A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

I know you are all aware of the big movement to have the Washington Redskins change their nickname to something other. And you might also know from Yahoo of the Coachella Valley High School (Thermal, Calif.) that goes by name of The Arabs. They even have a belly dancer on the team!

I know as you may also know, the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves are all coming under attack for their use of certain mascots. I am wondering when Notre Dame and the Fighting Irish become history also? I mean they are showing the worst traits in this sensitized society we have: that of the Irish fighting!

It seems that these are insensitive names that should be abandoned. Both these team names have been around for a very long time, and for years no one has paid attention to them. Now I don’t want to sound insensitive or not caring about other people or groups feelings, since I come from a minority called Italians, who have been bastardize on the TV with the horror of the Sopranos, and the legendary Godfather image created a while back, gangsters, broken nosed goons, etc. It may be deserved to some degree, but let’s not cloud that with the fact that Italian-Americans have contributed so much to the concept of Modern America that IS so positive.

But what about the owners of the teams with the offensive and insensitive team names, what is their viewpoint or prospective for not changing the names?

Is it the disruption of the business brand? Is it the cost of rebranding? Is it the loss of current revenue and the expense to rebrand a long tradition and history? I can see their viewpoint from a business point of view. Is it valid enough to ignore the pain it causes?

Then it occurred to me that there are many animal lovers out there, who may be offended by the use of names like the Bears, or Eagles, or maybe lions, tigers or cougars. What will happen with that in the future?

I’m not advocating not changing the names, nor am I advocating changing the names, but I wonder where it will begin and to what end?

WHEN ANGELS CRY

You know the saddest things in life are those you can’t control. I can often get mad at myself for something insignificant and mundane, because I screwed it up: then have to stop and realize, shame on me.

Working for people with disabilities, children and adults, young teens and senior citizens, watching them struggle to walk, to place a drinking cup to their mouths, to watch as they try to talk, seeing the frustration that overcomes them, makes me wonder why I get so uptight. I have a daughter who has all those struggles, who battles daily in her day, all day, to live and have some joy in her life, and doesn’t even have the capacity to question why her, with all the people in this world, why her?

When I see her, I often see all my frustrations come to a head, and feel this uncontrollable need to help right the wrongs of life. It is when I truly question the existence of God, to debate with myself why I need to understand the uncontrollable circumstance that defeats Ellen and me. The difference is she doesn’t know there even is a battle, while my wounds are internal, mostly to the mind and heart: I fight for both of us.

But the biggest sadness I know is when a small child is suddenly the subject of prayers, when the angels cry. I have a newly born niece named Emmila. Emma was born only weeks ago, is now fighting for her future. I received this email a few days ago from my nephew David:

UPDATE: As many of you are aware, our little Emilia is currently admitted at St. Mary’s (Palm Beach Children’s) with bacterial meningitis and RSV. We dodged a major bullet in that we brought her in to the ER with symptoms of RSV and when they did the spinal tap they found the meningitis. It was caught very early and her prognosis is excellent. Many of our friends have medical backgrounds and understand what would have of happened had this not been caught. Full recovery will be a long road, but it is going to start with a minimum of 21 days here @ SMMC. Emilia is receiving some of the best pediatric care in the state of FL from the amazing RN’s, Dr’s and other staff here, for which we are forever grateful. Our great friend and neighbor Sharon Owen has volunteered to help organize meals and things of the sort for the next few weeks. As so many of you have graciously offered to help, please message her if you still want to do so. Our little Emilia (I call her Emma) is one hell of a little fighter for such a little girl, and she will pull through this just fine. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts, texts, calls and everything else. Special thanks to Dr. Kelly Clements for taking my panicked call and being a true lifelong friend and giving us great advice.
Love,
Dave, Kim, Dax and Emma

I guess you can say the good news is (if you consider this ‘Good News’) is she will not remember all this when it is over!

David and Kim are really good parents who devoted to their children. Kim’s struggle with her pregnancy is of heroic proportions, giving what is know as a mother’s love for her child, even before that child is born. I won’t go into the details here, but believe me, it was sacrifice and courage for her child! David is a great dad: his life is dedicated to helping others, as a member of a fire rescue team in Florida, and as a RN. He doesn’t need this kind of heartache, neither do Kim or Emilia, or for that matter Emilia’s big brother Dax.

