1. The Brandenburg Gate is so much bigger than the Mona Lisa: to see it you don't have to shout "fire" or stand on the tour guide's shoulders.
2. The Chef's Special at the Esplanade Hotel: braised knuckle of lamb with peppered sweetheart cabbage and pan-fried potato noodles, with a side of Zantac.
3. If you like Pizza, this is the place for you. There are more Pizzerias per square mile here than there are Dunkin Donuts in Boston. If you are looking for a cop, however, I'm afraid you'll have to visit or call the police station. I couldn't find any of Berlin's coffee-drinking finest in the Pizzerias.
4. Berliners' fascination with a fried egg and bacon as a garnish for just about any meal you order. My favorite: fried egg and bacon on my fried egg and bacon.
5. To appreciate how cyclists, pedestrians and drivers can co-exist in the same space without anyone the worse off.
6. The Alton Hotel: stand under the balcony where Michael Jackson suspended his infant in mid-air, while shaking and scratching your head, again.
7. Stand at multipe spots along where the Wall used to be, thinking about all those LeCarre novels and spy movies in which it figured so prominently.
8. Berlin Beer and techno disco.
9. The Berliners can handle just about any language you throw at them: English, French, Spanish and more.
10. Finally, the best thing about Berlin: it's not Frankfurt.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
IT'S A SHORE THING, Part II
Parents being parents
Moms tend to do a lot of negotiating on the beach. For example, I overhear one Mom say to her son as they pass behind my beach chair: “Is that a deal?” Moms also do a lot of refereeing: “Oh, stop it, you two, it’s her turn to play with the bucket.” Otherwise, Moms just lay down the law: “Brendan, I said come on.” “Stop throwing sand!” and “Stop throwing the seaweed!” are two commands I hear frequently; both bring back fond memories of my childhood spent on the South Jersey shore.
When parents are not being so litigious, they seem to be having a lot of fun, sometimes more than the kids. Many state-of-the-art sand castles and fortresses I see today bear the distinctive signature of frustrated architect-engineer Dads. I see several Dads still engaged in a big dig long after their kids have moved on to more interesting parent-proof activities. Moms love those photo opps of their children buried up to their necks in the sand. It’s one of those rare moments that they can get them to hold still long enough for a photograph.
Dads also are the source of an unlimited number of improvised beach games. Most commonly, I witness father-son competitions that involve the tossing of balls of all shapes and sizes into holes in the sand, into sand buckets, or into any available receptacle, such as a picnic basket. Unfortunately, these games never seem to end well.
At some point in the competition, an argument invariably breaks out over some alleged misinterpretation of the “rules.” For example, is a point earned if the tennis ball goes into the bucket but then spills out when the bucket tips over from the force of the throw? Amidst much gnashing of teeth, hollering, and screaming, someone usually storms off down the beach, or pleads his case at the Supreme Court of Mom. The kids also throw tantrums from time to time.
Today’s Dad also plays improvised games with his daughters, of course. I watch one Dad counting the seconds his two daughters, in turn, balance on one foot on the base of an upside down sand bucket. While Dad’s eyes are fixated on his watch, Mom regularly peers over the top of her sunglasses, and then gazes over the top of her summer novel, just to make sure none of the other children is drowning.
Grandparents being grandparents
A grand-dad is wearing a Boston Red Sox bathing suit and holding in each hand a large sand bucket—one blue and one yellow. He is trying to get his three grandsons, all of whom appear to be under 10, to accompany him to the ocean’s edge to help fill the buckets with water. Not one is listening to him. They are all furiously digging in the sand. Grandpop doesn’t look too upset. He must be accustomed to being ignored. I watch as he just stands there in the sun, for a long time, with those two buckets in his big, lobster-sized hands, his stomach hanging over his suit like patriotic bunting over the upper deck at Fenway, with a dazed look of bemused resignation on his face.
In a sign of the lengths to which some grandparents will go to please their sons, daughters, and grandchildren, at least a dozen of them are in the water with the kids. The water temperature today is 67 degrees. When I stuck my big toe in, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. These folks are all octogenarians. Why aren’t they all dead by now? They must be aliens. It’s the only reasonable explanation.
At these temperatures, the lifeguards should be obliged to plant, alongside the green “safe to go in the water” flag, a blue one, which indicates the color humans are likely to turn for being foolish enough to heed the green flag! I suppose these grandparents all deserve those “Greatest Grandparent In the World” t-shirts they wear with such pride.
It sure takes a lot of stuff to have fun
A cursory inventory of supplies families “needed” this week at the beach follows: buckets of every size and color, pails, sand molds, short-handle shovels, long-handle shovels, sand trowels, beach towels, personal towels, chairs, loungers, free-standing umbrellas, sport n’brellas, umbrellas attached to chairs, sun protection gazebos, play pens with canopies, footballs, soccer balls, kick balls, nerf balls, Velcro balls and paddle-catchers, lacrosse sticks and balls, surf boards, boogie boards, skimmer boards, Coleman coolers (some with wheels, some without), Igloo coolers, no-name coolers, baskets of food, paper bags with food, cell phones, ipods, cameras, camcorders, books, magazines, and a variety of wheeled vehicles to cart all this stuff from the parking lot to the beach and back!
Fashion statements (and mis-statements)
There’s probably a rule in New England that all adolescents and adult males (for females I heard it is voluntary) must wear a Boston Red Sox cap at the beach. Yet, no two caps are the same. I see green caps with a red B; blue caps with a red B; red caps with a blue B; light blue caps with a slightly darker blue B; and even hunting caps with a pair of black sox on the back and a black B on the front.
Grandparents don’t wear baseball caps much, but many of them should be forced to do so. Every evening, lifeguards should collect all those straw hats, Australian bush hats, fisherman caps, pork pie hats, and other awful things these people put on their heads and just toss the lot of them in a bonfire (the lids, not the people or their heads!).
Shepherding and stewardship
What do you call a bunch of sweaty, freckled-faced kids who complain that they never get to do anything fun? Summer campers, of course!
Well, a trip to the beach is just the thing to improve the dog days of summer and put an end to all that barking and whining. Unfortunately, the New Hampshire State Association of Summer Camps picked my vacation as the week to re-enact the D-Day invasion of the Normandy beaches. The day-campers just keep coming, relentlessly, wave after wave of them, day after day.
On one particularly sunny day, a large group of campers, all clad in orange T-shirts, arrives first. Their counselors stake out their territory by planting in the sand two yellow flags emblazoned with big red hearts. The banners flap furiously in a strong ocean breeze, making it easy for everyone to keep their bearings. These are clever, maintenance-free demarcations of the boundaries of the theater of operations.
The beauty of this strategy is confimed by the behavior of another contingent, which eschewed uniform-colored t-shirts for the campers, as well as the flags in the sand, opting instead for multi-colored shirts for the kids and orange highway cones to establish their territory, respectively. Unfortunately, in their rush to the ocean, several eager campers knock over the cones, thereby calling into question the ability of the group to reconnoiter on the beach in the event of a crisis, such as a jellyfish reunion, Class of 1972.
It is obvious that the “red heart” counselors are the kind of leaders that would never issue a command that they are not prepared to carry out. The blue tee-shirt, surf-based lieutenants lead one brigade of campers into the ocean, where they fully engage with the kids in water maneuvers. At the same time, the turf-based counselors in their pink tee-shirts establish a beachhead: the kids dig trenches and construct fortifications as the counselors supervise the work from several comfortable beach chairs. This is not the first time these counselors have led a beach command.
In contrast, all the counselors from the “conehead” division seem perfectly content to supervise their charges from the shore, using the opportunity to talk and laugh among themselves. In this group there is no division of labor: all the campers are in the water at the same time! The closest the coneheads come to establishing a recognizable beachhead is when they have their kids place towels on the sand before charging into the water. Lots of non-campers leave their towels on the beach (duh!), however, and flat towels on a flat beach are not easy to see, thereby calling into question the wisdom and experience of the coneheads, as well as the judgment of the poor parents who entrust their children to these well-meaning, albeit uninspired leaders.
Although I’m not a betting man, I would be willing to wager that I could guess, with a high degree of accuracy, which campers were smothered with sunscreen before pouring out of their respective buses on this brilliantly sunny day!
