The Blue Moon Grille

KUGGING

2012-01-26T09:16:00.000-08:00

I created a portmanteau yesterday. I'm sure people have already created it, but I'm taking credit. If you've forgotten, a "portmanteau" is a combination of words both in sound and meaning as in "smog," which was created by combining the words "smoke" and "fog" to create something new. Yesterday I walked into the kitchen and kissed and hugged Linda at the same time. In my mind was born the portmanteau "kug," to kiss and hug together. I think it has great possibilities, and, in these busy times, it decreases our writing and speaking load. "Kiss and hug" requires 10 letters and two spaces. "Kug" only 3 letters. Possible uses? How about, "I hadn't seen her in years, and when I saw her across the room I immediately wanted to kug her." Or "I remember the night we got engaged, we were kugging constantly." Or "It's so embarrassing when my old Aunt Lavinia comes to visit and immediately wants to kug me." And instead of writing those silly x's and o's at the bottom of birthday cards, you can just write a couple of kugs. It'll probably take some time to get this term into general usage, but I know with your help, we can do it!! 1/26/12

SHAME AND THE ART OF NON-SMOKING

2012-01-19T14:49:00.000-08:00

Almost 25 years ago today, I quit smoking cigarettes. I had smoked for about 20 years, sucking up a pack to a pack and a half a day. I wanted terribly to quit and vowed to before I turned 40. I made it with 6 months to spare. I wanted to quit because smoking cost so much, because it was bad for my health, because it made me stink, because it upset my parents, and because it wasn’t good for Linda or Jan. Those were all great motivators. But I have realized that the main reason I finally quit was that I was ASHAMED OF MYSELF. I was ashamed because I had spent 20 years addicted, a prisoner of tobacco. I was handcuffed to it. It went everywhere I went. It sometimes woke me up in the middle of the night and dragged me from bed. It wouldn’t let me watch a movie in peace or drink a cup of coffee without horning in. It made me stand outside with other folks also addicted, flipping our ashes onto butt-stained sidewalks, even if it was cold or raining or if the wind was at gale strength. And I knew that my friends who were not so addicted were both surprised at and sorry for my behavior. Damn, I was so ashamed for being prisoner of a habit that not only hurt me but hurt others, too.

So I stopped cold turkey. With prayer and determination and chewing on Nicorette gum, I survived the first tough 10 days. Then I tossed the Nicorette, which tasted disgusting and I was on my own. I have heard people say that quitting cigarettes is as difficult as quitting heroin. I don’t know if that is true, but it is really frickin’ hard. Though the physical need soon passes, the emotional addiction hangs on for years. For 4 or 5 years after I quit, I wished that they would discover that tobacco was good for you and that they would lower the cost of cigarettes to $.10 a pack so I could go back to my still missed addiction. For at least 15 years, and occasionally still, I smoked cigarettes in my dreams and was disgusted in those dream by my behavior. I find that to be really scary. I forgot to mention some little things, like the fact that for a year or so after I quit, I kept getting little sores inside my cheeks and on my gums. Our dentist explained it as having to do with bacteria that was in my system from the smoking. The bacteria wanted out, so it exited in lots of little canker-like sores. Eventually, I escaped the overtly emotional need I had to smoke, and began to hate cigarettes with the proverbial passion. I hate the smell, the look of them, and what they do to people.

There are a couple of other specific reasons I hate smoking. My Aunt Barbara and my Uncle Jerry, both smokers, died of lung cancer in their sixties. Barbara was my first friend. Jerry introduced me to theatre.

There is no place in my world for smoke. About 5 years ago, a virus attacked my heart, damaging it, and making it unable to pump the optimal amount of blood that it should, all the thousands of times it beats every day. When I first discovered I was sick, my heart was only moving about 28% of the blood in my heart per pump when it should be moving 55 to 60% per. Thank the Lord, great doctors, friends and family, it now pumps in the high 40 percents. Smoking didn’t do this to my heart. It was just the way of things. As a result though, I can’t visit nursing homes or hospitals regularly for fear of infection and such. Also, secondhand smoke is my enemy. I am supposed to avoid it absolutely, so I don’t want anyone to have a smoking lounge or smoking area anywhere in any public building that I might enter. And I am glad that smokers are forced to stand in little groups outside of buildings, pariah-like, away from non-smokers. And I hope you are ashamed. Don’t get me wrong. I am not ashamed of you. How could I be? I used to be there standing with you. I know how hard it is to give up that bastard tobacco. I’m not ashamed of you at all. I love you guys. . . even if I don’t know you! But I want you to be ashamed of yourselves, like I was, so that you can quit, too.

Well, people are saying, I wonder what got into Ellstrom’s craw to send him off on a diatribe. I’ll tell you. A couple of days ago, I got involved in a FB discussion about the new anti-smoking ads, which I don’t like because they are too graphic. I remember that when I was confronted by ads like that when I was smoking, that I had a little avoidance filter in my brain that immediately shut them out. I think gross ads are only scary for non-smokers and kids. I said that on FB and also mentioned that I was glad that people are forced to smoke in those “tawdry” outdoor groups. The earlier part of this blog explained why I feel that way. Well, I was immediately called out on FB about smoker’s rights. I don’t think there is a right to smoke just like there isn’t a right to take a little dose of arsenic everyday until it builds up and kills you. But I didn’t mind that. What bothered me was that a certain fellow who I have never met said, “Shaming people into anything is reprehensible.” I guess his mom never said, “Shame on you! Don’t you smear your finger paint all over your sister again.” When I took issue, he accused me of being “smug and self-satisfied,” suggesting that because I didn’t smoke, that I was feeling superior to others. So far from the truth. I look back on my quitting as a victory, but I far more often think about the foolish years I spent sucking cigarettes out in one of those “tawdry” little circles. So thanks, fella. Your comments got me to think about “Shame and the Art of Non- Smoking,” and to share my thoughts with some other people. Now, I hope some other people read it, because, as I said a week or so ago, to blog without having readers is like talking to oneself.

TEBOW IS NOT T.O.

2012-01-09T09:06:00.000-08:00

Apparently After This Touchdown, Tim Decided to Go For Two!

(Sorry. I couldn't resist!)

I continue to be surprised at the number of perfectly sane and logical people, who are so upset with Tim Tebow's success. Perhaps its simply the American love for debunking. When our "heroes" behave too well, we want to knock them on their butts. As to Tebow's kneeling and acknowledging God, at least he's offering praise for a touchdown, 6 points. I remember when I was in high school that half the basketball playing male catholics in the Monroe County League used to cross themselves frantically prior to ever foul shot they took. Tebow takes heat for his touchdown kneel and heavenly pointing, yet nobody criticized those guys for asking for divine intervention on a 1 and 1.

I am reminded of the shack-like shed that protruded into the middle of Butler's backyard, the site of our neighborhood football field when I was a kid. Not unlike a referee, the shed was inbounds. Ergo, if a pass bounced off of it, it was still a live ball. This created receptions and interceptions by carom. The shed was even better used as a screen. If you could make it around left end before your pursuers, then you could dash as close to the shed as possible, hoping to use it an extra blocker, which was important when there were only 4 kids on each team. I'd like to think that at least once after a touchdown run, that I turned back and pointed to the shed, acknowledging its role in my success. But then that could raise discussion about the current bestseller titled "The Shack," and we'd be right back into a discussion of divine intervention again.

Stephen King's "Mile 81"--Spoiler Warning

2011-12-21T08:05:00.000-08:00

I have a NOOK. I really like it, and use it a lot. The other day when I was NOOK book shopping for myself, I came upon the e-Book, "Mile 81" by Mr. King. It only cost $2.99, so I bought it, downloaded it, and soon discovered that it really should have been called an e-Short Story. It's only 36 or 37 pages long with really big print. The book claims to be 52 pages long, but that includes a half dozen introductory pages, and a 7 or 8 page preview of his newest novel at the end.

SPOILER WARNING: If you think you might read "Mile 81," then read no farther. I'm about to give the plot away. O.K. The title of this work refers to an abandoned rest stop near the Mile 81 milepost on I-95 in Maine. A 10 year old boy named Pete, left alone to play by his older brother, decides to go explore it, because he has heard it is a place the big kids hang out and do things. He bikes off on this adventure carrying among other things some Oreos and a heavy duty magnifying glass, with which he enjoys setting things on fire. On his way to the rest stop, Pete finds half a bottle of vodka. Gaining access to the interior of the place, he finds drug paraphernalia, dirty mattresses used for you know what, and a poster of Justin Beiber that has been serving as a dartboard. Sadly, the boy is unimpressed by this stuff. Actually, I was unimpressed, too. So, he takes three hits on the vodka bottle, becomes drunk and falls asleep. I probably should have done the same thing.

Outside, a non-descript, filthy muddy station wagon, windows so foul you can't see inside, crashes through the orange cones blocking the entrance and stops in front of the rest stop. Suffice it to say that it is a person-eating car. It eats in a very short time, a good samaritan, a religious fanatic, a grossly overweight lesbian, a suburban mom and dad, and a cop. Left alive are the mom and dad's kids, a three year-old boy named Blakie and a six year-old girl named Rachel, who are relatively traumatized. Actually they're in pretty darn good shape for the bloodshed they've just witnessed. Inside the rest stop, our hungover, ten year-old hero wakes up and hears a strange noise. He comes out, witnesses a bit of the cop being eaten, and immediately surmises that this car thing is from outer space. You gotta hand it to him. He also knows how to get rid of it. He burns its rear end with his super magnifier, and whoosh, the car monster flies off, cursing in alienese, to outer space. Is Pete thrilled that he has saved many earthlings from being eaten up? A little. But he's more worried that his parents will smell the vodka on his breath, so in the story's concluding moment he bends down to little Rachel, who should be curled up in the fetal position in deep shock because she had witnessed her parents getting devoured, and breathes in her face and asks if she smells anything. Somehow wise beyond her years, she "actually smiled," and told him, "You'll be okay. . .maybe get some mints or something before you go home." "I was thinking Teaberry Gum," Pete said. "Yeah," Rachel said. "That'll work." These are the final words of the story. Talk about one cold little tyke.

Having just reread my plot summary, I think that maybe my retelling makes it sound better than it is. No, it doesn't. It's bad. It's kind of dumb, and like so much recent Stephen King, it's derivative. Let's count the previous King elements: 1. brave little boy on an expedition ("The Body aka "Stand by Me), kids burning things up (FIRESTARTER), killer car (Christine), alien thing (THE TOMMYKNOCKERS), cute little kids in jeopardy (THE SHINING and many more) plus a liberal dose of pop culture like Justin Beiber and Teaberry Gum. I tried to find reason behind the story, which read like one of the spooky spoofs that King created in his pre-Graphic novel "Creep Show." I tried to figure out a thematic plan for the people devoured by the car and could find none, and I was sorely disappointed because. . .

. . .a few years back Stephen King was my #1 modern writing hero. I loved the stories he told, the depth of his description, his great true-to-the ear dialogue, and the sense of place he gave to his part of the world, Maine 'SALEM'S LOT is my all time favorite horror novel. I think that at the least THE SHINING and "The Body" from DIFFERENT SEASONS transcend the horror genre into the realm of "serious literature," whatever that may be.

Despite my sadness, I await Christmas morning with great excitement because I hope to receive King's new novel, "11/22/63," which tells the story of a man from our time, who travels back to 1963 to prevent the assassination of JFK. I've heard good things about it. Let me repeat that I can't wait for this book, and I have dropped enough hints to dent the floor, so I'm pretty sure it will be lurking under the tree. I want very much to love it, to be whisked back to the days when everything that Stephen King, or Richard Bachman for that matter, wrote pleased me thoroughly in that can't-put-this-book-down way that great reads can provide. Last year, I got his novella collection FULL DARK, NO STARS and ended up skimming most of it, it was so cheerless, dark, and uninterestingly ironic.

I always give Stephen King another chance. . .and always will, I think. I look forward to Christmas morning and my new King novel, unless, of course, Santa gets eaten by that crazy flying alien station wagon. Now, that sounds like a good idea for a story.

"Zombies 'R' Us"

2011-11-12T17:06:00.000-08:00

Zombies ‘R’ Us

This is the first five chapters of a young adult novel that I am getting close to finishing. Anyone who might read and comment would be appreciated.

by Greg Ellstrom

One

I woke up that morning at least ten minutes late. God, I hate morning. My friggin’ alarm hadn’t gone off, and my mom had only called me once before she left for work. So I tumbled out of bed, happy that I had gone to sleep with my jeans and sneakers still on and only had to put on a fresh t-shirt.

In the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror. God, I looked like a friggin’ zombie. It was my own fault for stayin’ up to two in the friggin’ morning playing Resident Evil on my XBox.

My phone beeped in my pocket. I pulled it out and clicked it on. It was a text message from my best friend Walt. It said: “u suk!” I laughed and texted back “u 2 u mudda.” That would get him laughing. Then I brushed my teeth so I wouldn’t have halitosis and attempted to comb my hair. That, of course, was a friggin’ joke. My hair was a pile of brown, out of control curls. What the heck! My girlfriend Marty liked it that way.

Let me tell you about Marty. Seeing her is the one good thing about getting up. She is so hot! She has long reddish-blond hair and dark eyes and a wide smile that melts me every time I see her. Her body was made for lowride jeans and halter tops, even though she hardly ever wore those kinds of clothes. Because, you see, my Marty, full name Martha Wright, is a lady, and always dresses like one, and talks like one, and acts like one. She doesn’t like me to say friggin’, even.

My phone, beeped and I grabbed it off the top of the toilet. It was a text from Marty which said, “i luv u.” “me 2 u,” I texted back. How did I. . . how did Jake O’Toole get so lucky to have such a girlfriend? I checked myself out in the mirror again and shook my head. I don’t know how ‘cause I looked like a friggin’ zombie.

My mom had left 5 bucks, a bagel, and a note on the kitchen counter for me. The note said: “I had to leave early this morning, honey. Big sales meeting to get ready for. I hope you woke up in time to make it to school. Love, Mom.” I read the note, scarfed down the bagel, jammed the five into my pocket, and headed out the door.

I walk to school. It’s only like a quarter of a mile, and as my sneakers beat their way down the sidewalk, I thought about my mom. She’s friggin’ fantastic. She works like 50 hours a week selling insurance to people who probably don’t want it, but she never complains. Not much anyway. And she takes great care of me and hardly ever treats me like a kid. My dad left about 5 years ago when I was only 12. Did you ever hear of a “Dear John” letter? They were like from World War II or something. When a soldier got a letter from his wife or girlfriend saying that she was leaving him, it was called a “Dear John.” Well, my dad was in the Army Reserves, and he fell in love with his friggin’ sergeant. Can you believe that? At least the sergeant was a woman. Anyway, my mom got a Dear John phone call from Dad when he was at summer reserve training. He married his sergeant, too. He’s deployed now, and I worry a lot about him, but he really pisses me off.

I strode into the high school lobby and all my friends were leaning against the wall waiting for me. Walt Carlson, whose been my best buddy since like second grade,

was holding hands with his girlfriend Carly Thomas. Walt’s about 6’1” which is like 3 inches taller than me, but I outweigh him. Walt’s really skinny and dresses like a skater. Baggy pants, baggy hoodies, and a chain from his belt to his wallet. I don’t dress like that. I just dress kind of. . .normal. T-shirts and jeans, like I said before.

Carly is really cute. She’s tiny, like 4’11” or something, which makes her look really weird standing next to stretched out Walt. She has dark hair, which she wears short and cut kind of raggedy. She usually wears really dark red lipstick. I think she’d like to wear black lipstick and be a goth, but being a goth is nowhere in the little hick town where we live.

“Hey, man,” I said.

“Hey,” Walt said, and we pounded fists.

“Hi Carly,” I said, and she smiled. She has a really sweet smile. Then I turned to Marty.

She looked amazing. She looked like she was a private school girl or something, wearing a short plaid skirt with a white blouse, and a short blue jacket kind of thing. The only thing that blew off the private school picture was her feet. No knee socks and saddle shoes for my girl. She had on flip-flops covered with rhinestones and her toenails were painted day-glo pink. Like I said before, Marty is a lady. And smokin’!!

“Hi, Marty,” I said and kissed her gently on the lips.

“Hi, Jacob,” she smiled back and looked into my bloodshot eyes. “How late were you up last night?”

“Two.”

“Playing videogames?”

“Yeh.”

“You’re crazy,” she said, but in a real nice way, and she smiled.

“I’m friggin’ addicted.”

“Don’t say friggin’,” she scolded me, again with a smile.

“Oh, right. I forgot about the friggin’ ban.”

Her eyes widened. God, her eyes were gorgeous.

“That’s the ban on saying ‘friggin’,’ I mean.”

“Hi, Jake,” Kaitlyn said. She had pushed her backpack up against the lobby wall and was sitting on it. Kaitlyn is Marty’s little sister. She’s just a freshman, and the rest of us are juniors, but we let her hang out with us anyway. She’s pretty, too, with reddish blonde hair like Marty’s and a nice body for a 14 year old. But her eyes are always kind of frightened and kind of sad. For some reason Kaitlyn is a little troubled by the world. That’s another reason we let her hang out with us.

“Hi, Kait,” I smiled down at her. “Happy Tuesday.” Then I turned and looked at the rest of the mob pouring into the lobby of Carriageville High School. “We better hit our lockers,” I said and took Marty’s hand. Together the five of us moved through the crowd. In school there’s safety in numbers. It was us against the world.

Two

Marty and I have 3rd period study hall, so we go to the library/media center to study, because you can’t get any studying done in study hall. Also, in the library we can sit across from each other, and Marty can stretch out her long legs and rest her feet on my lap. Enough said about that!

I do all my studying in school. I avoid doing schoolwork at home at all cost. Right now I’m third in my class of 127 students. Not bad for a non-studier. I’m lucky. I have a sticky brain. Most everything we learn in class sticks there waiting to be unstuck when test time comes.

I was doing my chemistry, which was really simple because it was only the third week of school, and chemistry made me think about what I had mentioned before. Not Marty’s feet on my lap. That’s body chemistry for sure, but rather about how I felt like my friends and I were 5 against the world.

The chemistry of our school is pretty simple. Although it’s a little school in a hick town, you need to be part of a group, a human chemical compound. Your friends are like the elements or the atoms or whatever. You work together with your friends to keep the reactions under control. If you don’t have friends to help you keep things under control, life in a high school can really suck.

As I was thinking about that stuff, Bob Krauss came in the door. Friggin’ great! If I continued to think chemically, then Bob was a big fat electron who bounces all around, bumping into the reactions that are going on in school and messing them up. I mean he’s the epitome of bully. Pretty good word, huh? I read somewhere that the worst high school bullies weren’t jocks anymore, but on-line cyber-bullies. Well Bob’s a throwback then. He’s one big, mean S.O.B., who thinks he’s my friend because we’re both on the wrestling team. He isn’t my friend. I quickly looked down at my chem notes, but I knew he’d seen us. He lumbered over to our table.

“Hey, Jake,” he said, towering over us. Bob is like 6’2” and weighs over 275 pounds. I know his weight for sure, because he wrestles the 275 lb. weight class on our team, and he’s always suckin’ weight before matches. He was talking to me, but looking at Marty’s chest. Marty didn’t even raise her eyes as he towered above us.

“Hey, Flop,” I said. “Flop” was the nickname which Bob allowed people to use. Behind his back, people called him Blob and Slob. Very quietly.

“I forgot my lunch money. Can I borrow 2 bucks?”

“Nope,” I said.

“How come?

“Because you never friggin’ pay me back.”

Marty glared at me.

“Come on. I gotta eat lunch.”

“Forget it, Flop.”

“How about you, Marty?” Flop leered. “Will you loan me two bucks?”

“No, Bob,” Marty said without looking up.

“Yer little sister’s hot.” He continued to leer.

Marty slowly raised her eyes. They were deep, deep brown and intense. “Stay away from Kaitlyn, Flop,” she said, her teeth set tightly.

Flop giggled, a moronic sort of bear-giggle, and wandered off. Marty continued to follow him with her intense eyes. “Drop dead, Flop,” she whispered and went back to studying.

I just watched her for a couple minutes. God, I loved her. She was so friggin’ cool!

Three

Lunch! I love lunch, and my mom knows it, which was why she left me 5 bucks every morning. That day I had two slices of pepperoni pizza, a large pile of french fries, an ice cream sandwich, and three milks. At school cafeteria prices, my total came in well under my 5 dollar maximum.

I was sitting with Marty in 6th period lunch. She had brought her own sandwich, but bought a plate of french fries for herself. I mean I love her, but I wasn’t going to share my fries.

“What kind of sandwich?” I asked.

“Lettuce,” she nodded, demurely chewing the first bite.

“A lettuce sandwich and mega-french fries?”

“Kind of schizophrenic, huh?” she smiled and dipped a fry into a cup of ketchup.

Like I said before, Marty has a great body, but she’s not one of these twig-sized, anorexic, bones-poking-out-of-her-cheeks, high fashion model kind of girls. Marty has just the right amount of flesh on her. Like me, she likes to eat.

She looked at my food-covered tray and shook her head. “You eat so much!”

