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thorntonkrell-blog-blog · 5 years ago

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For Goody

LAST GAME OF NUMBERS

Towards the end of sandlot days, we had trouble getting eighteen guys on the field for pick up baseball games. We invented a truncated baseball game called Numbers. We played Numbers with four guys on a team. A team would take the field with two infielders and two outfielders. The batting team supplied its own pitcher.

A swing and a miss counted as an out as did two foul balls. A ground ball, pop up or line drive gloved by an infielder counted as an out. Anything hit to right field was an out. Anytime an outfielder caught a ball in the air, that too was an out. Nobody ran the bases, too hot and dusty for that crap. We assigned numbers to all non-outs. A fielding error or single was one point, a double was two points, a triple three and a home run four. The numbers were judgment calls as nobody was running bases. In the field we had a way of erasing Numbers from the score. If somone made a “nice” play in the field, it subtracted a point. If someone made a “great ” play it erased two points. If someone made a “sensational” play,known as a “sensay”, it would erase three points and automatically bring the fielding team to the plate.

I can still see Rick Cicotta charging in from the outfield claiming “sensay,sensay” after a making a sliding diving grab in shallow left field. Of course, Frog, on the hitting team would claim “no sensay” and the game would slow down for awhile until a consensus was reached, usually without a fistfight.

We kept track of the numbers. Higher number after seven innings wins.

The only 5 point number was a ball hit against or over the fence into the cornfield. The fence was three hundred feet from home plate, guarded by an apple tree and about ten feet tall. Some of us, were able to reach the fence but no one had gone over it. If a batter hit a home run, not only did he get four points but he immediately got another at bat.

Late August heat was upon us. We had been playing baseball, not only all that summer but also what seemed like our entire boyhoods. We were tired of being boys. Baseball was beginning to slow down and wear out. Cars were appearing. We were starting to get around.

On that day, we had only one playable ball left. We had either lost or beat the life out of all the rest.

The Numbers game proceeded as usual. One side up, one side down with only the occasional arguments about a number. Precedents had been set and were referred to. “That’s not a ‘great’ play, Feeb made a much better play than that last week and it was only 'nice’ etc.” As the summer grew more heated, the arguments grew less heated. We had other things on our mind and we were just trying to play the game and get off the field. We were finding new places where the kids were hip.

Efficiency was the beauty of Numbers. A seven inning game took only about an hour and a half at the most.

On that day, it was the bottom of the fourth inning when Jake came to the plate. Over the course of the summer, Jake had made the the most dramatic progress with his swing.

Jake had three nicknames besides Jake, which itself was a nickname for Jeff. Jake was called Crocodile or Crock because his nose came to a pointed snout. He was also called Cement Mixer or Mix for his mix of muscle and determination along with his complete absence of behavioraland/or linguistic subtlety. He was also called Chim..short for Chimney because he smoked like one.

Jake signalled to Big Joe, where he wanted the pitch. Joe threw it right there and Jake went yard. Easily clearing the fence.

Everybody on both teams appreciated the shot. Jake asked for priase and he got it.

The blast broke up the momentum of the game. We had to climb the fence and search for the ball. Everbody on Jake’s team lit up while my team trudged to the fence, climbed over it and searched for the ball. This took about fifteen minutes.

Dogs Drexel finally found the ball.

The game resumed.

Jake was still at bat.

He signalled. Big Joe delivered.

Jake blasted another one outta here.

Everybody oohed and aahed. We climbed the fence again. The hunt for the ball in the cornfield recommenced. More sun. More cigarettes and in the corn on the bench. Another fifteen minute search

Somebody found the ball.

The game resumed.

Jake still at bat.

KEERAK

Another one.

At this point appreciation turned into irritation and irritation was approaching awareness and contempt. Everybody started yelling at Jake. Instead of praise, Jake started getting blame and venom. “You big muscle bound asshole. You’re ruining the game with this shit. C'mon Mix, let’s get this shit over with.”

Jake was in unchartered territory and he had taken all of us with him. The suspicion started to grow that the field was too small for Jake and he could go yard at will. We were starting to get too old and too strong for Numbers.

The search for the ball took even longer this time. The game had been decided. What was the point of the search? What was the point of continuing? What was the point of hanging around every day at a baseball field?

So hot.

Sun so relentless.

Jake still at bat.

The whole afternoon was starting to feel like Hell.

Like eternity.

Finally the ball was retrieved.

As Jake dug in at the plate, everybody on both teams was swearing at him. He was a muscle bound, lame brained, crocodile faced, cement headed, goofy, queer, cock sucking walkin cancer factory etc. He had ruined our afternoon. He was in the process of destroying the game of Numbers which was our last link to sandlot baseball, in many ways our last link to boyhood.

Jake didn’ give two shits. Guys like Jake love pressure as much as they love pissing people off. I’ll never forget watching Jake at that moment. He didn’t care about anything that anybody was saying. He didn’t even care about the end of boyhood or for that matter, the ash dangling from his Marlboro as he dug in at the dish. Those kind of distractions were for sinlgles hitters like me. Power don’t go there.

Big Joe was tired of lobbig the ball where Jake wanted it. This time he reared back and put all of his mustard on a fastball, inside corner. Joe had plenty of mustard. He was 16, six foot two, two hundred thirty pounds.

Jake got around on it.

I never had and never will see a ball hit that far on that field. That last shot went fify feet further back into the bushes surrounding the cornfield, into zone unknown, out of boy’s town into manland. Jake’s blast lost the last ball on the last pitch of the summer……..

Everbody stopped mocking Jake. We were all pals again. We gave Jake the praise he deserved but we realized the game was over.

We went home

We had changed

No one bothered to find the ball or even look for it.

We never played Numbers again.

Summer ended.

Two weeks later

Dogs was driving

Soon, my buddies and me would be real well known. We were going to college and/or getting drafted.

PIZZA MIND

First day in college……

I got to my dorm room before my other roomies. The room had a bunkbed and a single bed. I didn’t know which bed to take or whether I should wait for my roomies to arrive and we’d decide together. My mother gave me her last bit of pre-college advice.

“Take the single bed. We’re here first.

That’s some great advice.

I took the single. She helped me make it.

They said goodbye.

I was on my own.

I lit up a Newport and realized nobody was going to stop me. Smoking was still a big deal in 1964. I exhaled and the smoke never looked more beautiful. I blew exquisite smoke rings and rings through rings.

Eventually, my two roomies showed up. They were both big guys. Rob was from Utica and Louie was from Auburn. I left the room while they got unpacked. I explored the rest of the dorm. When I returned, me and my roomies began to feel each other out. They had settled in the bunkbed…Rob on top…Louie below. Louie was a basketball player and Rob had left his girl back in Utica.

We decided to take a walk uptown, into the village and get a pizza. I had never had a pizza before in my life. First day in college, first day with new roomates and about to have my first pizza.

We walked up the hill to Main Street past the fountain of the bear and made our way to Pontillo’s pizza. I was pretending that I’d done this many times.

We sat down and Rob ordered for us.

While we waited for the pizza, we talked about why we chose Geneseo State and why we wanted to become teachers. We were so young and so earnest. They had a juke box in the pizza joint. I played two songs. “Pretty Woman” and “Baby, I Need Your Loving”.

I told Rob that I played “ Baby I Need Your Loving” out of respect for the girls we had left behind and “Pretty Woman ‘ for the girls we would meet.

“Baby, I Need Your Loving” came on first and it arrived as our pizza was served. I had no idea how to eat a pizza so I watched as Rob expertly spun the pizza around and separated the pieces.We were in semi-formal mode. We hadn’t laughed or cursed at each other yet.

Rob removed the first piece of pizza abd put it in his mouth just as the Four Tops were singing “OOh Ooh Ooh Ooh, Oouh Ooh, Oooh Ooh”

The piece was too hot and Rob stated going "Ooh ooh ooh” in pain just as the Tops were singing Baby I need Your Loving.“

While he was oohing and aahing in pain a big gobby string of cheese ahd slipped off the pizza and was stuck to his chin all the way to the pizza which he had pulled away from his face.

He looked hilarious. I tried not to laugh at his pain but couldn’t help myself.

He didn’t mind. He laughed too and so did Louie.

Louie and I decided to wait a little bit before we took our slices.

I was very careful with my first bite of my first slice of pizza.

I’ve eaten a lot of pizza since then and not always as carefully.

Soon, I would meet a pretty woman but that’s another story.

Whenever I hear either of those songs, I think of that day and that pizza.

