Since the first time I started to write this piece, actually pretty much wrote this piece, and then ended up writing the piece about Michael Jackson and replacing it, I thought I would try again.
Given that today is the 4th of July, there is some poetry, some level of appropriateness to the fact that I would write about old friends on this day. The oldest friend I have in life, what a funny saying, he is not my oldest friend, he is the friend I have known the longest, and yes he is older than me, but I just want to remind him of that. My oldest friend and I have been friends since we I was two, or maybe three, depending on who you ask, but at our age we are talking rounding error. I have known this man for over forty years, yes, I said forty, and that is pretty scary, but it also pretty amazing, awesome, fantastic, remarkable, and most of all because of the 4th of July.
Years ago now, I do not know how many, I could probably figure it out, but since it is the 4th and I have been in the sun all day I do not want to overtax my brain, but anyway, years ago I was spending some time with my sister, she was “home” from Italy and I was home preparing for a bike ride I did every summer, and she said hey let’s go back to Warren for the 4th. I will do most anything for my sisters, especially if it is not that difficult to comply, so I said sure. We decided to leave early so we could see all of the festivities, and that was that.
Warren is Warren, VT, the town that Sugarbush Mountain Ski Resort is and where we grew up. You know the kind of towns where there is one stoplight and if you “blink you’ll miss it,” well Warren is smaller. There isn’t a stop light, there is barely anything, but there is the Warren Store, a creative name I realize, but that was it.
Growing up there this is the place we spent all of our time, they had penny candy, that actually cost a penny, at least to start, they had a Coca Cola Ice Chest in the back that was filled with Ice Water and bottled soda, the cooler had an old fashioned bottle opener on the front so you could open your soda and the cap would fall down into a tray, this was a cool cooler, and this was a cool place to be a kid, well once we were old enough to go there on our own.
When we were really young we had this family station wagon, with the seat way in the back that was turned around, and the back window that was “automatic,” which I make a big deal out of because I am pretty sure we got the first one, not the first model, but the first car off the line from that model. Anyway, you can probably figure out that this is the kind of town where all twenty people that live there know each other, and that are all comfortable with each other, to a point, but I could not have been much more than four when we parked outside the Warren Store so my mother could run in and get something, this was also the kind of town where not only did you leave your keys in the car, but you left your car running, and while my mother was in the store, some guy, he was a friend, but I didn’t know that, thought he would be funny and pretend to be tak9ing the car. I was a somewhat fiery young lad when I was little, hyper, emotional, scrappy, and when this guy jumped in the front seat of our running station wagon, I dove out the back window and took off into the store to get my mom to tell her he was stealing the car, and my siblings I might add. He wasn’t, but you weren’t going to convince me.
This was Warren, and this was the Warren store.
Warren was also streams and brooks, and rivers. Warren was trees and forest, actually National Forest, a lot of it, and it was Mountains, with three ski areas with the best skiing in the East. Warren was fishing, and swimming and running through the woods causing trouble. Warren was hitchhiking from one place to the next because there was a fair amount of area, even if there weren’t a large number of people, or stoplights. Most of all, I guess, Warren was the 4th of July, parade, fireworks, little league baseball games, and dunking booths. Warren on the 4th was Americana, it was Norman Rockwell.
Unfortunately, apparently everyone found this out while I was away traveling the world.
My sister and I, and my sister’s daughter Giulia, my niece and goddaughter, headed up to Warren early that morning. We were about an hour and fifteen minutes away, plus or minus, more minus, and we wanted to be there in time for the Parade, which I think was ten o’clock. To get there, when the weather is good one travels over “the mountain,” which is actually Roxbury Gap, but in our family, and to most of the people that are from that area, is referred to as “going over the mountain.” And again, you can only do so in good weather. I remember coming back from a holiday trip to “The Street,” the area in North Providence where my father’s family is from, and my dad decided to go over the mountain, only it was snowing and there had been a great deal of snow already. As we were heading up the mountain, about half way up, we hit something in the road, probably a chunk of ice, a big chunk, and the station wagon, the same one I once dove out of, spun around three hundred and sixty degrees, actually it was about three hundred and ninety by the time the car came to rest, having blasted its way through the snow bank, missing a large tree by about a foot as it did. I know how much we missed the tree by because my sister and I were sitting in that very same back seat that faced backwards and I saw it wiz by. I digress as usual.
We went over the mountain on the way to Warren for the fourth, and as you come down off the mountain, just after you realize that you do indeed still have brakes, you turn left at a four way stop and head into “town.” About a mile later, still a few miles from the “center” of Warren, we began to see this long line of cars parked on the both sides of the road and we both began to look, and be, quite puzzled. The closer we got the denser the cars were, they were parked absolutely everywhere, and it became apparent, that this road, on this day and time, was now one way in the direction we were headed, which was a good thing since the parked cars were beginning to seriously squeeze us. The farther we had gone into this mess the more I was determined to just keep going, turn up the drive, just a hundred yards shy of the center of town, that led to the Warren Elementary School, a newer schoolhouse, newer when we were there, and then renovated by the family construction company the summer after my junior year in high school. I just was set on making this happen, especially given how little time we had left, and that we had Giulia with us and she could not have done that walk, nor could I have carried her that far, unless I absolutely had to.