*****
I suppose that a week like this every few years reminds me of how good I’ve had it in on that serene, tranquil North Carolina island, where I plan to return next summer. I’ll be sure to pack a copy of this posting, however, just in case I catch myself complaining about those relentless black flies that annoy on windless days in the mid-90s. If my wife must bear the burden of my whining, I won’t blame her if she buries me in the sand while I am napping, places a bag of pretzels on my head just as the fishing boats pass, and then posts a picture on Facebook of me with my new "trashmen with wings" friends.
Moms tend to do a lot of negotiating on the beach. For example, I overhear one Mom say to her son as they pass behind my beach chair: “Is that a deal?” Moms also do a lot of refereeing: “Oh, stop it, you two, it’s her turn to play with the bucket.” Otherwise, Moms just lay down the law: “Brendan, I said come on.” “Stop throwing sand!” and “Stop throwing the seaweed!” are two commands I hear frequently; both bring back fond memories of my childhood spent on the South Jersey shore.
When parents are not being so litigious, they seem to be having a lot of fun, sometimes more than the kids. Many state-of-the-art sand castles and fortresses I see today bear the distinctive signature of frustrated architect-engineer Dads. I see several Dads still engaged in a big dig long after their kids have moved on to more interesting parent-proof activities. Moms love those photo opps of their children buried up to their necks in the sand. It’s one of those rare moments that they can get them to hold still long enough for a photograph.
Dads also are the source of an unlimited number of improvised beach games. Most commonly, I witness father-son competitions that involve the tossing of balls of all shapes and sizes into holes in the sand, into sand buckets, or into any available receptacle, such as a picnic basket. Unfortunately, these games never seem to end well.
At some point in the competition, an argument invariably breaks out over some alleged misinterpretation of the “rules.” For example, is a point earned if the tennis ball goes into the bucket but then spills out when the bucket tips over from the force of the throw? Amidst much gnashing of teeth, hollering, and screaming, someone usually storms off down the beach, or pleads his case at the Supreme Court of Mom. The kids also throw tantrums from time to time.
Today’s Dad also plays improvised games with his daughters, of course. I watch one Dad counting the seconds his two daughters, in turn, balance on one foot on the base of an upside down sand bucket. While Dad’s eyes are fixated on his watch, Mom regularly peers over the top of her sunglasses, and then gazes over the top of her summer novel, just to make sure none of the other children is drowning.
Grandparents being grandparents
A grand-dad is wearing a Boston Red Sox bathing suit and holding in each hand a large sand bucket—one blue and one yellow. He is trying to get his three grandsons, all of whom appear to be under 10, to accompany him to the ocean’s edge to help fill the buckets with water. Not one is listening to him. They are all furiously digging in the sand. Grandpop doesn’t look too upset. He must be accustomed to being ignored. I watch as he just stands there in the sun, for a long time, with those two buckets in his big, lobster-sized hands, his stomach hanging over his suit like patriotic bunting over the upper deck at Fenway, with a dazed look of bemused resignation on his face.
In a sign of the lengths to which some grandparents will go to please their sons, daughters, and grandchildren, at least a dozen of them are in the water with the kids. The water temperature today is 67 degrees. When I stuck my big toe in, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. These folks are all octogenarians. Why aren’t they all dead by now? They must be aliens. It’s the only reasonable explanation.
At these temperatures, the lifeguards should be obliged to plant, alongside the green “safe to go in the water” flag, a blue one, which indicates the color humans are likely to turn for being foolish enough to heed the green flag! I suppose these grandparents all deserve those “Greatest Grandparent In the World” t-shirts they wear with such pride.
It sure takes a lot of stuff to have fun
A cursory inventory of supplies families “needed” this week at the beach follows: buckets of every size and color, pails, sand molds, short-handle shovels, long-handle shovels, sand trowels, beach towels, personal towels, chairs, loungers, free-standing umbrellas, sport n’brellas, umbrellas attached to chairs, sun protection gazebos, play pens with canopies, footballs, soccer balls, kick balls, nerf balls, Velcro balls and paddle-catchers, lacrosse sticks and balls, surf boards, boogie boards, skimmer boards, Coleman coolers (some with wheels, some without), Igloo coolers, no-name coolers, baskets of food, paper bags with food, cell phones, ipods, cameras, camcorders, books, magazines, and a variety of wheeled vehicles to cart all this stuff from the parking lot to the beach and back!
Fashion statements (and mis-statements)
There’s probably a rule in New England that all adolescents and adult males (for females I heard it is voluntary) must wear a Boston Red Sox cap at the beach. Yet, no two caps are the same. I see green caps with a red B; blue caps with a red B; red caps with a blue B; light blue caps with a slightly darker blue B; and even hunting caps with a pair of black sox on the back and a black B on the front.
Grandparents don’t wear baseball caps much, but many of them should be forced to do so. Every evening, lifeguards should collect all those straw hats, Australian bush hats, fisherman caps, pork pie hats, and other awful things these people put on their heads and just toss the lot of them in a bonfire (the lids, not the people or their heads!).
Shepherding and stewardship
What do you call a bunch of sweaty, freckled-faced kids who complain that they never get to do anything fun? Summer campers, of course!
Well, a trip to the beach is just the thing to improve the dog days of summer and put an end to all that barking and whining. Unfortunately, the New Hampshire State Association of Summer Camps picked my vacation as the week to re-enact the D-Day invasion of the Normandy beaches. The day-campers just keep coming, relentlessly, wave after wave of them, day after day.
On one particularly sunny day, a large group of campers, all clad in orange T-shirts, arrives first. Their counselors stake out their territory by planting in the sand two yellow flags emblazoned with big red hearts. The banners flap furiously in a strong ocean breeze, making it easy for everyone to keep their bearings. These are clever, maintenance-free demarcations of the boundaries of the theater of operations.
The beauty of this strategy is confimed by the behavior of another contingent, which eschewed uniform-colored t-shirts for the campers, as well as the flags in the sand, opting instead for multi-colored shirts for the kids and orange highway cones to establish their territory, respectively. Unfortunately, in their rush to the ocean, several eager campers knock over the cones, thereby calling into question the ability of the group to reconnoiter on the beach in the event of a crisis, such as a jellyfish reunion, Class of 1972.
It is obvious that the “red heart” counselors are the kind of leaders that would never issue a command that they are not prepared to carry out. The blue tee-shirt, surf-based lieutenants lead one brigade of campers into the ocean, where they fully engage with the kids in water maneuvers. At the same time, the turf-based counselors in their pink tee-shirts establish a beachhead: the kids dig trenches and construct fortifications as the counselors supervise the work from several comfortable beach chairs. This is not the first time these counselors have led a beach command.
In contrast, all the counselors from the “conehead” division seem perfectly content to supervise their charges from the shore, using the opportunity to talk and laugh among themselves. In this group there is no division of labor: all the campers are in the water at the same time! The closest the coneheads come to establishing a recognizable beachhead is when they have their kids place towels on the sand before charging into the water. Lots of non-campers leave their towels on the beach (duh!), however, and flat towels on a flat beach are not easy to see, thereby calling into question the wisdom and experience of the coneheads, as well as the judgment of the poor parents who entrust their children to these well-meaning, albeit uninspired leaders.
Although I’m not a betting man, I would be willing to wager that I could guess, with a high degree of accuracy, which campers were smothered with sunscreen before pouring out of their respective buses on this brilliantly sunny day!
*****
I suppose that a week like this every few years reminds me of how good I’ve had it in on that serene, tranquil North Carolina island, where I plan to return next summer. I’ll be sure to pack a copy of this posting, however, just in case I catch myself complaining about those relentless black flies that annoy on windless days in the mid-90s. If my wife must bear the burden of my whining, I won’t blame her if she buries me in the sand while I am napping, places a bag of pretzels on my head just as the fishing boats pass, and then posts a picture on Facebook of me with my new "trashmen with wings" friends.
IT'S A SHORE THING, Part I
It is Labor Day, the unofficial end to summer. My wife and I are fortunate to have enjoyed two beach vacations this year: one on Martha’s Vineyard, in July, and the other on the coasts of New Hampshire and Maine, in mid-August. Having spent the last twenty-five years vacationing in August on the North Carolina coast, on a sleepy, relatively deserted barrier island, I had forgotten how entertaining a crowded beach could be. Mind you, that it was entertainment was not immediately apparent; there were a few “opening acts” that we were obliged to endure, all of which had me longing, at first, for those Carolina blue skies, sea turtles, and dolphins to which I have become accustomed at the end of every summer.
