The competition at the five paddleball courts at Carmine Street in Manhattan was always ferocious. No one wanted to lose and all of us fought like mad, argued like mad, disputed calls like mad, to avoid it. But when all was said and done, one team had gotten to 15 and one team hadn't. The winner got to stay on the court and play the next game. The losers shook or slapped the hands of the victors, trudged off the court and had to wait for their next opportunity.
And wait. And wait. And, sometimes, wait some more.
The Carmine courts were not only fierce. They were crowded. Often we had to keep written lists of who was waiting for next. Those lists could extend to ten or more names. The waits, that is, were extensive.
Waiting, however, was not our strong point. We were competitive athletes, after all. We had to do something. Some went to the bocce courts in a distant corner of the park. Others went to the softball field behind the courts to kick a soccer ball around. Many more went to nearby stores to buy food and drink.
Billy Abolafia did none of those things.
Billy was a strong, powerful young man with long, flowing hair and a charismatic air about him. People were drawn to him. He was a good player but that didn't seem like his main strength. Billy was a gambler.
When Billy brought a deck of cards to the cement tables and benches a few feet behind the courts, people suddenly knew what we'd do to pass our waiting time: We'd play poker!
The game was quarter/half. A quarter to open, 50 cents if there was a pair showing. Not a cheap game for the late 1980s, but not so expensive that anyone could be badly hurt. "Hey, what if, on the last card, the bet can be a dollar?" Billy suggested. And so, on the 7th card of our stud game, the stakes went up. With 3 raises allowed, that final turn could cost $4. Hmmm. Getting interesting!
With bills now flying around and getting blown in the wind, the game was now TOO INTERESTING to stay on the outside of the court. We began playing in the apartment Billy shared with his girlfriend on the far West Side. And the games, of course, were no longer filling the dead space between times on the court. Now they were going on for hours. Sometimes all night.
Things were getting serious. We were, after all, serious competitors. The quarters and the half dollars disappeared. Now the game was one dollar/two dollars. A five or ten dollar bet was allowed on the final card. Pretty sure Billy made that suggestion. With three raises allowed, that added up...to serious money!
The game we most liked to play was kind of silly, however: Baseball. Threes and nines were wild. A four would get you another card. With all those wild cards it was hard to figure out what was a good hand.
Happily, I figured it out.
After a night of not doing too well, I realized that you couldn't win the poker game of Baseball without at least 4 of a kind. And not just ANY 4 of a kind. It had to be high cards. Unless I had a shot at at least 4 jacks I'd drop out of the pot. Without at least 4 aces I'd bet conservatively, Billy was the best gambler at the table but now I had a clear view of the game.
Two things prevented the others from developing the same clarity.
All of our players came from Carmine. But not all were paddleball players from Carmine. Two were the drug dealers that sold weed and cocaine behind the court.
Now call me naive, but I didn't know that we had our own drug dealers. But we did. And you know, they were nice guys. And they made their products available for free at the poker game. And there was also plenty of beer. And most everyone partook.
But not me. I played sober. Not that it was difficult as I don't like beer, I've never gotten the hang of inhaling and coke just made me feel I'd gotten a numbing shot from the dentist. So half the table was high and I wasn't. BIG advantage.
And then Anita Maldonado joined us!
I love Anita. She's a really fun person. She livened up the game. Now the other thing about Anita is that of all the ferocious competitors in paddleball she is arguably the fiercest of us all. She hated to lose. And that's the attitude she brought to the poker game.
"You've got to be in it to win it," she'd say. It was her competitive philosophy. A GREAT one in athletic events where she would never accept defeat. A poor one in poker where, if you recognize likely defeat early, you can fold your cards and get out of the pot early enough to lose only a small amount. Stay to the bitter end, however, and you can turn a tiny loss into a big one.
And so MY philosophy at the game was play sober, play conservatively and only bet hard if I had a likely winning hand.
The drug dealers brought lots of cash with them and didn't seem to mind when they lost it. Probably the highest of anyone at the table they never seemed to quite figure out when they should be in a pot and when they should fold. "You've got to be in it to win it," I'd sometimes smile at them when they seemed confused at how they'd once again dropped a good bit of cash in a hand they didn't come close to winning.
Then in one game I was up against Anita. I held some wild cards so, feeling strong I bet aggressively. I was unprepared for the ferocity with which Anita pushed back with big raises of her own. I felt sure I had the best hand, but what did it mean that the woman champ was being so strong? Intimidated, I didn't raise her back.
"What have you got?" I asked when I'd called her final bet.
"A pair of aces," she answered.
"Aces," I replied, dumbfounded. "You just have a pair of aces?"
"Yes. What do you have?"
"I have four kings." Shaking my head, I gathered in all the chips. How in a game with all these wild cards, could she be even in the pot, let alone raising, with just a pair? And then, of course, I realized why:
"You've got to be in it to win it!"
And that's how, though I did not win all the time at Carmine, I won every night at Billy's house!
The drug dealers, of course, weren't doing so well. I got a phone call from one of them, Larry.
"Hey, Mike," he said. "I want to ask you something but I'm unsure if our friendship is close enough that it's okay to ask."
"What is it, Larry?"
"Well, I don't have money to buy any more product and I was wondering if you could lend me $1000 so I could. I'd pay you back in a week with $100 extra for your trouble."
"Larry, of course we're good enough friends for you to ask me. You can ask me for anything. But, unfortunately, I can't lend you $1000 for product."
I'd turned my back on the opportunity to get into the drug racket!
The game went on. Nothing changed but the stakes. Incredibly, we were now allowed to bet up to $100 on the last card...with the three raises that would mean as much as $400. None of us really had that kind of money. One night I won close to $1000 but went home with about $125 and a stack of IOUs. Everyone eventually paid up but it had gotten out of hand.
Then a player named Psycho Mike began coming to the game. When he learned that I was a psychotherapist he decided that the reason I was winning was because I was reading minds. When I learned that he was carrying a gun I decided that big money, cocaine, a weapon and paranoia was not a combination I wanted to be part of.
The Poker Game ended for me that night!
Friday, February 23, 2018
Saturday, September 24, 2016
HOW ASDRUBAL CABRARA IS JUST LIKE TIM HARKNESS
Asdrubal Cabrara's 11th inning home run 2 nights ago was as dramatic as they come, saving the Mets from a gut wrenching defeat and propelling us to the happiest, most satisfying of walk off wins. I could not have been more delighted.
This wasn't the first time.
Back in 1963 my dad took me and my sister Lysie to a Met game at the old Polo Grounds in order to celebrate my junior high school graduation. The guys fell behind early but battled back to tie, possibly because they knew that this was my special day. Then they teased me by coming close to victory several times but somehow not getting the decisive run across.
In the 14th, sadly, the bad guys pushed 2 runs in, but the Mets battled back, loading the bases with 2 outs for Tim Harkness. Tim was a left handed hitting first baseman we'd gotten from the Dodgers and though he hadn't done a whole lot (and would continue on in that vein for the rest of his career), he was one of my favorites. He worked the count to 2-2 and then looked at a fast ball around his knees. I went silent. All of the Polo Grounds seemed to go silent. We waited for the umpire to yell strike 3 and tragically put an end to the long afternoon. But he didn't. Ball 3. The count was full. The runners took off on the next pitch and this time Tim swung....
The crack of the bat sounded clearly way up to the left field foul line where I was sitting. It was the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. The ball shot off Harkness's bat on a rapid line to right field, well over the outfielder and well over the fence. A grand slam! He'd done it! We'd won...the most satisfying of walk off wins!
Leaving the ballpark, I kept shouting "Tim Harkness for MVP." Perhaps my sister was not used to Public Displays of Affection for a Ballplayer because she complained to my dad who simply responded: "Let him have his fun."
The Mets lost 111 games in 1963 and Harkness with his .211 batting average and 10 home runs failed to draw much MVP consideration. It's fair to say that neither the team or my then favorite player gave me much more fun that season.
But for that one day? What a great celebration! The great Tim Harkness. Just like, 2 days ago, the great Asdrubal Cabrara!
This wasn't the first time.
Back in 1963 my dad took me and my sister Lysie to a Met game at the old Polo Grounds in order to celebrate my junior high school graduation. The guys fell behind early but battled back to tie, possibly because they knew that this was my special day. Then they teased me by coming close to victory several times but somehow not getting the decisive run across.
In the 14th, sadly, the bad guys pushed 2 runs in, but the Mets battled back, loading the bases with 2 outs for Tim Harkness. Tim was a left handed hitting first baseman we'd gotten from the Dodgers and though he hadn't done a whole lot (and would continue on in that vein for the rest of his career), he was one of my favorites. He worked the count to 2-2 and then looked at a fast ball around his knees. I went silent. All of the Polo Grounds seemed to go silent. We waited for the umpire to yell strike 3 and tragically put an end to the long afternoon. But he didn't. Ball 3. The count was full. The runners took off on the next pitch and this time Tim swung....
The crack of the bat sounded clearly way up to the left field foul line where I was sitting. It was the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. The ball shot off Harkness's bat on a rapid line to right field, well over the outfielder and well over the fence. A grand slam! He'd done it! We'd won...the most satisfying of walk off wins!
Leaving the ballpark, I kept shouting "Tim Harkness for MVP." Perhaps my sister was not used to Public Displays of Affection for a Ballplayer because she complained to my dad who simply responded: "Let him have his fun."
The Mets lost 111 games in 1963 and Harkness with his .211 batting average and 10 home runs failed to draw much MVP consideration. It's fair to say that neither the team or my then favorite player gave me much more fun that season.
But for that one day? What a great celebration! The great Tim Harkness. Just like, 2 days ago, the great Asdrubal Cabrara!
Friday, January 1, 2016
RUNNING THROUGH 2015
You'd think that two surgeries was enough. I mean I had an enlarged prostate. So what? Lots of guys in their 60s have an enlarged prostate. Yes the symptoms could be mind numbing and awful. How would you feel if you couldn't pee and had to go to the emergency room? Terrible, right? But still, it was just an enlarged prostate. A single TURP surgery to cut it down the size should've done the trick. But two? That would DEFINITELY do it! No peeing problems for sure. FOR SURE.
Except it didn't. So when my new urologist said that he didn't understand what my first guy had done and how my prostate was still enlarged and still the cause of my problems, I just shook my head. When he said a third surgery was needed I couldn't believe it. How could this be? Really, I should've just stayed younger.
But I hadn't. And, as a result, we'd now have to try the same surgery again . And that would screw up my running even more.
I've always run and running has always made me special. Because I could speed around the bases and score runs. Because I could fly across the outfield and steal hits. Because I could outrun my defenders and catch touchdowns.
A bit older, I turned to road running...running great events like the New York Marathon in front of thousands and the Disney World Marathon through Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom and EPCOT. Shorter races too where I sometimes won my age group or at least finished among the swiftest.
And then my prostate decided to grow. I don't know why. Seems to happen to many of us, especially if we've chosen to be guys. And so, between the emergency room visits and the urgent care facility visits, the medication that elevated my heart rate and, ultimately, operation number one and operation number two, my training came to a screeching halt. Running became an infrequent luxury rather than a four or five times a week constant.
With all that going on and as I continued growing older, the 7 minute miles I routinely ran in races, the 6 minute miles I strove for in the shorter races, became the rare exceptions. I got slower and slower. When I could run at all. My speedy exceptionalism was gone. My athleticism was now something to be discussed in the past tense.
And, according to my new urologist, I still needed a third surgery. "Why should I believe this time it's going to work?" I asked various friends and family members, none of whom had particularly good answers. But I was still feeling lousy, my running wasn't getting better and the various other remedies I'd tried weren't helping. What choice did I really have?
I had my third TURP surgery in less than two years on September 24, 2014. I'm delighted to say that it's worked! In late October I was running short distances. Two months later I was doing hard workouts on the track. In early January, 2015, I ran my first race in forever!
I ran it, unfortunately, exceedingly slow!
I needed, I thought, something to inspire me and found it when I won a lottery to gain acceptance into the New York Half Marathon, a major New York Road Runners Event...2nd in prestige here only to the NY Marathon...that winds 13.1 miles through Central Park and the streets of Manhattan to its finish near Wall Street.
I trained for it hard and discovered there were things besides an unruly prostate that got in the way of running: Tight, vulnerable and easily injured muscles. My calves hurt. In the midst of a vigorous treadmill workout the inside of my left knee hurt so bad I had to stop. My calves spasmed and hurt again.
Nevertheless, I made it to the starting line and, more importantly, to the finish. My goal was to break 1 hour and 50 minutes which I did EASILY. If by easily we mean by 26 seconds. A happy achievement that put me tenth among my 76 age group competitors. On the other hand, my time was SO much slower than previous half marathon races. I really hoped that this was not the best I could do.
Still, except for brief pauses for an aching muscle here and there I was so happy to be running regularly. It made me feel, well, special. And young. A month later, in a 10 kilometer race in chilly, windy Central Park, I SMASHED my way through the 8 minute per mile barrier to return to my youthful 7 minute per mile pace. If by smash we mean beating 8 minutes by 2 seconds to run each mile at a 7:58 average.
But I was on my way, getting faster. And I was running really fast on 6th Street track when I blew out my left hamstring. How could my hamstring just go like that?
Maybe because my leg muscles have always been tight and I've avoided stretching them because stretching is a bore? And because the older I got and the longer I ran on tight muscles, the more vulnerable they became?
OK, I needed to stretch. Got it. But would I do that on my own? Not likely. So I hired a trainer to get me to do it.
Helen is great. We stretched. I felt better. Two weeks later I was running again. The first time was terrific. The second time the hamstring went yet again. I ran again three weeks later. But not fast, as I demonstrated in a soft ball game where I managed to get myself thrown out at first base on what should have been a single to left. Ugh!
More injuries. This time my groin. I went to a guy who does body work. "Movement is the key" it says on his web site. He twisted me into a pretzel. He worked the injured area in a way that REALLY hurt.
Each time I saw him I felt more limber and flexible. So, too, with Helen. Just as things started to get better there was another leg injury. It lingered. I had to do something to overcome or at least slow down the ravishes of aging but perhaps stretching and body work wasn't it. Is patience called for?
By mid October, after months of futility, suddenly it all seemed to click into place. The pain was gone. My flexibility was clearly better. I was running regularly. I could increase the distance.
Which was really quite fortuitous because I had signed up to run the Disney World Half Marathon in early January. Ten weeks of training is the minimum necessary to run it half well. I've been able to train consistently through the rest of 2015 so, 1 week from tomorrow I look forward to racing the race.
Yesterday, on the very last morning of 2015, I set out on a hard workout: A four mile tempo run which means four fast miles sandwiched between a mile warm up and a mile cool down. Hey, there have been mornings when I've tried this workout and quit after only three. Sometimes it's just too much. But this time I did it. All four swift miles at a pace of 8:20. Pretty good, right? Yeah, I felt pleased to end this whole year without prostate woes on such a strong note.
But just 8:20? That's slow! I've run this work out MUCH faster. In the past. I want to get back there. Don't know if I can.
Except it didn't. So when my new urologist said that he didn't understand what my first guy had done and how my prostate was still enlarged and still the cause of my problems, I just shook my head. When he said a third surgery was needed I couldn't believe it. How could this be? Really, I should've just stayed younger.
But I hadn't. And, as a result, we'd now have to try the same surgery again . And that would screw up my running even more.
I've always run and running has always made me special. Because I could speed around the bases and score runs. Because I could fly across the outfield and steal hits. Because I could outrun my defenders and catch touchdowns.
A bit older, I turned to road running...running great events like the New York Marathon in front of thousands and the Disney World Marathon through Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom and EPCOT. Shorter races too where I sometimes won my age group or at least finished among the swiftest.
And then my prostate decided to grow. I don't know why. Seems to happen to many of us, especially if we've chosen to be guys. And so, between the emergency room visits and the urgent care facility visits, the medication that elevated my heart rate and, ultimately, operation number one and operation number two, my training came to a screeching halt. Running became an infrequent luxury rather than a four or five times a week constant.
With all that going on and as I continued growing older, the 7 minute miles I routinely ran in races, the 6 minute miles I strove for in the shorter races, became the rare exceptions. I got slower and slower. When I could run at all. My speedy exceptionalism was gone. My athleticism was now something to be discussed in the past tense.
And, according to my new urologist, I still needed a third surgery. "Why should I believe this time it's going to work?" I asked various friends and family members, none of whom had particularly good answers. But I was still feeling lousy, my running wasn't getting better and the various other remedies I'd tried weren't helping. What choice did I really have?
I had my third TURP surgery in less than two years on September 24, 2014. I'm delighted to say that it's worked! In late October I was running short distances. Two months later I was doing hard workouts on the track. In early January, 2015, I ran my first race in forever!
I ran it, unfortunately, exceedingly slow!
I needed, I thought, something to inspire me and found it when I won a lottery to gain acceptance into the New York Half Marathon, a major New York Road Runners Event...2nd in prestige here only to the NY Marathon...that winds 13.1 miles through Central Park and the streets of Manhattan to its finish near Wall Street.
