John "Jack" Barnett

     The Barnetts lived down the street from my family on Glenwood Road. Mr. Barnett was a soft-spoken man with a passion for classical music, history, and basketball. Though this did not preclude him from having very strong opinions. Among these were his "no debt" philosophy. He did have a mortgage for a while but paid for most everything via cash and check. His thriftiness was a legacy of growing up during our country's Great Depression in the 1930s so it was not too surprising for its time. Today if you consider all the students saddled with loans and adults leveraged to the hilt, there are probably more than a few who wished they had followed a Jack Barnett monetary policy.

     The last time I saw Mr. Barnett was the evening of our 10th high school reunion. The Barnett's, as they always did, were showing me their fine hospitality by having me stay the night, instead of at the overpriced hotel where the reunion was being held. We were eating dinner before the reunion and I mentioned to him that he had once taught me how to eat spaghetti. He smiled as if he could recall the day vividly. (He and Mrs. Barnett were anything if they weren't polite to their guests.) I reminded him how I had tried to cut the pasta with a fork and how he had stopped me cold. Then had demonstrated the proper form of how to twirl spaghetti. It gave us all a good laugh to be reminded how much children need adult guidance on a wide variety of subjects.

     Mr Barnett in the middle of the back row, circa 1968.

     Mr Barnett offered many unspoken lessons, too. He had hurt his leg and was forced to use crutches and wear a leg brace. While it visibly pained him at times he never spoke of it. This was also part of his depression era upbringing, it was a "don't complain mindset" common among that generation. The belief originated in the long held idea that expressing your dissatisfaction with the hand which Life gave you was pointless. Instead, you were to seek solace in what you could in this temporal world. I think classical music and reading world history gave him some relief, but nothing like putting a bunch of kids in his stationwagon and seeing the New York Knicks play professional basketball at Madison Square Garden. His parking pass from his job as an attorney for the Port Authority of NY/ NJ guaranteed a spot in the Port Authority garage at the Bus Station on 42nd street. From there it was an easy walk to the Garden, through streets filled with Porn shops, liquor stores, and homeless people. These athletic contests were more often than not played on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, unlike the majority of today's contests which are held at night. This was the era before court side tickets cost $2000 each, smoking cigars indoors was commonplace, and we could all reasonably believe in the sanctity of the game and the athletes love for what we all knew to be an activity played by children on playgrounds.

     The Barnetts also owned a house on Shelter Island on the eastern end of New York's Long Island. I visited them countless times during the summer months and on occasion during the winter. When it was cold the first activity of the visit was watching Mr. Barnett light the furnace hidden beneath the kitchen floorboards. It was the ultimate lesson in perseverance. He was the only one who was allowed to light it and also the person least able because of the leg brace. Nevertheless, he did it every time without a word said. His only expression would be some slight grimacing from the contortions he had to put his body through to get the match to ignite the pilot. From these journeys I also learned firsthand the misery of travelling West towards New Jersey via the Long Island Expressway on Sunday afternoons. Even fifty years ago it could be rightly called the world's longest parking lot. As a small consolation these trips usually included a stop at a Burger King, where we took our food to go. Mr Barnett could balance his coffee and hamburger like a champ while driving, not to mention light his pipe afterwords.

     Unlike when visiting their house in New Jersey, a trip to the eastern end of Long Island might include some chores like riding the lawn mower, raking leaves, and taking the trash to the dump. Activities we used to charge our neighbors for in New Jersey but we did for the Barnetts without question. Actually, we needed these sort of activities to fill up our days as the TV's antenna only received a few channels and the house didn't have air conditioning. It had been built with plenty of windows on all sides to catch the breeze and a porch in the front for watching the occasional neighbor who might pass by the house. Of course, we filled our days with trips to the beach to swim and sail their dinghy. Plus, we could always count on eating the lunch Mrs. Barnett packed for us.

     At night we all gathered around the dinner table and sometimes the conversation turned uproarious. I don't remember what got us all  giggling one evening but it had to do with the seemingly unfunny topic of whether sheet rock or spackling was the most appropriate method for making a repair.  Just recollecting the memory of Mr. and Mrs Barnett laughing uncontrollable along with every one else at the table, over a trifle, is how I best like to remember those times on Shelter Island. I couldn't engineer a better memory if I tried.
    

The More Loving One by W.H. Auden

THE MORE LOVING ONE by W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

People Change When They Walk Away

     There is a funny thing I know about people. It's that they change when they walk away. 

     All of us have people in our pasts who we used to love or maybe just like alot. Most of these were with a passion only a child can know and understand. As we age our hearts are less prone to these feelings. It's called "growing up" by many, but I'm convinced it's carelessness on our parts. Keeping up relationships, which at one time we valued more than anything, is hard. The more I reflect upon this idea the truer it appears.

     Offer me the chance to go back to when I felt these things and I would immediately say no. The fact we cannot go back is part of what makes life bearable. Though we often think about the past it's not something we would revisit, of that I am certain.