“And don’t gain a pound. I’m one lucky dude. Great metabolism.”

“Don’t say dude,” she smiled.

“I’ll put it on the list with ‘friggin’,” I said then noticed that Marty wasn’t looking at me. She was looking across the cafeteria. My eyes turned to follow hers. At the end of the row of tables, a new kid was standing. When you go to a school with only about 500 kids, you can pick a new kid out right away. The new kid was looking around in a kind of shy way, and you could tell he didn’t know where he should sit.

“It’s so sad. . .being new and not having any friends,” she said.

“He looks like he’s Mexican,” I offered, watching the kid try to figure out where he’d be welcome.

“Latino,” Marty replied, still watching the new guy. “I think that’s what Mexican-American people like to be called. We should ask him to sit with. . .,” Marty started. “Oh.” Then the kid moved from his spot where he’d been looking like the deer in the headlights and headed to an empty table across the room. Marty watched him all the way. “I saw him talking to Kaitlyn after second this morning,” she said.

“Really?” I raised my eyes from my feast.

“Kaitlyn was smiling.”

“Hey,” I said. “That’s unusual.”

“I know,” Marty answered and bit her lip.

Marty and I talk about everything. I mean almost everything. Real personal stuff, but for some reason I’d never felt right about asking about Kaitlyn and how come her little sis was so scared and so down a lot of the time. I decided that was the time to ask.

“How come Kait’s that way?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Kind of sad all the time. Kind of afraid of stuff. Hardly ever smiling.”

“She smiles at you,” Marty said. “She really likes you. She says she trusts your eyes?”

“That’s good to know.”

“Watch out for her. O.K., Jake?” Marty said, a french fry poised before her lips.

“Always,” I said.

We stuffed ourselves for another minute or so, until I said, “So, how come Kait is the way she is?”

Marty looked toward the ceiling, her eyes getting a little misty. Woops, I thought. “Not now,” she said and her voice sounded a little squeaky. “I’ll tell you some time.”

Four

Even thought it isn’t wrestling season, Walt and I work out after school 2 or 3 days a week. At least Tuesday and Thursday, anyway. If we don’t show ourselves in the gym or the weight room once in awhile out of season, Bozo goes nuts and makes our lives miserable.

‘ Bozo is our wrestling coach, and his real name is Laverne Bonzo if you can believe that. He’s old, like in his middle 50’s and he’s a retro P.E. teacher, and not retro in a good way. Bozo is the kind of P.E. teacher who’s in all those old movies. The kind of guy with the buzz cut and the gym pants with stripes on the sides and the special coaching shoes. And he’s psychotic about calisthenics, won’t let us refer to gym as physical education, and refuses to let any of his classes do the cool stuff the young P.E. teachers do like swing dancing and cross country skiing.

What really pisses Bozo off is that all gym classes are co-ed. He’d like it the old way so he could just beat on guys. So if you’re in Bozo’s class, you know the guys are going to be doing guy stuff on one side of the gym and the girls are going to be hittiing around a badminton birdie on the other side of the gym.

Bozo’s something of a perv, too. He loves to hand the girls the badminton birdie and say, “here’s the shuttlecock, ladies.” He just loves saying the cock part to them. Bozo doesn’t laugh very often, and never at jokes that kids make, except one day in gym class, Flop said to him, “Hey, coach, let’s play basketball. We’ll play shirts and skins, and the girls will be skins.” Bozo roared with laughter at that.

So why do I wrestle for a coach whose a perverted, throwback loser? For one thing, I’m good at it. And though practice is really friggin’ hard, the matches are friggin’ hard but fun. But mostly it’s because of what I said before. You really need something to define yourself in our school. Something to be part of. Something to make you a little different from the rest of the zombies walking around. So Walt and I are wrestlers.

That afternoon, Walt and I said good-bye to the girls, then went out and jogged a couple of miles on the track. Then we came into the weight room and worked free weights for half an hour. Finally, we went into the gym, threw a mat down onto the floor, and practiced takedowns and escapes and reversals and stuff. Walt wrestles 160, and I wrestle 171., so were pretty well-matched. I’m more compact and maybe a little stronger, but Walt’s got me on lankiness and agility. We knew if Bozo happened to peek in, he’d be thrilled as heck to see us wrestling, and it’s always good to be on Bozo’s good side.

But instead of Bozo peeking in, I looked up from the mat to see the new kid watching us from the door. Walt had me in some kind of scissors hold which would probably be illegal in a match, and I said, “O.K. Let me up”

“I’m too much for ya, huh?” Walt grunted happily and farted just to be obnoxious.

“Geez, let me out,” I moaned, and he relaxed, and I rolled away. “You smell like a friggin’ sewer, Carlson.”

“Yeh, I know,” Walt grinned.

I got to my feet, wiped the sweat from my brow, and walked toward the kid at the door. “Hey,” I said. “How ya doin’?”

“Hey,” the kid said back and nodded. He was a good-sized guy. Probably about 6 foot and 190 pounds. He had a dark complexion, really black hair that fell over his eyebrows, and eyes that were even darker than Marty’s. He looked like he was a Latino, if that’s the right word, just like Marty had said.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my sweatpants and offered him my hand. “I’m Jake,” I said.

He thought about that for a second, then half-smiled, and offered his hand back to me. “Carl. . .I’m Carl,” he sort of stuttered.

I pointed to Walt who was still sitting on the mat, waving his arms at us, trying to fan his obnoxious fart fumes in our direction. “That disgusting pig is named Walt.”

“Hey,” Walt said.

“Hey,” Carl replied.

“You wrestle?” I asked.

He thought about that for another second. “No. I box a little.”

“Cool,” Walt offered.

“You’re new here.” I didn’t ask. It was a statement.

“New today.”

“Sucks being new?”

“It’s a bitch.”

“How come you wandered into the gym?” Walt wondered, still at his spot on the mat.

“I had to stay after to do some stuff in the counseling center,” Carl explained, “and when I got done I had missed the 3:00 bus, so I had to hang around until the 4:00 bus.”

Walt laughed. “There isn’t a 4:00 bus.”

“What? Some kid in the lobby told me there was a late bus at 4:00.”

“Some kid in the lobby was playin’ with you?” I explained. “The late bus doesn’t come until 5:30.”

“Crap,” Carl grimaced and looked at his watch. “I gotta wait an hour and 40 minutes.”

“Where do you live, Carl?” Walt asked.

“I live out off of Fly Road.”

Walt did a kip to his feet. “We’ll give you a ride home,” he smiled.

And that was the way we met the new kid.

Fivew

“So,” Carl explained, “my dad is Haitian and my mom is Mexican-American. She was born in Texas, and that’s where I live most of the year. Mom’s a bookkeeper in Brownsville. She stays home, but my dad has always been a seasonal farm worker, and he loves to come up North every summer to work, and I come with him, because I can make some money, and it’s too damn hot in Texas. We always go back home right around Labor Day, but my dad got hurt the last week of August.” The three of us were tooling down Fly Road. Walt was driving his black and rust ‘95 Grand Am. I was riding shotgun, and Carl was in the back seat. He was explaining why he was enrolling at Carriageville High, almost 3 weeks after school had started.

“What happened to your dad?” I asked.

“He got tossed off a tractor and broke his pelvis.”

“Ouch,” Walt said.

“He’s all screwed up, and there’s no way he can drive 2,000 miles home in our pickup. So Mr. Siracci, who owns the farm we work on, is letting us stay in one of his trailers until dad is well enough to drive back to Texas.. Mr. Siracci is a good guy, and he feels bad about dad getting hurt.”

“So you’re not like an illegal alien or something?” Walt asked.

“No,” Carl laughed. “I’m legal man. I was born in the U.S.”

“God, Carlson, you are a moron,” I said, and Carl laughed some more in the back seat.

“I wouldn’t have started school at all,” he went on, “but my mom has been bitching at me over the phone for the last two weeks. My aunt, too. Gotta get your education. Gotta get your education.”

I turned around and looked at the new kid. “How long before you’ll head back to Texas do you think?”

Carl shrugged. “Maybe a month.”

“You can hang with us until then,” I said.

Carl smiled and nodded. “Thanks, you guys.”

“You met Kait today.”

Carl looked puzzled.

“Kaitlyn Wright,” I went on. “About 5’ 4”. Big brown eyes. Reddish blond hair.”

“Oh, yeh.” Carl grinned. “Kaitlyn. She’s sweet.”

I liked the fact that he called Kait sweet, not hot or smokin’ or sexy or something. “She’s my girlfriend Marty’s little sister. Marty saw you guys talking together.”

Poor Carl looked puzzled again.

“I’d seen you before just now in the gym,” I explained. “Marty and I saw you at lunch today.”

“God, I was really lookin’ like the new kid then.”

“You were a babe in the woods,” I laughed.

“Turn at the next right,” Carl said and pointed at the windshield.

Walt slowed, turned right, and we headed down a bumpy dirt road. Not too far down it, we came upon an old double wide trailer, sitting up on cinderblocks.

“Home sweet home,” Carl said, and Walt pulled up in front.

Walt’s Grand Am is a 2 door so I popped my door and leaned forward so Carl could get out. Walt was leaning out his window and looking the other way. As Carl climbed out, Walt turned and said, “what’s that water down there?”

I turned and looked and saw that at the bottom of a path that wound down a hill covered with scrub brush was what looked like a big pond.

“That’s the quarry,” Carl said from outside the car. “Haven’t you guys ever been down to the quarry.”

“The quarry,” I said, “I heard about it, but never knew exactly where it was.”

“In Carriageville, going to the quarry is like getting into a car with a stranger ,” Walt explained. “From the time you can understand what your mom’s talkin’ about, you’re told to not to go near it, ‘cause you’ll drown.”

“Plus it’s not like we hang out in cow pastures 5 miles from the village,” I added.

“It’s a cool place,” Carl shrugged. “Wanna see it?”

“Damn straight I do,” Walt said and climbed out of the car, and I followed. Then we both followed Carl down the hillside. It wasn’t very far to the quarry. Maybe 200 yards, and when we got there, what we saw was pretty awesome. The old quarry was about a quarter mile across and surrounded by rocky outcroppings. The water was almost black and looked cold and really deep. But the most awesome thing we saw was the absolutely naked lady standing on one of the rocky points. She was tall and built, with long-black hair, and like I said, as naked as a friggin’ newborn. Then she dove into the water. She hardly made any splash going in.

“Holy crap,” Walt said.

“That’s my Tante,” Carl smiled.

“What?”

“Mi tia . . .I mean my aunt. . .my Tante Marie.”

“She’s amazing,” Walt said softly.

The three of us kept staring at the quarry. In a couple seconds, Carl’s aunt’s head broke the surface. She glared, and the three of us spun around and hurried up the hill.

“She’s a bruja,” Carl went on as we headed toward the trailer.

“What?” I asked.

“She’s a bruja. . .a witch!”

The Acceptable Meal Planner

2011-08-26T13:09:00.000-07:00

For breakfast each day I eat one container of low-fat yogurt, one whole grain bagel with peanut butter, and a container of coffee, iced or warm, depending on the weather. This is basically an "it's good for ya" breakfast. I'm not big on yogurt; it's only O.K., but it's "good for ya." Whole grain bagels are "good for ya" but taste a lot like roof shingles no matter what is spread on them. Coffee's not particularly "good for ya," but I love it. So, flavor and food value considered, this is an acceptable breakfast for me.

Now that I am back to blogging, I decided it would be an interesting blog topic to figure a formula of sorts with which to judge an "acceptable" meal. My two criteria for an acceptable meal are decency of taste and decency of nutritional/health value. I feel that a scale of 1 to 10 is acceptably accurate with 10 being the best in either taste or nutrition. So if I give yogurt a 5 on flavor and a 8 on nutrition, by multiplying those numbers, I rate a cup of ACTIVIA or whatever brand I might choose, with a 40. A peanut-buttered whole grain bagel receives a 4 and 8, creating a 32 rating. The coffee receives a 9 on flavor and a 2 for food value, creating an 18 rating. I must state that these rating are totally subjective and must be decided upon by the person rating his or her meal. So an acceptable meal of three items for me can be rated at 40+32+18 which equals 90.

I decided to test my lunch today with this formula. Often I have "Cheerios" for lunch, but today was special. I had an amazing meal. I had one slice cold pizza, one 8 oz. glass of skim milk, and one beautiful peach. Working backward, I judge the peach at 9 and 8 totaling 72, the milk gets a 9 and a 6 because of the sodium in milk. for 54, and the pizza gets 9 and a 2, for an 18. My lunch total was 144. A score of 144 marks a meal for me as way more than acceptable flavor wise and acceptable nutritionally.

ERGO, a meal scoring in the 80-100 area will be acceptable but uninspiring for me, and a meal in the 150 to 170 range is outstanding and still acceptably healthy. Subjectivity remains the key to this formula. Let me outline an absolutely horrible meal for me. It would have to begin with broccoli. Broccoli, so I am told, is wonderful for one. If it's so damn wonderful then I will grant it the only nutritional "10" in all of my food rating, but I'll also give it the only "1" for flavor. I hate what it tastes like, and I hate its texture, and no matter what you do with it still tastes like its got dirt on it. That's a "10" for broccoli. For the main course, I choose that flavorless free range chicken the health gurus rave about it. It gets a 3 for taste and and 8 for nutrition, totaling 24. For a beverage, I will have a glass of white wine. I know wine has its health benefits, so it gets 5 for nutrition and 3 for flavor, totaling 15. So a perfectly disgusting but extremely healthy meal for me totals "49." Strangely, if I had the delightful lunch of pizza, Buffalo wings, and draft beer, I would award the pizza with 18, the wings with the same 9 and 2, and the draft beer with an 8 and 3 for 24. The total of this delightful meal is "60," very close to my disgusting meal total. For another person the rating could be completely different. I've heard many people claim to love broccoli and white wine. I don't know how anyone could love that tough, stick-in-your-throat bird, but I can imagine a person of a different palate rating my disgusto meal with 200 points or more.

Try this test on your own meals being completely subjective to your taste buds. The lesson to be learned is old and wise: "Moderation in all things." You have to balance the flavor with the food value. I often wonder though, why God didn't make things that are good for you taste better.

Teacher Dreams

2011-08-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I read on my FB wall a comment by a current teacher about the imminent arrival of the "teacher dream." These dreams often recur in the waning days of August but can come at any time of the years. Those who have experienced the famous college dream, in which the dreamer is taking a final test for a class which they never attended, can appreciate the terror of "teacher dream." The college dream can be hair raising, and it's one of those dreams that even though you are aware it is a dream, you just can't make yourself wake up from it. Now the college dream is burned into our subconscious by 4 years of study. Just imagine, then, non-teachers, how deeply a dream can burrow into that part of your brain where such things are stored, when you have been toiling at it for 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, or even 33 years.

Three of my standard and recurring "teacher dreams" for your consideration:

1. The Where's My Damn Classroom Dream: I am wandering the halls of school trying to find the classroom that I misplaced somewhere. Everywhere I turn is another familiar hall, but for some reason, not the one I am looking for. I pass my fellow teachers in these halls and I swear they are looking meet as if they know that I am not where I am supposed to be. If I ever find the room in my dream, then all hell is breaking loose inside upon my arrival.

2. The Bad Kids Dream: In this dream, I am teaching and not a single kid is paying attention to what I am saying. They aren't kids who I know or have ever taught before. They're a bunch of mystery snots! And no matter how I scream or rant, they barely look at me. I had one of my favorite variations of the Bad (Good) Kid Dream when I was still teaching. In the dream, I arrived late to a class in Room 209 in the high school. It contained 30 wonderful students, who I was crazy about. I walked into the room, and they were huddled around the windows looking out. One of them turned to me and said soberly, "We didn't like the man who came in here to see you. So we threw him out the window." I raced to window, pushing through the throng, and looked down the one story to the sidewalk where the man's battered body rested. The body was surrounded by police and firemen. One of the cops looked up and said, "God, he must have fallen 20 stories!" This statement shocked me awake before I could thank my class for protecting me from the "man" or figure how he could fall 20 stories from a 2 story building.

3. The Extracurricular Dream: Mine, of course, involves the plays and musicals. It's always the same. It's 45 minutes to curtain, and we haven't rehearsed once. In some, I am just then handing out the scripts. I, of course, am beside myself with worry, but in every replay of the dream, my student actors always tell me, "Don't worry, Mr. Ellstrom. It'll be fine. We'll make it up as we go along."

Guess what active teachers! Retiring doesn't retire the teacher dreams. Linda and I still have at least one teacher dream each every month, and it has been nine years since we retired. Teaching is such an all-encompassing, 24/7 kind of profession, with so much emotional investment, that it continues to remind you of what you did for all those years in a sort of comic/ironic way.

I saw a clip on Yahoo of a libertarian TV commentator asking Matt Damon if he thought that teacher's didn't care or worry about their jobs after 3 years because they had been granted tenure. The esteemed Mr. Damon bit her head off and her cameraman's head as well. Tenure making things easier!? Tenure has no effect on degree of difficulty. Some people just don't frickin' get how hard and wonderful the job of teaching is! How teachers lose sleep because they fret when their students do poorly and lose sleep because they are elated when their students do well. And when they do fall asleep, their dreams continue to remind them of the stress of their cherished job.

I wonder if people from libertarian TV stations have commentator dreams! Or cameraman dreams.

My Favorite Fanatic or In Defense of Fanaticism

2011-08-13T08:59:00.000-07:00

Thomas Paine

"damned be his name,

and lasting his shame"

Post debt ceiling crisis, the U.S. continues to ride a financial roller coaster, and I continue to feel that the actions of the tea party legislators and other strict conservatives and their refusals to compromise were wrong. Still, I hope that the methods these fanatics chose will eventually aid in a positive change. Many people won't agree with my labeling of the tea party as a fanatical group. Well, to me a fanatic is someone who closes his ears to everyone and who refuses to compromise. A fanatic, despite a firestorm of criticism, rolls on as he or she sees fit. Actually, when stated that way, there is the suggestion of nobility in fanaticism.

The anti-war and the civil rights movements were certainly aided by the efforts of fanatics. The loose cannons of the 60's and 70's irritated people but forced them to look at problems they would rather have avoided. Their fanatical acts often kept their causes in the headlines and on the nightly news. As a result the thinking of many Americans, young and old, was altered.

The United States exists in great part because of the mind and pen of my favorite fanatic, Thomas Paine. Not only was Paine a founding father but a founding fanatic, as well. Between 1776 and 1807, he wrote four pamphlets, "Common Sense" in 1776, designed to stir Americans to revolution; "The Crisis" in 1777, to raise the spirits of American soldiers; "The Rights of Man" in 1791 and 1792, in support of the French Revolution and against monarchies; and "The Age of Reason" in 1794, and '95, and 1807, a three part attack on the church of the time. Of Paine's "Common Sense," John Adams wrote, "Without the pen of the author of 'Common Sense,' the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain." His words stirred and moved people and nations. It was Paine who said in "The Crisis," "These are the times that try men's souls." Of the importance of the American revolution to the world, he wrote in "Common Sense," "The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth . . . 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now." So powerful were his words, that in the colonies, people wanted to give credit for them to Franklin or Jefferson or Adams. Adams readily admitted that he wasn't capable of writing with such heart and strength.

Paine's words not only inspired, but they also angered virtually everyone in power at the time. Having gone back to England from where he had emigrated, he wrote "The Rights of Man," a pamphlet designed to rail against the criticism of the French Revolution. As a result, he became even more hated by the British monarchy and would have been arrested if he hadn't fled to France. The British tried him in absentia, anyway, and found him guilty. Then, despite his authorship of "The Rights of Man," he was arrested in France for not supporting the execution of Louis the XVI. While in prison, he worked on "The Age of Reason," a pamphlet that he stated was not against God but against the profitability of the church. As a result he was in deep trouble with both the politicians and the clerics. Politics and religion are the two things you don't discuss at dinner, but the fanatic Paine dove into both wherever his voice could be heard.

He might have lost his head to Monsieur l'Guillotine if not for the intervention in 1794 of James Monroe, America's Ambassador to France, but it was not until 1802, that he returned to America on the invitation of Thomas Jefferson. But America, the country he had worked so hard to create, did not welcome him. His great achievements were all but eradicated because of his anti-religious views. He was virtually friendless.

There is a wonderful play called "Tom Paine" written by Paul Foster that I and probably a few hundred other people have seen. I saw it twice, in fact, in the summer of 1970. In his experimental drama, Foster posits other reasons that people chose to hold Paine in distaste. He, like so many great writers, liked his liquor too much. He wasn't very good looking, and personal hygiene wasn't a priority for him. Also, unlike most of the other Founding Fathers, he was not a man of wealth. Paine was a bastard and the son of a bastard corset-maker. When upon returning to the country he had helped birth, he tried to vote and was summarily turned away. He died in 1809 in New York City and few people attended his funeral.

I am now back to my original thought: that perhaps the fanaticism of the tea party movement will eventually help shape a better America. It's kind of ironic to discuss them in the same essay with Thomas Paine, though, because way back in the 1790's, Paine endorsed, among other non-tea party things, a worldwide peace organization and a system of social security.

