WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (09-09-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

 

     My friend is always telling me how impossible it is to pry her kid away from his phone. He sits there all day and never takes his eyes off it. By comparison, if you see me staring at my phone for more than 15 minutes it means I forgot how to turn it on. But it's a serious issue: how do you keep your kids active and engaged with the world away from cyberspace? It's not like you can just tell your kids to go out and play in the street, who would do something like that? My parents. They encouraged me to play in the street all the time when I was a kid. Your parents too, probably, and why your parents would encourage ME play in the street is a mystery. And before you go saying that you would have done the same thing, I'll just tell you that they allowed all of my siblings to do that, not just me.

     We would play for hours outside, thinking up different games to play that coincided with the traffic patterns. We lived on a cul-de-sac, so cars would have to go out of their way to run us over, and most concluded that it wasn't worth the effort. We would be outside until 9 o'clock at night, which at the time was like 10:30, adjusted for inflation. We might make up our own games or play something traditional like "hide and seek." I was very good at hiding, but I was not often sought. 

     My Mom used to let us hang out at the playground. Who DOES that? I can't imagine what kids now would think of it. "Mom, get this: there's a contraption at the playground that spins around while you're actually on it and throws you off by centrifugal force." She says, "That's nice, Honey." "And there's a thing with two seats perched on a fulcrum, and I sat on one side, and a fat guy plopped down on the other and I was launched into the sandbox." She says, "We don't say 'fat' anymore Honey, we say 'doughnutically challenged.'" "And there's a giant jail cell with metal bars, and people were climbing on top of it, but you can get out any time you want." She says, "Well, you know I'm in favor of prison reform." "And there's a big metal pole with a ball attached to it on a string and when you hit it it comes around from the other side and pops you in the head." And she says, "All right Honey, let's just go through some concussion protocols, and then you can help me with your homework."

     When I was a kid I used to have a lizard as a pet, and I had a snake at one point, too. As I remember, the lizard escaped his terrarium and was never found. I don't think my Mom found out, or I would have tipped over the scales of justice. I know I'm not the first male to suffer from a reptile dysfunction, but I'm not sure today's moms are into exotic pets.

     As a teenager we used jump off the abandoned train trestle in Yorktown into the Croton Reservoir. Jumping 40 or so feet off anything into anything else is one of those things that is great fun if you're not the one doing it. It's like riding in a convertible, which looks great from the outside, and from the inside every single hair on my head has blown into my mouth and nose until we stop at a stoplight, at which time I'm broiling in the open sun like a baked potato.

     I don't know why I felt it necessary to tempt fate. Bad luck goes back a long way in my family, back to the days when my ancestors came to Ellis Island in New York to gain entry into the United States, and there was a sign that said, "Please Use Maine Entrance."

     It's a wonder I survived long enough to grow out of childhood. My aunt used to comment on my growth every time she saw me. She'd say, "Wow I remember you when you were 0, months before you were born. You've certainly grown since then." For the first year of my life I was laying down all the time, so my height was basically my width. I tripled my height in one day just by standing up. But looking back, now I see why they were so surprised, since most of the stuff we did back then would be illegal today, and probably was back then. And I haven't even told you about going to college in the in that active mine field known as the 1970s. But I made it out alive. Mom's, you can swaddle your kid in bubble wrap and lock him in the basement, or you can encourage engagement with the outside world. I know it seems dangerous out there, but children were designed to last a lifetime.
 

PAST PERFECT

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (08-26-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     I'm not writing about a concert in Bailey Park in Somers just because it's going to be fun. I'm not mentioning it just because I happen to be playing in it. It's not a shameless plug since I do feel a certain amount of shame. By the way it's on Saturday, August 28th at 5:00PM. I'm not trying to get you to come to park that evening just to say hi to me (although that would be nice). The purpose of this column is to point out that this event is brought to you in part by the Somers Historical Society, and history is important.

     I'm a great lover of history, since I've been living in the past my whole life until just this very moment. I used to write a column about the beginnings of Westchester County called "Historical Laughter," and I think it's a great idea to find out about the town you live in.  Wherever it is, it has a story. And some of them are real doozies.