When we arrived at the school driveway there was only one small problem, no it was not gone, although I guess that was a real possibility, there were four Sherriff’s Officers there not letting people up the drive. I have no idea what I said to them, but a few minutes later we were on our way up the drive and parking just a few feet away from the path that led down to the stop sign, the one and only, at main street in Warren.
We did the jaunt and appeared in town just in front of the Warren Store, and there literally thousands of people there, everywhere, all lining the street, in yards, sitting on steps of porches, hanging out of second story windows, it was absolutely amazing how many people there were, and how much this little fourth of July celebration of ours had grown. This once very local, very friendly, very Vermont 4th, was now a “beerfest” 4th celebration complete with the jazz band playing on the second floor deck, I never knew there was one, in front of the Warren Store.
Well, you can imagine that I kept Giulia and my sister very close, as we made our way to the store, and then as we looked up at the band we noticed that the gentlemen singer, African American gentlemen to be precise, and I only point this out because he had been the only African American gentlemen in the entire area for years, no decades, and we had been friends all that time until I drifted away. This is when things really got amazing because after looking up, and making eye contact and smiling hello, I turned my head to my right, towards the side of the store where there were some people congregating, and some food vendors and such, and there, right in front of me was my oldest friend, that I known since I was two, and that I had not seen in the decade previous, at least, with graduate school and all the traveling. Actually the last time I had seen him, from what I can recall, was when he and another of our friends from Warren had come to Providence to watch me play in a football game because he and I had always talked about, planned on, dreamt about, playing for the Dallas Cowboys, and in Warren, and actually that whole area, there was no football, which is why I moved.
Anyway, I turned, we saw each other, huge, Texas sized smiles, which is odd because neither of us are from Texas, and then an even bigger hug, not a man hug, but a good old fashioned Italian embrace. I have not been any more happy in my life than to be there seeing and speaking to this man, meeting his wife, there is a entire story and a half there, but the abridge version is that they met on a ski lift, he never got her name, but knew where she worked somehow, wrote a letter to the company she worked for and described her and where he had seen her, they gave her the message and then they got married, abridged.
We have been friends for over forty years, and eventually I will actually write a piece about the friends I have, but I guess the point is that nothing was any different that day, than ever, except the whole wife thing which we will not explore further at this time. From that moment on we have remained close, gone on an amazing trip to Whistler together, built his house together; speak on the phone regularly when we are not together, share meals when we are. We have done countless bike rides for cancer research together, and/or as a part of the same cycling team. I founded the team a very long time ago, he brought a bunch of friends to the party and another sponsor, and now that I have grown a bit tired after twenty years of this he and his wife have taken the lead.
We are friends, were very close when we were young, learning to ski, and then skiing the mountain together, jumping out of the gondola together, possibly lighting firecrackers under the lids of the sap cans in the woods together, I said possibly, playing soccer together, defending each other in school, and now just being there for each other as we move through life at an ever increasing pace.
When I hear the Simon and Garfunkel tune, “Old Friends,” this is who I think of, this is not a knock on anyone, but there is nobody that I have known anywhere near this long, or that I have shared so many parts of so many decades. We are truly “Old Friends.”
Thank you again for getting this far with me.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
Rookie of the Year
There are a number of topics in my head right now, and I am guessing that I am going to be up for quite a while tonight working on a number of them, but as I sit here listening to the soundtrack from “Across the Universe,” a movie in the true tradition of the old Beatles movies, watching Bella work on her fundamentals, I decided that I wanted to share that story with you.
You already know that Bella is my cat, and I think I already mentioned that I got the cat in this story, not the girl, but that turns out to be a very good thing, for lots of reasons, but mainly because Bella is so cool, so much fun, and such a good friend.
The coolest thing that Bella is into these days is training to be the first ever feline goaltender, and she will be great at it. When I first had Bella I had so much fun in Petco buying her every single toy in the store. I bought her big mice, little mice, fuzzy mice, squeaky mice, bungee jumping mice, bungee jumping mice that squeak, bet you didn’t know just how many different ways there were to dress up a fake mouse. There were lots of toys that made noise of some kind or another; there was a fuzzy little multi-colored, fleece tassel thing on a stick, the laser pointer with all the cat settings, mouse, stars, cheese, again, never knew you could do so much with a pointer, and then there were these little balls that were pink on one hemisphere, and green on the other, and there were little rattlers inside and tiny little cutouts of stars and quarter moons on the pink hemisphere.
What I discovered after bringing all of this home, along with the food and water bowls, the litter box, we are on the second one, she didn’t like the first, the cat “tent,” it is actually a cat carrier, but it is nicer than the two bedroom condo tent I bought for myself several years ago from Eastern Mountain Sports, thus I call it her tent. The tent has multiple doors with heavy duty zippers, tie loops and tent stakes, I kid you not, screening all the way around it with Velcro ties that allow for open or closed windows, I think you get the point.
Anyway, what I discovered with all of this stuff and much, much more, is that she did not like any of it, except the bowls and the litter box, of course the bowls had food and water so they were going to be a hit no matter what, and the litter box I am very, very thankful she took a liking to, but nothing else. If there was an empty bag of any kind she would play with that, a piece of paper that fell on the floor, boxers, anything but the toys that were intended for her.