I trained for it hard and discovered there were things besides an unruly prostate that got in the way of running: Tight, vulnerable and easily injured muscles. My calves hurt. In the midst of a vigorous treadmill workout the inside of my left knee hurt so bad I had to stop. My calves spasmed and hurt again.
Nevertheless, I made it to the starting line and, more importantly, to the finish. My goal was to break 1 hour and 50 minutes which I did EASILY. If by easily we mean by 26 seconds. A happy achievement that put me tenth among my 76 age group competitors. On the other hand, my time was SO much slower than previous half marathon races. I really hoped that this was not the best I could do.
Still, except for brief pauses for an aching muscle here and there I was so happy to be running regularly. It made me feel, well, special. And young. A month later, in a 10 kilometer race in chilly, windy Central Park, I SMASHED my way through the 8 minute per mile barrier to return to my youthful 7 minute per mile pace. If by smash we mean beating 8 minutes by 2 seconds to run each mile at a 7:58 average.
But I was on my way, getting faster. And I was running really fast on 6th Street track when I blew out my left hamstring. How could my hamstring just go like that?
Maybe because my leg muscles have always been tight and I've avoided stretching them because stretching is a bore? And because the older I got and the longer I ran on tight muscles, the more vulnerable they became?
OK, I needed to stretch. Got it. But would I do that on my own? Not likely. So I hired a trainer to get me to do it.
Helen is great. We stretched. I felt better. Two weeks later I was running again. The first time was terrific. The second time the hamstring went yet again. I ran again three weeks later. But not fast, as I demonstrated in a soft ball game where I managed to get myself thrown out at first base on what should have been a single to left. Ugh!
More injuries. This time my groin. I went to a guy who does body work. "Movement is the key" it says on his web site. He twisted me into a pretzel. He worked the injured area in a way that REALLY hurt.
Each time I saw him I felt more limber and flexible. So, too, with Helen. Just as things started to get better there was another leg injury. It lingered. I had to do something to overcome or at least slow down the ravishes of aging but perhaps stretching and body work wasn't it. Is patience called for?
By mid October, after months of futility, suddenly it all seemed to click into place. The pain was gone. My flexibility was clearly better. I was running regularly. I could increase the distance.
Which was really quite fortuitous because I had signed up to run the Disney World Half Marathon in early January. Ten weeks of training is the minimum necessary to run it half well. I've been able to train consistently through the rest of 2015 so, 1 week from tomorrow I look forward to racing the race.
Yesterday, on the very last morning of 2015, I set out on a hard workout: A four mile tempo run which means four fast miles sandwiched between a mile warm up and a mile cool down. Hey, there have been mornings when I've tried this workout and quit after only three. Sometimes it's just too much. But this time I did it. All four swift miles at a pace of 8:20. Pretty good, right? Yeah, I felt pleased to end this whole year without prostate woes on such a strong note.
But just 8:20? That's slow! I've run this work out MUCH faster. In the past. I want to get back there. Don't know if I can.
Monday, April 6, 2015
OPENING DAY HEROICS
Yesterday, the Mets won the first game of the season. They did this without scoring an earned run, with their oldest ever opening day starting pitcher and a closer who, despite veteran status, had never before earned a save. Am I surprised? Not at all. We almost always win the first game.
It wasn't always that way.
When the team came into existence in 1962 I was wise enough to largely ignore them. I was having enough adolescent troubles without adding 120 losses, including 1 on opening day, to the mix. In 1963, much to my horror and at least somewhat to my surprise, I became a Mets fan. From that I learned 2 things: You can't control who (or what) you love and I can be optimistic about anything. Somehow I entered that soon to be horrendous season with a sense of hope. The season's first pitch was a called strike and I remember thinking "we're off to a good start!" The second pitch was hit softly on the ground to our third baseman who fielded it (okay, still good) and threw it into the stands. I don't remember what I thought then or what I thought when we lost that game. Or what I thought when we lost the next season's opener. Or the next season's. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next.
That's right, the Mets lost their first 8 opening day games! Which is quite a coincidence, because they also began my initial season as a Mets fanatic by losing their first 8 contests. Did I lose heart? Not at all. In fact, I remember the incredible excitement of the next 4 games which we swept from the Braves. Our shortstop, Al Moran ("Our man, Al Moran!") hit like crazy which is something because he never did again. Nor, for almost the rest of the 1960s, did we get to celebrate many 4 (or 3 or 2) game sweeps. Didn't matter. I was hooked for life.
So am I surprised we won this year's opener? Not at all. Since failing in every one of my teenage years to win the first game of the season, the Mets now have the best first day record in baseball. Given that, in 53 years we've only won the last game of the season twice, you may think that triumphing in the opener is not very important. But you'd be wrong.
As all optimists know, we still have a chance to go undefeated!
It wasn't always that way.
When the team came into existence in 1962 I was wise enough to largely ignore them. I was having enough adolescent troubles without adding 120 losses, including 1 on opening day, to the mix. In 1963, much to my horror and at least somewhat to my surprise, I became a Mets fan. From that I learned 2 things: You can't control who (or what) you love and I can be optimistic about anything. Somehow I entered that soon to be horrendous season with a sense of hope. The season's first pitch was a called strike and I remember thinking "we're off to a good start!" The second pitch was hit softly on the ground to our third baseman who fielded it (okay, still good) and threw it into the stands. I don't remember what I thought then or what I thought when we lost that game. Or what I thought when we lost the next season's opener. Or the next season's. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next.
That's right, the Mets lost their first 8 opening day games! Which is quite a coincidence, because they also began my initial season as a Mets fanatic by losing their first 8 contests. Did I lose heart? Not at all. In fact, I remember the incredible excitement of the next 4 games which we swept from the Braves. Our shortstop, Al Moran ("Our man, Al Moran!") hit like crazy which is something because he never did again. Nor, for almost the rest of the 1960s, did we get to celebrate many 4 (or 3 or 2) game sweeps. Didn't matter. I was hooked for life.
So am I surprised we won this year's opener? Not at all. Since failing in every one of my teenage years to win the first game of the season, the Mets now have the best first day record in baseball. Given that, in 53 years we've only won the last game of the season twice, you may think that triumphing in the opener is not very important. But you'd be wrong.
As all optimists know, we still have a chance to go undefeated!
Thursday, October 16, 2014
MILESTONES
I was just a boy and it was dark and the block from Avenue B to Avenue A seemed endless. Walking slowly towards our apartment at the corner I didn't feel scared, just thoughtful. I thought about what I wanted. What I wanted was to be older.
I wanted to have as many years as I had fingers on my hands. I thought it would be great to be 10!
Shortly before making it to 10, I sat in my dentist's chair and listened to the Dodgers beat the White Sox to clinch the World Series in 6 games. A painful yet happy day for me that I well remember, recall, in fact, far better than the day I reached double figures, which I don't recollect at all. I do, however, recall what I felt a short time late: Disappointment. Being 10 wasn't enough. I needed a year with a "teen" at the end of it. I wanted to be a teenager.
I wanted to be 13. That milestone, of course, would come with another...my bar mitzvah. That was a hard thing to study for; I feared embarrassing myself in front of everyone. Preparing for it was surely the toughest thing I'd done to that point. Good thing I did, because, while I can't remember my 13th birthday at all, I sure remember the big ceremony 10 days later.
It was raining really hard in the morning and, as it was ending, the rabbi said I'd become a man. That was silly. I knew I hadn't. Would a man's legs have been shaking so uncontrollably as mine had when singing my hav Torah? Certainly not. Nevertheless, I hadn't screwed it up so thank goodness for my studying. That was fairly manly, I guess. And, I did 1 other manly thing. Early that morning, at the urging and with the help of my dad, I'd shaved for the first time! Though no hair or stubble had been removed...or was initially present...from my face, it was still quite a manly act! So today I was sort of a man!!
In a few years I'd reached the milestones of moving away from home, attending college and earning the first "D" in my life. Approaching 18 in my sophomore year, my friend Diane wished to take me out drinking to celebrate my legality. Unlike the rest of my family (and certainly to the great confusion of my father who seemed to like most other things about me), I didn't actually enjoy drinking. My preference was to stay in the dorm and watch the hockey game. Diane, sadly, was not a hockey fan. Happily, however, we did no drinking that night.
College continued in my 21st year, as did the war in Vietnam. Things were starting to get a little more difficult. Facing my final semester at Stony Brook, I was student teaching at a nearby high school. I had to survive those classes, graduate and then decide how I wanted to handle career and my low draft number.
Near my 21st birthday, I taught a history class that was observed by both my cooperating teacher at the high school and my supervisor from Stony Brook. The class went very well. At it's conclusion, the students REALLY seemed to understand why Washington didn't want the U.S. to get into any foreign "entangling alliances." In fact, the class went too well. It had concluded 15 minutes before it was scheduled to officially end. What to do with all that additional time. Perhaps my choice of sitting there silently, thinking of the horrible things my cooperating and supervising teachers were about to say, was not the best way?
They liked the class. They advised me of what to do with extra time. They thought I could be a good teacher. Soon I graduated. Eventually I convinced my draft board that perhaps I could serve the country better not in the army. Twenty one turned out a good year...just can't recall the big celebration.
Soon 30 was approaching. This seemed strange. Thirty is not young (ask me if I still feel this way!), and I'd often heard that no one over 30 could be trusted. Frankly that seemed silly to me. On my 30th birthday I wrote myself a note which I still have. It read: "Already?" That morning I went to my grandmother's apartment on Avenue A to pick up some food she'd cooked for me. While there I looked out the window at the kids going into my old elementary school, PS 63. Many of them had once looked so formidable to me. Now they looked like children. I had, indeed, become older!
At 40 my family held a party. My Uncle Billy congratulated me, gave me $100 and observed: "Life begins at 40." Grateful for that encouragement, I looked up from the money and saw that he was smiling and rolling his eyes...not so encouraging! But, in fact, he was right, as I'd just finished therapy school and had begun my practice as a psychotherapist. As I was now finally doing work that I really enjoyed, life had, indeed, just begun!
As 50 approached, however, I was getting a bit tired of aging. I decided NOT to think at all about this milestone but instead concentrate only on the New York Marathon for which I'd registered for the first time and was scheduled 2 days after my Halloween Birthday. It all was going well till a series of calf injuries limited my training. I showed up at the starting line anyways and did my best, but that only got me to mile 17 where I staggered off the course. The next year, however, I tried again and made it to the glorious finish line. I'd now ALWAYS be a marathon finisher! My second half century took a while but was now off to a promising start.
And now my 65th approaches. Three weeks ago I had surgery and that requires that I now take it easy. I thought then that a great goal for the big day would be to do my first post surgery run then. However I've been recovering well and yesterday my surgeon said go ahead and start working out. So today I did 30 minutes on the elliptical. Not too tough, but makes me think that I can run before we get to October 31. So now I'm revising the milestone. Come Halloween I plan on running 65 miles...not that fast, of course...1 mile for each of my years....
Just kidding. I'm a kidder! Maybe I'll aim for 5 or 6 miles, to commemorate either the second or first digit of my new age. That should get things off to a good start!!
I wanted to have as many years as I had fingers on my hands. I thought it would be great to be 10!
Shortly before making it to 10, I sat in my dentist's chair and listened to the Dodgers beat the White Sox to clinch the World Series in 6 games. A painful yet happy day for me that I well remember, recall, in fact, far better than the day I reached double figures, which I don't recollect at all. I do, however, recall what I felt a short time late: Disappointment. Being 10 wasn't enough. I needed a year with a "teen" at the end of it. I wanted to be a teenager.
I wanted to be 13. That milestone, of course, would come with another...my bar mitzvah. That was a hard thing to study for; I feared embarrassing myself in front of everyone. Preparing for it was surely the toughest thing I'd done to that point. Good thing I did, because, while I can't remember my 13th birthday at all, I sure remember the big ceremony 10 days later.
It was raining really hard in the morning and, as it was ending, the rabbi said I'd become a man. That was silly. I knew I hadn't. Would a man's legs have been shaking so uncontrollably as mine had when singing my hav Torah? Certainly not. Nevertheless, I hadn't screwed it up so thank goodness for my studying. That was fairly manly, I guess. And, I did 1 other manly thing. Early that morning, at the urging and with the help of my dad, I'd shaved for the first time! Though no hair or stubble had been removed...or was initially present...from my face, it was still quite a manly act! So today I was sort of a man!!
In a few years I'd reached the milestones of moving away from home, attending college and earning the first "D" in my life. Approaching 18 in my sophomore year, my friend Diane wished to take me out drinking to celebrate my legality. Unlike the rest of my family (and certainly to the great confusion of my father who seemed to like most other things about me), I didn't actually enjoy drinking. My preference was to stay in the dorm and watch the hockey game. Diane, sadly, was not a hockey fan. Happily, however, we did no drinking that night.
College continued in my 21st year, as did the war in Vietnam. Things were starting to get a little more difficult. Facing my final semester at Stony Brook, I was student teaching at a nearby high school. I had to survive those classes, graduate and then decide how I wanted to handle career and my low draft number.
Near my 21st birthday, I taught a history class that was observed by both my cooperating teacher at the high school and my supervisor from Stony Brook. The class went very well. At it's conclusion, the students REALLY seemed to understand why Washington didn't want the U.S. to get into any foreign "entangling alliances." In fact, the class went too well. It had concluded 15 minutes before it was scheduled to officially end. What to do with all that additional time. Perhaps my choice of sitting there silently, thinking of the horrible things my cooperating and supervising teachers were about to say, was not the best way?
They liked the class. They advised me of what to do with extra time. They thought I could be a good teacher. Soon I graduated. Eventually I convinced my draft board that perhaps I could serve the country better not in the army. Twenty one turned out a good year...just can't recall the big celebration.
Soon 30 was approaching. This seemed strange. Thirty is not young (ask me if I still feel this way!), and I'd often heard that no one over 30 could be trusted. Frankly that seemed silly to me. On my 30th birthday I wrote myself a note which I still have. It read: "Already?" That morning I went to my grandmother's apartment on Avenue A to pick up some food she'd cooked for me. While there I looked out the window at the kids going into my old elementary school, PS 63. Many of them had once looked so formidable to me. Now they looked like children. I had, indeed, become older!
At 40 my family held a party. My Uncle Billy congratulated me, gave me $100 and observed: "Life begins at 40." Grateful for that encouragement, I looked up from the money and saw that he was smiling and rolling his eyes...not so encouraging! But, in fact, he was right, as I'd just finished therapy school and had begun my practice as a psychotherapist. As I was now finally doing work that I really enjoyed, life had, indeed, just begun!
As 50 approached, however, I was getting a bit tired of aging. I decided NOT to think at all about this milestone but instead concentrate only on the New York Marathon for which I'd registered for the first time and was scheduled 2 days after my Halloween Birthday. It all was going well till a series of calf injuries limited my training. I showed up at the starting line anyways and did my best, but that only got me to mile 17 where I staggered off the course. The next year, however, I tried again and made it to the glorious finish line. I'd now ALWAYS be a marathon finisher! My second half century took a while but was now off to a promising start.
And now my 65th approaches. Three weeks ago I had surgery and that requires that I now take it easy. I thought then that a great goal for the big day would be to do my first post surgery run then. However I've been recovering well and yesterday my surgeon said go ahead and start working out. So today I did 30 minutes on the elliptical. Not too tough, but makes me think that I can run before we get to October 31. So now I'm revising the milestone. Come Halloween I plan on running 65 miles...not that fast, of course...1 mile for each of my years....
Just kidding. I'm a kidder! Maybe I'll aim for 5 or 6 miles, to commemorate either the second or first digit of my new age. That should get things off to a good start!!
Saturday, August 23, 2014
RACING THROUGH HARLEM
I'm good with numbers but these didn't make sense...7:20, 13, 8:30, 135. It was 7:20 this morning as I sat in my 13th Street apartment, calves resting on a heating pad, warming and relaxing them for the 8:30 race starting at 135th Street and St. Nicolas Avenue. Chatting contentedly on the phone, Gracie The Cat purring in my lap, it all felt so good till it struck me...What am I doing here? Not fully dressed, no race bib and number, not on the train to Harlem? I'm going to miss the race!!
Contentedness gone, I yelled to my startled friend that I was way late and had to go. Sending Gracie The Cat unintentionally flying, I threw on my things, hoped I'd not forgotten anything else, raced out the door, up 13th to 6th Avenue (just part of my warm up I reassured myself), got a cab and headed uptown.
One hour till race time. I grumbled at each red light, cursed when Central Park appeared closed to traffic, twisted in frustration each time we stopped at another light on 8th Avenue. Did I have enough cash to pay? How do you use a credit card in a taxi? How could I with no glasses and unable to see where the credit card was supposed to go? We passed 120th Street. Forty minutes to race time. I'll make it...if I can find where to get my race bib. Suddenly we halted at 125th...blocked off for the race.