In today’s modern age, there is so much more immediate moral support, from friends and strangers too, as well as family. In my day of crises, when my wife and I struggled with my daughter and later my son, we did it in a much more colder world, one of isolation and fear. It had a profound effect on my oldest son, and it caused deep-rooted emotional trauma for all of us. I hated seeing my wife and son suffer with the realities of the day, and feared for their happiness. Hopefully they are in good shape, and don’t carry a burden of self-imposed guilt or punishment on themselves. Thank God today is different, we are all better informed, and the social network is a big lift at times, even though the fear and pain, the agony of waiting for results is not lessened for Kim and David.

Pray for the little girl, Emilia is tough, she is fighting, her little family hangs on and we all have a great deal of hope.

DAD HAD HIS STANDARDS

My father was always one to make sure his son acted like a man. He never would have tolerated my going home crying if someone picked on me, and would have kicked me down the stairs telling me to finish the fight.

As he grew up, he too grew in a tough neighborhood, and trouble was always around the corner. All you had to do was walk down a street and if you looked afraid, had a little wiggle in your walk or dressed up and it wasn’t Sunday, be prepared for a fight or at least being teased unmercifully.

Establishing your toughness was important, necessary and wise, because otherwise you would be victimized. Dad took me out and we played baseball, he once bought me a football, basketball, softball, glove and bat, all in one box on summer evening when he came home from work! I was about 5, and I’ll never forget it, he owned a car in those days and he went into his trunk and took it out. Being 5, I had only a vague idea of what it was all about. But one day he decided I was the next Carl Erskine and took me down to the sidewalk and I had to start pitching to him. He instructed me on how to hold the ball and the necessary arc the ball should leave my hand. Then he started showing me how to throw a fastball. I tried my first fastball and it went toward Dad, hit his fingertips and smacked him right between the eyes. The next pitch never happened, I was not going to be a pitcher anymore. I didn’t help myself that I called him lumpy.

As I got older, and joined the Little League teams, he would show up and stand along the foul line in left field and watch me play, then when I got home would go over all my miscues, errors or strikeouts. His feeling was so what if you did hit the ball or did catch it, you also let the team down by striking out or throwing the ball away. He never yelled, just never let me forget.

One time the coach put me on second base, and the ball was hit like a rocket at me, I put my glove up but the ball hit the fingertips and shot straight up in the air about 20 feet. I instantly looked for the ball and spotted it behind me coming down, spun around, stuck my glove out and caught it, to the applauding of everyone on the field.

A few plays later another shot is hit at me and I put my glove down to field it but it goes through my legs. Guess which play Dad mentioned that day, and every time we talked about my playing baseball? Yes, “Right through your legs!”

So it came to pass that one day I was married with children, and had gotten a hair cut, and the barber was a young fellow and style was changing. Barbers used to square off the corners of the back of the neck, as they always had, but this one decided to round off the corners instead. Dad comes over one day, sees the corners rounded and asked: “Where the hell did you get that haircut, your wife’s beautician, you look like a fairy with those rounded corners! THEY SHOULD BE SQUARED!” I didn’t notice or care but did then. Now when I get a haircut I ask myself if I’m getting the fairy cut or not.

But it wasn’t just haircuts that could set him off. One time TLW (The Little Woman) decided to order me a shirt and tie from Sears in a catalog. We had to go to a family wedding and she decided let’s get something new. Mom and Dad came over and I would drive into the city with them for the occasion. Dad had a problem with my blue shirt and knitted tie, the tie was PINK! Gasp!

It never bothered me that the tie was pink, would still wear a pink tie, never pink panties, but a pink tie, who cares? Dad was sure I was coming out of the closet! (Probably the closet where I kept all my ties!)

Dad was of the opinion that there was two ways of saying something, the Brooklyn tough guy way, or the sissy way. Certain words had to be said a certain way, such as aunt. Brooklynese it was pronounced ‘ant’. The dainty way was ‘arnt’!

Mom had a hard time with Dad when she would perform a miracle and he would be sitting in a church. He would slouch in his seat, legs spread and looking all around him and feeling very uncomfortable, while everyone else was all prim and proper. Coming from a blue collar environment, stepping into a church and acting high and mighty was tough on him, yet he was more of a human being than some of the saintly phonies that may have judged him that day. Me, I loved to watch his reactions, his halfhearted attempts to fit in, he looked like he was learning a dance for the first time.

But getting Dad dressed was the funniest. Mom would say: “Anthony, go put on a shirt and tie, we have to leave soon for the wedding.” Dad would never say a word, and come out looking like he blindfolded himself and tried to guess what he was wearing. He’d come out with his tie only knotted loosely, and nothing matching, Mom getting aggravated would send him back in the bedroom to try with his ‘eyes opened this time’ instructing him on what to wear.

The funniest part of all this is Dad was really a sharp dresser when he was young and dating Mom, from the pictures I saw, he had great looking ties, shoes and jackets, he WAS a sharp dresser!