Man in Orbit

I had been in my Blake Hall dormitory for about a month when I got a visit from Vin. We walked around the quad. In order to walk around the quad, the walker had to turn right outside my dorm... walk to and past the college center... turn left.... walk pastthe Wadsworth building.... turn left walk past the library turn left past the administration and then take a ralph past more dorms until the walk ended at the entrance to Blake Hall. About half a mile altogether.

This was in October of 1964, almost exactly 55 years ago.

At that time the moon was not a documented magnificent desolation but more of a benevolent mystery. Astronauts were learning how to maneuver in space while satelites like Telstar were orbitting the planet for the first time.

Vin observed that the quad walk "would make a beautiful orbit".

I didn't know what the hell he was talking about and asked for an explanation.

"Here's what you do, get a bunch of guys from your dorm. Send out one guy at a time to run around the quad. Time the run. Call every timed run an orbit. When one man completes his "orbit" have another guy take over relay style. Maybe make an aluminum ball that one orbitter can pass to the next orbitter. While in orbit, if the orbitter passes anyone they are required to say "beep beep" while passing. If you get the right guys, you might be able to keep that orbit going for a long time: hours, days, nights, weeks, months maybe until we land on the moon. You and the orbitters might make this quad famous if the media gets ahold of the story."

I liked the idea and told Vin that I would get an "orbit" going soon.

Over the next couple of weeks, I talked up the idea of the orbit to the guys in my dorm. I set a time and a date for the "launch". At launch time, we had the aluminum ball ready to go and an orbitter on the launching pad which was really the steps outside Blake Hall. We had gathered the usual 10 guys who counted down the launch.

The first man in orbit was Butsh Conboy. At the call of ignition, Butsh took off. Everybody had a clear view of the launch and commented on its beauty and how all systems were go etc. Up near the administration building, trees blocked the porch view of the orbitter. We all knew that blockage was coming so we had called it the dark side. I remember when Butsh disapeared from view. No one had ever entered the dark side while orbitting. Everyone was very relieved when Butsh emerged from the dark side and headed home for his landing.

The next orbitter, Don Horner was waiting to receive the aluminum ball and begin his orbit. While Horner was in orbit half of the guys were watching his orbit and the other half were questioning Butsh who was in quarantine until Horner completed his orbit. In quarantine, Butsh was asked about the condition of the orbit. Was there a lot of debris? Did he notice any satelites. How many times did he beep? And then Horner was in the dark space until he emerged tothe cheers and admiration of porch monkeys and future orbitters.

The aluminum ball was passed many times but momentum began to wane after a couple of hours. Either the orbit would spred to another dorm or it would fade away. At that point a new guy entered the scene. He had been in the college center listening to Manfred Mann on the jukebox when he heard about the orbit. He wanted to beep and carry the aluminum ball.

He had run cross country in high school and he thought he would be comfortable with multiple orbits until replacements could be found. He took off on his orbit when the sky darkened and the rainstorm began. Everybody ran for cover, the mission aborted except for the orbitter who to the amazement of all completed his orbit and then with lightning and thunder booming and flashing, he did the unthinkable. He went for one more orbit.

He completed that orbit. He was soaked to the bone. I met him on the porch. He handed me the aluminum ball. I saluted him and said "Mission Accomplished." I had never met this person before although I had seen him around a few times.

I asked him his name and where he was from.

He said "Wild Bill" from West Babylon.

The orbit had ended but my friendship with Wild Bill went on for days, night, semesters, years, moonlandings,decades, half centuries and lifetimes.

OUT OF HERE

Sitting in the Merchant's Bar and Grill at last call. Dino, the bar tended, has changed his shoes. He's ready to go home which means we are as well. I’m with Al my long time pal.

Five hours from now, we'll be heading to a job that we both hate.

We'll arrive at the shack on Jay Street in a dirty old part of the city. Some old fart will tell us what tools we need and how much feritlizer, mulch or whatever penance we had to load on the truck in fifty pound bags. Everything we loaded, we knew we'd have to unload. It was like picking out the whip that somebody was going to beat you with.

Then we got in the dump truck, in the back, with the penance.

Usually, the bosses would stop off at a bar and grab a couple of shots of whiskey before taking us to the worksite.

The level of the work depended on the mood of the field boss who was usually in fear of the master of the work domain who we used to call the janitor but now we called the custodian and he/they didn't like us because they suspected we were colllege kids/lazy long haired assholes.

We worked all day with a couple of breaks. One time we took a break and went down to the beach where Richard, a fellow sinner, lost his shoes. It did not go well with Richard when we returned to work. Old Joe was our boss that day and he hated Richard. Richard tried to get out of work on the basis of having no shoes. Old Joe wouldn't have anything to do with that. He went deep into a shed and came out with a gigantic pair of ancient rubber galoshes and some twine. He made Richard twine the galoshes onto his feet and get on with the job.

After declaring that he wasn’t gonna wear “these fucking things”, Richard disappeared somewhere and he took his spade with him. Nobody knew where he was until suddenly he emerged, staggering at galosh speed, whooping and brandishing his spade like a spear. He was chasing a giant rat and sure enough, he launched the spade into the air ahead of the rat who ran into it with its face and then ran eyeless and noseless into some bushes. When we got to the spade, imbedded in the mud, it was full of ratface.

Eventually, our work was finished and we got back in the truck and drove to the dump. Going to the dump was the highlight of the day because it meant our work was more or less over.

From the dump we went back to the shed, where we told the story of the galoshes and the ratface spade. We went home and cleaned up. Went back to the Merch where Dino would always say "Two fer you?" when we walked in knowing that we weren't going to get just one draft at a time, we were going to order two which we did and before long we started to dread the next day and hope that our bosses for the next day would be the black guys who instead of stopping off at the bar for a whiskey, took the truck into the ghetto and used the equipment on the lawns of their neighbors. When that happened we would sit in the dump truck and sleep it off as best we could. The riots in Rochester had ignited in this very hood.

Then it would be back at the Merch. Sometimes we'd put a buck in the jukebox and play "We Gotta Get Outta This Place" ten times in a row. .

Eventually, somehow, we did.

SKY CATCH

We played catch constantly on the Avenue and in the field.

If you’re gonna play baseball, you’ve got to be able to catch the ball.

We all loved our mitts.My favorite mitt was a Rawling’s six fingered, Eddie Matthews model. Partly because of that glove, I earned another nickname. They called me Raw, short for Rawlings.

Catch came in many varieties.

At first we just tossed the ball back and forth, over and over again. This of course required a partner. When we were alone, we learned to throw the ball against porch steps and catch it when it bounced back.

Eventually, when we had a partner, we’d play pitch and catch. In pitch and catch…one of us was the pitcher and one of us the catcher. The "pitcher” would do the full windup and throw the ball to the “catcher” who was in the crouching position. Occasionally, the catcher would call balls and strikes would make a clicking sound upon catching a “strike”. The click meant the ball was in play. The throwback would be a pop fly or a hard hit ground ball. The pitcher had to be prepared for the click. If he fielded the ground ball, for instance, he would become a momentary infielder and fire the ball back to the catcher who had become a momentary first basemen. Every three “outs” we would change position…the pitcher would become the catcher and the catcher would become the pitcher.

Me and my buddy Al played the most pitch and catch.

Then there was “pepper” which involved a bat. Pepper was played in close range, maybe three feet apart. The fielder would underhand the ball to the guy with the bat and the batter would tap it back. Pepper was all about reflex and bat control and trust. Once again, Al was my best partner for pepper. He had great bat control so his tap backs were hard but not too hard. We weren’t trying to kill each other. I trusted Al.

Two of my crazier friends, X the Known and King, invented a game called wipe catch where they would fire the ball back at each other as hard as they could while decreasing the distance between them. That game usually ended with either King or Known getting wiped out by a return throw that came in way too fast and too hard and ricocheted off their bodies.

Nobody wanted to play wipe catch with either of them. They were trying to kill each other.

I kept playing baseball all the way into college. I played on a great intramural fast pitch softball team. We were great because we had the “fastest” picher in the league…a guy named Don Peterson. We called Peterson Cougar because of the word and insignia on the Zippo lighter that he always carried which had Cougar written on it. He could care less if he killed the batter or not. Nobody dug in against him. Nobody even wanted to bat against him. One guy I knew got hit in the ass by a Peterson fast pitch and didn’t go to class for the next week. I’m not saying that his bruised ass was the only reason he cut all his classes but he used his ass as an excuse.

