LOOKING GOOD!

I hesitate to say this, but Ellen my daughter is looking very well this morning. As I entered her hospital room at Long Island Community Hospital she greeted me with a very vocal ‘hello’! She was very happy to see me!

This is a far cry from her mornings where she is in deep sleep or deep pain, the blanket pulled over her head. Her constant smile tells me she is feeling great relief and knows it. I think someone from her family present suddenly makes her happier than she been in a long time.

It is wonderful that I can share this moment with her and not have my stomach turning as I watched her suffer: maybe we have turned the corner.

But I do know better. I know that from one hour to the next she might regress into her old self again and the pain of watching along with her suffering will be my companion once again.

MSNBC

The offshoot network from NBC, MSNBC, has a problem with credibility.

Every time I see two individuals, in particular, I get angry that they are allowed to fool the public into thinking they are credible. Who am I talking about?

The ‘Reverend’ Al Sharpton is case number one.

Back in 1987, a young 15-year old claimed she was raped and put into a garbage bag with feces spread on her body. Four white men were accused, although they were innocent, the trial jury found them innocent and it was concluded that Ms. Brawley had created the whole scenario. “The Rev’ took the case publicly, and gained notoriety as a Civil Rights advocator, along with three other questionable cohorts: Alton H. Maddox, and C. Vernon Mason, helping to increase their public prominence.

When I see him offer an opinion about anything including Trump, I have to wonder how sincere he is, or who made him an expert. He discusses truth among other things while he has been less than truthful in the past.

The other issue is Brian Williams, having been suspended for telling tall tales on TV.

According to Wikipedia:” In February 2015, Williams was suspended for six months from his position as Managing Editor and Anchor of NBC Nightly News for "misrepresent[ing] events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War in 2003",[5] and on June 18, 2015, he was demoted to breaking news anchor for MSNBC

Brian Williams comes across as a credible news reporter, but he is colored by his dishonesty and questionable reporting, and I can not get past the facts as they are.

THE WORLD SHE IS A CHANGING!

I had to go to a medical place for a procedure to see if I am still alive, or should I lie down. It was 7:30 AM when I entered the lab and behind the long desk were two middle-aged ladies. In front of them sat a nameplate with just their first names, Amanda and Katelin.

I went through the procedure and headed off to the hospital where my poor daughter is currently residing. Before dinner, I was speaking to TLW (The Little Woman) and I mentioned the encounter with the two ladies (an assumption on my part, but probably a safe one) and she had the immediate reaction that I had when I first saw these ladies.

“Aren’t they kind of old to have those names?” she asked.

“Funny… that is exactly what I thought!

About 40 years ago, new names were flowering as the old ones became out of fashion. The names such as Kim, Christopher, Amanda and Kaitlyn, Katelin, and Sequilla were becoming the norm. Mary, Joe, and Robert or Paula were no longer recognized as names to call your kid.

The parents felt that their child was going to be different and needed a stage name, not a name to respect past generations. No longer did you name a newborn after a parent or grandparent, but after an idea of what the child’s future would be.

I don’t know if the new names are a bad idea. It notes in a way that the future is tomorrow, and not yesterday. Today as we prepare for tomorrow, we want our kids to have the best tools possible for what will greet them.

Just one question, is creative monikers fashionable?

YOU CAN SLEEP TONIGHT, YOUR POST OFFICE IS!

Today I had an epiphany! It all came together! Something I mailed out on December 9^th, 2019 arrived today at my house as undeliverable. It is a Christmas card to a nephew and his girlfriend. Now, it is nice that they tried so hard but really, that long?

The epiphany? The U. S. Post Office sucks. I don’t know if it is Trump’s post office, or I should blame Congress, I don’t think the U.S. Supreme Court is responsible. My understanding has always been that it is a separate entity, somehow unaccountable to anyone but, itself.

Of course, getting Christmas cards returned this late in the year is a fun surprise. It is like seeing your pool finally filled in November when you started filling it in May.

So, I am mailing out my Christmas Cards this week for December 2022. And by the way, have a Happy 2023 New Year.

