Why We Need To Wear Masks

     My profound apologies for not having a better example, particularly for women. Though everyone can get the point. Please remember that it was Shakespeare who coined the phrase: brevity is the soul of wit.

Sports Do Not Matter, People Do!

     With all the discussion about sports these days and whether we ought to be doing any of them, my position is clear: Sports do not matter, people do. Please just give it a rest and let's work together to contain Covid-19. There is nothing more important we can do at this moment.

     It will be viewed I predict as a tremendous waste of time and energy to resume playing sports (Professional, Amateur, and Casual) in the near future. This will hold true until we no longer live in fear of contracting a virus with no known cure.

     There is no amount of money that will prove me wrong on this point. If the leagues take the money and put people's lives on the line before it is generally agreed to be safe, then it will be on their shoulders to bear the responsibility.

     Fortunately, the overwhelming amount of evidence is going to decide this very soon. There will be no sports until at least April of 2021. Get used to it. Get over it.

    

Silver Linings

     I had to reprint this post from my RHS 1977 classmate Cindy Myer. It's from her Moving Moments blog:

    

      "I just feel I need to mention this before starting this months blog. June 11th 2020, marked the 15^th year that my husband Robert passed away and I began a new career….running Ridgewood Moving. At the time I had a choice, and I chose to try to run a company and move forward. My daughters Melissa and Samantha were 14 and 16 and I needed to show them that we would be ok. It certainly has not been easy, especially in the beginning but life teaches us many lessons, shines a light on opportunities and I believe in silver linings…."

    

Older Dogs

     Older dogs teach you patience. Blind older dogs teach you empathy. Diabetic, blind older dogs teach you how to administer insulin to another living creature.

      This is Angus our 14 year old rescue dog. He's been diabetic for four years and blind for about the last two years. He comes to me regularly when he needs to go outside. This can sometimes be in the middle of the night, though usually not when it is raining.

     Dogs do not react too much to the loss of eyesight. Yes, I know it probably bothers him but he just carries on and wants to be around us. Stoic is the word I would use to describe him. All our neighbors marvel at him when we walk by their houses. The neighborhood dogs bark their greetings as soon as the see him. One day another 14 year old dog saw him and got up to give him a sniff. This particular dog had been having trouble with her back legs, but the sight of an old friend give her the impetus to rise and greet Angus. I don't believe we can assign too many feelings to dogs. They are too good for words. Or as Mark Twain once said:

     "Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in."

Pictures of Older Adults

     It's hard to find pictures of older adults. The one below is from a 1935 collection sponsored by the Farm Security Agency and entitled, "Eternal Love."

     A site called Photocrowd has plenty more.

     Why would anyone authorize a federal government agency to take pictures of people during a Depression, not too unlike our current one? Probably so future generations could see that even in the worst of times, people can retain a sense of dignity and compassion.

     Government does not have all the cost-effective answers to society's problems. Business does not have all the profitable solutions either. It takes a balance and sometimes you don't find out until well after the fact.

A Guide For Athletes

      When I was growing up I was a student-athlete. Athletics and competition were true passions of mine, though I'm glad the student prefix came before the athlete. I watched and read about so many retirements of athletes that it always made me wonder what I would do when the inevitable presented itself. I was lucky to have numerous sports to retire from that when I reached the end of the road it was clear. I'm still a ping-pong player and horseshoe thrower but the days of team activities are pretty much behind me.

     Baseball is my favorite sport. Probably because if someone from the 19th century were taken to Yankee Stadium they would be able to recognize the game and follow along with ease. I also like the game because it has so many variations: hardball, softball, stickball, and wiffleball to name a few. Each and every game begins with a discussion of the rules. What is fair and foul, the number of balls and strikes, and the style of pitching which will be allowed (overhand, underhand, or lobbed). These discussions regarding rules also included deciding who plays what position and for which team. This taught us all the basics of fairness as nobody wanted to be on a losing team.

     I stopped playing hardball at fourteen. During my last game I committed two errors in one inning in the outfield. Then I was the lead off batter in the next inning. Our coach had given us some basic signs so after drawing a walk I took a look at him and noticed the steal sign was on. On the first pitch I was off and made it to second safely standing up. No sooner had I dusted myself off I looked over at the coach and the steal sign was on again. I went on the first pitch and made it to third standing up safely. The small crowd in attendance started cheering me as I tried to get my breath back. I looked at the coach and I'd like to write that the steal sign was on again, but it wasn't. People actually wanted me to steal home! On the first pitch I took a huge lead and faked going home. This created some real drama on the field and off of it. Fortunately, the first pitch was hit for a single and I scored easily. My night was over as the coach took me out immediately after I scored, in order to give everyone a chance to play. It was an all-star game, with the point being that everyone was pretty good. This was fine with me as I had no desire to return to the outfield and greeted the coach's decision with a thumbs up.

     My guidance to athletes is to try and feel a goodbye before it becomes apparent to you and everyone else. Enjoy the feeling of the adrenaline rushing through your veins before and after each and every event. Win or lose your last game will be memorable, try to be aware of this feeling. Most importantly, you must anticipate the loss of something that defines you. There will be a sense of something missing for a while, but it eventually will occur to you that stopping was all for the best. It was something you did and something you can endure no longer. Sports are a metaphor, so be happy for all the clarity about Life that they give you. The time you spent doing them was not wasted. Bottom line is that we need to replace these activities with something else, hopefully it will be less taxing on your body and just as rejuvenating for your mind. Consider your options and stick with your decision. There are plenty of people to take your place. If you aren't capable of being a coach or mentor, then simply do what I do now and just watch. Cheer if something good happens, but don't ever boo or make a snide remark to an athlete. They are doing what they love and might be trying at that moment to feel their own goodbye to the game. Make it easy for them.

