41 Seaver Way

Today the ballpark in Queens which I will always think of and call Shea Stadium is going to receive a new streeet address. These are so common in NYC that it's not big news. Though for a disfunctional NYC entity like the NY Mets it is at least something for them to crow about. The team is currently unwatchable, just like another team owned by a trust fund baby called the NY Knicks.

The ballpark’s street address will now be 41 Seaver Way, a tip of the hat to Seaver’s jersey number, Council Member Francisco Moya said. It's all part of the "Miracle Mets" 50th anniversary celebration. You might recall this team was not considered a threat to accomplish anything more than winning as many games as it lost. Instead, they surprised everyone and beat a hugely favored team from Baltimore in the World Series. All the games were played during the afternoon so we had to ask our teachers if we could listen on our transister radios.

1970s Air Travel

     This was economy class seating on a Pan Am 747 in 1970. It resembles a TV or movie set to me as I have never seen anything like it. I can easily recognize this era in transportation, one where people chose "dressing up" as their mode travel by air. Fifty years later people wear flip-flops on the plane to make the required removal of shoes by airport security more bearable. 

     What's ironic about this comparison is that planes today travel faster but the lines to board them are longer than ever and growing longer due to TSA regulations and an increased number of flights and people flying.

Laura Fleming

     My classmate Laura is well known for many things, among them honesty, compassion, and selflessness. We worked together planning our 35th RHS reunion and share a common interest in history. She discovered my blog on her own, which ought not be a surprise as she is an Advanced Placement history teacher at RHS. She suggested to one of her students to interview me for the high school newspaper and I gladly told the paper how things have changed over the years. It showed Laura at her best as a teacher, always looking to help her students improve their capacity to understand the general relations of particulars. In this case, an original contribution to the school newspaper regarding high school life now and when she and I were growing up together in Ridgewood. I was humbled to be asked for an interview and remain grateful to her for allowing me to be a source for her students' education.

     During my weekly visit to Facebook I read the following news about her recent health diagnosis:


     "For over 35 years, Laura Fleming (RHS Class of 1977) has dedicated her working life to the students at Ridgewood High School. Whether it’s through imparting her knowledge in U.S. History, World History or European AP classes or as advisor to the History Bowl and Political Discussion Clubs, Laura has made a difference in the lives of thousands of students and in some cases, their children!  She’s also lent her time to supporting veterans by organizing events for Memorial Day and Veterans Day.  Her colleagues have also benefited from her willingness to share both her time and expertise.

     Now, it’s time for the community to help make a difference in the life of LauraFleming.
Why?  Laura was recently diagnosed with Metastatic Uterine Leiomyosarcoma, Stage 4.
Having been through a roller coaster of emotions--as well as appointments, tests and procedures--over the past few months.  Laura has now begun treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering to fight this rare cancer.  She knows the battle won’t be easy, but she is ready for the fight."

A photo from our 35th Reunion. Lenni Maguire and Laura Fleming.

 https://www.mightycause.com/story/Bgz7ig

D-Day 75th Anniversary

D-Day warriors entering the boats to liberate Europe, 75 years ago:

Memorial Day 2019

A repost of a former professor of mine at Dickinson College, George Friedman.
https://geopoliticalfutures.com

I’m writing this on Memorial Day, a day dedicated to remembering those who died fighting for the United States and to enjoying the first outdoor gatherings of the summer. For some, marking the day by enjoying the pleasures of a barbecue seems a betrayal of the dead. For me, it is a celebration of life. The dead put themselves in harm’s way, some out of choice and some out of obligation. The deaths of the latter are no less noble for that. The deaths of the former no less tragic. Having a party and giving the meaning of the occasion little thought is not, in my view, a betrayal of the dead but the acceptance of their gift.