Whoever they are responsible to should step forward and send me a letter of apology. The problem with that is it may never get to me any time soon if they try to deliver it.

MUSINGS AND OTHER UNFORTUNATE OCCURANCES!

I am currently sitting in the Long Island Community Hospital with my daughter Ellen. Her kidney functions are not good and neither is her potassium level. It is being treated and we are waiting on the kidney doctor to show up and do some evaluations and figure out the results of the tests of the last few days. So far, so good.

But sitting here has some drawbacks, like this metal chair I’m sitting on and the hardness of it all.

The nursing staff is very good and helpful, but they insist on talking to me with a facemask. It is hard to understand what the heck they are saying so, I ask them to repeat themselves.

This morning I had to use the restroom that is outside the MIC unit. So I head out the door and see a group of nurses standing outside the restroom as they are conducting a meeting. When I leave the restroom they are still standing there and I feel self-conscious, why, I don’t know.

About another hour passes and I have to go again, (too much coffee and juice in the morning). So, off I go once more. You guessed it, more nurses meeting in the same place. I’m wondering now if they are thinking this guy needs the kidney doctor. Little do they know I will be seeing him. I cannot face a nurse this morning dealing with their awareness of how many times this old man has gone to the restroom, but who’s counting?

MY TONSORIAL EVENT

Ebbets Field

'East Patchogue elementary school

The 'barbershop was one of these store fronts.

There are many first-time events in my life that I can recall. Many of them were with my father in some form and some with my sons.

With my dad, there were events like my first baseball game at Ebbet’s Field and the Brooklyn Dodgers, my first date with a girl in 6th grade, a school dance, (Cheryl Ridgeway, Dad took us to the school dance), my first restaurant visit ever when I was 3-years old when mom had to go to the hospital to have my younger sister (Chinese) under the BMT EL on Broadway, and my first haircut as a young child in Brooklyn, the shop was located on Rockaway Avenue near the corner of Fulton Street, under the now extinct ‘El.’

I remember it was a Saturday morning because Dad was home from work and I was maybe 2-years-old. We walked to the barbershop since it was about two or three blocks away. My hair then was very blond then as I walked in the morning sunlight. We reached the barbers and I notice the front store window with its wooden blinds and gold leaf lettering across the plate glass window. The barbershop was across the street from the dentist's office where my younger sister had to have a tooth extracted a few years later from drinking too much soda.

It seemed mom had an idea that I could be a violinist if I let my hair grow out and dad saw me more as turning transvestite so he said, “Let’s go!”

I remember the barbershop had three massive chairs and leather straps that hung down the side of each chair, the handle that pumped the chair up or down for the comfortable height of the barber as he cut and trimmed your hair.

As I was about to climb up on the chair when this wooden slat about 6 to 8 inches wide and spanned the length of the seat was placed over the armrests for my lack of height by the barber in his white coat. To prevent me from crying as the barber grabbed his electric shears, he handed me a toy airplane that he said made the same noise as the scissors. While he cut I flew the plane and didn’t cry until he took the plane back. (Cheap bastard!)

Today, I went to the barber because I was stepping on my hair every time I paced backward. (Not really) My barber, Haim, comes from Israel and I think is in hiding from the Israeli police for taking some customers head off while cutting his hair. He gets into his trade or craft very enthusiastically, moving my head around like he is in the final frame working of two strikes and can finish off his game with a perfect 300!
He grabs, bends, pulls and twists with the best of them, he leaves your ears red and you semiconscious. Why do I go to him? Because he greets me with a smile, is happy to have my business, gives a very decent haircut, and his price is good, too!

As he finished off the victim ahead of me, I notice he was bald and had what hair he had on the sides shaved down to the skin on his head. As he walked out the door I asked him if he wanted it that short as I patted the top of my head. Not understanding much English including the words “OUCH” and “You crazy bastard, take it easy” he gave me some explanation, then asked me if I wanted my haircut “scissors or box.”

“Just scissors, I don’t feel like boxing right now!”

As I sat in his chair in fear for my ears, I recalled my first haircut and realized that I was there for all my haircuts, pretty good record, no?