"Damn these runners," I thought, missing the irony. I paid in cash, leaving a big tip as there was no time for change. I started running the half mile to 135th. Other racers were warming up around me...it felt comforting to be among them. It looked good, if only I could find the place to pick up my race number. There it was! Right across from the start line. In then out. Got everything. Bib, singlet, racing flats on, baggage dropped off. Ready with 20 minutes to spare.
A quick final warm up and stretch. To the start. The loud speaker is on. 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. Chaney, Goodwin and Schwerner. Percy Sutton. Harlem Festival. Trumpet plays America The Beautiful then The Star Spangled Banner. It's time. We're off.
I want to do better than I did 2 years ago. The first mile is narrow and I can't pass anyone. Good. Keeps me under control for the NASTY hills around 1/2 mile in. UP, up, up, turn to the left and up some more. Why hadn't I trained on hills? Another turn left. Mile 1 marker...8:03...9 seconds faster than before. Finally a good number. I'm feeling strong.
But not for long. The course opens up. Mile 2 is fairly flat but I'm suddenly fatigued. Everything feels strained. Pushing on, getting passed by a few but not many, bypassing a couple myself. I think about slowing, want to slow but force myself not to. Mile 3 is easier; just got to get there. The mile 2 marker...8:01. A tiny bit better than last time.
I'm well positioned for a sub 8 minute pace because the final mile is mainly downhill. Gravity will help, I tell myself. Just hang in there. No slacking off so close to the finish. Streets are going by. Where's the damn downhill? I'm about a quarter mile in...have they changed the course? So far just flat. I'm hurting and struggling. There it is! A STEEP downhill. One block. Then 2 blocks. Three. Four. I'm flying! This is the way to race! Left turn at the border of St. Nicolas Park. The downhill had to end sometime. But no! Another lovely downhill block!
I turn downtown towards the finish. It should be soon but this is 127th Street and the race doesn't end till about 135th. I can't see the finish banner. Can't see any more downhills. No more uphills, thankfully, either. But it's a tremendous struggle. WAY too close to the end and my goal to slacken. Just have to push. The streets go by. Still no end in sight. Then there it is! Three mile marker. Got it! 7:39! Gravity is good. Sub 8 minutes in the bag. Tenth of a mile to go. Why is it so long? Don't slow. Instead push. 47 seconds. I'm across the finish line.
24:31 on my watch. A solid 19 seconds quicker than 2 years ago. I've gotten faster. Have I also gotten younger? Exact same time as last week but on a much tougher course. So I'm a better runner now...perhaps a better person? 7:55 pace. Given the state of my training, that's good.
A woman recognizes me and introduces me to her friend: "He's one of the fast ones." I'm pleased. I go to cheer others to the finish. I'm also noting the many who are now ending after me. I especially note the guys and, in particular, the younger guys, which pretty much constitutes ALL the guys.
Another woman, this one wearing a Greater New York singlet like mine, approaches. On the same team but we've never met. She's also recovering from injuries. More runners, including younger guys, stream in. She, too, was late to the start and had no time to get ready. "So mile 1 was your warm up," I observe. "How fast did you run it?"
"7:30," she responds. Damn! Way faster than me and I had several warm ups and I'm also, you know, a guy. She apologizes for telling me all about her injuries. To make her feel better I tell her all about mine, emphasizing that they came not just from running but from softball too. I'm a multi athletic guy is my point though incapable yet of racing a 7:30 on crowded, uphill first miles.
It's all relative, you know. And for me this was relatively good.
Contentedness gone, I yelled to my startled friend that I was way late and had to go. Sending Gracie The Cat unintentionally flying, I threw on my things, hoped I'd not forgotten anything else, raced out the door, up 13th to 6th Avenue (just part of my warm up I reassured myself), got a cab and headed uptown.
One hour till race time. I grumbled at each red light, cursed when Central Park appeared closed to traffic, twisted in frustration each time we stopped at another light on 8th Avenue. Did I have enough cash to pay? How do you use a credit card in a taxi? How could I with no glasses and unable to see where the credit card was supposed to go? We passed 120th Street. Forty minutes to race time. I'll make it...if I can find where to get my race bib. Suddenly we halted at 125th...blocked off for the race.
"Damn these runners," I thought, missing the irony. I paid in cash, leaving a big tip as there was no time for change. I started running the half mile to 135th. Other racers were warming up around me...it felt comforting to be among them. It looked good, if only I could find the place to pick up my race number. There it was! Right across from the start line. In then out. Got everything. Bib, singlet, racing flats on, baggage dropped off. Ready with 20 minutes to spare.
A quick final warm up and stretch. To the start. The loud speaker is on. 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. Chaney, Goodwin and Schwerner. Percy Sutton. Harlem Festival. Trumpet plays America The Beautiful then The Star Spangled Banner. It's time. We're off.
I want to do better than I did 2 years ago. The first mile is narrow and I can't pass anyone. Good. Keeps me under control for the NASTY hills around 1/2 mile in. UP, up, up, turn to the left and up some more. Why hadn't I trained on hills? Another turn left. Mile 1 marker...8:03...9 seconds faster than before. Finally a good number. I'm feeling strong.
But not for long. The course opens up. Mile 2 is fairly flat but I'm suddenly fatigued. Everything feels strained. Pushing on, getting passed by a few but not many, bypassing a couple myself. I think about slowing, want to slow but force myself not to. Mile 3 is easier; just got to get there. The mile 2 marker...8:01. A tiny bit better than last time.
I'm well positioned for a sub 8 minute pace because the final mile is mainly downhill. Gravity will help, I tell myself. Just hang in there. No slacking off so close to the finish. Streets are going by. Where's the damn downhill? I'm about a quarter mile in...have they changed the course? So far just flat. I'm hurting and struggling. There it is! A STEEP downhill. One block. Then 2 blocks. Three. Four. I'm flying! This is the way to race! Left turn at the border of St. Nicolas Park. The downhill had to end sometime. But no! Another lovely downhill block!
I turn downtown towards the finish. It should be soon but this is 127th Street and the race doesn't end till about 135th. I can't see the finish banner. Can't see any more downhills. No more uphills, thankfully, either. But it's a tremendous struggle. WAY too close to the end and my goal to slacken. Just have to push. The streets go by. Still no end in sight. Then there it is! Three mile marker. Got it! 7:39! Gravity is good. Sub 8 minutes in the bag. Tenth of a mile to go. Why is it so long? Don't slow. Instead push. 47 seconds. I'm across the finish line.
24:31 on my watch. A solid 19 seconds quicker than 2 years ago. I've gotten faster. Have I also gotten younger? Exact same time as last week but on a much tougher course. So I'm a better runner now...perhaps a better person? 7:55 pace. Given the state of my training, that's good.
A woman recognizes me and introduces me to her friend: "He's one of the fast ones." I'm pleased. I go to cheer others to the finish. I'm also noting the many who are now ending after me. I especially note the guys and, in particular, the younger guys, which pretty much constitutes ALL the guys.
Another woman, this one wearing a Greater New York singlet like mine, approaches. On the same team but we've never met. She's also recovering from injuries. More runners, including younger guys, stream in. She, too, was late to the start and had no time to get ready. "So mile 1 was your warm up," I observe. "How fast did you run it?"
"7:30," she responds. Damn! Way faster than me and I had several warm ups and I'm also, you know, a guy. She apologizes for telling me all about her injuries. To make her feel better I tell her all about mine, emphasizing that they came not just from running but from softball too. I'm a multi athletic guy is my point though incapable yet of racing a 7:30 on crowded, uphill first miles.
It's all relative, you know. And for me this was relatively good.
Friday, August 1, 2014
WHY I'M THINKING ABOUT WILBUR HUCKLE
I've been thinking about Wilbur Huckle. Wilbur was an infielder in the Mets' farm system from 1963-1971. He was featured with Cleon Jones on a TOPPS baseball card, 1964 Mets Rookie Stars. Unlike Cleon, however, a star he was never to be.
But what a name! Once I had to give a speech in high school English class. Among the topics I chose: Met players with funny names. Choo Choo Coleman and Duke Carmel got laughs. Cliff Cook and Hot Rod Kanehl not much. Wilbur Huckle? People rolled in the aisles!
I saw great possibilities. Suppose he joined the Mets and lead the team to victory over Pittsburg. Next day headline: Huckle Buries Pirates! Dwelling, perhaps, too much on his inability to get on base (.314 on base percentage), the Mets were blind to the potential.
The fans were displeased, but had limited means of self expression. They created a button to be worn to games: "Wilbur Huckle For President," read one, but LBJ was elected instead and no major party nominated Huckle. Despite his name, the Rookie Card, my imagination and the buttons he played out his 9 year career without ever joining the Mets.
He became our disappeared hero.
Which brings me to Wilmer Flores. His similarities with Wilbur are obvious. Almost the same first name. Both have been righty batting infielders playing for a bunch of Met minor league teams. Oh, and a difference: Where Wilbur couldn't hit or hit for power (14 home runs in 746 games), Wilmer can (13 this season alone in 55 AAA games with Las Vegas).
You'd think this would make Wilmer of interest to the big club. We've struggled for runs and have a shortstop, Reuben Tejada, who is a limited hitter with no power. His .289 slugging average is dwarfed by Flores' monumental .568 for Las Vegas this season. Heck, even Huckle slugged better, at .324 lifetime! As Wilmer was born in Venezuela, we can't nominate him for President, but he could be an upgrade at shortstop, right? Only common sense that he deserves a chance. The Mets, apparently, disagree.
Wilmer has been called up 4 times over the last 2 seasons. The first, in August of 2013, came when David Wright was injured. Flores played until he stepped on third base the wrong way...hey, at least he'd made it to third...and sprained his ankle. Season over. This year he didn't make the squad out of spring training, but got called up...for 1 game at second base...then sent back to Las Vegas. About a month later, with the team having trouble scoring, back he came to play shortstop. In fact he played only sporadically and was soon returned to the minors so he could play regularly. That he did and well, amassing a 23 game hitting streak and driving in more than a run per game. Enough to earn a recall? Nope. Not till Tejada took a fastball to the helmet.
Up came Flores, but not to play regularly. Since that recent recall he's not started more than 1 game in a row. The Mets must be waiting to make sure Tejada is okay and hasn't lost any of his power. Then they can ship out Wilmer again or relegate him to the bench.
Many Mets fans are unhappy. There's a "Free Wilmer" campaign bubbling on line. Met blogs and twitter are filled with angry, uncomprehending, comments. For all the good that it's done, next we might try buttons.
Flores has been treated like a yoyo. While it may seem he's had more of a chance than Huckle who never rode all the way up, the opportunity is largely illusory. Without anything approaching regular time, Flores has been placed in a situation most likely to bring on failure. Then he can continue to yoyo till he quietly fades away. Disappears.
Wilmer Flores is becoming the new Wilbur Huckle!
But what a name! Once I had to give a speech in high school English class. Among the topics I chose: Met players with funny names. Choo Choo Coleman and Duke Carmel got laughs. Cliff Cook and Hot Rod Kanehl not much. Wilbur Huckle? People rolled in the aisles!
I saw great possibilities. Suppose he joined the Mets and lead the team to victory over Pittsburg. Next day headline: Huckle Buries Pirates! Dwelling, perhaps, too much on his inability to get on base (.314 on base percentage), the Mets were blind to the potential.
The fans were displeased, but had limited means of self expression. They created a button to be worn to games: "Wilbur Huckle For President," read one, but LBJ was elected instead and no major party nominated Huckle. Despite his name, the Rookie Card, my imagination and the buttons he played out his 9 year career without ever joining the Mets.
He became our disappeared hero.
Which brings me to Wilmer Flores. His similarities with Wilbur are obvious. Almost the same first name. Both have been righty batting infielders playing for a bunch of Met minor league teams. Oh, and a difference: Where Wilbur couldn't hit or hit for power (14 home runs in 746 games), Wilmer can (13 this season alone in 55 AAA games with Las Vegas).
You'd think this would make Wilmer of interest to the big club. We've struggled for runs and have a shortstop, Reuben Tejada, who is a limited hitter with no power. His .289 slugging average is dwarfed by Flores' monumental .568 for Las Vegas this season. Heck, even Huckle slugged better, at .324 lifetime! As Wilmer was born in Venezuela, we can't nominate him for President, but he could be an upgrade at shortstop, right? Only common sense that he deserves a chance. The Mets, apparently, disagree.
Wilmer has been called up 4 times over the last 2 seasons. The first, in August of 2013, came when David Wright was injured. Flores played until he stepped on third base the wrong way...hey, at least he'd made it to third...and sprained his ankle. Season over. This year he didn't make the squad out of spring training, but got called up...for 1 game at second base...then sent back to Las Vegas. About a month later, with the team having trouble scoring, back he came to play shortstop. In fact he played only sporadically and was soon returned to the minors so he could play regularly. That he did and well, amassing a 23 game hitting streak and driving in more than a run per game. Enough to earn a recall? Nope. Not till Tejada took a fastball to the helmet.
Up came Flores, but not to play regularly. Since that recent recall he's not started more than 1 game in a row. The Mets must be waiting to make sure Tejada is okay and hasn't lost any of his power. Then they can ship out Wilmer again or relegate him to the bench.
Many Mets fans are unhappy. There's a "Free Wilmer" campaign bubbling on line. Met blogs and twitter are filled with angry, uncomprehending, comments. For all the good that it's done, next we might try buttons.
Flores has been treated like a yoyo. While it may seem he's had more of a chance than Huckle who never rode all the way up, the opportunity is largely illusory. Without anything approaching regular time, Flores has been placed in a situation most likely to bring on failure. Then he can continue to yoyo till he quietly fades away. Disappears.
Wilmer Flores is becoming the new Wilbur Huckle!
Thursday, July 24, 2014
FINDING PENNY MARSHALL
I went on an adventure yesterday. But first, some background:
From the day we met in high school, I've thought about Penny Marshall. She was in 3 of my senior classes at Lincoln, sitting next to me in 2. We talked and she was fun and sweet and very pretty. Best, of course, was she seemed to like me. I certainly liked her.
Her interest grew, I think, after she'd read a copy of a short story I'd written for English class the year before. "A Hard School's Test" was the tale of the hero's tension filled preparation for the big Geometry Regents Exam and his stunning dream the night before about being chased for hours by a series of obtuse triangles. My teacher gave me the highest grade in the class, 95, and read it to everyone. His sole criticism was that the story had no plot. A plot? People were rolling in the aisles, doubled up with laughter when he'd read it. It needed a plot too?
Penny must've agreed with my analysis because, after reading it, she seemed much more impressed with me. When I casually mentioned our school's football team and how it was fun to go to the games she responded: "If that's an offer, I accept."
It was our first date. It was also MY first date. It was exciting. All that I remember, however, is that it was cold at the game and Penny complimented my clothes coordination. "So few guys make the effort to have their socks match their shirts," she commented. And I thought: "Socks are supposed to match shirts?" Still, happy about the stroke of good luck, I nodded.
Penny was very smart. She wrote papers and essays that I read and had no idea what they meant. I told her they were excellent and thought provoking. Unfortunately, she made the mistake of reading one in English class. At its absolutely incomprehensible ending, many in the room groaned, rolled their eyes and shook their heads. A few exclaimed: "What?" The teacher herself sounded peeved with Penny. Obviously, they didn't see what I did!
We went out a good bit. Penny lived in a gated community called Sea Gate on the western end of Coney Island. Two busses to get there and a third if I wanted to take the private one through the Sea Gate community to her Maple Avenue home. The first time I was there Loving Spoonful music played in the background. Her father was incredibly mean to me, ignoring all my attempts to make conversation, while her younger, very pretty and bubbly sister Vickie was flirtatiously nice. At one point she grabbed my head and hugged me to her chest. "Vickie has very soft breasts," I remember thinking...and feeling.
Penny, Vickie, Penny, Vickie! This was one wonderful house on Maple Avenue!
Penny was precocious. So much so that she graduated in January, 5 months before me. That last term was sad, not having her in 3 of my classes, sitting next to me in 2. She felt differently...excited about being at Brooklyn College...cue the ominous music.
In June, I got us tickets for a Friday evening Mets game. She was away on vacation but planned on returning the morning of the contest. Two days before she called to say she wasn't as she was having so much fun she wanted to extend the time away. Sadly that wasn't the true reason.
A week later Penny told me the truth. One of her college professors had driven up to see her. "It was so romantic," she insensitively said. "And he proposed to me!"
"Proposed what?" I sarcastically replied.
Marriage! I was heartbroken. Also 16. Seems that, without knowing it, I'd been involved in an unfair competition. I couldn't offer marriage and this guy probably understood her essays.
We remained friends but, of course, it was never the same. Once we were together and she looked at the clock. "Oh, he should be getting out of class now," Penny said in a dreamy voice. "Ugh," I thought.
A few years later we made plans, dinner plans, for the last time. "Vickie is still single," she announced. But I got sick and didn't make it and we never rescheduled. Years after that we ran into each other on the street and talked about all the fun we'd had. She concluded by saying how much she'd loved "our" restaurant. Unfortunately I'd never actually been there. Perhaps she was thinking of someone else!
