  Once home I spent hours in that magazine reading and imagining…me in my bell bottoms at Woodstock…the horror of the Manson murders and the beauty of Sharon Tate.

Life Magazine back in the day was big with many photos and stories.

The world as we knew it was changing in the 60’s, there was lots of turmoil, tragedy, social unrest, and scientific advancement.

Those bell bottoms signified a change in my life too.  Later that school year those jeans (along with my handmade macramé belt) would get me some trouble and would keep me out of my eighth-grade graduation until my sister could bring me new clothes.

I would wear that same pair of bell bottom jeans through the four years of high school that followed with a little help that they were big when I bought them, eventually cutting the threads out of the seams at bottoms to make them longer, and the fact that I just plain didn’t grow much from the time I was 13 until I graduated high school.

 

The world was different then, but probably really not so much different.  We still have turmoil, tragedy, social unrest, and scientific advancement now.

But back then we had magazines, now we have Facebook and Instagram.

And I don’t have hip hugger bell bottom blue jeans anymore.  But at my age and with the size of my belly I wish I did.  They would have a more practical application for me today.

 

The realization that the sun is setting sooner crept over me as I finished my ride and headed back to my truck last evening.

Just like the lift the extra daylight was in the spring that seemed so liberating,  the impending darkness as the days get shorter is signaling a change that will soon be limiting.

The summer of 2018 is coming to an end already.

But just as fast as I think this summer went, the winter months will go by too, and before I know it the days will be warmer and the sun back out longer.

Because unlike that long lazy summer of 49 years ago, that is how it seems to be now.

Time seems to move faster.

I don’t know why that is, it just does.

 

“Bell bottom blues, don’t say goodbye.
I’m sure we’re gonna meet again,
And if we do, don’t you be surprised”

(from Bell Bottom Blues by Eric Clapton and Bobby Whitlock)

Sharon Tate

Forgive Me For Sharing

Forgive Me For Sharing

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I am not feeling well.

I don’t typically like when people share their ailments over the internet or social media.

I don’t need the visual that you have diarrhea or that you are throwing up something that looks like something or other.

I want to gag too.

Just tell me you are taking a sick day and leave it at that.

Now here I am telling you I am not feeling well.

It’s been a while since I have felt like this.

But I realized today when reviewing my published work for the week, I had to have been off.

Because I made mistakes.  Some I was able to salvage and some I just had to apologize for.  I even tried to make a cup of tea in the microwave without any water.

But still, in spite of my fuzziness, once I got home, there was something kind of fun and relaxing about being able to sit in bed and have your wife feel sorry you (well at least I expect she will when she gets home), because in my case I know it’s nothing serious.  And when you grow up in the respiratory medical world getting a chest cold is kind of a professional challenge.

I break out my stethoscope.

I begin to analyze every cough and noise that I make.

Hey that one was loose and productive.

Wait that one was dry and non- productive.

Is that a bronchospasm I hear or a mucus plug?

What’s my temperature?  Low grade or high?

Do I have any chest pain?

And then there is the spitting.  When you work in a hospital or homecare keeping the airways open is your job.  Helping people breath is why you went to school.  You need to be alert and aware of all you hear and see.  Sure I have dodged a loogie or two in my day.  I had a couple I wasn’t fast enough for too.  My respiratory and pulmonary friends will relate.  There is nothing wrong with that, it’s part of the job, it’s what we did or do, helping people to breath, often saving lives.

I miss that.

So like it or not, when I am sick, I go into action.

And because today I am the one who is coughing and spitting, and delirious from fever, though I know that what I am experiencing is not serious, when I am sick, in my house, it is serious.

I remember when I was a kid, all the cool kids could spit really good.  Most them were athletic too, many played baseball like John Bedell, Bob Woolley, and Kevin Higgins; friends from my hometown of Oceanport, NJ.  They played hardball and Little League and Babe Ruth.  If you didn’t spit, you weren’t tough.

I wasn’t allowed to do much spitting on the Cub Scout Softball Team.

But those guys could sure spit.

