TREE WISHES

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (12-13-18)

      Last Sunday we strolled into town for the lighting of the Somers Christmas tree. The weather outside was frightful. It was dark and rainy, so any light at all would have been welcome, but we had to wait until 5:00PM before the tree was illuminated, and we had an hour and a half to sing some Christmas songs and poke around accompanied by Gidget, the world's cutest dog. Due to the rain, songsters Rich and Harry Egnor were holed up inside the lobby of the Elephant Hotel, so we found ourselves a seat just in time for the chorus of Silent Night. The Bing Crosby version is reputed to be the third best-selling single of all time, but I bet an Eric Clapton lead break after the second  verse would vault it right into first place.

      Santa was available for photos, which seemed pretty safe compared to some of these vacation selfies that have been popping up lately on Instagram. Santa, thanks for letting me take my photo with you! Would you mind standing over here with me on the precipice of the Grand Canyon? A little closer. Closer. Closer. Oops, not that close. Can Santa fly or is it just the reindeer? I should have asked beforehand.

      The Girl Scouts were in attendance, leading some Christmas carols and distributing hot chocolate to the less fortunate (me). As a journalist and someone who has never been a Girl Scout, I wanted to infiltrate the inner workings of this fascinating group and find out what makes them tick. I found three representatives in full dress uniform that were willing to talk to me on the record. "Which merit badge was the hardest to get?" I asked, getting right to the tough issues with an incisive question. "I don't know," all three said in unison, and I jotted down the answer in shorthand, meaning that I scrawled some of the letters of each word in handwriting so bad only my wife can read it. By the time I looked up they were gone, but I feel that my reporting laid some important groundwork for a future exposé on the subject.

      We caught up with town councilman Anthony Cirieco and chatted about some of the new developments in Somers. DeCicco's is running a little behind schedule, they had anticipated an opening sometime this month, but I hope it happens soon. Every time we cook chicken breasts at least two of the pieces taste like they were cloned from a sofa cushion. Are they on antibiotics? If so, I hope they finished the whole bottle as directed. And the fruit we get from the supermarket these days seems like it's made from something synthetic that has too many isotopes in it. I swear that grapes these days are as tasteless as some of my jokes. That reminds me of a joke but I can't tell you here. We talked about the proposed Somers Academy that is poised to repurpose the IBM campus into an 1800-student STEM school. It seems that I am much more in favor of schools now that I don't have to go to them. Somers Crossing is the 65-unit condominium construction that is underway nearby on Route 100. All these projects seem like good additions to the prosperity and growth of Somers, as long as I don't have to stop at any more traffic lights. I don't want to stop at red lights coming from one way, and I don't want to stop at them coming from the other way. I propose that they reduce the duration of the red lights and increase the duration of the yellow lights, so I can proceed with caution without slowing down. And for those of you who wanted Somers to be the new second headquarters for Amazon, cheer up- at least we're not the hindquarters for Amazon.

      We sang a few more tunes from the Chamber of Commerce songbook, where some poor soul had to type "Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la" about a hundred and twenty times, before they invented "cut and paste." We sang Jingle Bells, and if you stick it out through three or four verses, the song gets darker and darker, the guy falls out of the sleigh, somebody comes along and laughs at him but doesn't help. It's a mess, but to cheer things up, right as everyone sings "laughing all the way," I tell my worst joke, and then everyone says, "ha ha ha!" and the joke's on them. Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer is even worse- she forgets her medication and ventures out into the snow on Christmas Eve, no one's sure exactly why. Apparently, Grandma had some egg nog and was lit up like a Christmas tree.

      That reminded me- it was time to light up the Christmas tree. First, Santa made his way to the exit, back to the North Pole, amid a phalanx of security and a bunch of Hos. Then we assembled by the tree, which seemed quite a bit taller this year. I went over and pinched its cheek and said, "Wow, look how you've grown!" Like my grandmother used to do to me, even if I hadn't grown and she was just getting smaller. Then it was five, four, three, two, one, and presto! The tree lit up and I was now officially behind in my Christmas shopping. We filtered into the parking lot, and took it easy on the way home. I didn't want any more incidents with Grandma, in case she's been dipping into the egg nog again.

