This and that about that and this

As our family vacation is now just a couple of days away. some odds and ends to ponder while I'm away from web and computer access:

• I don't know everything that happened at Henry Louis Gates' home when police arrested him, apparently largely for his reaction to their questions, but I do know this. Nobody who is not a minority can really know what it is like to have suspicion raised just because of the color of your skin.
• Where you stand on health care reform probably largely depends on where you sit. If you are reasonable healthy and like your current coverage, why would you want change. if you have no coverage and your kids have no coverage and you need it desperately, why wouldn't you support an overhaul. The bottom line? Most of us are one catastrophe away from being wiped out by the cost of care. It simply should not be that you risk everything you own if you happen to have an unfortunate illness of accident.
• Trying to stop delivery of the multiple free newspapers we receive each week while we're on vacation was quite a chore, and I have no confidence that I was successful. As devoutly in favor of a free press as I am for obvious reasons, it should be my choice if I receive a publication on my driveway or not. And when i say stop, that should be that. One woman I spoke with told me there was nothing she could do. Nonsense!
• I wonder why so few priests I encounter are really good at preaching. I remember those who have been very well and appreciated every one of their homilies. But so many others are dry, overly-scholarly or simply phoning it in. Seems to me being passionate and really reaching people should be a pretty important qualification to be a priest. Maybe we should hire some of the Protestant ministers I see on TV to coach our clergy. Or gee, maybe we should allow women to be priests and broaden the field of effective preachers.
• I now officially set aside my soapbox for a week.

Later.

As President Barlett used to say, "What's next?"

I used to love watching "The West Wing," and still enjoy popping in the DVD every now and reliving favorite episodes. That show, especially in its early seasons, was unparalleled in its writing and overall excellence. Aaron Sorkin rules!

The most-often repeated lines written for Martin Sheen's President Bartlett character were both two-word phrases:
When he felt his staff hadn't been as sharp as they needed to be he'd admonish: "Break's over."
And when he wanted to move on, he'd end the conversation and say: "What's next?" Invariably, there were any number of choices to answer that question.

I find myself thinking "What's next?" quite a bit lately. Having reached the point where our fourth and last child is about to leave for college, I have no intention of hanging around in the empty nest.

What's next?
Well, there's always working your butt off and trying to expand horizons at work. Check. Benn there. Still doing that.

There's planning fun things to do with Mary...trips, plays, outings with friends, making new friends, reuniting with old ones. Got it. Will do.

I'm also enrolled in a class that starts this weekend, learning to do voice-over work. It'll be interesting and challenging to see how that pans out.

I've thinking also about taking on some free-lance assignments. And, I'm looking for the right volunteer opportunity. Thinking it could be with Habitat for Humanity, or maybe something working with kids. We'll see.

The good news is, there's lots of fuel left in my tank. I'm revved up and ready to go on to "what's next."

Because break's over.

Later.

Get back, get back, get back to where you once performed

How cool was that?

Wednesday afternoon, the streets around the Ed Sullivan Theater in NYC seemed like Times Square on New Year's Eve, as Sir Paul McCartney and his band performed a surprise show, set up on top of the marquee of the theater, where he was scheduled to appear on the Late Show with David Letterman.

Of course it was in that theater 45 years ago that Paul and the rest of the Beatles performed on the old Ed Sullivan Show.

They did about 25 minutes as a packed crowd of thousands apparently decided it was OK to take the rest of the day off from work. Who could blame them?

I will never, ever forget the goosebumps i got when McCartney surprised the crowd at Shea Stadium by showing up as a guest performer at the Billy Joel concert last summer. I'd felt Shea rock during many magic Mets moments over the years, but never had I experienced anything like that.

Paul is back in town to do three concerts at the new City Field, which replaced Shea, on Friday, Saturday and Tuesday. Son Dave has been trying to get tickets. We'll see.

Here is the link to the video:
http://www.cbs.com/late_show/video/mccartney.php

Later.

The Dentist

I'm not one of those who hesitates to go to the dentist. I saw how badly my parents' teeth had deteriorated by the time they were the age I am now, and I want to try to keep the same thing from happening to me.