    

    

Langston Hughes

     A wee bit of poetry to welcome in the Summer Solstice and to honor what I hope will become a new national holiday: Juneteenth Day

My People

by Langston Hughes

Dream-singers,
Story-tellers,
Dancers,
Loud laughers in the hands of Fate—
           My People.
Dish-washers,
Elevator-boys,
Ladies’ maids,
Crap-shooters,
Cooks,
Waiters,
Jazzers,
Nurses of babies,
Loaders of ships,
Porters,
Hairdressers,
Comedians in vaudeville
And band-men in circuses—
Dream-singers all,
Story-tellers all.
Dancers—
God! What dancers!
Singers—
God! What singers!
Singers and dancers,
Dancers and laughers.
Laughers?
Yes, laughers….laughers…..laughers—
Loud-mouthed laughers in the hands of Fate.

UNIVAC I

    

     Today in 1951 the first UNIVAC 1 debuted.

     In 1978 at Dickinson College we had a computer room with an IBM mainframe and terminals for end users. As memory serves the scene was fairly similar to the one pictured below.

     The room had ultra air-conditioning which was great in the summer and a delight to me because my family had only recently replaced its fans for a central air-conditioner. The other special part about the room was that it was open 24 hours a day. The door had a little window and you had to appeal either verbally or visually to whomever was in the room to let you in. After a few visits it wasn't a problem to earn your status as one who saw the future and this was IT!

     I was studying the BASIC programming language in the spring of 1978. We used to write in pencil the arcane flows which would produce the examples our professor asked for. I was worried at the time that I couldn't keep up with the pace of innovation, as newer languages were being developed and proclaimed the one to know. I asked a learned professor of physics what he thought and he gave me the best advice on the subject of computer languages, which I still repeat today and receive silent nods of acceptance from people who weren't even born when he uttered the words.

     A little background: Professor T. Scott Smith had a Princeton and NASA pedigree. His other claim to fame was that his introduction to Astronomy was taken by more students than any other class at Dickinson. It wasn't because it was easy, but because he was funny as well as very informative. His advice to me was that newer computer languages would always be based upon BASIC. Every time I do a deep dive into a language now I think about the words of Professor Smith. Of course, he was right! I see those simple words I used to write in pencil like IF and THEN and wonder what I was ever concerned about. The 4 year residential Liberal Arts education is still paying dividends. It makes me sorry that it has become so expensive and now completely inaccessible to a new generation of younger students.

      T. Scott Smith first appeared in my life at the Freshman Banquet on I believe the first or second day of school in 1977. He was cordially introduced by then College President Sam Banks. The beard was only a glimmer in his mind but he did possess a fine mustache. The first thing I remember after the introduction was him getting up on the table located on a dais in the front of the cafeteria. He looked around and pulled up his pants so we could all see his socks didn't match. He then told us we would remember nothing about this day except for the fact he stood on a table and showed you his mismatched socks. There was probable some explanation as to why it didn't matter whether your socks match, but I have long since forgotten.

Mr. October

     We are finding out what it is like to live in a world without regular sporting events. I don't include the Professional Wrestling matches being staged in Florida because that is simple entertainment. And I don't include the caged Ultimate Fighting spectacles which are simply too barbaric for words.

     I am speaking about my favorite game which is baseball. It can be wiffle, soft, stick, or hard ball as the game is the same despite some tinkering with the rules. We always started a game with explanations of the rules: what was foul territory, how many outs per side, and how many strikes per batter. It ultimately came down to pitching to a batter who was always trying to hit a home run. People who complain that a rule change somehow desecrates baseball never played on some of the awful fields that we played on as kids. We had to make rules concerning puddles of mud that we collect in outfield. Did that change the name of the game? Not a bit.

     I was delighted to read a story about Reggie Jackson today. I still check the sports pages everyday even though there isn't usually much news. Today "Mr October" himself offered his perspective on our current times. He grew up Oakland, California and knows all about riots in his neighborhood. He lent his opinion which gave me some hope, kinda like he used to during his playing days:

     This is his unabridged post:

“Our Protest feels different this time.

“I could see it in the rainbow of skin colors in the crowd a couple days ago in my town at the Monterey Protest Walk.

“It pumped me up inside. Made me feel others could feel what my heart needs.

“I WAS A TEENAGER IN THE 60s. I’VE lIVED IT !

“Finally more are understanding what I’ve felt for the past 60 years. And they’re with me. Made me smile, gave me hope.

How Do We Do Our Essential Thinking?

     How we think might seem like a trivial question in these times of riots in our cities, 40 million unemployment applications, Covid-19, and bills are bills due to come. Or it might be the best question we can ask. I'm in the latter group if you are keeping score at home.

    

    

    

      Back when vinyl albums use to cost us dearly and we made purchases with all the seriousness we could muster, I came across Carole King's best seller at a garage sale. Upon inspection it was warped and

scratched from intensive use. The cover was bent and scratched, too. Album covers always made us stop and pause for a bit of reflection, even if there was no chance we were going to pay $1 for this legendary album. In this case it was just a bit far gone to include in an amateur album collection. All I could do was gaze at the image of a painfully shy artist and read the liner notes. That was enough to produce a warm feeling and to make note that if I came across some money that this was an album to own!

All songs written by Carole King except where noted.