They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and being an apple I fell exactly where you might expect! I’m as bad as my Dad ever was!

Here is a cute joke for you to digest:

Unable to attend the funeral after his Uncle Charlie died, a man who lived far away called his brother and told him, "Do something nice for Uncle Charlie and send me the bill."

Later, he got a bill for $200.00, which he paid.  The next month, he got another bill for $200.00, which he also paid, figuring it was some incidental expense.

But, when the bills for $200.00 kept arriving every month, he finally called his brother again to find out what was going on.

"Well," said the other brother, "You said to do something nice for Uncle Charlie.  So I rented him a tuxedo."

DOTTING THE i’s CROSSING THE T’s AND MINDING THE P’S AND Q’S!

The other night, TLW (The Little Woman) and I were discussing handwriting and the fact that people are losing the art of script. There is a little girl in her religion class who can’t read cursive!

This is at least twice the size it was when I was in high school!

It brought me back to my high school days and the time I decided to take a day off from school and go to the movies. Mom was no fool so I had to plan things carefully and make noise when noise was called for, so to speak. I decided that since she was home all day and didn’t drive I needed to work it out so I could take the bus to school and drift away from the building before entering. This way my younger sister Nippy would think I went to school and think nothing of it. I got off the bus in school, went to my locker where I dropped my books off and then headed out the Gym door to the parking lot and headed to Patchogue.

Getting to Main Street I killed the morning, had lunch and headed to the theatre, saw the movie and went to my afternoon job.

In those days, if you missed classes, you needed to bring in a note from your parents signed, explaining why you were absent. In those days they didn’t call the house asking where you were.

The night of the movie, I started to write my note from my mother, using an expressive cursive that looked a little effeminate and sounded like my mother. It worked! No one ever knew until now what I had done! I was sneaky, wrong and just dishonest and if my kids ever did that I would raise hell. The most shameful part of my life was my proudest up until that day, being able to put it over on Mr. Feeney and Mr. DuGre my homeroom teacher.

Now that mom is 95 and can’t hear all that well: I decided to fess up and clear my conscience. I will do it at a distance, in a low voice and hope she just doesn’t hear me. But I will have told her!

In today’s world I may not have gotten away with it, because I might not know cursive! In fact in a few years, the teacher may not know cursive!

SPOT ON!

Did you ever bite your tongue and seem to do it over again in the same spot all day long? You get in that groove and you just can’t seem to stop. Well yesterday was a little different, but the same.

I woke up and found this shirt I’ve owned since the early 90’s it seems. I like the shirt, the fit and the colors, and since it was a button shirt, it is my kind of shirt. However, there is a side of Joe Del Bloggolo that you don’t know unless you are TLW (The Little Woman). I AM A SLOB.  There I came out of the pantry and admit it, A SLOB!

I'll try and save this shirt.

It started at lunch when I made myself a salad. A salad is supposed to make me feel good about myself, healthy, low calories salad, what can go wrong? Well let’s start with the first bite or fork full. Yes, it finds it’s way to my shirt, an oil spot right on the chest. OK, I get up and put some liquid dish detergent on it and wipe it out, sit down and there it is, another one. I get smart: I get a towel after cleaning off the latest, greatest spot and cover my chest. Seems I needed one for my arm too.

Not enough? Well suppertime comes along and I make meatloaf with an Italian slant, making a sauce on the stove for the meatloaf that has black olives, oregano and etc. As the small pot is simmering away, I take a small spoon and taste it, to see how it is going, and as I draw the spoon out of the pot and toward my mouth, sure enough, right on the shirt once again!

In the morning sometimes, I eat cereal, that I take into the den and watch the news, along with my coffee. I place a towel around my neck to protect the shirt I’m wearing. Never fails, it finds my collar, or sleeve or worst yet, a little spot next to the towel on my shirt. Jeez!

I guess it is God’s way of telling me that it is time to chuck a shirt or two, or a pair of pants or even a pair of shoes out! Why, I don’t know, after all these years they still fit! Why spend money on new clothes when I don’t need them. Besides, TLW buys clothes for herself, which should be enough for someone who is now fully retired.

HEALTH CARE AND ME

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I been reading all about the Obama Care act that was passed by congress, and I have some questions.

If I don’t have to give up my present plan, then why are we doing this? I think they should have Obama Car Care insurance instead. This would be a plan that would engulf everyone who owns a car and doesn’t have time to wash it, doesn’t care if it is washed, or just never noticed the car was dirty to begin with.

As I mentioned before, TLW (The Little Woman) pointed out that my car needed washing, and that would mean she was telling me to wash it. My response was reasonable, timely and to the point without too much elaboration: NO!