THE PRICE OF PARENTHOOD

I don’t pretend to be an expert on parenthood, as much as a witness to what it costs. Having raised 4 children with my wife Ellen, we have had our days of joy and pain, all through the acts and fortunes of our children. Not a day goes by that we don’t reflect on all of them throughout the day.

Through the course of the years, we have paid an exact price as parents. The price has been costly, high and we are over-charged. It is an honor and a duty, both a joy and a dread as we have as parents, plowed through each day.

Losing a child is always hard as we can attest to. But parents lose a child many ways, and to them are the hardest, death and mental disabilities. You can lose a child philosophically and emotionally, but they don’t compare to the finality of the truth of life and death.

When we lost our son, Joseph, so many years ago, we felt the sting of emptiness that enveloped our lives, watched what could have been compared to other children his age, and grieved inside for ourselves, and our missing child. We wondered how we got to the point of death and put it aside, to carry on for our other three children.

Institute of Basic Research

But, before that fatal day in January of 1981, we were mourning for our beautiful daughter, one, when born promised in my mind, to give me riches such as company and grandchildren, comp\fort and love. But he progress stood still, she was almost zombie-like as she physically matured to the point that we, in desperation, sought held to modify her behaviors and awareness. She moaned, cried, and demanded constant attention, as she got older. I decided that we needed to do something, and arranged for her to be analyzed by the Institute of Basic Research. · IBR’s research teams are dedicated to conducting basic and clinical studies of the causes, treatment, and prevention of developmental disabilities, including autism, fragile X syndrome, Down syndrome, the neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses, and inborn errors of metabolism. 
·  https://opwdd.ny.gov/institute-for-basic-research/contact

They, professionals that they are, pinpointed some of the issues and tossed the many drugs my daughter Ellen was on for new ones that benefitted her more accurately and found something we didn’t expect: anxiety! Yes, my daughter was suffering from anxiety and we never knew it. They asked us if we wanted to abandon the regimen of drugs she was currently for new ones. We responded positively and with the objections of her medical staff and their unwillingness to accept the changes, we did.

Suddenly there was a transformation, a rebirth of my daughter that made both her parents happy and grateful, transforming our lives into something better than it had been.

Then two or three years ago, things turned toward the worst, and she slowly declined when it all started with her breaking her leg. The operations, nursing homes, and rehabs started in a never-ending sequence. A broken hip, cancer of the colon, another broken bone, and more hospitalization, pneumonia, and tracheotomy and things and events I can’t keep track of has kept my wife and me prisoners to her well-being, changed to her bedside in Medford Multicare Center. 

They live for each other!

We as parents have over-paid the price of parenthood, we will continue to over-pay and we will continue to try to recover some semblance of life as it should be for a retired couple in their seventies. Our price was jacked-up a few years ago when or grandson, Robert Courtney was born while his mother Courtney passed on the delivery table, and we as were her parents were unprepared to pay the awful price. 

As for my little grandson, the professionalism of the nursing staff at the birthing hospital and the eventual rescue at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles where they flew the little guy to, thrives today, giving off love, happiness and a lot of smarts, just like his big sister Darby.
 
But for Ellen, every day I visit her, as she has left us and reverted to her old ways of zombie-like attrition and has closed herself from the world. We will stay with her until we can’t anymore.

Thank God, my son is their father, he is wise, loving and makes their lives beautiful. To help this along, we have a friend in our Irish Nanni, Cricket, who has been the corner stone of these two beautiful children.

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!

With the recent scandal that has been revealed about Major League Baseball with the Houston Astros (Houston, we have a problem!), the sanctity of Baseball has taken another hit. It seems that it is bigger than the Black Sox, Pete Rose, and steroids it has the players speaking out and offering remedies to the situation that needs remedy.

Manfred the Magician has tried to make the scandal disappear with puny punitive actions and no real decking out the perpetrators for their misconduct.

First of all, the World Series trophy should be rescinded. Not doing so makes it a worthless piece of metal that shames and associates all the previous winners of the trophy and colors all the future winners for sure. How can the trophy have any value now?  Firing the manager and General Manager do not make a right and certainly seems wrong.