     I can remember old seven digit telephone numbers of friends who once meant the world to me. This indeed sounds strange to me because nobody I know will answer these numbers with the familiar mirth and optimism I so clearly can recall. Even so I am deeply grateful and appreciative just the same for those days. If the voice on the other end could somehow sound familiar, I'd likely just listen because I released them long ago, and I changed as we moved away from each other.

Collecting Autographs

     While I never possessed an autograph book I did collect autographed baseball cards. I actually would send the cards to the ballplayers in care of Yankee Stadium. This a time before people lined up and paid a fee to receive an autograph from a sports celebrity.

     I once sent a card to a retired Yankee, Bobby Richardson, and my missive was forwarded to his home in South Carolina. He kindly signed my card and returned it.

     Mel Stottlymyre and Rocky Colavito are two others I recall doing me the favor of signing the baseball card I sent them.

    
     You have to remember I only scrawled a return address on the envelope and included no return envelope for them to use. My expectation that they would take the time and trouble to honor my request amazes me to this day.

     Many people lament the fact they didn't save their baseball cards or that they were thrown away after they moved out of the house. I kept mine for years and it was only recently that I gave away the last of them to my nephew. Over the course of the prevous twenty years I gave away my collection of 50 or so cards to friends and family members. What's more, these cards are still bringing me joy long after I forgot who I gave each one of them to. Lucky for me a search on the Internet for a particular player and the card appears. The search also brings with it a memory of a simpler era where ballplayers made the time and maybe even believed they owed it to their fans to sign autographs. What's better than that?

Landing On The Moon in 1969

     As if the blast off or the exiting and entering the earth's atmospehere wasn't hard enough, there was the landing in the ocean to complete the journey.

    
     When the astronauts of the Apollo space program, and earlier programs like Mercury, blasted off at dawn a large part of America woke up to view the event. We mostly had black and white television sets and the TV cameras only depicted the first 30 seconds or so. The rest was up to our imaginations.
    
     By the time of the Shuttle in the 1980s space flight had become commonplace. It took the Challenger blowing up in 1986 to get us to tune back in, but even that was just to stare at the tragedy. Our capacity for wonder had long since been used and been replaced with a complacency as to what we were trying to learn and accomplish through space travel.

     Fifty years after men landed on the Moon plans are being made to return and build a space station to orbit the Moon. Plans are also being madeby NASA to develop rockets for more extensive space exploration.

     Many countries now have space programs and are set on learning for themselves what they can about what happens when one leaves the Earth's atmosphere. Now doubt televisions in America will show people in countries like India and China waking up early to watch with the same wonder in their eyes that our's once held. It will be every bit as dramatic to them as it was fifty years ago to us.

When All My Friends Lived Nearby

     When all my friends lived nearby I would see them in school and around the neighbor or town. Hardly a day could go by when I didn't see someone considered a friend. What's more, we didn't have much to communicate with except a telephone and the sheer proximity of our voices.

     The contrasts with our myriad of choices of communication today are stark. I sometimes think to myself, "Why is loneliness even a word these days?" It would seem that all we have to do is pick up the phone or dash off an email to feel more connected and less isolated. Yes, we don't have the same physical proximity we once enjoyed but ought that be a consideration?

     Sad to say we can't and we don't just pick up the phone and call the friends who used to live nearby. The phone lost its luster just as it became portable and the price of a long distance phone call dropped to near zero. Who even considers long distance charges anymore? Or utters the phrase, they are calling long distance. With cost no longer the impediment it once was, why do the barriers to connection seem greater than ever?

     The only conclusion I can draw is that habits once broken are hard to resume. Or to juxtapose the Doobie Brothers album, What Were Once Habits Are Now Vices.

     Our vice or shortcoming is our inability to place the local calls we once made nonchalantly, and more importantly to accept these calls ourselves and not let them go to voicemail. Recall a time when the phone could ring 40 or 50 times if we felt so inclined. Now the wonders of automation interrupt this phenomenon on the 4th or 5th ring.

     Now that my friends are scattered it takes an effort to feel that same sense of closeness. Our high school reunions are once such effort that returns that wonderful feeling, even if only for a few hours. I guess that is why I've worked so hard on committees of like-minded classmates to make these events a reality. The glow of good feelings last for a while after a gathering. Years can pass and these recollections still appear clearly in my memory. Best of all it allows me to remember what it once was like to have all my friends nearby. It's priceless.

Local Newspapers

     A study from researchers at the University of North Carolina, “We have lost about 20 percent of local newspapers in the United States since 2004, and at least 900 communities now are without any local news source in that same time frame.”

     These days everyone seemingly acquires news from their own sources. Be it electronically on their phone, tablet or laptop or in traditional newsprint form.

     The loss of local newspapers nationwide due to decreasing circulation certainly indicates people no longer make time for "folded unstapled sheets of newsprint containing news, feature articles, advertisements, and correspondence." I just Googled that definition of a newspaper to see what children ten to twenty years from now might read when asked if they knew what a local newspaper was used for.