Look, I leave that thing out in the rain, because of all the junk in our garage. My feeling is the car is getting cleaned about every 6 to 8 days when it rains, so why spend the money to go to a car wash? Once you get there, you get choices, all kinds of options that confuse, and then I overpay for something I didn’t even want in the first place. There is also the danger of those little side racks that have all kinds of cutesy devices for your car that I swear I can’t live without, and how I ever did up to this point is beyond me.

Just think, Obama Car Care, the answer to your problems. Say you go to a parking garage and hand over the keys to the attendant, who goes ahead and parks your car, which happens to be brown according to the registration. You come back after a dinner and a Broadway play say, and ask for your car, the attendant asks what the color is and you say brown; he goes and comes back empty handed.

Al's Web Masters and Car Wash could tie it all together!

“Hey, where’s my car?” you ask, and he says there is only one car left and it is grey! When you describe the make and model, he realizes it is brown but needs a washing. (This DID happen to me once!) With Obama Car Care, you can automatically get it washed with a very low deductible, and you don’t have to rid yourself of your present car wash where you live!

I know it is complicated, but you would go on the Obama Car Care website that would give you all the options you could select from drop down menus, including the little chotchkies on the side racks! (Boy, the more I write about this, the more I like it!) Of course all this would take a few months to iron out all the little things, but once up, the Republicans will be very sad they didn’t think of it. The government could hire Al’s Websites and Car Wash as the web master to build it.

I’m sure this great idea has been tried before, probably in Massachusetts, when Romney was the governor.

WHEN THINGS BECOME FINAL.

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I took the closest exit to the main road and headed home, a little unsettled, yet I knew I had just realized the finality of it all. Driving in I located approximately where he was buried and parked the car. As I stood next to my vehicle I surveyed the scene and saw the rows of tombstones that lay before me and there for the first time I saw his name in large letters chiseled precisely. The name was larger than I expected, but knew one of these days it would be in place.

It had been a year to the date since John left us one Sunday evening, and now since that time, the journey seemed over. Seeing the stone seemed to settle it all, he WAS gone after all! There was finality.

John

Standing under the shading oak among rows of graves, the cool autumn air was biting into my legs, peeling away the warmth that was on my face, and reminding me that I was in a special place. All too often I have come to visit my son, my Dad, my in-laws and my other brother-in-law through marriage, along with my two nephews and felt the emptiness that comes with such visits, but this time it was like I was a thousand miles away. There were noises in the distance but they seemed so out of touch with the reality I was dealing with today, at this moment that separated me from the whole world, and my mental conversation with my brother-in-law John.

As I stood over the spot where he lay, I couldn’t help but think that the layer of ground that separated him from me was there only in a physical sense, but that I could feel his presence, even though it was his earthly remains, his spirit was reaching me in a way.

Driving home I remembered the birth date engraved on the stone and though that a few short years and he would have been 80! Was that too much to ask in this day and age? 80 years of age isn’t old, why was he deprived of more years? If he was a bum, or a rat, his 76 years would have been too much, but this was a good man, and family man who loved everyone.

Just goes to show you that your time on Earth is set, that you are not the judge or the jury, that it is better to judge yourself in the time you are given, and let God sort out the rest. I guess it is a lesson from the grave.

MAYBE WE GO ABOUT IT ALL WRONG?

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I’m sure you are all aware of the recent shooting that occurred at LAX, Los Angeles International Airport. Some of you may have thought: Another case for gun control, and some may have decided: Here comes another attack on the 2^nd Amendment!

Recently I was reading an exchange between #1 Son Anthony and friends on Facebook about the shooting and they made some interesting observations. One statement that I thought was not only true, but put a better light on these kinds of situations came from a person named Nancy Sullivan, that made me realize, we are looking in all the wrong places in finding a solution to this problem. She wrote in a response: "I agree Anthony, and I feel that the treatment of mental health must begin with the removal of stigma. Mental health issues are regarded with shame and secrecy, with the perception of weakness. No one tells a person with diabetes or heart disease to "buck up" or just "get over it." Brain disease needs to be seen as the organic condition it is, and treatment without judgment needs to be encouraged, the same way we treat the disease of any other organ before it becomes a life destroying condition. Many parents of young men are confused, or simply in denial that their kids are seriously off balance, and more and more it seems these kids become "loners," often obsessed with detached violence. Our Victorian attitude toward mental health is costing people their lives, both the person who so desperately needs treatment, and their victims."