War is not far from my family. My son was in the Air Force, and our daughter and her husband were in the Army. The latter both served multiple tours in Iraq, and my son helped design the tools of war. The service of all three caused us anxiety, but we were especially uneasy about our daughter. I had encouraged her to choose the route that ultimately led her to serve with the First Cavalry in Iraq. Men have gone off to war for millennia, but seeing your daughter place her body in harm’s way is particularly agonizing. I understand that it is impolite to imply that women are different from men, but it is undeniable that fathers view their daughters differently than they view their sons. We are enormously proud of her, yet we are challenging the history of human practice in sending women to war. My generation brought forth this change, and it is the generation the least at peace with what we wrought.

War has changed in another way. When people of my generation went to war, they had no contact with home, save for a handful of hastily written letters. During our daughter’s deployments, my wife and I would be lying in bed when our phones came alive with texts, emails and pictures, particularly of Persian rugs being sold by itinerant Turks at enormous discounts. My wife supported the war effort by buying rugs that our daughter shipped home in between missions. (Our home is still immersed in them.) The contact between those who went to war and those who stayed behind was an indication to me that the face of war was changing. War was no longer reserved to a land far from home; it was merely a text away. My generation could not text home, nor do much more than imagine the home whose desolation we were told we were protecting. But having more contact did not make things easier for anyone. It created a dynamic between mother and child that Homer never imagined – and he imagined a lot.

All three returned from their duty, with scars on their souls. They were the kind of scars that come from linking your life to the dead and wounded. For the rest of us, today is meant to be a day of remembrance. But it is hard for those who have not gone to war or whose family members did not serve to be sobered by it. Inevitably, it has become one of America’s cherished three-day holiday weekends.

Some would say that the parties and barbecues are a betrayal of the obligation to remember. I don’t agree with that. Every warrior’s purpose is to protect the homeland from the harsh truths of war. Having done so, it should not surprise that people celebrate Memorial Day with parties and barbecues. The Republic was founded on a deep tension. It was dedicated to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but it also emerged from a revolution that was the bloodiest war in American history, resulting in the deaths of about 5 percent of all white males.

Some argue that the happiness that they fought for does not refer to our shallow hedonism but rather to a well-ordered life. That may be true, but in believing in liberty, they left it to all of us to determine what a well-ordered life is. Even Benjamin Franklin and George Washington had different interpretations of a well-ordered life. Franklin apparently partied heartily in Paris when he represented the American rebels there and did not deny himself pleasure during the winter of Valley Forge. War and happiness compete, but they also complement each other. We will have a barbecue today, and I will make a toast to those who didn’t make it. Our forgetfulness may seem to be ingratitude, but it’s actually a celebration of what could not have been without war. My parents would not have survived had World War II lasted another six months. I would not have been born without the Allies’ victory at Normandy – a victory whose 75th anniversary is one week away. But our memories are limited; how many of us mourn the dead at Gettysburg? We pay tribute to them not by recalling memories of war but by living the fruits of victory.

The tension and connection between war and happiness is complex. Putting your life at risk and being far from everything that is yours is not a happy time. It may inspire some nostalgia, but there is little in war beyond drudgery and fear. Still, mortal enemies become friends, as nations and as people, and life goes on. This is not a defense of war. War needs no defense. But opposing war is like opposing bad weather. It is not amenable to our wishes. So, we live with it, and we live after it.
This weekend, our daughter and her husband are having a Memorial Day party. It will consist of multiple televisions playing old war movies and friends and neighbors coming and going. At first, I thought this idea was demented. I later realized it was perfect. They were combining fun with remembrance. On the surface, there will be drunken frivolity. Underneath, there will be the endless recollection of those who died, and the soldier’s constant regret of not having saved them.

For the warriors and their families, Memorial Day is a day of reflection. For the rest, it is a day of forgetting what happened and giving thanks unwittingly by living happily. This is not a betrayal. This is the way all countries that experience war, which includes every country in the world, survive. The true weight of the memory of the dead would be too much for us to bear.
If you are asking what this has to do with geopolitics, it has everything to do with it. Geopolitics is about the relationship between nations, and war is a common currency in those relations. Memorial Day is about the relationship between the warrior and his or her nation and family, and the relationship between the past and the future, mediated through war and its remembrance. It is the essence of geopolitics.