Side 1

1. "I Feel the Earth Move" – 3:00
2. "So Far Away" – 3:55
3. "It's Too Late" (lyrics by Toni Stern) – 3:54
4. "Home Again" – 2:29
5. "Beautiful" – 3:08
6. "Way Over Yonder" – 4:49

Side 2

7. "You've Got a Friend" – 5:09
8. "Where You Lead" (lyrics by Carole King and Toni Stern) – 3:20
9. "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" (Gerry Goffin, King) – 4:13
10. "Smackwater Jack" (Goffin, King) – 3:42
11. "Tapestry" – 3:15
12. "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" (Goffin, King, Jerry Wexler) – 3:59

     To answer the question I posed at the beginning of this post: I like to think while listening to music. I still am fond of Class Rock but have developed a love of Classical music, especially Romantic Era composers like Beethoven. I am fortunate to have had a friend these last 12 years who is a music critic. He always receives two tickets and often takes me along. I now have seen and heard all nine of Beethoven's symphonies as well as a wide variety of old and modern classical music. My favorite venue is Carnegie Hall with Lincoln Center a distant second. I'd like to believe I could live with just classical music but then I come across the old album covers, which the artists used to spend a great deal of time considering, as did we who bought them. One glance at a cover and I can recall whether or not I owned it. This also produces warm memories which then helps me with my thinking for the rest of the day. Often one look will prompt me to open Spotify where I now have all the music in the world (almost) at my fingertips. Yes, I threw away all the albums of my youth and sold all the CDs of my late twenties and thirties. I don't miss them too much when I consider how many times I had to move them and the dust they used to collect. I will say that the images on the albums are timeless and not without their own rewards. Though sometimes we have to let go of things if we want to have time to do some essential thinking.

Coach Years

     Coach Jeff Yearing, RHS Class of 1966, became "Coach Years" long after I moved on from Ridgewood. He is a retired teacher of 39 years. Taught PE and health in the Ridgewood Public Schools. He was the Varsity soccer coach and married his high school sweetheart.

     Here is a post of his I found on FaceBook, a site I read but rarely post on these days. I share his belief that athletics can teach some very profound life lessons. How we play the game is much more important than the winning of a particular contest.

     "Thank you for your repost. In these trying times it is more important than ever to live in a world that recognizes the basic right of equality and our responsibility towards treating everyone with kindness and respect. Athletics is a great equalizer and teacher. It exposes us to the pragmatic fact that the result doesn't depend on race, ideology or sexual preference. The only thing that matters is the result and how we conduct ourselves as competitors win or loose. Many say sport is a microcosm of society. If we all could learn and embrace positive lessons it offers through good coaching, leadership and grace under pressure, I think we could help make a dent in the problems that continue to persist and are exasperated by those that choose to impose their misdirected wills upon those less able to respond. Treat others as you would have them treat you. Such a simple philosophy that so many have not grasped, been taught or practice. Be safe and keep fighting the good fight for equality, human rights and social justice.
Years."

Classic Rock, Classic Jocks

       WNEW-FM 102.7 was a cool radio station in the New York tri-state area to say you listened to or to have on when people visited or rode in your car. We knew the DJs and their time slots by heart. They worked very hard to keep their audiences interested and didn't talk down to their listeners. People like Richard Neer, Vin Scelsa, Dave Herman, Dennis Elsas, Carol Miller, Alison Steele (The Nightbird), and Pete Fornatale were prominent on the airwaves.

     These aforementioned DJs began their legendary run in the late 1960s and lasted well into the 1990s. For their last gasp they touted themselves as "Classic Rock, Classic Jocks." It was a nice way of saying they understood what their audiences wanted to hear and would listen to their suggestions. This occurred before the "bean counters" finally noticed how much DJs cost in comparison to "canned" shows and younger, less experienced disc jockeys. The numbers were too obvious to ignore, even if authenticity was thrown out the window and maximizing shareholder value made no sense in the long run. WNEW-FM owners had succumbed to what many firms have done to their own detriment: they defined short-term gain as the only thing which mattered.

     It was sad to hear their last chance to produce ratings. We had so many choices by the 1990s to select from that we forgot how our "old friends" at WNEW had inspired us and cheered us on through our adolescent years. It's easy now to see our error in judgment and how nothing can bring them back. Perhaps we'll be more forgiving to future local phenomena and make room for their easy and appealing presence in our lives. They never harped on how Classic Rock was the only type of music to listen to. DJ Jonathan Schwartz would regularly slip in Frank Sinatra on Sunday evenings. Fortunately, we were fine with this and welcomed the change of pace. I still love the albums they played and will always make time in my music listening to appreciate the music. The lyrics and harmonies still resonate with me and will no doubt last much longer than anyone might have expected back in their heyday.

Uncle Harry Ahearn

     He was the only teacher I could ever recall being given the nickname "Uncle Harry." It was if he were the kindly old uncle we loved to visit with.

He believed every student could and should get A's. He posted the Rangers(not Texas) score in the morning after every game. If they won, it was large. If they lost, it was tiny. He was also a member of the Finnigan's Wake Society and read about a third of a book every night!

Karen Rose:

He was my favorite, what a sweetheart! Bob Sullivan and I sat next to each other and talked endlessly about the Boston Bruins before class began. He was always supportive and patient, but when we got the "disapproving parent look" we knew it was time to shut up fast. He loved to "argue" about hockey with us after class though.

Laura Fleming:

My sister had him for US History Through Literature. Apparently, he used to have little ants making the comments on essays. One of his US II students came to me upset one day because Mr. Ahearn was telling them that he was a communist in class! He didn't realize it was just a "devil's advocate" technique. I felt very fortunate to become his colleague and learn a little bit from him to take with me. I think I get the prize now for spending the most time on the Constitution, something for which he was notorious! There is a scholarship in his name that one of the Mrs. Rosengrens (sorry I forget which one!) announces every year at the Senior Awards ceremony.