Although I've had to go through crowns, a few root canals, a bridge and gum treatments over the years, the bottom line is, so far so good.

I know it's not fun, but it's not as bad as some people seem to think.

I do wish, though, they'd told me the same things when I was younger than I hear now.

The dentist I want to as a kid and teen never mentioned the word floss. The fillings I got back then were silver and, it turns out, deteriorated after a time.

There's clearly been much progress since those days, but unfortunately too late to keep people like me in their 50s from having to go through a lot of procedures to keep things OK.

But I'll keep going. Beats the heck out of dentures and toothless grins.

Later.

Amazin' Mess -- Part 3

Back in the early and mid 1990s. I had a newspaper editorial cartoon tacked up to the bulletin board in my office at work someone (not a Mets fan) had given me.

It had two panels. The first had a perspective passenger asking a cab driver how he could get to Carnegie Hall. The cabbie used the old punch line: "Practice. Practice."

The second panel had the same perspective passenger asking the cabbie how he could get to Shea Stadium. This time, the cabbie answered: "Don't practice. Don't practice."

After last night's embarrassing (aren't they all these days) 11-2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, I was reminded of that cartoon and at how frequently, in their still relatively brief 47-year-history, this team has gone into prolonged funks that lasted several years.

Putting aside the team's initial 7 seasons (1962-68), which ended with the glorious Miracle Mets in 1969, the team from Flushing has been virtually non-competitive for several extended periods.

The decline started with Yogi still at the helm in 1974 and continued after he was fired under Roy McMillan. Then they became absolutely awful from 1977-1983 under Joe Frazier, Joe Torre and George Bamburger and Frank Howard before enjoying resurrection and either winning or at least contending under Davey Johnson (and some talented guys named Gooden, Strawberry, Hernandez, Carter et al) from 1984-1991.

The worm turned again in 1991 at the end of the brief (not brief enough?) Bud Harrelson regime, and continued through 1996 under Jeff Torborg and Dallas Green, before Bobby Valentine arrived on the scene.

The Valentine era was another fun one, until he got the ax at the end of the 2002 season. Then there was another two-year down time under Art ("He lit up the room") Howe, before Willie Randolph's first couple of years. But the loss to the Cardinals in the 2006 playoffs, and the collapses at the end of the '07 and '08 seasons under Willie and then current manager Jerry Manual has me thinking we may be in for another long losing stretch.

Yes, there have been many major injuries this year, but don't forget this is the same crew that collapsed the past two years. The crystal ball is not looking good for this team, which I believe lost its championship window of opportunity along with Game 7 in the 2006 NLCS.

Key players are aging and rapidly declining. The minor league system is virtually barren.

Yogi is reputed to have once remarked as only he can: "It gets late early here."

I think it gets ugly early here too.

Later.

Making memories - Thanks, Harry

Mary and Megan leave Sunday for a week of service with a group from St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Reston. They're going back to Nazareth Farm in West Virginia, where Mary has taken various church groups over the years. She's been joined by Megan, Dan and last year, Megan on those trips, along with myriad other teens from parishes here and in New Jersey.

It'll be hard having them gone for a week, but I know it's a special place and a special time helping the poor and needy of Appalachia.

Here's wishing them a safe trip and another wonderful week of memories. There's been nothing more important, I believe, in raising our four kids, than taking advantage of opportunities to make memories.

Now, as they are almost all grown, it's been terrific to see them share those memories and go out of their way to make the road trips necessary now for us to get together and make more from NJ, PA and VA.

I love the late Harry Chapin's music as I've written here before. One of his most commercially successful songs was "Cat's In the Cradle." I so remember hearing the words about the father and son who kept missing opportunities to be together, and remember, even as a late teen, vowing that would never be me.

Fortunately, it never has been for either Mary or me. And now that the kids have grown, they aren't letting it be them either.

I had great parents, as did Mary, so we both grew up with fine examples of being good parents. But for me, Harry's song was always in the back of my mind, especially those days when I might have been tired and didn't want to get up and do what one of the kids wanted to do. I may have said no once in a while, but most of the time it was always yes.