The Answering the Call to Justice Foundation

     The Answering the Call to Justice Foundation is the culmination and continuation of the life work of the Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones, retired Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals judge, former NAACP general counsel, and lifelong champion in the fight to end racial discrimination in America. The "Good Judge" is Founder and Chairman. While Stephanie Jones, RHS class of 1977, is President.

 

https://stephanie-jones-4xfw.squarespace.com/

Head Shot 2019

2019

Best Part of Being a Kid

     When reflecting upon the best parts of being a kid the obvious ones like drinking water from a garden hose seem odd today. We certainly couldn't have survived outside during the summer without these hoses. It would have meant going inside someone's house and having to explain what we were up to or what we had planned. Most of the time our answers wouldn't have past muster as being useful or constructive so our activities were better left unmentioned. Besides we were making things up as we went along so even we didn't know exactly what we were doing. This was one of the benefits of growing up in an age with fewer options and less people trying to schedule you into activities.

   
     Yes, we drank water from garden hoses instead of carrying around individual plastic bottles.  Alternatives to this ancient source of quenching one's thirst included a thermos filled with Kool-aid everyone would share using disposable dixie cups. Other sources were the ubiquitous outdoor water fountains as well as indoor ones at schools and in public buildings.

Woodstock 50th Anniversary

     Our next door neighbors bought tickets but never made it to the show. They got stuck on one of the main highways leading to the festival. Not sure they would have stayed when the saw the chaos which ensued, but who knows?

     Thank goodness the bands did play and everyone took plenty of pictures. Later a film was edited and that is how most people remember the show. It's certainly not something which would work today and be billed as a MUST SEE event.

     I am glad Woodstock took place. It is a bright moment in our country's checkered history. For a few days people believed working together was appropriate, treating each other fairly and with respect was the new normal, and that one great Rock and  Roll show could change the world as we knew it.


     Scenes from another Rock and Roll show in 2017:

    

RHS Athletic Hall of Fame 2019 Inductee: Jeff Yearling

     Admittedly, it appears I came across this notice a few days past the deadline for tickets. Maybe a call to Tom "Fuzzy" Thurston or email to thurston@optonline.net can still net you a ticket. Jeff's long been associated with RHS sports and appears in my 1977 yearbook. His contributions were many and he's been a good role model for young men and women who participate in amateur sports.

Before Wearing Seatbelts Became Mandatory

     Before wearing a seatbelt was mandatory, safety was not the issue it is today. It seemingly was left up to the individual. We always were told to wear seatbelts by responsible adults, though my Dad had a Libertarian streak about him and sometimes refused saying, "he didn't like the governement telling him what to do." This was when dashboards were made out of metal, air-conditioners were an option, windows rolled up manually, and vent windows were largely standard on front seat car doors. By the time I could drive unbuckled seatbelts would produce an annoying beep or the car would simply not start if people sitting in the front seats didn't buckle up.

     Airbags didn't become mandatory until 1998. Fortunately, I have never seen or felt  them in action. I've been told they can break your nose if they hit you squarely when activated upon impact with another car or object. I will accept the word of the experts on the necessity of airbags and continue to drive as if everyone is a distracted driver not paying any attention to me.

    

PLOP, PLOP, FIZZ, FIZZ...

      "Oh what a relief it is"

     We more often than not now a days, we don't get the jokes made in TV, radio, or print advertising. The classic run of Alka-Seltzer in the 1960s and early 1970s were repeated incessantly by people of all ages. Hearing these ditties helped us connect with others, even if it was on a superficial level. This was possible because we had seen the same movies, the same TV shows, read the same newspapers and magazines or listened to the same records. Today even when certain products are vaunted as being ubiquitous, "Game Of Thrones" is a good example, they are not. There are simply too many channels, outlets, mediums, and means of communications that people cannot keep up and the only thing ubiquitous is the complete lack of an omnipresent voice.