But there is a silver lining in this all. The players around both leagues feel the players involved should be punished, that they want the trophy to still have meaning and the only way to do so would be to discipline those players, all of them, and suspend the 2020 Houston Astros season, along with all else that was implemented. The 2017 World Series should be revoked as a title and the champions not recognized as winners. Along with the Boston Red Sox, in their pathetic attempt to keep up with the Yankees, they too should have similar penalties imposed.

The good news is that the player across the leagues have weighted-in, and their verdicts apprised. The response of the players from around the league should be used to give Major League Baseball back its credibility. It might not be a bad idea to rid the Commissioner from baseball as well, he is weak, and his intentions questionable as is his pusillanimous actions as a commissioner.

ONCE THERE WAS SEARS AND ROEBUCK…

Getti image

But now there is only Sears, maybe!

The digital world has cast a long and hard shadow across my universe. It seems that everything I once held as sacred and indestructible is starting to fall under the swath of the Internet. Newspapers are feeling the bite of Internet instant news, and now the brick and mortar stores of yesterday will soon be no longer.

News of Sears, one time the go-to place for the average household to purchase decent gods such s clothes and tools will be a thing of the past. The giant retailer, once known as Sears and Roebuck has retreated gradually through the years. The giant from Chicago has slowly relinquished its brand in various ways. Roebuck was released one day like an old baseball player, sent into retirement before spring training. It is now known as Sears.

The Sears Tower is no more, replaced by another moniker: the Willis Tower, a 110-story, 1,450- skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois. It is the same building, and to me will always be the Sears Tower.

Years ago, I worked for Sears indirectly by working for a retailer of children’s play clothes, that helped me pay my way through college while starting in high school. Tuition, transportation, art, and photography supplies were costly for someone without money but with a job. It was Sears that existed and so, now I exist, as I am, great full.

When I married and was more hands-on, when a special tool was needed to do some chore around the house, I went to Sears. Someone in my family needed to get me a gift for some holiday or occasion, they went to Sears.

Once they produced a catalog that was as thick as a city phonebook, filled with all their products, clothes, tools, toys, and other things that kept me amused as I thumbed through the multi-colored shiny sheets, fulfilling my humble dreams. Now that is gone along with Mr. Roebuck!

Amazon.com has made great inroads into retail purchasing by saving you time, money, and aggravation of parking your car after a trip to the store or mall. From your easy chair, you can do all shopping “On-line” and never touch your money or feel guilty as you stop at Cinnabon. This, of course, follows up with delivery to your doorstep. LIFE IS GOOD, NO?

It’s not.

Goodbye to newspapers, magazines, and retailers as they slowly fade away. Never again will I experience going to the mall, seeing all the pretty girls and window-shopping with an ice cream cone in hand and the vibrant life of a store or mall.

THE WINTER OF MY DISCONTENT

It’s the day after Valentine’s Day and time to go back to reality. Unfortunately, the reality is that we face the same old crap, a rogue administration breaking all the rules of protocol, defying the U.S, Constitution, and now breaking the law in defiance of Congress.

We have a debate as to who should be President to replace the idiot in the White House with people I suspect are only a little better save one, and everyone is attacking him.

My daughter languishes in a hospital not eating or drinking, slowly dying. I know better than give myself false hope believing she will turn it around when all tests prove negative, yet she cries silently. If you are a parent and see that you know how horrific it is for yourself. We are now looking for her Oncologist to further investigate what is happening. Life has not been this dark since January of 1981 when my son passed.

It seems like everyday rains, the cold winds shift around and the days short of daylight are long on funkiness.

Recently, I gave up an opportunity to redesign a book and create another book because it is too much work for me since my daughter is so ill. It is a large task that promised a lot of money!

Today, someone sent me a short clip of an 80-year old man flying a helicopter type of thing, with rotating blades and the message to old people: “Just do it!” I thought, ’WOW, and he’s 80-years old! Then it dawned on me, he’s only five years older than I am.

VALENTINE’S DAY AND THE TRASH!