For example, at several New Hampshire State-owned beaches, I spent a lot of time scooping sand out of every bodily orifice each time someone picked up his or her towel en route to lunch, a better spot next to friends, or the shower. Even when vacationers don’t mean to kick sand in your face, they do. There are just too many bodies squeezed into a parcel of beach the size of three postcard stamps.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2008 approximately 17.0% of the adult population in New Hampshire smoked cigarettes. That same year there were 34 states with higher smoking prevalence rates. Comparatively speaking, the “Live Free or Die Prematurely State” fares better than most, and prevalence has been declining since 2000. If this trend continues, perhaps the State’s one million plus citizens will vote to change their motto to “Smoke-free: Live Long and Prosper” and send Mr. Spock to the State House in Concord. Unfortunately for me, all those adult smokers bring their butts to the beach during the second week in August.
And where are the fashion police when you need them? Men and women of a certain vintage who ignore the extended Shakira rule—hips, upper arms, mid-sections, and thighs don’t lie—are lucky to leave the beach without any indecent over-exposure citations. And what’s with all the tattoos? As for our dear friends to the north, I heard that they frequent New Hampshire beaches in August because on the Canadian coast it is a felony to wear speedos, dark socks, and Birkenstock sandals, all at the same time, in public, in the middle of the afternoon.
Finally, in case you haven’t heard, New Hampshire - seagulls are scavengers! They can locate even a temporarily unattended bag of pretzels, tear open the plastic, and litter the beach with my favorite snacks faster than water freezes in Vermont in January. Those aggressive birds are equally adept with bags of potato chips and chocolate chip cookies.
I suppose there is a silver lining to all of this. According to the Bird News Network of the American Bird Conservancy (I am not making this up), these “trashmen with wings” perform a valuable service: they consume dead animals, organic litter, and other materials—such as snacks high in salt and transfat—that could pose a health threat to humans.
Perseverance does have its benefits. In just a couple of days of rubbing elbows, literally, with all these White Mountain-turned-beach- enthusiasts, a visitor can walk away with much more than just sand in his trunks, second-hand smoke in his lungs, and life-scarring memories of sloppy, cheap tattoos in private neighborhoods. I had the good fortune of sampling some delicious seasonal American pie, New England-style. I’m happy to share a few slices.
Girls being girls
A little girl, about three years old, is wearing a white bonnet that is tied under her chin and a butterscotch-colored bathing suit. She is carrying a pint-sized plastic yellow pail. She meanders about 20 yards down to the ocean, opting for the scenic route. It takes her a good five minutes to reach the water’s edge. Her mother, taking baby steps, never leaves her side.
Upon reaching her destination, the little girl bends over, letting several gentle waves of water splash into her pail. The pail is about one quarter full when she begins her journey home. Upon reaching her family site, she pours the water in a hole. The sand absorbs the water immediately. Quite satisfied with her effort, the little girl returns to the sea.
This activity goes on for a very long time—so long, that Mom eventually turns over escort duty to her husband, who is also well-schooled in babystepping. Eventually, apparently satisfied that her mission is accomplished, the little girl settles down on her blanket and takes a nap. Inspiring!
Four elementary school girls with flamingo-thin legs are each squeamishly clutching a part of some unrecognizable creature from Davey Jones’s locker. They are in a mad, synchronized dash to the ocean, squealing at the top of their lungs. They unceremoniously dump the beast into the surf. Holding hands, they immediately turn and run to their beach spot, reaching decibels unknown to modern acoustic science en route. I am guessing that they imagine the beady-eyed creature is already in hot pursuit with the aim of exacting his revenge.
As this freckled foursome rushes by on my left, my attention is drawn to my right, where a pogostick of a young girl with a ponytail is turning cartwheels down the beach. I lose count after ten; an acute episode of vertigo forces me to direct my attention elsewhere. The truth be told, I’m down-right afraid to look over my shoulder, half expecting a herd of baby elephants with interlocking tails coming my way in search of peanuts. They are not going to be happy when they discover the seagulls have already cleaned up. All I am missing is my worst nightmare: some clown with blue flippers and a big, red, sun-burned nose! This is becoming a very scary place.
Three middle school girls giggle for thirty consecutive minutes as they bury themselves up to their necks in the sand. After a few minutes, two of the three, Lazarus-like, emerge from their self-imposed tombs. The other, still giggling, realizes she doesn’t have the strength to escape her self-imposed interment. Immediately, the other two, without consulting, dig her out. They all titter.
I can’t help but think that if these were three middle school boys buried in the sand, the weakest of the three might still be on Rye Beach, as I write, struggling to secure his freedom, minus the new sunglasses and baseball cap he was wearing when he started.
While this “Thriller” drama unfolds, a girl of about the same age walks by with a curious look on her face, pulling behind her the smiling, albeit gritty visage of Hannah Montana on her skimmer-board.
Unlike their younger counterparts, the three teenage girls who lazily stroll back and forth along the beach in their micro bikinis and macro shades have no task today other than to “be seen” by their contemporaries of the opposite sex. They are immersed in what appears to be an incisive conversation that I am guessing addresses, at some point, the mind-boggling immaturity of boys their age. Otherwise, they are completely oblivious to everyone and everything around them. Whatever!
Boys being boys
First-born son (with great emotion): “Mom, some little jerk with a yellow truck crashed into our sand castle and destroyed everything we have been working on all day. He just took off and didn’t even say sorry.”
Middle son (calmly and earnestly): “We could build another one.”
Youngest son (resolutely): He’s not interested in discussing the case; he’s already in hot pursuit of the perp, NYPD-like.
Pre-school boys spend most of the day chasing seagulls and other aquatic birds and otherwise running aimlessly in circles. They never seem to tire or come close to catching the birds. Parents probably don’t approve of this behavior, but will tolerate just about any kind of physical activity that will guarantee that these still-evolving, quasi-human dynamos fall asleep by 8:00 pm that evening.
Too-many-to-count elementary school boys are digging in the sand and building sand structures, in relative quiet. But when the time comes to knock everything down (either to begin anew or to move on to something else), Braveheart-worthy cries of conquest, death, and destruction can be heard from one end of the beach to the other.
Kids this age also spend a considerable amount of time imitating their older siblings. Two brothers, one after the other, rush by me pushing yellow dump trucks across the tightly packed sand. The size of the trucks is proportionate to the size of each child. I am guessing the older brother tried losing his tailing sibling earlier in the day, but by now has given up. He recognizes, reluctantly, that his younger brother is not only persistent, but also lightening fast.
Kids this age also get temporarily lost a lot. I see them wandering around the beach after a swim or some other activity in search of their parents and siblings, some on the verge of tears. I watch one Dad, who is supervising his younger son, doing his best impression of a Southwest Airlines flagman, elaborately signaling to his older, red-headed boy, about seventy-five yards down the beach, where to turn to find his mother. Each shrug of the shoulders and palms-up gesture by the lost boy, however, triggers an even more elaborate series of gestures from Dad.
After a time, however, flocks of seagulls and other lost boys from other families are paying so much attention to Dad that he is forced to abandon his rescue operation from afar. Of course, just when he convinces his younger son to leave behind all those undiscovered treasures among the rocks, the prodigal son falls into the arms of his mother.
Two middle school boys are goin’ fishin’. They each have a rod, one tackle box between them, and are both wearing camouflage baseball caps and long shorts. The shorts have more pockets than the sea has fish. As they walk by, I hear the taller boy tell his friend that he had a catch “this long” last week. At first, I think the smaller boy is looking up to his friend simply because he is taller. But then I realize, from the twinkle in his eye, that he is in awe.
Three teenage boys throw a football for about thirty minutes. When they return to their beach site, they ostensibly feed the seagulls. In reality, they are competing to see who can be the first to strike a bird with a gluten projectile. They are thoroughly enjoying themselves and completely engrossed in this contest. The triad of disdainful bathing beauties has not registered on the boys’ radar screen. The guys are also blissfully unaware that their present actions are providing further evidence for a failure to reject the immaturity hypothesis.