A caveat for tea party members and others who would change the world through fanaticism: As I mentioned before, Paine was found guilty in absentia for his treasonous behavior in England. When he died the British wanted his bones back. In the final speech in Foster's play, the audience is told, "with iron hammers they broke the stone above his head, and dug up his very bones and they shoveled them into a sack and they threw them aboard a ship bound for London to hang upside down before the jeering mobs. And when they were done, the raw stuff that moved the pen, were thrown into the street. And nobody knows where they are today. So went Tom Paine who shook continents awake."

Some information from USHISTORY.com.

Texas Forever

2011-07-19T15:57:00.001-07:00

On the website TV WITHOUT PITY, a columnist said, "How do you summarize perfection?" in reference to the NBC series FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. People who made it a requirement to be seated at the 5o yard line every Friday to follow the amazing people of Dylan, Texas, who came to life in the five seasons of FNL, must agree. I wouldn't begin to attempt a summary of the stories of the Dylan Panthers, who begot the East Dylan Lions, of the lives of Coach Eric Taylor and his wife Tammy, of Tim Riggins, Jason Street, Lila and Buddy Garriety, Matt Saracen, Julie Taylor, Landon, Tyra, Bobby, Vince, Smash, and so many more. I do believe that the concluding episode, which aired last Friday, was as perfect an act of TV closure as I can imagine. When at the end of the special hour and half finale, Vince threw a "Hail Mary" up into the lights, it spiraled down and reminded us that compromise is a must in marriage, that marriage should be about spending your life with your best friend, that forgiveness is good and essential, that dreams can be made of timber and cement on a Texas hillside and put together with nails, beer and brotherly love, that there comes a time that you must put away the great moments of the past and start fresh in a different kind of uniform, that you just might fall in love with somebody when you're both 5 years old and still be in love when you both turn 20, that hard work is rewarded, and sometimes you really do earn what you deserved. That is only a small part of the list of important things that one can learn from watching FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, a TV show that transcended the good movie and great book, that it was based on, to become for me the best damn show since THE SOPRANOS, which was the best damn show since HILL STREET BLUES. FNL offered the best damn ending, although THE SOPRANOS came pretty close. Let's hoist a Lone Star. Texas Forever!!

The Passing of a Student and Friend

2011-04-21T07:47:00.000-07:00

This dismal April day seems fitting to mourn the passing of my student and friend, Sasha Shuebrooke. A member of the CHS Class of 2000, Sasha was good and bright and brave. I found out about Sasha's death in a troubling way. I saw her birthday notice on the left column of my FACEBOOK home page and clicked on it. As I typed a short birthday wish, I looked down the page of other birthday wishes and soon realized that most were wishing Sasha well and hoping she was happy "with the angels" or "wherever you may be." I knew without asking what this meant, but I sent off a message to the person directly below my entry on Sasha's wall. In minutes, he responded, sadly informing me that Sasha had died in early December, 2010. Later, I received an e-mail from her mom explaining more of the circumstances of her death.

Now, a bright spring day would be right for celebrating Sasha's life. A day with sun and a breeze and the smells of flowers and summer! Sasha was so intelligent and creative! A poet! A dancer! A caring person who was great fun to talk with! And Sasha was very brave. Since high school, her life had taken her to New England, to Australia, to Washington, D.C., to northern California, I believe, and finally to San Diego. In her new courageous life, Sasha was a different person, yet, she was the same.

A few years ago, Sasha took a new name. She became Gavi Reichen, and more recently, S.G. Reichen, I guess to keep the name "Sasha" in play. We kept in touch through the years, first with e-mails and then by FACEBOOK, so, I was aware of the interesting turns her life took. I filled out a couple of employment recommendations for her over the years as she searched for the right field to fit her terrific brain and terrific personality. Her high school friends will recall that Sasha always had health problems. Those problems stuck with her, and, in fact, were in a way responsible for her death. Complications from Sasha's disease brought her untimely end.

A memory disturbs me because of my inaction. Probably a year ago, Sasha wrote to me the simple statement, "You don't know how much your friendship means to me." I wrote back to her that our friendship was important to me, too, and that we needed to get together the next time she was in the area. We had said that more than once over the years, but that reunion never happened. In fact, I can't remember the last time I saw Sasha.

So be wary of life's easily committed sins of omission. And if you remember Sasha, you might say a prayer for her wonderful, special soul.

Two Questions: "Was the girl from JD grounded from cellphone use?" and "Is there climate change in hell?"

2011-04-18T17:48:00.001-07:00

Last Tuesday, Linda and I went to the SU/Cornell lax tilt. How's that for journalistic brevity? If you follow lacrosse, you will know it was a debacle, with Cornell triumphing 11 to 6. When the game is bad, one needs occasionally to people watch. In the row in front of us sat a high school girl with her dad. She was from JD: it said so on her jacket, and when they sat down, I figured she would soon get out her phone and start texting. Miraculously, it didn't happen. She watched the entire game with her father. They talked to each other. They ate nachos. Not once did either rely on anything electronic for communication. Being an outspoken opponent of texting disease, I was so happy. I wanted to say to them, "You two are great! You still talk to each other and have fun." I didn't for fear they would think I was a little weird. . .Two days pass and I am talking to Todd Sorensen, an FMHS history teacher, about something technological, and I mention this nice encounter to him. He says, "She was probably grounded from her phone." The idealist in me shouted, "No," but the cynic wondered if Todd could be right.

We were coming home from Schenectady yesterday, and, in Madison County, hit a terrible sleet storm. It was awful, truly hellacious, which made me ponder the ecological question , "Is there climate change in hell?" I have no answer, but my favorite poet Robert Frost, hinted around the possibility in his wonderful verse "Fire and Ice."

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

--Robert Frost

Love the way the man could get you thinking with so few syllables.

In case you missed this in the newspapers. . .

2011-02-17T08:28:00.000-08:00

I wrote this to celebrate community cooperation, and it was in the POST STANDARD, COURIER, and OD.

A project begun five years ago received a tremendous financial impetus in late November of 2010. It was then that the Village of Chittenango and the Village Trail Committee, which is a municipal entity, received news that a grant had been reserved by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation for the trail committee’s use. The grant has created great excitement in Chittenango and has highlighted the good things that happen when citizens, civic committees, and service clubs work together.

The work of the Chittenango Neighborhood Trail Committee had already begun when, in late 2007, the Chittenango Lions Club was approached with a special proposition involving a piece of property along Dyke Road. It so happend that the trail committee would eventually need access to Valley Acres to realize its plan to connect the village neighborhoods with downtown. And what has occurred in the years since then, seems to be a combination of “kismet” and “serendipity,” fate and good fortune.

This good fortune began when Chris Kendall, Canastota Lion and attorney, approached the Chittenango Lions Club with a proposal. The finger of land that runs north and south from Sun Chevy’s car lot to Valley Acres was owned by the Shapiro family, who Kendall represented. The family wanted to donate the land, bordered on the west by Dyke Road, and the east by Chittenango Creek to the Village of Chittenango. But, the Shapiro Trust wanted a civic organization such as the Lions to take stewardship of the land to guarantee it would be used for the public good. After lengthy consideration, the Lions decided to take on the responsibility and began discussing uses for the rather inhospitable piece of property. On July 22, 2008, a Lions Club committee led by Lions Jim English and Steve Kinne, including Lions Dick Sullivan, Nelson Smith, Pete Owens and Mike Lynch approached the village board and presented the Lions plan of stewardship of the Shapiro land. Mayor Ronny Goeler and the board voted their support of the development of the property at that meeting.

Two years passed and the Neighborhood Trail System grew. At a meeting in the spring of 2010, the Lions and representatives of the Trail Commitee discussed joint usage of the land. Donna Lynch and Bill Nickal of the Trail committee explained that in October of 2010, the first phase of the trail system from Kirschenheiter Park to the trailhead in the village, would be officially dedicated. The next step was to wind the trail to Valley Acres, and the best way to go was through Shapiro tract. The Lions Club agreed that it was a fine idea. In fact, it almost seemed fated.

At the Chittenango Lions first meeting of the 2010-2011 Lions Club year, Lion Kinne announced that the village in cooperation with the Lions had officially “acquired” the Shapiro property. The village trail committee and the Lions Club would work together to see that it was used as “part of the village’s Master Plan for parks, green spaces, and connection of neighborhoods via a system of trails.” The property would be developed as a botanical park and arboretum, focusing on education and providing opportunites for recreation. Very importantly, Lion Kinne’s announcement included the fact that, “Within this park, a southern extension of the Neighborhood Creek Walk Trail will be built to connect Valley Acres to downtown.”

To add to the excitement was the announcement that the Lions and Trail Committee would be partnering with the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s School of Landscape Architecture in creating possible designs for the Dyke Road area. The landscape architecture faculty had chosen the Chittenango project because one of the major foci of the school’s curriculum is community design. Morrisville College’s Landscaping program also wanted to be involved in the project.

Meetings were held with the ESF students during the fall of 2010 at the Sullivan Free Library and the American Legion Hall. The meetings were open and citizen input was requested by the students and the civic groups involved. Sixty people attended the public forum, a real show of community support.

Most recently has come the great news that the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation had presented a $200,000 matching funds grant to the project titled: “Dyke Road Spur of the Chittenango Creek Walk.” Thanks to the grant writing ability of Elizabeth Bough Martin of the Village Trail Committee, funds will be available to develop this virtually unused piece of property.

It should be mentioned that the trail system has had other benefactors as well. A parcel of land has been generously donated by Philip and Phyllis Buchanan. Also, Robert Hall and Richard Clark have offered land they own to the village, and Stephen Davie has

additionally promised a permanent easement for the trail system.

Is it a mixture of ”kismet” and “serendipity” or is it just proof of the old statement that “sometimes things just work out.” However, one may choose to look at it, the trail system and the Dyke Road Project are evidence of the wonderful things that can happen when citizens, civic organizations, and government work together.

A Perfectly Poopy First Day of the New Year! Or. . .Why the Pooper Scooper is One of Man's Greatest Inventions!

2011-01-03T14:43:00.000-08:00

Man, the first day of 2011 was really terrific. Few things will make me look to the future with a greater sense of promise than a first day of the year that starts with sun and with that January thaw feel in the air. The day's sweetness called me outside to vacuum the seats and floor of my car, picking up the dirt, dog hair, and dropped bits of kibble that nearly had made the carpet invisible. I was still a bit high from the Orange victory in the Pinstripe Bowl. I mean I felt bad for the saluting kid, but, what are you gonna do? Somebody's got to win, and the Orange aren't giving it back. I used that gridiron high to propel myself around the garage as I swept and shoveled the dirt and bits of paper, leaves and dog hair that had settled on the floor. I admit that the afternoon did bring rain, but we were off to the Dome to watch Boeheim's boys kick Irish butt, a truly beautiful thing to see! Then we went home to a terrific dinner and a relaxing evening.

Still, I have yet to mention another important activity that January 1, 2011, afforded for me and why I included "Perfectly Poopy" in my title. Well, anyone who owns a 95 pound Labrador Retriever knows what awaits them in their yard when the snow melts. A virtual minefield of doggy doo! An elephant graveyard of excrement! So much, in fact, that it is difficult to believe that it all came out of one animal. If, perish the thought, the snow cover lasts from December to late March, then the panorama of poop that spreads out before you and your pooper scooper is mind boggling. That's why a thaw at the beginning of January is so necessary. The first of the year afforded me a chance to remove a month and a half or so worth of poop. It took more than a half hour to pick up, and filled the bottom of a garbage can about 14 or 15 inches deep. It weighed. . .I don't want to guess how much it weighed. But the effort was so worth it because when March rolls around I'll have that much less (fill in the parentheses with your favorite term) to deal with.

Writer's Block, A Bit of Old Mexico in Chittenango, and A Visit to Zecheriah's House

2010-12-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

I am writer's blocked. Never, since I took to writing almost daily, have I ever been so unable to come up with an idea. Nor do I have my usual desire to write. What concerns me most is that I have to get rolling on a script for SUMMERPLAY 2011 in this muddled creative state. My block is probably due to the fact that I have written three plays and directed three in the last 11 months or so... So, I'm going to take a brain rest until mid-January and not even try to write. I'll do some blogging, but I guess I'll let SUMMERPLAY, whatever it will be, simmer, wherever it is.

Now to other things.

Waldman's was in the building forever, but restaurants like Java Joe's and the Old Hotel Cafe, though really good, struggled to survive in that spot on Genesee Street across from the Episcopal Church, over the past few years. Ahora entra (now enters) La Cocina, a really terrific little Mexican restaurant that I hope will make it in 'nango because it's so good and so different from anything else we 'nangoites have. Linda and I had two of the specials for lunch on Friday, total price $9.98 + tax. For that very reasonable cost we were able to share the #4 which includes a burrito and two tacos and the #10 which consists of two beef enchiladas and a chile relleno, plus a bag of their homemade taco chips and a container of homemade salsa. We loved every item. I really liked the chile relleno, which I had never tried. It's a moderately hot pepper (a little kick) sliced open with a cheese and tomato sauce inside. I spoke with one of the owners, who told me that they hope to be able to acquire a beer and wine license soon. So. . .va a La Cocina. (Go to The Kitchen Restaurant). They open at 11:0 a.m. and don't close until 9:00 every night except Friday and Saturday when they're open until 10:00.

After a few weeks of fun and work, the CrossRoads Community Church Musical, SPOKEN, was presented yesterday and today in the high school auditorium. With music and story by Steve and Sue Case, the one hour play told the story of Zecheriah and Elizabeth and the miraculous birth of their son John. I was really knocked out by the production that we put together together. (Both "togethers" intended.) The music was beautiful, the story delightful, the performances and music inspiring. Many kudos to Steve, Sue, Mark Campitello, John Spiridigliozzi, Jodee Osborne, the entire ensemble, orchestra, and technical staff. I'm glad I was part of this special show.

I've had a lot of requests over the last few weeks to get myself back to blogging. I'll try but with no guarantees. I'm not sure if you can still go to my blog through the ONEIDA DISPATCH website. (I canceled my subscription, you see.) I'll check, but remember that you can always get to THE BLUE MOON GRILLE at wwwmotleyplayer.blogspot.com/ (The lack of a (.) after the w's is intentional.)

It Tolls for Thee

2010-12-01T11:54:00.000-08:00

Headlines at this moment on Syracuse.com include: "Hundreds gather at funeral for Jenni-Lynn Watson" and "Syracuse toddler's death blamed on gang revenge." I can remember few if any times that reading headlines like these was so difficult for me. The tragedies our small Chittenango community has recently experienced make those of which I have only a peripheral attachment, I know Jenni-Lynn's cousin Mark, and those to which I have no actual attachment at all, the death of 20 month-old Rashad Walker, Jr., even more horrible than they would be under normal circumstance. The violent death of anyone is awful; the violent death of children, and in this group I include both Jenni-Lynn and Rashad, is despicable. I hurt deep down inside for them and all. I'm not going to try to explain this "species pain" I feel. I will leave it to John Donne who said it with nearly impossible eloquence when he wrote,

No man is an island, entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,

as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were:

any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,

and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls;

it tolls for thee.

These words come from Donne's "Meditation XVII," an essay, although the lines above are often printed as a poem. Reading the whole essay might take 5 minutes. It's a worthwhile read with the only logical conclusion.

Lisbeth and Kaitniss and Kathy

2010-11-17T13:09:00.000-08:00

It has been so long since I last blogged, that I was afraid I wouldn't remember how to access this page. My explanation for my lengthy absence is that autumn has been so busy with playwriting, family obligations, leaf raking and much more, that I needed time off from my blogs. The hiatus was a good one for me, although, I missed my postings, my chances to vent or comment or compliment. This dark, gloomy, blustery afternoon seemed like a good time to come back to blogging with three friends in tow: Lisbeth, Kaitniss, and Kathy.

Though I haven't been blogging, I have been reading. In the last few months, among a variety of other things, I've read a trilogy by a Swede, a trilogy, by an American, and a novel by a Japanese-born Brit, and as a result have made three wonderfully interesting literary acquaintances. Lisbeth Salander is the name that I imagine is most familiar. Lisbeth is the heroine of the "Girl Who. . ." novels by Stieg Larsson. I FACEBOOKED back in the summer about Lisbeth, a tiny, terrifying, computer genius, bi-sexual martial artist, who somehow, through three violent books, remains both lovable and vulnerable, while overcoming industrial villains, sadists, Nazi sympathizers, government conspirators, and their lot with the aid of magazine writer Mikael Blomkvist. The "Girl Who. . ." books are already a Swedish film franchise and are on their way to becoming an American one. Lisbeth is my favorite literary character in a long time.

Thanks to Tim Sorensen I discovered the "Mockingjay" trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The young adult novels THE HUNGER GAMES, CATCHING FIRE, and THE MOCKINGJAY are great for adults, too, and tell the story of the wonderful Kaitniss, a sixteen year old girl, who must protect her mother and sister and eventually much more in a future American dystopia. The central horror of the books is the concept of the "Hunger Games," a televised competition that pits two children (ages 12 to 18) from each of the 12 districts that are controlled by the "Capitol" against each other in a battle to the death in a giant, technologically-created arena. Designed to both fascinate and disgust the citizenry, this yearly punishment of the masses is reality tv at its most devious. The amazing Kaitniss is a "Hunger Games" contestant in the first novel and evolves through the other two into a symbol of the revolution that slowly foments when she defies the authorities. This amazing young woman, who is bright, and brave, and incredibly resilient, is another of my favorite characters.

The writer Kazio Ishiguro was not a name I was familiar with, although he is a prize winning novelist, and his works include the very successful REMAINS OF THE DAY. NEVER LET ME GO is the quietest horror/science fiction novel you will ever read. There will be no zombies or vampires or UFO's, but when you think about it, it will frighten you more. The book could be called a form of revisionist history, I suppose. It postulates a Britain at the end of the 20th century that has devised a program for the "national health" that is exquisitely twisted. Ishiguro leads his reader quietly along, revealing a little at a time, with a hint here and a revelation there. Soon the reader is squirming at what is becoming clear. NEVER LET ME GO is serious literature. TIME named it the best novel of 2005. Its narrator is Kathy, who with her friends Ruth and Tommy, age from about 16 until their late 20's in the novel. We see them when they are students at Hailsham, a boarding school that is quietly sinister. Then we follow them through a transitional time at a place called the Cottages. In these places, they suffer the joys and sorrows of kids growing up. They fight, have tantrums, fall in love, have their first sexual experiences, and all the time, something that they should be dreading is hanging over their heads. Eventually, they chose to begin their absolutely inevitable "careers." What was most frightening for me was how accepting Kathy choses to be of this inevitability. The film version of NEVER LET ME GO starring Carrie Mulligan and Keira Knightley was recently at the Manlius. I wanted to see it but didn't get the chance. The trailer of the film does an excellent job of suggesting the dread that looms over this novel. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXiRZhDEo8A

Two trilogies and a novel, three great reads, which I have chosen to blog about because of the three central characters. The trio of Lisbeth, Kaitniss, and Kathy consists of two amazingly brave women and a third, who I so wish would have decided to be brave. (Or was she the bravest of them all?) Try these books!

Moving to a New Location

2010-08-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

I am now blogging at www.duboishill.blogspot.com/ My theme has become more specific. I am writing about growing up in the 50's and 60's in Webster, NY. I hope some of my BLUE MOON GRILLE followers might enjoy the change and find something interesting in life at that time.

Blog's Out For Summer!

2010-07-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

OR MAYBE NOT. . .

This is my 180th post from the Blue Moon Grille in about a year and a half. A school year is 180 days, and I have taken this fact as a sign that it's time for the Grille to shut down for vacation. I'm not done blogging, certainly, but I'm thinking of eventually developing a blog about a more specific topic. For awhile, though, I'm not going to do anything in the blogosphere, I guess. Thanks for reading and occasionally reacting. I've had a lot of fun. I hope that those who have read "The Blue Moon Grille" have had fun, too.

No Time to Say Hello Good-bye. . .

2010-07-13T11:42:00.000-07:00

I am happily busy with "THE GIRL WHO LOVED ROMANCE NOVELS", and so this rapid posting will once more advertise SUMMERPLAY with two photos of the cast. At the top, Sarah Baidel as Ashley is looking particularly motherly. The object of her concern is her sorority sister and BFF, the girl in the title of the play, Jess Arden, who is played by Kayla Haynes. In the second photo, Kyle Stevens as Tim reveals his secret crush to Jess. Watching is Sarah Guzman, who plays Jess's sister Juliet.

"THE GIRL. . .," the comic story of a college junior who falls for two guys on the same morning, plays this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Chittenango High School's beautifully air-conditioned auditorium. Tickets are $5 with a $20 per family limit.

A Fine Group of (SUMMER)PLAYERS!

2010-07-07T08:28:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, after our SUMMERPLAY rehearsal, I fell into a funk. I couldn't sleep, in fact, worrying about how much we hadn't yet accomplished, who our tech people would be, were we staying close to budget, would the air conditioning be on in the auditorium, and such. Around 2:00 A.M., I metaphorically slapped myself around a little bit and reminded myself that the key word in SUMMERPLAY is "play." And especially, when it's in the "SUMMER," it's supposed to be fun!! Which it has been every single rehearsal, for all of us, I think!