My freshman year, I lived in Blake Hall which was a temporary residence while the new dorms were being built. My sophomore year, the new dorms were available. The new dorms had suites of three rooms surrounding a common room. My suite was B1d on the ground floor of spanking new Wyoming dorm.

In freshman year, we had no choice of roommates but by sophomore year, we were able to choose and be chosen. Six guys in a suite. Six all stars. My suite mates were Paul, Butsh, Cat, Beast, and Murph. All of us were ballplayers and some of us, like Paul, Butsh, Cat and Beast were varsity players in thier freshman year.

All of them were great guys. Murph, Cat, Butsh and I came from Blake Hall so we were already friends. Paul and Beast were from Sturges hall where they had been roomies. I didn’t know Paul that well but I knew he was a tremendous athlete.

On moving in day, Paul and I settled in first. We had a few moments so we decided to play catch. Catch measures trust as well as skill.

It was a different kind of catch. Paul didn’t have his glove so he threw and I caught. Paul had a formidable arm. He started throwing the ball high, frighteningly high, up into the air. It was wipe catch except the ball speed was based on the velocity of its descent. The first couple of throws he made got my attention. I’d never seen a guy throw a ball that high.

I was in a space between the dorms that was still scarred by construction. There wasn’t a lot of room and the area that was available was loaded with ditches and rocks.

After I caught the first couple of throws, I could tell that Paul was impressed. I was getting a little nervous. I raised my index finger to signal “one more”.

Paul realized this was the last throw and put everything he had into it, the highest fly of them all. I circled around trying to avoid the obstacles. I got under the ball when I stepped into a ditch and lost my balance. I fell to the ground. While on the ground, I remember thinking “damn, I was right under that ball”.

An instant later I realized how “under the ball” I was as the ball, picking up speed all the way, hit me right on the top of the head.

I’m told that the ball bounced fifteen feet in the air directly off my dome.

Momentary visions of Willie Mays and the sound of Buddy Holly took over my brain. I must have been “out” for a few seconds.

When I regained my consciousness, I realized that most of my new suitemates had gathered just as Paul threw the ball. Everybody saw what happened and everybody froze. When I focused on them, they all had an expression of horror and humor on their faces, especially Paul.

Somebody yelled, “Are you allright, Raw.”

I didn’t know if I was or not but I managed to say “Yeah, I’m good.”

With that everybody broke out into relieved, raucous laughter.

I picked myself up and joined them at the entrance to the dorm.

I didn’t know exactly what to say but I remember uttering these words: "I knew I was under it.“

"Yes, you were” they all agreed while stifling their laughter.

Thus began the daze that I lived in throughout my sophomore year, a year that played out like some kind of radio dream, full of music and surprise.

Airquotes in Lipstick Land

We don't know where we came from.

We don't know where we're going to.

But in between, we think we know where we are and "we" try like hell to hold on to the mortal interlude, to enjoy it, to understand it. Two of the three are impossible. Although sometimes "enjoyable", the incomprehendible interlude, the mortal coil, will always slip away.

So we have a question mark at the beginning and a question mark at the end but in the middle we have an exclamation point. Some of us, I suppose have an additional asterisk in the middle...see Roger Maris. Some of us, I suppose have an additional dollar sign in the middle....see the Donald Trump. Some of us have an additional + in the middle.....see Meryl Streep but all of us have the ! point in the middle and the question marks that surround the ! Because we don't know where we come from and we don't know where we're going to.

Some of us know and love the parents that we come from but where did they come from etc and where did all those people go..long time passing.

Were they ever here?

One of the rules of a dream is that within the dream, you can not remember how you got into the dream. A dream always occurs "in media res", in the middle of things. Things, in this case being question marks. Middle in this case being exclamation points. Therefore in the middle of the dream of question marks is the dream of exclamation marks.

A dream within a dream.

The guy I Invented named Poe was right, almost.

He forgot about the airquotes. In lipstick land "everything" needs an airquote. " ? ! ? " is a dream within a dream within a dream. " ? ! ? " is everything that you've just read and everything that you will ever read. " ? ! ? " is Thornton Krell. And I am he as you are me and we are all together.

It' has frequently been argued that there are too many "air quotes" at work in written renditions of "lipstick land".

"Lipstick land" is, of course, "shorthand" for the "realization" that the box in space created by "our" collective and individual "minds" is nothing more than a mass "hallucination" in which "mass" refers not to many more than one but rather "one" subdivided infinite times.

The "inhabitants" of lipstick land are those who have come to "embrace" the fragmentary, figmentary, fictitous essence of "their" own "existence" and who in their everlasting "introspection" continually ask themselves "what's wrong with 'me'" only to be answered with the wordless, soundless refrain "What's wrong with you is none of your goddamned business".

To these inhabitants, "everything" is surrounded by "air quotes" so whenever paragraphs are composed with "words" to describe lipstick land, tremendous "restraint" must be used in order that every single "word" not contain air quotes or rather be "contained" by air quotes.

This form of "punctuation" is needed to "convey" the essential "authenticity" of lipstick land but since its practice runs against the "norm" of the aforementioned hallucination, the air quote "punctuation" method is minimized almost to the point of non-existence in traditional "everyday" non-lipstick land "writing".

Every so often in that non-existant realm, a "comedian" will use "air quotes" and usually get a lot of "laughs" because the audience "perceives" a secret glimpse into lipstick land which makes their actual non-existence seem somehow "funny". Of course all of "this" is "superfluous" and could be summed up by the all inclusive expression "?!?" which is a "succinct" and "truthful" a description of all "things"as "possible".

I and we all are the artists known as ?!?

EVERLASTING DEVIATE

It came down to me and Larry Walker in the basement of the dorm with about 10 witnesses. Somebody got the idea of an intra dorm boxing tournament. I am a student of boxing. My father had been training me for this moment all of my life.

I had won quite a few fights in my neighborhood because nobody actually knew how to fight. When a fight started, I never rushed in rather I got up on my toes and waited for the guy to charge me. I knew how to punch and had power in my right hand as well as a developed left jab. I didn't develop these weapons by accident.

Ever since I was a young boy my father and I played a game called "Clever Boy". My father would wave his open hand in front of me and invite me to hit it with my fist before he could tap me on the forehead with his hand. If he tapped me before I pounded him, that was declared a point for my opponent, an imaginary boxer whom my father called Clever Boy based on a term he had heard describing the boxing style and persona of a fighter that he had heard on the radio.

He taught me how to set up my right hand with left jabs and when I came across and landed my right, that was a point for me and if I landed it hard enough, he would declare it a "knockdown" and if it landed perfectly enough he would call it a "knockout". He taught me how to turn my hand at he moment of impact.

In the street I had in fact scored a knockout when a kid rushed me and I went left-right and smashed him in his nose which more or less exploded thereby ending the contest as his buddies came in and pulled him away. After I landed and before they pulled him off, he had bled all over me. I remember after the fight, I went into my house, covered with blood and cried tears of rage because my anger frightened me I never wanted to get that mad again. I never wanted anymore blood on my hands.

That was my last fight until, for shits and giggles and nuting better to do I was matched Larry in the dorm. I knew Larry and liked him although we travelled in diffferent circles. This time we had leather, Everlast boxing gloves on our fists as protection.

Somebody rang a bell and Larry charged into attack. I waited for him, I feinted a left to the body and came across with a right cross that completely nailed Larry on the jaw as I suspected it would. I thought that I had seriously Larry him and grabbed him before he fell down. I held him in a clinch, and asked him if he was allright. Somebody came in and separated us. To my surprise Larry cleared his head and headed back at me again. Same exact thing happened except this time my feint was an actual left hook to the body followed once more by a whistling right cross right on the jaw which caused Larry to fall to the basement floor. I wasn't angry this time but I was frightened by the actual damage that my fist could do even when it was gloved in leather.

Larry got up, wiped himself off and to my amazement wanted to continue.

Once again he charged in. Once again I went with my left hand feint but this time Larry caught the feint and came acrsoo with a right hand of his own that caught me square in the nose. I thought that he had actually flattened my nose against my face. This time I grabbed him and held him tight and whispered "that's it Larry."

I suppose it might have been called a technical knockout. I wasn't concerned about the competitioon anymore. I was concerned about the condition of my nose. I didn't feel any blood coming out and I figured that the reason that no blood was coming out was that my nose was so smashed that my collapsed nostrils were preventing not only the flow of blood blood but also preventing my brain from leaking out. I was literally seeing stars. Up to that point in my life, it was the most excruciating pain that I had ever suffered.