To be continued…
For example, at several New Hampshire State-owned beaches, I spent a lot of time scooping sand out of every bodily orifice each time someone picked up his or her towel en route to lunch, a better spot next to friends, or the shower. Even when vacationers don’t mean to kick sand in your face, they do. There are just too many bodies squeezed into a parcel of beach the size of three postcard stamps.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2008 approximately 17.0% of the adult population in New Hampshire smoked cigarettes. That same year there were 34 states with higher smoking prevalence rates. Comparatively speaking, the “Live Free or Die Prematurely State” fares better than most, and prevalence has been declining since 2000. If this trend continues, perhaps the State’s one million plus citizens will vote to change their motto to “Smoke-free: Live Long and Prosper” and send Mr. Spock to the State House in Concord. Unfortunately for me, all those adult smokers bring their butts to the beach during the second week in August.
And where are the fashion police when you need them? Men and women of a certain vintage who ignore the extended Shakira rule—hips, upper arms, mid-sections, and thighs don’t lie—are lucky to leave the beach without any indecent over-exposure citations. And what’s with all the tattoos? As for our dear friends to the north, I heard that they frequent New Hampshire beaches in August because on the Canadian coast it is a felony to wear speedos, dark socks, and Birkenstock sandals, all at the same time, in public, in the middle of the afternoon.
Finally, in case you haven’t heard, New Hampshire - seagulls are scavengers! They can locate even a temporarily unattended bag of pretzels, tear open the plastic, and litter the beach with my favorite snacks faster than water freezes in Vermont in January. Those aggressive birds are equally adept with bags of potato chips and chocolate chip cookies.
I suppose there is a silver lining to all of this. According to the Bird News Network of the American Bird Conservancy (I am not making this up), these “trashmen with wings” perform a valuable service: they consume dead animals, organic litter, and other materials—such as snacks high in salt and transfat—that could pose a health threat to humans.
Perseverance does have its benefits. In just a couple of days of rubbing elbows, literally, with all these White Mountain-turned-beach- enthusiasts, a visitor can walk away with much more than just sand in his trunks, second-hand smoke in his lungs, and life-scarring memories of sloppy, cheap tattoos in private neighborhoods. I had the good fortune of sampling some delicious seasonal American pie, New England-style. I’m happy to share a few slices.
Girls being girls
A little girl, about three years old, is wearing a white bonnet that is tied under her chin and a butterscotch-colored bathing suit. She is carrying a pint-sized plastic yellow pail. She meanders about 20 yards down to the ocean, opting for the scenic route. It takes her a good five minutes to reach the water’s edge. Her mother, taking baby steps, never leaves her side.
Upon reaching her destination, the little girl bends over, letting several gentle waves of water splash into her pail. The pail is about one quarter full when she begins her journey home. Upon reaching her family site, she pours the water in a hole. The sand absorbs the water immediately. Quite satisfied with her effort, the little girl returns to the sea.
This activity goes on for a very long time—so long, that Mom eventually turns over escort duty to her husband, who is also well-schooled in babystepping. Eventually, apparently satisfied that her mission is accomplished, the little girl settles down on her blanket and takes a nap. Inspiring!
Four elementary school girls with flamingo-thin legs are each squeamishly clutching a part of some unrecognizable creature from Davey Jones’s locker. They are in a mad, synchronized dash to the ocean, squealing at the top of their lungs. They unceremoniously dump the beast into the surf. Holding hands, they immediately turn and run to their beach spot, reaching decibels unknown to modern acoustic science en route. I am guessing that they imagine the beady-eyed creature is already in hot pursuit with the aim of exacting his revenge.
As this freckled foursome rushes by on my left, my attention is drawn to my right, where a pogostick of a young girl with a ponytail is turning cartwheels down the beach. I lose count after ten; an acute episode of vertigo forces me to direct my attention elsewhere. The truth be told, I’m down-right afraid to look over my shoulder, half expecting a herd of baby elephants with interlocking tails coming my way in search of peanuts. They are not going to be happy when they discover the seagulls have already cleaned up. All I am missing is my worst nightmare: some clown with blue flippers and a big, red, sun-burned nose! This is becoming a very scary place.
Three middle school girls giggle for thirty consecutive minutes as they bury themselves up to their necks in the sand. After a few minutes, two of the three, Lazarus-like, emerge from their self-imposed tombs. The other, still giggling, realizes she doesn’t have the strength to escape her self-imposed interment. Immediately, the other two, without consulting, dig her out. They all titter.
I can’t help but think that if these were three middle school boys buried in the sand, the weakest of the three might still be on Rye Beach, as I write, struggling to secure his freedom, minus the new sunglasses and baseball cap he was wearing when he started.
While this “Thriller” drama unfolds, a girl of about the same age walks by with a curious look on her face, pulling behind her the smiling, albeit gritty visage of Hannah Montana on her skimmer-board.
Unlike their younger counterparts, the three teenage girls who lazily stroll back and forth along the beach in their micro bikinis and macro shades have no task today other than to “be seen” by their contemporaries of the opposite sex. They are immersed in what appears to be an incisive conversation that I am guessing addresses, at some point, the mind-boggling immaturity of boys their age. Otherwise, they are completely oblivious to everyone and everything around them. Whatever!
Boys being boys
First-born son (with great emotion): “Mom, some little jerk with a yellow truck crashed into our sand castle and destroyed everything we have been working on all day. He just took off and didn’t even say sorry.”
Middle son (calmly and earnestly): “We could build another one.”
Youngest son (resolutely): He’s not interested in discussing the case; he’s already in hot pursuit of the perp, NYPD-like.
Pre-school boys spend most of the day chasing seagulls and other aquatic birds and otherwise running aimlessly in circles. They never seem to tire or come close to catching the birds. Parents probably don’t approve of this behavior, but will tolerate just about any kind of physical activity that will guarantee that these still-evolving, quasi-human dynamos fall asleep by 8:00 pm that evening.
Too-many-to-count elementary school boys are digging in the sand and building sand structures, in relative quiet. But when the time comes to knock everything down (either to begin anew or to move on to something else), Braveheart-worthy cries of conquest, death, and destruction can be heard from one end of the beach to the other.
Kids this age also spend a considerable amount of time imitating their older siblings. Two brothers, one after the other, rush by me pushing yellow dump trucks across the tightly packed sand. The size of the trucks is proportionate to the size of each child. I am guessing the older brother tried losing his tailing sibling earlier in the day, but by now has given up. He recognizes, reluctantly, that his younger brother is not only persistent, but also lightening fast.
Kids this age also get temporarily lost a lot. I see them wandering around the beach after a swim or some other activity in search of their parents and siblings, some on the verge of tears. I watch one Dad, who is supervising his younger son, doing his best impression of a Southwest Airlines flagman, elaborately signaling to his older, red-headed boy, about seventy-five yards down the beach, where to turn to find his mother. Each shrug of the shoulders and palms-up gesture by the lost boy, however, triggers an even more elaborate series of gestures from Dad.
After a time, however, flocks of seagulls and other lost boys from other families are paying so much attention to Dad that he is forced to abandon his rescue operation from afar. Of course, just when he convinces his younger son to leave behind all those undiscovered treasures among the rocks, the prodigal son falls into the arms of his mother.
Two middle school boys are goin’ fishin’. They each have a rod, one tackle box between them, and are both wearing camouflage baseball caps and long shorts. The shorts have more pockets than the sea has fish. As they walk by, I hear the taller boy tell his friend that he had a catch “this long” last week. At first, I think the smaller boy is looking up to his friend simply because he is taller. But then I realize, from the twinkle in his eye, that he is in awe.
Three teenage boys throw a football for about thirty minutes. When they return to their beach site, they ostensibly feed the seagulls. In reality, they are competing to see who can be the first to strike a bird with a gluten projectile. They are thoroughly enjoying themselves and completely engrossed in this contest. The triad of disdainful bathing beauties has not registered on the boys’ radar screen. The guys are also blissfully unaware that their present actions are providing further evidence for a failure to reject the immaturity hypothesis.
To be continued…
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Your Cheating Heart
Since moving to the DC area in 1997, I have publicly professed to a monogamous relationship with one newspaper: the Washington Post.
Every morning I pick her up at the end of my driveway, in plain view of my neighbors. Five days a week she accompanies me in the car on the drive to the train station, where I resist the temptation of not one but two free commuter “express” dailies that two guys are always trying to push upon me. We sit together quietly on the train to and from work. Anyone seeking proof of our intimate relationship need look no further than my fingertips.