This was in a response to my son’s statement: "I agree, guys. The first thing people talk about is the guns -- and rightly so -- but mental health in America needs to be discussed just as much in the wake of these events. The 80s saw the government looking towards treating mental health as a place to cut spending and it doesn't seem to have gotten better. I realize government spending is out of control and we spend money on a lot of unnecessary things, but I wonder if treating mental health issues should be something we think twice about before cutting."

Joy Martin Wise wrote: "It is a rare case when the shooter is not mentally ill."

And Charlie Back: “Bothers me that mental health always gets overlooked in these situations. Too many unstable people out there.”

I think we all know that what they wrote is true, but did we ever put the real cause to the forefront of our minds, identify it and realize we have work to do as a society?

Having worked with people with disabilities, I know that they can have an overwhelming response to their disabilities, and maybe we should look a little more closely at it. Whenever they perceive danger to themselves, or frustration to their needs or wants, many can strike out and take physical action. People who suffer from mental illness just take things to a higher and more dangerous level.

We should stop for a moment and realize that as much as we don’t need guns, they should be controlled and yet as a sport for hunting is allowable and meaningful in a way, so must we protect society from the insanity when those guns are obtained.

For my part, we seem to be putting too much emphasis on the shock, on the use of a gun, on the sensationalism the press brings to it and on the argument about regulating guns. Let’s look at the real culprit and put some muscle into fixing things: Mental Health.

It is a lonely thing to suffer from depression and mental illness as it is , and it is outrageous that we hide behind the set norms people perceive as to what is acceptable in society. People who suffer are suffering in a vacuum of despair, loneliness and fear of being found out! It must be a two-way street, both society and the victim of mental illness must come out and deal with the issues respectfully, charitably and lovingly. Fear should not be of the disease, but our own inaction, intolerance and unwillingness to deal with a self-evident truth.

IF WE DON’T VOTE, WILL THEY GO AWAY?

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God how I hate this time of year! It seems that the mail gets cluttered and the airwaves are even worse, listen to the garbage all the politicians are putting out. I once wanted to go into politics, way back when I was in high school. JFK was the president, riding on a youth movement that had a lot of promise and hope. He made promises that never really materialized, but because he chang4ed the landscape of politics by having good looks and youth. Out went the foggy bottomed pols such as Adlai Stevenson and Ike, and in came this kid, the first Catholic yet, who would inspire with words and grip the imagination of the youth of this country. And along with it came negative campaigning!

Prior to this year’s election, I got mail telling me about two candidates running for the same seat in the local government, one was going back to the old ways (what is that?) and one was stealing money (how much and why didn’t you speak out sooner?)

I get ads from the politicians running in New Jersey on TV, why?

The whole business is starting to get to me. Obama is in deep with Obama Care, the Republican House members have almost destroyed this country and stock market, it seems that they can’t wait to find new ways to disagree, make a mess and still look self-righteous.

We have Hillary and Pelosi, two names that polarize even the Democrats, John Boehner has endeared himself to no one, especially with that cold stare, and blank expression! IS THIS THE BEST WE CAN DO?????? I won’t even mention Richard Nixon.

I’m beginning to see where although I can agree with the Occupiers movement to some extent, it too is becoming as bad as those they protest against, with the movement all but dead, yet having left a lot of scars for today’s youth, and movements in general when it comes to the public.

So all that voting has gotten us is these morons, people who side with one or the other without thinking for themselves, embracing philosophies in total, rather than thinking things through, more taxes, more government, and more jury duty.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANPA JOE, AGAIN!

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THIS IS A REPEAT OF LAST YEAR’S NOVEMBER 6^TH BLOGUE.

Today, in honor of my grandfather Joe, my Dad’s father, I am reproducing last year’s blogue. So little is known about the man, that I put down everything last year, but it IS his birthday and I feel obligated to remember it here. Please forgive my inability to come up with more info, since I don’t want to open up a can of worms if there is one. Besides, I don’t want to tip off the Dipartimento di polizia locale di Neopolitan!

Eh? You seea him yet???

Had he taken better care of himself he would have been alive today at 128! But you know in those days they didn’t take care of themselves.

Grandpa Joe was dad’s father and although I never met him, he left behind a legacy of hard work and toughness that followed him long after his death.

Grandpa was not the kind of guy to fool around with; he worked hard, started a business that helped my grandmother survive the depression, and had a very close friend who married my grandmother after he died!

One day in sunny Naples, someone said or did something to old Joe that kind of upset him, and rather than go through the formalities of asking for an apology, he killed the man with his bare hands! OK, maybe he was a little touchy, but then had his antagonist spoken to him in some other language he wouldn’t have had such a speedy end to his life.