     "I can't believe I ate the whole thing."

or

     “Mama mia, that’s a spicy meatball,”


     These tag lines were much wittier than the obvious observation that if you are feeling like you have too much stomach acid, this condition can be neutralized by drinking Alka Seltzer.

College Admissions Scandal

     Today's NY Times: US Charges Rich Parents in College Entry Fraud. We don't know the back story but these prospective students supposedly had no idea of what their parents were doing.

     More:

... "50 people charged with participating in a nationwide scheme to bribe athletic coaches, cheat on standardized tests, and falsify information to get their kids accepted into top universities."

     From my experience, suburban parents in the 1960s and 70s would do what they could to assist their children in gaining admission to elite colleges and universities. Whether it was having their children take a PSAT exam to practice for the SATs, or attending a College Night at the high school where prominent alumni were present. They would likely read their application essays before posting them and would accompany them on campus visits and meetings with the admissions officials.

     Can't say I would know much about bribing coaches in minor sports like rowing to place a teenager on the team without their ever having competed in a rowing event. When I visited my alma mater and told the track coach my times and my wait list status, it didn't also include the offer or request for a bribe. Seems to me the parents could have told the admissions office they planned to pay for the full tuition. It's a time honored custom of the rich and doesn't make require people to degrade themselves by submitting phony applications.

     College is very important for many students, it's where you can make life long friends, acquire the skills of a life long learner, and possible make future business connections.  Though some kids would do just as well to avoid the experience and the expense.  Maybe the lesson here is that parents need to engage in a conversation with their children about college and outline all the options and career paths. This would better educate children about the pros and cons of academic life. It would keep them from ever wondering, or worse discovering, about their false credentials. After one of these conversations their parents could also rest assured their offspring would never encounter the feeling of being an imposter, for gaining admission to an institution of higher learning they were neither qualified or ready to attend.

Bring Back Boredom

     The face says it all.

     There were times when I was that age that my young friends and I would look at each other with the same bored look. We'd ask each other endlessly, "What do you want to do?" Then the exchange which followed would innumerate the reasons why it was too hot or too cold to play that way, or that we always did that, and it was now BORING.

     It would have been tempting to trade this boredom and the work it took to relieve the feeling for all the choices which exist today. The online options are endless and habit-forming. The vast amount of offerings with streaming TV and music are overwhelming. The online gaming competions are completely captivating of one's entire imagination. None of these options are boring. Quite the opposite, the feeling of boredom has largely been eliminated and ironically produces a different type of feeling I'll call tedium. It's become tedious to choose between all the alternatives we have before us. Not to mention, these choices don't necessitate leaving the house or the security of our Internet communcations devices: phone, tablet, laptop, or gaming box. To tell the truth there is little difference between these gadgets, only size and the speed of the CPU which runs it.

     My point being the main difference between now and back then is when we felt bored it was usually in a group of two or more. If you were bored by yourself, only you had to decide which book to read, or hobby to pursue or which of the 7 channels delivered by antenna on the pre-cable era TV to view. These were enough if whatever age-related chores had been completed. We raked leaves or shoveled snow long before we were allowed to use power tools to cut the grass and clip the hedges and bushes.

     Another huge change that has occured is with these same said chores. There are certainly fewer children doing chores, or at least ones any previous generation would recognize. For example, all paper routes were lost along with the decline of the newspaper industry. All yard work has been outsourced to teams of workers with power tools we could only have dreamed about for pushing leaves into piles, cutting grass, and blowing snow from sidewalks. Errands to pick up and deliver samll articles are completed by package delivery and messenger services.

     These alterations to once was the normal routine of growing up leave us with more tedium and less boredom. Does that sound like splitting hairs? Maybe. I'll leave that to posterity, and what was once the realm of letter writers to decide. Sounds like an idea for a future post.