     Like when the New York City Water Commission needed new sources to supply the burgeoning population and used the doctrine of "eminent domain" to buy up properties in Katonah, condemn them, and flood the entire town to build the Croton Reservoir. The townspeople bought their houses back at auction, jacked them up and moved them along soaped rails pulled by horses to their current locations. There are photos of these original "mobile" homes, residents living inside them during the trip. This was an inconvenience if you happened to be running away from home, because you had to run at least as fast as your house was traveling behind you.

     Or the time a receding glacier dropped a huge boulder onto four other rocks about 10,000 years ago in North Salem, where it has sat balanced ever since. It's a good thing it didn't land in the middle of the road, or traffic could have been snarled for centuries. Whenever I see a glacier coming I get the hell out of the way, as I prefer to remain unbalanced. You can check it out along Titicus Road, but keep your eyes peeled, because history often repeats itself. I know it did when I had to take it again in summer school.

     What about the time founding American statesman John Jay went to Paris with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to mediate the peace treaty after the Revolutionary War? You can find out all about it at the John Jay Homestead in Katonah. He demanded that the British recognize American independence and cede the territory east of the Mississippi. It was Jay who cut France out of the negotiations to forge a more favorable deal, possibly because he was angry that they had not invented champagne yet and he was SO looking forward to it.

     Here below Bailey Park are some of the several hundred acres once owned by Gerard Crane in the 1800s. He was an entrepreneur who became successful in the menagerie business, acquiring exotic animals and exhibiting them on tours. One was an elephant called "Little Bet," sold to him by Hachaliah Bailey, who also owned the famous namesake for the Elephant Hotel. They say an elephant never forgets, but I can't remember why. Another is the rhinoceros for whom the reservation visible along Route 202 near Heritage Hills is named. Here on this park's land, ostriches were trained to race with riders upon their backs. Back then a collection of unusual and dangerous beasts was a lucrative business, and the precursor to the modern circus. The closest thing we have to that today is the United States Congress.

     Before our concert the Elephant Hotel will be open for tours to learn about him and other historical figures. Who knows? One day you could go down in history. Maybe you'll invent something useful like an "easy open package" that's easy to open. Or a self-driving exercise bike. Or a binary computer code with only "ones" in it. If I ever go down in history I'm unlikely to come back up. But I do know one thing: People who fail to learn from the past find out the hard way that there's no future in it. See you on the 28th!

NOT ON MY WHALE WATCH

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (08-19-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

 
     Every time I vacation in Provincetown, Massachusetts, I learn the same lesson, and I don't mind learning it over and over because it's so important. The lesson is that no matter how far out there somebody else's lifestyle seems to you, it doesn't seem that way to them. And further, they don't care that you think they're out there. The natives here welcome tourism, they know how to entertain and they don't mind if you stare until the novelty wears off.

     If you come here you're going to see gay men, gay women, people who populate any number of gray areas in between and a whole lot of dogs on a leash. Some people came here to see if they really were what they thought they were (they were), and never left. It's a microcosm of what society can be if it learns the above lesson, because since most of these folks have experienced the same sexual prejudices at some point in their lives (maybe most points), their tolerance for racism, jingoism and other forms of bigotry is very low.

     There's plenty to do. We've been coming here for 40 years and we've never been on a whale watch, so we went on one. The ship cruises about 45 minute north of town into the Stellwagen Bank Marine Sanctuary, a natural shelf rich in diverse forms of ocean life. The crew shares information about the whales they see and collect data about their habits. Humpback whales feed here during the summer, coming from as far away as the Dominican Republic. Known as baleen whales, they take in huge mouthfuls of seawater and express it out through the baleen tissue, which holds the krill and plankton they source as food. If I was a 50-foot whale couldn't I think of something more satisfying to eat, like a 10 foot submarine sandwich? "Mom, when's dinner? It's only two o'clock and I'm STARVING." "Why don't you have a few diatoms? That should tide you over until high tide." Thanks, Mom. 