Yes, they do go together as you get older.

On our first St. Valentine’s Day 48-years ago, the romance was leftover from after our courtship and marriage ceremony. Eight months earlier, we walked the last mile to merge our lives into love and adventure, unity for all, and devotion to, the other.

That evening, as I sat at my kitchen table for dinner after delivering flowers and candy to the one I love, I was presented with a gift from my young and happy bride.

It sat in a flat box maybe 8” X 10” and was wrapped in white paper with red hearts. Being my wife Ellen was so good at selecting ties, having bought me beautiful silk, dark blue with red poker dots tie as an engagement gift, I hoped this was another! The tie complimented my Edwardian suits making me look every bit the successful advertising executive, compliments streamed from young and old alike!

I opened the box and there sat a pair of boxer shorts! BOXER SHORTS! I wondered. I pulled out the shorts and printed on the shorts were a bunch of cash registers chinking out hearts rather than dollar signs and the words: ‘LOVE HITS THE JACKPOT’!

This year as we age like fine wine or some old smelly cheese, we have dispensed with presents and I make her a fancy dinner, (Lobster with her favorite vegetables and bacon-wrapped shrimp with stuffed jalapeno peppers for tonight) and she gave me her card, a rather sensible, almost utilitarian card that mentions all the things I do that translate into love. Throwing out the trash was listed!

WHAT HAVE WE DONE?

As fake as it gets

It’s been a while since the impeachment hoax of Donald J. Trump has concluded by the misguided U.S. Senate Republicans and their accomplice in the White House, the ‘Orange Man’ of the liar, Donald J. Trump.

In this time of the past three years, he has managed to train through intimidation, Lindsey (I’m afraid of him) Graham and the President’s Bitch McConnell, personal lapdog and toad. Of course, you have the cowardice of the Republican House and Senate who have all forfeited their credibility and sincerity. The current Republican congressmen and senators have now constituted the most cowardly group of individuals who have en-mass, violated their oath to the Constitution and took on the false narrative that he did nothing impeachable.

While letting the orange skin fake off the hook, he, in turn, is now free to seek retribution against those who took issue with his actions and the legality of them. The witnesses that appeared before the House impeachment panels did their duty under the oath of allegiance to the Constitution, warning us all of the danger that this poor excuse for a human being and like-wise president.

Breaking the laws were not enough for this man, lying is not enough for this fake, cheating on his wife is a way of life, and the total abandonment of any sense of morality and justice escapes him on a moment-moment basis.

Somehow, I feel this is not the end, that he has not escaped justice, he is only making the case for his supporters at this point that is finally waking up to the fact that he is an abjuration in the chain of humanity.

BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD, GO I!

The invention of GPS and smartphones has been very instrumental in keeping me alive. This morning while talking to my wife (She did most of it) I indicated a place of business and where it was located, using a nod of my fat head in the direction of where I thought it was.

This, of course, confused TLW (The Little Woman) since the place

was in the opposite direction from where I was nodding.

“How come you nodded one way when it is the other way?” she inquired.

Me: Nod? Me? What nod?

I am notorious for not having good direction sense. Take me out of my chair and finding the toilet in my own house will take some time. (I am a good dancer)

TLW, on the other hand, will parachute into a strange mall two thousand miles away that she has never been to and be able to find anything in the mall.

Me: “Look, if it wasn’t for the GPS I would have disappeared years ago, wondering why I deserted you while I’m wondering where the hell I am. This is true.

Whenever we traveled by car to some distant faraway place together like around the corner, she gave me the directions, sometimes by reading a road map while I drove. She was amazing she could do that either next to me or from the back seat, a remarkable talent.

Then the GPS came along freeing me up from the chains of confusion and the constant whining of asking for my mother, a real game-changer.

Now, when I enter my car I can guarantee my successful arrival by punching in ‘HOME’. Only recently I did just that and after 5 hours, I realized I wanted a destination from home, not to it. It was like never leaving home!

