Gen C

     Using the words of Seth Godin today for inspiration:

"It doesn’t really pay to classify multitudes by their age–every generation is complex and intermingles with all the others.

But it might be a useful way to understand the issues we’ve faced and where we might be heading.

Generation C was inaugurated with the events created by Covind-19, and it is defined by a new form of connection.

There’s a juxtaposition of the physical connection that was lost as we shelter in place, and the digital connection that so many are finding online.

Not just a before and after for the economy, but for culture, for health, for expectations. School and jobs are different now, probably for the long term.

No idea or behavior shift has ever spread more quickly or completely in the history of the planet. In seven weeks, the life of every single person on Earth changed, and the unfolding tragedy and the long slog forward will drive expectations for years.

Expectations about being part of a physical community, about the role of government and about what we hope for our future."

     Though some things will never change. Today's class clown is taking over the Zoom connection and disrupting the tele-learning sessions. It would truly be funny if it weren't so sad that we didn't train the teachers for this contingency or design the software so that the DEFAULT settings would prevent this kind of mayhem. I suppose that is what class clowns do and we ought to be grateful for a moment of levity.

Casey Stengel

     One of the things I miss about playing and watching baseball is the storytelling. Even in a small, summer league we had stories we told each other long after the games were over and we had moved on to other leagues, other sports, and other ways to pass the time.

     Baseball is slow enough and can be viewed safely from up close so the players faces can be seen clearly. The fact it is mostly played outdoors in the summertime helps leave indelible impressions that can last a lifetime. Take a seat behind home plate and you will be able to watch the unfolding confrontations between pitchers and batters. You'll see the struggle in their faces and the elation when one or the other succeeds.

   
      Casey Stengel played baseball as a rightfielder mostly, and is best known as the manager of the NY Yankees and the hapless NY Mets. The first was a dynasty and the second an expansion team.

"I broke in with four hits, and the writers promptly declared they had seen the new Ty Cobb. It took me only a few days to correct that impression."

     Casey had plenty of stories to regale the sports reporters with by the time he was hired to manage the Mets in the early 1960s. Though we all have our own stories which we can entertain each other with, baseball related or not. Baseball just receives an inordinate amount of credit for generating good, tall tales. The longer since you last played it seems the better the stories become. We tend to leave out the unimportant details and focus on the parts which still amuse many years later. That's what I miss, not the sore muscles, sprains, and ignominious losses. It was always the comradery before and after the games were played that contained the best times. The games went by so fast and we often didn't keep score too well. The games become just a background memory for the good times we had just tossing the ball around the infield or the outfield. Laughing at dropped balls and cheering each other on for a diving catch were so much more important than trying to remember who was ahead in the score.

American Dream Mega Mall

     I sometimes start blog posts and then save them. This one I saved for months and now feel it's time to use it.

     Who thought this was a good idea?  If this was a public talk I would ask for a show of hands. No need to tell me one way or another as the facts speak pretty loudly for themselves.

     It took seventeen years but it finally opened in late 2019. I have driven by so many times on the NJ Turnpike  that it never occurred to me that they might one day find an owner who would want to finish at least part of it. It begs the question, Why? Do we truly need an indoor water park, hockey rink, 450 retail, dining destinations and entertainment venues? Word has it this is a 5 Billion dollar complex.

    The certificate of occupancy was issued on October 29th and the attractions are slowly but surely being added. Parking in one of the 33,000 spots is free for the time being but plans are to charge $3 for 30 minutes to 3 hours all the way up to $24 for 8 hours or more. Employees will park for free in a separate lot.

     Now with all the space around it to land helicopters, it appears an ideal place to build a hospital. Hopefully, it won't come to that but it is closed and has enough open space to house patients just like the Javits Convention Center is doing in Manhattan.

How To Be Remembered

     The best way to be remembered is... I wish I had one answer.

     The Internet has plenty of answers. I suppose it comes down to what you aspired to in your life and whether or not you achieved some of what you sought. It possible to be remembered for something which you find unmemorable, but the mass of people around you can never forget.

     Here's a story from Paul Coelho which inspired this post:

In the monastery of Sceta, Abbot Lucas gathered the brothers together for a sermon.

‘May you all be forgotten,’ he said.

‘But why?’ one of the brothers asked. ‘Does that mean that our example can never serve to help someone in need?’