They would wind up and when they let go it sounded like a poison dart coming out of a blowgun.  It was a perfect projectile and man it could travel. (Tttthhhhwwwwuuuut!)

I always envied those guys.

When I was a kid and I spit it was more like trying to eject a raw egg out of my mouth.  And it didn’t travel very far at all it just went about the direction I was leaning and usually required some assistance from my fingers to clear the obstruction.

So as a result I knew never to try and impress the girls by hocking a loogie in gym class.

Maybe I am just delirious.

Maybe I should stop writing before I say something stupid.

Maybe I have already said something stupid.

Maybe it’s a good thing I am not working with patients anymore, because forgiveness for mistakes in that world can be difficult.

Thankfully in the world I work in today, forgiveness is encouraged.

 

My wife is home now.

I am thinking about having her order a chest x-ray stat.

Or maybe a pizza would be easier.

Joe

Joe

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Dear Joe,

Today we will all come together and celebrate your life, remember your friendship, honor your memory.

I hope we are able do that in the way you expected us to.

You know, right after we all found out you had left us, the February weather got warm, temperatures rose into the 70’s and even 80’s.  It was wonderful.  It was like you were telling us it was time to plant the tomatoes.

Then you called us all home to Jersey to share some time to remember you in a Nor’easter!

Yesterday Matt flew in from Florida to Atlantic City in 70 mile an hour winds, “roughest ride ever,” is how he described it.

Then you had me driving over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 60 mile an hour winds since 95 north was closed because two tractor trailers had literally blown over on the Tydings Bridge north of Baltimore.

It was kind of reminiscent of Ricky whipping us around the Shrewsbury in his little Boston Whaler… scary.

But then I hit the Delaware Memorial Bridge and it was covered with slush and I came down into New Jersey and there were cars spun out in ditches on both sides of the highway, and I said to myself “you son of a B?#@*, there is no way you are going to get me to have an accident just to come hang out with you tonight, I hope you are having fun with this, I will see you in good time.”

We did have a lot of fun though.

The time we had to have our sisters bring new clothes to school for us in the eighth grade, in order to participate in graduation because the principal didn’t like our bell bottoms and rope braided belts.

Going to church at Precious Blood and instead of going inside and taking Communion we stayed outside and took something else.

The time we hitch hiked to Asbury Park to see Grand Funk Railroad at the Convention Hall, my first concert, and the wild ride home we had.

The stretch of Steel Mill shows including the infamous Highlands Clearwater Swim Club show; the Sunshine In Black Sabbath/Cactus show that we had early show tickets to, that turned into a Steel Mill marathon when Black Sabbath kept blowing the power. I think my mother almost reported me missing that night and my sister picked us up when we finally spilled out on the street at about 2 AM.  And the final Upstage shows.

The time your sister Diane drove us into the Asbury Park riots where we were stopped by the National Guardsman in full combat gear who asked us “where the hell do you guys think you are going?” then told us to turn around and get out of out of there.

Walking barefoot to North Long Branch and walking back home from North Long Branch. Then walking to North Long Branch again, and walking back home from North Long Branch.  Over and over and over again.

Getting up at 4 AM after getting home at 3 AM to drive to Berkley Heights in your father’s pick-up truck to work at “the shop,” your family’s church furniture woodworking business.  And the time we went to install church pews at a church   in West Orange and Uncle Rudy parked the truck on the hill and the load shifted, when we opened the rear door of the box truck the pews came crashing out on to the street.  Glad that wasn’t our fault.

I could go on and on.

But I have to admit to something.  After losing Donny in 2002, I thought I was immune to all of this.  I thought that never again would I ever feel that death was something that would take me by surprise, something that would rattle me.  I thought that analytically and spiritually I had it under control, because I lived with grief every day and it would never affect me the same again.

And for almost 16 years it didn’t.

Then, I learned I was wrong.

Because, in the last two weeks I felt it again.

And I got scared.

And I started thinking I didn’t even want to come up here and go through this again.

But I knew I had to, and I wanted to, and I knew why as well.

Because I realized, though I had experienced loss, it had been almost 16 years since I lost someone I loved, a member of my “family.”

And the hurt came back.