The witnesses congratulated us on an amazing "bout" which had lost all of its allure to me. I went to the mirror and was very relieved to discover that I wasn't permanently disfigured. I took off the gloves and never put them on again.

Many years later, I went to the doctor's office for a routine physical. I was running road races at the time and the doctor pronounced me to be in athletic good health except for what he described as the obviously deviated septum.

He asked me if I usually had a runny nose or if I snored. I admitted that yes, I did almost always have a runny nose but that I didn't snore.

He asked me if I had ever had a sports related injury to my nose. I began to say no and then I remembered back to Larry and the shitz and giggles bout in Blake Hall which had completely slipped my mind

I told the doctor about Larry's right hand that flattened my face and he said laughingly "well that's where you became a deviate, I suppose."

A few years later, I got married and found out that I definitely DID snore.

I don't snore every night because sometimes my wife falls asleep before I do and, ya know, if a snore happens when nobody's awake to hear it does it really count as a snore?

Apparently last night, Lynn fell asleep after I did. She reminded me of that fact this morning and threw in this tidbit as well...."And for Christ sake will you wipe your goddamned nose."

CLASS of 1917 REUNION

1967 was a very good year for Sinatra. I was a junior in college and at the top of my undergrad game. I was still young enough to rock and roll. I was a drummer in a band that had gone from garbage to garage to bar to cover to dance. Everybody on campus knew me. I had a beautiful, blonde girlfriend. We were in love… “Oh How Happy” she had made me.

Viet Nam and LBJ were concerns but the shitstorm that was 1968 was still obscured by clouds over the horizon. I attended summer school, mostly to play in the band. The beginning of the summer sessions were fun because that’s when reunions were going on. I remember one reunion in particular; a 50 year reunion. I couldn’t believe what a bunch of old, out of it fogies were in attendance. Right then and there, I hoped I’d die before I got old.

They had no idea how to party so aside from freaking out, I avoided involvement with them.

I never bothered to subtract the 50 years so I didn’t realize that these were folks who graduated in 19freakin17. When these folks were my age, they were raggin’ out to “Darktown Strutter’s Ball”, “Tiger Rag” and the most popular recording artists of the year The American Quartet who had made the charts consistently with numbers like “Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh”….”Goodbye Broadway Hello France”….”Sailin’ Away on the Henry Clay” and the number one song of the year…. “Over There”.

If they were 21 when they graduated, that meant that these old farts were born in the nineteenth century…right at the turn of the century when, according to BeeGee rumor everything was happening.

I failed to realize that these folks had lived through the first selective service draft and had lost friends and relatives in WWI. I further failed to understand that in the year they graduated life expectancy around the world was 52 years and in 1918 because of war and flu it dropped to 39. They had lived through, among other things, Prohibition, Depression, Two World Wars, the Korean War and were now living through the Viet Nam “conflict” They didn’t show a lot of empathy towards the long hairs and filthy hippies who were as usual trying to do the impossible and “shocked” when the impossible failed to be realized. All we were sayin’ was “give peace a chance” like a bunch of pansies.

Unlike the oldies, most of us had no real concept of war but we knew it wasn’t righteous, brother. To me, the 50 year reunion folks seemed to be more about remembering the dead than celebrating life.

I attended a keg party. The highlight of the party was a piano player who hammered out the traditional, fraternity drinking songs like “Show Me the Way to Go Home,” “The Sheik of Araby”, “Give My Regards to Broadway”, “Rock a Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody” etc. To me these songs were the height of camp….it’s taken me all these years to realize that to the fifty year fogies, these were the anthems of their lives.

I might have connected but chose to dis, aloof as I was..

I didn’t want to imagine my fiftieth reunion. First of all, as a rock and roller, I didn’t want to live that long and as a fool, I never wanted to be uncool.

A few months later, 1968 arrived. I sold my drums. I started my career. I got blindsided and blueshaded by a “buddy” who stole my girl by pretending that he was dying. I earned the blues the hard way, I suffered for them. I was starting to grow up. The draft was devouring boys/men of my age. We learned about war. I didn’ want to die. Most of my cool disappeared replaced by anxiety, beer, cynicism, incapability and the ferocious shadow of going over there.

I attended my 50th reunion last year. We were still rockin’. I got a chance to play the drums for the first time in forty years. I chose Gloria for my number. Before I got my chance on the skins, the dance floor was pretty quiet even though Mike Woods and his band Easy Money were killing it. Then, while Money was playing “Memphis”, some of my brothers and buddies showed up. Linda Miller and I started air guitaring in the aisle and singing all about “long distance information” as if we were twenty again. The music stopped for a second and I spotted Wild Bill coming in the door. The dance floor was still pretty empty.

I said “c’mon Bill” and we went down to the floor and started our crazy dancing. Before long, the floor was full and we old farts were dancing furiously and foolishly. I noticed two young girls, maybe even students, gather around Bill trying to imitate his moves as he nodded and grinned, feeling every note and beat. Beautiful. Nobody feels music like Wild Bill.

Soon I got my chance on the drums.Mike said “we’ll set the rhythm” which means the drums come in after the opening guitar riffs. I had forgotten a couple of things about high hat use but eventually got into the groove. G L O R I A. It was the first time and probably the last time that Lynn watched me play the drums. She liked it. She was dancing with Wild Bill both of them responding to my beat.

When we finished the song, I thanked Mike for convincing his drummer to let me sit iin. It was the Friday of the weekend celebration. I realized that the weekend had peaked plus we were homeless, Lynn and I. We had closed on our Rochester home that morniing and we were on our way to close on our new home in Carolina.

My only regret was not having Wild Bill on stage with me. Bill sings the best Gloria this side of Van.

I closed the book on Geneseo and went out kickin’ ass.

That night we headed South and I felt like a rock and roll star.

Redeemed.

No More Shades of Blue

SHADES OF BLUE

I thought every kiss was precious

I used to count them

Until I lost count

at over a thousand times

each of them meaningful

if meaning is love

and love is making happy

and oh how happy

you had made me

all of this before

we made love

which reduced the meaning

Of Remaining kisses

until they became meaningless

and we became he and she

and you and him became them

and kisses became strategy

Measuring the Pursuit of Perfection

A common bromide in the ever expanding universe of statistics states that "if it can be measured it can be improved".

The classic example of this statement is the four minute mile. Roger Bannister proved that it was humanly possible to run a mile in less than four minutes. Since that day, hundreds of runners have improved upon and shattered that barrier. One of those runners was a Rochesterian named Dick Buerkle. Dick and I were members of the same parish and graduated from the same elementary school. Dick was one year my junior. We all were familiar with the sight of Dick running around our neighborhood but none of us suspected his greatness. He didn't start running track until he was a senior at Aquinas Institute but once he started in 1965, he kept running and running. He attended Villanove University.

On January 13, 1978, at the CYO Invitational held at the Cole Field, Buerkle broke the indoor mile world record with a time of 3:54.93 He allegedly ate nine Oreos and two peanut butter jelly sandwiches only a few hours before the race. Dick is the only graduate from St. James parish to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Inspired by Dick's achievements and training regimen, I took up running although most of my efforts were confined to training.

I didn't run much but I ate a lot of Oreos and peanut butter sandwiches. Perhaps if I had added jelly to my sandwiches, I might have succeeded more than I did in the Delta Kappa Greek games. My best effort was a farcical, sarcastic and sad two mile race during which I smoked a couple of cigarettes but yet finished the race within a half mile of the runner who finished second last in the event. Nobody even bothered to clock my effort but if they had, it could definitely be improved.

On the other hand "if it can be measured it can be improved" does not take into account the possibility of perfection. Perfection is possible, most notably in bowling and in golf. In bowling, a perfect game means twelve consecutive strikes in one game stretching from the first frame to the final frame. It is impossible to roll fewer balls and succesfully complete the game.

I've witnessed one perfect game in my life. When that kid rolled his twelfth strike, the crowd erupted. In this case, the crowd was me, my daughter and the proprieterix of the lanes. I had alerted the proprieterix after I noticed that the kid on the next alley had nine strikes in a row. The only people in the establishment at the time were the bowler and we three viewers. The kid buried the last three strikes with no emotion. We cheered. The kid was very calm. He immediately began his next game and threw yet another strike before he finally spared the second frame of the game at which point Mary and I left the building.

Although the lanes were empty, this did not diminish his achievement in my eyes. I had seen perfection! I'm still writing about it today.

In golf, a hole in one is perfect. It is impossible to put a ball into the hole in less than one swing unless you just carry the ball to the hole and drop it in without swinging which defeats the purpose of the game. Although I am not a good golfer, I have somehow struck a hole in one on two separate occasions. I was alone on the course on both occasions.