‘In the days when everyone was just, no one paid any attention to people who behaved in an exemplary manner,’ replied the abbot. ‘Everyone did their best, never thinking that by behaving thus they were doing their duty by their brother. They loved their neighbour because they understood that this was part of life and they were merely obeying a law of nature. They shared their possessions in order not to accumulate more than they could carry, for journeys lasted a whole lifetime. They lived together in freedom, giving and receiving, making no demands on others and blaming no one. That is why their deeds were never spoken of and that is why they left no stories. If only we could achieve the same thing now: to make goodness such an ordinary thing that there would be no need to praise those who practise it.

    

Harlem Globetrotters

      The Harlem Globetrotters were always big on TV when I was growing up. They even had there own Saturday morning cartoon. I recall them being more popular than the college and professionals in our area. It may have had to do with basketball being the third most popular sport after Baseball and Football.

Curly Neal

     The Globetrotters played very good basketball beside putting on an entertaining show. They passed with precision and shot the ball from all areas of the court. Meadow Lark Lemon was famous for his half court hook shot. These things could not be faked like professional wrestling. Considering all the travel they did made their accomplishments all the more outstanding. Yes, they played mostly against The Washington Generals but at times they played professional teams around the world and rarely suffered a defeat. They put the word "World" into the phrase World Champions.

Marques Haynes and Meadowlark Lemon

Pandemic 2020

     I'm writing this post in Queens, NY. This is about 2 miles from one of the most apocalyptic scenes imaginable going on at Elmhurst Hospital. I'll spare you the details because they are all over the news. What's important is that my wife and I are fine for now.

     The pandemic is forcing us all to re-imagine what community looks like. People in my neighborhood are nicer than usual and have been keeping their distance on those rare occasions when the do venture out. They say emergencies like these show your true colors. If you were a jerk before you'll appear as an even bigger one, and likewise people who are caring tend to strive to be even more thoughtful. This is at least what I have seen.

     My parents generation was asked to overcome a Great Depression and the Nazi Axis Powers. We are being asked to stay indoors. Both were/are difficult in their own right. Today we cannot see the virus or know for certain how it is transmitted or how long it might linger in the air.  This is scary. For earlier generations they didn't know if the economy would ever restart or if we were capable of fighting wars on two fronts: Europe and The Pacific.

Where The Wild Things Are

     First book of fiction that I recall from grade school. Once again it was the Willard School librarian who introduced this story by Maurice Sendak to us. The illustrations are huge and allowed her to read a little then show us the picture on the page. This gave us some time to process the image and story so we could understand it all better. Today we might do this same thing by using a large computer screen on the wall. This is good and different in that there is no scarcity, when we use digital books there are a seemingly unlimited number of copies. Back in the day they would buy one copy at a time and see how it was received by students.

    
     This book went viral with the students and immediately produced a waiting list. As I recall we could only keep the book for a few days, nothing at all like the weeks I have now at my library.

First Poems

     I recall this one by Shel Silverstein as one the first one I memorized. The librarian at Willard would read to groups of children during their regular weekly visits. There was a run on this book for weeks if not months afterwards. We all would sign the card in the back of the book and bring it to the Take Out Desk to be stamped. I like the idea of this old system because you could see all the people who had read the book. That is, the card ran out of space and the librarian inserted a new one. Today's computerized systems are super efficient because they let you order books online for pickup without having to cruise the library stacks looking for something. Though for privacy's sake they don't allow you to discover who else has read the book. This is one of the trade-offs of our modern age.

Nothing to do? Nothing to do? Put some mustard in your shoe, Fill your pockets full of soot, Drive a nail into your foot, Put some sugar in your hair, Place your toys upon the stair, Smear some jelly on the latch, Eat some mud and strike a match, Draw a picture on the wall, Roll some marbles down the hall, Pour some ink in Daddy's cap--- Now go upstairs and take a nap. by Shelley Silverstein

 

 

Binge TV Watching

     Oh, what we wouldn't have given to have been been able to binge watch our favorite TV shows. Let alone save them and watch them whenever we wanted.

     Linear TV is all we had growing up. Appointment TV is a less technical term and meant we had to be in our seats to watch. Go to the bathroom or go to the kitchen to grab a snack during a commercial break and you might have missed something.

     In terms of live Sports on TV that might have been the scene where "The Captain" of the NY Knicks, Willis Reed, appears from the locker room before game 6 of the NBA Basketball Final series versus the LA Lakers. He had just received a shot in his thigh to numb the pain and the needles we later find out are not as delicate as they are today. This was 1970, when the players didn't make the ridiculous sums they claim today. Seats up in the last row of the Garden were priced in the single digits and the smell of cigar smoke was at times overwhelming.