Of course this did not sit well with the Dipartimento di polizia locale di Neopolitan, and rather than book a passage to America, Grandpa Joe stowed away, saving his skin and boat fare. It is my guess that all he packed for his voyage was a long salami and cheese, with maybe a flask of vino to sooth his guilty soul for killing a man, stowing away, and causing all that overtime at the Dipartimento di polizia locale di Neopolitan.

In the early 1900’s, things were not as well recorded as they are today. Grandpa met my grandmother, who was maybe 15 or 16 and they married. Grandpa was a friend of Zio Felice, and so he met grandma Frances, Zio Felice’s younger sister. They had three children, starting with my father.

Heza over dere

Then the First World War started and grandpa, although he didn’t cause it, joined the fray in the U.S. Army, where he met his best friend Ralph. Grandpa had a need to serve his country, and since there were no waiter jobs in restaurants in those days, he joined up with the Rainbow Division and went ‘Over there’, where he took out his anger on a few German lads, and returned to the USA.

When he did, a breakout of Spanish influenza occurred and Grandpa was put in the hospital. Yearning to see his wife and children, grandpa jumped out of a third story window and into the snow and took off for Grandma, kids and pasta, and maybe not in that order!

And it is there that we leave Grandpa, for he died from his escape from the hospital, leaving Grandma Frances with three little kids and all that pasta!

It is interesting to note that his birthday was November 6^th, my birthday is July 6^th, and my son Joseph’s birthday is April 6^th!

Thank you, and don’t tell anybody I told you all this, they are still looking for him in Naples as I write!

THERE ARE DAYS!

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OK, maybe I’m a Halloween Scrooge. I hate Halloween, because it is a nuisance to keep answering the door for some brats to get candy, they don’t do it like they used to, (no real good tricks) and I don’t have a costume!

Being it was a dreary day anyway, and I wasn’t in a mood to be bothered, I looked out the window about 3:30 pm and noticed there were no trick or treaters! What? On Halloween: NO trick or treaters! How bizarre is that?

Around 4:30 pm, I noticed a couple of adults milling about across the street and figured, here come the brats, and I have this delicious candy ready to dole out. Wait a minute I thought, why? Why should I give these little monkeys all my hard earned candy, and I get none? Besides, their parents would pilfer their stash and help themselves to it, while I have no candy, have jumped up and down all afternoon. I had a plan that could explain why there were no brats all day. All my lights were out! My house looked dark and forbidding, that is why they never came; the house suggested that no one was home!

I immediately ducked down, crept back into my den and put on the closed caption with the sound off, this was a great plan, the kiddies were all passing by my house. I was going to have enough Reese’s Pieces to last me until next October!

Then the unthinkable happened.

TLW (The Little Woman) came home!

“What, did you run out of candy? I put the lights on in the front of the house, it looked like no one was home, the kids were all passing us by!”

“Oh! Were they?”

“Yes, I guess you didn’t realize that.”

“Well, actually it was part of my master plan, to disengage in such tom foolery.”

All of the a sudden there was the first of many knocks on my door, they were busting up my drive way like rats on a sinking ship!

Please tell me why parents have to bring these kids around when it is supper time, interrupting my supper?

Bah, humbug, or is that BOOOOOOOOO!

FEELING THE VOID

It was a year ago today in Southside Hospital Bay Shore that my sense of stability and security in all things I knew was destroyed and the idea that mortality does exist for me and all those who live in my world is, real.

I sat in the hospital room across the bed late one Sunday afternoon a year ago today where my brother-in-law John lay quickly passing from this world. His wife my sister Theresa and her three adult children and one grandchild Nick, sat alongside the bed, and we all felt the hopelessness as the event transpired, and the helplessness of watching a good man leaving us forever.

John was the brother I never had, and when he came along so many years ago, I didn’t need to wish anymore, I had a brother and he filled the void. Through the years when I was in need of help, he always was the first to respond, always came quickly, with a sunny disposition and his tools, and laid waste to my problem. If I could design such a brother, it would not be that good, because I couldn’t imagine it.

When I was in college and struggling to get through, he helped me on a Friday night, as I waited on campus for him to pick me up and drive me to his house when I didn’t own a car. In his Volkswagen Beetle we would tool along the LIE and discuss the Mets or football or even politics, as he shifted rather than own an automatic, because it was cheaper.

He was very much indeed family. He was a man who was serious with a light side that I could exploit. I teased him and he never got mad, we as a family would joke about his Polish heritage, Dad often causing him heartburn over the fact that he kiddingly felt John was cheap because my sister didn’t live in a mansion yet could afford to. John was frugal and practical, always looked for a bargain, but was never cheap. He treated his wife and kids like royalty.