Here's what a hole in one feels like. You take your swing and the swing feels good. Part of the reason why the swing feels good is because you have kept your head down during the swing. When you look up maintaining your backswing, you see that the ball is heading towards the hole. You think 'Damn that IS good'. You watch as the ball lands on the green, rolls a bit and then disappears from view. You approach the hole and with every step closer you wonder "jeezuz, did that go in the cup". You get to he green. The ball is still invisible. You walk to the hole and there it is. It went in. You look around and realize there will be no crowd roar because there is no one else in sight. You pick up the ball. You put it in your bag. Gonna keep that ball.

Perfect.

A beautiful thing to see, even if you are the only one seeing it.

This perfection always takes me back to another feat of perfection that I witnessed with ten other guys, including Wild Bill, in my college days at Geneseo. We were always trying to come up with competitve measures for non-competitve situations. One of my dearest friends a guy named Dugie had set records in almost all events including the fastest apple ever eaten. There were problems with that record as it was difficult to establish a standard apple so any record would always have an asterisk. According to one legend an attempt had gone terribly wrong, John McCormick attempted the record and took such a huge opening bite of the apple that his jaws locked and the apple had to be cut from his mouth while he was turning purple in suffocation.

We were living in the splendor of a brand new dormitory which featured a spacious lounge. The whole dorm would gather at the television in the lounge to watch "The Monkees" and "Batman" but aside from those shows the lounge was usually empty even on Sundays before the NFL became a relgion. One of the "draws' to the lounge was the Coke machine . I started wondering what would be the fastest time that a person could drop his dime into the machine, grab the Coke, drink it and put it in the deposit case next to the machine. I set the standard as 12 seconds.

Eventually, word got around that a standard was in place so challengers began to emerge. John McCauchey thought that he would give it a shot. John was big guy whose distinguishing Coke idiosyncracy was that he liked to buy a bag of peanuts and pour that into his Coke before drinking. Someone speculated that if John skipped the peanuts part, he could match the standard no problem.

John decided to go for it.

He gathered a few people and went for the record. He dropped the dime, he got a pretty good drop time, around three seconds. He did well on his opening as well. Very quick but deliberate. A bad opening would destroy the effort. It had to be smooth. John grabbed the Coke bottle and chugged it. The time from the drop of the dime to the placing in the case was 7 seconds. Everybody cheered and praised the big man for his accomplishment. He had smashed the barrier.

Since it had been measured, it could be improved.

Later that week, Dugie got wind of the standard and thoiught he could challenge it. Most people thought that was impossible but few people at the time, knew Dugie as well as I did. Dugie contended that it all depended on the drop and open time. If the dispenser produced a slow drop or the opening of the can was off the mark, then yes 7 seconds was impossible to beat but he thought he had a chance.

The moment came and it drew an audience of about a dozen guys with nothing better to do.

I can remember the attempt even more clearly than I can remember my holes in one.

Dugie, who stood as tall as McCauchey but whose avoirdupois was more magnificent stood before the machine in the posture of a gunfighter in a showdon at high noon. At the signal Dugie dropped the dime into the slot with an extra push and got a perfect drop. Less than second passed before the Coke appeared at the bottom of the machine. In one fluid, uninterrupted, upward motion, Dugie got a perfect 'open' and continuing that motion brought the bottle to his lips and hurled the contents down his throat before slamming the bottle into the case. Elapsed time between 3 or 4 seconds with the official time being recorded as 3 seconds.

The activity had been measured but was never improved. I don't think anyone even tried. For the rest of my time in that dorm, guys with nuthin' better to do would gather at the machine and tell the story of the perfect drop, the perfect opening and the unbeatable time.

3 freakin' seconds.

Perfection

Dugie went on to establish many more "records" at Geneseo before joining a band and splitting for the coast where he once beat Carlos Santana in a game of ping pong.

REDEMPTION DIMENSION

Redemption is a refocusing, a relief and a release. As we reach a certain age, our redemptive memory kicks in and we begin to forgive ourselves.

Once we got glasses as kids, the BIGGEST fear of them all was losing those glasses. The remedy for this childhood fear was simple….DO NOT TAKE THEM OFF until you go to bed and when you go to bed put them next to your bed so you can PUT THEM ON as soon as you wake up.

I had glasses before any of my gang. Al was the youngest kid in our gang. He was already a Parsells Avenue legend because one day after the milkman delivered a dozen eggs to his house, we talked Al into dropping an egg off his concrete front steps onto the asphalt driveway that was his sideyard. The egg splattered to the delight of everyone, most particularly Albert who was thoroughly enjoying the attention of us older kids. I’m thinking Al was maybe four years old. The oldest kids were eight. I was six.

After the first egg shattered, all the kids started yelling “Drop another one, Al.”

Al dropped another one to the cheering of the gang. Al kept getting more cheers and kept smashing more eggs until the entire dozen was yolking and scrambling on the summer asphalt. We all knew it was funny but we all sensed it was kinda wrong. Al’s Dad, a WW 2 Marine who made his living driving a Coke truck and who drove a Buick when not driving the truck would be home soon. We all took off after the last egg was smashed and before the Coke truck appeared. Al was alone on his steps, kinda proud but kinda worried.

There are a lot of rumors about what happened when his Dad got home. All I know for sure is we didn’t see Al again for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile we played baseball in my backyard. The lilac bush was first base. The cherry tree was second base. The bench was third and the bottom of the hill was home plate. Anything hit over the barbed wire adjoining the lilac bush was the end of the game until somebody gathered the gumption to ask Mrs. Goode our next door neighbor if we could “please” get the ball from her yards. She never refused anybody who said “please” but she watched each interloper with an eagle eye.

Eventually, Al joined us and to the surprise of everybody, he had a talent for baseball. Kid could hit, throw and run.

Summers passed and by the time he was eight, Al was a full fledged member of the gang. He was good at everything…Baseball…football…king of the hill…Cowboys and Indians…. Hide and Seek….Tag….Green Arrow…..Soldiers….Snowball fights. He became my best pal as the other kids abandoned the Avenue for the suburbs or California.

Then one December day, Al showed up with glasses. I explained the rule DO NOT TAKE THEM OFF. Al said that his Dad had already made that rule VERY clear.

The next day was my birthday. My father took five of us downtown to the movies. We went to see Hondo starring John Wayne. I don’t think that Al had been to a lot of movies in his life but as an expert Cowboys and Indians player, he was blown away by Hondo. So were we all. It’s still one of my favorite movies because of that day. The cinematography was full of blue sky and white cloud and they really popped. Today, as a photographer I am a confirmed cloudman always looking to pop. That’s part of the reason we moved South, for the sake of the popping clouds and blue, blue sky.

After the movie, we started to drive home when somebody noticed that Al’s glasses were not on his face. Everybody panicked. We headed back to the theater which had refilled. We looked for the glasses but couldn’t find them.

My Dad felt terrible, worse than anybody but Al. He went across the street with Al when Al had to report the loss. The hope of course was that they would turn up at “lost and found.” Al’s Mom took the news in fake stride knowing that the shit would hit the fan when the Coke truck pulled up. We all knew that Al was gonna get it.

Apparently he got it because once again we didn’t see him for a couple of weeks.

He didn’t have glasses when he showed up.

He didn’t get another pair for about a year and he heard about the lost pair every day of that year along with an extra emphatic WE TOLD YOU NOT TO TAKE THEM OFF OF YOUR GODDAMNED FACE every time he heard about the loss. When he finally got this new pair, he followed the rules and kept them on his face. By this time, I was only wearing my glasses part time.

Still Al carried, for the next fifty years,a shade of insecurity and paranoia that comes with losing something valuable as a young kid. Plus he couldn’t figure out why in hell he had taken the goddamned glasses off in the first place. Why had he disobeyed such an essential commandment? He definitely knew better. We often wondered about that over the next couple decades as we encountered the mysteries of rules and obedience.

It always bothered him.

Why had he done it?

One day a couple of years ago, Hondo came on Turner Classic Movies. I watched it again for the first time since the day of the lost glasses. I still loved it. At the conclusion of the movie, the TCM host provided a few tidbits about the movie. He explained that Hondo was one of the first 3D movies.

Ah Ha.

I called Al. We hadn’t spoke in years. I told him I had figured out how and why he had lost his glasses.