    

Willard School Air Conditioners

     Look at the air conditioners in the windows of the original 1926 main entrance to Willard School. We didn't have them in our house until I was in high school but we sure could have used them. There were many days when our own sweat from the heat had us glued to our seats. All the teachers could reasonably do was lower the shades if the sun was shining through the windows and maybe turn out the lights. Neither actually did much to lower the ambient temperature of the room though it did give the appearance of taking action to beat the heat. At some point before they added air conditioners to all the classrooms they did put one in the principal's office. Mr. Daly, Princeton Alum, was a tireless, year round worker and no doubt rated the modern convenience. Not to mention it was a productivity enhancer.

     The same could not be said for the students in classrooms, especially in the "new wing" completed in 1966. It was built with windows that allowed for no escape and thus blocked the wind and any chance to feel a cooling breeze. Take a look at the windows on the left of this picture below. They opened wide enough that we could have jumped out. Plus they had shade trees on this side of the school that provided some relief against the heat. The "new wing" had fewer trees and thus the sun beat down on the classrooms without concern for people trying to learn something. Even on the hottest days it felt cooler outside than inside our classrooms. Air conditioners are a great idea for the promotion of learning and for producing working conditions which encouraged teacher retention.

Prank Telephone Calls

     "Hey, let's make some prank calls!"

     As a child did you and your friends ever dial a random number, local or long-distance, and engage the person who answered in some sort of manic dialog? It was sometimes very funny, at least to us, to prank some number. It was always done in small groups with one person as the lead and everyone laughing hysterically in the background. This was long before robo-calls made everyone hesitant to answer their phone and long before voicemail. The phone could ring for a long time if you wanted, and this could be just as annoying for the recipients of our brainless attempts at entertaining ourselves.

     It would be far too generous to call these antics "Improv" as that takes practice and a high degree of concentration. Today if you Google the term you'll find their are apps and games which simulate the prank call process and plenty of sites that will give you ideas if you want to make this retro pastime happen on your own.

     I doubt that with call blocking and no cost long distance that it's even possible to explain what we were doing. People today have so many better entertainment options between streaming music, TV, and movies, plus the entire Internet to surf. We were simply bored and might have been trying to kill time on a rainy weekend afternoon.

     We all tried pranking the telephone operators once in our lives but we soon discovered these people were not to be trifled with. They knew who you were and how to scold you out of ever calling them again. They were mostly women who they took their jobs seriously and had no problem ringing you back until an adult answered. No amount of hanging up on them would ever deter them from making their point that this was an extremely bad idea.

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.

    

   

Preventing The Loss of Hope in Our Present Times

     The world is completely different than when I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. The public and private sector unions, defined pensions, and America's position as a "shining city on a hill" which once sustained our hopes and dreams of a better life for the next generation are all largely irrelevant.

     Whether you site "shining city" quote from Jesus's Sermon On The Mount or from the Puritan John Winthrop of the 17th century, there is always a sense of hope which can be gleaned from its meaning, waiting for you to notice it. It is the "exceptionalism" devoid of any religious or jingoistic tinge which I see, very similarly to how Alexis de Toqueville did in the 18th century, in his remarkable book Democracy in America. The exceptionalism and with it a "can do attitude" is a strength of the American Experiment and not something to be ashamed about. Despite many sad and disgraceful moments this country did free its slaves, give women the vote, and abolish child labor. There was always a sense of momentum that things did get better over time through hard work, enlightened social values, and governmental policies.

     I don't see it that way now.

     Instead of common values it is every person for themselves. Instead of our elites feeling and acting with a sense of generosity to those around them, we have people who took advantage, either through inheritance or financial trickery, flying private, avoiding taxes with a vengeance, and forgetful of those who are disadvantaged. Hard work is no longer a sign you'll get ahead and often is only a debilitating practice which leaves people sad and broken in spirit.