On his birthday every December 26^th, he would buy his wife and kids presents! If I walked into his house at Christmas or Easter, he would reach for his bottle of Jack Daniels he saved for me and I would be on my own with it, another bottle in reserve.

He introduced Kielbasa and horseradish with pumpernickel bread for late breakfast, Polish phrases for any occasion and love for his NY Giants and Mets. We could argue like the dickens over unimportant things just to have a spirited conversation, and then turn around a talk like it never happened.

He had a great homespun sense about him, with his plaid shirts in the winter, his knobby knees in the summer shorts, loved his gardening and loved his landscaping. He was a great father and grandfather, up until his last days: he was a good man.

I miss him, wish dearly he was alive and listening to a Rachmaninoff piano concerto, or arguing the politically correct police. He was old school, really had no prejudices or a mean streak, coming from immigrant parents from Poland, his Mom dying when he was but a small child and his old world Dad raising him and three brothers in New York City. He immediately took to my mother, treating her better than her own children!

He once said to me when his first child was born, a little beautiful girl named Laurie Ann, that it took a real man to raise a daughter! He also said my Mets stunk. After a particularly heartbreaking loss, he would call me and say these words only: “Joe, your Mets stink!” This after watching them aggravating the heck out of him with their lousy play!

As I sat in the chair watching the events unfold in the hospital, I got up and went over to his side and held his hand, his head was slumped in his chest and his breathing was rapid, as the morphine hadn’t yet kicked in, and a sense of calm came over me. Pained as I was, I knowing the inevitable lose that was coming, kissed him goodbye, I had never kissed him before!

I searched the eyes in the room and could see them fading and hungry for one more time, one more dinner, one more day with John, we would settle for even seconds more than he had.

Sitting down I kind of drifted back to my youth in college, the time he lent me his car, the time we went golfing together for the first time, the first ballgame and the times I would wait up for my sister and John to come home so we could play a game of pool on my dad’s pool table. He could play pool, golf and bowl, (I called bowling the Polish national sport) and would half smile. He was a great softball pitcher, throwing no hitter after no hitter, always pitching for IBM on the softball team.

He was a customer engineer, and that was how my sister met him. She would break an IBM machine and he would come and fix it, in his corporate wing-tipped shoes, white shirt, tie and brown tool case that looked like an attaché case. If you remember the 60’s then you remember the TV show the Rebel starring Nick Adams. He looked just like him! Whenever he would come over, I would sing: “Johnny Yuma was a rebel, he roamed through the West.”

In July I took him down to Cape May, to enjoy a week in the sun and to get away from the constant agony of cancer, and to give my sister a reprieve so they could both enjoy themselves as life was meant to be. We went through

great lengths, especially my sister to see he had a scooter to get about town and be as free as possible. It was his last time as a free spirit, and the last time I would see him happy as was my sister. It was the one thing TLW (The Little Woman) and I did that made us feel good about ourselves, and I can only gratefully thank my brother-in-law Kevin and his wife Sarah for their generosity in giving us their summer home for the week, it made John happy!

It’s been too long John.

WHAT I HATE

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TLW (The Little Woman) teaches little 7-year olds about their religion, educating them about Jesus and trying to make the world a better place. This is more than I do; however I feel sorry for her. It seems she must try to reason with these kids about good vs. bad, and how to accept everyone in this world as an equal.

Unfortunately, in this day and age of enlightenment, we seem to be stuck in the same old habit of hating anyone who is different. Not only do we hate, we teach our children to hate too. For years I believed in my faith and then it dawned on me one day that it is a failure for me. After 2,013 years of preaching, 2,013 years of sermons, what have we got? We have 7-year olds that with venom in their mouths, and learned hatred in their hearts, pointing out that Jews are some kind of culprit for all the world’s problems! 7-year olds making this distinction, and where do they get it from?

My two sons have the teacher of this little 7-years old girl as their mother. This little girl chose to tell teacher that someone was an evil Jew: something dirty and therefore should be watched, not trusted but hated! My sons don’t think that way as far as I can see into the past and will bet on the future. They respect anyone and everyone and leave me with some hope for the future.

I am not pinning medals on myself or my family, I am pointing out how polarizing religion is making us all, that the bricks and mortar that most seem to gather in the name of God is where we cement our hatred and solidify our thinking that only we are the truth! How insane. God I hope doesn’t hate Jews or Muslims or Christians. It is one thing to say one of us is wrong, but something even more shocking to say we are all wrong.