Etch A Sketch

     Etch A Sketch is 60 years old. It was invented by André Cassagnes of France and subsequently manufactured by the Ohio Art Company and now owned by Spin Master of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Etch A Sketch has sold over 100 million units world wide

     On the inside surface of the glass screen is coated with aluminium powder, which is then scraped off by a movable stylus.

     I remember being shown this gadget when I was 5 or 6 years old. Anyone can make something and some people make extraordinary images. The beauty of this toy is that it allowed for all manner of creation and technical expertise. If something wasn't very good all you did was shake it and the image was gone. Calling it a toy almost does the genius of it some discredit.

John McCutcheon

 Principal John McCutcheon.

Julie Scala:

Sorry, I was never called to his office, but I do remember him as a man who liked to have a laugh...when my eldest brother was at Ridgewood High School, he always shared a practical joke with Mr. Mc.

Francesca Cavallaro Wall:

I loved him! He used to always say "Como estas?" to me and laugh!

Sue Kenyon:

I was dragged into his office by my Biology teacher after she caught me smoking in the bathroom. He was really cool and nice. Just told me not to smoke in the bathroom anymore, and let me go.

Bob Rahm:

Sent to his office by Herr Perkins, McC suugested I try to avoid irritating the guy.

Tim Daly:

At the football banquet Junior year he made a comment to my mother about a play that happened in the first game of the season. So over two months after that occurred he remembered the play, knew who my Mom was(she was NOT on the PTA for sure) and made a comment. It was a compliment, actually. He was all over the place with his tongue and not being able to stand still, but he was very sincere and really cared about all the students.

Jack Zerbe:

This guy was the "bad cop" of RHS, but, at heart, a really terrific man. Most students probably never saw him perform, but I will never forget him as "Deadeye Dick" in the annual "Jamboree" in the early 70s.

Richard Flechtner

  
       The Wayback Machine is an Internet Archive. I remembered an old web site I created for our 35th Reunion. This was built the old fashioned way with html code. I do not pretend it was as good as the sites we can build using templates today, but I am glad I found the content. There was quite a bit about our teachers which I am going to reproduce.
     The RHS Althletic Director in my day and the Head Lifeguard at Graydon Pool. He took his commitments very seriously and we were all the better off and safer for his efforts.

Kurt Flechtner, class of 1978:

My Dad used to love telling this story. If he caught a kid with a pack of smokes, Mr. Barkocy used to crush the pack in his hands. One kid, trying to trick Mr. Barkocy, cut out a block of wood in the shop and put it inside a an empty cigarette pack. Well, word got back to Barkocy, so he waited to confiscate the pack until class was over, tossing the pack in his desk on the way out the door and telling the kid to come back after school. After school, the kid comes back in, but Mr. Barkocy had been down to the wood shop himself in the meantime. So he holds up the cigarette pack, tells the kid, "You know what I think of these things," and crushes it. Sawdust falls out on the floor.

Tim Daly:

I had him for gym class junior year. The class was gymnastics and he took the teaching of it very seriously. Just so happens there were a few varsity athletes in that class with me so we took it seriously too. Dave Andre, Frank O'Connor, maybe one or two others. We had to create our own gymnastics routine. It was great and I learned a lot about what it takes to be a gymnast.

I worked for him for 5-6 years at Graydon. He ran that place the way it needed to be run. We drilled and followed his rules and kept a very dangerous place as safe as possible. I rode in an ambulance with him with a body that had been pulled off the bottom of Graydon. That was I think only the second such incident he experienced in 30+ years? What a record. That turned out to be the thing that kind of ended it for him at Graydon. He retired that year and we had the party at my house. We took one of the small stands and put it in the back of a pick up to put up near the front door of my house. We had some of the old crew there at the party too. I never saw him laugh so much talking old stories with those guys.

For some, at that time, he was a little bit old school but he was fair and took the responsibility given to him as father, husband, teacher, AD and pool manager. And one more thing that just popped into my head which I haven't thought of in 25? years. He used to cut his wife's hair. She told everybody she used to get her hair cut at Chez Richard. He loved telling people that joke.

And one more...at a banquet he was up there speaking and he said something like, "I saw Jane Smith earlier tonight. She is a Graydon regular and I have never really seen her anywhere but at Graydon. So when I saw her I said, "Oh Jane, it's you. I almost didn't recognize you with your clothes on." That was classic "Fleck."

Kurt Flechtner:

As Paul noted, my Dad ran Graydon for all of my childhood. It's interesting to read Paul's perspective on Dad's management style and remember Dad's thought processes during those years.

First, some thoughts about Graydon. As Paul observed, during the time Dad was in charge, there were no fences at all. There it sat, acres of natural swimming pool, in the middle of a town of 25,000, in the middle of a county of several hundred thousand. Now think about that: you can't put a 15'x25' pool in your yard without a fence, but Graydon was surrounded by nothing but sandy beaches and grassy banks, in the midst of as dense a population as one might find west of the Bronx.

Well, Dad took his responsibility for the safety of Graydon swimmers very seriously. He was responsible for everybody on that piece of property, and he had very little control over who wandered onto the grounds. I remember one day a small child fell off the wall and under the water, while his mother chatted on the beach. Dad scooped him up, but came home haunted by the fact that he had seen it happen before the child's mother. That was the nature of the time, and Dad accepted the responsibility. But it also forged his adherence to rules and regulations. Ironclad rules were his mechanisms for accepting responsibility for a big swimming pool in the middle of town.