     What is there for a leader or would-be leader to do? Two things:

     1. Look for big ideas and improve upon them, even if only marginally. People who follow you will see the omissions and mistakes. In their turn they will make their own improvements for the next generation to act upon.
     2.  Interact and connect with all five generations of working people and ask that they look for what's common about all of us. The differences are plain to see but our true strength resides in our inclusivity. Once your neighbor, who was once different from you in language and customs, becomes acclimated to living in the US regard them as someone who understands they have rights, privileges, and obligations. These are expected of all of us in return for being an American. Work towards your neighbors being included and praise them for their uniqueness and useful contributions to society.

     If we all do these things we can prevent the loss of hope and re-ignite the spark of creativity. We will promote the example generosity towards all.

Russell Baker 1925-2019

    

     While at college I continued the practice begun at a young age of reading the Sunday newspapers. The New York Times was always around as well as the Ridgewood News. We usually purchased The Bergen Record along with some donuts giving us the trio of northern New Jersey periodicals each Sunday morning. The Record had the comics section where Peanuts and Blondie prominently featured on the first page.

     In the early spring of 1982 I was ensconced one Sunday morning in the Dickinson College library  reading The NY Times Book Review and noticed that one of my favorite columnists, Russell Baker, had written a memoir, Growing Up. Being on good terms with the librarian I suggested that the library purchase the book. She dutifully noted it and told me they would let me know when it arrived.

     Some weeks later a hand written note in my mailbox confirmed that Growing Up had arrived. I hustled over and immediately checked it out. I recall it being both funny and poignant. Later when the soft cover version came out I purchased a copy. It still resides on a bookshelf in my mother's house in Florida. I'll probably grab next time I visit.

When You Are Sixty

     From what I have gathered from friends who have just turned sixty, they now possess a recognition that more events lay behind them than before them. Appears obvious enough. There is less time to harbor grudges, settle old scores, or simply be mad at someone for a reason you both have long forgotten.

     I have had more than one newly minted sixty year old friend contact me in the last few months. No particular reason was offered and none was asked for by me. Something I suppose about round numbers causes us to react this way.

     If you are younger than 60 this may not make much sense. Then again I have been your age and you have not been mine. This puts you at an ironic disadvantage any older adult might readily appreciate.

     The artist Christo was seventy when he completed The Gates project in Central Park in 2005. The planning on been going on for years and the installation along took a year. It was a wonderful exhibition to stroll through and I thankfully did it many times. These excursions caused me to have a Gatsby moment of wonder. Few historians have matched the closing lines of The Great Gatsby, when the narrator reflects on how the land must have struck Dutch sailors’ eyes three hundred years earlier:

     “For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity to wonder.”
 

     We should only be so fortunate to have as much inside us to share as Crhisto did. Even luckier would be to also be capable of leaving a lasting impression much as F. Scott Fitzgerald has surely imparted to me.

Everything Old Is New Again

 

Peter Allen, 1974

     Isn’t it interesting that when Boeing Corporation was having troubles building their 787 Dreamliner, they hired retired, former employees to finish the stalled, over-budget project? Boeing came to realize that outsourcing things like engineering and manufacturing wouldn’t ever be as seamless as outsourcing a call center. 

     They had discovered that ‘everything old is new again’. 

     In my own experience, I’ve seen more than a few companies who have made the same mistake as Boeing. They believe younger contract employees with less experience and little training can produce the same results as older employees, who in the Boeing example had helped create the world’s largest aerospace company. I propose balance. 

     If this isn’t enough to make you groan, while shedding experienced workers many of these same companies state their principles include programs to enhance diversity and inclusion. Though truth be told their bromides explaining these initiatives usually fly in practice as well as Boeing’s Dreamliner, before they brought back their own retirees, to reintroduce bedrock work practices. 

     Employers with negative attitudes towards older workers is endemic across industries and locations. No revenue generating group or occupation is immune. Sometimes it’s blatantly obvious like with online application software which scans resumes for keywords to determine an applicant’s age. Or it appears in less obvious forms: when I’ve appeared for an interview in a respectful jacket and tie, I’m quickly judged by the interviewer in jeans as having a profile for which no position currently exists. No matter that I had already been through two interviews with technical staff and they had given me their endorsement for hiring. A form letter rejection was all that followed. 