Here's a link to Harry performing that song if you're included to spend a few minutes with it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH46SmVv8SU

Later.

Amazin' Mess - Part 2

Oldest son Dave, who was born in 1983, might have exhibited a little hyperbole and a lack of historic perspective when he wrote on Facebook today that "the 2009 Mets may possibly be the worst team of all time."

Bad as they are, I do believe the will win at least two of their remaining 80 games and surpass the 40 won by the 1962 Mets, the Major League Baseball standard for futility.

Although the way they are not hitting, not catching the ball and not pitching it may seem hard to imagine, it's probably a pretty safe bet they'll win enough of those 80 to surpass the following teams that lost 100 games:

1962: 40-120
1963: 51-111
1964: 53-109
1965: 50-112
1993: 59-103
1967: 61-101

That having been said, their current level of "play" has made them unwatchable. As such, I have not sat down to watch a game since last Thursday's win over the Pirates.

Their many injuries do supply a certain level of explanation. Being without Carlos Delgado, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, John Maine, Oliver Perez and J.J. Putz for so long has certainly provided a mountain for the Mets to climb.

But that doesn't excuse how awfully they have played. Their many errors, misjudgments, base running blunders and myriad failures to execute baseball basics should not be happening. While they are decidedly playing the B-team, the Bees are also major league players and should be expected to perform at that level most of the time.

That they have played as poorly as they have lands squarely in the laps of GM Omar Manaya and manager Jerry Manual. Both, if this level of play continues, should be looking for new jobs come October.

Bring back Booby V.!

Later.

This and that about that and this

Some random observations from the FKB desk...

Visited the National Harbor last weekend for the special July 3 fireworks show sponsored by the Gaylord National Hotel. Great show, but the hotel, although physically very nice, was awful in almost every other respect. They were just not prepared for the big turnout. Check-in was like an airport line..it took 30 minutes to get checked in. Elevators were extremely slow and it took us 20 minutes to get one to get back up to our room after the show. The one restaurant still open after the show -- out of 7 on the property -- had a waiting time of 45 minutes to place a food order -- AFTER you waited for a table. And now, wife Mary tells, me, they charged her debit card twice.
Unbelievably bad! Run away if anyone ever suggests you stay there.

****
I will always be a Mets fan -- I don't believe the team you rooted for as a kid is really something you can ever change. But with all their injuries and awful play, they have become downright unwatchable this year. I didn't watch an inning of their series in Philadelphia last weekend -- three losses of course. I'll probably pop them on for a brief while when I get home from work tonight, but the odds are they will not be a fun diversion.

****
Megan is off to college in six weeks and two days. The empty nest beckons.

Later.

Another tragedy with questions

By all accounts Steve McNair was a good guy in addition to having been a fine NFL quarterback. So why was he shot four times and murdered, and why was a woman, not his wife, dead beside him?

I heard on the TV news tonight that a huge crowd was expected for a memorial service for McNair, and I guess that's fine if fans feel the need. But the need to hero worship people who have left so many unanswered questions puzzles me.

I'd refer some answers to how events transpired before the pedestal construction begins.

Later.

Crying for a celebrity

I know this is going to sound harsh and unfeeling, but I cannot recall a single time I have cried when someone famous died.
The worst I ever remember feeling at the death of a celebrity was when Harry Chapin, whose music and personality I loved, died in a car accident in 1981.
I had seen him in several concerts and respected him greatly for his tireless work for World Hunger Year. I played his songs constantly on my guitar (still do from time to time) and he was more important to me than any musician has been before or since.
But I don't recall shedding any tears.
The photos and video I've seen in the aftermath of Michael Jackson's death got me thinking about this and wondering why so many people seem so distraught.
Is there something wrong with me?
Then I did a little informal unscientific survey at my office and found only one out of a dozen or so people I asked ever remembered crying when a celebrity died -- one guy said he did when John Lennon was shot.
I cried long and hard when my mom and dad passed away. I suspect I always will when faced with the death of a close loved one.
But a celebrity I never met? Not so far.
I'd be interested to hear from those who have experienced such emotion when a famous person they never met died and get a sense of what moved them to that point.
Later.