Your sister told me you had talked about this day and how it should be.  Not religious, just a day for your friends.

So I promise not to get religious, and I think you can be pretty sure that your friends are here.

Through nor’easters or whatever; we may not be barefoot anymore, or need to hitch hike…but thanks for sharing today with us and all the other days before that we will remember.

We had some fun.

 

“Hey Butch…Get Me a Beer”

“Hey Butch…Get Me a Beer”

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Fourth of July, 2000.

“Pop” had his bedroom on the first floor, down the hallway from the kitchen.  He would smoke his cigars by shoving them down in the bowl of his pipe.  When he wanted a beer he would holler:

“Hey Butch, get me a beer,” in his “Jugoslavian” accent. That’s how he said it, “Jugoslav.”

Pop was Butch’s grandfather.

Butch was my dear friend Joe.

I spent a lot of time in that house, with his family; his mom, his dad, and a whole bunch of sisters.

It’s weird.

It seems like one day you are growing up 11 years old, then the next thing you know you are 20 and you’ve learned everything about life within a ten-mile radius of a little Jersey shore town called Oceanport.

And then the next thing you know you are 61 with life smacking you upside the head reminding you that you aren’t young anymore and the party can be over abruptly.

What happened?

Where did those forty some years go?

What did I miss?

What could I have done differently?

 

For that which, then, I thought was right…

Have Mercy God.

For that, which now, I regret…

Forgive me God.

For that which, hence, I know not what to do…

Guide me God.

That was from church today.

Today, that resonated with me

 

Before I went to church today I read something on Facebook that resonated with me as well. As I thought about starting to write today I thought what I had read on Facebook would be a good reference, would have some place in these thoughts.

But then I learned about Facebook time.

Like those forty years I just lost, four hours in Facebook time can be just as harsh.  That experience I had at 7 am this morning was now just a cloudy memory of something I know was worth remembering and worth experiencing,  but now lost.  I tried to go back to experience it again but I couldn’t find it, you can’t go back, it is lost in time.

But I recall it had a message that went something like this:

Life is a daily exercise in learning lessons. Mainly because we learn a lesson one day, but because life is what it is and we are what we are, flawed, we have to learn it again and then again, and again and maybe sometimes we never learn.

I think whenever we lose someone we wish we could get a redo, take a mulligan.  The “if I had a chance to do it again” syndrome.

There are songs written about it; I’ve written about it with Donny; now I am writing about it again.

I know this all too well.  It’s like being 60 and making fart noises in walkie-talkies. There are some things I wish I would have done differently.

We don’t always learn lessons well… well, at least I don’t.

We treat our bodies like they are indestructible only to find out once we are older and wiser, that they are not.

We treat our world like it is indestructible only to find out maybe too late,  that may not be true either.

But there is one thing I think I have learned that is true.

Some friendships are indestructible, no matter how hard they are tested or how much time is lost.

And worrying about what I did right or wrong; and what I now regret, is a waste of energy.  It’s in God’s hands now.

And like Facebook time, the remembrances of my experiences forty or fifty years ago might be cloudy and I will never see them as clear again. And even though more recent memories for me were fewer and farther between I can still smile when I think of them all, and still feel good knowing that even after many years, I got messages like this:

“A Very Merry Christmas and a Very Happy and Healthy New Year. I Love You All!! Butch”

We all love you too Butch.

 

Postscript:

My friend Joe died suddenly and unexpectedly last Friday.  We experienced growing into young adulthood together and shared many things in common, especially our love of music (though as instrumentalists,  we were only proficient at air guitar and air drums); and many of life’s lessons that made our relationship one that was comforting; at times funny, sometimes sad; and always in the end, supportive.

It was indestructible.

If there ever was a song written that I always associated with my friendship with Joe, it was this one:

Now young faces grow sad and old and hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind
I’m ready to grow young again
And hear your sister’s voice calling us home across the open yards
Well maybe we could cut someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars

Cause we made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender

(From No Surrender by Bruce Springsteen)

Here is a great version if you have a few minutes that puts it in a perspective close to home for me, we did a lot of dreaming too.