     If a necktie can trigger a hiring disqualification, then what other questionable decisions are being made? How about the classic office meeting, which now routinely allows attendees to have their laptops open and cell phones ringers on. All the while the meeting presenters show PowerPoint slides on multiple screens, in an atavistic juxtaposition which only makes me ask, “Why are these people meeting in the first place?” The real question here is one of perspective, or the lack thereof, and how did someone decide that these are all good business practices. Nobody points out the obvious: people’s attention is elsewhere. 

     What’s worse, a closer look reveals a baseless preference by these companies for younger workers, who grew up in this hyperactive milieu. This choice is then combined with a quiet disdain for the very people who invented the Internet, and who can actually recall a time when the world was completely different. 

     Currently, technology’s face has mostly been young, but there are many skilled computer engineers and innovators who can lend value to a ​balanced​ workforce comprised of young, creative geniuses working side by side with these veteran techies. 

     I have lived in an incredibly bountiful age. One in which the fruits of a century’s worth of accomplishments, like giving women the vote and abolishing child labor, offer us a clearer understanding of the across-the-board benefits of being as ​inclusive​ as possible. These truths are self-evident and only a sad, tortured line of reasoning will try to defend these practices. 

     The good news: our times include five generations available to be employed by our companies. Each one with their own unique abilities and talents, all are worthy of our esteem. What we need is to grasp the meaning implicit in Boeing’s Dreamliner. It requires an acceptance by each generation of the other’s strengths, and for each to make allowances for the other’s weaknesses. Then we’ll live and work in a world where neckties are no more a sartorial blunder than a pocket protector.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2019

   
     Sadly it was the assassination of the most prominent civil rights leader of his day, which prompted the declaration of today's national holiday. It was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971; the holiday was enacted at the federal level by legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986.

     Very few will disagree we need a three-day weekend in the middle of January but not if it means we have to sacrifice the leader of a non-violent civil disobedience movement. The tactics he espoused were inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and have left an ever lasting mark on our society.

    The above picture is from the day he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. It is one of his most recognized public speeches that was delivered during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. In it he called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States. Uttered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the speech was a defining moment of the civil rights movement.


    

Rambling With Gambling

We always took radio for granted, whether it was AM or later FM. It was free, though would fade in and out at inconvenient times like in a tunnel or on the lower level of the George Washington Bridge.

We don't take satellite radio for granted mostly because it's new and we pay for it, but we probably will someday. Will we notice when they stop putting AM/FM radios in our automobiles? I wouldn't know because my Mazda was built in 2000 and I have no intention of ever owning another car or truck. I'll rent them for a purpose but never own one again. Not even if its gifted to me. Too much bother and expense. It's a long gone era in which, mostly men, measured their self-worth by the kind of car they drove.

The title of this post is Rambling With Gambling and he was a fixture in our kitchen growing up and on the car radio if my mother was driving. New, Weather, Sports, and Observations was how I would describe it. A less charitable person might say that is how they filled the airtime they had been given. I know better as I was a DJ, or Radio Personality, in college. It was an unpaid job and highly coveted. You didn't want to screw up by having dead air, when no music or PSA (Public Service Announcement) was playing or the news was being read. I used to like when the teletype machine which received news stories would do a three or four ring alarm. That meant it was important and had to be read as soon as possible. I liked these when they occurred in the middle of the night, which was my preferred time slot. After 2AM one of these alarms one time sent me running to the machine only to discover it was a test. If I had read the earlier feeds I would have known in advance. Undoubtably,  I was busy wading throught the stacks and stacks of albums our station owned, WDCV 88.3 on your FM dial in Carlisle, PA. I could do that call in my sleep.

From Wikipedia:
Rambling with Gambling was a news and talk radio program that aired in New York City from 1925 through 2016, almost uninterrupted, with one name change toward the end of its run. It was hosted by three generations of people named John Gambling throughout its entire 90+ year run.

From the Internet