"Al, Hondo was in 3D!. You took your glasses OFF to put the 3D glasses ON. You forgot to put your glasses back ON after you took the 3d glasses OFF. You had only been wearing your real glasses for a day or two so it’s perfectly understandable that you didn’t realize that you weren’t wearing them until we were almost home.“

"Holy shit, you’re right”, Al responded. “That’s exactly what happened. Thank God Almighty. I’m not as big an asshole as I thought I was.” We talked for another couple of hours, comparing notes on Parsells Avenue, Buddy Holly, bus trips downtown and Red Wing games.

The next call I made was to Vin. I repeated my insight. He knew exactly what I was talking about. He remembered the day well. He too felt relieved.

When we take our glasses off in exchange for artificial viewers to get a better vision of a temporarily manifested illusion, we’ve got to remember to put them back on when the illusion fades into reality

Never too late for redemption, no matter the dimension.

MANDELLA MAN

The Mandella effect is a syndrome in which a large mass of people believe an event occurred when it didn't. Every time I see a clip of JFK arriving in Dallas, I keep thinking that somehow what followed isn't going to happen and when I see Chauvin on the neck of Floyd, I keep hoping it's a Mandella but realize that it isn't.

Yeah, I think Bogart said "play it again Sam" and I swear I've seen a painting of Henry 8 eating a turkey leg. The monocle on the Monopoly guy? I get that wrong as well.

I'm susceptible to Mandella and I suffer from the effect almost every day. Let me 'splain.

I am careful to put the toilet seat down when I finish urinating. I am careful to turn the light on in the john to more accurately avoid any splatter caused by water closet darkness. My wife has emphasized these points very succinctly and passioantely over the years.

I swear I put the seat down every time. I know I do and did and I've turned the light on and off every time as well so it amazes me when I hear my wife slamming the toilet seat down. She doesn't even say anything anymore (as the SLAM of reality speaks for itself) unless I left the light on at which point she says "you left the light on" immediately after she SLAMS the seat down.

Every SLAM fills me with confusion and disorientation as I could have sworn that I put the seat down and sometimes I'll even say "I swear I put the seat down" to which she replies "well I know I didn't put it up and we're the only two people in this house etc."

I think I had better luck when I didn't even think about putting the seat down (or up for that matter). Now that I'm cautioned and tenderized as soon as I step into the room I start concentrating on a) turning on the light b) putting the seat up c) for sure (count to 3....concentrate) putting it back down d) turning off the light.

Then I'm in another room

Then SLAM

Mandella, Mandella, mandella.

I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only married man who suffers from this syndrome. I thnik that I and those like me constitute a significant percentage of men.

Forgive us, we know not what we do.

And let's hope that the George Floyd tragedy is a Mandella that we all thought we saw but that didn't actually happen...same with the virus.

SLAM SLAM SLAM.

SNEEZE

SLAM

A Scene From Smartfellas

Remember Goodfellas, the scene with Joe Pesci, as Tommy, terrifying Ray Liotta as Henry Hill? "But I'm funny, how? Funny like a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? I'm here to f***** amuse you?"

A new movie is in the works called Smartfellas. The Smartfellas are a bunch of pedantic, courtholding intellectual snobs who suffer fools very, very badly. In a scene paralleling the Tommy terrifying Henry scene in Goodfellas, Roger Charles a tenured professor and Ph.d confronts Linus Albert a probationary adjunct teacher with a Masters degree after a department meeting during which Albert innocently observed that he found Charles quite humorous.

Charles: Do you think I'm humorous? Do you think I'm aiming at discovery by observing human nature for the benefit of a sympathetic audience?

Albert: of course not Charles.

Charles: Maybe you think I'm witty. Do you think I'm using words and ideas to surprise the intelligent while I throw light at them? Or maybe you think I'm an absurdist, so full of despair that I refuse to recognize the validity of everything including my own desperation?

Albert: (backtracking) no Charles that's not what I meant I.....

Charles: (interrupting) Or maybe you think I'm satirical, amending matters by accentuating morals and manners to the self-satisfied?

Albert: Of course not, I simply......

Charles: (interrupting again) Oh right. You think I'm sarcastic. You think I enjoy inflicting pain by inverting the faults and foibles of my victims in front of attentive bystanders. Is that what you think?

Albert: (rallying) Well, I am a little concerned about your differentiation between irony and invective.

Charles: Don't you even know the difference between the public and private inner circle. The difference between direct statement and mystification. The difference between misconduct and a statement of fact. Can you ascertain the difference between a motive of discredit and an aim of exclusivity; to say nothing of the difference between crypticism and incomprehensibility?

Albert: I see no need for cynicism

Charles: Believe me Albert, I'm not trying to justify myself through exposing the nakedness of modern morality and before you even accuse me of being sardonic, let me assure you that I'm not getting any relief by using pessimism to illustrate the adversity that I continually face.

Albert: Well then I don't get it.

Charles (motioning towards the door): I agree and since you obviously don't get it you might as well get out, you got that.

Albert: Got it.

The influence of Village Time

I've been digging some jazz lately on record, on tube, on Spotify and in person.

I got my first taste of jazz in Greenwhich Village in the sixties where I saw Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Dave Brubeck, Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith perform at different times. Yeah.

My buddy and I used to say that it was good jazz when we could say "oh yeah" at any time during the rendition of whatever that whoever was jammin' and those two words would fit in perfectly.

Oh yeah.

The best "oh yeahs" came when our eyes were closed and when we opened them, we noticed that the musicians eyes were also closed as they escaped into the groove. I knew that they were getting even higher from the music than I was and I envied that elevation.

For many years, I've wanted to write like that, so goddamned high that I don't even know where I am because I am nowhere and everywhere at the same time but undeniably HERE from what I HEAR in the music that surrounds, comforts and challenges me and the words that somehow emerge and the moods they reveal and the lessons they teach without trying to teach.

I can't quite get there and part of the reason is that after all these years, I still don't know how to type. I went to college in the sixties when college was more or less a typing contest. I was a shitty typer than and I'm not much better now except now we don't have to fiddle with whiteout and typeovers and tearing typing paper ouf the typewriter and throwing it into the trash can and lighting another cigarette and starting all over again on a new piece of typing paper that might live for ten minutes before being balled up and thrown into the same garbage pail as all the others while the clock on the wall ticked away the hours and minutes until deadline and the goddamned thing was through and you're still kinda drunk etc oh yeah.

We produced a lot of typists in the sixties before God invented word processing.

See, if you're as good with a keyboard as Gerry Mulligan was good with his sax, you don't have to look at the keys at all. You can forget about them, yeah. You know where everything is and that includes the vibe that you're laying down and you don't even have to see it until you're done with it and then it stands as proof that you were away for a little while.

The Force is with you yeah.

No need for garbage pails or fucking white-out. The proof is on the screen. Hit save. Print it out or publish it. You were there baby, you were there but you did the whole thing looking at the keys and looking at your fingers and God knows there's another realm above and beyond, the realm of jazz. Yeah, you're finger lookin' good but that ain't good enough....not free enough....not invisible enough. Too much gravy not enough train.

I want to get there someday. And take y'all with me. Today was close.

Yeah.

VIN

Yesterday was my father’s 93rd birthday.

Of course, he wasn’t around to enjoy it; that is if you consider these mortal coils by which we’re bound a condition to celebrate rather than tolerate.

Pretty sure he’s in a better place and celebrating in the way they celebrate in better places. He shuffled off four years ago. He was sick and tired of being sick and tired. He worked his ass off to gain release from the nursing facility/rehabilitation center that wouldn’t let him out until he proved that he could walk.

He proved it. They let him out. Three days later, he woke early went to the bathroom, told my mother “Today’s the day. I feel great” While in the bathroom, he collapsed and shuffled off.

It became clear that all the work that he did to get out was motivated by his desire to die at home which he pulled off.

I talked to him the day before. His last words to me were “keep busy”.

He had a top hat.

Fifteen years before all of this, when all of this was more than any of us could have imagined, he bought the tombstones for him and my mother. He took a picture of those tombstones, engraved with every thing but the dates. He proudly brought the pictures over to my house one day.

This was the first time I ever thought he could die.

“At my funeral, wear my top hat, will ya?”, he asked.

I said I would.

I did.

Just before we put him into the ground, just after we launched the balloons, I put his top hat on on top of his urn and snapped. So long, Vin.

He was a firefighter, a captain.

He was a Veteran of Foreign War… WW2…the Phillipines.

He decided he wanted to be cremated.

He knew a lot about fire.