Last night, about a week after my funk, most of our problems are solved. I told my players last night about my sleepless few hours, urging them not to fall into any "angst" traps as I had almost fallen into. I also told them how much I loved them and loved working with them. After all, most of them are SUMMERPLAY veterans and have "played" for years, and those who are newbies are SUMMERPLAY family members, already. And we are a close group.

We will work hard these next few days on our "PLAY!" Work on play? Sort of an oxymoron or a contradiction, at the least. As rehearsals continue and roll into performances next week, if we smile and laugh like we did last night, and still accomplish so much, what a joy it will be!

Any Sarcasm is Intentional

2010-06-30T06:08:00.001-07:00

Linda and I were married in July of 1972, and after a honeymoon of 10 days or so, we returned to Chittenango to move into our first apartment at the corner of North and Russell Streets just across from the Presbyterian Church. I believe it was that summer that the Byrne Dairy store opened in the site on Genesee Street once occupied by Bob Williams's gas station and garage. It was only a two minute walk for me to buy milk or, occasionally, a six pack of Piel's Real Draft, which cost a dollar and sixteen cents.

Since then, we have always gone to Byrne Dairy for milk and other essentials and non-essentials. I have always, in that 38 or so year span, brought the posters for the school's plays and musicals and for the village's SUMMERPLAY to the store for display, and the Byrne Dairy staff, often my ex-students, gladly posted them on a window, a wall, or the front of the ice machine. So. . .I was surprised when yesterday, a nice young fellow, the store manager I believe, told me that "corporate" policy no longer permitted local posters to be displayed in BYRNE DAIRY. I questioned him briefly, suggested that this was not a policy that would be well received by village organizations. . .but it wasn't this guy's fault, so I left--ANGRY!

I refused to let my anger last. After all, I try to live on "Beaufort" time. And I knew that Byrne wasn't the only chain store in the village to have such a policy. Rite-Aid has had this non-community attitude for years. When I mentioned on FACEBOOK that I had been rebuffed by Byrne, I was informed that Subway, Dunkin Donuts, and Pizza Hut also deny local signage. Those stores had turned away representatives from Vacation Bible School. "Wow!" I thought and was reminded of the song "Alice's Restaurant" in which Arlo Guthrie declares, "we got a movement."

So I thought about it, and I realized where "CORPORATE" was coming from. They couldn't possibly give over ad space to such local organizations for fear of suggesting they were in support of those organizations. If they let subversive organizations like Vacation Bible School and local summer theater advertise there, what would come next. Lions Club? That would upset PETA! Rotary? Well, maybe Rotary would be O.K. They are an organization of business people. Or how about Sullivan Community Council? Sure, now they support social activities like youth athletics, but. . .isn't that just a few steps away from socialism?

This blog isn't about anything I have written about, really. It's a blog in thanks to the many locally owned stores, and the corporate entities like KINNEY DRUGS and DO IT BEST HARDWARE, that continue to operate on the "hometown" level, a word that has often been a part of Byrne Dairy advertising, and are happy to put up posters and such for their fellow citizens. . . And let's not worry about the other stores who choose to be a bit less community friendly. I mean why should they put up something as simple as a community bulletin board in their stores? After all, what have they gotten from the Chittenango residents over the years. . . other than a few million dollars?

Libraries and Me

2010-06-28T06:37:00.001-07:00

I can't come up with my earliest library memory. I'm sure I went to the library in Penfield, the upstate village I lived in until I was six, but I can't recall. I do recall being surrounded by and having my early years enriched by books read to me by my mom and dad.

And I do recall the first library we went to in Webster, the town I lived in from when I was six until I graduated from high school forty-five years ago right about now. Actually, the library wasn't in Webster. It was in Irondequoit just across the bay from where we lived. Later, we would start going to the Webster Village library on the lower level of the town hall.

Those first memories of libraries are all about towering stacks of books. The Hardy Boys, Freddy the Pig, Landmark books, TOM SAWYER, and so many more books that I can't immediately remember. And taking those books up to the high counter, where a lady, never a man, took my library card and my pile of books and checked them out for me. This required both the card in the little book pocket and the paper stuck under the book's cover, to be stamped firmly, in two quick librarian strokes, with the date the books were due. A library card was very important, but I remember being rather careless with mine, and how I would misplace it, and how it got frayed in my pockets and washed in the washing machine. My mom always found it or saved it for me.

I have a vivid sixth grade library memory. That year, my teacher was Mr. B., and anyone who attended Bay Road Elementary School around then, will know that meant for a rather scary year. Going each week for a period in the library was always happily anticipated. I remember one Wednesday night, (I'm pretty sure we went to the library on Thursday), my mom discovered in my jeans pocket a crumpled up outline of the Dewey Decimal System number code. We had been told the week before by the school librarian to study this list for a quiz. It wasn't a priority to us sixth graders, though, because, you don't get a mark for library, after all. I had forgotten all about it, but my mom made me study before I went to bed. The next morning when we went to library period, the librarian passed out 10 question quizzes. Everyone else in class stared blankly at them. Not me. I whisked right through that quiz with the librarian beaming beside me. I got a 90%. Somehow, I missed one. The librarian was thrilled with me and announced to our class how special I was for actually doing library homework. She then allowed me to go choose my book first, while the rest of the class sat in hand-folded silence, glaring at me for what I had done. I remained smug and slowly chose my book. I remember the book, too! It was called GHOSTLY TALES TO BE TOLD, and in that volume I discovered Ambrose Bierce's "The Wendigo," the scariest story I have ever read. This short story collection was the germ of my lifelong love for horror fiction.

I have really fine memories of my high school library, too. Overseen by the thin and matronly stern Miss Growney, the R. L. Thomas High School library, was important in that it was the place I did my first serious research. I still recall receiving an A- on my 20 page senior essay, "George Bernard Shaw, Critic" in Mr. Castor's Honors English class. In fact, I liked the topic so well, I used it as the topic of my freshman essay at SUNY Albany, where I received a B+, from a pinch-mouthed TA, whose name I have forgotten. I also remember the area under the high school library tables as the place I learned to play footsie, amazingly, right under the watch of Miss Growney. The library was also a nice place to watch the members of the library club, all girls, many attractive, rearranging magazines and such.

Of course, my college library was essential for an English education major. It was so huge. Three floors of stack after stack after file cabinet after study carrel. I was amazed by the sheer number of periodicals, and because this was before the computer age, multiple years of each periodical were stored in special periodical boxes. I remember reading theater reviews in a long gone magazine named CUE and in WOMEN'S WEAR DAILY. I remember a lengthy search I did to find information on the Faulkner novella, "The Wild Palms." I also remember being curled up for hours in a carrel just before finals week as I tried to finish reading ABSOLOM, ABSOLOM, another Faulner challenge. It was nice, too, to take a break in the second floor lounge and do a little co-ed watching.

For thirty-three years as a teacher, I and my classes availed ourselves of the Chittenango High School library and watched it evolve into something called a "library media center." Lots of great librarians helped me and my minions. Lorraine Aust was the first, Judy Waite, Betsy Keck, who led Folksmarches, Pamela Revercomb, who dressed in a tutu on days she got stressed, and Mary Cucznik, and I probably forgot someone. When I go into the comfortable, high tech, two-tiered high school library today, I am happily amazed, and I have a hard remembering what it looked like back in 1969, the year I first entered its doors.

I have become a buyer of books I am ashamed to say. I like my own paperbacks, purchased at Barnes and Noble, to curl up with during my major reading hour, which is before I fall asleep at night. I know I should save my money and borrow books from the Sullivan Free Library more often. This doesn't mean our library isn't important to me, though. It is my SUMMERPLAY rehearsal hall. Air-conditioned and large, the community room is perfect to rehearse my large cast plays. I'm really excited about a play for reader's theater, which I am going to write as a fundraiser for the SFL. I believe the date is Thursday, October 14, 2010, in the high school auditorium. This aforementioned play will star a group of local folks from various walks of Chittenango/Bridgeport life. And just this morning, while our house was being renovated and my office was under construction, I borrowed the SFL Wifi to begin this blog. While I was there, I bumped in to a student from the past, class of 1991, who was there looking at books with her little boy. What a bright young woman! I have to start borrowing more books, too.

I've had fun remembering the libraries with which I have had relationships over time, Now I have a great relationship with the new library in the old bank building. The people who steered the purchase and renovation of the Chittenango branch of the Sullivan Free Library, and who now administer and work in both branches of the SFL should be very proud. What wonderful places our libraries are.

On Peter Straub's A DARK MATTER

2010-06-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

I've loved the writing of Peter Straub since the publication of his epic horror tale GHOST STORY back in the seventies. After reading that classy and scary novel, I searched some of his older works, discovered IF YOU COULD SEE WHAT I HEAR, and have read that spooky, out of the way tale two or three times over the years. Another one of my favorite Straub books is FLOATING DRAGON, which is a little more mainstream spooky. I also like THE TALISMAN and BLACK HOUSE, on which he collaborated with Stephen King, although I've talked to a lot of people who don't care for those two efforts by the masters.

Peter Straub's style is elegant. His books have always seemed to me to be the work of both a poet and a scholar. So I was surprised to be disappointed with A DARK MATTER, his latest novel. In this Rashomon-like tale, four people, getting close to old age, tell their individual stories of the horrible event, the "dark matter," that all were involved in back in 1966, and which has haunted them until the present time. The prose is elegant. Reading it, I could sense that wonderful combination of poet and scholar. But ultimately, after 397 pages, I found I didn't care what this book had to say.

Perhaps, my initial disappointment came from the fact that I didn't really care about anyone in the story. I should have, as they are my contemporaries, but I didn't, and I didn't really believe in them, either. In A DARK MATTER, four high school friends, with the troublingly cute nicknames of Hootie, Dill, Boats, and Eel, and 2 college frat boys are pulled in by the charisma of a handsome and charming guru of cosmic change named Spencer Mallon. This guy has a Cinque-Manson-Jones kind of hold on the kids, and he bears the deep message summarized for him by the story "The Lady or the Tiger?" The message is this: Once you pick a door, no matter which you choose, you are aware of where the lady is and where the tiger is. Therefore, you have answered the central question of the title, and it makes no difference if you're squeezing a princess or getting devoured, you were successful in this quest. This, I guess, is so existential, (later it is mentioned that there is no difference between a pile of broken dolls or a pile of dead children), that the easily led sixties kids are swept right into this Mallon statement's "deepness."

Mallon entrances them, then prepares them, and finally takes them to a field where he is sure that a sort of parallel world is just waiting to be opened by their joint presences. Of course, it works. One college kid gets killed by a hulking, horrible, evil beast, (he deserves it as he's a serial killer in training) and the other college kid gets sucked through an opening between the worlds that he picked at like some cosmic scab. Hootie, Dill, Boats, and Eel all have their own special visions in the field, which screw them up in different ways, and which they never share until the end of the book, some 40 years after the "matter." Remember these visions took place in the 60's so, they are pretty trippy, but not a bit scary, and really disappointing.

The most important and true vision is the one that the Eel had. This is ironically destined before we hear her description of it, because of the way the vision screwed her up. It made her blind. Vision causes no vision. Get it? And don't blind characters often see things more clearly than the sighted characters. I need to question Eel's nickname at this point. Supposedly, she is the most beautiful, charming girl any of the boys have ever met, so why in God's name would they nickname her something disgusting like "Eel." Well, I'll tell you why. It's because both "Eel" and her boyfriend at the time, who becomes her husband later, have the first name "Lee." So they call the guy "Lee" and the girl "Eel," or sometimes, they call them "the twins." "LEE EEL!" If Straub wants so much to use this palindromic combination, then nickname the guy "Eel" after some slithery, disgusting water snake not the gorgeous girl. Or wait--could the Eel be an "Eve" symbol, ergo snaky, at the dawn of a new world order? I don't know. . . or sadly care. I should now tell you about Lee, the Eel's husband, who didn't get charmed by Mallon in the beginning, but who is writing a book about what happened to them all. But I'm not going to because he's a boring putz.

As I have gone on too long, let me conclude with what I believe to be the novel's final theme statement, a theme which the Eel discovers during her vision in the field. It is this: the opposite of love isn't hate; the opposite of love is evil, of which hate is only one of many subsets. It's a good theme. I, too, believe in love, which I know sounds like a song title. I just didn't need 397 pages to reveal it. Maybe a good short story. Or maybe it's like what Stephen King said in the little plug he gives A DARK MATTER on the novel's back cover. He says that the "high school students in the turbulent sixties. . . stumble into horrors far beyond their understanding." Maybe that's what happened to me, too. . . maybe it was beyond my understanding. . . because I just didn't get it.

It's Great When Bigwig Has Your Back!!

2010-06-11T12:48:00.000-07:00

Linda found a great book at the library's used bookstore today, THE WATERSHIP DOWN FILM PICTURE BOOK. I know that quite a few of my FB friends have read Richard Addams' wonderful book and seen the very interesting, British-made cartoon film version. It had been too long since I thought about Hazel and the rest, so I was delighted when Linda presented me with this fabulous find, the entire story told through stills from the movie.

If you have never read WATERSHIP DOWN, you have a treat waiting for you. It is the tale of a band of rabbits but so much more. From it, you will learn the value of strength through Bigwig, intelligence through Blackberry, quiet leadership through Hazel, and the necessity of paying attention to others who don't quite see the world the way you do through little Fiver. You'll also have a review of the dangers of fascism and the terrors of giving up your spirit to make life simpler. You'll be amazed at how a band of rabbits can teach us about bravery and friendship and spirituality and love.

Read it and may the spirit of El-ahrairah be with you!

Being GLEEful

2010-06-10T11:48:00.000-07:00

GLEE was a little bit of a downer on Tuesday, but acceptably so. If you want to look at the show realistically, it'd be pretty tough for New Directions to defeat a highly funded machine like Vocal Adrenaline. After all, how many 26-member high school show choirs provide their members with matching Range Rovers? Of course, that statement shows that it is completely impossible to look at GLEE realistically, which may be why it's so wonderful.

I watch GLEE first for the fabulous musical numbers, and second for the quirky characters. Now that Rachael has found her mother, Quinn has had her baby, Puck has revealed his sensitive side, Artie has come to terms with his wheelchair, Kurt has learned a lesson about bedroom decoration, and Finn has decided that Mr. Schuster is his father figure, I think some of the secondary or tertiary characters need to be featured. (Can a character be called "tertiary," or is that word only used in reference to things like sewage treatment plants?)

My vote for character who deserves her own plot line goes to Brittany. I love Brittany. I sit every show waiting for her classic dumb lines. When the series finally comes to an end, the producers need to put together a collection of her stupidities. My two favorites are "I think my cat has been reading my diary," and, in response to Kurt's father's admonition that they use protection when he catches them in bed, "Does he mean like burglar alarms?" And she's grossly underappreciated, which is shown by the fact that there were hardly any pictures of her online to download for this post.

Here's my idea for Brittany's back story: She's really a genius, who has created the whole Brittany persona because she so wants to be popular. In fact, she has already graduated from high school and is working on advanced degrees online. More difficult, though, than her late night online studies, is her need to be constantly coming up with stupid things to say. Her search for new idiocies would fuel this special "Brittany" episode. I'm not quite sure where her search would lead, but perhaps to a relationship with a politician who's had open mike problems. I do know that the episode would culminate with her singing, "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" because she finally got it memorized. This plot, of course, will not deal with the problem that, along with being totally clueless, Brittany also has the morals of an alley cat. She has enjoyed intimate congress with every straight and able male member of her senior class. (The euphemism and double entendre exhibited in that line are smokin'.) That moral/psychological issue could be dealt with in a later show, and end with her singing "What's Love Got to Do With It."

Planning GLEE back stories could become a really fun thing to do. Imagine if Santana were actually the love child of Sue Sylvester and Mexican rock guitarist and legend Carlos Santana. . .

Teenagers Remain My Favorite People in the World

2010-06-04T19:14:00.000-07:00

The title of this piece is not meant in anyway to demean my many friendships with non-teens. Heck, most of my best friends aren't teenagers. But as an age group, I find teens to be unsurpassed in their excitement and joy, their depression and their occasional dysfunction, their curiosity and their need for privacy, their ability to fall in love or into a funk, and a bunch of other things, too. There is so much to them! That's why I happily taught them for a long time and still enjoy seeing them in their natural habitat.

It's true that twice this year I wrote about school violence and bullying, but I need to believe that the most serious of these offenses are the product of a very few. In the last two weeks, we got to spend some time with some great teenagers, and if my optimism about the basic specialness of that age group had begun to pale, it returned to full blush with these visits.

A couple of Wednesdays back Linda and I went to the high school library for a "Writer's Chair" awards reception. We had helped judge the short stories and poems entered by a group of young Chittenango writers. Judging was enjoyable, but talking with them and hearing about their love for writing and their aspirations was the best.

The following Saturday gave us the chance to meet three other teens. Cassie, Bryan, and Erica came to our house to help us paint our picket fence. If you haven't ever painted pickets, you can be sure that it is both painstaking and frustrating. Our three Saturday morning teen helpers were fabulous. In return for their help, we provided some funds to help them attend Young Life Camp in Virginia this summer. They provided the physical, and we helped to pay for the spiritual. They were great kids, and we enjoyed working with them and eating donuts and pizza with them. I have a picture I took of the trio, and I sent it to their Young Life leader, but I decided not to post it here, because I hadn't asked them. Believe me though, my picture of the paint-stained, ice cream bar eating threesome is way better than the photo I pulled off the web to illustrate this posting. (The amount of money that must have been spent on orthodontia alone on the downloaded group above boggles my mind.)

I have been a little lax in my blogging of late, and I'm going to try become more disciplined to it again. I'm glad to get back by writing about kids.

SUMMERPLAY 2010 Cast List and More

2010-06-04T08:24:00.000-07:00

Cast List for "The Girl Who Loved Romance Novels"

by Greg Ellstrom

The Director--Aileen Kenneson

Shannon--Chloe Houseman

Dr. Sam--Glenn Phillips

Tim, the non-stalker--Kyle Stevens

Pip--Matt Hess

Jess--Kayla Haynes

Ashley--Sarah Baidel

Juliet--Sarah Guzman

Amanda--Ellen LeFort

Sarah--Maegan Welch

Jennifer--Nicole Kovaleski

Sid--Matt Mohr

Lucy--Jennifer MacAlpine

Mrs. Fezziwig--Joan Dear-Houseman

Gertrude--Kathy Vogel

Dora--Mary Schwarz

Dave--Wayne Horning

Jack the cop--Chuck Hess

Colleen Baldwin, Kathy Cooney, Mary Alice Clapp, Ian Dwyer, --Adult woman #1-3, Adult Man #1, Boy #1, Melva, the Dental Assistant, Allison, Herb, the operators of multiple kiosks, crowd folk, Barbarella, Mayor Maynot, the professor, the Emcee and "someone" (plus more, too, as far as onstage organizing of scenery and providing of clothing)

"The Girl Who Loved Romance Novels" is a two-act comic romance. It tells the story of an improv. company that decides, under the leadership of "The Director," to stage a romance. This romance becomes the tale of college student Jess Arden. In one morning, Jess falls for two different young man. One is very much like her conservative dad and the other somewhat like her activist mom. This busy day ends not only with fireworks but in a near tragedy, and it is not until 4 months later, that Jess's story is resolved.

This is the 6th season of SUMMERPLAY sponsored by the Village of Chittenango and the Greater Sullivan Area Chamber of Commerce. Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Thursday thru Saturday, July 15-17, 2010. Tickets are $5 with no family being charged more than $20. The play is suitable for middle schoolers to senior citizens. Reserved tickets will be available in early July. For information call 687-7332.

The Nifty Fifty--A Memorial Day Weekend Memory from 1965

2010-05-31T12:25:00.000-07:00

A lot of people will be blogging today about Memorial Day memories that honor the millions who have served our country in the past. I'll get to that, too, but first I want to recall a Memorial Day weekend sojourn I made back in 1965. I remembered this particular 45 year old afternoon, because of all the motorcycles we saw on the way to and in Lake Placid this past Friday and Saturday. There were so many beautiful bikes on the road, some tricycle-style, some pulling trailers, roaring along the beautiful Adirondack roads. Certainly, Memorial Day must be a favorite holiday for bikers.

When I was a senior in high school in 1965, the Honda was the bike to own. My friend Russ owned a "Nifty Fifty" like the one in the photo above. He let me ride it in the parking lot of Eastway Plaza, when we were both working at the Sibley's garden shop. I wanted one bad!! Even better would have been a Honda "Super 90," the motorcycle of choice for the 17 or-so- year-old guy attending RLTHS. I still remember seeing Steve Kaulback whipping down Empire Boulevard toward the bay on his Honda 90, helmet-less, his jacket forming wings behind him as he rode. Impossibly cool! We thought a 90cc was a big bike! I knew a guy who owned a Honda 160, and we wondered how he kept that powerful hog on the road, and there was a kid in the village who owned a 250, and we were quite sure he'd be heading west to join the Hell's Angels before graduation.