Now that we have been together just over two years, I have continued to bring different items home for her that I thought she might like (cats, women, women, cats – see Bella 6-11-09), and eventually found a combo pedestal scratching climber that she spends most her time in, and she does actually love the tent, even though she spends more time on top of it then in it, but the one thing she now likes the most, that we have had since the beginning, is one of the little rattle balls that I had tied on the end of two boot laces and hung from the loft. I did this a long time ago, and would put it up at night and let it down during the day, but she never really played with this at all in the first year, so this became a part of my daily routine with absolutely no purpose. Eventually I caught on, she is training me well (cats, women, women, cats), and stopped putting it down.
Now that Bella is a mere eleven and a half pounds, I decided a couple of weeks ago to take this simple little contraption down for her again to see if she would play with it and instantly realized that she is in fact a natural goaltender, and that she now gets the biggest kick out of chasing this ball around and around and around. I actually play catch with her at times, she will sit on one side of the living room, which is also the bedroom, sitting room, den, office, sorry, no more tangents, and I will swing the ball over towards her and she will swing it back, she will do this for a few minutes before she realizes that it is far more fun for her to send this thing off on a cruise and then wait for it to come back and then send it off again. The most fun I have is when she is really fired up and will just run back and forth chasing the ball around regardless of what she has to run over, through, around to get this done. With about seven feet of lace that the ball swings from and the fact that it is hung from the outer most corner of the loft she can really get rolling, it is really quite a sight. It is also really cool to see her do this for a while, go to her water bowl and then lay completely flat on the floor absolutely spent, she is training hard.
Thank you again for getting this far with me.
You already know that Bella is my cat, and I think I already mentioned that I got the cat in this story, not the girl, but that turns out to be a very good thing, for lots of reasons, but mainly because Bella is so cool, so much fun, and such a good friend.
The coolest thing that Bella is into these days is training to be the first ever feline goaltender, and she will be great at it. When I first had Bella I had so much fun in Petco buying her every single toy in the store. I bought her big mice, little mice, fuzzy mice, squeaky mice, bungee jumping mice, bungee jumping mice that squeak, bet you didn’t know just how many different ways there were to dress up a fake mouse. There were lots of toys that made noise of some kind or another; there was a fuzzy little multi-colored, fleece tassel thing on a stick, the laser pointer with all the cat settings, mouse, stars, cheese, again, never knew you could do so much with a pointer, and then there were these little balls that were pink on one hemisphere, and green on the other, and there were little rattlers inside and tiny little cutouts of stars and quarter moons on the pink hemisphere.
What I discovered after bringing all of this home, along with the food and water bowls, the litter box, we are on the second one, she didn’t like the first, the cat “tent,” it is actually a cat carrier, but it is nicer than the two bedroom condo tent I bought for myself several years ago from Eastern Mountain Sports, thus I call it her tent. The tent has multiple doors with heavy duty zippers, tie loops and tent stakes, I kid you not, screening all the way around it with Velcro ties that allow for open or closed windows, I think you get the point.
Anyway, what I discovered with all of this stuff and much, much more, is that she did not like any of it, except the bowls and the litter box, of course the bowls had food and water so they were going to be a hit no matter what, and the litter box I am very, very thankful she took a liking to, but nothing else. If there was an empty bag of any kind she would play with that, a piece of paper that fell on the floor, boxers, anything but the toys that were intended for her.
Now that we have been together just over two years, I have continued to bring different items home for her that I thought she might like (cats, women, women, cats – see Bella 6-11-09), and eventually found a combo pedestal scratching climber that she spends most her time in, and she does actually love the tent, even though she spends more time on top of it then in it, but the one thing she now likes the most, that we have had since the beginning, is one of the little rattle balls that I had tied on the end of two boot laces and hung from the loft. I did this a long time ago, and would put it up at night and let it down during the day, but she never really played with this at all in the first year, so this became a part of my daily routine with absolutely no purpose. Eventually I caught on, she is training me well (cats, women, women, cats), and stopped putting it down.
Now that Bella is a mere eleven and a half pounds, I decided a couple of weeks ago to take this simple little contraption down for her again to see if she would play with it and instantly realized that she is in fact a natural goaltender, and that she now gets the biggest kick out of chasing this ball around and around and around. I actually play catch with her at times, she will sit on one side of the living room, which is also the bedroom, sitting room, den, office, sorry, no more tangents, and I will swing the ball over towards her and she will swing it back, she will do this for a few minutes before she realizes that it is far more fun for her to send this thing off on a cruise and then wait for it to come back and then send it off again. The most fun I have is when she is really fired up and will just run back and forth chasing the ball around regardless of what she has to run over, through, around to get this done. With about seven feet of lace that the ball swings from and the fact that it is hung from the outer most corner of the loft she can really get rolling, it is really quite a sight. It is also really cool to see her do this for a while, go to her water bowl and then lay completely flat on the floor absolutely spent, she is training hard.
Thank you again for getting this far with me.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
The Man, The Myth, The Legend - Jimmy V
For the second time since I have been doing this, I finished writing and did not like what I had written. The last time it was truly just not something I liked. This time, when I was done, I realized I just had not done the man justice. In my defense, it is not easy to find the words to describe a man that is so positive, so upbeat, so full of life, while at the same being full of tumors and weeks from his death.
Jimmy V has been an inspiration to me for years and so I thought I would give you his last speech, something that is hard to believe as you watch because he is so sick during this speech and yet you would never know from the fervor with which he speaks. This man won a national championship with NC State basketball in 1983, he coached all his life, to win his national title he beat one of the best college basketball teams of all time, Houston’s Phi Slamma Jamma team, and yet when you hear him speak he speaks about life, and living, family. This was an amazing man. Please watch this video and please “laugh, think and cry” today.