Many more years went by and I thought little about her. Until the age of personal computers and an email from Classmates.com. It could show all the people from my Lincoln graduating class that signed on. I checked, of course. Penny wasn't there. Nor was Vickie in her class. Periodically new solicitations from Classmates.com came in and I'd look to see if she'd joined up. Nope. Feeling a bit teased, I extended the search to google and social media. No luck.
Until yesterday and another Classmates.com email. As usual neither was listed. Suddenly I felt a strong desire to leave the current world and reconnect with the past. I was going to find Penny! I wouldn't give up. I kept looking and found a link to a site that located people. Typing in Penny Marshall brought me nothing of value...how could it, it was almost surely not her name any more. But Vickie Marshall in New York did...a person in Brooklyn. I clicked on it and found that Vickie Marshall in Brooklyn was 2 years younger than me! Could this be the real one of her?
I found more information...a list of her relatives. And one was Jaye Penny Leeds! Could Jaye Penny be the real one? Some more nosing...there is a Jaye Penny Leeds in New York who's one year older than me. My gosh! Had I been dating an older woman? No wonder it hadn't worked out. Still, of course, I wasn't sure.
More information was available but not for free. I paid $9 and did a search. There were Jaye Penny's last 3 addresses. One of them is 1616 Maple Avenue! I checked a real estate site at that address. For $1 I saw a bunch of current pictures of that home with the unfriendly dad!
Penny's email address (hopefully active) was there, too, and I wrote her yesterday. I've not heard back. Maybe I will, maybe I won't, maybe she doesn't remember me now at all. Where ever life has lead her over these many years, even back to Maple Avenue, in a way it doesn't matter.
With all that I now remember...half of which I wouldn't have recalled two days ago...I realize that I've refound the 17 year old counterpart to my 16 year old self.
From the day we met in high school, I've thought about Penny Marshall. She was in 3 of my senior classes at Lincoln, sitting next to me in 2. We talked and she was fun and sweet and very pretty. Best, of course, was she seemed to like me. I certainly liked her.
Her interest grew, I think, after she'd read a copy of a short story I'd written for English class the year before. "A Hard School's Test" was the tale of the hero's tension filled preparation for the big Geometry Regents Exam and his stunning dream the night before about being chased for hours by a series of obtuse triangles. My teacher gave me the highest grade in the class, 95, and read it to everyone. His sole criticism was that the story had no plot. A plot? People were rolling in the aisles, doubled up with laughter when he'd read it. It needed a plot too?
Penny must've agreed with my analysis because, after reading it, she seemed much more impressed with me. When I casually mentioned our school's football team and how it was fun to go to the games she responded: "If that's an offer, I accept."
It was our first date. It was also MY first date. It was exciting. All that I remember, however, is that it was cold at the game and Penny complimented my clothes coordination. "So few guys make the effort to have their socks match their shirts," she commented. And I thought: "Socks are supposed to match shirts?" Still, happy about the stroke of good luck, I nodded.
Penny was very smart. She wrote papers and essays that I read and had no idea what they meant. I told her they were excellent and thought provoking. Unfortunately, she made the mistake of reading one in English class. At its absolutely incomprehensible ending, many in the room groaned, rolled their eyes and shook their heads. A few exclaimed: "What?" The teacher herself sounded peeved with Penny. Obviously, they didn't see what I did!
We went out a good bit. Penny lived in a gated community called Sea Gate on the western end of Coney Island. Two busses to get there and a third if I wanted to take the private one through the Sea Gate community to her Maple Avenue home. The first time I was there Loving Spoonful music played in the background. Her father was incredibly mean to me, ignoring all my attempts to make conversation, while her younger, very pretty and bubbly sister Vickie was flirtatiously nice. At one point she grabbed my head and hugged me to her chest. "Vickie has very soft breasts," I remember thinking...and feeling.
Penny, Vickie, Penny, Vickie! This was one wonderful house on Maple Avenue!
Penny was precocious. So much so that she graduated in January, 5 months before me. That last term was sad, not having her in 3 of my classes, sitting next to me in 2. She felt differently...excited about being at Brooklyn College...cue the ominous music.
In June, I got us tickets for a Friday evening Mets game. She was away on vacation but planned on returning the morning of the contest. Two days before she called to say she wasn't as she was having so much fun she wanted to extend the time away. Sadly that wasn't the true reason.
A week later Penny told me the truth. One of her college professors had driven up to see her. "It was so romantic," she insensitively said. "And he proposed to me!"
"Proposed what?" I sarcastically replied.
Marriage! I was heartbroken. Also 16. Seems that, without knowing it, I'd been involved in an unfair competition. I couldn't offer marriage and this guy probably understood her essays.
We remained friends but, of course, it was never the same. Once we were together and she looked at the clock. "Oh, he should be getting out of class now," Penny said in a dreamy voice. "Ugh," I thought.
A few years later we made plans, dinner plans, for the last time. "Vickie is still single," she announced. But I got sick and didn't make it and we never rescheduled. Years after that we ran into each other on the street and talked about all the fun we'd had. She concluded by saying how much she'd loved "our" restaurant. Unfortunately I'd never actually been there. Perhaps she was thinking of someone else!
Many more years went by and I thought little about her. Until the age of personal computers and an email from Classmates.com. It could show all the people from my Lincoln graduating class that signed on. I checked, of course. Penny wasn't there. Nor was Vickie in her class. Periodically new solicitations from Classmates.com came in and I'd look to see if she'd joined up. Nope. Feeling a bit teased, I extended the search to google and social media. No luck.
Until yesterday and another Classmates.com email. As usual neither was listed. Suddenly I felt a strong desire to leave the current world and reconnect with the past. I was going to find Penny! I wouldn't give up. I kept looking and found a link to a site that located people. Typing in Penny Marshall brought me nothing of value...how could it, it was almost surely not her name any more. But Vickie Marshall in New York did...a person in Brooklyn. I clicked on it and found that Vickie Marshall in Brooklyn was 2 years younger than me! Could this be the real one of her?
I found more information...a list of her relatives. And one was Jaye Penny Leeds! Could Jaye Penny be the real one? Some more nosing...there is a Jaye Penny Leeds in New York who's one year older than me. My gosh! Had I been dating an older woman? No wonder it hadn't worked out. Still, of course, I wasn't sure.
More information was available but not for free. I paid $9 and did a search. There were Jaye Penny's last 3 addresses. One of them is 1616 Maple Avenue! I checked a real estate site at that address. For $1 I saw a bunch of current pictures of that home with the unfriendly dad!
Penny's email address (hopefully active) was there, too, and I wrote her yesterday. I've not heard back. Maybe I will, maybe I won't, maybe she doesn't remember me now at all. Where ever life has lead her over these many years, even back to Maple Avenue, in a way it doesn't matter.
With all that I now remember...half of which I wouldn't have recalled two days ago...I realize that I've refound the 17 year old counterpart to my 16 year old self.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
AARON
Aaron has been my favorite person on all of W. 13th Street where I live. He's friendly, lively, energetic and loud. Often he'd see me in the lobby after I'd completed a morning run. He'd ask how far I'd gone and when I told him he'd throw his head back, smack his hands and say that's incredible, you are in such good shape and you look SO young. I was perpetually delighted by his comments, but did have the modesty to realize that it is, of course, all relative. Aaron was 94.
Aaron liked something about me even more than my running exploits: We were both graduates of Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. "Of course, we went at very different times," he'd tell anybody who happened to be in the lobby with us. Then he'd laugh, grab me around the shoulder and pull me in for a hug, generally slamming my chin into his chest. Damn, 94 and strong!
It took awhile before it occurred to me that I'd not seen Aaron in a while. I intended to ask about him but, somehow, I didn't. Till 1 day last week when Dino, our super, approached me in the lobby and said Aaron had just died. He'd been ill and surgery offered his only hope for full recovery, so he chose to roll the dice and bet that it wouldn't. But it did.
It must've taken a lot of courage to risk what he had in the hopes that he could regain his full vitality. I'm not surprised that he tried.
This morning I walked through the lobby on my way to work and expected to see him. Early morning this past Saturday, I thought I'd see him walking towards 5th Avenue on his way to make breakfast for and visit his girlfriend. No such luck. Aaron and I both went to Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. Just at different times.
Lincoln's lost a prominent alum.
Aaron liked something about me even more than my running exploits: We were both graduates of Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. "Of course, we went at very different times," he'd tell anybody who happened to be in the lobby with us. Then he'd laugh, grab me around the shoulder and pull me in for a hug, generally slamming my chin into his chest. Damn, 94 and strong!
It took awhile before it occurred to me that I'd not seen Aaron in a while. I intended to ask about him but, somehow, I didn't. Till 1 day last week when Dino, our super, approached me in the lobby and said Aaron had just died. He'd been ill and surgery offered his only hope for full recovery, so he chose to roll the dice and bet that it wouldn't. But it did.
It must've taken a lot of courage to risk what he had in the hopes that he could regain his full vitality. I'm not surprised that he tried.
This morning I walked through the lobby on my way to work and expected to see him. Early morning this past Saturday, I thought I'd see him walking towards 5th Avenue on his way to make breakfast for and visit his girlfriend. No such luck. Aaron and I both went to Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. Just at different times.
Lincoln's lost a prominent alum.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
SHEA AND ME IN THE SUMMER OF '73
Attending a race at Citi Field, I grew nostalgic for the now gone Shea Stadium. When it opened in 1964 I was 14 years old. This was the first New York ball park built in my lifetime, it housed the team I'd become passionate for after the Dodgers left...and it was mine!
There was no year when it was more mine than 1973.
The Mets stunk most of that season. They'd traded away Nolan Ryan and gotten nothing of value in return. They were ravaged by injuries. Their record was well below .500. They were in last place. And yet, not by that much. There was reason to believe. If they could get well and win, say, 10 in a row.... But, sadly, I was always believing things like that.
I was in grad school which was definitely cutting into my ball playing time. I was in the midst of a tumultuous marriage in which we were always splitting up and separating by 3000 miles as she was from Seattle and didn't like New York. So I was certainly in the market for other things to think about.
And happily it was the Mets. They got well in late August and starting winning. Their star closer, Tug McGraw, awful all season, suddenly remembered how to pitch. And how to win. Each time he did, he shouted: "Ya gotta believe!" And soon that's what everyone was shouting. And believing.
With time in the evening and plenty of hope, I went to game after game at Shea. My wife often went with me as, I guess, we weren't split up at the time. We'd buy the cheapest seats, upper deck, general admission, sit directly behind home plate and then, gradually as the game progressed, slide down. Most times we'd end up in upper deck boxes.
What a view! The whole panorama of the field in front of us. Flushing, Queens in the dark of night over the center field fences! There was a sign for a zipper maker off beyond left center....
And the Mets won. Game after game. I don't think I attended a losing contest! And the first place Pirates struggled. Their star pitcher, Steve Blass, caught Steve Blass disease (couldn't throw strikes), they came to town for a 4 game series and we killed them. And when we passed them, I was there.
And I was there for Willie Mays night when he said: "Willie, it's time to say goodbye to America!" Very moving. And he was right. Willie was pretty awful that year!
And Tug McGraw kept shouting: "Ya gotta believe!"
There was a day game that I couldn't go to because I had to be in, damn, graduate school. So I asked my wife...still in New York...to watch the game on TV...and write down anything interesting. So when I got home, I found that she had written..."Cleon Jones fell down." That's it? That's all that happened of interest in the entire game? "Well, I fell asleep," she explained. A key game and she fell asleep! No wonder we couldn't stay together. And she didn't even know who'd won the game!
Of course, the Mets did. And, on the last day of the season, they won the National League East. Sadly, that didn't happen at Shea so I couldn't be there.
But a big part of the playoffs did and it was against the heavily favored Big Red Machine. No way we could take them. Ha! You could if you believed!
I was there at Shea when Pete Rose busted into Buddy Harrelson at second base and got into their big fight. Well, Harrelson, as I recall, more tried to cover up. I didn't care about the fight. The Mets won! And soon they ended the playoffs with a game 5, Shea Stadium win over the favorites and advanced to the World Series.
Where we faced the heavily favored Oakland A's of Reggie Jackson. Tied up after 4 games, I was there at Shea for pivotal game 5. I sat, this time, in some newly set up seats beyond the left field wall, a spot, unfortunately, where I couldn't see the biggest play of the game...Cleon Jones' (recovered, apparently, from his fall) leaping circus catch against the wall just below me to help preserve Jerry Koosman's shut out. I remember what the scoreboard said immediately after the game was over..."Just 3000 miles to go for the championship! And I believed that's exactly what would happen.
But believing, unfortunately, could take you just so far, not quite across the entire country. We got to Oakland only to have the A's win both games and the 1973 World Series.
But, oh, well. It had been a fantastic season at Shea. For me the best ever. And, as Tug was soon saying, "Ya gotta believe more in '74!"
So this is what I think of when I don't see Shea where Shea's supposed to be!
There was no year when it was more mine than 1973.
The Mets stunk most of that season. They'd traded away Nolan Ryan and gotten nothing of value in return. They were ravaged by injuries. Their record was well below .500. They were in last place. And yet, not by that much. There was reason to believe. If they could get well and win, say, 10 in a row.... But, sadly, I was always believing things like that.
I was in grad school which was definitely cutting into my ball playing time. I was in the midst of a tumultuous marriage in which we were always splitting up and separating by 3000 miles as she was from Seattle and didn't like New York. So I was certainly in the market for other things to think about.
And happily it was the Mets. They got well in late August and starting winning. Their star closer, Tug McGraw, awful all season, suddenly remembered how to pitch. And how to win. Each time he did, he shouted: "Ya gotta believe!" And soon that's what everyone was shouting. And believing.
With time in the evening and plenty of hope, I went to game after game at Shea. My wife often went with me as, I guess, we weren't split up at the time. We'd buy the cheapest seats, upper deck, general admission, sit directly behind home plate and then, gradually as the game progressed, slide down. Most times we'd end up in upper deck boxes.
What a view! The whole panorama of the field in front of us. Flushing, Queens in the dark of night over the center field fences! There was a sign for a zipper maker off beyond left center....
And the Mets won. Game after game. I don't think I attended a losing contest! And the first place Pirates struggled. Their star pitcher, Steve Blass, caught Steve Blass disease (couldn't throw strikes), they came to town for a 4 game series and we killed them. And when we passed them, I was there.
And I was there for Willie Mays night when he said: "Willie, it's time to say goodbye to America!" Very moving. And he was right. Willie was pretty awful that year!
And Tug McGraw kept shouting: "Ya gotta believe!"
There was a day game that I couldn't go to because I had to be in, damn, graduate school. So I asked my wife...still in New York...to watch the game on TV...and write down anything interesting. So when I got home, I found that she had written..."Cleon Jones fell down." That's it? That's all that happened of interest in the entire game? "Well, I fell asleep," she explained. A key game and she fell asleep! No wonder we couldn't stay together. And she didn't even know who'd won the game!
Of course, the Mets did. And, on the last day of the season, they won the National League East. Sadly, that didn't happen at Shea so I couldn't be there.
But a big part of the playoffs did and it was against the heavily favored Big Red Machine. No way we could take them. Ha! You could if you believed!
I was there at Shea when Pete Rose busted into Buddy Harrelson at second base and got into their big fight. Well, Harrelson, as I recall, more tried to cover up. I didn't care about the fight. The Mets won! And soon they ended the playoffs with a game 5, Shea Stadium win over the favorites and advanced to the World Series.
Where we faced the heavily favored Oakland A's of Reggie Jackson. Tied up after 4 games, I was there at Shea for pivotal game 5. I sat, this time, in some newly set up seats beyond the left field wall, a spot, unfortunately, where I couldn't see the biggest play of the game...Cleon Jones' (recovered, apparently, from his fall) leaping circus catch against the wall just below me to help preserve Jerry Koosman's shut out. I remember what the scoreboard said immediately after the game was over..."Just 3000 miles to go for the championship! And I believed that's exactly what would happen.
But believing, unfortunately, could take you just so far, not quite across the entire country. We got to Oakland only to have the A's win both games and the 1973 World Series.
But, oh, well. It had been a fantastic season at Shea. For me the best ever. And, as Tug was soon saying, "Ya gotta believe more in '74!"
So this is what I think of when I don't see Shea where Shea's supposed to be!
Monday, February 3, 2014
I'M NO LOSER; IT'S JUST THE TEAMS I ROOT FOR
1955 was an historic year. It's the first year for which I have definite memories and those memories are of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the team that I passionately loved, winning the World Series by beating the stupid New York Yankees.
All 1955 Dodger fans were thrilled because this was the first world championship the team had EVER won. It was the first time, of course, that they'd ever beaten the bullying New York Yankees despite a bunch of opportunities in the 1940s and early 1950s. Dodger fans, sadly, had suffered badly over the years.
But not me! I had no experience with their dreadful, futile, long suffering history. This was the first year I could remember and my team had won it all. One year, one memory, one championship! My life as a fan was off to a very promising start!