Anyway, to the memory. Don and Helen and I drove down to Palmyra Motors on Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend in 1965. We wanted to check out the Honda motorbikes and motorcycles they sold there, and they were holding a drawing for a "Nifty Fifty." Also of importance, the Invictas were playing in the parking lot. The Invictas were, depending on who you talked to, either the first or second coolest band in the Rochester area. It was between them and Wilmer Alexander, Jr. and the Dukes. The Invictas had a local hit called "The Hump," which I may have mentioned in an earlier blog. These were the incredible lyrics as I remember them: "Do the hump, pretty baby come on! Oh, come, on! Oh come, on. You know that I'll always love you so. You know that I'll never let you go. Come on, pretty baby, I'll show you how to hump. . ." And over and over. "Hump" had the same slang meaning then that it does now, so, of course, in 1965, this giant hit could not be played on the radio. Instead, WBBF and other stations played the Invictas B side, "The Hook," the very same song with the humping replaced by hooking.

But that day, the Invictas were doing "The Hump" in all their glory, complete with light blue, British-cut suits, knee-high boots, and Fab Four bowlcuts on the Palmyra macadam, probably only a few hundred yards from the place where Mormonism was born. They were, of course, astounding. I was waiting, though, for the drawing for the "Nifty Fifty." I wanted to win with all my heart, because winning was the only way I would ever get any kind of motorcycle, even one with 50 cc. My parents had made it clear their would be no motorcycle in the Ellstrom garage. So I waited for the drawing, then I deflated, because, of course, I did not win. And not winning is the last thing I recall concerning that well-remembered Saturday afternoon, although, I'm sure we continued to have a good time. Writing about that day just now has been a good time, too.

At the end of my freshman year of college, I took another shot at motorcycle ownership. I came home from college and announced that I was going to save money for a bike. The same evening my mom and dad decided to help me buy a car, and that car turned out to be my much beloved 1963, Adobe Beige Corvair Monza convertible. Sometimes, things just work out!

Of the true meaning of Memorial Day, let me say that 1965 was near the beginning of the Vietnam war, whose veterans deserve to be highly honored as do the veterans of all the conflicts that the U.S.A. has found itself involved in since it became a nation. Let me offer a special Memorial Day tribute to my brother-in-law Paul Baker, who died in the spring of 1969 in a Vietnam jungle. I'm so sorry, Paul. I wish I could have gotten to meet you and know you. I hear you were one really great guy! I'll bet you would have liked a motorcycle, too.

A Triple Down the Left Field Line

2010-05-19T07:27:00.000-07:00

My schedule has been so busy, that it's been tough to get blogging time. So, I think I'll shorten and combine three ideas nto one blog.

1. I really enjoyed the read-through for "The Girl Who Loved Romance Novels" last night. It's so great and revealing for me to hear my story read by a group of very capable actors. My only disappoint was the turnout. We could use 2 or 3 more young ladies and young gentleman to serve in various onstage capacities for what will be a really busy stage presentation. But the core group that read last night was nearly large enough to mount SUMMERPLAY 2010.

2. A couple months back I blogged about the writing contests that I had entered. Having not heard from any of them yet, I have a feeling I didn't win. I know that I didn't make it to the 250 cut-off in the novels competition. It's a "ces le vis," forgive the possible misspelling as I never took French, sort of thing, and I will continue to write and be alert for other contest opportunities.

3. Finally, an observation and/or pet peeve. Have you ever noticed how in a restaurant full of people it seems as if one person's voice always rises above the rest, and that you get to share his or her conversation whether or not you so wish. It amazes me. It's not even the volume of the voice, often, it's just something that makes certain voices carry (often obnoxiously). A couple of weeks ago we went to the Scotch and Sirloin, our favorite restaurant, using a gift certificate that Jan and Chris gave us for Christmas. Food was great, the service was perfect, and the person with the traveling voice sat right next to us. We might have been able to hear her even if she wasn't a vocal projector. because we were so nearby. But she was a projector and we heard every word so clearly that we wanted to ask her to tone down just a mite. We didn't care to hear her views on child rearing, interior decorating, or, God Forbid, golf courses. Linda and I wanted to be able to talk quietly to each other. Happily, I didn't let it bother too much, because I am now and will continue to live on "Beaufort Time."

Explanation of "Beaufort Time": Our stay in Beaufort, S.C., was so wonderful and so laid back, that I created the term "Beaufort Time" to describe the relaxed feeling I enjoyed in the South, and I vowed to bring that attitude home with me, although it was a little difficult to maintain when I opened our pool to find green water and then discovered our pump wasn't working. But I somehow held on to "BT," and Linda's trying to commit to it, too.

I meander a la Madonna

2010-05-14T07:15:00.000-07:00

Madonna with her daughter Lourdes

"What It feels Like For A Girl"

[Spoken:]
Girls can wear jeans
And cut their hair short
Wear shirts and boots
'Cause it's OK to be a boy
But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading
'Cause you think that being a girl is degrading
But secretly you'd love to know what it's like
Wouldn't you
What it feels like for a girl

Let me start by establishing myself as totally pro-girl/woman! I think the fairer sex (a silly expression but in many ways true) is amazing. Besides being physically beautiful, I find girls and women to be intelligent, openly sensitive, and brave. They make great conversationalists, are creative, and often quietly determined. The women I know are often gutsier than men in facing life's tribulations. Many women are heroes to me, and I didn't use the word "heroine" because, after all, we don't have "doctoresses" do we. Actually, I think I've probably blogged these same thoughts or similar ones before.

I have become an ardent "Gleek," and on the Madonna episode of "Glee" the boys in the glee club were assigned the singing of the Madonna song "What It Feels Like For a Girl." I wasn't familiar with the song, but I found it to be very thought-provoking. Let's put aside the possible physical meaning of the song's title, and go with the interpretation that it refers simply to what it is like being a girl. As I thought about it, I realized that I have never thought about what it would have been like if I were female. I've thought what it might be like to have been born African-American during the most racist of times. I've thought what it might be like to have been born the member of a tribe in the Amazon rain forest. I've even thought what it might have been like to have been born a dog. But never a girl!! And I don't know why. Is it because I believe that although girls are so different from us boys, we're still so much the same in our basic humanness? Or is it because I don't know how to think what it's like to be a girl, because girls are so complicated and unpredictable in their un-boyness? Or is it because I'm just an insensitive, thick-headed boy?!

To return to Madonna's song that says it's O.K. for a girl to dress boy-like, but degrading for a boy to dress in girlie clothing. It's certainly true of skirts and dresses for guys. Unless your William Wallace, you're going to take heat in kilt. What about boys who wear their hair long and opt for an earring, though? I got remembering that when I was a college kid with a good head of hair, more than one person suggested to me and my friends that we looked like girls. I've never tried the earring though and have always wanted to. Maybe I'll experiment soon.

This blog draws no conclusions, which, with girl vs. boy questions, is often the case, I think.

Under the Spell of the Dreaded Alpaca

2010-05-04T11:57:00.001-07:00

We visited my mother-in-law in Troy last week and decided on Thursday to take a little sojourn into Massachusetts and Vermont. After ascending and descending the twisting road on one helluva mountain, (if that mountain is unnamed, I would suggest "One Helluva" as a good possibility), we arrived in Williamstown, the quintessence of New England small college town beauty. If we in Chittenango are used to a wide range of fast food choices and too many auto part stores, the folks in Williamstown are used to ivy-colored buildings, a beautiful art museum, and equally beautifully theatre building, which is home to a world-renowned resident summer theatre.

After parking parallell-ly, on the one main business street, we walked along and checked out the stores. There weren't a lot of options. On our side there were real estate offices where the starter homes pictured in the window went for about $600,000 and antique shops. On the far side of the street, the Williams College store displayed sweatshirts and other collegiate paraphernalia. Near the end of this business but not busy thoroughfare, we entered a clothing/gift shop, the name of which I failed to note.

The first item I saw was a 3" blue ceramic pelican. It cost $60. I had a feeling that this was going to be one of those stores where I quietly chuckle at the outrageous prices. The man who ran the shop was dressed perfectly preppy, and though, he smiled when I complimented his place of business, I had the feeling that his raised chin suggested that he imagined himself living on a level, to which we did not rise.

Linda and her mother were looking at $700 sweaters. I went into the mens' clothing room. Oy! My goodness! Ay, chihuahua! What gorgeous clothes were displayed there. I first checked out a suede sport coat. I had one once. I paid $50 for it back in the late 60's. This one though, . . . the suede cloth was so light, so beautifully stitched, and the price. . .$1195. Good thing it wasn't my size. Next to it were two leather spring jackets. Beautiful, gorgeously made, and only $895. Thank goodness, neither were my size. Then I turned and saw what I know is the true essence of jacket. It was black alpaca, styled like a baseball or varsity jacket, with an amazing grey silk lining. Also, it was my size! I know that I looked at the jacket in the same way Joseph looked for the first time at his coat of many colors. I looked at the price tag. It had been marked down. It no longer cost $475 but had been lowered to $395. It was a bargain!

Just then Linda walked over. "Look at this jacket," I said.

She did and her mouth dropped open. "It's the most beautiful jacket I have ever seen," she said. "And it's your size."

Right then, we might have done one of those foolish, spur-of-the-moment things, and bought what surely is the most beautiful XL alpaca jacket in the entire world. Then, we both remembered--LUCY! Lucy, the labrador, with the great yellow shedding pelt. My $45 Old Navy pea coat is decorated with little yellow hairs that JUST WON"T COME OFF. Think what Lucy's fur would do to the most beautiful black alpaca baseball jacket ever known to man that just happened that day to be on sale. And in my size.

As Rod Serling used to say at the beginning of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, "I present for your consideration" another positive reason for dog ownership. I sometimes shake my head at the amount of money we spend for Lucy's special diet dog food that apparently doesn't work. But this year anyway, Lucy is $395 ahead.

P.S. The picture above is the sweet face of an alpaca. No alpacas were harmed in the creation of this blog.

Because we want to. . .

2010-04-27T12:01:00.000-07:00

Phoebe Prince

November 24, 1994 - January 14, 2010

I've been thinking about this post since April 5, but I haven't felt like dealing with it, what with the warm weather, pleasant breezes, and other things not so pleasant. On the front page of that day's USA TODAY was the story, "A watershed case in school bullying?," which described the brief life and tragic death of Phoebe Prince. Fifteen year-old Phoebe and her family had emigrated from Ireland not long ago because of her dad's job. They settled in South Hadley, Mass. an affluent suburb of Springfield. There, Phoebe became the target of bullies, who made her life hell. Maybe it was because she was "an immigrant kid", or maybe it was because she dared to try to become a part of the school's social caste system by falling for a football player. For whatever reason, Phoebe became the target of that new kind of bully, described in the article as "attractive, athletic, and academically accomplished--and comfortable enough around adults to know what they can and can't get away with in school and online." It appears that the school bully is no longer nicknamed Butch and is cruel because of his personal low self-esteem. The new school bully's name is Jordan or Tripp or Ashley or Brooke, and he or she is cruel with a word, a stare, an action, a text, or a FACEBOOK posting. And the teachers and administrators they see everyday, don't recognize the viciousness behind the bright eyes and scrubbed faces.

For months life was awful for Phoebe, and despite at least two complaints to the school by her mom, Phoebe's bullying continued relentlessly. On a Thursday, Phoebe's life became a tragedy. She had been,

"hounded in the library, the cafeteria, and the hallways. . . After school,

as she was walking the few blocks to her family's apartment, one of

her tormentors threw a can of the Red Bull energy drink at her from the

window of a passing car.

"Phoebe's little sister found her in a stairwell, hanging from the scarf

she'd given her for Christmas."

I had to take a very deep breath after reading that for the first time. The article went on to posit four possible explanations for the new bully: "Less play time in kindergarten and pre-school," "more electronic communication," "TV and movies with the wrong message," and "parental ignorance." All, I'm sure, do contribute, but I wonder about the sense of entitlement that these new bullies must have. They live in a designer world with Abercrombie clothes and unlimited texting. They play the upstanding/sweet role so well that, most adults fall for it, and in fact, assure them that they are among the most special of people, possessing so much already, and certain to receive so much more. Is that why the new bullies feel they are entitled to belittle and punish those that they believe don't measure up? After all, what could be wrong with a little physical or mental brutality, when one of the NFL's higher paid quarterbacks believes he's entitled to be a sexual bully.

What bothers me tremendously is that I have no idea what can be done about this horror. Nine teenagers face criminal charges in the Prince case, but the charges were filed at the end of March, and I couldn't find anything about their disposition. Heidi Mitchell recently e-mailed me that bullying laws are being considered by the New Hampshire legislature. Can we legislate against this particular immorality? Ever since I blogged about Columbine, I have given a good deal thought to the widespread nature of bullying and the terrible toll it takes on vulnerable teens. It both angers and frustrates me. I also worry about the lack of remorse bullies seem to show. Soon after Phoebe Prince's suicide, one of the girls who harassed her so constantly, posted on FACEBOOK the single word, "Accomplished."

The Tale of THE SCARF

2010-04-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite words is "ubiquitous." I like the way it sounds, and how it requires your tongue and lips to really work out in order for it to be spoken. "Ubiquitous" means "seeming to be everywhere at all times." A synonym is "omnipresent." From my appreciation of the word, comes "The Tale of THE SCARF."

Several years ago, a scarf featuring a classy plaid, a tartan, I believe, began to appear around people's necks. I wouldn't have taken note, but it wasn't just a couple of necks, but dozens and dozens of them. Then dozens and dozens more. I began pointing this out to Linda, and before long, we'd be nudging each other several times, no matter where we might have been, and saying under our breath, "There goes THE SCARF."

The ubiquitous nature of this neckwear showed itself almost frighteningly one winter night at the Carrier Dome. I was leaning against one of the walls on the lower concourse waiting for Linda, who was in the ladies room. In the minute or so, I stood there, THE SCARF went by 11 times. If I were paranoid, I might have thought of the classic film, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.

In an earlier post, I wrote about the ubiquitous nature of North Face apparel on college students. But THE SCARF knows no demographic. It's on kids and senior citizens and all in between. Also, THE SCARF is no longer just a scarf. I have seen this classy plaid on raincoats, pocketbooks, coat linings, driving caps, backpacks, and probably other items I have forgotten. From just THE SCARF, it has become the most ubiquitous of plaids. This plaid is pictured in the photo above. It's the second one from the left. If those of you who might read this have a moment, I would appreciate knowing if you do now or ever have owned THE SCARF in any of its incarnations.

Priceless!

2010-04-15T10:41:00.001-07:00

Blaze the Wonder Horse had been hanging on a hook from our garage ceiling for a long time. Talk about an inappropriate place for a horse who had been riding the range under a variety of kids for nearly 60 years. Blaze, in fact, was my bouncing horse, when, in the late 40's and early 50's, my mom and dad and I lived in a tiny apartment behind my grandmother's house on Five Mile Line Road in Penfield, NY. My parents often tell me of the hours I spent riding Blaze and listening to the record the "Brave Cowboy Bill" over and over again. I seem to have a memory of climbing off Blaze's narrow back to start the record over, but that might be one of those memories that have been created by the retellings of others.

When I grew out of Blaze, other kid members of the Ellstrom clan rode him in my parents' basement. But for at least 5 years now, Blaze had been on a garage hook, and sometimes I thought I should take the old stallion to the road on garbage day. I just didn't have the heart, though. So yesterday, I decided to deliver Blaze to the Salvation Army in hopes that he would find a new home in some kids corral. I had just handed his reins over to the Salvation Army lady, when Mike Keville pulled up in his van, hopped out, and said, "You just turned a bouncy horse in. I'm going to get it for my kids." If I only had seen Mike a minute or so before, I could have delivered Blaze directly to the Kevilles. "Who did that horse belong to?" Mike asked. "He was mine," I said, and his name is "Blaze." "So his name shall remain," Mike assured me.

I drove over to gas station, filled up, got the car washed, and then stopped back at the Salvation Army just to make sure Mike had gotten the bouncy horse for his brood. "Yes, he did, " the lady told me. It was great. I was mourning giving up an old friend, and another friend bought him. The cost of one 60 year old bouncy horse named Blaze? You'll have to ask Mike. The knowledge that the Keville kids will be riding him into the future? Priceless!

Dreamcatcher

2010-04-09T07:15:00.000-07:00

Having suddenly lost our wi-fi connection in our rented house on the river, I am blogging from the Olde Towne Coffee House in Port Royal this morning. I had intended on doing a serious blog today, but cyber-fate has intervened. Just as well. It remains gorgeous in the new South. I'll save the serious posting until we are home next week. Instead I'll share a photo of this natural dreamcatcher formed by a skinny branch and Spanish moss. According to Ojibwa legend, "Bad dreams would stay in the net, disappearing with the light of day. Good dreams would pass through and slide down to the sleeper." May all your dreams be good.

Police (long o, accent on the first syllable)

2010-04-06T15:44:00.000-07:00

I have a serious blog topic I hope to deal with soon, but today was so gorgeous, I had to come up with something pleasant. After all, we spent several hours on the beautiful Hunting Island beach today, a wide strand of sand, winding off in both directions, lined by palmettos. Riding home from the beach, we passed restaurants with names like "Weezie's Seafood," "The Crab Shack," and "Gullah Grub." We also passed a bunch of deputy sheriff's cars lying in wait in hopes of laying a speeding ticket on some scofflaw. I thought about the police and the wonderful way some people talk around here, and an idea for a blog came to me. And though the idea has nothing to do with Hunting Island beach or South Carolina, for that matter, it does deal with the way different people talk around this country. It deals with something else, too--little devices used to trigger explosions called blasting caps!

At this point, my blog takes specific aim at people who grew up in the 50's and watched TV in the fifties. Other people, unless they're involved in the construction or destruction industries, may never have heard of a blasting cap. I have, because 50's television was peppered with public service announcements warning kids not to pick up or play with blasting caps, that they might find laying around construction sites. There were so many ads, in fact, that I soon believed there were misplaced blasting caps everywhere, just waiting to blow one of my feet off. Or worse, blind me. I and all my friends tiptoed carefully around any construction site we happened to be frequenting to "borrow" scrap wood to build our various forts with. These little things, which no one had ever seen, really terrified us. It was the Willie Mays' blasting cap commercial that really made us believe.

Willie, after all, was one of our heroes. He spoke in a wonderful Southern accent and pronounced police as "poe-lease" with the accent on the first syllable. I'll always remember Willie's warning, "If you see a blasting cap, do not touch it! Call a poe-lease o' fireman. Do not touch it. You may loose your hands o' eyes!" Willy's warning is a delightful memory which now makes me smile. Back then it scared the heck out of me.

Good Signs

2010-04-02T11:04:00.000-07:00

I poked a little fun at a South Carolina sign a few blogs back, but when we were taking our stroll on another beautiful southern morning, we came upon two signs I just loved. I thought it was only fair to give equal time to the good signs as I had to the strange one. These two pieces of signage, (how I hate that word) mark the spot at Port Royal Elementary School, where moms and dads drop off their kids. I make a motion they be adopted in upstate NY school districts.

Did I Mention We Met Forrest Gump?

2010-04-01T13:37:00.000-07:00

Last week we took Linda's sister Claire to Savannah. I love the city, and in order for Claire to see as many of the beautiful squares as possible, we took one of the rather overpriced tram tours of the city. As we were approaching Chippewa Square, the driver/narrator stopped. She explained that this was the square where the "box of chocolates" park bench scene was filmed in FORREST GUMP. To our left, she pointed out, was the church where the CG feather came wafting down. We took a slow drive around the lovely square and saw the spot where the bench had been placed for filming. When we were 3/4 of the way around, our narrator said, "Why look who's waiting for our tram." There on the corner was Forrest Gump. Sneakers on and suitcase in hand. Baseball cap atop his head. The tram pulled up and Forrest got on.

The young guy they had found to play Forrest was pretty great. He really looked like Tom Hanks and sounded like Forrest. He began to talk to us in Gump-ese, telling us that he was going to meet Captain Dan. Then he grinned Forrestly, waiting for someone to ask him a question. And the whole tramload froze up. No one said a word. I thought of asking him how Mama or Bubba were but was afraid he'd say, "they're both dead, don't ya know?" After a minute or so of babbling about chocolates and Jenny (who come to think of it, is dead, too), Forrest hopped off the tram and went running down the street at a Forrest "I'm crossin' the country" pace. And I bet he was thinking, "Another bunch of idjits with nothin' to ask me." Heck, I even forgot to take his picture.

South Carolina Irony/Introspection

2010-03-28T08:11:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of Fripp Island, South Carolina, taken from a pier that runs out from one of the visitor centers at Hunting Island State Park. This is about as close as a "visitor" can get to Fripp. It's a private island, owned by the residents of the million dollar homes and condoes that make up Fripp Island real estate.