It hasn’t always been like this. When I was young, I ran around with several rags. Every day I would read the Philadelphia Bulletin, Daily News and Inquirer. Back then, everything I learned about the pleasure of reading I learned from these three. It was a difficult juggling act, however, and once I moved to North Carolina I decided to go cold turkey, taking up with only the Sunday NY Times, which was a satisfying relationship that usually lasted an entire week.
Although those days of messing around are over and I find myself largely fulfilled by my Post, I have to admit that similar to the former POTUS and Georgia peanut farmer, from time to time I do lust in my heart for another. When I travel by air, both domestically and internationally, I occasionally hook up with Miss USA Today. I feel so much better now that this long-guarded secret is out in the open.
She has the perfect format for cheaters such as I who are fearful of getting caught by the Circulation Manager from the Post—who, undoubtedly, flies in airplanes from time to time—and therefore are looking for a quick read. Most articles start and end on the same page. Most are heavy on description and light on analysis. Each page is crammed with multiple stories. There are even sidebar summaries of the highlights of each of the four sections—Newsline, Moneyline, Sportsline, and Lifeline—for those of us who are particularly worried about who might be looking over our shoulder.
She has other attractive features as well. The publishers liberally use color throughout. Page one always carries a creative graphic that summarizes survey results on a topic of interest under the heading “USA Today Snapshots.” For example, a recent edition shows adult parents’ reporting of “must-have” accessories when on a family driving vacation. A pie chart of the results—a GPS and a DVD player were the leading vote getters at 28% each—is displayed on the front headlight of a car.
Her colorful weather map is stunning with multiple-day forecasts for the largest US cities. During July and August, however, all that burnt orange is a bit garish—kind of like that nightmare I had once about being locked in the University of Texas bookstore for two months. I cannot resist spending a bit more time reading the Sports Section, which in the Spring even publishes rankings and scores of college and high school baseball from around the country!
Every day in Section A there is a half-page summary of news from every state, titled “Across the USA.” These are one-paragraph blurbs of often obscure news items that would normally be buried in the metro or regional section of a major metropolitan newspaper. During my occasional trysts over the years, I have only perused those states where I was a resident at one time in my life—Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts—or where I have spent considerable time—Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, New Jersey, Texas, Vermont, Virginia. I don’t believe I have ever read anything about the states that I cannot locate on a map—places like Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, and Nebraska.
On my way back from Atlanta this week, however, early in the flight I finished a novel I was working on, and had nothing else to read but my USA Today. Feeling a bit wicked, I decided to read the entries from all 50 states, D.C, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Now I understand why the paper has no comics. Some of this stuff is so rich that not even Dave Barry could make it up! A sampling from a few states from the Wednesday, July 14th edition, with my opening editorial comments, follows. I swear they are all true.
Obviously, bananas played a central role in this drama.
Ohio: Medina – A truck crash left animal carcasses all over a county road and the driver’s pet monkey stranded atop a utility pole. The State Highway Patrol said the frightened monkey scampered up the pole after the truck, hauling carcasses for a meat-processing plant, flipped over while going into a curve Monday. The driver was unhurt, but the monkey had to be coaxed down.
I guess I won’t be using my brand new pair of paddle flippers this year.
Massachusetts: Orleans – A 15-foot great white shark has been spotted just south of Nauset Beach on Cape Cod. Chatham Harbor Master Stuart Smith said a spotter plane saw the shark Sunday chasing seals into breaking surf. A spokeswoman for the Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs said there is no need to avoid the beach but people should avoid swimming near seals.
Did anyone check the trunk for marshmallows?
Maine: Belfast – A man is facing charges he set a 1982 Mercedes-Benz on fire two weeks ago, then posted photos of the burning vehicle on Facebook. Police said Asgard Gilbert, 36, told officers he saw the car with a “small campfire” in the back seat. Gilbert was arrested Monday on a felony arson charge after police scrutinized surveillance tape from a local store.
What happens in Jefferson City stays in Jefferson City.
Missouri: Jefferson City – State residents soon could have more chances to play bingo. Gov. Nixon, a Democrat, signed a law letting bingo parlors open earlier, close later and offer games twice a week instead of just once. The law also increases the amount of money bingo operators can spend on advertising.
Not yet he isn’t.
D.C.: An investigation into the theft of a Metrobus is still ongoing, but officials said they are already taking steps to enhance security at Metro facilities. William Jackson, 19, was charged with un-authorized use of a vehicle and fleeing an accident after he entered a bus facility Friday in a driver’s uniform, drove off, picked up passengers, then crashed the bus. Jackson is not a Metro employee.
Sounds like a roller derby team to me. I would have gone with “Chips.”
North Dakota: Jamestown – What officials here bill as the world’s largest buffalo statue now has a name. The Buffalo City Tourism Foundation on Tuesday said that Dakota Thunder was the winner of a naming contest of the 26-foot tall, 60-ton bison statue that has stood near Interstate 94 for a half-century. Runners up: Dakota Spirit, Benny, Sir James and Beauford. An official naming ceremony is set for July 24.
Only in Utah
Utah: Salt Lake City – A man claiming to run a religious order is soliciting “ministers” to sign over their assets to his church and take a vow of poverty to avoid paying income taxes, the U.S. Justice Department said. Federal lawyers are seeking a court injunction against the Orem-based operation headed by Kevin Hartshorn, who said he’s unaware of the government’s complaint.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Don't Cry For Me, Argentina
When the high and mighty powers fall, their descent is often hard and fast. There’s no need to look any further for our latest examples than this year’s World Cup in South Africa. In the 2006 tournament, the Italian and French teams played one another in the final. The match ended in a draw, or, as the Brits prefer to say, “level,” with the Italians eventually winning the penalty shoot-out, 5-3.
According to Wikipedia, 715.1 million fans around the world watched that game, which is a mere 27 shy of the number of shoppers I tangle with at my neighborhood Home Depot on any given Saturday morning. This year, however, neither team made it past the first round. To make matters worse, the French exited the tournament with their collective tails between their legs.
First, a player was dismissed from the team for insubordination and refusal to apologize to the coach following a shouting match. The next day, the remaining players went on strike, refusing to practice two days before their next win-or-go-home match. Of course, anyone who has traveled to or through Paris, usually during peak tourist season, should not have been at all surprised. “Striking” is to the French—be it airline pilots, baggage handlers, grounds crew, rail operators, bus drivers, or taxi drivers—what baseball is to Americans: a national past-time.
When asked his opinion about the players’ decision not to practice, the French coach, drawing upon the rich French heritage of diplomacy, was quoted as saying, “An imbecility, a stupidity without name.” In French, it sounds much worse!
Then, just prior to the match against South Africa, the French Minister of Health and Sports, not to be upstaged by the coach, gave one of the most memorable pep talks in the history of athletic competition. Expecting a rousing version of “Come on, guys, let’s win one for the Sarkozy, or at least for Carla Bruni,” the players must have been mortified when they heard her tell them: “You have tarnished the image of France.” They went on to lose to the South Africa side, 2-1, which eliminated "Les Bleus" from the competition. To top it off, the French coach refused to shake hands with his South African counterpart. Mon Dieu!
Hoping to limit the blow to his country’s national honor, President Sarkozy took immediate and firm action. He called an urgent meeting with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health, Sport and Inspiration to consider options. He consulted with Thierry Henry—the former captain of the French team and guy who no one in America recognized in those Gillette shaver ads a couple of years ago with Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. What was the marketing division thinking? Finally, he ordered instructional videos on motivational speaking for all his cabinet members.
It didn’t used to be like this. I happened to be in Paris in 2006 on business, when the French were at the top of their game and on top of the world. The highlight of that tournament came well before the final match: in the quarterfinals, the French beat Brazil 1-0. I watched the game on television in my hotel room and ran down to the Champs-Elysees immediately after to witness the massive and exuberant celebration that followed, a merrymaking second only to the outpouring in Philadelphia in 2009 following the Phillies World Series triumph. Interestingly, both celebrations had one thing in common: lots of cops trying to keep people from lighting themselves, their fellow humans, and random four-wheeled vehicles on fire!
Of course, there’s far more to do in Paris at this time of the year than watch soccer matches. The Eiffel Tower was way bigger than I expected. The Mona Lisa was way smaller than I expected. The Parisians were way nicer than I expected. Going for a walk in Paris, particularly on the Champs-Elysees, is a serious pre-meditated affair, requiring exquisite preparation. I felt as though I had been dropped into the middle of one continuous, outdoor fashion show, where people are most definitely walking to be seen.