TO MY HEALTH

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (12-06-18)

      I went to the Health Fair at work a couple weeks ago, where all the medical plan insurance companies get together and fight over me. They are so friendly when I am healthy, I just don't have the heart to tell them that even though I seem like a mess on the exterior, the interior is probably worse. But we both seem to enjoy this game nevertheless. They offer me free pens and keychains to get me interested in their brochures, and I pretend to be interested in their brochures because I love free pens and keychains. One vendor had small blankets with their logo, and I had to pretend to be REALLY interested and REALLY cold at the same time, but it turns out I am a great actor: "Best Performance in a Vendor-Related Situation." If the reviews are a little frosty, what do I care, I have my blanket.

      Another company was giving away thermometers, and I had to have one of those because I broke our meat thermometer by putting it in my fish tank. I had no idea fish hate thermometers so much, but now I can see why they sometimes contain mercury. My wife has been looking all over for the meat thermometer, I guess she doesn't want to eat a chicken that was running a temperature. Another table had some sandwiches, so I grabbed one, although later I heard someone say, "Did anyone see who took my lunch?"

      Also at the Health Fair they have some tests to help gauge your general wellness, and I always participate because at the medical group, my doctor is backed up two years for my yearly physical. It's crazy over there, so this time I'm going to do two years at once. Back at the Health Fair I have to sign a liability disclosure form. I couldn't read the first question, but when I put on my glasses, it asked if I needed glasses. I said 'no,' I already have them. Do I have diabetes? Nope, not even one diabete. Do I have a history of heart disease? No, but if I had to guess I would say it started back in the stone age, when fire was first invented and people inhaled second hand smoke because they couldn't afford to buy it new. But I ran out of space. How about some easier questions, like did I watch the season premiere of "Dr. Pimple Popper?"

      The questions got harder. It asked if I was pregnant, and I must say that I was pretty insulted by that. Sure, I might have gained five or six pounds over the holidays, but who doesn't overeat on Guy Fawkes Day? Did I get a vaccination for influenza? Not yet, but I'm not one of those anti-vaccination knuckleheads who are nostalgic about how much fun it was when we had polio. I've heard people say that they caught the flu from the vaccine, which is not true, they caught it in SPITE of the vaccine, because it is not 100 percent effective. Even medical experts like Donald J. Trump have come out against vaccinations. Who knows, maybe he's more brilliant than he sounds, but I'm not going to get too close to him, just the same. After all, the guy IS orange.

     Do you drink? The form wanted to know. Only on social occasions, such as when I'm by myself. Have I ever taken a HbA1c test? No, but if it's multiple choice I'll wing it. I'm in perfect health when I'm sitting down and when I'm standing up, but in between I'm a hot mess. To combat old age I have embraced a careful regimen of physical fitness- you certainly don't want your J-lo to turn to Jell-o.

     I stood on the stadiometer- did you know that the thing that measures your height has a name? I used to just rely on the marker next to the roller coaster that said, "You have to be THIS tall to ride this ride!" I was tall at a pretty early age, but there was no measurement next to the roller coaster to measure how sick I was going to get riding it. The nurse at the Health Fair wrote down my height and weight. She told me I was six-foot-one and a half, 192 pounds.But I know for a fact that I am six-foot-two and a quarter, 185 pounds. I said, "Look, I know you're just trying to do your job, but we can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. I can hit myself over the head with a ball peen hammer, and with the bump I'm going to be six-foot-two and a quarter, or you can write down 6-2 and you won't have to test out that nursing degree on my head bump. And by the way, this watch weighs five pounds, so it's 187 and that's my final offer." She said, "I guess so, but I need to take a waist measurement." "If it's a waste, then why bother," I said, and I grabbed the clipboard and stalked off, although I had to creep back and snatch my shoes when her back was turned.