1956 wasn't bad, either, as the Dodgers made it to the 7th game of the World Series before losing to those damn Yankees. Two years, 2 World Series, 1 championship, the good life!!!
And then it all changed....
The Dodgers moved away and the Mets replaced them in New York. And, sadly, in my heart.
I was also a football Giants fan. They were a terrific team, constantly winning the Eastern Division and getting to the championship game. They kept losing that final game but still, it was exciting and wonderful for me as a fan.
And then the Jets came into existence and, for some reason, I drifted from the Giants to the Jets. Was this a smart thing to do?
In basketball and hockey, I loved the Knicks and the Rangers. Disappointingly, no team came along to replace either of them.
Almost 50 years have gone by since the Dodgers raised my expectations by getting me off to such a good start. Rooting for 4 teams for most of those seasons, we've had almost 200 chances to win a title and we've won....6. The Mets twice, the Knicks twice, one Stanley Cup with the Rangers, one Jet Super Bowl. That's a winning rate of 3%. Damn, 3% is only good in, in, well, it's not good anywhere!
My point is that it's not my fault. I've played on a lot of championship softball teams and taken awards in paddleball, bowling and road racing. I'm not a jinx or anything. If I'm participating things often go well. It's only as a fan that I seem to suck.
My other point is that, given this record, anything I say about my teams should be ignored. I'm incapable of having an objective opinion. I expect the worst...based on this AWFUL track record...and overcompensate by constantly seeing hope at the end of this almost never ending tunnel.
A few days ago I asserted that the Knicks had finally turned the corner. And a bit later that same night, the Heat absolutely crushed them. Totally to be expected. I'm convinced the Mets are in the midst of developing a dynamite young pitching staff. And then Harvey needed surgery. No doubt something else will happen this (or, perhaps, before this) season.
So ignore everything I say unless I'm speaking specifically about myself. And, of course, when I do speak about myself you should probably know that I might exaggerate.
All 1955 Dodger fans were thrilled because this was the first world championship the team had EVER won. It was the first time, of course, that they'd ever beaten the bullying New York Yankees despite a bunch of opportunities in the 1940s and early 1950s. Dodger fans, sadly, had suffered badly over the years.
But not me! I had no experience with their dreadful, futile, long suffering history. This was the first year I could remember and my team had won it all. One year, one memory, one championship! My life as a fan was off to a very promising start!
1956 wasn't bad, either, as the Dodgers made it to the 7th game of the World Series before losing to those damn Yankees. Two years, 2 World Series, 1 championship, the good life!!!
And then it all changed....
The Dodgers moved away and the Mets replaced them in New York. And, sadly, in my heart.
I was also a football Giants fan. They were a terrific team, constantly winning the Eastern Division and getting to the championship game. They kept losing that final game but still, it was exciting and wonderful for me as a fan.
And then the Jets came into existence and, for some reason, I drifted from the Giants to the Jets. Was this a smart thing to do?
In basketball and hockey, I loved the Knicks and the Rangers. Disappointingly, no team came along to replace either of them.
Almost 50 years have gone by since the Dodgers raised my expectations by getting me off to such a good start. Rooting for 4 teams for most of those seasons, we've had almost 200 chances to win a title and we've won....6. The Mets twice, the Knicks twice, one Stanley Cup with the Rangers, one Jet Super Bowl. That's a winning rate of 3%. Damn, 3% is only good in, in, well, it's not good anywhere!
My point is that it's not my fault. I've played on a lot of championship softball teams and taken awards in paddleball, bowling and road racing. I'm not a jinx or anything. If I'm participating things often go well. It's only as a fan that I seem to suck.
My other point is that, given this record, anything I say about my teams should be ignored. I'm incapable of having an objective opinion. I expect the worst...based on this AWFUL track record...and overcompensate by constantly seeing hope at the end of this almost never ending tunnel.
A few days ago I asserted that the Knicks had finally turned the corner. And a bit later that same night, the Heat absolutely crushed them. Totally to be expected. I'm convinced the Mets are in the midst of developing a dynamite young pitching staff. And then Harvey needed surgery. No doubt something else will happen this (or, perhaps, before this) season.
So ignore everything I say unless I'm speaking specifically about myself. And, of course, when I do speak about myself you should probably know that I might exaggerate.
Saturday, November 2, 2013
MY LIFE BEGAN IN KENTUCKY
Two years before I would move to Kentucky the only thing I knew about the state was that Daniel Boone was intimately connected with it and the grass there was blue. All of it, I was pretty certain. Correct or not it was more knowledge than I had about what I wanted to do professionally with my life, now that I'd finished college.
I did know, however, what I DIDN'T want. I didn't want to go to Vietnam. So, when I got invited to join up, I told my draft board that I was a conscientious objector, opposed all wars and would certainly not be travelling with them to Southeast Asia. After they finished laughing at me and asking insulting questions they met alone and decided that I was, in fact, a CO and was excused from serving in the armed forces.
But not from serving. I was ordered to do two years of community work in the national interest and it had to be FAR from home. Farther from home than Stony Brook, my Long Island university? Apparently yes. And that's how I came to be sent to Kentucky as a VISTA Volunteer. Cool! I was excited about seeing all that Blue Grass!
Though I found no blue grass in the Ohio River town of Newport I did live on Boone Street, so I wasn't entirely wrong in my vast understanding of the state.
I saw a lot of poverty in Newport. I saw white poverty for the first time in my life and I saw pretty open and blatant segregation. I lived with a poor family on Elm Street before a short journey to a little apartment...the first that was ever just mine...on Boone Street. I was among and working with the poor. Sympathetic but not a part. It was, of course, temporary. New York was ahead of me once my time there was up.
I began to organize. It wasn't that easy because we had, literally, no leadership. The VISTA supervisor resigned just a few weeks after my group arrived. He was really bad anyway. Once, in the midst of a staff meeting, he interrupted planning to ask who could help him install snow tires. His mind and heart wasn't in it. He wasn't replaced for months.
But I organized. I organized a program to train people to gain their high school diploma. Newport had a population largely made up of Appalachian migrants, people who'd come to this urban area as the coal mines of the state automated, looking for work. Often they had very limited education so the GED program could meet a large need. I visited the University of Cincinnati, told the middle class students about my intense involvement with poverty (I'd been there a month), provoked, I think, a lot of guilt and arranged for tutors at their reading lab who would work with those who needed to improve on their literacy.
I organized a crafts recreation program for the kids in the two public housing projects there. Really, it was just an excuse for me to play football and softball and tag and racing with them. Of course I left the crafts part to someone else. Kids came and I had FUN!
I organized a basketball league with teams from different towns and we got on TV. Then an all white team tip toed nervously into the Booker T Washington Housing Project for a game against the all black team there. It didn't go well. I didn't anticipate this tension and I didn't handle it well. The league didn't survive.
It was 1972 and, in my spare time, I got involved in the McGovern For President campaign, rising to the exalted position of area captain in charge of 5 "priority" precincts including the one in which most of the large population of sex workers lived on Monmouth Street. Turns out many of them were for my guy but not many of them were registered to vote.
The regular Democrats refused, in Kentucky, to even SAY McGovern's name. "Let's support the ticket, from top to bottom," was as far as they'd go. I refused to support the Democratic nominee for the Senate, Dee Huddleston. Instead I threw my support and organizing energy to the third party candidate, Jim Buckley.
McGovern was crushed, of course, in the state which was the first one projected for Nixon. We did carry the precinct with the sex workers but not, sadly, by enough of a margin. I recall my heart falling when I saw the poll workers open up the voting machine to reveal we'd won our "priority" precinct by 3 votes. McGovern, however, did a whole lot better than my candidate for the Senate. I won't say what share he got but I guarantee that he'd have been ecstatic to have won anywhere by as much as 3 votes.
Meanwhile, the high school equivalency program was struggling. We had good turnout but hardly ever with the same folks. People were doing well and then they were gone. Why was this happening? What could I do about it? I didn't know.
The crafts recreation program struggled around racial issues as one public housing project was all black and the other was all white. If one group happened to show up first the other wouldn't participate. The white controlled city government, hostile, I think, to intermixing, tried taking away our permit for the community building we were using for crafts and to store our (really important) sports equipment. We did fight them off but, after the time we were closed, attendance fell badly for a while.
I really liked organizing. What I didn't like was how ineffective I felt. And I especially didn't like not knowing what to do about it or who to ask.
So that's how my life began in Kentucky...now I knew what I wanted to do. And I knew that I sucked at it (not so much, really) and that I had to do something to get better (really!). So, as my time there wound down, I applied to graduate schools in community organizing. To my surprise I got responses from schools of social work which had CO programs. To my further surprise several accepted me and I ended up at Columbia. Ha! Imagine me in the Ivy League!!
And so my professional life unfolded directly from the Blue Grass State. When organizing for 10 years finally wore me down I decided it would be nice to become a psychotherapist. And, incredibly, my inadvertent social work degree (never fully understood how community organizing was a part of an MSW social work school), was my ticket into psychotherapy school. So, a bit indirectly, Kentucky helped me become a therapist.
Kentucky, strange to say...or perhaps not so strange has always felt like a big part of me.
I did know, however, what I DIDN'T want. I didn't want to go to Vietnam. So, when I got invited to join up, I told my draft board that I was a conscientious objector, opposed all wars and would certainly not be travelling with them to Southeast Asia. After they finished laughing at me and asking insulting questions they met alone and decided that I was, in fact, a CO and was excused from serving in the armed forces.
But not from serving. I was ordered to do two years of community work in the national interest and it had to be FAR from home. Farther from home than Stony Brook, my Long Island university? Apparently yes. And that's how I came to be sent to Kentucky as a VISTA Volunteer. Cool! I was excited about seeing all that Blue Grass!
Though I found no blue grass in the Ohio River town of Newport I did live on Boone Street, so I wasn't entirely wrong in my vast understanding of the state.
I saw a lot of poverty in Newport. I saw white poverty for the first time in my life and I saw pretty open and blatant segregation. I lived with a poor family on Elm Street before a short journey to a little apartment...the first that was ever just mine...on Boone Street. I was among and working with the poor. Sympathetic but not a part. It was, of course, temporary. New York was ahead of me once my time there was up.
I began to organize. It wasn't that easy because we had, literally, no leadership. The VISTA supervisor resigned just a few weeks after my group arrived. He was really bad anyway. Once, in the midst of a staff meeting, he interrupted planning to ask who could help him install snow tires. His mind and heart wasn't in it. He wasn't replaced for months.
But I organized. I organized a program to train people to gain their high school diploma. Newport had a population largely made up of Appalachian migrants, people who'd come to this urban area as the coal mines of the state automated, looking for work. Often they had very limited education so the GED program could meet a large need. I visited the University of Cincinnati, told the middle class students about my intense involvement with poverty (I'd been there a month), provoked, I think, a lot of guilt and arranged for tutors at their reading lab who would work with those who needed to improve on their literacy.
I organized a crafts recreation program for the kids in the two public housing projects there. Really, it was just an excuse for me to play football and softball and tag and racing with them. Of course I left the crafts part to someone else. Kids came and I had FUN!
I organized a basketball league with teams from different towns and we got on TV. Then an all white team tip toed nervously into the Booker T Washington Housing Project for a game against the all black team there. It didn't go well. I didn't anticipate this tension and I didn't handle it well. The league didn't survive.
It was 1972 and, in my spare time, I got involved in the McGovern For President campaign, rising to the exalted position of area captain in charge of 5 "priority" precincts including the one in which most of the large population of sex workers lived on Monmouth Street. Turns out many of them were for my guy but not many of them were registered to vote.
The regular Democrats refused, in Kentucky, to even SAY McGovern's name. "Let's support the ticket, from top to bottom," was as far as they'd go. I refused to support the Democratic nominee for the Senate, Dee Huddleston. Instead I threw my support and organizing energy to the third party candidate, Jim Buckley.
McGovern was crushed, of course, in the state which was the first one projected for Nixon. We did carry the precinct with the sex workers but not, sadly, by enough of a margin. I recall my heart falling when I saw the poll workers open up the voting machine to reveal we'd won our "priority" precinct by 3 votes. McGovern, however, did a whole lot better than my candidate for the Senate. I won't say what share he got but I guarantee that he'd have been ecstatic to have won anywhere by as much as 3 votes.
Meanwhile, the high school equivalency program was struggling. We had good turnout but hardly ever with the same folks. People were doing well and then they were gone. Why was this happening? What could I do about it? I didn't know.
The crafts recreation program struggled around racial issues as one public housing project was all black and the other was all white. If one group happened to show up first the other wouldn't participate. The white controlled city government, hostile, I think, to intermixing, tried taking away our permit for the community building we were using for crafts and to store our (really important) sports equipment. We did fight them off but, after the time we were closed, attendance fell badly for a while.
I really liked organizing. What I didn't like was how ineffective I felt. And I especially didn't like not knowing what to do about it or who to ask.
So that's how my life began in Kentucky...now I knew what I wanted to do. And I knew that I sucked at it (not so much, really) and that I had to do something to get better (really!). So, as my time there wound down, I applied to graduate schools in community organizing. To my surprise I got responses from schools of social work which had CO programs. To my further surprise several accepted me and I ended up at Columbia. Ha! Imagine me in the Ivy League!!
And so my professional life unfolded directly from the Blue Grass State. When organizing for 10 years finally wore me down I decided it would be nice to become a psychotherapist. And, incredibly, my inadvertent social work degree (never fully understood how community organizing was a part of an MSW social work school), was my ticket into psychotherapy school. So, a bit indirectly, Kentucky helped me become a therapist.
Kentucky, strange to say...or perhaps not so strange has always felt like a big part of me.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
RACING AT THE END OF THE WORLD
As a kid, I always loved Coney Island. It took forever to get there, but when we did, the batting cage, Nathans, the bumper cars, the Cyclone (full disclosure: I never actually RODE the Cyclone till my 20s...too scary!). SO much fun!
And then there was the Ocean!
The first time I saw the Ocean it was at Coney Island. It was HUGE. Looking at it, I could see nothing but, well, ocean. It had no end. We must be, I remember thinking, at the end of the world.
Coney Island was the end of the world!
I had no intention of racing today at the end of the world. In fact, I'd signed up for a race much closer to home, along the East River and the FDR drive, as a matter of fact. So close that I could do my race warm up by jogging from my apartment to the start. But it was postponed.
Feeling in a runnerish mood, however, I found a replacement...a 5K race on the Coney Island Boardwalk...The Race At The End Of The World. Okay, officially it was called The Great Irish Fair of New York 5K Run/Walk. But I ask you, which is the more intriguing race title?
I almost didn't do the race, however. It is SO far away after all so I hesitated signing up. When I finally filled out the on line registration I got bounced off line just before submitting it. Maybe it was a sign that I shouldn't go, I thought. But then I recalled that I don't believe in signs. I mean would god tell me not to race? First, I don't believe in god and, if I did, not in one who would care about my having to take a long subway ride. I mean focus on the situation in Syria, if you exist, for goodness sake.
My point is I did sign up to race.
So I got to the last stop on the D train, walked to the Boardwalk, took in the still vast Ocean, and headed to the start which was marked by a big banner reading: FINISH. Soon I noticed a problem. Coming to the 3 mile marker...which should be 1 tenth of a mile from the finish...I could see that the actual distance was longer. Later, at the end of my warm up, I went back to the 3 mile marker and ran at race pace to the finish. It took me a bit over a minute. Too far for the supposed distance. I approached the race director and told him.
Ten minutes till the start of the race and he didn't want to hear it. He said regardless of where the mile markers were the course was measured accurately...3.1 miles, 5 kilometers.
I've come off a long lay off but recently I've started to regain my speed. I hoped today to run under an 8 minute per mile pace. As the fastest I've done recently was 8:14, this was a very challenging goal.
Off we went on the Boardwalk, heading west into a fairly strong wind. I tried to relax as I also pushed myself to go fast. I was nervous that, in fact, my first mile would be over 8 minutes and, if I couldn't do even mile 1 when I was fresh at goal pace maybe the rest of the race would be a disaster! And I'd come so far and ignored a sign (not that I believe in them) and it would all be so bad.
I finished mile 1. My watch said an astonishing 7:30! I hadn't run a 7:30 mile in SO long. Very nice to see it again.
We turned around and now ran with the wind. I knew I couldn't sustain such a quick pace throughout so I slowed. A few people passed me but not that many. I hoped that the wind at my back would partly compensate for my less vigorous pace and I hoped that I wouldn't become so fatigued that I had to seriously slow, not during mile 2. My fears didn't materialize. I kept a steady pace and, reaching the Mile 2 marker, I was shocked again at the numbers on my watch...7:30. I'd done a second, totally fast mile. I was now a full minute ahead of goal. Very tired I knew I'd slow for the final mile but, even so, a 7:45 or 7:40 seemed very doable.
Of course, that was true ONLY if mile 1 and mile 2 had been measured correctly!