There are far too many attractive women squeezed into one city—like a concentrated epidemic of beauty—far too much kissing in public, and an over-abundance of delicious wines and cheeses—the French may be on to something here. The motorists drive and park curiously, far more peculiarly than their counterparts in New Jersey. I didn’t think it could be possible, but I’m afraid it is true.
I still don’t understand why any woman would pay $500 for a Louis Vuitton handbag or $300 for a microscopic-sized purse that won’t even hold a pair of magnifying glasses. I may understand, however, why any woman would feel obliged to buy a new pair of shoes, even if she didn’t need them. (Come to think of it, when did “need” become a criterion?) There is a well-appointed shoe store about every ten steps, or so it seems, each with a dazzling array of fashionable styles and colors featured in the window. The pressure is enormous!
Paris is also home to the best-dressed and best-groomed salespeople in the universe. It’s far more entertaining to look at them than at the over-priced merchandise. I’m guessing that the salespeople in the stores on the Champs-Elysees outnumber the shoppers 2 to 1—and there are a lot of shoppers!
As for the World Cup, I hope former President Clinton is successful in his advocacy to bring the tournament back to the States in 2018 or 2022. I do have one piece of advice, however, for the US World Cup organizing committee. Please don’t schedule any games in Florida in June. My son, who was ten years old at the time, and I drove from Atlanta to Orlando to see Belgium play Morocco in the Citrus Bowl on June 19th, 1994, when the U.S. hosted the tournament.
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The air temperature was about 98, it was about 110 on the “pitch,” as the Brits would say, and 120 in our section of aluminum bleachers! The North Africans ran the Belgians crazy all day but could not overcome an early goal and lost 1-0. Partly out of sympathy for the Belgians, and partly to stave off my and my son’s own dehydration, I spent about $200 on drinks alone that day! Once again, I should have listened to my wife and followed her lead: she and our younger son spent the day at Sea World.
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Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Mightier Than The Sword
If I hadn’t had first-hand experience using this implement from time to time during the last twenty years, I might not have believed what I read in an article in the April 21 edition of the Washington Post. I can unequivocally confirm, however, the essential facts of that story.
It really does write upside down.
I’ve written with it while lying on my back in bed, under a mosquito net, by the flickering light of a Chinese candle, after the oil lamp ran dry in many an African town that are still waiting for electricity’s arrival.
It really is dependable.
I’ve used it in the Central African rainforest, under a blazing East African sun, and even in the middle of a Saharan dust storm that blew through a West African village in which I was working.
It really is versatile.
Even though it costs less than 60 cents to manufacture, I never hesitated tucking one into the breast pocket of my dress shirt in combination with a Jerry Garcia or Vineyard Vines tie. Not once was I ever ticketed by the GQ fashion police.
Nevertheless, there was quite a bit of information about this unassuming five-inch government-issue item in the article that surprised and amazed me. Apparently, it can stand toe to toe with the specifications (16 pages!) of the best federal government procurements.
“The ink cartridge shall be capable of producing, under 125 grams of pressure, a line not less than 5,000 feet long.”
Wow! That’s about 16 football fields!
“Blobs shall not average more than 15 per 1,000 feet of writing, with a maximum of 25for any 1,000 foot increment.”
Where do they teach this kind of technical writing? I would love to meet the official “blob” testing team. “Good afternoon, Mr. Naimoli, I’m the Main Blobster, and these are my assistants, Mr. Blobble Head and Just Call Me Blob. By the way, we happen to be blobbers who blog. We’re blobber-bloggers.”
“Writing shall not be completely removed after two applications of chemical bleach.”
Say what? This product should carry a consumer warning, like the kind on cigarette packs: “Caution! Wear with expensive dress shirts and ties at your own risk!”
“It must be able to write continuously for a mile and in temperatures up to 160 degrees and down to 40 degrees below zero.”
I guess they had to come up with some exotic travel perks and sturdy walking shoes for the poor entry-level staff responsible for ensuring compliance with this spec.
What is this tungsten carbide-cobalt Superhero?
Move over, Ironman!
It’s a ballpoint pen, with the white-lettered words “Skilcraft U.S. Government” stamped on the plastic barrel.
According to the article, blind workers in Wisconsin and North Carolina assemble them as part of a 72-year old legislative mandate. Although production has declined precipitously during the last two decades, many federal agencies, particularly the military, are still procuring them.
Frankly, I had no idea so many people were still placing pen in hand and putting both to paper. By the look of some of the chicken scratch I’ve witnessed over the years—primarily among physicians—I’m surprised there isn’t better regulation of this activity.
I would enthusiastically endorse a public writing test, for example—kind of like a driver’s test. To obtain a writing license, the applicant would have to compose three legible sentences on a 3x5 index card that any random state trooper with cool shades or a Catholic nun could read in the dark, with only the aid of a flashlight and votive candle, respectively.
On second thought, it’s probably better that most humans have either abandoned the pen by now or by-passed it entirely in favor of the keyboard, the keypad, or both.
Curiously, as I was writing the draft of this posting—with a ballpoint pen that was not a Skilcraft, on a yellow legal pad, en route to Texas from Maryland via Southwest Airlines—the passenger next to me leaned over at one point and said, “I haven’t seen anyone write longhand in a long time.”
“In fact,” he continued, “I don’t think I or my kids could do it anymore,” as he tapped away on his laptop keyboard.
A quick glance around the cabin revealed he was in excellent company: the only people using pens were the stewards, who were taking beverage orders, and I.
“Well,” I said, “I am writing a little nonsense piece about writing and thought it only appropriate that I pen the first draft,” as I gradually released my grip on my rubber comfort, Pentel Hyper G07 (which, by the sound of it, should probably come with protective goggles, an insurance policy, and a permit to operate).
He smiled and nodded approvingly, and then added: “You know, Stephen King wrote a draft of one of his novels with a #2 lead pencil.” “I can’t remember which one,” he continued, “but you should ‘google’ it.”
‘Google’ it I did. It appears that King prefers to write many of his drafts in longhand, on a steno pad, with a #2, just as my traveling companion indicated.
Of course, forty years ago, I wasn’t allowed to use any kind of ballpoint pen, permit or no permit.
In St. Kevin’s parochial school in the 1960’s, the good Sisters of St. Joseph limited our writing options to the #2 pencil, a la Mr. King (whose novels, by the way, are only a tad bit scarier than life at St K’s back then); a fountain pen; or bloody knuckles (a great name for a heavy metal band, I might add!).
Think about Meryl Streep’s character in the movie “Doubt” and you get a fairly accurate picture of daily life, or should I say strife, as I experienced it in the
60’s.
Handwriting, or “penmanship,” as the nuns preferred to call it, was a very serious business at St. K’s. The wooden-ruler-packing Sisters, in those menacing long black habits, which hid hundreds of interior pouches perfect for squirreling away contraband confiscated from Catholic adolescents during what must have seemed to the nuns like interminable days in the asylum, saw to it that we mastered this fine-motor skill.
We were graded on penmanship. We actually had a handwriting class that met several times a week, during which we learned to write longhand according to the “Palmer Method” handbook.
Everything we needed to know about writing was contained in that thin handbook, which the school loaned to us. To protect the school’s property, we were obliged to cover this and every textbook. Most of my classmates’ parents bought plastic covers, available in different colors, each with pre-fab sleeves into which the front and back covers would slide effortlessly. It took all of 30 seconds to complete the job with these covers.
In contrast, my father insisted on covering Palmer’s primer and all my books with brown paper, which he cut from A+P grocery bags. He had a special knack for pulling the paper taught around the binding and back and front covers, without a single wrinkle, with the exception of the natural creases in the bags. He wrote the title of each book on the cover with a black magic marker.
It was time-consuming and an old-school routine, but all my books were original works of art! He was way ahead of his time with respect to saving the Earth.
As I remember it, good penmanship, according to Palmer, began and ended with good mechanics, chief among them resting the wrist flat on the paper, knuckles turned up. I always wondered whether the nuns had signed a pact with Palmer: “You position those knuckles; we’ll take care of the rest!”
We were taught to resist the temptation (oh there were so many we were taught to resist back then, it was difficult keeping straight what did and did not buy us a ticket on the express train to hell) to roll the wrist on its side. When you finish reading this, pick up a pen, if you can find one and remember how to use it, and observe how naturally the wrist rolls over.