Jimmy V at the 1993 ESPY Awards.
The V Foundation for Cancer Research
Jimmy V has been an inspiration to me for years and so I thought I would give you his last speech, something that is hard to believe as you watch because he is so sick during this speech and yet you would never know from the fervor with which he speaks. This man won a national championship with NC State basketball in 1983, he coached all his life, to win his national title he beat one of the best college basketball teams of all time, Houston’s Phi Slamma Jamma team, and yet when you hear him speak he speaks about life, and living, family. This was an amazing man. Please watch this video and please “laugh, think and cry” today.
Jimmy V at the 1993 ESPY Awards.
The V Foundation for Cancer Research
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
The Write Stuff
Sorry, but I couldn’t resist.
With enough discussion and comments about this whole blogging thing, and the reason for doing it , and how long will it last, doesn’t it get tiring, and so on, I figured it was worth spending a few minutes writing about writing.
The funniest part of this for me, well I guess the whole thing is funny to an extent, but one very funny part, is that there are people that really like some of this stuff, and someone the other day asked “will you actually do something with your writing someday?” The question itself was funny to me because I thought I was doing something, every night for the past three and a half weeks or so, but I do understand the point, and my answer was that I would love to keep doing this, work at it, hopefully improve, and if enough people do enjoy reading these ramblings then eventually take on a larger project, why not? I enjoy writing, amuzingly enough, and yes I know that amuzingly is not a word, but I like it, amuzingly enough my education is in engineering, and I have always worked in businesses that have very little to do with this side of my brain, not entirely fair, but pretty close, and moreover, everyone else in my family studied, and work in something to do with “language arts.” Like I said funny, funny ironic funny, not “funny like a clown funny.”
Why do I do this, and why now, because I have always enjoyed writing, or at least once I was old enough to realize you can write however you want, and breaking the rules is sometimes fun with the written word, and because it actually relaxes me a great deal, to whatever extent I actually relax. The great part about writing in this forum is that I have found that I enjoy the process, the actual writing, and that in a lot of ways it is very much like when I paint. Painting is the first thing I have found in my life where for that period of time I am completely focused on what I am doing and my brain actually stops going one hundred miles an hour in six different directions. Painting is also the only thing I have ever done where how I feel about what I have done is more important than getting the worlds approval. I paint and I write for me, at least to a much greater extent than I have ever done so in my life. That is not to say that I don’t want people to enjoy my paintings, or my writing, it just means I am ok with the fact that some people will, and others will not.
This has always been true for me with books, movies, theatre, and art, where if I like something I like it and if I don’t I don’t. Other views on a movie, or a painting, have never caused me to change the way I feel about that specific piece, I may appreciate someone’s take on something, but it is still whether I like something or not. I would think, believe, hope that this is true for most people, given that all of these things are, at least in my mind, art, of some form or another. As long as I can remember if I like a piece of art it strikes me the second I see it, and at times will “haunt” me for days, maybe not the best word, but it will definitely stay with me, and if I don’t like a piece I never will.
So, to try to get back to some point here somewhere, I am writing because I enjoy writing, I am writing because it is a way to exercise the other side of my brain that truthfully has been ignored for too much of my life, I am writing because I hope that some of these pieces, probably not this one, but some of these may actually make someone smile, laugh, cry, think. The late Jimmy Valvano, North Carolina State basketball coach and ESPN analyst, said during his acceptance speech after winning the Arthur Ashe award, “laugh, cry, and think, if you do those three things every day you will have a full life,” this coming from a man that had to be helped to the stage and died shortly after that from cancer. Jimmy V was an amazing man and an amazing coach, maybe I should write about him tomorrow night, but those words have never left me, and while I know I have not come close to living up to his sentiment I am going to keep trying, and writing is one of the ways I am attempting to do so.
Thank you again for getting this far with me.
With enough discussion and comments about this whole blogging thing, and the reason for doing it , and how long will it last, doesn’t it get tiring, and so on, I figured it was worth spending a few minutes writing about writing.
The funniest part of this for me, well I guess the whole thing is funny to an extent, but one very funny part, is that there are people that really like some of this stuff, and someone the other day asked “will you actually do something with your writing someday?” The question itself was funny to me because I thought I was doing something, every night for the past three and a half weeks or so, but I do understand the point, and my answer was that I would love to keep doing this, work at it, hopefully improve, and if enough people do enjoy reading these ramblings then eventually take on a larger project, why not? I enjoy writing, amuzingly enough, and yes I know that amuzingly is not a word, but I like it, amuzingly enough my education is in engineering, and I have always worked in businesses that have very little to do with this side of my brain, not entirely fair, but pretty close, and moreover, everyone else in my family studied, and work in something to do with “language arts.” Like I said funny, funny ironic funny, not “funny like a clown funny.”