BASIC BLACK OR …

Italy is noted for many things, her food is copied and appreciated worldwide as is her opera, her music sings to the world in color as well as lyrics making love to the ears, eyes, and other senses. Her architectural prowess knows no bounds as does her marble monuments, historical sights, and Italian cars and engineering and can equal anyone on Earth. Her medical and scientific gifts to the world are legendary, she is Italia, she is world-class, beautiful looking people, and she is something else, too!

She is the birthplace of the Italian Grandmother or Nonna, as she is called.

Where else can you readily identify an Italian grandmother without her telling you? She wears black! She was almost born wearing black and when she married grandpa, she wore black the day after her wedding. Grandpa always slept with his eyes open. Watching his bride dressed like a widow made him nervous.

With the Italian grandma came something else Italy gave to the world, the greatest of cooks, cooks whose recipe file was in Italian and all in her head. Her measurements for cooking were precise: “A little offa this, a pincher offa that, anda somer offa those.” Stray from it and she would disapprove.

Even God had no say when it came to Italian grandmothers. Every Sunday at Our Lady of Loreto, the Italian grandmothers would sit together in the front pews while the sermon was given in Italian. While the lady's chit-chatted during the sermon, a sermon filled with one of damned fired, hell, and brimstone, arms flailing and hands synchronized to the cadence of the homily, a sudden: "SILENZIO!" would resonate throughout the church from an angry Italian priest at the chit-chat Italiano, Grazie Nonna!

If Mass was not enough, you had to withstand the glitter of little medals pinned on ample bosoms reflecting on black dresses, medals of Saints Joseph, Anthony, Theresa, Francis, and the Madonna, and that was the first square inch. Come to the consecration, out came the handkerchiefs as the tears flowed, followed by another conversational chitchat and the obligatory: "SILENZIO!" once again.

It was not enough to visit Grandma, you had to withstand her index and middle finger pinch of the cheek, a ritual of twenty wet kisses infused with the healthy essence of garlic and if she felt the slightest bit of wooziness, she did both cheeks with both hands while hanging on! (Facial cheeks)

Votive candles, holy pictures, and rosaries may have been scattered throughout the apartment, but by far the single most holy rite was eating. There are no "snacks" in nonna’s house, no, just full course meals that raged all day long, where on Sunday it changed to multi-full course meals, with an abundance of food and wine, and the ‘Holy Orders" was "Mangia tutto!"

IT CAN HAPPEN

It was the mid-1970s and I was on my way home from work. Getting off the subway one summer night in Flushing at the Hunters Point Station, I ran upstairs to catch the Long Island Railroad. When I reached the platform I saw the station was overcrowded and an announcement that all trains were running late.

Being a seasoned veteran at this point having commuted for a while, I decided I would go around the corner to the local tavern and have a scotch. I figured by the time I had one, it would be time to go to the station once again.

All good plans of mice or men often go astray, as they say. Or, I think the Russians say: You make plans and God laughs. These are true in my case. I had more than one scotch, I had three! Then it suddenly hit me (not the scotch) that maybe I should get back to the train station.

Racing out of the bar I head towards the station and race down to the platform where there is a train moving and the arrival board saying: Ronkonkoma, my stop!

As it was getting late and had missed my earlier train, I did not want to be any later so I timed my jump perfectly and landed at the feet of the trainman standing in the entranceway of the train. Whew! I caught the train! Looking up at the trainman I said: “Pretty good jump, no?” Proud of myself a big grin on my stupid face, the trainman said: “Yup, but why didn’t you just wait for the train to stop?

I thought it was leaving, the last train for the night!

A PLACE OF BEAUTY

If you ever need hospital care and happen to be two thousand miles from Port Jefferson, New York, book a flight to Long Island Mac Arthur Airport and hire an Uber to get to St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson.

You rate a hospital by how successful it handles its patients' illnesses, how well the surgery goes coupled with the post-operative regime. But there is also one other criterion in which to assess such a place, its staff. But how do you measure the staff of a hospital? You take St. Charles and every staff in the world should have to measure up to it.