Pat Conroy is one of my favorite writers and a resident of the island. My favorite Conroy book is THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE. In it Conroy explores the insulated world of the Charleston elite, wealthy old families, who have ways that prevent those who don't belong from becoming part of their society or caste or whatever term of that sort works for you. LORDS OF DISCIPLINE is an intense, insightful, sometimes heartbreaking story, seen through the eyes of Will McLean, a Savannah-born Irish-Catholic cadet at a thinly disguised version of the Citadel. Pat Conroy had graduated from the Citadel, so in my imagination he was, in spirit at least, that brave cadet, who dared defy the entrenched way of things in the novel. Will was the kind of young man that Pat Conroy, who was a true champion of his needy students on the barrier islands where he taught when he was a young man, would have been, if placed in the fictional situation of his own creation. What a great book! I love it!

Where is the South Carolina Irony of my title? It lies in the fact that the author of this wonderful indictment of elitism now makes his home in a most elite community. I am almost certainly being unfair to him. Like everyone, Pat Conroy deserves his privacy, and I'm sure it's a commodity that is often hard for him to come by. I asked myself, if I were financially able, would I own an ocean house on Fripp Island. Believe me, I would love to own a waterfront vacation house somewhere. One of the seaside mansions of places like Fripp Island doesn't appeal to me, though. Give me a little two or three bedroom cottage somewhere on the shore. I wouldn't buy on Fripp Island, if I could! Or would I?

Is There A Census Box to Check if You're Amish or Mennonite??

2010-03-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

A story I heard and a photograph I took have bumped into each other in my head setting off a twisting train of thought. The story involved an Armenian man, who was troubled by the census form he was asked to fill out. He didn't know what box to check for race. Apparently, his skin is somewhat darker than "White," but he's not an "African-American." Neither is he "Native American" nor "Asian." Why, he wondered, couldn't we just check a box that labeled us all as Americans. Now I know bureaucrats and statisticians everywhere could explain why the "Race" demographic, (is that the right word?) is necessary. But I personally, think the Armenian-American, or shall I just call him an American, has a good idea.

Now, my train of thought jumped its track and landed on a beach in South Carolina, where I photographed two Amish or Mennonite girls playing in the surf. I didn't get particularly close, not wanting to invade their fun, but I was so touched by their play, that I had to have a picture. I had never seen Amish kids playing in the surf before, and they seemed to be so wonderfully out of place, so perfectly kid-like, even though they wore bonnets and long dresses rather than short shorts and hoodies.

So how does this train of thought get re-railed. For me, both the story and the photo are about the "alikeness" of everyone. And I like that.

Everywhere A Sign

2010-03-18T15:02:00.000-07:00

We just love Beaufort, South Carolina. The “beau” fits this area’s name as well as it fits “beauty.” Of course, every new area is filled with surprises. Some of my favorites around here are the unique signs, which sometimes advertise unique establishments. For example, yesterday we went by a sign that marked a “Terrapin Crossing.” There are also signs, which announce fortunetellers, willing to tell you what’s to be if you cross their palms with paper or plastic. There are also placards advertising “Bail Bondsman,” everywhere. I’ve seen more Bail Bondsman storefronts in the small city of Beauford than I’ve seen anywhere else, I think. Does that suggest that there must be a bunch of bounty hunters hanging around here, too? But my favorite sign, which I just had to photograph, and which is at the top of this posting, was on the Hunting Island State Park Beach, which we visited yesterday. I have no idea what it means or what, for that matter, they might be hunting out there!!

The House by the River

2010-03-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

When you plan a southern sojourn, you have much to do. You have to cancel the mail and the paper. Make sure any bill that might be due is paid. Check in with the police and your next door neighbors so your house is secure. Turn down the heat. Have the car serviced. When it’s finally time to leave, you’re almost too tired to get in the car.

Then you’re on the road, dealing with rain and fog and trucks and a nervous dog, who spends two days in the car breathing as if a thunderstorm is about to strike. You take what Google Maps lists as a shortcut around Roanoke and it ends up being a longcut on a winding road over a good-sized mountain that makes the trip at least a half hour longer. And you spend a night in a dog friendly Ramada inn, where the housekeeping staff forgot to completely clean the toilet.

But then you motor into Beaufort, South Carolina, and you make your way to the little house in the Town of Port Royal. Then it’s all worth it. Fog and panting are forgotten, because the view from your deck of the Beaufort River is wonderful. Live oaks hung with Spanish moss shade the deck, and there’s a marina next door with a bar and restaurant. The sun’s out and the temperature is close to 70. And we’re on southern time.

AVATAR and Some Other Stuff

2010-03-09T08:21:00.000-08:00

Eyak krikkka kah bdbdbd keaa! This means, "we lost the Oscar because of CG backlash" in Na'vi. I think that AVATAR, one of history's biggest films, didn't get the biggest awards because people are still more impressed by other live people performing on film than they are with computer generated or computer enhanced folk flying around, interacting, loving, and such. I must admit, that I haven't seen AVATAR, although I want to. I also haven't researched this particular opinion in any way, but if it is true, I'm pleased. . .not because I'd be right in my opinion, but because I would rather the work of people triumph over the work of machines, no matter how spectacular that machine work may be. (And I realize that it takes people to make those machines work, but the people don't emote on screen like totally live actors. Does that sound like a Valley Girl? "Totally live!") And what's with all this 3-D?

I haven't written about my writing in awhile, and since that was the original intent of The Blue Moon Grille, I should write something. At this moment, I have a play under consideration by Brooklyn Publishers, a short story entered in the Highlights Fiction Competition, a poem in the society of American Pen Women's contest, and a young adult novel in the Amazon/Penguin Books Novel contest. That's 1 work per major genre. I survived the first cut in the novel's competition. Mine was one of 1000 manuscripts accepted from the original 5000 entered. That isn't saying a terrible lot, but being 1 out of 5 isn't bad. The next cut will be announced on March 25, I believe. My blog can now be accessed from the Oneida Daily Dispatch Website, which is nice.

I am writing a lot everyday, what with my blog and SUMMERPLAY. I have already finished 1 play this winter, UNCLE HARVEY'S WAY, for which some summerplayers and I had a read-through and pronounced the play too dark for summer audiences. I hope to do a public reading of UNCLE HARVEY for a mature audience sometime in the future. I am close to completing my second play of the last few months, which is called THE GIRL WHO WAS READING NICHOLAS SPARKS. It is much more light-hearted and will allow a large cast of people of all ages and both sexes! I hope to pick up a few more young summerplayers for those who are growing up and moving away.

Ook atah ta ta (2 seconds of tongue rolling) boota! That means "thanks for reading" in a seldom-used Calcutta dialogue called Na'ru!

Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian

2010-03-05T15:44:00.001-08:00

On Wednesday, we went to Auburn to hear Greg Mortenson speak.

The best word to describe Mortenson is humanitarian. In the early 1990's, he was climbing K-2, the second highest mountain in the world, which is on the border of Pakistan and China. The climb was to honor his sister who had died when she was 24. He was saddened that he didn't quite make the summit, but on the treacherous route down, he became lost and was eventually saved by the people of a small village in Pakistan. He fell in love with these people, and when he left, he promised to return and build a school for them.

He did, and since then Greg Mortenson and his Central Asia Institute have built dozens and dozens of schools, in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. I can't begin to impart very many of the lessons that Greg Mortenson presented in his approximately hour and a half lecture. There were so many. He told his audience that the most important voices in Pakistan and Afghanistan are the elders of the many little villages. It is these people who approach Mortenson and ask him to help them build a school. Mortenson has become a facilitator, although I don't much like that word. He helps the villagers get the supplies they need for a school, helps them along in construction, but always makes sure that the project is theirs, their special creation.

And Mortenson makes sure that these schools educate girls. Educating young women, he believes, is one of the surest ways to better all lives in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Girls, he explains, go home from school and teach their mothers. And read newspapers to their families. And become aware of the realities of modern life. He cited a very interesting example. Twenty years ago about 10%, I believe, of the female population of Bangladesh was literate. At the time, the average number of births per adult female was 8. Twenty years later, 60% of Bangladesh women are literate. Now the average number of births per adult female is 2.8. This figure is so important because Mortenson believes that a huge problem facing Asia is the exploding population.

With education, both poverty and fear can be defeated. Nearly everyone in Afghanistan and Pakistan want to defeat these two destroyers of life. The citizens of those countries have made Greg Mortenson their own. Not one of the schools he has helped construct has been destroyed by the Taliban, because the Taliban knows that these are schools of the people. Perhaps, my favorite story of the night was when Dr. Greg as he is called, although he isn't a doctor, told about this particularly rough group of elders from a village in Afghanistan, who wanted to see one of his schools before they committed to building their own. He arranged for a visit to a school that had a playground. When these tough, carbine-carrying men saw the swings and slide, they were entranced. Mortenson has a picture of two of the scariest Afghanis you'd ever want to meet swinging with huge grins on their faces, bullet-filled bandoleros across their chests. Men who had never gotten to play in their lives, played for an hour and a half, and when they were finally done, declared that they must have a school, as long as it had a playground.

Enough said. Read Mortenson's THREE CUPS OF TEA and STONES INTO SCHOOLS. Be amazed by a man who knows how peace is made and how life should be led. You will be moved and fascinated. And know this as well: one man can make a difference. Ten years ago, 800,ooo Afghani boys were going to school. Now, 8.2 million Afghani children are attending. Much of the thanks goes to Greg Mortenson, humanitarian.

A Brief Romantic Blog

2010-02-24T11:37:00.000-08:00

This posting is in the response to the requests of both an old friend and of a sweet niece, for whom it could be sub-titled "How I Met Your Aunt Linda." It is the first or second day of school in the fall of 1969 and disturbingly hot in the halls of Chittenango High School. I am sweltering in a sport coat and tie because I believe that is the way a teacher must dress. The 13 English teachers, at least 5 of us newbies, attend the first English department meeting of the year in the upstairs teachers' room. Across from me sits Linda Baker, a lovely brunette in a blue dress. At least, I believe it was blue. I couldn't swear to it. Little do I guess that upon first glance, she doesn't like me. It's because I am wearing a suede sport coat and have a wide leather watch band. She thinks I must be one of those stuck on themselves, cool kind of guys, whom she doesn't care for. Needless to say we do not fall instantaneously in love.

But fortunately, Linda soon forgives me my deer skin jacket. She's very literary, so maybe my coat reminds her of Natty Bumppo. And gradually we fall in love. It helps that we teach ROMEO AND JULIET together to all the ninth graders at Chittenango High School. It helps that many of those ninth graders would choose to play Cupid and urge us together. For example, Sue Matina nee Myers delivers notes to me from Linda. Sue thought that was quite romantic, she reminded us not long ago.

Our love is also fueled by our proximity to each other during the hours off from school. Young teachers hang out together and party together, and there was a bunch of us new teachers, and we were a hanging and partying crew. It took almost 2 years until I asked her, in a cottage on Oneida Lake, to marry me, and a year later we were married and went honeymooning on Cape Cod. In the years that have followed we probably have been back to Cape Cod 100 times. Maybe more. We go back to the Cape for a little renewal, I guess, although I don't think we really need it. We always seem to be new to each other. Let me cite one of my favorite lines from OUR TOWN. On the morning of his son's wedding, Doc Gibbs admits to his wife that when they got married, "I was afraid we weren't going to have material for conversation more'n'd last us a few weeks. I was afraid we'd run out and eat our meals in silence. That's a fact. You and I have been conversing for 20 years now without any noticeable barren spells." For Linda and me, it has been 37 and 1/2 years.

We Used to Fall in Love A Lot

2010-02-21T10:29:00.000-08:00

On Saturday night, we went with my mother-in-law, to a very nice restaurant in Waterford. The night was lovely, temperature nearly forty, no cold wind, and the air smelling of nearly spring. Shortly, after we were seated, our server, a very pretty girl, small, sort of snowboarder size, with a great smile and the uniquely spelled name "Lindsie," read us the list of specials. Not being interested in the specials, I glanced around the room. Sitting next to us, with his mom and dad, was a guy of about 20 in a college sweatshirt. He didn't notice that I happened to look at him, because he was looking at Lindsie, and there were stars in his eyes. I knew he had fallen instantaneously in love.

This moment, combined with the fact that spring was in the air in Waterford, sent my mind reeling back to 1966 or '67. About 20 miles from where I was sitting is the UAlbany campus, and back those many years, when spring was in the air, or fall or winter for that matter, my roommate Mike and I would fall instantaneously in love, like the kid at the next table, at least 2 or 3 times a week. Mike would come back from the library, and say, "G, I just fell in love." I would come back from the humanities building and say, "Rose, I think I'm in love." It was wonderful, foolish, and frustrating, because usually we wouldn't see the girl we had fallen in love with again for months, if ever. After all, the university had a huge campus, full of girls worthy of falling in love with. (That's one of those sentences that just needs to end in a preposition.) Mike was particularly good at getting first names and hometowns. He would then come back to the room and search through the thousands of names in the campus directory until he found the full name of the young woman who had swiftly stolen his heart. I wasn't effective at all. I was too shy.

An extremely major issue in the life of many a teenish or twenty something-ish guy is the perfect girl watch. The seeking of the soulmate, so to speak. Until I happened upon the boy at the table in Waterford, who had been quietly thunderstruck by Lindsie, I may have forgotten the sweetness and agony of being alive and on society's version of the prowl. I felt really bad for the kid next to me, because he was with his mom and dad. If he'd been with his buddies, he could have turned and said, "Hey, guys! I'm in love!"

I hope this post,

is not too smarmy for most.

Life in Chittenango is Great, but. . .

2010-02-19T14:43:00.000-08:00

In my 150 postings, I have often written about the joys of life in the village "where waters run north, " but I have to say there are some pretty good things about living in Fayetteville, that little village just north of Manlius, too. The thing that has caught my eye each day for the last few weeks, when I head to Panera Bread for the world's greatest dark roast coffee, is the construction of the world's most beautiful combination gas station, convenience store, and car wash, from now on referred to as the GSCSCW.

Anyone who hasn't seen it owes himself or herself a drive down Rte. 5 to the corner of Burdick Street when Towne Center lies. (I have to admit, I don't know if there's an "e" at the end of Towne in Towne Center, but when discussing Fayetteville it looks so right.) On the northeast corner of that intersection sits the nearly completed Sunoco GSCSCW. The building is spectacular. At the north and south corners of the new building, facing west, are two stone... turrets, I guess you'd have to call them. The roof above the doors appears to be made of COPPER, and the multi-paned windows, trimmed in pristine white, complete the sort of Northwoods look about the place. This GSCSCW will not be run by some guy named "Shorty." Strips of flypaper will not hang from the bathroom ceilings or over the little see-through pizza display case. And though, I'm sure they will be sold there, I just can't imagine this joint peddling Ho-hos, Almond Joys, and those little pine trees that take the stink out of your car.

I imagine the interior of the GSCSCW to be apponted with bearskin rugs, large leather couches, and fireplaces big enough to live in. The place will be filled with handsome apres ski folks. The Olympic Lindsays--Vonn and Jacobellis-- will be holding court on the leather love seats. And in a better world. it will sit right in front of El Capitan in Yosemite Park instead of next door to an all you can eat sushi place.

I don't have a picture of the GSCSCW so I've provided a picture of the aforementioned mountain, instead. When you see this monument to gas station opulence, imagining it sitting in front of El Capitan!

This is a Job for Stacy Foxx and the Double X Girls!

2010-02-18T08:59:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged in a week. I'm two postings away from my 150th entry. I want to blog today, but I'm a bit woozy still from two conscious sedation procedures I had yesterday, which determined that I was internally pristine. So today's blog is going to be cheating. I got a kick out of posting a line from the play SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE BLUE MOON GRILLE on my FACEBOOK profile a couple days ago. So today, I'm going to post a scene from STACY FOXX AND THE DOUBLE X GIRLS, which featured Stephanie McCann, Amanda Clarke Zaengler, Amanda Horning, Catherine Cohen, and Martina Durfee Bex, pictured above. STACY FOXX is a play about a little radio station during WW II and the radio serial, STACY FOXX AND THE DOUBLE X GIRLS. Early in the play, Bonnie (Stacy Foxx) introduces her compadres on their radio serial.

Bonnie:

Well, one night I was talking to four of my friends, and we were all wishing that we could be more of a help with the war effort. Then somebody said wouldn’t it be swell if we were spies or worked undercover for the war department. We were just being silly, of course. But a couple days later when my uncle Ned--he just loves doing sound effects--suggested that I write a serial that we could do on WBTR, I remembered that silly conversation we had. And before you know it, I’d written the first installment of “The Adventures of Stacy Foxx and the Double X Girls.” (she makes her voice very deep) “The story of five young American women, working undercover for the war department, fighting the enemies of America, here on our native soil.”

I’m Stacy. And my four friends who I was having that talk with that night all have parts, too. Nancy Wilson (Amanda Zaengler) plays Vivian Vixen--the femme fatale, Mary Doolittle (Martina Bex) the voice of Spunky Townsend--one tough little customer, Claire Sauer (Stephanie McCann) plays “Big Barb” O’Brien--the muscle of the group, and Jackie Terwilliger (Catherine Cohen) is Naomi Lake, the scientific one.

One of the opening lines features perhaps, the favorite double entendre of the show. Of course, way back then, I claimed it was completely by accident. Right! As this scene begins, the girls are hunting down evil Nazi Herr Weiner. They trap him in a Chinese restaurant and use chubby nun, Sister Corpulenta (Laura Sawyer) as a willing, but shocked, stand-in for the sexy character Vivien Vixen.

Bonnie:

I’m the only one of us who knows what Weiner looks like. I saw his secret photo down at the war department’s secret photo department. I’ll go in and point him out to you Viv?

Jackie:

Don’t you think a German spy is going to kind of stand out in the middle of a Chinese restaurant, anyway?

Bonnie:

Hey, he could be in disguise.

Jackie:

Good point. I’d forgotten that.

Bonnie:

Spread out, gals. Come on Viv. You’ve got a hun to seduce.

Sister:

Saints preserve us. . .I mean I can’t wait to help our boys in the service.

(there is the sound of a door opening, Ned clinks some glasses together and some chopsticks, the girls mumble softly in the background)

Jack:

(in a politically incorrect Chinese accent) You rike table, radies.

Bonnie:

We’re looking for a friend, thank you.

Jack:

OK. Egg loll velly good tonight.

Bonnie:

Thank you. . .There he is Viv. There sitting at the table right underneath the painting of the Great Wall.

Sister:

I see him. He is a handsome fellow isn’t he. Too bad he’s a dirty Nazi. I’ll go over and pitch a little woo in his direction.

Bonnie:

Try to lure him out into the back alley. We’ll get the drop on him there.

Sister:

(beginning to enjoy her role but still a bit tentative) Will do, chief.

Bonnie:

See you out back. Good luck, Viv.

(Ned makes the sound of footsteps crossing the room.)

Sister:

Hello tall, blond and Aryan. What’s a good lookin’ guy like you doin’ here?

Larry: (Nick Roach, in a thick German accent)

Da China man told me to sit here. I vas only following orders.

Sister:

I mean . . .what’s a handsome hunk of a man doing in a joint like this?

Larry:

Oh. I am vaiting for a boat.

Sister:

Really. . . (crosses herself a couple of times) How’d you like to take a little sail around the harbor, skipper?

Larry:

U-boat or mine? (he laughs) A little German humor! Von’t you sit down und have a drink mit me?

Sister:

I’ve got a better idea, baby. Let’s slide out into the alley behind this dump and take on a little cargo before your ship leaves. Whatta ya say?

Larry:

Vy not.

(We hear the sound of footsteps and a door opening.)

Sister:

It’s nice and fresh out here. I hate the smell of Chinese cooking.

Larry:

Ah, Fraulein, you look beautiful in de light of de moon. . .even back here in de alley vere de moon doesn’t shine.

Sister:

Like I said, I hate the smell of Chinese cooking, but ya know what I really hate the smell of? . . German cooking. There’s nothing worse than the stench of Kraut!

Larry:

Vas is loes? Gott in Himmel! Dis is a trap!

Bonnie:

That’s right Weiner, and you’re caught in it.

Claire:

Don’t move ya blond palooka. You’re covered from all sides.

This post may only entertain a few, but, hey, it's February, and my ideas are a bit frozen. (I think this is probably the only time I've written the words "chubby nun!")

I'm LOST!

2010-02-11T11:58:00.000-08:00

I used to be a LOST-aholic. Watched it faithfully for several years, but it got so "out there," plus I could never tell exactly what part of the year it would be shown in, so I quit "Losting" just about the time Charlie died in that underwater chamber and the ship blew up. Now I know that death and time and space mean nothing on LOST, so I decided that I would start watching again. After all, these were to be the final episodes of the series.

I DVR'd last week and watched the first hour of the new season yesterday. (I think it was the first hour, anyway.) It's the episode where Jack is in the plane with most everybody else. Then he's back on the island with most everybody else. Then the H-Bomb goes off a couple of times. Or the H-Bomb doesn't go off no matter how hard Juliet hits it with a stick or looks at it with her sexy yet puppyish eyes. I think that was the first episode. If I'm wrong, I'd appreciate being informed.