 

     The games seemed more like true sports when the players performed in front of people who believed they were in it for the love of the game. When the audience weren't there to be seen on the jumbo screens hanging from the rafters. When a pair of court side tickets didn't cost $250,000 and radio meant Marv Albert calling the game with his all too familiar YES!

     Today we can watch the games and speed through the commercials. Or watch them the next day or a week later. Though when the NBA resumes playing games I don't think there will be 20,000 people at Madison Square Garden in NYC chanting in unison: DEFENSE. I also predict the players in all sports are going to see their paychecks cut by a huge amount. Things are now different and the longer sports fans are without their live games the easier it will be do without them. Just my hunch.

Positive Change

     Best line I read today came from MSNBC reporter Ali Velshi:

     "Let's discover our capacity for positive change."

     He goes on further: "We can take this moment to change the policies that have failed us...why not be the first generation that fixes wealth disparity, and income inequality, and universal healthcare, and poverty, and homelessness, and racial economic inequality?"

     This sort of unabashed idealism is just the tonic we need to take our minds off the pandemic we are living through. I am all for being realistic about our chances but we need to look at both sides of our situation with an open mind.

      If ever there were a time we need Peace, Love, and Understanding the time is Now!  

     Go ahead play those Rock n Roll songs from the 1960s and 1970s that spoke to the better angels of our nature. Remember how they made you feel at the time and still make you feel if you let them. This is not a rant on how the music was better, only how it was different in its emphasis on melody and harmony.

The Loss of Sports

     The loss of all sports has produced some drastic changes in all our lives. There are no games to report on in newspapers, radio or TV. Nothing to watch, even in our public spaces. I found myself watching three children, one girl and two boys, playing football. I cheered when one boy threw a long pass to the other and the girl tackled him just short of the end zone. They were all 6 or 7 years old.

     The picture of the ultimate individual, Megan Rapinoe, is currently how I like to recall sports viewing in my life. She was a skilled player, longed for the big stage, and knew how to put her opponent away and win. The pose is dignified and doesn't mock her opponents in any way. Instead, she is paying homage to the crowd and telling them that she gave her all.

Public Service Announcement

 
   

   Seth Godin:


 "[For members of the public, staying at home and sheltering in place isn’t selfish, it’s generous. Social distancing helps keep the virus from infecting others at the same time that it flattens the curve of the spread of the pandemic, giving health facilities a chance to provide care over time.]

Public health is efficient, a culture changer and a commitment. It’s not simply a more expensive version of private health.

     When the water supply is reliable, the air is clean and the public health system is working well, we hardly notice it. Nutrition, access to healthcare and the safety of transport are easy to take for granted. When we hire the government to be responsible for public health, we give up small amounts of independence and money. But it creates enormous benefits, worth far more than they cost.

     First, it’s cheaper and more reliable for a few trained engineers to test and maintain the water etc. than it is for each person who consumes it to do so.

     Second, health, like the weather, is something that people bring up in conversation but rarely do anything about. By centralizing action, we make it more likely that something actually gets done.

     Third, individual humans are bad at long-term thinking. Patient systems often outperform individual actions when it comes to public health.

     Often, it’s only coordinated action that can help the entire community. And coordinated action rarely happens without intentional coordination. Don’t do it because you finally got around to it. Don’t do it because it is in your short-term interest. Do it because we all need it done.

     It’s difficult to overinvest in building and running competent public health systems and management. And sometimes we don’t realize how important the system is until we see how unprepared we are. [Which is why, alas, today is a good day to stay home].

     Thank you to every public health worker and medical professional who is on the front lines right now. We’re grateful for a lifetime of sacrifices and commitment."

We All Share The Same Journey

     This will not be a post about the stupidity of stockpiling toilet paper. Instead, take this moment where we are all sharing the same reality, thinking similar thoughts, and largely have the same topic on our minds, and remember that it wasn't that long ago that these moments happened much more frequently than they do now.

     When we had fewer media outlets, no 24-hour news cycle, no capacity to educate out children online it was harder to deviate from the accepted views of the day. We seemingly shared the same journey, were taught the virtues of being civic-minded, and we all learned our lessons in the same prescribed order in the same age-restricted classrooms.

     Ridgewood Public Schools will go completely online very soon and all the lessons we used to learn from one another in the cozy confines of brick buildings will cease to be the same. No locker combinations to remember, or school bells to awaken us from our lethargy at our desks, or commutes to and from school on foot, by bicycle, bus, and car.