We picked out the urn that we thought he would have liked. Not real expensive…black and gold. We all got to carry the urn around at the funeral. We took our last picture with him. No relative of mine had ever been cremated before unless you count my Uncle Sam who drank a couple of pints of bourbon every day of his life and when he was cremated, they couldn’t put out the fire.

That last part about Uncle Sam was a joke.

Let’s get back to my father. For the preceeding decades, I called him Vin. We all did. He could have been Captain or Dad or Pop or Daddy or Father. Captain was way too formal. Pop was a Coke. Father sounded a little too Catholic. Daddy was for infants.

Why not Dad?

All of my buddies had a Dad. Their Dad did this and their Dad did that. My Dad was so much braver, so much funnier, so much smarter, so much more willing to get out in the backyard and throw the football around. My Dad was something other than what I perceived everybody else’s Dad to be.

He was someone else. Everybody had a Dad. I had a Vin. His middle name was Vincent. Yesterday was his birthday.

52 YEARS BETWEEN AVALONS

My life changed in 1958. I was a kid.

Clarabell on Howdy Doody had broken his silence, the last two words of Doodyville. He said “goodbye kids.”

Elvis had said hello.

Davey Crockett had died at the Alamo.

I had never heard an electric guitar.

Then a rock and roll show came through town into our sparkling new War Memorial. Al’s 18 year old aunt Carol bought three tickets. They took me along.

Clyde McPhatter, The Elegants, Jimmy Clanton, Johnny Tillotson, the Olympics, the Danleers, the Coasters, Dion and the Belmonts

I was sitting in the third row in a packed and screaming house.

I was changing fast.

Then Bobby Darin came out

Splish Splash

Queen of the Hop

More change for me, contractions coming quicker and each more intense

Then Duane Eddy

Yup

Cannonball

Rebel Rouser

Twangy, super amplified twangy guitar.

In some ways, I lost my virginity right there.

Then Buddy Holly and the Crickets

Oh Boy

More guitar

Every day

Peggy Sue

And the last act

The star of stars

The teen idol

The heart throb

Frankie Avalon.

I wasn’t even a teenager yet but I found a teenage girl sitting on my lap calling me “honey” and screaming “Frankie”.

Dee Dee Dinah

Gingerbread

Venus

When I left that night, I was an authentic rock and roller…not just a kid anymore. I still am and clearly am not.

Next came the sixties.

Fit hit the shan………..I graduated from grammar school. I graduared from high school. I graduated from college. I started my profession all in the fitshan of the sixties between assassinations, Cuban Missile Crisis, Mississippi burning, Beatle invasions, Viet Nam, the draft, Manson, Muhammad Ali, Woodstock etc.

Fifty two years later I went to Seneca Casino and saw Frankie Avalon once again.

Frankie was seventy now.

He has eight kids.

Phil Everley’s son is the lead guitarist in Frankie’s touring band. Annette Funicello was long gone.

Frankie’s forty seven year old son is the drummer and he is damned good at it

Frankie looked like a happy man.

From what I’m told, so did I.

And so, at last I am.

Today anyways.

TWO MEN IN TEXAS

Shelley Seton was expecting, expecting. Shelley Seton was expecting twins. Why wouldn’t she be?

Shelley had an identical twin named Kelley. Kelley and Shelley grew up dressing alike. They were so identical that nobody even bothered to try and tell them apart. They were known individually and collectively as Kelleyandshelley or, depending upon the suspicion, Shelleyandkelley. Or the Macdonald twins.

One fine day, Kelleyand shelley met Ronaldandonald. Ronaldandonald or Donaldandronald, depending upon the suspicion, were the Seton twins.

The attraction was immediate, intense and opposite. The only difference between Kelley and Shelley was that Shelley was left handed and Kelley right. The only difference between Ronald and Donald is that Donald was right handed and Ronald left.

The twins began double dating and in so doing gave new dimension to the term double dating; doubles dating double dating. Opposites do tend to attract. Left handed Shelley was attracted to right handed Donald. Right handed Kelley fell in love with left handed Ronald. World War two was raging.

All over the country, young couples were getting hitched just before the males were shipped overseas. Ronald was drafted and headed for war after boot camp in Texas.

The two couples decided to get married.

They gave new dimension to the term double marriage.

They got married in Texarkana. Before the marriage, the couples thought how neat it would be if they were to take the girl’s last names. Then the boys could be Donaldandronald Macdonald or Ronaldandonald Macdonald based upon suspicion. After a few laughs, the couples decided to stick with tradition. Shelley MacDonald became Shelley Seton.

After the marriage, the boys went over to the line separating Texas from Arkansas. They got into position like two centers ready to hike two footballs with the line of scrimmage being the state line. Shelley snapped the picture.

Two men in Texas, two asses in Arkansas.

A year before the two asses squatted in Arkansas, Shelleyandkelley and Donaldandronald realized that they had a problem. The old twin switcheroo.

Except this time, the possibility existed for the almost impossible to comprehend double twin switcheroo. Vertently or inadvertently,it was possible on any given night for left handed Shelley to wind up with left handed Ronald and/or for right handed Donald to end up with right handed Kelley.

The couples decided that one way to prevent this problem was a sign-in sheet. The sets of twins could and should demand a writing sample before every date and even during some of those dates, particularly the double dates, before moments of intimacy, after arguments at any time of doubt or joy, of hope or faith.

A request for a writing sample, it was agreed should never be turned down. Obviously, it wasn’t the content of the note that was important, it was the hand that was used to write the note. If anybody was ambidextrous, he/she kept it a secret.

Donald would make sure that the twin from whom he was getting a writing sample was writing with her left hand and that would prove it was Shelley. Then Shelley in turn would make sure that the guy writing the note to her was writing the note with his right hand and was indeed Donald. Even though the content of the note wasn’t critical, the foursome decided to come up with a note that would unite them while simultaneously dividing them.

The note had to be long enough to test writing skills but short enough to not take up much time particularly before moments of passion. This is the note they decided on.

Ronaldand donald would write: “i am who i am and that’s all that i am, I’m Ronald (or Donald) the Seton twin”.

Shelleyandkelley would write: “i am who i am and that’s all that i am, I’m Shelley (or Kelley) the Mackdee twin”.

Let’s hope it worked because as mentioned earlier, Shelly was preggers.

Shelley had the names picked out for the twins she was expecting, expecting.

If they were girls they would be Helen and Ellen in honor of Shelley’s mother Ellen and her identical, dress alike sister Helen, formerly the Tower Twins Helenandellen or Ellenandhelen Tower.

If the expected twins were boys they would be named Merle and Earl in honor of Donald’s father Merle and Merle’s identical dress alike twin brother, Uncle Earl, formerly Merleandearl or Earlandmerle Seton.

If they were a boy and a girl, the twins would be named Merle and Pearl in honor of Donald’s father Merle and his wife, Donald’s mother, Pearl.His parents were known as merlandperl.

Around the sixth week of her pregnancy, Shelley experienced some unusually heavy bleeding without much pain or cramping and was alarmed until she visited her obstetrician and was assured that the pregnancy was still viable. The heavy bleeding was nothing out of the ordinary at that stage of pregnancy according to Dr. Rudolph.

This was way back in 1946, well before the advent of sonograms, ultrasound and amnioscentisis. No one knew then what we know now.

This is what we know now.

Women have always carried twins with far greater frequency than imagined. In the old days, those twins were never captured on sonogram so most women never knew they were carrying twins and when they experienced heavy bleeding around the sixth week of their pregnancy, they were unaware that they were actually miscarrying one of the twins. They would go to the doctor the next day and the doctor would say what Doctor Rudolph said to Shelley. “This is nothing out of the ordinary” Which was true.

Sorta.

So the expectant mother would go home assured that her unborn child was still developing according to plan and totally unaware that one half of the in utero twins had already left the building with very little fanfare.

Earl was gone and forgotten not only as a has been but a never was and never even had been.

Merle went full term and was born alone. The only evidence that Earl existed in the first place is the evidence that Merle brought with him. Surviving twin babies have one consistent characterstic. They are overwhelmingly left handed.

As was Merle.

Six years later, half-twin Merle Seton Fell out of the bunk bed.

Bunk beds had quite a history In the Seton family. Merle’s mother and her twin sister had both slept in bunk beds As had Merle’s father and his twin brother. Merle’s grandmothers and grandfathers had also slept in bunk beds. All four of ‘em, always two per bed.

None of them had ever fallen out of a bunk bed before.

Of course, all of them had lived in Dubuque.

Merle and his Mom and Dad were sleeping in Nevada.