     We came upon a 48 year-old cow named Freckles, and if you're wondering how she got her name, it's a good idea not to get close enough to find out. I'm not interested in going viral in somebody's selfie video where the whale comes REALLY close to the boat and starts following it and bumping into it, and everyone goes gaga and yells isn't this great, it's trying to make friends with us, let's get closer and BFF the whale, and tell it some intimate details about last year's vacation and perhaps overshare a little bit and then the whale performs the ultimate act of friendship by eating us. Yes folks, whales have a more normal idea of friendship than some of our friends do, which is having us for dinner once in a while. 

     It was a surf-and-turf kind of evening, and back on land, Drag Queen Karaoke is an institution at the Goveronor Bradford Restaurant. You can hear just about anything you want here, but you'll mostly hear things you don't. Karaoke sung by someone who can really sing is a rare gem, and butchered by someone who can't is a train wreck that even the most stringent safety measures cannot prevent from happening over and over again. People have been subjected to countless trials and tribulations through time immemorial, but it's nothing compared to the abject horrors that the bartender here has endured on a daily basis.

     A guy with a pair of wings on his back sauntered in to sing a song, and I meant to ask him if those things really work. I wouldn't ind flying to work once in a while but I have no idea what my wing size is. The introduction to his song was 24 bars, according to the screen, so I could have finished the whole conversation with enough time left over to introduce the song to my mother's entire side of the family, which goes all the way back to Norway. 

     Perhaps humans have evolved while I wasn't paying close attention, but everything I've seen since 2016 tells me we're going in the other direction. We may be crawling back into the sea before too long, so whenever I go to Provincetown I hit the beach and brush up on my swimming skills.

     While there's a 64-bar guitar solo in the song, did you know that whales have not been observed mating, but have been seen engaging in "seductive behavior?" The male blows bubbles underneath the female, and that tickles her fancy in an inappropriate place: Massachusetts Bay. You think that's little weird do you? Well, I've got news for you: whales don't care what we think, and the sooner we all understand that, the better.

CHASING WATERFALLS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (08-12-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     Last Saturday the weather was so nice we decided to take a little motorcycle ride. It's nice to feel the wind lapping at your face, and it's one of the few things I don't mind lapping at my face. Our destination was a day trip to Kent Falls up Route 7 in Connecticut, with a visit to the Eric Sloane Museum along the way. At the end of Dog Tail Corners Road we stopped at the Bulls Covered Bridge for a photo, but you can't see the bridge at all because they built a cover over it. The good news is that if you drive over it in the rain, your car stays dry the whole time. 

     At the Eric Sloane Museum, an enthusiastic docent told us about his life and accomplishments. He was a prolific painter, author and lover of Americana. His collection of antique hand tools is on display there, because he viewed them as a utilitarian art form. If you've often wondered what a picaroon was, or a winnowing machine or a bark spud, this is the place to find out. There was something called a "flail with eelsking thong," which if I'm not mistaken was also the title of a Kim Kardashian Instagram post.

     Eric Sloane had a lifelong fascination with weather, clouds and the atmosphere, and he was commissioned to paint the 7 storey-high mural that is on display in the lobby of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. 

     You can tour his studio, recreated with the tools he used and the books he found inspiration in all sitting there as if he just got up for a beer. I pictured myself painting in the studio, trying to figure out how so much paint got in my hair, and how I might get it out, and I end up trying to actually use my hair to paint something, and my wife walks in and sees it, makes a noise that I am well used to and walks quickly out again without further comment. I realized it was time to go before I pictured anything else.

     Kent Falls is a nice place to have a picnic or get a good selfie or take your kids. If you want to bring them back home again that's up to you. We watched one girl set up an entire portable selfie studio with a light ring and a tripod, and she clearly had invested some time in hair and make-up. Perhaps she was an influencer, and I hear that crayfish are easily influenced, so I just hope that she was using her powers for good instead of evil.

     You're not allowed to scale the falls themselves, but there's a precarious path you can walk up near the side of the water if you want to get a nice view from the top. I'm guessing it's the place where Kent actually fell from when they named the place after him, because going back down wasn't that much easier than climbing up.