Later on, when I became a lifeguard, I learned to appreciate Dad's approach to rules. It removed the arbritary nature from the job. Rules are rules, and nobody can throw sand, not even your buddy from school. I learned a lot about leadership, responsibility and consistency from Dad. I learned many years later from other former guards that he taught the same lessons to just about all that passed under his leadership at Graydon. (As an aside, one summer I also learned to decline the advances of an "older," probably mid-20s, married woman - wheee!!)

At RHS, Dad merely demonstrated and administered his authority. At Graydon, he took the opportunity to teach it. I wish more people could have known the teaching side of Dad.

Alan Bennett

      The Wayback Machine is an Internet Archive. I remembered an old web site I created for our 35th Reunion. This was built the old fashioned way with html code. I do not pretend it was as good as the sites we can build using templates today, but I am glad I found the content. There was quite a bit about our teachers which I am going to reproduce.     


      My tenth grade English teacher left an impression on quite a few people. He said he would push us, but nothing like what he did to the 11th graders he taught. He reasoned they were closer to going to college and really needed all the intense instruction he could give them.

     Books we read that I recall well:

• A Separate Peace
• Silas Marner
• Catcher In The Rye
• A Tale Of Two Cities

     He also taught us some poetry. His favorite poem was by Andrew Marvel, "To His Coy Mistress."

     We also read more than one play by William Shakespeare. They were comedies as I recall.

     Enjoy the comments I collected from 2012 listed below the photo.

Francesca Cavallaro:

Tom Jones doppelganger.

Griff Ace:

He taught me the meaning of the word fuck during a summer vacation at RHS. After hearing someone outside yell it and everyone laughing he spelled it out in class f-for u-un- c-common-k-knowledge on the blackboard. Most i learned that summer. LOL

Bob Rahm:

I saw Tom Jones perform, great show. Al Bennett was my favorite RHS teacher. As Mr. Cooke (BF) taught me grammar, Mr. Bennett taught me to appreciate literature, and began to teach me how to relay my thoughts in writing.

Harry Uberti:

Bob, I have the same rememberance of both teachers. Big Al actually got me interested in reading. I'll always be grateful to him for that.

Sue Raymond:

One of my favorites. I remember his pep talk before the SATs . "Don't worry, in the grand scheme of life this is not important."

Becky Deetz:

And Big Al? I loved him so much as a teacher that I didn't even care that he would eat with his mouth open while expounding on some fine literary point. He and Amy Emmers were my favorite teachers at RHS.

Al isn't with us any more. I stopped by his classroom the last year he was teaching at RHS; sounded as though a lot of people did that, which he loved. I think he got it.

Kathleen Carley:

He was a hoot and a great English teacher. One of a few that I do remember.

Tim Daly:

My Al Bennett story involves another RHS classic teacher, Jack Wanek. Autumn 1976 sitting in Big Al's English class and Rob Kraemer comes knocking on Big Al's door. Remember, things were pretty loose around there in those days. You could get away with that sh*t depending on the teacher. So I step outside to talk to Rob. He, Johnny Frazz and I had Wanek for History. We had this big ass project in Wanek's class and Frazz, Rob and I came up with the brilliant idea of sharing the load between the three of us but handing in our projects as if we had done them individually. Well, Big Al overheard this litltle scheme as Rob and I were discussing it in the hallway. Big Al lowers the guilt boom on me and tells me something along the lines of, "I won't rat you out. You decide what the right thing is here." BOOM...that was the end of it. So I could go ahead with Rob and Frazz and split the workload for the Wanek deal or I could come clean with Mr. Wanek. Feck what am I gonna do here? I asked that question to myself but I knew the answer already. I worshipped Al Bennett as a teacher and a person. He was the biggest reason why I ended up becoming an English teacher myself. So, I have to go give it up to Wanek but I have no idea how he is going to react. He was pretty cool himself. I remember at the end of our senior year he invited a few of us over to his house for beers. Anyway, I have the powwow with Jack and he says, "This is what I will do. Hand the paper in and I will take care of it. And since you are coming clean I will give you a chance to make it up." So in the next few days or so our projects get handed back to us in class and I still have no idea how I am not going to get an "E" on this thing since I told Jack we basically took the short cut. Jack's speech that day, "Well, some of you did really well on this. And some of you are idiots. It wasn't very obvious at all that some of these papers weren't done by you individually, that you did them in groups. I should fail some of you but I'll give you a chance to make it up..." And a day or so later when I was walking into Big Al's class he was standing by the door as he often did and he gives me a little nod and says, "I heard you did the right thing." And I nodded back and that was the end of it. It was never spoken of again.

Carrie Stewart:

Loved loved loved him. He passed away several years ago, heart attack, I think. Last I heard, his daughter was a teacher at Somerville :) so in 10th grade we read Dickens' Tale of Two Cities. You may recall the ending when Sidney is guillotined and says,'Tis a far, far better thing I do...' Well Al held a debate about whether that was an optimistic or pessimistic ending. My memory is that I was the only supporter for optimistic (story of my life ;) and he agreed with me. Gave me confidence to attempt to be an English major - at least for awhile ;)

David Hohman:

He instilled a love of reading that is with me to this day! One of my favorite teachers of all time.

Hilary Nocka:

One of my absolute favorites, as well...sadly he passed away quite young--42 or something like that...I remember reading his obit in the Record one day, just by chance and being absolutely traumatized by the news...he was one of the best! I, too, can still hear him reading aloud from Tale of Two Cities...I so wish he had lived long enough to teach my kids at RHS--a true inspiration!