His Dad had done his war time stint working on the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan project was only the beginning. The experimenting continued.The war was over but the Reds weren’t.They were all over the place. Some were in Nevada. “Spying”, Merle’s Dad said.

Merle’s Dad never said much else ‘bout his work even the morning after the night That Merle fell out of the bunk bed. The top bunk of the bunk bed. Thank God, it wa a low top.

Merle Seton was a dreamin’ bout sittin’ on a dock three above soft rocks that were covered with warm Lake Water. Merle slipped gently off the dock, feet headed for the rocks but found only air and instead of warm crystal clear water his bare feet found nuthin but floor beneath his six year old soles.

Somehow he landed on his legs before he fell on his ass which was the cause of the crash which woke Merle up uninjured. Merle climbed back up the ladder, no wiser and no sadder, to the bunk not the dock. He took a look at the clock which was pointing to midnight. He fell asleep in atomic fright Feeling kinda sore and sad. Where the heck were Mom and Dad?

See, the Setons lived in Nevada as close as anybody to the atomic bomb testing grounds and were in the forefront of American fifties families who learned to love the bomb. Merle’s father was involved emotionally and economically with the atomic arming of the Cold war. His great triumph occurred with his contribution to the Manhattan Project which probably saved the life of his twin brother who was stationed in Manila and warming up to be cannon fodder during the inevitable horrific invasion of Japan that would make Iwo Jima look like Ding-Dong school but then we dropped the bomb on 'em and all the living brothers came home.

Since then Merle’s Dad had labored on various sidetrips, brilliant defense measures that ended up being expensive dead ends. These dead ends included the nuclear bazooka, the F3H jet, the atomic artillery shell and the various pills and nostrums the atomic alchemists devised to cure radiation poisoning including what would become LSD. Yeah, Merle’s Dad was convinced that the bomb was his friend and the guardian of his family.

Shelley had her doubts but had learned how to be married as the forties turned into the fifties. She kept her big trap shut.

The Setons were used to seeing flashes and minutes later feeling their house rock. Shelley heard the crash from the bunk room. She opened her trap, nudged her husband and whispered, “what’s that” Merle’s father, worn out from a hard day’s night at the plant sleepily replied “Jezzuz, go back to sleep, it’s only an atomic bomb . I gotta be at work early tomorrow.”

Before shutting her trap and settling back in bed, Shelley whispered to her husband “All right. I was afraid that maybe Merle had fallen out of the bunk”.

A GUY IN A HURRY

My mother was an independent and self-sufficient person. She was my transportation for many years. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I so vividly recall the last time that we were in a car and I was driving.

It was the fifth of July. We were returning to Rochester from Crystal Beach after a fabulous fourth.

Apparently, a lot of other people had the same idea as East Lake Road was one big traffic jam.

The day was beautiful and neither one of us had any particular place to go so we were having one of those mother son chats that have been missing from my life now for the last few years. Those conversations don’t seem all that important at the time you’re having them because they always were and they always would be. Death was far from our minds on that Independence Day.

Except, it wasn’t.

Whatever we were talking about, my mother’s words ended with “well, we’re in no hurry”.

At that moment I looked into my rearview mirror and saw a guy on a motorcycle hauling ass in a white line fever, speeding by dozens of cars in the jam.

I said to my mother “well here comes a guy who’s in a hurry to die.”

By the time I got the words out of my mouth, the guy was dead.

Four car lengths ahead of me, somebody had decided to turn off the road into a beach parking lot which was directly to the left of his car not more than five yards away from his steering wheel.

He started to make his turn, signal on and the guy on the bike drove right into it.

I heard this clicking sound and saw the bike hit the car and saw the rider go flying off the bike about fifty feet and smash directly into a stone wall that separated the beach from private property on East Lake Road. When he hit the wall, he broke.

There were four cars in front of me.

The first three pulled off the road and headed for the guy.

I had a decision to make.

I drove right by as did the guy behind me and the cars behind him.

I knew the biker was dead so there was nothing I could do for the dude other than clog up the Road and maybe cause another accident.Four cars, I figured was enough and maybe two too many.

Stunned, my mother and I had one more mother-son chat after the death on our way home. That chat concerned God, fate, speed, space, death, responsibility, haste, destiny, empathy, sympathy, reflection, vulnerability, infinity and eternity. The kind of chat I will never have again but the kind of chat that helped make me the man that I am.

BEARDISM

We all know that isms exists. Some isms are active but, seemingly polite. Most isms are simply passive. They hide themselves in etiquette even as they damage. They are in sinister ways even more dangerous than the aggressively active isms. They are the masters of micro aggression.

Let me illustrate this by inventing "beardism".

I have had a beard for many years. Beards go in and out of fashion. Sometimes, like now, my beard is generally accepted.

Other times not so much....

I have experienced active "beardism" as in " Hey weirdo, when are you gonna shave that fucking thing off your face" or "what are ya, a goddamned communist. If you don't like this country get the fuck out" etc.

I have experienced passive "beardism" as in "Oh, I like his beard" and in private (the same person) "we're not gonna give this job to a guy with a beard".

Another form of passive beardism goes like this. The active beardist says " Why don't you scrape all that food off your beard Jerry Garcia and feed it to your goddamned dog." The passive beardist, overhearing this activity just laughs.

To counter all this, there is active third party non beardism. Instead of just laughing, the third party active non-beardist might/should answer the active beardist rants with this comment." I recognize and reject your attempt at beardist intimidation but thanks for illustrating it with your observation".

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as passive non-beardism. If we don't object, we approve.

One current example is the Republican response to Donald Trump. At first the "establishment" politely laughed off his sexist xenophobia. They should have stopped winking and laughing a long time ago because now it might be too late. Trump's form of "beardism" is becoming the definitive platform of their party.

Isms are everywhere but we're not always aware of them even as they are harming us.

A few years ago, I was in a giant workshop aimed at reducing "isms" in the workplace. As part of one concluding exercise, we were all asked to identify four groups in which we considered ourselves members.

I chose; A) Caucasian B) Male C) Creative personality D) Husband.

Then we broke up into caucuses based on our group identification

When we got into the caucuses, we were asked to identify stereotypes about our group that had caused us disadvantage in the past. Then we had to relate how that stereotype had been used as a subtle form of discrimination/intimidation against us.

I was assigned caucuses B and C.

The commonalities with the caucuses were amazing. Of course, I could go on and on but I want to make this short. For males the most frequent lowest common denominator was "immature". For creative personalities the LCD was "crazy".

We all took a vow to recognize and reject those terms as a form of intimidation whenever we heard them applied to ourselves as members of that group. I have been fairly vigilant in that vow.

In this way we would become active anti-stereotyping in or own group and more sensitive to the stereotyping of other groups as they reported back to the workshop.

Very valuable feedback.

Also amazing were the amount of people who claimed to have never in their lives experienced any kind of stereotyping whatsoever.

Only one in the entire group insisted that she had no experience with any kind of "ism" and she was a forty something Asian person.

I've always wondered about that.

Windbroken Silence

Maybe it was the fall from the bunk.

Maybe it was the radioactive Nevada weather.

Maybe it was the fact that Merle, unlike ShelleyandKelly or RonaldandDonald, didn't have anybody to talk to in the womb or if he did he was still suffering from pre-natal grief.

Whatever the reason, Merle was about to turn five and was yet to speak his first word. His parents were beside themselves with concern/guilt especially when Grandma Pearl and Grandpa Merle came for their annual visit.

ShelleyandKelley and Pearl prepared a feast, while Ronaldanddonald and Grandpa Merle sat on the porch and smoked. Little Merle was silently running between groups until they all gathered at the table.

They passed around the mashed potatoes while Grandpa Merle cut the ham. Meanwhile someone else cut the cheese. Everybody ignored the eruptive disruption except for little Merle who spoke his first words. "who farted?"

What followed was an unusual silence, part joy....part astonishment....part guilt....part relief. After what seemed like minutes, the silence was not broken but the answer was supplied. Grandma Pearl sheepishly raised her hand.

That's when the laughter began and it lasted until Ronaldanddonald asked the next question. "What the hell took you so long, son.?"

Little Earl answered. " I never smelled a fart before."

More silence followed by more laughter until Grandpa Merle summed the whole thing up as Grandpas tend to do, "There are two kinds of men; smart fellers and fart smellers. I guess we just learned which kind little Merle is gonna be."

Everybody agreed.

Many years later, after secretly putting a pickle in his ice cream, Merle Seton met Jem Masters who was a smart feller in search of a fart smeller.