Mile 3 began just beyond the finish line. We continued east, still running with the wind, to another turnaround a bit more than half a mile down the Boardwalk, by the Aquarium. That portion seemed ENDLESS. I was running now from landmark to landmark, pushing hard to not significantly slow. A few more racers went by but I was holding my own. Finally I reached the turn and headed for home. SO exhausted, but not wanting to waste the great effort to that point.
The finish line was right across from a tall structure that I thought of as The Parachute Jump. Now, I have no idea if The Parachute Jump still exists. I vaguely recall reading years ago that it had been torn down. But this structure, by the finish line, that I called The Parachute Jump? The point is that it is very tall and I could see it. Another words, I could see where the finish line was, I could see how close I was coming to it and it seemed like, despite my best efforts to hang in there, it was taking forever.
And then I was at the Mile 3 marker. My watch said 8:30!
I knew I hadn't slowed by a minute. The mile markers just weren't correct. I hadn't run a 7:30 pace for the first 2 miles. But what had I actually run? I knew the final tenth mile of the course was measured wrong. I pushed it as hard as I could, finishing it in just under a minute.
Exhausted as I was I could still do the rough math in my head. I was DEFINITELY in at under an 8 minute pace! I'd done it! Exactly by how much would have to wait until I sat down, relaxed and allowed my brain to resume normal functions.
Turned out it was 7:54 per mile pace. Kind of weird. SOLIDLY better than my goal time which, before the race I seriously wondered if I was capable of doing. So, GREAT. But, also, a good bit slower than my apparent fast first two miles had indicated were possible. In that regard, disappointing.
I think I'll go with really, really, good! A very nice, very encouraging race at the end of the world.
And then there was the Ocean!
The first time I saw the Ocean it was at Coney Island. It was HUGE. Looking at it, I could see nothing but, well, ocean. It had no end. We must be, I remember thinking, at the end of the world.
Coney Island was the end of the world!
I had no intention of racing today at the end of the world. In fact, I'd signed up for a race much closer to home, along the East River and the FDR drive, as a matter of fact. So close that I could do my race warm up by jogging from my apartment to the start. But it was postponed.
Feeling in a runnerish mood, however, I found a replacement...a 5K race on the Coney Island Boardwalk...The Race At The End Of The World. Okay, officially it was called The Great Irish Fair of New York 5K Run/Walk. But I ask you, which is the more intriguing race title?
I almost didn't do the race, however. It is SO far away after all so I hesitated signing up. When I finally filled out the on line registration I got bounced off line just before submitting it. Maybe it was a sign that I shouldn't go, I thought. But then I recalled that I don't believe in signs. I mean would god tell me not to race? First, I don't believe in god and, if I did, not in one who would care about my having to take a long subway ride. I mean focus on the situation in Syria, if you exist, for goodness sake.
My point is I did sign up to race.
So I got to the last stop on the D train, walked to the Boardwalk, took in the still vast Ocean, and headed to the start which was marked by a big banner reading: FINISH. Soon I noticed a problem. Coming to the 3 mile marker...which should be 1 tenth of a mile from the finish...I could see that the actual distance was longer. Later, at the end of my warm up, I went back to the 3 mile marker and ran at race pace to the finish. It took me a bit over a minute. Too far for the supposed distance. I approached the race director and told him.
Ten minutes till the start of the race and he didn't want to hear it. He said regardless of where the mile markers were the course was measured accurately...3.1 miles, 5 kilometers.
I've come off a long lay off but recently I've started to regain my speed. I hoped today to run under an 8 minute per mile pace. As the fastest I've done recently was 8:14, this was a very challenging goal.
Off we went on the Boardwalk, heading west into a fairly strong wind. I tried to relax as I also pushed myself to go fast. I was nervous that, in fact, my first mile would be over 8 minutes and, if I couldn't do even mile 1 when I was fresh at goal pace maybe the rest of the race would be a disaster! And I'd come so far and ignored a sign (not that I believe in them) and it would all be so bad.
I finished mile 1. My watch said an astonishing 7:30! I hadn't run a 7:30 mile in SO long. Very nice to see it again.
We turned around and now ran with the wind. I knew I couldn't sustain such a quick pace throughout so I slowed. A few people passed me but not that many. I hoped that the wind at my back would partly compensate for my less vigorous pace and I hoped that I wouldn't become so fatigued that I had to seriously slow, not during mile 2. My fears didn't materialize. I kept a steady pace and, reaching the Mile 2 marker, I was shocked again at the numbers on my watch...7:30. I'd done a second, totally fast mile. I was now a full minute ahead of goal. Very tired I knew I'd slow for the final mile but, even so, a 7:45 or 7:40 seemed very doable.
Of course, that was true ONLY if mile 1 and mile 2 had been measured correctly!
Mile 3 began just beyond the finish line. We continued east, still running with the wind, to another turnaround a bit more than half a mile down the Boardwalk, by the Aquarium. That portion seemed ENDLESS. I was running now from landmark to landmark, pushing hard to not significantly slow. A few more racers went by but I was holding my own. Finally I reached the turn and headed for home. SO exhausted, but not wanting to waste the great effort to that point.
The finish line was right across from a tall structure that I thought of as The Parachute Jump. Now, I have no idea if The Parachute Jump still exists. I vaguely recall reading years ago that it had been torn down. But this structure, by the finish line, that I called The Parachute Jump? The point is that it is very tall and I could see it. Another words, I could see where the finish line was, I could see how close I was coming to it and it seemed like, despite my best efforts to hang in there, it was taking forever.
And then I was at the Mile 3 marker. My watch said 8:30!
I knew I hadn't slowed by a minute. The mile markers just weren't correct. I hadn't run a 7:30 pace for the first 2 miles. But what had I actually run? I knew the final tenth mile of the course was measured wrong. I pushed it as hard as I could, finishing it in just under a minute.
Exhausted as I was I could still do the rough math in my head. I was DEFINITELY in at under an 8 minute pace! I'd done it! Exactly by how much would have to wait until I sat down, relaxed and allowed my brain to resume normal functions.
Turned out it was 7:54 per mile pace. Kind of weird. SOLIDLY better than my goal time which, before the race I seriously wondered if I was capable of doing. So, GREAT. But, also, a good bit slower than my apparent fast first two miles had indicated were possible. In that regard, disappointing.
I think I'll go with really, really, good! A very nice, very encouraging race at the end of the world.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
THE HOUSE ON ELM STREET
Pat and I stood outside the house on Elm Street. Like the rest of the block it was ramshackle, dilapidated and kind of looked like it would fall down. I didn't want to go inside. I certainly didn't want to live there for the next 3 weeks while I was being trained as a VISTA Volunteer.
In early 1972 my draft board invited me to be drafted into the army. I refused, telling them I was a conscientious objector who would not fight or serve in Vietnam. To my surprise they agreed and said I should do 2 years of community work in the national interest. Great! I joined VISTA (think domestic peace corps) and was sent to Newport, Kentucky, a town of about 30,000 people on the Ohio River, right across from Cincinnati.
I was excited about Kentucky...looked forward to seeing blue grass...but there was none in Newport, just broken glass filled streets with bars just about everywhere. And I didn't want to go into the Elm Street house.
But Pat knocked on the door and we entered. There, in the middle of the room, stood a witch! A slightly stooped old woman with a badly wrinkled face and long stringy white hair, holding a broom while a toddler held fast to her leg.
"I'm not ready for the boy now, Pat," said Mrs. Clarke. "The house isn't ready. Come back later."
"Yeah, let's get out of here," I thought. But instead Pat responded, "Oh, Mrs. Clarke, it's fine. Mike will love it here." Before I could answer that I wouldn't, Pat had left and abandoned me.
I looked around. The wall paper and the paint were peeling in many spots. There were bugs. The staircase had many broken steps and some that were at strange angles. There was a man sleeping on a couch in the Front Room that I later learned was Mrs. Clarke's paralyzed oldest son and was always sleeping there. I had to go to the bathroom several times and soon found out that the sink was ajar and at such an angle that water wouldn't drain and the toilet could only be flushed every half an hour or so. The water pressure was so bad that a shower seemed impossible and a bath extremely unlikely.
Sam Oder was Mrs. Clarke's nephew who I would be sharing a bedroom with. He was 17, hyper in his talk and laughter and, after a few minutes, decided to show me the scars on his arms from several knife fights. I'd never lived anywhere but home and in my college dorm. I'd never met anyone like this. I was scared!
Ken, the middle son and father of the toddler, came in. He told Sam that I didn't want to see such things and couldn't he see that I was a nice guy and a gentleman. I wasn't sure if he was teasing me. But he wasn't. He was protecting me. Then I met the youngest son, Peachie, who had the bedroom next to ours. Ken said he was the first of the Clarke family to go to college and everyone was proud of him.
That night I went to a party to welcome the new VISTAS. I was having trouble with all the new things and new people I was seeing and meeting. I walked up to Peachie on 3 separate occasions and introduced myself. He thought it was funny.
It had been warm that night though it was February, but the temperature plummeted the next. Which was unfortunate because there was no glass in our bedroom window. The wind howled and I froze. I put on my clothes, my heaviest jacket, got under the covers, but it hardly helped. I thought the South was supposed to be warm?
I went out a few evenings later and didn't come back to Elm Street till the next morning. I didn't call, of course, because why should I? Ken told me that certainly I could do whatever I wanted but his mom had worried about me so could I please just let them know the next time I didn't come home? I agreed. I felt bad. This was sort of homey.
Mrs. Clarke was very sweet, kind of insecure and a good cook. I enjoyed my meals there as I became more and more comfortable. She told me that she had housed many VISTAS in training before me and I was the first one that didn't make her feel bad about the state of her home. Moving.
When training ended I found an apartment on Boone Street but it wouldn't be ready for 2 more weeks. So I asked Mrs. Clarke if I could stay. Of course she said yes. I'd learned how to negotiate the bathroom, stopped noticing the bugs, didn't care at all about the peeling paint and wall paper and regarded the askew steps as kind of a game. Only thing I couldn't do there was shower!
After leaving I knew I should do something nice for the Clarke's. They were baseball fans so, in the spring, I got tickets for a Cincinnati Reds game...naturally, against the Mets. As the only Mets fan in Riverfront Stadium I cheered extra loud and was rewarded with a Tom Seaver pitched close victory.
The next day Peachie called. His mom was furious with me. "How could that boy cheer so loud against our team," she had asked. She didn't talk to me again for several days but when she did she invited me over the following Saturday. The Mets game was on NBC and I had no television.
On game day, Mrs. Clarke said she had baked a strawberry pie. Would I like a slice? Well, I don't like strawberry pie, but given that I was still on probation from the ballgame and Mrs. Clarke was quite sensitive, I said yes and quickly ate it. Too quickly, perhaps, as she offered me another slice. Still feeling I shouldn't say no I had the second piece but ate it more slowly. When I finished she asked if I'd like a third. I felt that it would be okay to say no but turns out I was wrong.
"Oh, I guess you didn't like the pie, " said my host. Naturally I relented and had the final slice!
As a VISTA I did a few things. I set up a basketball league, a crafts and recreation program for kids in public housing and a program for those who hadn't finished high school to train to get their equivalency diploma. Mrs. Clarke was very smart but hadn't been able to get her degree. So she got into my program and got her high school degree at age 65. She was pretty proud.
A year after I left Kentucky, the Mets battled the Cincinnati Reds in the National League Chanpionship series. The Mets won. I called Mrs. Clarke.
"Oh I was just talking about you to Ken," she told me. "I said if his Mets win, no matter what, we'd be hearing from him!"
I was sure lucky that I stayed in that house on Elm Street.
In early 1972 my draft board invited me to be drafted into the army. I refused, telling them I was a conscientious objector who would not fight or serve in Vietnam. To my surprise they agreed and said I should do 2 years of community work in the national interest. Great! I joined VISTA (think domestic peace corps) and was sent to Newport, Kentucky, a town of about 30,000 people on the Ohio River, right across from Cincinnati.
I was excited about Kentucky...looked forward to seeing blue grass...but there was none in Newport, just broken glass filled streets with bars just about everywhere. And I didn't want to go into the Elm Street house.
But Pat knocked on the door and we entered. There, in the middle of the room, stood a witch! A slightly stooped old woman with a badly wrinkled face and long stringy white hair, holding a broom while a toddler held fast to her leg.
"I'm not ready for the boy now, Pat," said Mrs. Clarke. "The house isn't ready. Come back later."
"Yeah, let's get out of here," I thought. But instead Pat responded, "Oh, Mrs. Clarke, it's fine. Mike will love it here." Before I could answer that I wouldn't, Pat had left and abandoned me.
I looked around. The wall paper and the paint were peeling in many spots. There were bugs. The staircase had many broken steps and some that were at strange angles. There was a man sleeping on a couch in the Front Room that I later learned was Mrs. Clarke's paralyzed oldest son and was always sleeping there. I had to go to the bathroom several times and soon found out that the sink was ajar and at such an angle that water wouldn't drain and the toilet could only be flushed every half an hour or so. The water pressure was so bad that a shower seemed impossible and a bath extremely unlikely.
Sam Oder was Mrs. Clarke's nephew who I would be sharing a bedroom with. He was 17, hyper in his talk and laughter and, after a few minutes, decided to show me the scars on his arms from several knife fights. I'd never lived anywhere but home and in my college dorm. I'd never met anyone like this. I was scared!
Ken, the middle son and father of the toddler, came in. He told Sam that I didn't want to see such things and couldn't he see that I was a nice guy and a gentleman. I wasn't sure if he was teasing me. But he wasn't. He was protecting me. Then I met the youngest son, Peachie, who had the bedroom next to ours. Ken said he was the first of the Clarke family to go to college and everyone was proud of him.
That night I went to a party to welcome the new VISTAS. I was having trouble with all the new things and new people I was seeing and meeting. I walked up to Peachie on 3 separate occasions and introduced myself. He thought it was funny.
It had been warm that night though it was February, but the temperature plummeted the next. Which was unfortunate because there was no glass in our bedroom window. The wind howled and I froze. I put on my clothes, my heaviest jacket, got under the covers, but it hardly helped. I thought the South was supposed to be warm?
I went out a few evenings later and didn't come back to Elm Street till the next morning. I didn't call, of course, because why should I? Ken told me that certainly I could do whatever I wanted but his mom had worried about me so could I please just let them know the next time I didn't come home? I agreed. I felt bad. This was sort of homey.
Mrs. Clarke was very sweet, kind of insecure and a good cook. I enjoyed my meals there as I became more and more comfortable. She told me that she had housed many VISTAS in training before me and I was the first one that didn't make her feel bad about the state of her home. Moving.
When training ended I found an apartment on Boone Street but it wouldn't be ready for 2 more weeks. So I asked Mrs. Clarke if I could stay. Of course she said yes. I'd learned how to negotiate the bathroom, stopped noticing the bugs, didn't care at all about the peeling paint and wall paper and regarded the askew steps as kind of a game. Only thing I couldn't do there was shower!
After leaving I knew I should do something nice for the Clarke's. They were baseball fans so, in the spring, I got tickets for a Cincinnati Reds game...naturally, against the Mets. As the only Mets fan in Riverfront Stadium I cheered extra loud and was rewarded with a Tom Seaver pitched close victory.
The next day Peachie called. His mom was furious with me. "How could that boy cheer so loud against our team," she had asked. She didn't talk to me again for several days but when she did she invited me over the following Saturday. The Mets game was on NBC and I had no television.
On game day, Mrs. Clarke said she had baked a strawberry pie. Would I like a slice? Well, I don't like strawberry pie, but given that I was still on probation from the ballgame and Mrs. Clarke was quite sensitive, I said yes and quickly ate it. Too quickly, perhaps, as she offered me another slice. Still feeling I shouldn't say no I had the second piece but ate it more slowly. When I finished she asked if I'd like a third. I felt that it would be okay to say no but turns out I was wrong.
"Oh, I guess you didn't like the pie, " said my host. Naturally I relented and had the final slice!
As a VISTA I did a few things. I set up a basketball league, a crafts and recreation program for kids in public housing and a program for those who hadn't finished high school to train to get their equivalency diploma. Mrs. Clarke was very smart but hadn't been able to get her degree. So she got into my program and got her high school degree at age 65. She was pretty proud.
A year after I left Kentucky, the Mets battled the Cincinnati Reds in the National League Chanpionship series. The Mets won. I called Mrs. Clarke.
"Oh I was just talking about you to Ken," she told me. "I said if his Mets win, no matter what, we'd be hearing from him!"
I was sure lucky that I stayed in that house on Elm Street.
Friday, August 16, 2013
MY SOON TO BE NEW HOUSE
As soon as I have enough "likes" on my recent facebook post, I will become the owner of my nephew Adam (and family)'s old house, the one they are leaving for a recently purchased larger one for their growing household. The post explains all about our tradition of giving me the things that Adam grows out of, so it's pretty certain to happen.