     They gave me a PSA test for prostate health- just a tiny prick in my finger, the nurse said. She turned me over to the flu shot nurse- "You'll feel a tiny prick," she said. Then it was off to the cholesterol table, and, you guessed it, another tiny prick. How many tiny pricks must one man endure? Now, I know you were expecting more from this next sentence, but I just couldn't narrow down the possibilities. Besides, I don't want to say something that will set a bad example for my good cholesterol. They needed my address to send me the results of my PSA test, but I lost my pen already. Now I had to go back into the other room and suck up to the guy from Aetna again.

A RIVER OF GIVERS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-29-18)

      Last Sunday we went on a fundraising cruise in support of the Sing Sing Prison Museum, a project which is starting to take shape on the site of the legendary correctional facility in Ossining. It will tell stories from many different sides, the ones you've heard and the ones you haven't. "Old Sparky" will be there, Jimmy Cagney will be there, "Son of Sam" will be there. But so will the victims, the corrections officers, the community living alongside it. They've already built one of the exhibits. It was finished in 1828, and the prisoners built it themselves. It was their own cell block, a third again longer than a football field, hewn from limestone quarried nearby.

      There are a million stories, a million legends. Did the lights really dim when someone was electrocuted by "Old Sparky?" Probably not, but the first electric lights to shine in Ossining were powered by the prison generator. Did warden Lewis Lawes' daughter paint her pony in zebra stripes and ride it around as a mascot during prison football games in the 1930s? The pony never talked, he may have been a zebra but he was no rat. Did anyone ever bake a file into a cake and smuggle it into prison? Most of my files are on computer now, but they do contain some half-baked ideas.

      The challenges of running a museum on the site of an actual maximum security prison are daunting. If you've ever been to Sing Sing you know that getting in is almost as hard as getting out. You can't just bake yourself into a cake, so there are clearly details to be worked out, even though I'd love to talk more about cake.

      Philanthropy always makes me hungry, but the food they usually serve at fundraisers is for "foodies." I am not a foodie. If I see the word "compote" anywhere I start to get nervous that I might starve to death. There are very few child philanthropists, so I can't pull my usual trick of ordering from the kids' menu. There are some things I won't eat just because they sound disgusting. The word "haggis" came up in a crossword puzzle the other day, and I told my wife right off the bat I am never eating it. "You don't even know what it is," she said. "I know I'm never eating it, and I'm not eating curds or tripe. And I'm not eating gusset." "Gusset is a piece of material." "See? Why would I want to eat that?"

      I needn't have worried, the food was great. I had the Yankee pot roast, and I beamed with pride that my baseball team has a dish named after it. What kind of dish do the Red Sox have? Socks and fine cuisine rarely go together. Not to get off the track, but is one player from the Boston team known as a Red Sock? Or do they travel in pairs? How many teammates have been lost in the laundry?

     Anyway, we learned a bit more about the Prison Museum as we motored up the Hudson. We heard about the historic significance of the prison, and its relationship with the community. So many movies were filmed at Sing Sing that Warner Brothers donated a prison gymnasium. The cells in the original dormitory were no bigger than a yoga mat, and they had one laid out to illustrate. It was small and inhumane by today's standards, but at least incarceration would not interfere with your yoga. If you were brave enough to stay in a downward dog pose long enough to finish your kibble you could become a prison legend.

     Things are a little different now, and you can't make the prisoners go out and build their own museum, I already asked. Jailbirds ain't thrown in the joint anymore, inmates are incarcerated into correctional facilities. They have a lot more rights, and a lot more syllables. What was really bad once may not be as bad anymore. People currently serving time for marijuana possession will live to see its widespread legalization. Some things haven't changed: there are people who do bad things, and they will and should pay a steep price, some would say not steep enough. But those who thought they could lock them up and throw away the key fail to understand that 90 percent will be back out, and we'll be sharing a society with them. That time they spent in prison is a stepping stone to your neighborhood, a learning experience. Whom do you want as their faculty?