I’ve been blessed with Jewish friends, my best man and best friend is a Jew, and we are like brothers. I have two men on the board that I serve on that are guys I would walk through a brick wall for. Why, because they accept me as an equal, a colleague and friend. They are Jews and twice a year I enjoy their company up in Albany where there is just a group of us with a common cause and no axe to grind. They don’t wear their religion on their sleeves, as I refuse to.

You must be shocked as readers that this is what I believe in, but it is. I have tried to reconcile what the priests, rabbis and ministers preach with what many of them do with their intolerance, secret lives of contradiction and all the victims they have singled out in their worlds of piety. I don’t think I need a church or another man to tell me I love my neighbor, I know that, I can see that I need to teach my children that, putting money in a collection plate doesn’t sooth my conscience or heal all that is evil in me. Oh, I still believe in God, I just don’t need someone to tell me I have to, insult my intelligence by defying their own teachings and behaving other than the way they tell me to.

LIFE IS BUT A BUMPER STICKER

It seems to be that people like to express themselves in quick to the point statements, usually on the bumper stickers of their cars. Some of them are profound statements, and some not so profound.

If you have ever been annoyed by a tailgater, then: If you can read this, then I can slam on my brakes and sue you!” has a nice touch.

Then of course you have the jackass in front of you who dreams of world peace or saving the whales and doesn’t seem to be aware of what he is doing: “Forget world peace, visualize turning off your turn signal.”

All too often there is a moron or two, driving along at 20 mph, thinking they are fooling the world, texting while driving, and to them I would have a sticker that says:

”HANG UP AND DRIVE YOU IDIOT!”

Once I was driving and behind a Silver Cloud Rolls Royce, and the sticker that comes to mind is: “Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.”

Of course we don’t have to reserve our stickers for the road only. How about this for older people like me: “Ever stop to think and forget to start again?”

The other day I was heading toward my chair in the den, when I must have come in too fast, went to sit and instead the whole chair tilted over sending me sprawling into a corner of which I had some difficulty getting out of. The sticker: “This would be funny if it weren’t happening to me!” came to mind.

Voting? Are you sick of the candidates and what they do, particularly in D.C. and Albany? How about: “If we quit voting, will they go away?”

Had a day of dealing with stupid people? Wish to remain calm, then this sticker is for you: “This sticker exploits illiterates!”

You gained weight and exercised, dieted and starved yourself, but still you gained weight? Then this is for you as it is for me:  “Eat right, exercise and die anyway!”

And finally, you do something stupid yourself, and embarrassingly realize people are watching. How about this sticker: “I haven’t lost my mind, it is on a backup disk somewhere.”

MOVING ON UP!

Yesterday was the culmination of a lousy weekend! Yesterday was colonoscopy day, a Monday, and from Saturday night until about 3:30 in the afternoon on Monday I had nothing to eat.

I really wish they would invent a better tasting liquid to force down your throat before the endoscopy because it taste awful as some of you may know. The actual procedure itself is a snap but the time leading up to it isn’t.

One of the things I hate is going to the prep room and having to change into the hospital gown. This time around, the young lady who directed me gave me the gown and told me: “Open end in the back, here is a bag for your things and keep your socks on.” That last remark made me wonder if I needed to keep my socks on or be patient, but I am a patient so this must mean keep my socks on. Since she didn’t mention underwear, I paused for a moment and realized: DUH, put them in the bag!

Lying down on the cot or bed, she takes my temperature and sets up the IV so that they can insert the knockout agent that makes you sleep like a baby. I just hope I don’t wet the bed like a baby! So you see all you little kiddies out there, Uncle Joe says to potty train well, you never know when you need to hold it without thinking!

There were two things the staff kept asking from the waiting room, the prep room and the procedure room was my birthday, and who was here with me? I guess they didn’t believe someone this old could still be standing and yet with this face had someone still married to me. Goes to show you.

After the gown and blood pressure was taken, they immediately wheeled me into the procedure room, asked their questions and a white milk-like fluid was administered. Watching this I laughed to myself that that was not going to work, they were wasting their time and fluids. They told me to take deep breaths and I did like I was told, thinking: I told them so: this isn’t working! They responded by saying, OK get dressed; the doctor will come by to tell you how it all went.

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Smart asses!

And so I dressed after talking to the doctor, and TLW (The Little Woman)  and I went to an Italian restaurant and except for a drink, I ate well and felt like a new man, except for the lack of coffee for two days.

I think it is worth the inconvenience of a few days and some awful tasting liquid that you rush to down to get it over with, to have a colonoscopy, it will help in the prevention of cancer, saving you from an early death and the pain of cancer, so please have one if you are over 50. Stay healthy, besides I need you to read and I love you!