Sadly, however, the outgrown house is in New Jersey so, of course, I could never actually live there. And by "there" I mean not in New York City. And by "not in New York City" I mean Manhattan. I'm a New Yorker. I can't imagine, wouldn't want to imagine, living anywhere else. So my upcoming house in New Jersey, WAY at the other end of the George Washington Bridge, will never, actually, be my residence.
Having so quickly gained (almost certainly) my new home and then having to, just as fast, come to terms with its unsuitability has put me, naturally, in a reflective mood. It has me reflecting on the first home I did live in. Much smaller and far more crowded than Adam's, but, happily on the correct side of the GW in the most wonderful neighborhood EVER in the world.
I grew up on the Lower East Side in apartment 6E in 504 East 5th Street on the corner of Avenue A. Three rooms for the 5 of us. My parents slept on a sofa that opened up in the living room. My sisters Lysie and Diane (Annie wasn't invented yet) and I shared the bedroom. Not that we were that competitive or anything but I took pride in the fact that, night after night, both my sisters fell asleep before I did...I could see that they had dozed off and I hadn't!!
I also took pride in the fact that we lived on the 6th floor and the surrounding buildings that we could see from our living room window only had 4. I remember looking at them with my dad one stormy Winter night as he pointed out that we could see the snow on their roofs but they couldn't see it on ours. WE were in the bigger, more superior, structure!
The apartment never seemed cramped to me; I thought it was normal to live in such close proximity. I think that did foster competition...especially true when we had just 1 television set. In the afternoon after school Lysie always wanted to watch Roy Rogers while I wanted Popeye The Sailor. We were supposed to share but I'm pretty sure she got to watch what she wanted most of the time. Though no doubt my show was much better. We made up all sorts of versions of baseball, football and hockey and only caused serious damage to the house once when I threw a rolled up pair of sweat socks through the glass of the bedroom window. But that was after we'd moved to Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn (oh my gosh, we moved to Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn? From the Lower East Side? WHY??) so it really doesn't belong in this tale. Still, it does give an idea of the intensity with which we played.
Lysie is a little younger than me but was always a little taller than me, pretty strong and a very good athlete so that's probably why I've always thought it crazy (and dangerous!) to minimize what a girl or woman could do. I can't really say who won the majority of our household sporting events, though there is one thing I can say for sure...it wasn't Diane, the youngest in our family till Annie came along and made her a dreaded middle.
But my point is that Diane kind of suffered in our limited space. One game we liked, football, involved gently tossing a football to Diane at one end of our narrow bedroom. She was required to run to the dresser, but, sadly for her, both Lysie and I stood in front of the dresser, waiting to stop her. Without many options she generally plowed straight forward till one or, more likely, both of us made the tackle. In fairness, she had 4 chances to make it to the dresser and only had to succeed once.
She pretty much never did.
We also played hide and seek. With, again, few places in which to hide, our father, being creative, hoisted Di up and lay her on top of the open bedroom door, her midsection resting on top with her legs and lower body dangled on 1 side and her head and upper torso on the other. What an irresponsible thing for our dad to do! I mean, it was SO easy to spot her up there!
We also had linoleum on the floor in the foyer and hallway. I loved it...it was such a great surface to slide on, particularly when wearing your socks. Perfect for hockey games. The bedroom and living room both had wooden floors...great for rolling coins on...I used them to make up a terrific football game. This is where I learned that rugs and carpets are NO GOOD. Create way too much friction. Floors that you can roll and slide on...WAY more fun!!
You may think there was little or no privacy in my first home. Well, first of all, I learned that privacy was not the natural order of things so it wasn't that important. And when I did want privacy I could find it...in the kitchen, at night, after dinner. I'd go in there, close the door, sometimes even turn out the light and...turn on the radio to listen to the Ranger hockey game or the Knicks basketball game. Baseball, of course, was always second nature to me. I can't remember a time when I didn't watch, play and love baseball. But basketball and hockey was more an acquired taste. And I acquired it listening to those Knick and Ranger games on the kitchen radio, at once by myself while with my good friend the announcer talking to me and thousands of loud, noisy fans as well.
And in those wonderful broadcasts in the mid and late '50s and early '60s I learned something very important:
My teams SUCKED! There were hardly any teams in the NBA (8) and NHL (6) at that time, the majority, therefore, made the playoffs, and my teams almost never did! They certainly didn't win any championships. I had learned to root for losers! I had learned how to have my heart broken, season after season, and still root for and care about those damn miserable teams!
Maybe I should never have gone into that kitchen. But I still remember it as my own private world filled with stuff that I loved.
And that's pretty much how I remember Apartment 6E...filled with all sorts of things and people that I loved!!
Sadly, however, the outgrown house is in New Jersey so, of course, I could never actually live there. And by "there" I mean not in New York City. And by "not in New York City" I mean Manhattan. I'm a New Yorker. I can't imagine, wouldn't want to imagine, living anywhere else. So my upcoming house in New Jersey, WAY at the other end of the George Washington Bridge, will never, actually, be my residence.
Having so quickly gained (almost certainly) my new home and then having to, just as fast, come to terms with its unsuitability has put me, naturally, in a reflective mood. It has me reflecting on the first home I did live in. Much smaller and far more crowded than Adam's, but, happily on the correct side of the GW in the most wonderful neighborhood EVER in the world.
I grew up on the Lower East Side in apartment 6E in 504 East 5th Street on the corner of Avenue A. Three rooms for the 5 of us. My parents slept on a sofa that opened up in the living room. My sisters Lysie and Diane (Annie wasn't invented yet) and I shared the bedroom. Not that we were that competitive or anything but I took pride in the fact that, night after night, both my sisters fell asleep before I did...I could see that they had dozed off and I hadn't!!
I also took pride in the fact that we lived on the 6th floor and the surrounding buildings that we could see from our living room window only had 4. I remember looking at them with my dad one stormy Winter night as he pointed out that we could see the snow on their roofs but they couldn't see it on ours. WE were in the bigger, more superior, structure!
The apartment never seemed cramped to me; I thought it was normal to live in such close proximity. I think that did foster competition...especially true when we had just 1 television set. In the afternoon after school Lysie always wanted to watch Roy Rogers while I wanted Popeye The Sailor. We were supposed to share but I'm pretty sure she got to watch what she wanted most of the time. Though no doubt my show was much better. We made up all sorts of versions of baseball, football and hockey and only caused serious damage to the house once when I threw a rolled up pair of sweat socks through the glass of the bedroom window. But that was after we'd moved to Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn (oh my gosh, we moved to Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn? From the Lower East Side? WHY??) so it really doesn't belong in this tale. Still, it does give an idea of the intensity with which we played.
Lysie is a little younger than me but was always a little taller than me, pretty strong and a very good athlete so that's probably why I've always thought it crazy (and dangerous!) to minimize what a girl or woman could do. I can't really say who won the majority of our household sporting events, though there is one thing I can say for sure...it wasn't Diane, the youngest in our family till Annie came along and made her a dreaded middle.
But my point is that Diane kind of suffered in our limited space. One game we liked, football, involved gently tossing a football to Diane at one end of our narrow bedroom. She was required to run to the dresser, but, sadly for her, both Lysie and I stood in front of the dresser, waiting to stop her. Without many options she generally plowed straight forward till one or, more likely, both of us made the tackle. In fairness, she had 4 chances to make it to the dresser and only had to succeed once.
She pretty much never did.
We also played hide and seek. With, again, few places in which to hide, our father, being creative, hoisted Di up and lay her on top of the open bedroom door, her midsection resting on top with her legs and lower body dangled on 1 side and her head and upper torso on the other. What an irresponsible thing for our dad to do! I mean, it was SO easy to spot her up there!
We also had linoleum on the floor in the foyer and hallway. I loved it...it was such a great surface to slide on, particularly when wearing your socks. Perfect for hockey games. The bedroom and living room both had wooden floors...great for rolling coins on...I used them to make up a terrific football game. This is where I learned that rugs and carpets are NO GOOD. Create way too much friction. Floors that you can roll and slide on...WAY more fun!!
You may think there was little or no privacy in my first home. Well, first of all, I learned that privacy was not the natural order of things so it wasn't that important. And when I did want privacy I could find it...in the kitchen, at night, after dinner. I'd go in there, close the door, sometimes even turn out the light and...turn on the radio to listen to the Ranger hockey game or the Knicks basketball game. Baseball, of course, was always second nature to me. I can't remember a time when I didn't watch, play and love baseball. But basketball and hockey was more an acquired taste. And I acquired it listening to those Knick and Ranger games on the kitchen radio, at once by myself while with my good friend the announcer talking to me and thousands of loud, noisy fans as well.
And in those wonderful broadcasts in the mid and late '50s and early '60s I learned something very important:
My teams SUCKED! There were hardly any teams in the NBA (8) and NHL (6) at that time, the majority, therefore, made the playoffs, and my teams almost never did! They certainly didn't win any championships. I had learned to root for losers! I had learned how to have my heart broken, season after season, and still root for and care about those damn miserable teams!
Maybe I should never have gone into that kitchen. But I still remember it as my own private world filled with stuff that I loved.
And that's pretty much how I remember Apartment 6E...filled with all sorts of things and people that I loved!!
Saturday, June 29, 2013
MY FIRST FIVE MILE RACE
My girl friend Cassandra had her secrets and I learned them only slowly. She was never on time for anything, sometimes showing up more than an hour late for our dates. She couldn't hold a job, perhaps because of secret #1, and always felt mistreated and in need of money. She asked for loans and never paid them back. And she didn't mention that she was married.
by
On the positive side, she really admired my running. And, as I'd only just begun to get into it, she gave me a book...The Official Book of RUNNING by Bill Emmerton to help me along. AND she wrote a very nice note in it:
"I look forward to saying I know that guy when you are handed your medal for winning
the Boston Marathon in well under 2 hours."
It's a good thing that Cassandra gave me a book at that point in my running career because, having not yet run more than 3 miles, I didn't know much about competitive running. Sure I knew that a marathon was longer than 3 miles but I didn't no how much longer. I also didn't know that a marathon time of "well under 2 hours" was not humanly possible as it would demand a pace of "well under 4 minutes per mile" for the 26.2 mile course.
But I didn't know that so I just felt good that I had a goal. And, in reading Emmerton's book, I saw that I also needed some medium range goals before the one of winning the Boston Marathon. I thought, perhaps, a 5 mile race might be a good stepping stone, so I signed up for my very first, scheduled for Brooklyn's Prospect Park on January 3, 1982. I also figured that an even more intermediate goal would be to actually run that distance at least once beforehand.
So I did that, the week before, on the indoor track at the McBurney YMCA on W 23rd Street. The McBurney Track circled the gym 1 floor below it...20 times around for 1 mile. So I ran around it a glorious 100 times...5 miles! I then dragged a wooden stool into the men's shower and sat on for my shower. I didn't have the strength to stand...but I was ready for the race!
On race morning I got to Prospect Park early...and was shocked to learn that there was a great big hill on the course! What was that doing there? The only races I'd ever run were short dashes and there were no hills on the track! Why I remember field day in junior high school when I won the 60 yard dash. The course was flat as anything. Yes there was controversy...Alan Ng complained afterwards that I'd cut him off at the start. One, Alan Ng is a big baby and a complainer and I hope he's since grown out of it. Two, I could outrun him anytime whether I cut him off or not which I DIDN'T!! And three, I'm sorry that I cut you off, Alan. My bad. But the point is...the course was FLAT, no hills!
But the Prospect Park course wasn't. It contained a simply awful hill on mile 2 that went up and twisted around forever. And that intimidated me as we lined up for the start. But I ran it well. At least I assume I did. Frankly I don't remember it at all. What I do remember, however, is running downhill on mile 4 and simply FLYING by lots of people who probably were worn out by the big hill. In any case I got to the finish line in 37 minutes flat, a 7:24 pace. Not bad for my first 5 mile race ever!
When I learned later that a marathon was more than 5 times longer than the race I'd run...and that, even if I maintained my pace (which, of course, I wouldn't) I'd miss my "well under 2 hours" goal by about 90 minutes or so, that goal seemed seriously in jeopardy. In addition, as my goal was also to win the Boston Marathon there was also the matter of the 872 runners who'd beaten me in Prospect Park. They could be a problem in Boston as well.
So Cassandra, it seemed, hadn't suggested very realistic goals. But it did get me into my first 5 miler and that was fun...just as all the ones I've run since, including this morning's effort, have been!
by
On the positive side, she really admired my running. And, as I'd only just begun to get into it, she gave me a book...The Official Book of RUNNING by Bill Emmerton to help me along. AND she wrote a very nice note in it:
"I look forward to saying I know that guy when you are handed your medal for winning
the Boston Marathon in well under 2 hours."
It's a good thing that Cassandra gave me a book at that point in my running career because, having not yet run more than 3 miles, I didn't know much about competitive running. Sure I knew that a marathon was longer than 3 miles but I didn't no how much longer. I also didn't know that a marathon time of "well under 2 hours" was not humanly possible as it would demand a pace of "well under 4 minutes per mile" for the 26.2 mile course.
But I didn't know that so I just felt good that I had a goal. And, in reading Emmerton's book, I saw that I also needed some medium range goals before the one of winning the Boston Marathon. I thought, perhaps, a 5 mile race might be a good stepping stone, so I signed up for my very first, scheduled for Brooklyn's Prospect Park on January 3, 1982. I also figured that an even more intermediate goal would be to actually run that distance at least once beforehand.
So I did that, the week before, on the indoor track at the McBurney YMCA on W 23rd Street. The McBurney Track circled the gym 1 floor below it...20 times around for 1 mile. So I ran around it a glorious 100 times...5 miles! I then dragged a wooden stool into the men's shower and sat on for my shower. I didn't have the strength to stand...but I was ready for the race!
On race morning I got to Prospect Park early...and was shocked to learn that there was a great big hill on the course! What was that doing there? The only races I'd ever run were short dashes and there were no hills on the track! Why I remember field day in junior high school when I won the 60 yard dash. The course was flat as anything. Yes there was controversy...Alan Ng complained afterwards that I'd cut him off at the start. One, Alan Ng is a big baby and a complainer and I hope he's since grown out of it. Two, I could outrun him anytime whether I cut him off or not which I DIDN'T!! And three, I'm sorry that I cut you off, Alan. My bad. But the point is...the course was FLAT, no hills!
But the Prospect Park course wasn't. It contained a simply awful hill on mile 2 that went up and twisted around forever. And that intimidated me as we lined up for the start. But I ran it well. At least I assume I did. Frankly I don't remember it at all. What I do remember, however, is running downhill on mile 4 and simply FLYING by lots of people who probably were worn out by the big hill. In any case I got to the finish line in 37 minutes flat, a 7:24 pace. Not bad for my first 5 mile race ever!
When I learned later that a marathon was more than 5 times longer than the race I'd run...and that, even if I maintained my pace (which, of course, I wouldn't) I'd miss my "well under 2 hours" goal by about 90 minutes or so, that goal seemed seriously in jeopardy. In addition, as my goal was also to win the Boston Marathon there was also the matter of the 872 runners who'd beaten me in Prospect Park. They could be a problem in Boston as well.
So Cassandra, it seemed, hadn't suggested very realistic goals. But it did get me into my first 5 miler and that was fun...just as all the ones I've run since, including this morning's effort, have been!
Saturday, June 15, 2013
BACK IN THE RUNNING
I had one thought as I walked to the beginning of the 5K race at Roosevelt Island this morning...don't get too close to the start. ALL the runners up there will be WAY too fast for me.
It was my first race in 9 months. A physical issue had played havoc with my life since September, depressing, difficult, uncomfortable...and really screwed up my running! Now I'd only been back at it for 6 weeks...no speed work, nothing long, nothing too hard. Was I ready to race? Not really. But it was exciting to be there to try!
So I searched for the right spot to line up, knowing that I intended to run (if I was up to it) at an 8:30 per mile pace. I walked beyond the front row right at the starting mark, and a bunch more rows beyond that. Finally I came to a group of racers all wearing head phones and heavy looking t shirts. A few others were wearing costumes. "I'm not going behind these people," I thought. "I'm out of training but at least I look like a runner!" I settled in in front of them. And waited.
Soon the horn sounded and we were off, running south along the Queens side of the island. I found a comfortable pace that felt sustainable and stuck with it even as hordes (it seemed) of people passed me, including some with the heavy looking t shirts. None of the costumed characters did, though, so I didn't feel embarrassed into speeding up. About a third of a mile in to the 3.1 mile race and we turned right, then, quickly, right again. Now we were running uptown along the Manhattan edge.
Only a few racers were passing me by and they all looked young and athletic and must have arrived late and started near the back of the pack. I wasn't bothered by them. I felt fairly comfortable and was looking for the 1 mile marker. Soon it was there and I looked at my watch...7:56! A minute faster than ANYTHING I'd run in training and way faster than my intended pace. Too fast. Unsustainable. I came upon a sharply descending ramp and flew down it. Wow! Speedy. "Maybe I could keep this up," I thought. "Maybe I could run this pace for just 2 more miles...." Fortunately reality intruded. NO WAY. If I tried I'd throw myself into oxygen deprivation and have a miserable time before the end. Would probably hurt so much I'd end up walking, an absolute disgrace in the shortest of all middle distance races. How would that sound on facebook?