Here's what I discovered. Hurley still looks like the world's largest unmade bed. Jack still maintains a three day growth of beard without ever shaving. Sawyer's hair is always the same disreputable length, and his eyes have remained bright with which to stare at the dying Juliet. Kate is still the hottest tv chick not to wash her hair in seven years. And John Locke! In and out of the wheelchair. Never has to shave his head. Just how many white t-shirts did he bring to the island? Most amazingly, in one scene, he's alive in the cave and dead on the beach, and he's also the smoke monster. They should have an Emmy category just for him: Best Performance as A Live, Dead, Crippled, Walking, Bald Man Without a Costume Change. I also found out that Charlie is not dead, but instead is trying to kill himself by swallowing a condom full of heroin in an airplane bathroom.

Sayed (sp.) is dying, too. Gut shot, as they say in cop movies! Hurley's gotta take him to the temple so the ghost of Jacob can cure him. If I were Sawyer, I'd bring Juliet's corpse along, too. If the temple can cure a guy with his stomach shot to pieces, maybe it can resurrect a woman with her internal organs crushed.

Having said all this silliness, let me state unequivocally that I LOVED THE EPISODE and plan on watching it until the end. I have no idea what's going on, but isn't that one of the charms of LOST. Sometime, in the future accounts of television history, it will be written that early in the 21st century there was a TV series that made little sense and yet many people loved it. And by the way, how can the smoke monster batter people around when it's made out of smoke? Choke them, maybe.

OD'ing in the 'Nango

2010-02-07T13:30:00.000-08:00

Phil Austin with Lion First Vice President Pete Owens

I have just used the inexcusable--a suggestive headline to get people to open this posting. The OD to which I refer is the ONEIDA DISPATCH, and on Thursday night at Lions Club, the Lions heard Phil Austin, the DISPATCH owner and publisher, and a Chittenango resident, discuss his plans for what his paper could mean to and do for Chittenango.

It will mean to us a new medium from which to publicize the activities and good things that are happening in our area. This past summer, I bemoaned the lack of outlets to spread information about SUMMERPLAY. With the CB TIMES defunct and the POST-STANDARD virtually impossible to crack, the only real alternative I had was online. Phil Austin is forward-looking. He saw the need our area has for a newspaper actually printed on newsprint.

More publicity about our village and surrounding area can do a lot for us. I blogged sometime in the past year about how sad it is to see the empty retail buildings on Genesee St. in the village. Last week, the DISPATCH printed an article about Michael's Restaurant, a business that's trying to make a go of it here. Mr. Austin said that he can't wait for more information and photographs about the 'Nango. As soon as I'm done blogging, I'm going to send him a press release and photo for Lions Club.

But you say, I don't subscribe to the Oneida paper. To get my news, you say, I get the POST STANDARD or I search for it online. Well, it's time to subscribe to the OD. The paper is being offered to Chittenango residents for the remarkably reasonable price of 99 cents per week. That's six issues for a penny less than a buck.

Phil Austin is visiting schools and organizations throughout our community to get his message out. And it's message that can make life better and easier for a lot of people. If you'd like to subscribe, go directly to the website www.oneidadispatch.com. If you have photos or a press release you wish to share, send it to PAustin@journalregister.com.

I like newspapers. Linda loves them. We subscribe to the POST STANDARD, and I check the online version of the Madison Courier every morning. Those things won't change, but I look forward to having the ONEIDA DAILY DISPATCH as a Chittenango-friendly alternative.

(Is it me or does the fact that the POST STANDARD features a Madison County page without any Madison County news seem a bit. . .absurd?)

From the Source: My Final Columbine Post, I Think

2010-02-04T12:15:00.000-08:00

I blog about things I find interesting and thought provoking, and I blogged this week about the book COLUMBINE for both those reasons. But I discovered that my postings about the famous school shootings would cause an unprecedented reaction for my blogsite THE BLUE MOON GRILLE. There are people for which the truth about Columbine is and always will be a cause from the heart, an open sore, and a mission. Those people must monitor the web for others offering commentary about the tragedy.

I received thoughtful and logical commentaries from someone named Lisa. Lisa is a proponent of the theory that bullying was an integral part in causing Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's decisions to perpetrate horrible violence. She first sent me a link for a COLUMBINE book review by Randy Brown, which I discussed in my blog yesterday. Today she sent me the link to another review of Dave Cullen's book, this one by Columbine researcher Alisa Kester. Reading the new review was illuminating. Even more illuminating was my discovery of whom I believe Lisa to be. Thank you for contacting me. Lisa, and presenting your side. Know that I was a high school English teacher for 33 years, and I despise bullying. In fact, I blogged about it on January 8. I hope you and those you represent have found some measure of peace. I hope you don't mind if I pray for you.

From the sublime, we sometimes progress to the ridiculous. I was also contacted by a blogger or organization which calls himself/itself starviego. A little research revealed that starviego is/are deep into conspiracy theory. I could almost hear the X-FILE theme and see the smiling faces of the LONE GUNMAN group. I loved those guys.

Finally, I received two comments from Dave Cullen, the author of COLUMBINE. He thanked me for my open-mindedness and provided some really interesting commentary about the arguments I set forth yesterday.

If you would like to read these comments, and you have been following me on FACEBOOK, then you need to go to my blog itself at wwwmotleyplayer.blogspot.com/ As I've said before, the missing (.) after the w's is intentional and the final / is necessary.

I think I'll harken back to THE X-FILES for a moment. A quote that followed Mulder and Scully around was "The truth is out there." It is. I wish the best of luck to everyone who is searching for the truth about Columbine, but I'm quite sure that no book will ever please everyone. My wife is fond of saying, " 'I see,' said the blind man." I guess when I wrote my commentary on COLUMBINE some people thought that quote was devised just for me. I might be getting a touch paranoid, (does paranoia come in touches) because in searching for a photograph to illustrate my blog with today, I became worried that the one I chose might not really feature Columbine survivors. Ah, well.

If you aren't likely to go to my blog but would like to read the review of COLUMBINE, paste the web address below into your browser.

http://www.amazon.com/review/RKT7NOFW8H8OH/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

On COLUMBINE again. To: Lisa, Peg, and Jim

2010-02-03T10:00:00.001-08:00

"Columbine is a major social issue, and it deserves a lot of books to be written about it -- a lot of serious books." Jeff Kass, author of COLUMBINE: A TRUE CRIME STORY

One of my favorite things these days is to get a reaction or reactions to one of my blog postings. When I blogged about the book COLUMBINE by Dave Cullen yesterday, I received three reactions, all questioning the veracity of Cullen's book, and/or suggesting that his research was flawed. The reactions came from Peggy Nunez and Jim Small, two people I've known a long time and whose opinions I respect. The other came directly to my blog rather than through FACEBOOK. It was from Lisa, who also offered interesting thoughts, but I have no way to write back to her, so I hope she reads my blog again and sees that I have responded.

I went web searching to see what I could find out about the criticisms. I searched statements like "lies and mistakes made by Dave Cullen in his book COLUMBINE," "Dave Cullen vs. the Littleton citizenry," and "Jeff Kass on Dave Cullen." I found mostly praise for the book but some criticism.

Peg, Jim, and Lisa offered a variety of objections to Cullen's book. I'll try to speak to three of them:

1. It has been suggested that Cullen greatly downplayed the amount of bullying that Eric and Dylan received. It is even suggested that Columbine High School's administration fostered a climate of bullying. I researched an interview of Jeff Kass, author of COLUMBINE: A TRUE STORY, a book that was recommended by Peggy Nunez as being particularly truthful. Of Kass and Cullen, the interviewer states "the authors agree on plenty of things, including the relative unimportance of bullying as a motivator for the killing spree launched by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold." Lisa sent me to a book review of Cullen's COLUMBINE written by Randy Brown, father of Brooks Brown, a sometimes friend of Dylan and a Columbine author himself. It's online at: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3AJEK6T7746K6/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm. Brown attacks the book and speaks to bullying as a cause, but he is so close to situation as a Columbine parent, whose son wasn't treated particularly well in Cullen's book, that the review is without objectivity. My heart goes out to Mr. Brown, but I'm afraid his commentary is affected and possibly flawed by his heart. I found nothing on the web to suggest that Frank DeAngelis, principal of Columbine H.S. was accepting of bullying in his school, but there are probably items out there. I find it interesting, though, that Cullen named DeAngelis, along with survivor Patrick Ireland, as the two heroes of Columbine.

2. A second point made was that Cullen ascribed emotions and conversation to Eric and Dylan that he couldn't possibly know about. I don't necessarily find Kullen at fault for this. These ideas, emotions, and conversations are logical extensions of his research and the videotapes and writings left behind. Eric Larsen, a great non-fiction writer, creates dialogues and reactions based on careful research. It certainly is a fair criticism, though.

3. The third point is the fact that the locals, those closest to the tragedy, are against Cullen; ergo, he must be a liar. My college friend Jim Small wrote me about a person who lived close to Littleton. Of Cullen, Jim wrote, "They have no use for the guy." That doesn't surprise me one bit. The citizens of Littleton needed someone to blame, and they didn't want two dead kids, which is what COLUMBINE by Cullen gives them. I believe they have a legitimate target for their anger in the Jeffco Sheriff's Department, whose administration missed so much. Cullen is hard on the sheriff's department. He doesn't sugarcoat their errors. It was the courts that released them from a lot of culpability. The Littleton citizenry would also love to blame their terrible sadness on Eric and Dylan's parents, but Cullen, aided by the research of Dr. Fuselier, doesn't grant them that release. What is the most troubling is the fact that a judge sealed the transcripts of depositons made by the killers' parents until 2027, which, of course, might suggest some horrible secret contained within.

Finally, I could possibly concede these points about COLUMBINE the book and still believe it to be an important document. That's because I feel that Dwayne Fuselier, the FBI behavioral psychologist, whose son was a freshman in Columbine H.S. the day of the massacre is the hero of the book. His tremendous research and analysis leads me to believe that Eric is a psychopath, and that his supposed regret was simply part of his sociopathic game. And contrary to those that believe they should have seen these psychopathic behaviors earlier, Fuselier was surprised to see the behavior in a person of such a young age. I feel sorry for Dylan whose depression turned him into Eric's violent pawn, and I believe that the basic cause of the tragedy was something terribly wrong with the chemistry of Eric Harris' brain.

I quoted Jeff Kass at the beginning of this blog, and I think he's right. Only thing is I don't want to be reading those new books. COLUMBINE the book takes you to a terrifying place: Columbine High School in April of 1999. I've spent enough time there for awhile.

Columbine, Nearly 11 Years Later

2010-02-02T11:28:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Dave Cullen's book COLUMBINE. Cullen is considered the foremost authority on the school massacre, and his book, of course, is far more frightening than anything Stephen King ever penned. I can't say I liked reading the book, but I think it's an important read for anyone who cares about kids and wants to keep them safe.

What struck me as I read the book were the number of myths or misconceptions that rose from the events of April 20, 1999. To begin with, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were not the loners which is so often suggested. They had friends, they worked at a pizza parlor, and they had both gone to the prom the Saturday before the attack. Nor were they the victims of constant bullying, though in some of their writings and videos they ranted at the jocks and the preps, who may have made fun of them. In reality, in Eric and Dylan's senior year, they were more likely to be doing the bullying than being the object of it. They played violent videogames and watched violent movies like NATURAL BORN KILLERS, but Dr. Dwayne Fuselier, the FBI behavioral psychologist, who studied both the boys, doesn't name this as a direct cause. Even the famous Trench Coat Mafia that the boys were supposed to belong to is a misconception. The Trench Coat Mafia was a group of boys who hung out in long dark coats at Columbine, but the group had disbanded a year earlier, and Dylan and Eric hadn't been members. The boys did wear black dusters to hide their weapons the day of the attack, and researchers feel that probably that reminded the kids at Columbine of the TCM. One kid mentioned it to another then to another, and pretty soon, the press picked it up and it went on the internet, and became "truth."

Perhaps, the most frightening misconception is that Harris and Klebold were just a couple of school shooters. These two, and particularly Harris, were looking to create a mini-Armageddon. They planned to kill thousands that day with pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, and bombs they had built using propane canisters. Had the propane bombs gone off in the cafeteria where they were placed, hundreds of students and teachers would have been crushed by rubble. Not only that, but the boys had also tried to turn their cars into bombs and had parked the cars where they figured fire and rescue vehicles would eventually be parked. Thank God, that Eric Harris couldn't make a timer that would detonate and that even when they fired directly into their propane bombs, they didn't explode.

The Columbine community and the world looked for someone or something to blame. The Harris and Klebold parents have taken most of the heat, although according to this book, they had no idea of their sons' plans and had tried to be good parents. Some people blame the school system, but in a school with 2000 kids, it's a challenge. Dylan's creative writing teacher brought a violent story he had written to the attention of the guidance counselors and Dylan's parents. But the counselor and the Klebolds just wrote it off to an active imagination. Some blame must go to the Jefferson County Sheriff's dept. for not foreseeing the attack and for mishandling and ignoring reports about Erik's violent nature months before the massacre.

Blame belongs to the killers themselves. According to Dr. Fuselier, Eric Harris was a psychopath. He hated the world and wanted to destroy as much as he could of it and be remembered for his evil. Dylan Klebold is the poor sap who followed along. Klebold was so depressed, so down on life, felt so unloved by the girl of his dreams, that he looked at the massacre as a way to commit suicide and end his troubled life. Horrifyingly, both boys completely anticipated and accepted dying and figured they'd have "fun" doing it.

On a video made shortly before April 20, Eric Harris assures his parents that they shouldn't feel any responsibility for his evil. He quotes Shakespeare: "Good wombs have borne bad sons." Just typing those words gave me a chill.

Elfaba, Richard the III, and the Secret Identity of SNAC

2010-01-30T14:02:00.000-08:00

I'm still thinking some about WICKED and the idea that Elfaba was forced by society to be "wicked" because of her greenness. Of course, she wasn't really wicked, not like the title character of Shakespeare's RICHARD THE THIRD. Shakespeare chose to use "tragedy" to describe the play RICHARD III, something he didn't do with most of historic plays. Richard's tragedy, according to the bard, was that he was forced to become "wicked" because he was so ugly. The beginning of the play features a soliloquy by Richard that I love. In it he declares both his amorousness and his ugliness. He says he is, "cheated of form by dissembling nature/ Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time into this breathing world. . . so lamely and unfashionable/ That dogs bark at me as I halt by them. . ." He describes his deformed self in other ways too, and finally concludes ". . . since I cannot prove a lover. . .I am determined to prove a villain." If he can't get the girl, he won't be the hero, and he goes about being absolute awful (killing kids for ex.) for 5 acts and eventually dying shortly after saying, "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"

Which brings me to the major point of the posting: Does being drastically different from the norm really cause "wickedness," or is this old theme better in the literature than in the living? It seems to me that people who I have known who are in someway physically different, or perceive themselves as being so, are usually quiet, reserved, and lacking in confidence. Perhaps, unhappy, but not made evil by the world. Of course, Elfaba had magic and Richard III was a king. And they always say, power corrupts.

I was scrolling through some old posts and came upon one of my TWILIGHT rants. A 14 year old girl had responded to it very logically and interestingly. She blogs from a family blog and refers to herself as SNAC. She says I taught her mom a long time ago. I'd love to know just who this secret responder is. You are a good thinker, young lady, and if you have a blog, you must love to write.

That was WICKED!

2010-01-27T08:57:00.000-08:00

I refuse to use some stupid pun like WICKED was "wicked good" or "wicked amazing" to open this ode to the Stephen Schwartz/WinnieHolzman musical, although I guess I just did. We saw it last night from our seats in the 5th row, center. I don't know if I've ever spent a quicker or more enjoyable 2 an 1/2 hours in a theatre. To experience WICKED is to "defy gravity" in that the performance is so elating and uplifting.

I could marvel at the music, the book, the chorus, the sets, the costumes, and the special effects, all deserving of marvel, but I think I'm just going to marvel at the leads, Donna Vivino as Elfaba and Stefanie Brown as Galinda or Glinda, depending on which scene you might be discussing. First to Elfaba (named for L. Frank Baum), the girl who was born green, and as a result scorned and mocked; and, as a result of the scorn and mockery, toughing it out on the outside while pining for normalcy on the inside. Donna Vivino was "fantastarocian." Very green, hair pulled tightly back, dressed not to please, she was beautiful to me from the beginning and grew more beautiful as the story unfolded. Her voice can break your heart or knock you over. Her glare can scare the toughest Oz guard, and her smile melt you. (This is not a reference to melting by water.) I can't imagine anyone looking better or more capable in a pointy witch hat.

Stefanie Brown, understudy to both Glinda and Nessarose, how can you go back to the chorus after being the consummate good witch? My Lord, Stefanie you are so funny, so sweet, so intentionally vacant, and with the voice of an occasionally raucous angel. You must be a special person and a special talent to go from flying in a bubble to dancing in the second row smoothly. You were "awesomocian!"

I know that a lot of people go to WICKED multiple times because they so love the experience. I'd love to go again, too, but, should we do so, I know, that however fine the female leads may be, I'll always feel that Donna Vivino and Stefanie Brown are the real Elfaba and Glinda.

A Call from A.J.

2010-01-22T08:56:00.000-08:00

I started today in a great way with a call from A.J. Spiridigliozzi. A lot of people who often or occasionally read my blog know A.J., but his name is new to some of my older friends. Suffice it to say that A.J. is one of my favorite people from my 33 years of teaching. To begin with he's a terrific guy and a loyal friend from a wonderful family. We count his mother and father as true friends. He's also a dedicated single dad with a terrific 3 year old named Noah. Joyfully A.J. was recently engaged to an ENGLISH TEACHER! There's a man with great taste.

When A.J. was in high school, he was in all things theatrical and musical. Lazar Wolf in FIDDLER, Harvey Johnson in BYE, BYE BIRDIE, Val (the "I've got it!! We'll do a show.! Guy) in BABES IN ARMS, and ABEL FRAKE, hog farmer extraordinaire in STATE FAIR. (That's A.J./Abel pictured at center in the photo at the top.) On the fall stage he was the tragi-comic Mercutio in ROMEO AND JULIET, but most memorable to me, the romantic, fearless adventurer Tanner in the first play that I wrote and directed, A GIRL OF TWO WORLDS.

Now, A.J. is a drama teacher at a big high school in Arkansas. He teaches, directs, acts, and is occasionally involved in improv. So when our phone rang at 8:30 this morning, and it was A.J., I was thrilled. We talked for 10 minutes or so, including mention of his beloved, Cinderella-Jets, and he told me about the musical that he is directing now called BACK TO THE EIGHTIES. He said to me, "You know when I'm working on a musical, I often say to myself, 'what would Mr. Ellstrom do here?' " That's one of the nicest things a great and talented friend could say to me. I got a drop of tear in my eye and a half a lump in my throat, wiped my eye, swallowed the lump, and smiled. I love you, buddy!

The Word for the Day is Cuckold

2010-01-19T09:14:00.000-08:00

I have been bemoaning the weather for the last few weeks, and I guess nature heard me and decided to remind me that there is beauty regardless of the glooming. In the fall, I posted a picture of our burning bush all red and full. When I went out this morning and saw how nature had painted our red plant white, I had an "aha" moment. Hey, nature, sorry I've been complaining. "You are one good Mother!"

Why the title? Because I had used the line from ROMEO AND JULIET to complain, I decided to search out something Shakespearean to celebrate nature forever bright. But I came upon the poem that follows from LOVE'S LABOURS LOST that I remembered from college. It's such a beautiful poem, yet it contains Shakespeare's amazing ability to make us laugh, especially when his jokes are just a trifle off-color. So I decided to use it. The word for the day: A "cuckold" in Elizabethan times was a husband whose wife was unfaithful to him.

Spring

When daisies pied, and violets blue,

And lady-smocks all silver-white,

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue

Do paint the meadows with delight,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men, for thus sings he:

'Cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,

When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,

And maidens bleach their summer smocks,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men, for thus sings he:

'Cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear.

I Missed The Hoodie Memo

2010-01-15T13:16:00.000-08:00

"Hoodie" is a word whose arrival I somehow missed. I know when I first heard the word. It was nearly 8 years ago. So it's been around for a long time, yet for some reason the spell check for Blogspot doesn't recognize it as a real word. So I'm not the only one to miss its arrival. I wonder where the word came from, and how such a unique word found its way into everyday vernacular.

Let me step back about 8 years to the time I first heard the word. It was 2002, a couple months before I retired, and right after SOUTH PACIFIC closed. On the Monday or Tuesday following the musical, a sweet, soft-spoken freshman named Maria, her surname is lost somewhere in the last 8 years, came into my classroom during 10th period and said, "Mr. Ellstrom, I left my light blue hoodie in the orchestra room on Saturday, and it's gone now." I had no idea what she was talking about, but she said "hoodie" with such matter-of-factness that I was apparently embarrassed to ask just what a hoodie was. Instead, I took her down to the costume room where all the left behind stuff was piled up and helped her look. And I found it, too. I saw in the pile a light blue hooded sweatshirt, picked it up and said, "Is this it?" "Yes," she smiled. So she had her hoodie back, and I knew what one was. As I walked back to my room, I thought about this interesting, new, sort of cutesy kind of word I had learned. "Hoodie!" What a perfect name for 14 or 15 year old girls to be calling their little light blue sweatshirts. "That is the cutest hoodie ever!" they would say while shopping in American Eagle or Aeropostale.