     It will all be vary different from what came before. Online education will set the stage for vast amounts of working outside of traditional offices. We will slowly but surely create new types of interaction along with these new types of learning and working. It is exciting and scary at the same time, but at least we will all be doing it together for a pleasant change. What will draw us together again after online schooling and working at home become the norms? Hopefully the same thing which used to draw us out of our houses: the coming of spring, the boredom of being inside, and a certain curiosity about what our neighbors are doing will be the impetus for a new collective understanding of what it means to be in a civil society. How we treat one another when the dust settles will be very important as we on walking on new ground and making new paths for future generations to follow. Tread lightly and with great care. These moments do not come along often.

    

Artists

  

  
     Our friend and classmate Joanne Hunter was an artist. Please choose your own definition of what an artist is. Today I'll go with one from Bob Lefsetz, "An artist captures lightning and distills truth for the rest of us."

     The long story made short is she was diagnosed with cancer around the time of our 35th reunion. The RHS Alumni All-Star Band had been formed in 2012 and Joanne had flute solos on two Marshall Tucker Band hits that were popular while we were in high school, "Can't You See" and "This Old Cowboy." Between the time of the shows in 2012 and 2017 Joanne went through some serious chemotherapy. Though she also kept up the talk about having another show in 2017. Some of us even quietly speculated that the show helped her through her ordeal. There's an old chestnut about how one great rock show can change the world, attributed to the character played by Jack Black in the movie, "School of Rock." Well, I'll paraphrase and say the thought of playing in a rock show in front of long time friends can overpower even the worst of cancers. True or not, Joanne made the show and practices and played just fine. One of her solos appears below:

RHS Alumni All-Star Band 2017

    

The Power Of Nostalgia

     I often get my ideas for blog posts from headlines. I will write them down or begin a post using the headline or a derivative thereof in my opening sentence. Sometimes I will take an entire quote:

Over time, professionals discovered that nostalgia was not necessarily a negative emotion as they had originally thought. Yes, memories of the past may cause sadness but also remembering personal meaningful and rewarding experiences with others were found to actually boost psychological well being along with having other positive benefits. -Susan Williams, Posted in Blog, Boomer Life, Positive Aging

     Then I look for a picture. Here is my grandfather with a bad mustache taken during World War I. He was a medical officer.

     Sometimes I then begin to ramble of topic and have to look back at the title to see how I started. Always nice to tie these posts together from beginning to end. Doesn't always happen.

     I guess this one will end with my complete agreement with the blogger I quoted about how rewarding it can be to write about others and earlier times in our lives. Yes, it is rewarding and psychologically boosting to hear when someone mentions that they read this blog.

    I'm sure my grandfather, Dr. J. Burlie McCubbin MD would agree. He used to write a column for the local newspaper with optimistic thoughts he had gathered while looking out the window from his practice on Main Street in Fulton, Missouri. Glad to report he lost the mustache sometime after the war, probably at the insistence of my grandmother who he married after returning from Europe.

Hippies

   

     Remember Hippies? I barely do because they were older and not that many lived nearby. Many imitators who wore the same clothes and had long hair but none that I ever actually spoke with.

     We did have Hippies on our Saturday morning lineup of cartoon. Scooby-Do and the classic VW Micro-bus. They were no more real than our neighbors but let us imagine the freedom of travel and the colorful clothes. We weren't old enough to feel alienated from society and to long for our own distinctive lifestyle. Give us a few snow days from school and a trip to the shore during the summer and we would be fine.

     Of course, we saw the body counts from Vietnam on our TV daily. They made one wonder why the war wasn't over all ready with the numbers always skewed in the United States favor. It became even more real when the TET Offensive in 1968 placed a friend of ours in a POW camp for five years. He's long gone now but I did speak with him at length about his time in Vietnam. He even let me kid him about making him a pumpkin pie, even when we both knew that is all he ate for five years.

    
     He wasn't bitter because that's not how his generation expressed themselves, when they talked at all about their war experiences. Ironic that he was a diplomat and it took him years to convince his captors he was with the State Department. They told him that is what all CIA agents said. Finally they got a hold of a State Department directory with his picture in it and they apologized. They didn't let him go until later, along with all the others. He did make it very clear to me that the flags we fly in honor of missing POWs are not quite accurate because there were no more POWs after his release in 1973. The country was just too poor to keep them and their was nothing left to bargain for by holding any of them any longer. He went on that it worked in their favor to return everyone and begin rebuilding their reputation on the international stage.