I will miss him and will always be grateful for the friendship we shared.

Resolutions…What a Waste

Resolutions…What a Waste

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image courtesy of the What The Health facebook page

Animals living in their own waste…they’re living next to animals that are sick or even dead…stuck in cages with these animals where bacteria tends to spread…

 Three thousand people die every year in the United States from Salmonella…twenty thousand people dying from antibiotic resistance deaths…

 …if you live near a swine spray field …three times more likely to have a MRSA infection…

 …ten million pigs in North Carolina produce the waste of one hundred million humans…this is the equivalent of the entire eastern seaboard flushing their toilets in to North Carolina…

The pig’s waste falls through slats in the floors of the sheds they are forced to live in… then pumped into giant waste pits…and pumped out unfiltered on to fields…

(From the documentary “What the Health”)

 

Happy New Year!

Time to bust out some new resolutions!

Maybe I’ll finally fix that sink that has never drained properly…

Maybe I’ll quit procrastinating…

Maybe join the gym…

Maybe change that diet and eat healthier too…

 

A few months ago my wife decided to change her diet.  Not that she was eating poorly to begin with; she almost never ate meat with the exception of some chicken and fish; but this time she was going to try to live on a plant based diet only.  No animal anything. 

No cheese, no eggs, no chicken, no beef, nothing dairy; nothing derived from an animal.

Just plants. 

I thought I might go along with this and do it with her but I insisted that until the freezers were purged of all the leftovers and frozen foods; all those meatballs, chicken wings, and other food stuffs we had accumulated, I would hold back.  Somebody had to eat that stuff, it would be wasteful!

So while my wife got healthier… I got heavier. 

It would go something like this: 

ME: “Hey honey, how are you…you’re on your way home? Good, are you hungry what do you want for dinner?   

KIM:  “No not really, I had a big salad for lunch.”

ME: “Oh… okay… no problem I will just stop and get some bread,   get some meatballs out of the freezer and eat a meatball sub.”

The next day… 

ME: “Oh hey honey, great I will see you at home.  Are you hungry, want me to make something for dinner? “

KIM: “No, you know I had some beans and rice later in the afternoon today so I am good.”

ME: “Okay… no problem… it’s all good…hey you know I will just have a meatball sub…it’s fine don’t worry about me. “

 So while my wife cleansed her body of toxins; I cleansed the freezers.   

And I gained weight. 

 All this got started with my wife by her watching the documentary I illustrated at the beginning of this essay. 

The documentary titled What the Health.

Recently while sitting with my parents and talking about growing up in New Jersey we got on the topic of septic tanks. 

Because back when I was growing up before they put the sewers in Oceanport in the 70’s, septic tanks were common.  You had a septic tank on your property that held the waste until it got full, and then a truck would come along and pump out the sewage until the tank got full again, and so on and so on.

My grandmother had a couple of these septic tanks on her property and she lived across the street.   

My parents went on to explain that they heard that these sewer trucks would pump out the sewage and then drive the raw sewage down to farms in south Jersey where it would be sprayed on the fruits and vegetable fields as fertilizer. 

What the hellllth?

Wait, wait, wait so I could have pooed at my grandma’s house in central Jersey and my poo could then have been driven to south Jersey and sprayed on a head of lettuce that may have subsequently ended up in my salad bowl; or on strawberries that may have been on my strawberry shortcake birthday cakes that I loved so much?

Somehow that whole pig spray issue sounded rather genteel to me now…

I seriously don’t know what to eat after learning all this…the meat is bad…the veggies are sprayed with poo…

Probably not mine anymore but maybe someone else’s!

What kind of resolution should I make?

Never to talk to my parents about septic tanks again?

Maybe…

And why couldn’t my good plumber friend from New Jersey have retired to Northern Virginia and not the west coast of Florida?  I don’t want to fix that drain.

And I already joined a gym, so at least my bank account is getting leaner.

I don’t know what to do…

I know… I will procrastinate.

That always works for me…

Now what is it that I could be more resolute about?…

 

If you would like more information about the film visit the What the Health website.  For additional information visit their facebook page.  It’s worth a look, draw your own conclusions.