Stephanie Jones:

I adored Mr. Bennett. He took an extraordinary amount of time and effort to encourage my love of reading, literature, history and justice. During junior year, he assigned me an entire reading list of books by black authors - such as Ralph Ellison and Imamu Baraka - and made me write book reports about them, which he graded and discussed with me in depth. I told him that it wasn't fair to give me so much extra work that no one else had to do. He said, "Get used to it, kid. Life's not fair. You're black, so you're always going to have to work harder than everybody else. I've been trying to get these books in the curriculum for years, but can't. But I'm not going to let you graduate from high school never having read anything by a writer who looks like you as part of your official workload."

I called him after I graduated from college and told him how much I appreciated everything he had done for me. He said, "Oh, shut up, Jones. I'm not grading you anymore so you don't have to kiss my as*!"

I called him a few years later and his daughter told me that he had passed away a few months earlier from cirrhosis of the liver. So sad.

He was a wonderful man.

Samantha Bennett Stankiewicz:

Thank you for the great memories you've shared in your posts. My Dad loved teaching at RHS. Unfortunately we lost him in 1988 when he was just 47. I have been an art teacher at Somerville for the past 15 years and he is one of my biggest inspirations too.

Sue Broadhurst:

Mr. Bennett was Student Congress Advisor and a really great friend to me. So sorry I didn't get to say goodbye. I remember reading a mindless book in the library one day and he told me to forget that shit. He handed me a classic and turned me into a literary snob. I am still grateful!

April Reed:

I really liked Mr. Bennett. I learned so much-my vocabulary expanded that year. On day 1 of school that year, he read my full name and said it sounded very poetic

Lawrence Burke

       The Wayback Machine is an Internet Archive. I remembered an old web site I created for our 35th Reunion. This was built the old fashioned way with html code. I do not pretend it was as good as the sites we can build using templates today, but I am glad I found the content. There was quite a bit about our teachers which I am going to reproduce.

      I never had Mr. Burke but the comments he inspired were priceless!

Jeff Roberson:

Ah, Larry Burke. Really the only teacher I remember from RHS that mattered to me, only because I spent so much time in graphic arts or the photo areas from sophomore year to graduation. Keeper of the flame, emperor of the lost arts - who else at RHS can legitimately claim to have steered at least 5 young men into their life's work? John Humrich, John Viggiano, Dan Unger , Steve O'Connor, me - have all made a living or pursued degrees in the graphic arts.

When I sat down with my guidance counselor at the beginning of senior year to discuss college he asked me what I loved. "Math and photography", I replied. "Math", he said, "What do you do with that? Photography..." I stopped listening, mostly because my mom called him a dope (thanks mom!) and Larry eventually steered me towards RIT, along with Chubba, Dan and Vigg. Took me another year to get there, but it provided me with a framework for everything that was to come, the perfect meld of technology, craft and art.

It could have been yesterday when I first stepped into the dark rooms at RHS and he showed me how to make a print. I can still see the image coming up through the developer, shadowed in red, cast in pure magic. I can hear his huge baritone in the dark room senior year, remarking, once again, on the strange odoriferous mix of acetic acid and "that smell off you and O'Connor - burning your underwear (frying your brain cells, smoking your shorts, etc.) during free period again?"

The King of Alchemy, Long Live The King!

Francesca Cavallaro:

Mr. Burke, teacher who listened and also was generous with his cigarettes.

Tim Daly:

We had an adopted cat named Timothy. that was his name when we got him so we kept it. Anyway, my father loved this cat. He had the coloring of a siamese but he was one fat cat, like 25 lbs, or something like that. I was taking photography with Mr. Burke 1st semester of senior year. I had brought a camera home and was going to give a picture of Timothy to my father for Xmas. Well, I let it go to the last minute so on the last day of school before Christmas break there I was after school rushing to try and make this print. Some of you may recall that Mr. Burke was asst. wrestling coach that year so we both got out of practice somehow and got to work on the print. I guess it was 12x12. It was black and white. I was very likely showing signs of frustration or maybe worries about skipping wrestling practice so when we get to the final stages and we are in the dark room the print starts to appear and it is just an awesome photo. My parents hung it in the enclosed porch in our house and it was up there for 20 years at least. Anyway, as the print comes out we kind of look at each other like, "Shit yeah, good print" and he blurts out, "There ya go Timmy PAPA's GONNA HAVE A PRINT TONIGHT!" I laughed my ass off.

Barry Deetz

      I used the Wayback Machine to find an old web site I created for our 35th Reunion. This was built the old fashioned way with html code. I do not pretend it was as good as the sites we can build using templates today, but I am glad I found the content. There was quite a bit about our teachers which I am going to reproduce. Today is Biology teacher and Track coach, Barry Deetz. He was a huge man in size and personality. A dedicated teacher in the best sense of the word. Below are some of the comments I collected in 2012 when I asked people to post their remembrances of him.

Paul McCubbin:

Never had him as a teacher though he was hard to miss. Mr. Deetz was a Big man who taught science, coached track, and had a house full of daughters.

Cathleen Doyle:

A house full of daughters and their friends. What grand memories.

Tony Bazzini:

Still remember his class ...

Laurie Marcello:

He was very proud of himself when he learned the Big Mac commercial.. 2 all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun!

Jennifer Jaeger-Ramirez:

He was my teacher and I loved him. One day he came in and told us he had had a skin cancer mole removed from his face but don't worry he would be fine. He even taught us a little about it and showed us some cells. Then in my mind it seemed like only 2 months went by and he was gone ! It was actually a very traumatic thing for me at the time because he had convinced us he was gonna be fine. And 2 months he was gone ! So sorry for your loss, but please know he made a big impact in my life and I have thought of him often over the last 26 years . Myself and my family always wear sunscreen because I remembering him telling us to.