     Consequences:

     1. Craig's List killed the want ads and eliminated a steady source of revenue for local papers.
 
     2. The end of afternoon papers displaced teenagers from working as newspaper delivery boys and girls. It

     Observation:

     Deliverying papers on a bicycle was always a hard job, everyday rain or shine. It's funny that the morning newspapers like the New York Times have always been delivered by people in cars tossing the paper onto customer's front lawns and doorsteps.

Graydon Pool

The pool's cold water is a distant memory, especially when considered in the winter. This photo from the 1970s is of a simpler era.

The picture below is of a more recent time. Notice the iron fence which now surrounds the pool grounds. The pavillion area has been rebuilt to expand the bathrooms and provide a shaded patio.

Another picture from the 1970s, before the proliferation of backyard pools and central airconditioning Graydon provided relief from the heat.

Youth Travel Sports Culture

     Youth Travel Sports Culture is Broken was the title of the article which caught my eye.  It was authored by a disenchanted, though highly successful coach, who spent seventeen years involved with youth sports. The crux of the ex-coach's disatisfaction, "We have organizations and private coaches that are making a profit filling parents’ heads full of false information and dreams of scholarships rather than focusing on the development of the athletes, regardless of their skill levels."

     I admit the first time I heard a co-worker say his eleven year old daughter might qualify for a softball athletic scholarship I was taken aback. It seemed my colleague believed this phantom scholarship would take the responsibility off of his shoulders for sending her to college. All I could think to myself was not every child can be a college scholarship athlete. I still wonder if he had a plan B in case no scholarship was forthcoming.
   

     The term "Youth Travel Sports" is meaningless if you grew up before soccer,  hockey, baseball, and basketball teams, boys and girls, took to the road. The travel teams are the brainchildren of enterprising coaches who establish their own leagues as an alternative to those domiciled in towns and counties. These new leagues sometimes claim to supplement existing leagues but often compete for children's time and adults' dollars.

     All I know is we loved athletics as kids growing up. Though we also played made up games like Flashlight Tag on summer evenings when bedtimes were extended. Neither the athletic contests or the non-competitive activities were regarded as a sure fire means for gaining entrance to college.

     Fortunately, as the coach relates, "We weren’t burned out from constantly competing for meaningless trophies at a young age. Our parents weren’t trying to force us into everything to keep up with the neighbors; they just wanted us out of the house."

    

Frank Robinson 1935-2019

     Back when we bought our baseball cards for five cents a pack for five cards and a piece of gum, this 1969 Topps Baseball card of Frank Robinson was in my collection. I had baseball cards up until two years ago when I gave the last of them to one of my nephews.

     Before 1991 I had kept my final fifty together with a rubberband, until I showed them to an avid collector abd he recoiled in horror. I got the message and put them each in their own plastic cover. These cards were all from a time before the inflation in the number of card producers made cards from 1974 on nearly worthless. All my cards were from the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s.

     For about thirty years I took great pleasure in bestowing cards as gifts. They still gave me great pleasure even though they are no longer in my possession. The memories are burned so deeply in the synapses of my brain that simply looking at pictures on the Internet allows me to recall those last cards, and in many cases the people to whom I gave them. That's quite the return on investment (ROI) for a nickel price tag with a piece of gum thrown in for free.

Meaning of Life

     Ask good questions to derive more meaning from life:

     To be able to ask the right questions means listening more intently and interrupting less often.

Favorite Sayings

       Attributed to Mark Twain:

    
      On a t-shirt my wife gave to me:


      In the end, only three things matter:

     How much you loved,

     How gently you lived,

     And how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.

Super Bowl Sunday

"Passionately addicted to brutalizing amusements."

     Today the National Football League (NFL) plays their athletic contest called the Super Bowl. I watched the first forty-five or so of these events, but not any in the last several years. It dawned on me a while ago that these men were harming themselves for my amusement. Now I say, "No Thanks!" You can put on this savage form of entertainment and people around the world can have parties while they watch it, but they'll do it without me.

     Mental health professionals will readily tell you that on Super Bowl Sunday there is a marked increase in violence, mostly men beating up women. There is also a tremendous amount of money bet on every aspect and play of the game, including the coin toss. This all is made easier in New Jersey by the recent introduction of sports betting via smart phone apps. As if there weren't enough ways already to lose money.

     The game of football itself I have no problem with, it's the tackling and blows to the skull which make me queasy. That we allow children as young as ten years old to play the game in pads and helmets speaks volumes about our lack of concern for head trauma. Here is information I received while doing a search on "concussions in football players."

     "Researchers: 96% of ex-NFL players had brain disease"

     (CNN)Here's some background information about concussions in the National Football League. A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury caused by a blow to the head.

Reports show an increasing number of retired NFL players who have suffered concussions have developed memory and cognitive issues such as dementia, Alzheimer's, depression and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

     Facts:
Most concussions occur without losing consciousness.

CTE is a degenerative disease of the brain and is associated with repeated head traumas like concussions.

Among the plaintiffs in concussion-related lawsuits: Art Monk, Tony Dorsett, Jim McMahon, and Jamal Anderson.