Of course, as often seems to happen, after you hear a word for the first time, you start to hear it constantly. That's what happened with "hoodie." Now, almost everyone I know uses the word. And that's weird because it sounds like a word that should describe the clothing of some little kid, not the wardrobe choice of a 50 year old, beer-bellied plumber, who wears his jeans disastrously low.

Why do I bring this up now? This morning I was watching the local news, when the description of a burglary or murder or something awful suspect came up. The news anchor described the fellow as big, tattooed, and dangerous, wearing blue jeans, a black wool cap, and a dark blue "hoodie!" That word just knocked the scare factor out of that description.

I think this weekend I'll do a little Google searching for the origin of the word "hoodie." If I find out just where it came from, I'll let you know.

Here comes the sun. . .

2010-01-14T08:02:00.001-08:00

Praise the Lord, the sun is out! There is nothing more uplifting than a shining interruption to the dismal gray of January! I won't even have to turn my "Day-Light" on today.* I need something to blog about besides the sun, though, so I think I'll do "Boots." Back in the summer, I raved against the ubiquitous flip flop. I don't feel that way about boots, at all. Boots are cool. Back when I was in college, I had desert boots and leather boots to wear with my jeans. I must admit that when I was in junior high and watched Marlon Brando in "The Wild One" on the late movie, I thought it might be cool to wear engineer boots. But guys aren't apparently into boots, anymore. Young women, though, are boot freaks. Their boots are nice--furry and non-furry, leather and suede. The only ones that give me pause are the high-heeled boots, because I can't imagine balancing on them. Case in point: We were at the dome on Sunday watching SU dispatch USF. Several rows below us sat a rather short, early 2o-ish, young lady, wearing boots with pretty darn high heels. We are in the last row of the 200 level, so people with seats below, have to climb the stairs up past us, when they go out. Twice the aforementioned young lady was sent on beer-runs. She was greatly challenged negotiating the high concrete dome steps on her way up to get the beer. She stepped carefully. The tiny heels on one of her boots wobbling each time she raised a foot and stepped up to the next level. But on the way back, with a tray of 4 sloshing beers in her hands, the descent was wobbly enough so that our entire section turned in trepidation to watch her negotiate the steps down. Once one of her heels nearly buckled, but an aware woman to her left reached up and steadied her. Never have I seen such heel wobble. Our entire section was far more entertained by the booted woman's coming and goings than by the basketball game. Why wear such boots, I had to wonder. But I suppose the answer is simple. This season the "wobble" is the price of fashion.

*The Day-Light is an amazing invention for those, who like I do, suffer from seasonal light deprivation syndrome or whatever it's called. The Day-Light brings the sun inside. I have it on for ambient light all the time on gray days when I'm working. It really works on boosting energy and warming your soul. Too bad they're expensive.

When Mallard Fillmore Really Rankles

2010-01-11T14:16:00.001-08:00

I often enjoy reading "Mallard Fillmore." I like the fact that its conservative message is on display right next to the liberal strip Doonesbury. But this comic from last week really bugged me, because I think it's dangerous. It would be so easy to believe that "global warming" isn't happening, or, if it is, that it's simply nature's evolution. Take that route and it's easier to sleep at night. No worries about the ice caps or future generations or polar bears, even. Even the term "global warming" is misleading because people think that a cold winter like we are having worldwide, somehow disproves it existence. "Climate change" is the term that must apply, and it comes in both hot and cold varieties. It troubles me, too, that the people who make their billions screwing up the environment, are only too thrilled to support the contention that this is just nature doing some sort of environmental clean up! I don't think those super rich really believe the line they feed. They're far too smart. And I don't think the Mallard Fillmore cartoonist really believes it, either. He's far too smart, too.

Whatcha "Mean," Girl?

2010-01-08T13:23:00.000-08:00

Always on the search for blog ideas, I sat in the doctor's office this morning and gathered some dust. In reality, my time spent wasn't bad. I was out at about 10:00 from a 9:15 appointment. Sitting in one of the little exam rooms, where you sometimes feel you have been misplaced, I started my way through a pile of "healthy" magazines as I waited. In the Table of Contents of a Disney produced magazine, I think, was an article about bullying, and because "bullying" is high on the list of My 7 Deadly Sins, I decided to read it. When I turned to page 20, I discovered the bullies in the article were girls rather than boys.

So, I read the article. It wasn't long. It also wasn't terribly illuminating, either, but it contained a thought that has troubled me for years. The article suggested that "teenage girl bullies" are artists of manipulation, very capable of causing adults to see them as acolytes of Little Mary Sunshine, while their peers feared them as bullying scourges. I hate to get manipulated almost as much as I hate bullying. What has troubled me for a long time is just how often, over the years I taught, did I get manipulated into believing that a snotty spirited girl was a sweet natured kid.

Boy bullies are generally up front and clumsy about it. They're awful and rough and wedgie-driven. A couple of them, who I, in retrospect, think might have been steroid-driven, were dangerous. Certainly, most didn't try to manipulate anyone into thinking they were goody-two shoes. Suggesting such a thing would have been worth a couple noogies.

Girl bullies, I guess, are secretive and sly and even more effective as a result. People don't wish to believe it. After all the word "bully" has a masculine origin. I'm also not sure who is better at not ratting out the bullies, boys or girls. There is an effective code of silence for both sexes.

I'm almost done with this minor ramble, this examination of appearance vs. reality. Since retiring, I've talked to a bunch of young people after they graduated, and found out about some of the GAP and Abercrombie-uniformed bullies I missed over the years. I'm sure I missed a bunch starting way back in 1969. I'm mad about being manipulated. Sorry for being dumb.

"Words! Words! Words! I'm so sick of words! I get words all day through; first from him, now from you!"

2010-01-06T11:22:00.001-08:00

The words of the title are from the lovely lips of Eliza Doolittle in Lerner and Loewe's MY FAIR LADY. Sometimes, researching for my blogs is more fun than writing them. Today I'm blogging about words and expressions that people would like to remove from our language. I knew immediately that I wanted to use Eliza's words for my title, so I searched them out so I could be exact. Then while searching for a "word" image, I discovered this beautiful poster of a young woman wrapped up warmly in words, which, of course, people who love to read and write are. I only wish it was a larger image. Though I will never be sick of "words," there are a few words and expressions listed below, along with a few from FACEBOOK friends, that I have had quite enough of.

My votes for assassination or at least excoriation (isn't "excoriate" a great word. It means "verbally flay") include "fer sure," "to die for" refering to something tasty, "space" in refering to a room (pardon me, I have to go to the bathspace), and "BIG TIME!" Kim Varner Jeffries offer up "true dat," Lora Evans Farber-"crib" as a reference to a living "space," and Nancy Lenzen Davis adds "mega dittoes" and "nuf said." Dr. Paul Werner, D.D. S. suggests the extraction of "awesome," while nurse and novelist Susan Sherrell would scratch out "Yeh, right," the extended "Hello-o-o-o" (or however the hello you would spell it), and "Don't even go there!" Bob Washbon is sick and tired of "it is what it is," and Jamie Pittman would forever end the insertion of "like" wherever it isn't needed. That's a goodly list for publication on the blogosphere, and "blogosphere" is another word that should be forever lost in cyberspace, along with the word "cyberspace." Enough said, and wasn't "nuf said" excoriatable, too.

Jamie Pittman offered up an expression I've known forever, which must be new and obnoxious to him. The term is a "Johnny Come Lately," refering to someone who jumps on the bandwagon or whatever, tardily. I decided to research the expression and discovered that it was first used in the USA in the 1830's in reference to a sailor added late to the crew of a ship. That's interesting, but in my search, I found this fantastic website called www.mindlesscrap.com. I entered "Johnny Come Lately" and it took me to a page that started with the "I's." The first "I" expression? "I don't give a rat's ass!" You gotta love a website with a page that begins, "I don't give a rat's ass!"

Why Christmas Token Creation Cannot Be Left in the Hands of the Chinese

2010-01-01T08:34:00.000-08:00

Just a brief blog moment to point out what occurs when sacred things like our Santa coffee mugs are outsourced to the Far East. The mug shown above was an actual Christmas gift my daughter and her husband received. It was made in China. Perhaps, the Chinese feel we are so wrapped up in Christmas that we ought to "marry it!" Somehow I doubt that. What is also frightening is that the people who gave the mug to Jan and Chris didn't notice anything was wrong with it.

The Wind Chill May Be 10 Below, But We've Still Got the 'Cuse

2009-12-29T08:43:00.000-08:00

We've had SU season Basketball tickets since the time of Pearl Washington. It's our SU seats that keep us from going south earlier in the winter. This year's team just might be my favorite, personality-wise, of any in all those years, and it's the joy and espirit de corps that these guys bring to each game that makes them so special. They can throw down a dunk, swish a 3 from 25, and deliver laser passes, too. And no one on the team ticks me off by moping or bitching, either. (Woops, I forgot about Mookie.) Well, maybe the Mook can learn, and if he can't, I understand that Iona would love to give him a scholarship.

The Big East season starts tonight. Seton Hall is tough. We could lose, but I don't think we will. Whatever occurs, I'm going to enjoy Andy's 3's, Brandon's drives, Wes's dunks, Arinze's lumbering slams, Rick's trash clean up, Kris bouncing to the hoop like a 6'7" puppy, Scoop playing so much better than I ever thought he could, Mookie's attempts to look like he really enjoys passing, and whoever else might play joining in the fun. If only Josh Pace could somehow be on this team. Now that would make it perfect.

Lucy and the Christmas Salmon

2009-12-23T18:17:00.000-08:00

Another Story From the Children's Lit. Class I Took

(of course Lucy is real, but the rest of the family

has to fit the elementary age group)

Lucy the Yellow Labrador Retriever loved almost everything there was to eat.

She loved the kibble that Laura, her pet lady, put in her bowl everyday for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She loved the cereal and milk that Will, her pet man, put in her bowl every night just before she went to bed. She also loved the crust, that Katharine, her pet 2nd grade girl, slipped to her under the table whenever the family ate pizza. And she loved the ice cream that Luke, her pet kindergarten boy, let her lick off his ice cream cone, whenever Laura wasn’t looking.

Along with those things, Lucy the Yellow Labrador loved to eat cheese, popcorn, cold egg drop soup, hot dogs with or without mustard, stale bread, the suet that Laura put out for the birds, spaghetti, graham crackers, Rolaids with the paper still on, and most roasted root vegetables. Lucy also loved to eat many other things. In fact, the only things that Laura, Will, Katharine, and Luke had discovered that Lucy didn’t like were turnips and stewed tomatoes. Which probably doesn’t surprise anyone.

But what Lucy really loved, adored, wanted more than anything was SALMON! Salmon is a very big, pink fish! One day earlier that fall, Uncle Tom had dropped a big salmon off at Lucy’s house. He brought it in a cooler, and Will put the fish in the freezer part of the fridge. “I caught that salmon in the Salmon River,” Uncle Tom said, which made sense to Lucy.

That afternoon, Laura took out the salmon and gave it to Will to clean OUTSIDE, please. Lucy sat by Will in case he needed any help. The smell of the salmon was interesting. Lucy could imagine rolling in it. Then the salmon went back in the fridge and Lucy forgot about it. There was far too much other food to think about.

A few days later when Luke and Katharine came home from school, Laura said to them, “We’re having salmon for dinner tonight.”

“Gross,” Katharine said.

“What’s salmon?” Luke asked.

Lucy’s ears perked up. In fact, Lucy watched Laura closely throughout the entire preparation of the salmon, and when the family sat down to dinner, Lucy sat on her rug and watched them eat.

“Lucy seems very interested,” Will said. “Want to give her a taste?”

“She can have some of my gross salmon,” Katharine said, jumped up from her place at the table, and carried a piece of salmon to Lucy’s bowl. Lucy padded over, sniffed the salmon, was pleased, and took a bite.

Oh, wow! Oh, wow! Lucy had never tasted anything so wonderful before. Her tail began to wag, first back and forth like a windshield wiper, then in a circle like the rotors on a helicopter. She ate the piece of salmon in a second and bounced over to the table to plant her happy head on Laura’s lap. The whole family laughed.

“She likes it,” Luke grinned. “I hate it.”

“I hate it, too!” Katharine said.

“I’ve tasted things I like a lot better than salmon,” Will agreed.

“Well, I love it,” Laura said, “and it’s very good for me. Lucy and I are the smart ones.” Then Laura took a big piece of salmon from the plate and plopped it into Lucy’s bowl. Lucy’s family watched her happily eating the fish.

“She reminds me of a very little polar bear,” said Katharine, and everyone agreed.

When Lucy was finished, she turned to her family and gave them a huge dog smile. Then she went to her rug and went fast asleep.

But sadly for Lucy that was the end of the salmon. The autumn went on, which was fun both for the Halloween cookies, and the Thanksgiving leftovers. Then it started to snow, which Lucy and her thick fur coat just loved. On snowy days, she would run in circles and roll in the white stuff while playing with Luke in the backyard so she was hungry for anything and everything when they came in from playing. Still in the back of her dog mind was the very, very wonderful memory of salmon.

Christmas morning came and Lucy got to eat a Santa Claus cookie while watching her people open their presents. There was even a stocking for Lucy that contained some Pupperoni, a pig’s ear, and a pack of 6 Denta-Chews, all Lucy’s favorites. When the unwrapping of presents was done, Laura said, “Oh, I almost forgot. Come on, Luce,” she said, and headed to the kitchen. Lucy followed her and Will, Katharine, and Luke followed Lucy.

Laura opened the refrigerator, and Lucy peaked in. Suddenly her tail began wiping and whirling. Laura was taking a big hunk of salmon from out of the fridge. “Merry Christmas, Lucy,” she said and Lucy bounced to her bowl. “Let me give it to her. Please,” asked Katharine, and taking the salmon from her mom, removed the wrapping and broke off a big piece. Lucy stood poised by her bowl for eating. In went the salmon, down went Lucy’ s head with mouth wide open. Oh, wow! Oh, wow! It was even better than she remembered. She licked her lips. There was simply nothing better to eat.

“She does look like a little polar bear, “ Will said.

“Yup,” said Luke.

“She does,” said Katharine.

“Such a good girl,” Laura said and patted Lucy’s head.

Lucy might have looked up and dog smiled at her family, but she was still busy gobbling up her most favorite thing to eat.

Mr. Garner and the Art Lectures from Hell

2009-12-21T11:08:00.000-08:00

One blog sometimes leads to another. A few days ago I blogged about going to the art exhibit at the Everson. That blog got me thinking about why I don't get terribly overwhelmed about visiting art museums, even though I usually enjoy them when I get there. I think this slight antipathy for Rembrandt and Renoir and all those French artists whose names start with "M" may date from 10th grade.

In 10th grade, I was in Honors World History class. I'm quite sure it was called world history at that time, although, the study of how our country got to be, had a variety of names when I was growing up. In 7th grade we studied Citizenship Education, which we shortened to Cit Ed, pronounced like a command to a dog named Edward. In 8th grade at least, we took Social Studies, but that was soon renamed because it suggested both "socialism" and "social diseases" to certain extremely reactionary, but apparently influential, people. By the time we got to 10th grade, I'm quite sure we were taking just plain history.

Our teacher was a wonderful man named Reuben Garner. A small man, he wore a beret and drove a Jaguar, and I swear, he sort of walked on his toes as he crossed the room, he so possessed a small man's grace. He lived in the city of Rochester and took groups of students to Europe during the summer, so he was both cosmopolitan and continental to us. He was rich, too, hence the Jag, although, it was said that his wife had all the money, because how could a teacher ever become rich. He was also a Jewish man in a very waspy school, which made him all the more interesting and exotic.

Mr. Garner taught with flair. If we were studying the "zemsky sobor," he taught with a Russian accent. He had a potted plant on his window shelf named after some African revolutionary. Patrice Lumumba, I think. I remember when he lectured one day about someone named "We Dooz." I had no idea who this person was, but in my notes I wrote down, We Dooz did this or that or the other thing. I even asked a question about why We Dooz did one of those things. Finally, the kid next to me, who was taking French, while I was taking Spanish, whispered to me that "We Dooz" was Mr. Garner pronouncing Louis the 12th, the French way. I was quietly mortified.

Mr. Garner believed that our history education needed to be enriched with outside readings like Edith Hamilton's THE GREEK WAY, and with art lectures. A gentleman (I think his name may have been Mr. Dry) from the Rochester Museum of Art or the U of R or someplace artsy came once a month with slides to lecture us on Art. Not during class time, mind you, but for TWO HOURS after school. There are a multitude of things that 10th graders enjoy doing after school is over. One of those is not sitting in a dark room being lectured on the topic of "Art Through the Centuries" or "Art and You" or "Art in An Ever Expanding World" or whatever the hell it was called. The title should have been "This is Boring, Even the Nudes."

On the third Tuesday of each month, (I'm just guessing as to the day it actually was), we faced the dreaded trudge down the Greek way, or up the hills of Rome, or through the Renaissance, wherever cathedrals and columns, frescoes and facades could be found. I can't speak for my classmates, but I remember nothing about the art! I do remember that kids tried to get their mothers to schedule after school doctor or dentist appointments for them on art lecture days whether they needed them or not. I do remember that someone in one of Mr. Garner's classes, (God forbid not his honors class) had tied the cord on one of his blinds into a neat little hangman's noose. I remember studying that little noose for about an hour during one lecture and wondering if we could drag Mr. Dry to the noose and string him up before anyone could stop us. And I also remember that Mr. Garner would leave the lectures on occasion. Leave for like 20 MINUTES, which told me that HE WAS BORED, TOO!

And that is why I believe that great ART just ain't always that great to me. THE END!

Lucy's Christmas Letter to All

2009-12-17T08:32:00.000-08:00

Yo, dogs! I just love posing for my Christmas letter. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope the holiday season gives you tons of opportunities to roll in something really disgusting! My pet people are spending all sorts of time fawning over me and scratching my lower back, which just sends me into wiggles. They’re especially attentive because I have this condition with my neck. It does hurt, sure, but I play it for all I can get. Twice this week I tricked them into giving me extra Denta-stiks because I looked so pathetic.

The vet also discovered I have a bad thyroid, whatever that might be, so they give me pills hidden in peanut butter and they think I don’t know I’m taking them. They are so easy to fool. Interesting thing is I’m losing weight instead of gaining weight, which I’ve always enjoyed doing.

Ah, well, I’ll be labrador-svelte by the time we go to South Carolina in March. Greg and Linda rented a house on a big river with a fenced in yard, a big deck in the sun, and a doggy door-- for a whole month. How cool is that, and they rented it just for me from a lady who owns a labrador!! Of course, they do get to come, too, or else there’d be nobody to open the car door.

The other day I was looking out the family room window, and I saw a wandering mutt wetting in my side yard. I barked “hello” to him, and he barked back, “Pees on Earth!” Same to all of you wonderful canine and human friends!

I Woof You Very Much,

Lucy

(Actually sent by Lucy to her various dog friends)

Art for Lunch's Sake

2009-12-15T15:57:00.000-08:00

I'm blogging from the Bridgeport Library in downtown Bridgeport, NY. Linda and two of her fellow library board members were unwilling to chance the dangers of Rte. 31 or Kirkville Rd. to attend the meeting in the 'Port on their own, so I got to drive.

A thought for a little extra holiday cash: Get yourself tasered. Borrow a couple of kids and a van, drive out to Salina and go 50 in 45 MPH zone. You can earn as much as 75 G's. Be sure to wear old clothes because you're probably going to have to wiggle around on the road for a little bit.

We went into the Everson Museum today to see the acclaimed "Turner to Cezanne" exhibit. Just as we got there, 4 buses from Caz. High School dumped out their denizens. You may remember that these are the same kids who tried to give me Swine Flu at the football game back in October. I'm not ashamed to say I was feeling a little paranoid.

I chose to put aside my neurosis, and we entered the museum. For most of the first section of the exhibit, the "Turner" part, we were swept along on a sea of Caz. kids. I did notice as we were tossed, like flotsam and jetsam, past his display, that Turner was famed for his maritime painting. Eventually, the crowd calmed as the kids began taking notes and such, and we were able to take only partially obscured looks at the work of many of the greatest European artists of the 19th century. We saw Monet and his brother Manet; Renoir and the American James Whistler. The end of the display, as the title suggested, featured two by Cezanne.

The exhibit was really wonderful as a way of seeing the work of so many Masters at the same time. The museum guides told us that people had come from Canada and all over the Northeast for the exhibit. The guides/security folk were excellent by the way, and when I broke the unposted 12 inch rule by allowing my little finger to point from a distance of 9 inches at a painting, I was summarily chided by a guide about as old as the shoes I had on.

Then we went to Coleman's for a lovely lunch. As we drove back to Chittenango, I silently asked myself a question. If I was looking for two friends with whom to spend a weekend, would I choose Turner and Cezanne?. . . or Turner and Hooch?