     My grandmother used to take me to Kent Falls when I was a little kid. I remember catching crayfish in the brook, a fact that my wife did not believe. "No way you did that," she said, but it's not like they run all that fast. Neither my Grandmother nor the crayfish are around to corroborate the story, though. "What did you do with them?" She asked. I said, "I roasted them on the spit and made crayfish thermidor out of them. It's like lobster thermidor only smaller." She didn't believe me anyway so why not.

     Our final stop was a chocolate shop in the town of Kent, where they peremptorily apologized for the chocolate shortage, another unfortunate by-product of the pandemic. Most of the good stuff was already taken: fudge was sold out, no chocolate chip cookies or tree bark. All that was left were chocolates made by people who tried to ruin them by putting stuff in them that was clearly not chocolate, like coconuts or fruit syrups or even liquor, which is where the term "chocoholic" probably comes from. Folks, the way you can improve my chocolate experience is by leaving a little more of it for me.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (08-05-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     This August marks my anniversary at the company I started my career with 41 years ago. I could have been a brain surgeontist, or a rocket scientologist, or a quantum physician- In America I could be anything I wanted to be. All I needed was the will to do it and hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition costs. And a brain transplant. But instead, I've been a part of bringing you your favorite shows for over half the period of time that my television network has been in existence. When a show says, "brought to you by so-and-so," I'm actually the so-and-so they're talking about. They say it's unheard of for people to spend this many years at one company. I don't know where I heard that, but it's true I had to listen very closely. These days, employees want to leave their jobs after a short time and move on. I'd like to leave at about 2PM myself, but I guess I'll stick it out.

     In some ways working for a major television network today bears little resemblence to what it was like 41 years ago. In other respects, not much has changed. "60 Minutes" is still on the air, for instance, but back when I started you could only watch it through the "air," received on a television set through an antenna. Now only butterflies have antennas, so they can watch TV whenever they want.

     To give you an idea of how long I've been there, my first job was to sit in front of the screen for an entire eight-hour shift and write down the start and end time for each commercial, as a legal record that the spot aired as scheduled. Most people would have folded under the demands of such a job, but TV and me were made for each other. I know the words to every jingle that aired in the year 1980, and I'll sing them for you just before you hit me over the head with a ball-peen hammer. In 1981 the company discovered the VCR and I moved on down the hall. Every year or so I moved down the hall to a different position, and all of a sudden I was at the end of the hall. And that's where I've been ever since. 

     People often ask me if I'm in "production," and I usually say yes, since it's harder to describe what I actually do. My job is to help compile the Operations Schedule, an assemblage of every element that airs during the day across the broadcast network. Programs, promos, interstitials and most importantly, commercials, are all filtered through facilities that my department schedules. And when football season rolls around, I create a document that tells everyone in the building the outgoing paths for each game, and what the facilities are used for the programming that follows it. It may sound complicated, but I usually describe my work as something that a monkey could do, provided he's been in the position for 40 years or so and can type just a little bit.

     Maybe the thing that's changed the most since I started is me. Back then I was known for roaming the Broadcast Center after hours with my shoes off, and wearing my glasses askew on my nose so that I could read close up. When I walked into my first NFL meeting and the Vice President of Sports Operations took a look at the long-haired, non-corporate-looking specimen who was taking over the network switching, he looked vaguely suicidal, and then vaguely homicidal. But we soon bonded at the diner over our love of pancakes. I guess when I graduated from communications school with a degree in television, I thought I might land in an industry where I could be myself, and when they hired me they probably were hoping myself was somebody else. Maybe I only assumed I've changed because so much time has passed. After all, the new Vice President of Sports Operations refers to me as "Darth," convinced I came from the "dark side."

      I'm aware that what I do doesn't save lives or discover new galaxies. But being part of a team that brings the work of talented people to the public is good enough for me, and during a pandemic when people can't get out a whole lot, maybe a little "Price is Right" can save a life here and there. I've had a long and satisfying career, and it ain't over yet. I'm not a great fan of change, but it's the reality of my industry. In 1980, who would have guessed that the world would come this far, only to wish it was back where it was then. But then again in those days the phrase, "Do you accept cookies?" would have been just another dumb question.