Why do I do this, and why now, because I have always enjoyed writing, or at least once I was old enough to realize you can write however you want, and breaking the rules is sometimes fun with the written word, and because it actually relaxes me a great deal, to whatever extent I actually relax. The great part about writing in this forum is that I have found that I enjoy the process, the actual writing, and that in a lot of ways it is very much like when I paint. Painting is the first thing I have found in my life where for that period of time I am completely focused on what I am doing and my brain actually stops going one hundred miles an hour in six different directions. Painting is also the only thing I have ever done where how I feel about what I have done is more important than getting the worlds approval. I paint and I write for me, at least to a much greater extent than I have ever done so in my life. That is not to say that I don’t want people to enjoy my paintings, or my writing, it just means I am ok with the fact that some people will, and others will not.
This has always been true for me with books, movies, theatre, and art, where if I like something I like it and if I don’t I don’t. Other views on a movie, or a painting, have never caused me to change the way I feel about that specific piece, I may appreciate someone’s take on something, but it is still whether I like something or not. I would think, believe, hope that this is true for most people, given that all of these things are, at least in my mind, art, of some form or another. As long as I can remember if I like a piece of art it strikes me the second I see it, and at times will “haunt” me for days, maybe not the best word, but it will definitely stay with me, and if I don’t like a piece I never will.
So, to try to get back to some point here somewhere, I am writing because I enjoy writing, I am writing because it is a way to exercise the other side of my brain that truthfully has been ignored for too much of my life, I am writing because I hope that some of these pieces, probably not this one, but some of these may actually make someone smile, laugh, cry, think. The late Jimmy Valvano, North Carolina State basketball coach and ESPN analyst, said during his acceptance speech after winning the Arthur Ashe award, “laugh, cry, and think, if you do those three things every day you will have a full life,” this coming from a man that had to be helped to the stage and died shortly after that from cancer. Jimmy V was an amazing man and an amazing coach, maybe I should write about him tomorrow night, but those words have never left me, and while I know I have not come close to living up to his sentiment I am going to keep trying, and writing is one of the ways I am attempting to do so.
Thank you again for getting this far with me.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
It Never Rains but It Pours
I have always maintained there are two Steve Martins, and two distinct types of Steve Martin films. “Leap of Faith” is a very well done, funny but thought provoking movie starring Steve Martin, Debra Winger, and Meatloaf, where Martin’s character, reverend Jonas Nightingale answered the question of “when’s it gonna rain” with his own question, “what is rain?” He then goes on to ask the congregation “when’s it gonna stop?” I would ask the same question for all of us, well most of us.
Jonas’ point is that the rain in our lives is the bills, and the neighbors that we are fighting with, it is being a single parent, or having issues with your spouse, being sick, fighting with the bank over the mortgage, have you ever seen so many foreclosures at one time? There are so many things in life, the day to day, do the dishes, the laundry, feed the kids, drive them all over, clean out the litter box, my personal favorite, go to work, work out, fight with your boss, wife, girlfriend, both.
Life is not hard, it is just life, and sometimes it is difficult to think we can do much about any of it, but there are only two alternatives, ignore it, which just makes everything worse, or shuffle off this mortal coil, why rush?
I have said for a long time, and I don’t know where I got it, or if I made it up, but I doubt that, “life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.” The only problem with that view of life is that I forget it every day. My biggest hope is that someday, and someday soon, I can find a way to actually live my life as if I believe the phrase. I have a friend, colleague, partner, mentor, that works very hard, has all his life from what I can tell, but continues to enjoy himself every day, or very nearly. He told me on Friday night, when I called and he had just finished playing tennis, was having a beer and about to have some food outside on a patio at some restaurant, “son,” he is from the South, Son” he said, “I keep telling you I need to teach you how to enjoy life.” I agree.
If there is one thing I wish I could teach everyone, based on what I have not been able to do so far on this planet, is do your best to live simply, which seems to reduce the “rain” in each day, and try to enjoy life as much as possible each day, day in and day out. Sounds simple doesn’t it?
Thank you again for getting this far with me.
Jonas’ point is that the rain in our lives is the bills, and the neighbors that we are fighting with, it is being a single parent, or having issues with your spouse, being sick, fighting with the bank over the mortgage, have you ever seen so many foreclosures at one time? There are so many things in life, the day to day, do the dishes, the laundry, feed the kids, drive them all over, clean out the litter box, my personal favorite, go to work, work out, fight with your boss, wife, girlfriend, both.
Life is not hard, it is just life, and sometimes it is difficult to think we can do much about any of it, but there are only two alternatives, ignore it, which just makes everything worse, or shuffle off this mortal coil, why rush?
I have said for a long time, and I don’t know where I got it, or if I made it up, but I doubt that, “life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.” The only problem with that view of life is that I forget it every day. My biggest hope is that someday, and someday soon, I can find a way to actually live my life as if I believe the phrase. I have a friend, colleague, partner, mentor, that works very hard, has all his life from what I can tell, but continues to enjoy himself every day, or very nearly. He told me on Friday night, when I called and he had just finished playing tennis, was having a beer and about to have some food outside on a patio at some restaurant, “son,” he is from the South, Son” he said, “I keep telling you I need to teach you how to enjoy life.” I agree.
If there is one thing I wish I could teach everyone, based on what I have not been able to do so far on this planet, is do your best to live simply, which seems to reduce the “rain” in each day, and try to enjoy life as much as possible each day, day in and day out. Sounds simple doesn’t it?