I slowed down. Good thing I did. As I passed the water station just beyond the race's half way point I felt myself involuntarily slow further. I was pooped! Suddenly I began thinking that maybe this was all too much for me, that I'd never be able to sustain even this reduced pace and that I'd squander my first, fast mile. "Where is that damn second mile marker," I thought, even as I knew the answer as I'd run this course before. It's at the spot where we cross back to the Queens side of Roosevelt Island and head south to the finish. I came to it and fearfully looked at my watch. With all the slowing I'd done the time could be bad. It wasn't...8:36.
Two miles down and still ahead of my goal pace. But slowing by 40 seconds from mile 1 to mile 2 was not good. If that happened on mile 3 it would ruin everything. I needed to at least maintain the speed I was running at. But now I was exhausted and uncomfortable and the wind, which I'd never felt at my back, was now in my face. I thought of walking. REALLY terrible to do that so close to the finish. So instead I played a game. Run to the next landmark and then we'll see. Then go on to the next landmark. And so I kept pace to the next bench, to the next tree, to the place where the sun stopped and the shade began, to where, the shade ended and the sun resumed. I was lost in my game, barely noticing that no one was passing me, till, suddenly, I felt someone on my left.
I knew I couldn't hold him off so I just hoped that he wasn't in my age group. And, as he passed, I knew that he wasn't. Because he wasn't a he. He was a she A young she. And even my addled, oxygen deprived brain knew that a young she won't be in the men's 60 to 64 grouping.
No one else passed me, but I did slow down a bit to stop hurting so much and then, feeling a bit better, picked up the pace again. Where was that damn 3 mile marker? Finally, it appeared and, passing it, I looked at my watch. For the first time in the race I actually hit my intended pace...8:30 on the button! Actually faster than mile 2! Just a tenth of a mile to go. My goal pace would've brought me in at 26:21. The clock wasn't even at 26. I tried picking it up and finishing before the minute hand had a chance to tick up. I couldn't. 26:02.
Later I found that I'd won my age group as, sure enough, the young lady who'd beaten me at the end had not changed sexes or grown older. Doesn't matter. My age group, at least in this race, was pokey. More telling, I finished exactly in the middle of the 124 men and 80 of the 253 finishers. That wasn't bad.
In fact this was by far the slowest 5k I've ever run. I've never run any race below a half marathon distance at a slower pace. And yet my last mile and a half here was SO hard fought, so in the competitive, athletic spirit, that I feel really good about it.
And I guaranty, with consistent training, that young lady will not be going by me on mile 3!
It was my first race in 9 months. A physical issue had played havoc with my life since September, depressing, difficult, uncomfortable...and really screwed up my running! Now I'd only been back at it for 6 weeks...no speed work, nothing long, nothing too hard. Was I ready to race? Not really. But it was exciting to be there to try!
So I searched for the right spot to line up, knowing that I intended to run (if I was up to it) at an 8:30 per mile pace. I walked beyond the front row right at the starting mark, and a bunch more rows beyond that. Finally I came to a group of racers all wearing head phones and heavy looking t shirts. A few others were wearing costumes. "I'm not going behind these people," I thought. "I'm out of training but at least I look like a runner!" I settled in in front of them. And waited.
Soon the horn sounded and we were off, running south along the Queens side of the island. I found a comfortable pace that felt sustainable and stuck with it even as hordes (it seemed) of people passed me, including some with the heavy looking t shirts. None of the costumed characters did, though, so I didn't feel embarrassed into speeding up. About a third of a mile in to the 3.1 mile race and we turned right, then, quickly, right again. Now we were running uptown along the Manhattan edge.
Only a few racers were passing me by and they all looked young and athletic and must have arrived late and started near the back of the pack. I wasn't bothered by them. I felt fairly comfortable and was looking for the 1 mile marker. Soon it was there and I looked at my watch...7:56! A minute faster than ANYTHING I'd run in training and way faster than my intended pace. Too fast. Unsustainable. I came upon a sharply descending ramp and flew down it. Wow! Speedy. "Maybe I could keep this up," I thought. "Maybe I could run this pace for just 2 more miles...." Fortunately reality intruded. NO WAY. If I tried I'd throw myself into oxygen deprivation and have a miserable time before the end. Would probably hurt so much I'd end up walking, an absolute disgrace in the shortest of all middle distance races. How would that sound on facebook?
I slowed down. Good thing I did. As I passed the water station just beyond the race's half way point I felt myself involuntarily slow further. I was pooped! Suddenly I began thinking that maybe this was all too much for me, that I'd never be able to sustain even this reduced pace and that I'd squander my first, fast mile. "Where is that damn second mile marker," I thought, even as I knew the answer as I'd run this course before. It's at the spot where we cross back to the Queens side of Roosevelt Island and head south to the finish. I came to it and fearfully looked at my watch. With all the slowing I'd done the time could be bad. It wasn't...8:36.
Two miles down and still ahead of my goal pace. But slowing by 40 seconds from mile 1 to mile 2 was not good. If that happened on mile 3 it would ruin everything. I needed to at least maintain the speed I was running at. But now I was exhausted and uncomfortable and the wind, which I'd never felt at my back, was now in my face. I thought of walking. REALLY terrible to do that so close to the finish. So instead I played a game. Run to the next landmark and then we'll see. Then go on to the next landmark. And so I kept pace to the next bench, to the next tree, to the place where the sun stopped and the shade began, to where, the shade ended and the sun resumed. I was lost in my game, barely noticing that no one was passing me, till, suddenly, I felt someone on my left.
I knew I couldn't hold him off so I just hoped that he wasn't in my age group. And, as he passed, I knew that he wasn't. Because he wasn't a he. He was a she A young she. And even my addled, oxygen deprived brain knew that a young she won't be in the men's 60 to 64 grouping.
No one else passed me, but I did slow down a bit to stop hurting so much and then, feeling a bit better, picked up the pace again. Where was that damn 3 mile marker? Finally, it appeared and, passing it, I looked at my watch. For the first time in the race I actually hit my intended pace...8:30 on the button! Actually faster than mile 2! Just a tenth of a mile to go. My goal pace would've brought me in at 26:21. The clock wasn't even at 26. I tried picking it up and finishing before the minute hand had a chance to tick up. I couldn't. 26:02.
Later I found that I'd won my age group as, sure enough, the young lady who'd beaten me at the end had not changed sexes or grown older. Doesn't matter. My age group, at least in this race, was pokey. More telling, I finished exactly in the middle of the 124 men and 80 of the 253 finishers. That wasn't bad.
In fact this was by far the slowest 5k I've ever run. I've never run any race below a half marathon distance at a slower pace. And yet my last mile and a half here was SO hard fought, so in the competitive, athletic spirit, that I feel really good about it.
And I guaranty, with consistent training, that young lady will not be going by me on mile 3!
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
IMPOSSIBLE
This morning I've taken the first steps in doing what seems impossible. Self cath. Hard to believe I can really learn it. Hard to believe I can really do it. But after taking the first step I have no choice but to try.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
TOO PAINFUL A MORNING
This morning I rode the R Train to our first softball practice. I won't be participating in it. Nor will I be playing next Sunday when the regular season and the defense of our 2012 championship title officially begins.
On my subway car, I saw several people in running gear. No doubt they were heading to Central Park for today's 10 kilometer race. I ran that contest several years ago and completed the 6.2 mile course at a pace just under 7 minutes per mile, the fastest I'd ever gone for that mid level distance. Even with no softball practice I wouldn't be running that race today.
This juxtaposition of things I really want to do but can't feels awful. A way too painful reminder of this awful thing I've been going through for months now. I can't pee.
Two weeks ago my urologist took his second crack at a surgery (called TURP) designed to remove excess prostate tissue that could be getting in the way. Just as he did after the first one back on Nov 1, he said it went well. At it's conclusion, a catheter is installed to allow the trauma done to the area to subside. Nine days later it was removed. At first things were okay. Then, at 1 AM, I awoke to find that I couldn't pee. Before things could become too painful I was back in the ER having a catheter put back in. Hate to rush to judgment but it sure seems to me that this surgery was a failure.
The prostate is not the problem, that seems clear enough. That leaves either a too weak bladder (though a test a few weeks ago said that it was plenty strong enough) or an overly tight sphincter muscle, perhaps one that is prone, for some reason, to spasm.
I spoke with my urologist last Tuesday. He has since spoken to another. I myself, on Friday, met with a third. They all say that there are ways of dealing with either a weak bladder or a tight sphincter. Some I'm more comfortable trying than others. One scares the shit out of me. And the thought of another possible trip to the ER...just how much more of that can I take?
But this morning on the R Train...amidst road runners and heading to softball players? Too painful.
On my subway car, I saw several people in running gear. No doubt they were heading to Central Park for today's 10 kilometer race. I ran that contest several years ago and completed the 6.2 mile course at a pace just under 7 minutes per mile, the fastest I'd ever gone for that mid level distance. Even with no softball practice I wouldn't be running that race today.
This juxtaposition of things I really want to do but can't feels awful. A way too painful reminder of this awful thing I've been going through for months now. I can't pee.
Two weeks ago my urologist took his second crack at a surgery (called TURP) designed to remove excess prostate tissue that could be getting in the way. Just as he did after the first one back on Nov 1, he said it went well. At it's conclusion, a catheter is installed to allow the trauma done to the area to subside. Nine days later it was removed. At first things were okay. Then, at 1 AM, I awoke to find that I couldn't pee. Before things could become too painful I was back in the ER having a catheter put back in. Hate to rush to judgment but it sure seems to me that this surgery was a failure.
The prostate is not the problem, that seems clear enough. That leaves either a too weak bladder (though a test a few weeks ago said that it was plenty strong enough) or an overly tight sphincter muscle, perhaps one that is prone, for some reason, to spasm.
I spoke with my urologist last Tuesday. He has since spoken to another. I myself, on Friday, met with a third. They all say that there are ways of dealing with either a weak bladder or a tight sphincter. Some I'm more comfortable trying than others. One scares the shit out of me. And the thought of another possible trip to the ER...just how much more of that can I take?
But this morning on the R Train...amidst road runners and heading to softball players? Too painful.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
TODD
The death last week of my brother in law Todd stings. In the 30 years we knew each other he was a large, kind, provocative, fascinating, enfuriating, influential presence.
Todd thought I needed his help with finances. Money was more important to him than it was to me...he loved the "finer" things and I just wanted the proper sports equipment. He figured I should be doing more with my savings then just saving it. He got me to buy my first shares of stock.
Haber was a new technology company and Todd got me to invest. The company had developed a process to non toxically separate precious metal like gold from the ore that it was found in. It was fun to be an investor. The company did good things and the value of its stock kept going up. As I had no need for the money I just slowly increased my number of shares and watched the price continue to rise.
And then there came a time when I did need it. That was when, in the mid 1980s, I decided to leave my steady social work job and develop a private practice as a psychotherapist. As I earned $25 total in my first week of practice, I knew I'd need my savings and investments to help me.
Sadly it was at exactly this time that investors began to notice that Haber, despite all its new technology promise, wasn't actually extracting precious metal from the ore it came in. Nor, of course, was it making any money. It's price share went down, stabilized, then plummeted.
I was in shock. Everything was disappearing just when I needed it. I met with Todd, who was a stock broker, to decide what to do. He owned far more shares of Haber than I did. He said he couldn't bear the idea of selling after such a downturn. "I'd rather watch it go down to zero," I recall him saying, "and go out in a blaze of glory then give up on something that has so much promise."
I, however, had no desire to go out in a blaze of glory, or, more accurately, to lose all of the investment. I needed this money now. "SELL," I should have said. In fact I said nothing and Todd left.
Over the next few days the stock continued to lose its value and I continued to watch in muted shock. Until the day I received a note from Todd's office. The day after we spoke he'd sold all my Haber shares! I actually made a relatively small profit overall. More importantly I had enough now to allow me to develop my therapy practise.
Pretty nice of Todd to come to his senses and realize what I needed. And pretty dramatic of him to do it without letting me know!
One day around this time Todd had a massive heart attack. I visited him one night at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital where he was recovering. It was just the two of us. Todd looked back at his life and said "I've always run at the head of the pack. The best of everything." By that he meant the finest of steak, the best cigars, a whole host of things that, I thought at the time, might well have contributed to his heart attack and drastically changed his life. But he was unremorseful, unappologetic and, seemingly, accepting, of the bargain he'd negotiated for himself.
I was dismayed. We'd always had different views on exercise, working out, healthy eating, healthy life style. I was hoping that he'd now develop a different attitude and commit himself to changes that could help to really make him better. But I also marvelled at his no regrets attitude. He wasn't beating himself up over past choices that couldn't be changed, something I'm not so good at doing. Maybe that was his way of not getting depressed and being able to go on with optimism.
Over the years, Todd and I often argued. I think he liked to make a point in a provocative way and see what reaction it would stir. Many times it stirred a sense of challenge, fun and interest in me. Sometimes, however, he would just make me angry.
Though much of our political views were usually not that different, Todd was a huge supporter and defender of the free enterprise system. Sometimes that put us at odds like the time, in our last huge fight about a year or so ago, I reacted to the latest banker scandal by saying "all those bankers should be thrown in jail."
My brother in law did not think that a very smart comment and called me "a fucking idiot."
Todd thought it would be interesting to explain to me why I was mistaken. I decided to focus more on the "idiot" part of his reaction and explain why I couldn't just let that one go and move on to the merits. Voices, okay, my voice, escalated from there.
So there it is. Todd evoked a lot of passion. It was NEVER boring to be around him. I wish we had another 30 years.
Todd thought I needed his help with finances. Money was more important to him than it was to me...he loved the "finer" things and I just wanted the proper sports equipment. He figured I should be doing more with my savings then just saving it. He got me to buy my first shares of stock.
Haber was a new technology company and Todd got me to invest. The company had developed a process to non toxically separate precious metal like gold from the ore that it was found in. It was fun to be an investor. The company did good things and the value of its stock kept going up. As I had no need for the money I just slowly increased my number of shares and watched the price continue to rise.
And then there came a time when I did need it. That was when, in the mid 1980s, I decided to leave my steady social work job and develop a private practice as a psychotherapist. As I earned $25 total in my first week of practice, I knew I'd need my savings and investments to help me.
Sadly it was at exactly this time that investors began to notice that Haber, despite all its new technology promise, wasn't actually extracting precious metal from the ore it came in. Nor, of course, was it making any money. It's price share went down, stabilized, then plummeted.
I was in shock. Everything was disappearing just when I needed it. I met with Todd, who was a stock broker, to decide what to do. He owned far more shares of Haber than I did. He said he couldn't bear the idea of selling after such a downturn. "I'd rather watch it go down to zero," I recall him saying, "and go out in a blaze of glory then give up on something that has so much promise."
I, however, had no desire to go out in a blaze of glory, or, more accurately, to lose all of the investment. I needed this money now. "SELL," I should have said. In fact I said nothing and Todd left.
Over the next few days the stock continued to lose its value and I continued to watch in muted shock. Until the day I received a note from Todd's office. The day after we spoke he'd sold all my Haber shares! I actually made a relatively small profit overall. More importantly I had enough now to allow me to develop my therapy practise.
Pretty nice of Todd to come to his senses and realize what I needed. And pretty dramatic of him to do it without letting me know!
One day around this time Todd had a massive heart attack. I visited him one night at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital where he was recovering. It was just the two of us. Todd looked back at his life and said "I've always run at the head of the pack. The best of everything." By that he meant the finest of steak, the best cigars, a whole host of things that, I thought at the time, might well have contributed to his heart attack and drastically changed his life. But he was unremorseful, unappologetic and, seemingly, accepting, of the bargain he'd negotiated for himself.
I was dismayed. We'd always had different views on exercise, working out, healthy eating, healthy life style. I was hoping that he'd now develop a different attitude and commit himself to changes that could help to really make him better. But I also marvelled at his no regrets attitude. He wasn't beating himself up over past choices that couldn't be changed, something I'm not so good at doing. Maybe that was his way of not getting depressed and being able to go on with optimism.
Over the years, Todd and I often argued. I think he liked to make a point in a provocative way and see what reaction it would stir. Many times it stirred a sense of challenge, fun and interest in me. Sometimes, however, he would just make me angry.
Though much of our political views were usually not that different, Todd was a huge supporter and defender of the free enterprise system. Sometimes that put us at odds like the time, in our last huge fight about a year or so ago, I reacted to the latest banker scandal by saying "all those bankers should be thrown in jail."
My brother in law did not think that a very smart comment and called me "a fucking idiot."
Todd thought it would be interesting to explain to me why I was mistaken. I decided to focus more on the "idiot" part of his reaction and explain why I couldn't just let that one go and move on to the merits. Voices, okay, my voice, escalated from there.
So there it is. Todd evoked a lot of passion. It was NEVER boring to be around him. I wish we had another 30 years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)