     The Sing Sing Prison Museum will also house a criminal justice center, where education and dialogue will increase the awareness of the issues. We motored on, and Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks played big band swing music as we passed by Sing Sing, and the singer sang sang as we dance danced and the flappers flapped. People had come in the costumes of the days when Hollywood made "The Big House" seem vaguely glamorous. We finished our drinks as we docked back in Yonkers. Society has a lot of thinking to do about crime and punishment, but it's free thinking that will keep us free.

A WORD ABOUT A MOCKINGBIRD

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-22-18)

     We went to see a fine production of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" at the Shubert Theater last week. The show was adapted fairly faithfully by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Bartlett Sher and featured a capable cast led by Jeff Daniels. I had read the book when I was a wee lad but didn't remember too much about it, other than that there are a whole lot more Finches and surprisingly fewer mockingbirds than you'd expect, and I thought the whole thing was for the birds. But now it's a different story. Seems like there might be a few lessons in there that people didn't quite learn the first time around. It's amazing how many lessons you're willing to learn when you get older, when you probably thought you'd be teaching them instead.

      Our seats were in whatever is above the balcony but below the ionosphere, in the actual last row of the theater. We walked up about 10 flights of stairs, and the air was getting thinner, and I was thinking that this is probably what killed the mockingbird. When we made it up there, the guy onstage was just finishing up his announcement about the perils of cellphone use during a Broadway show. The seats were stacked at about a 60-degree angle, so steep that if a cellphone did ring, it could set off a landslide and I would be pitched off the balcony into the orchestra section. And the guy onstage would say, "You SEE, people? THAT'S what can happen if you don't turn your cellphone off."

      The action centers around the trial of an innocent black man in the south accused of a serious crime. The play is at times narrated by the young Finch brother and sister, who shed an alternate perspective on the proceedings inside and outside the courtroom. If anything important ever happened in my young life, I'm glad my brother and sister did not get a chance to narrate it. There is no way they would have made the story flattering to me.

      Two hours and fifty minutes is a long time, so a good portion of my theater experience was taken up by calculating exactly when I should go to the bathroom. That's the way it works at my age. I know I have an intermission, should I try to get two visits in? I do some quick calculations based on how much I've had to drink and how many people I could manage to inconvenience by getting up during the show. I went through that same routine at the comedy club once. The show had a two drink minimum, And after three or four comedians we were on our way towards the maximum, and I had to go. I had put it off for quite a while now, and I didn't want to give the headliner a chance to reverse-heckle me. But duty called, so I tried to slink out the back exit, and I was almost at the curtain, so close I could touch it, and the guy points to me and yells, "HEY! YOU IN THE BACK! THE '80S CALLED AND THEY WANT THEIR HAIR BACK!" And everyone had a good laugh at my expense, and it was pretty expensive.

      The themes of "Mockingbird" are weighty. Sometimes justice is blind, sometimes those who administer it are blind. It's a study of how far we've come in such a short time, and in how little has changed over these long years. In between the study of racism in the South and the question of what constitutes moral integrity, I realize that I should not have had that milkshake after dinner. I am adamantly lactose intolerant, even though my New Year's resolution this year was to be more tolerant of it. My stomach starts gurgling loudly during the dramatic passages, and I am hoping against all hope that people will think that it's the air conditioning system making that noise, even though it's the middle of November, and I can't think of any air conditioners that sound like my stomach.

     Jeff Daniels was fantastic as Atticus Finch. Could anyone really memorize all those lines? There has to be a secret transmitter in his ear or something, and a guy in a helicopter flying above the theater who tells him what to say. I saw it on "Mission: Impossible" once. As for myself, I can't even remember why I got up and came into this room. What was I looking for again? I remember it was something dumb, which doesn't narrow it down very much in my case. Even so, I think I would be great in a play, as long as I had only one or two lines, and those lines should be something I would normally say, like: "Why can't car manufacturers make a button on the dashboard that activates the defroster and the car vent at the same time, so when it rains in the summer I can see out my windshield AND not boil to death?" I bet you could work that line into "Phantom of the Opera," and the Phantom would say, "EXACTLY!" Maybe I could even be in "To Kill a Mockingbird." Atticus Finch would be a nice part for me, but I think I could bypass that, and step right into the title role.