Thank you again for getting this far with me.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Swiss Cheese
I am sitting here and realizing that in a full year of being in Switzerland for at least part of each week, and actually living in Zurich for a full three months, I never had “Swiss Cheese.” Obviously, I had Swiss cheese every day, but I never had “Swiss Cheese,” at least not that I remember, never anything that looked like “Swiss Cheese,” never anything that tasted like “Swiss Cheese,” and again there are many different Swiss cheeses, and they are all delicious, well almost all, but none that actually taste look and smell like “Swiss Cheese.”
Maybe the Swiss just never thought it made any sense to make cheese where you got more holes than cheese, except I guess to send to us and get a laugh out of it, and by the way when I say send to us I am speaking of the “stupid Americans.” Maybe the Swiss just simply focus their attention on making Swiss cheese and never had it cross their minds that they weren’t actually making “Swiss Cheese.” Maybe, since everything in Switzerland does in fact run like a “Swiss watch,” and if you have not been to Switzerland yet you need to go as soon as possible, if only to fully understand that phrase, because it is definitely something you have to experience, the trains, the trolleys, restaurants, shops, banks, and obviously the Swiss watches, and more impressive, the Swiss clock towers, simply unbelievable.
I think while we were there we counted the number of huge, ornate, creative and distinct clock towers there were, and I want to say seven, but again it has been a while and it I am probably off. I can actually see four of them in my mind, they are spectacular. There was one that they had set to chime seven minutes, that is where the seven came from, seven minutes before the hour every hour, and you would be amazed at the crowd of people that would gather every hour to watch this happen; I promise you none of these people were Bernese. The Bernese were in their shops, peaking out the window and laughing their ------- off.
By the way, Swiss chocolate is truly orgasmic, can I say that, oh well too late, and even more insane is the chocolato caldo, hot chocolate, which is absolutely sinful.
There really was not anything about Switzerland that I didn’t like, well…ok getting screamed at by a police officer for fifteen minutes for riding my bike on the side of the road instead of the bike path was something I never need to have happen again. He kept asking for my passport and telling me that I had broken the law, and I just kept saying “versctat nicht, no sprechen ze deutsch,” to which he would reply “verstat nicht, verstat nicht,” and then snarl. Ok, so there was one thing about Switzerland I didn’t like, but that happen just over the mountain from Zurich, in small town Switzerland, which I guess is redundant, but this was really small town.
This is not a big place, but there are at least six different languages being spoken, not to mention dialects on top of that, the food is amazing, and again you get great French, Italian, German, maybe that one is an oxymoron, Indian, Thai, and the occasional burger if you really must. They have a dish called Rösti, I think that is how it would be spelled, which is essentially an omelet, with shredded potatoes, and a pound of butter, instead of eggs. I am getting hungry just thinking about it now. They take whatever you would normally want on your omelet, so mushrooms, peppers, cheese, and so on, and they put all of this in a deep cast iron skillet to first fry and then broil, sound familiar? I am telling you the only thing missing is the eggs, but you have all the fixing, with the hash browns, and tons of everything.
Zermatt and Wengen are a must, for the Matterhorn and the Eiger, respectively. Ay Wengen they also have the “Ice Palace,” which is an observatory at the “Top of the World,” and ice caves that go on forever and have incredible carvings of people, animals, and all magnificently lit.
I could ramble on about this place that I have referred to as Vermont on steroids, I was using this analogy long before Maguire, and Sammy, and Bonds, and Roger, and Manny made it less fun to use, but I do think it appropriate. This is a very green country with lots of corn and cows; they simply have the Swiss Alps in the background, what a background. And oh, I did not mention that the people are amazing.
Thank you again for getting this far with me.
Maybe the Swiss just never thought it made any sense to make cheese where you got more holes than cheese, except I guess to send to us and get a laugh out of it, and by the way when I say send to us I am speaking of the “stupid Americans.” Maybe the Swiss just simply focus their attention on making Swiss cheese and never had it cross their minds that they weren’t actually making “Swiss Cheese.” Maybe, since everything in Switzerland does in fact run like a “Swiss watch,” and if you have not been to Switzerland yet you need to go as soon as possible, if only to fully understand that phrase, because it is definitely something you have to experience, the trains, the trolleys, restaurants, shops, banks, and obviously the Swiss watches, and more impressive, the Swiss clock towers, simply unbelievable.
I think while we were there we counted the number of huge, ornate, creative and distinct clock towers there were, and I want to say seven, but again it has been a while and it I am probably off. I can actually see four of them in my mind, they are spectacular. There was one that they had set to chime seven minutes, that is where the seven came from, seven minutes before the hour every hour, and you would be amazed at the crowd of people that would gather every hour to watch this happen; I promise you none of these people were Bernese. The Bernese were in their shops, peaking out the window and laughing their ------- off.
By the way, Swiss chocolate is truly orgasmic, can I say that, oh well too late, and even more insane is the chocolato caldo, hot chocolate, which is absolutely sinful.
There really was not anything about Switzerland that I didn’t like, well…ok getting screamed at by a police officer for fifteen minutes for riding my bike on the side of the road instead of the bike path was something I never need to have happen again. He kept asking for my passport and telling me that I had broken the law, and I just kept saying “versctat nicht, no sprechen ze deutsch,” to which he would reply “verstat nicht, verstat nicht,” and then snarl. Ok, so there was one thing about Switzerland I didn’t like, but that happen just over the mountain from Zurich, in small town Switzerland, which I guess is redundant, but this was really small town.