The Palmer handbook provided a series of wrist-down exercises to foster proper technique and discipline. Of course, handwriting wasn’t the only discipline-inducing activity at the K, but that’s another story for another time.
I still remember all those repetitive “push and pull” strokes and “oval-making” exercises we used to practice with the wrist flat on the paper and the pen nestled between the thumb and fore-finger. Not an easy task!
The last time I remember practicing those exercises was in 1984, in an OBGYN’s office, in Durham, North Carolina. I’m fairly certain it wasn’t the kind of place the nuns envisioned us applying our skills when they first introduced us to Palmer.
I accompanied my wife to one of her first appointments with her doctor early in her first pregnancy. We were sitting in the examining room—well, I was sitting; she was reclining, resplendent in her white Gucci examination gown, on the paper-covered stainless steel table,staring at the ceiling above. Too bad I didn’t have a Skilcraft with me; she could have written, upside-down, her thoughts at that very moment!
In any case, I don’t remember why the OBGYN and I started talking about handwriting once he came into the room, but it turned out that he, too, had learned the Palmer method when he was young.
To prove it, he took out his pen and started doing “push and pulls” on the examining paper upon which his patient was reclining. Next to his push and pulls I demonstrated some of my best ovals. In turn, he repeated my ovals, and I his push and pulls. Once we got started, we couldn’t stop.
I’m sure we punctured quite a few holes in that thin paper, with all those repetitive motions with our dueling ballpoints. Once we finished, we stood there for a time admiring our work.
By this point, you can imagine how agitated the patient had become, her initial bemusement with our adolescent manipulations now nothing more than a distant memory. I suspect she would have kicked us both, if she could have.
Needless to say, that was the last time I set foot in an OBGYN office with my wife. To her credit, she did allow me to chew some gum—an infraction that trumped poor handwriting at St. K’s, and usually resulted in an after-school supervised session of blackboard eraser clapping—while I watched her give birth to the first of our two sons, neither of which, I might add, have any chance whatsoever of obtaining a handwriting license.
In the birthing room that night in February twenty-six years ago, as I chewed away without fear, it was my wife, the OBGYN and his assistant who impressed everyone with their own version of pushing and pulling.
Although I enjoy cursive writing—I am fairly certain the nuns never called it that—I don’t have much occasion to use it. Almost all my correspondence is via email or text messaging these days.
I type the annual holiday letter, but do address, by hand, all the envelopes. It is an end-of-year tradition to which I always look forward.
My daughter-in-law asked me to write her “Save the Date” wedding announcements and envelopes two years ago, a task I accepted with great honor and pleasure. Of course, some people thought it was my wife’s handiwork, but that didn’t bother me.
I also must confess—another exercise we practiced diligently at St. K’s—that I don’t adhere to all the Palmer method techniques when I write in longhand today. My penance: “Thank the nuns for your better-than-average penmanship!”
Thank you, Sisters of St. Joseph.
Soon I will have access again to those extraordinary Skilcraft ballpoints, thanks to a modest job transition. But I don’t want the Sisters or Stephen King to find out.
I might end up being forced to watch “The Shining” in a dark, musty cave reeking of sulpher and chalk dust with nothing more than a #2 to chew on.
It really does write upside down.
I’ve written with it while lying on my back in bed, under a mosquito net, by the flickering light of a Chinese candle, after the oil lamp ran dry in many an African town that are still waiting for electricity’s arrival.
It really is dependable.
I’ve used it in the Central African rainforest, under a blazing East African sun, and even in the middle of a Saharan dust storm that blew through a West African village in which I was working.
It really is versatile.
Even though it costs less than 60 cents to manufacture, I never hesitated tucking one into the breast pocket of my dress shirt in combination with a Jerry Garcia or Vineyard Vines tie. Not once was I ever ticketed by the GQ fashion police.
Nevertheless, there was quite a bit of information about this unassuming five-inch government-issue item in the article that surprised and amazed me. Apparently, it can stand toe to toe with the specifications (16 pages!) of the best federal government procurements.
“The ink cartridge shall be capable of producing, under 125 grams of pressure, a line not less than 5,000 feet long.”
Wow! That’s about 16 football fields!
“Blobs shall not average more than 15 per 1,000 feet of writing, with a maximum of 25for any 1,000 foot increment.”
Where do they teach this kind of technical writing? I would love to meet the official “blob” testing team. “Good afternoon, Mr. Naimoli, I’m the Main Blobster, and these are my assistants, Mr. Blobble Head and Just Call Me Blob. By the way, we happen to be blobbers who blog. We’re blobber-bloggers.”
“Writing shall not be completely removed after two applications of chemical bleach.”
Say what? This product should carry a consumer warning, like the kind on cigarette packs: “Caution! Wear with expensive dress shirts and ties at your own risk!”
“It must be able to write continuously for a mile and in temperatures up to 160 degrees and down to 40 degrees below zero.”
I guess they had to come up with some exotic travel perks and sturdy walking shoes for the poor entry-level staff responsible for ensuring compliance with this spec.
What is this tungsten carbide-cobalt Superhero?
Move over, Ironman!
It’s a ballpoint pen, with the white-lettered words “Skilcraft U.S. Government” stamped on the plastic barrel.
According to the article, blind workers in Wisconsin and North Carolina assemble them as part of a 72-year old legislative mandate. Although production has declined precipitously during the last two decades, many federal agencies, particularly the military, are still procuring them.
Frankly, I had no idea so many people were still placing pen in hand and putting both to paper. By the look of some of the chicken scratch I’ve witnessed over the years—primarily among physicians—I’m surprised there isn’t better regulation of this activity.
I would enthusiastically endorse a public writing test, for example—kind of like a driver’s test. To obtain a writing license, the applicant would have to compose three legible sentences on a 3x5 index card that any random state trooper with cool shades or a Catholic nun could read in the dark, with only the aid of a flashlight and votive candle, respectively.
On second thought, it’s probably better that most humans have either abandoned the pen by now or by-passed it entirely in favor of the keyboard, the keypad, or both.
Curiously, as I was writing the draft of this posting—with a ballpoint pen that was not a Skilcraft, on a yellow legal pad, en route to Texas from Maryland via Southwest Airlines—the passenger next to me leaned over at one point and said, “I haven’t seen anyone write longhand in a long time.”
“In fact,” he continued, “I don’t think I or my kids could do it anymore,” as he tapped away on his laptop keyboard.
A quick glance around the cabin revealed he was in excellent company: the only people using pens were the stewards, who were taking beverage orders, and I.
“Well,” I said, “I am writing a little nonsense piece about writing and thought it only appropriate that I pen the first draft,” as I gradually released my grip on my rubber comfort, Pentel Hyper G07 (which, by the sound of it, should probably come with protective goggles, an insurance policy, and a permit to operate).
He smiled and nodded approvingly, and then added: “You know, Stephen King wrote a draft of one of his novels with a #2 lead pencil.” “I can’t remember which one,” he continued, “but you should ‘google’ it.”
‘Google’ it I did. It appears that King prefers to write many of his drafts in longhand, on a steno pad, with a #2, just as my traveling companion indicated.
Of course, forty years ago, I wasn’t allowed to use any kind of ballpoint pen, permit or no permit.
In St. Kevin’s parochial school in the 1960’s, the good Sisters of St. Joseph limited our writing options to the #2 pencil, a la Mr. King (whose novels, by the way, are only a tad bit scarier than life at St K’s back then); a fountain pen; or bloody knuckles (a great name for a heavy metal band, I might add!).
Think about Meryl Streep’s character in the movie “Doubt” and you get a fairly accurate picture of daily life, or should I say strife, as I experienced it in the
60’s.
Handwriting, or “penmanship,” as the nuns preferred to call it, was a very serious business at St. K’s. The wooden-ruler-packing Sisters, in those menacing long black habits, which hid hundreds of interior pouches perfect for squirreling away contraband confiscated from Catholic adolescents during what must have seemed to the nuns like interminable days in the asylum, saw to it that we mastered this fine-motor skill.
We were graded on penmanship. We actually had a handwriting class that met several times a week, during which we learned to write longhand according to the “Palmer Method” handbook.
Everything we needed to know about writing was contained in that thin handbook, which the school loaned to us. To protect the school’s property, we were obliged to cover this and every textbook. Most of my classmates’ parents bought plastic covers, available in different colors, each with pre-fab sleeves into which the front and back covers would slide effortlessly. It took all of 30 seconds to complete the job with these covers.