Sarah Deetz:

Jennifer, thank you SO MUCH for sharing this; it was 9 months from his diagnosis to his death, although he took medical leave from RHS almost immediately. We all thought he'd fight it and win, just as he had any and all adversity in his life. Glad to hear that you learned from him, and sunscreen is a part of your life (as it is mine); I'm sure that your skin is healthy and looks great! Thank you for remembering him so fondly.

John Parisi:

I had your dad in 10th grade biology in 1980. He was my favorite teacher in high school! I was never much of a student until his class. And he was the first to really convince me to not worry about the grades, and just enjoy the material. He really changed my attitude about school and that changed my life! I also used to see him on the floor at the Milrose games when I ran there. He was just a great guy who took an interest in me and I would have to say was the teacher that had the greatest impact on me!!

Sarah Deetz:

John, so glad that that you have such a fond and indelible memory of him; he certainly never told ME not to worry about the grades! He enjoyed officiating at Millrose and ALL the indoor meets so much; in fact, if you ever see the Back to the Track, Jack episode in the first season of the Cosby Show (1985), it was filmed at the Olympic Invitational in the Meadowlands and you can clearly see him at the pole vault pit! Got to meet all the "kids" and see the "race"; and the DVD let me show my kids their grandpa. The following year, he had to miss Millrose as it was the same day as his tumor surgery; since he recovered well, I went to MSG that night and brought a Get Well card with me in case anyone asked where he was. EVERYONE signed it, and it made him cry the next day when I gave it to him in the hospital. And I still have it!

Theodora Portelos:

I had your Dad for 10th grade biology as well in 1979. He made learning fun. Had such a great sense of humour. I remember referring to him as BIG BEAR! And he really cared about the kids in his class! We were very luck to have him touch our lives!

Stephen Goodman:

My lab drawings saved my biology class with him; also a film I'd constructed from super-8 footage I'd taken off of the Apollo 12, 14-17 missions on TV, combined with music gotten from WNEW-FM's 'night trips' programming.. :) He was a great fan of the space program!

Sarah Deetz:

He gave great bear hugs, too! He truly loved teaching and tried to make his classes fun and relevant. Stephen: he always appreciated anyone who really TRIED even when they didn't get the best grades, and gave extra credit whenever he could. He did love the space program; I clearly remember sitting on the foot of his bed watching the little TV on the rolling cart and seeing Neil Armstrong take "one giant leap for mankind", although I was only 4 at the time. Thanks so much for the kind words and memories! He would have been 84 next month....

Becky Deetz:

"You kids are like bananas: they come in a bunch. Born green, turn ripe, die rotten." He had a million of them.

April Schoenherr:

He was a funny teacher. I had him for biology. He always showed slides of his daughters - a proud father.

Advice On Life

     Calvin and Hobbes was a comic syndicated strip from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. 

     The last comic:

 

 
  

    It some ways comic strips are bits of poetry and their authors are unacknowledged legislators of the world, to paraphrase the English poet Shelley.

    The link below is a commencement address given by cartoonist Bill Watterson at Kenyon College.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/may-20-1990-advice-on-life-and-creative-integrity-from-calvin-and-hobbes-creator-bill-watterson?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Brain Pickings

    If you haven't during this pandemic ventured to Maria Popova's Web site, Brain Pickings, put it on your list. She offered these words about the poet Dylan Thomas:

    “Do not go gentle into that good night” remains, indeed, Thomas’s best known and most beloved poem, as well as his most redemptive — both in its universal message and in the particular circumstances of how it came to be in the context of Thomas’s life.

     Here it is:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

     --Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

Pivot

     I'm letting someone I respect take up this space today, Nancy from https://startupdecoder.com
She rightly says that the word "pivot" was grabbed by the startup business community a decade or so ago. Now we are all pivoting and it is the new normal.

     Pivot. The startup world appropriated the word a decade or so ago, and now it's practically the word-of-the-year (behind unprecedented). Thanks to the global pandemic and recession, almost every company and individual is currently going through some flavor of pivot to adjust to a new environment. While it may feel very chaotic to think we're all spinning on our individual axes, there's a silver lining: Changing direction is expected. Suddenly pivoting is normalized, as is your winding career path or your next step. All bets are off, as we all shift in this new normal. Stay safe and take care.

Tin Soldiers

     At the beginning of fifth grade in 1969 we had an intern in our classroom. She stayed a few weeks and then returned to college at Kent State. Never heard anything more about her. Though we have heard quite a bit about Kent State in the last 50 years.

     After having to quickly process the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy in 1968, I'm not sure this incident struck me too hard. I was likely already numb. When nobody made the connection between our intern and the shooting at Kent State I doubt I was surprised.

     I can only guess that after having heard for years about summertime riots in our major cities and the fires and looting that followed that four more senseless killings were just part of our life's routine. It was all on TV, as were the death tolls from Vietnam. The US always lost fewer troops than our enemy though this never made me feel like we were winning anything. I never understood the "Domino Theory" and how if we let Vietnam become a communist country all the other ancient countries in the area would follow suit. I don't believe I was an isolationist, just someone with a vague sense that governing a country was a lot harder than it appeared and difficult at best to maintain.

     Neil Young penned this song within weeks of the Kent State shootings. It's pithy and to the point, characteristics of any good protest song.

"Ohio"

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Walt Whitman

     Walt Whitman photographed in 1854.

     I have always been partial to poems. So much packed into a few words and stanzas. The NJ doctor, William Carlos Williams, for whom the New Jersey poet laureate citation is named, has a wonderful quote about poetry:

"It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there."