This is not a big place, but there are at least six different languages being spoken, not to mention dialects on top of that, the food is amazing, and again you get great French, Italian, German, maybe that one is an oxymoron, Indian, Thai, and the occasional burger if you really must. They have a dish called Rösti, I think that is how it would be spelled, which is essentially an omelet, with shredded potatoes, and a pound of butter, instead of eggs. I am getting hungry just thinking about it now. They take whatever you would normally want on your omelet, so mushrooms, peppers, cheese, and so on, and they put all of this in a deep cast iron skillet to first fry and then broil, sound familiar? I am telling you the only thing missing is the eggs, but you have all the fixing, with the hash browns, and tons of everything.
Zermatt and Wengen are a must, for the Matterhorn and the Eiger, respectively. Ay Wengen they also have the “Ice Palace,” which is an observatory at the “Top of the World,” and ice caves that go on forever and have incredible carvings of people, animals, and all magnificently lit.
I could ramble on about this place that I have referred to as Vermont on steroids, I was using this analogy long before Maguire, and Sammy, and Bonds, and Roger, and Manny made it less fun to use, but I do think it appropriate. This is a very green country with lots of corn and cows; they simply have the Swiss Alps in the background, what a background. And oh, I did not mention that the people are amazing.
Thank you again for getting this far with me.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Live and Let Die
Live and Let Die
I want to share a thought with you and then will offer a piece that only a few have read. I truly believe that in our everyday lives we should in fact let people live their lives the way they wish to live their lives, not try and change them, or judge them, or criticize, nut just let them be who they want to be while on this planet. I also believe that the same is true of dying. People should be allowed to die the way that want to, and I say that knowing full well that if I could die doing something I love, skiing, cycling, making whoopee, then I would rather that, then some stroke that takes forever to kill me, or some cancer that does the same, and I don’t think we have the right to tell someone how they should live or die.
In the above I am not saying that people should be allowed to harm others in any way, nor am I saying that I am for or against assisted suicide, or for or against abortion, those are much lengthier discussions and there are an awful lot of “grey areas,” a lot of assumptions and “what-ifs” associated with making those kinds of judgments that I will probably tackle somewhere along the way. I am also not saying we should help people out if they need help, or if they have wandered off their path, but in general I am saying let people be who they want to be and do the same for yourself.
Thank you again for getting this far with me.
I offer you, Camelot, written on an airplane, just after learning the news about John F. Kennedy, Jr., completely unedited. These are just my thoughts as I floated through the air that night.
Camelot. Who was it that first laid that burden on the Kennedy’s and specifically on John F. Kennedy, Jackie, Caroline and eventually John F. Kennedy, Junior? It is understandable, I suppose, that someone looked at the way the Kennedy family lived and the money and power they had and decided that it must be like royalty living in Camelot. Unfortunately, not only is that an incredibly unfair burden to place on any one family, but it was also horribly inaccurate. “Camelot, I know it sounds a bit bizarre…the rain may never fall ‘till after sunset…,” in truth the Kennedy’s have seen plenty of “rain”, and pain and sorrow.
The death of John F. Kennedy, Junior affected me in an almost inexplicable way. I definitely did not believe what I was hearing at first, and then I spent a great deal of the weekend believing that he would be found, way off course, but safe. The longer the search went on and the more it began to look real the less I was able to deal with the sadness and the deep sense of loss. I felt as though someone else in our family had died.
I grew up in New England in a large Italian family. I was raised as an Italian Catholic spending my summers in Rhode Island and my winters in Vermont. I literally grew up either in a sail boat or on skis and surrounded by a large number of relatives. My early summers were spent in Saunderstown, Rhode Island in a large 11 bedroom house on Narragansett Bay with a huge, lush, beautifully green, flowing lawn that ended where the bay began. Weekends were joyous occasions with multiple boats in the water and an endless stream of food orchestrated by my Grandmother with help from all of the aunts.
This was also a time filled with many happy occasions. We had weddings, births, graduations of one kind or another. The weddings would last two or three days and have hundreds of people there to celebrate with us. Unfortunately we also had many tragic and difficult events to deal with, deaths, divorce and feuds within the family. The ironic part of all of this was that there was so little difference between the good times and the bad. The whole family would be there to share the joy or the sorrow. We always congregated in the same places and there was amazing food no matter the occasion. Through it all my Grandmother was always the Matriarch, the queen. Even to those in power in Rhode Island.
The death of John F. Kennedy, Junior is what has had me thinking of all this the past week. Much of the talk in the media has been about retreating back to the family compound and about the Kennedy’s closeness as a family. I can relate to this in because of how I was raised and because of all the joy and tragedy we have shared as a family. I can also relate to this because much of my family has always believed very strongly in what the Kennedy family has stood for and for what they have done for this country. It is because the Kennedy family has always attempted to do so much for our country that they have been unable to live their lives without cameras following their every move. Each tragedy has been magnified, intensified by the media and each celebration violated.
It is through this endless coverage of the Kennedy’s, however, that we have been allowed to feel as though we know them so well. It is because of this coverage that most of the country has felt each loss with the Kennedy’s and especially, it seems, the losses of John F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, Jr. It has been said that people remember exactly where they were when they first heard the news that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. People felt not just as if they had lost a President; but that they had lost a friend, and the dreams of a nation. I will never forget where I was when I first heard the news about John F. Kennedy, Junior. For me, John F. Kennedy, Jr. had become my hope that we, as a nation, would again embrace a Kennedy as our President and that we would be led by a man of incredible intelligence, charisma, dignity and class, but also the power necessary to be a great President.