I arrive early every morning at about 7:20 AM to visit my daughter Ellen who has been languishing in a Medical Center for quite some while. Every morning I arrive A find something that disturbs me, makes me cranky or downright angry. Forgetting to do things they should know better to do, especially after posting large enough posters in her room on her walls that she needs long-sleeved shirts on at all times, only to find her arm’s pick-line exposed and ready for her to rip it out!

At St. Charles I don’t worry, the staff knows enough to do it without reminders. They take a scientific and humane approach to work with a person with disabilities that is filled with compassion and understanding. They go through great trouble to explain to me what they are doing, what they are planning and when they are done, how things went.

God bless everyone at this place where Heaven starts and love is requisite.

Thank you, Staff, of St. Charles!

THERE’S GOT TO BE A MORNING AFTER.

THERE’S GOT TO BE A MORNING AFTER.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR7DszFAYH0

You must have heard that song way back in the 1970s by Maureen McGovern. It sums up how I feel, how I keep poking myself into believing, that there’s GOT to be a morning after from this nightmare called life.

I think about what seems to be a pandemic in the Coronavirus, the plague that occupies the White House with 48 brain-dead US Senators in the Trump side of the Republican Party, and my continuous struggle for the past few years with my daughter. Broken legs, broken hips, cancer, pneumonia and infections that continue as she slowly fades away.

I sit in the morning with her all alone, she sleeps and refuses to eat or drink. Every effort to feed or make her drink is met with resistance and refusal to cooperate. I try to keep her alive and she doesn’t want to help me. I watch her suddenly go from calmness to withering pain and I sit there watching it helplessly, I am becoming almost indifferent to it all.

The song by Maureen McGovern is all I have left, there has to be a morning after, no?

GREATNESS

Growing up as a Dodger fan, some of my strongest memories and greatest love for a ballplayer was for Jackie Roosevelt Robinson. The irony of his breaking the color barrier and subsequent torment he received once he did join the Dodgers was that he did so much for all the players of the game at the time, his talent, daring and uniqueness put fannies in the seats of the National League and money into every player's pocket. Fans were curious and came in droves, especially the Blacks, pride in their race and Jackie.

The first ballgame I attended at Ebbets Field I remember well. Having watched the Dodgers up to that point on the TV, they existed in black and white on the tube as well as the newspapers.  The thing that impressed as it must have you too attending your first game, was emerging from under the stands and seeing that magnificent lawn that stretched forever, the green so uniform and beautiful, sitting under the dusk of Brooklyn as the sun was setting behind the surrounding buildings as it went down, the lights turning the sod into emerald gold. The foul lines, crisp and straight, accentuated the beauty of it all like a giant ruler was laid down for precision since the game is a game of inches. A little boy, burning the moment in perpetuity into his mind. My dad never said a word, just let it all sink in for me.

I remember the Dodger uniforms, so white, so patriotic looking with the whiteness, the red chest numbers and the blue ‘Dodger’ written across the chest. But their spiked shoes as they took the field were so shiny and black, leaving their tracks in the manicured skin that made the infield.

But it was Jackie, who was the star of the night in a losing cause to the St. Louis Cardinals, electrifying the 33,000 faithful, the flock, ‘dem bums’. Jackie got the first Dodger hit, smashing a double off the centerfield wall and stood on second base, the delirium high, excitement running wild through the crowd, in uncontrolled bedlam. A grounder moved Jackie to third, there was the event we all hoped we would witness and weren’t disappointed.

The Cardinal pitcher stood on the mound studying the catcher’s signs flashing while casting quick glances to third base where Jackie had him in his sights. Dancing, moving quickly, sudden jerks that disturb the concentration of the receiver and the pitcher, Jackie’s arms spread outward at his sides, the crowd roaring. Would Jackie steal home? Would he cause a balk? The catcher calling time would run-up to the pitcher and try to settle him down. But the gods of fate would prevail as pressured by number 42, he gave up a hit to the batter and Jackie score the only Dodger run.

There was one more highlight I witnessed. The highlight happened about every series the Cardinals played in Brooklyn, and that was the great Stan the Man Musial sending one over the right-field wall into Bedford Avenue.

What I wouldn’t do to go back to Ebbet’s Field!