     Most people I've known don't make time for poetry. It can't be read as quickly as a novel or a textbook. One must savor the words and muse about what the poet means. I was told as a young man that to memorize poetry was a good way to spend some time. In my youth I did commit a number of poems to memory, mostly British writers from the Romantic and Victorian periods. With the Bard, William Shakespeare, for his sonnets also part of my personal pantheon.

     I came to know Whitman much later in life. A book which my father bought and I have carried around on my various moves is Leaves Of Grass.  I can't say I have read it from beginning to end. I have opened it many times and picked spots at random to think read and think about. That in my estimation is the sign of a good book, that you can open it at intervals and marvel at the words contained within.

The Duck Pond

     The Duck Pond had its ups and downs in my lifetime. It was allowed to literally go to crap with all the feces which was dropped in its waters. Then it was closed and cleaned to allow for more filtering of the water in what had become a very popular site for ducks and other birds.

     I can recall when the pond would freeze over and we could skate on it in the winter. We also had grade school end of year parties using its picnic tables and BBQs.

     The ducks on the pond no matter the weather were a calming influence and the main reason I am posting it today. We all can use some serene moments and hopefully this picture provides you with one, even for the briefest moment. Peace.

The New American Lifestyle

     According to business newsletter editor John Maudlin:

The New American Homecoming.
It is underway now, and nothing is going to stop it.
A starting point, and something we can do right now, is supporting local businesses. This will help small, independent American companies bounce back from the devastation of forced closure.
Giving our dollars to essential mom-and-pop pharmacies and pizzerias… not just now, but long after things have returned to a new normal… is a great place to start. Really taking a look at where we want to invest our dollars as well as our time is our next logical step.
What’s happening now is a sudden and massive shift in awareness…

• We are working from home, and we like it.

• We are eating home-cooked meals, and we like it.

• We are finding new ways to entertain ourselves, and we like it.

• We are shedding excesses from our lives, and we like it.

• And we are discovering that yesterday’s status quo has left us anxious and angry, and we don’t like it.

     This new reality has a very localized appeal and feel to it. It's something that can be easily imagined by viewing 1950s style sitcoms and acknowledging that their message was one of close personal relationships with friends and neighbors being a good idea. Art imitates life and sometimes Artists are "unacknowledged legislators of the world."

("A Defence of Poetry" an essay by the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in 1821 and first published posthumously in 1840.)

Corona Corps

     Scott Galloway has an interesting suggesting for a Corona Corps comprised of college age (18-25 years old) young adults.

"The Corps would be trained in modern handheld technologies that provide facile, crisp communication and organization skills that arrest geometric spread. In addition, Corps members could become apprentices for jobs in key parts of the supply chain we now deem essential (delivery, warehouse workers, etc.). We send young people to the front lines of wars not because they are immune from bullets, but because they are willing, see enlisting as an opportunity, and want to serve something bigger than themselves."

     It sounds like a far better idea to sanction a "Gap Year" after students graduate high school than it does to send them off to crowded lecture halls and drown them in student loan debt. After 18-22 months in the Corona Corps they might want to go to college, trade school, or simply take online courses. All are good options but the important thing is the experience they will have earned which gives them a more informed basis to make a decision.

Earth Day 2020

     The first Earth Day was on 22 April 1970. Here is a black and white photo that screams 1970:

     It's both the font on the sign and the woman's long hair which identifies this photo as from the 1970s.

     Earth Day up to this point always meant big crowds of people. Using an app like Crowdcast or HouseParty with us all attending via the video cameras on our phones, tablets, and laptops is not the same. Chance encounters are nearly impossible via video, as are opportunities to speak with strangers. Video has too many missing cues that we need for proper social interaction. How do you easily get away from an awkward or boring conversation when you are online? Yes, you can simply disconnect but this lacks the finesse which we acquire while being in public spaces. I don't have a good answer except to not to expect too much from video conversations. It still stands to reason that an old fashion letter or postcard will get your point across much better, even though it will take much longer.

     From https://www.earthday.org

Earth Day was a unified response to an environment in crisis — oil spills, smog, rivers so polluted they literally caught fire.

On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans — 10% of the U.S. population at the time — took to the streets, college campuses and hundreds of cities to protest environmental ignorance and demand a new way forward for our planet.

The first Earth Day is credited with launching the modern environmental movement, and is now recognized as the planet’s largest civic event. 

"The Man in the Arena"

     When I attended high school my wallet contained an abridged version of this quote scrawled on a piece of paper. It provided inspiration when I suffered from teenage angst and bucked me up without fail. Glad I now have the whole quote. Then I simply knew it as something President Theodore Roosevelt once said. We had no Internet to provide context and elaboration. I simply had seen it in a book, felt strongly about it, and wrote it on the nearest notepad.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

      My cross country and track coach in high school, Larry Coyle, paraphrased it simply as "dare to be good." He left us with those words before he went on sabbatical. He never coached us seniors in person again but to this day we say those words to each when we chance to meet at a reunion or even on the street. We may not have anything else in common now except those words and the feelings they contain. They just leave our mouths with such joy that all other circumstances don't really matter. These fleeting conversations never seem trite and always make us feel better for having had them. Not too much in life can be said to have such power.

     The original piece of paper with Teddy Roosevelt's words on it has long been replaced with all sorts of bank cards and IDs. Though I'm glad that I still have the memory of how I once coped with the world. It's reassuring in the current moment where we are all grasping at straws and trying to figure out our the new reality produced by the pandemic.

     Now we all have to consider how we might: "Dare greatly. Know victory. Know defeat."Scary idea I realize but more important than ever. We've been given a chance to reconsider how we value ourselves and those around us. The old adages about ever greater productivity being the measure of a person's worth don't seem too important today. I'm ever hopeful that we will follow the better angels of our nature.