The death of John F. Kennedy, Junior is for me, as I am sure it is for many Americans, like the loss of a friend or a family member and it is like losing your dreams. John F. Kennedy would have been a great President in the end if he had been allowed to serve as long as he should have. John F. Kennedy, Junior would have been President someday and he would have been a great President. He would have been the type of President to make us all very proud of our country and our President again because he was the type of man that made us proud to be Americans.
Good-bye John. Be happy where you are now, with the two women that love you most.
I want to share a thought with you and then will offer a piece that only a few have read. I truly believe that in our everyday lives we should in fact let people live their lives the way they wish to live their lives, not try and change them, or judge them, or criticize, nut just let them be who they want to be while on this planet. I also believe that the same is true of dying. People should be allowed to die the way that want to, and I say that knowing full well that if I could die doing something I love, skiing, cycling, making whoopee, then I would rather that, then some stroke that takes forever to kill me, or some cancer that does the same, and I don’t think we have the right to tell someone how they should live or die.
In the above I am not saying that people should be allowed to harm others in any way, nor am I saying that I am for or against assisted suicide, or for or against abortion, those are much lengthier discussions and there are an awful lot of “grey areas,” a lot of assumptions and “what-ifs” associated with making those kinds of judgments that I will probably tackle somewhere along the way. I am also not saying we should help people out if they need help, or if they have wandered off their path, but in general I am saying let people be who they want to be and do the same for yourself.
Thank you again for getting this far with me.
I offer you, Camelot, written on an airplane, just after learning the news about John F. Kennedy, Jr., completely unedited. These are just my thoughts as I floated through the air that night.
Camelot. Who was it that first laid that burden on the Kennedy’s and specifically on John F. Kennedy, Jackie, Caroline and eventually John F. Kennedy, Junior? It is understandable, I suppose, that someone looked at the way the Kennedy family lived and the money and power they had and decided that it must be like royalty living in Camelot. Unfortunately, not only is that an incredibly unfair burden to place on any one family, but it was also horribly inaccurate. “Camelot, I know it sounds a bit bizarre…the rain may never fall ‘till after sunset…,” in truth the Kennedy’s have seen plenty of “rain”, and pain and sorrow.
The death of John F. Kennedy, Junior affected me in an almost inexplicable way. I definitely did not believe what I was hearing at first, and then I spent a great deal of the weekend believing that he would be found, way off course, but safe. The longer the search went on and the more it began to look real the less I was able to deal with the sadness and the deep sense of loss. I felt as though someone else in our family had died.
I grew up in New England in a large Italian family. I was raised as an Italian Catholic spending my summers in Rhode Island and my winters in Vermont. I literally grew up either in a sail boat or on skis and surrounded by a large number of relatives. My early summers were spent in Saunderstown, Rhode Island in a large 11 bedroom house on Narragansett Bay with a huge, lush, beautifully green, flowing lawn that ended where the bay began. Weekends were joyous occasions with multiple boats in the water and an endless stream of food orchestrated by my Grandmother with help from all of the aunts.
This was also a time filled with many happy occasions. We had weddings, births, graduations of one kind or another. The weddings would last two or three days and have hundreds of people there to celebrate with us. Unfortunately we also had many tragic and difficult events to deal with, deaths, divorce and feuds within the family. The ironic part of all of this was that there was so little difference between the good times and the bad. The whole family would be there to share the joy or the sorrow. We always congregated in the same places and there was amazing food no matter the occasion. Through it all my Grandmother was always the Matriarch, the queen. Even to those in power in Rhode Island.
The death of John F. Kennedy, Junior is what has had me thinking of all this the past week. Much of the talk in the media has been about retreating back to the family compound and about the Kennedy’s closeness as a family. I can relate to this in because of how I was raised and because of all the joy and tragedy we have shared as a family. I can also relate to this because much of my family has always believed very strongly in what the Kennedy family has stood for and for what they have done for this country. It is because the Kennedy family has always attempted to do so much for our country that they have been unable to live their lives without cameras following their every move. Each tragedy has been magnified, intensified by the media and each celebration violated.
It is through this endless coverage of the Kennedy’s, however, that we have been allowed to feel as though we know them so well. It is because of this coverage that most of the country has felt each loss with the Kennedy’s and especially, it seems, the losses of John F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, Jr. It has been said that people remember exactly where they were when they first heard the news that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. People felt not just as if they had lost a President; but that they had lost a friend, and the dreams of a nation. I will never forget where I was when I first heard the news about John F. Kennedy, Junior. For me, John F. Kennedy, Jr. had become my hope that we, as a nation, would again embrace a Kennedy as our President and that we would be led by a man of incredible intelligence, charisma, dignity and class, but also the power necessary to be a great President.
The death of John F. Kennedy, Junior is for me, as I am sure it is for many Americans, like the loss of a friend or a family member and it is like losing your dreams. John F. Kennedy would have been a great President in the end if he had been allowed to serve as long as he should have. John F. Kennedy, Junior would have been President someday and he would have been a great President. He would have been the type of President to make us all very proud of our country and our President again because he was the type of man that made us proud to be Americans.
Good-bye John. Be happy where you are now, with the two women that love you most.
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