In contrast, my father insisted on covering Palmer’s primer and all my books with brown paper, which he cut from A+P grocery bags. He had a special knack for pulling the paper taught around the binding and back and front covers, without a single wrinkle, with the exception of the natural creases in the bags. He wrote the title of each book on the cover with a black magic marker.
It was time-consuming and an old-school routine, but all my books were original works of art! He was way ahead of his time with respect to saving the Earth.
As I remember it, good penmanship, according to Palmer, began and ended with good mechanics, chief among them resting the wrist flat on the paper, knuckles turned up. I always wondered whether the nuns had signed a pact with Palmer: “You position those knuckles; we’ll take care of the rest!”
We were taught to resist the temptation (oh there were so many we were taught to resist back then, it was difficult keeping straight what did and did not buy us a ticket on the express train to hell) to roll the wrist on its side. When you finish reading this, pick up a pen, if you can find one and remember how to use it, and observe how naturally the wrist rolls over.
The Palmer handbook provided a series of wrist-down exercises to foster proper technique and discipline. Of course, handwriting wasn’t the only discipline-inducing activity at the K, but that’s another story for another time.
I still remember all those repetitive “push and pull” strokes and “oval-making” exercises we used to practice with the wrist flat on the paper and the pen nestled between the thumb and fore-finger. Not an easy task!
The last time I remember practicing those exercises was in 1984, in an OBGYN’s office, in Durham, North Carolina. I’m fairly certain it wasn’t the kind of place the nuns envisioned us applying our skills when they first introduced us to Palmer.
I accompanied my wife to one of her first appointments with her doctor early in her first pregnancy. We were sitting in the examining room—well, I was sitting; she was reclining, resplendent in her white Gucci examination gown, on the paper-covered stainless steel table,staring at the ceiling above. Too bad I didn’t have a Skilcraft with me; she could have written, upside-down, her thoughts at that very moment!
In any case, I don’t remember why the OBGYN and I started talking about handwriting once he came into the room, but it turned out that he, too, had learned the Palmer method when he was young.
To prove it, he took out his pen and started doing “push and pulls” on the examining paper upon which his patient was reclining. Next to his push and pulls I demonstrated some of my best ovals. In turn, he repeated my ovals, and I his push and pulls. Once we got started, we couldn’t stop.
I’m sure we punctured quite a few holes in that thin paper, with all those repetitive motions with our dueling ballpoints. Once we finished, we stood there for a time admiring our work.
By this point, you can imagine how agitated the patient had become, her initial bemusement with our adolescent manipulations now nothing more than a distant memory. I suspect she would have kicked us both, if she could have.
Needless to say, that was the last time I set foot in an OBGYN office with my wife. To her credit, she did allow me to chew some gum—an infraction that trumped poor handwriting at St. K’s, and usually resulted in an after-school supervised session of blackboard eraser clapping—while I watched her give birth to the first of our two sons, neither of which, I might add, have any chance whatsoever of obtaining a handwriting license.
In the birthing room that night in February twenty-six years ago, as I chewed away without fear, it was my wife, the OBGYN and his assistant who impressed everyone with their own version of pushing and pulling.
Although I enjoy cursive writing—I am fairly certain the nuns never called it that—I don’t have much occasion to use it. Almost all my correspondence is via email or text messaging these days.
I type the annual holiday letter, but do address, by hand, all the envelopes. It is an end-of-year tradition to which I always look forward.
My daughter-in-law asked me to write her “Save the Date” wedding announcements and envelopes two years ago, a task I accepted with great honor and pleasure. Of course, some people thought it was my wife’s handiwork, but that didn’t bother me.
I also must confess—another exercise we practiced diligently at St. K’s—that I don’t adhere to all the Palmer method techniques when I write in longhand today. My penance: “Thank the nuns for your better-than-average penmanship!”
Thank you, Sisters of St. Joseph.
Soon I will have access again to those extraordinary Skilcraft ballpoints, thanks to a modest job transition. But I don’t want the Sisters or Stephen King to find out.
I might end up being forced to watch “The Shining” in a dark, musty cave reeking of sulpher and chalk dust with nothing more than a #2 to chew on.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Hope Springs Eternal
For a sport in which almost every dimension of individual and team performance is quantified and summarized, the game I’m watching today holds no statistical significance whatsoever.
For a sport that fields nine players at a time, usually with the highest-paid stars in the lineup, it is possible that none of them will play in today’s game; at best, some of them might play a third of it.
For a sport in which the home team usually thrives on playing in its own ballpark, the game I’m watching today is being played 1,000 miles away from the home team’s ballpark.
Why, then, would 7,000 people pay between $12 and $33 to watch the Philadelphia Phillies play the Houston Astros in the middle of a weekday afternoon in March in Gulf Coast Florida?
Even after seven Springs of watching Grapefruit League games in eight Sunshine State stadiums—like today’s game at Bright House Field in Clearwater—I can’t presume to speak for the other 6,999 spectators in the stands, but I am reasonably sure that at least some of them are here today for the same reasons as I.
The majority of folks who attend these games generally fall into three categories. The first group is made up of the retirees who have lived most of their lives outside of Florida but now call the state home year-round. The second group consists of “Snowbirds”: retirees who pass three or four winter months in Florida but live elsewhere the rest of the year. The last group, of which I am a member, is composed of empty-nesters, young couples, and families on vacation for a week or two.
As generationally different as we may be, we all have one thing in common: we yearn to escape the East Coast and Mid-western snowdrifts, the back-breaking shoveling, the plows that dump the snow just cleared from your driveway back in your driveway, the numbing cold, and those damn ice dams in the gutters.
This place, this stadium, is where we meet to put out of our minds those not-so-distant, unpleasant memories to make room for the distant, more pleasing ones we associate with this splendid game of Spring and Summer.
At game time today—precisely 1:05 pm—the temperature in Clearwater is only about ten degrees warmer than it is in Philadelphia. Everyone in the stadium knows this thanks to a first-inning ritual—a 30-second weather broadcast on the jumbo screen in left field—which features a local meteorologist who announces, with a broad smile, the current temps in Clearwater and Philly.
In years past I have witnessed dramatic differences—from between 20 to 40 degrees. On those occasions, I can attest that the beneficiary of the loudest cheers of the day is not a baseball player but rather that forecaster with the shining white teeth!
Temperatures in the 70s, warm gulf breezes, the smell of sunscreen mixed with the aromas of cheesesteaks and brat fresh off the barbi, seagulls circling and sometime alighting in centerfield, even those distracting ballgirls from Hooters down the right and left field foul lines make it easy to forget about those back-to-back killer snowstorms in Maryland in February.
The second reason I love to come here is for the access. In no major league stadium can a fan get as close to so many players, managers and coaches (most of whom are former players) as he or she can in a Grapefruit League park. All the parks are autograph- and photograph-friendly, and the players and coaching staff expect and seem to genuinely enjoy the interaction with the fans.
While taking some pictures prior to the start of the game, at one point I had to step aside for two retirees who were making their way down the stairs and onto the field. Turns out they were on their way to meet with the Phillies manager. I was close enough to take some pictures of all of them.
When I returned to my seat before the first pitch, I had occasion to talk to one of the guys, who happened to be wearing one of those tropical fish shirts that even AARP members can only get away with in Florida. He was sitting in the seat in front of me and when I asked him how he managed that slick move, he explained that he and his buddy had gone to school with the manager, but that they hadn’t seen him for over 50 years! Despite the passage of time, the Phillies manager recognized them and invited them down to reminisce while he autographed some baseballs for them before the game. Now that’s access!
Unfortunately, I’m not able to send Trop Fish Shirt the nice digital photograph I took of him and his school chums. He may be the owner of a cool knit, but he has no email!
Young fans sitting in the first ten rows always have a reasonable chance of walking away with a souvenir baseball every half inning, as players routinely toss them to the kids in the crowd on their way to the dugout.
In the third inning of today’s game, an "adult" stepped in front of a kid and intercepted one of the balls—the kind of signature move that has earned the City of Brotherly Love sports fans a somewhat tainted reputation. The player who tossed it and followed its flight into the hands of this villain was on the verge of going ballistic when the “adult,” taking note of the reaction, quickly came to his senses and turned the ball over to the child, thereby avoiding a potentially ugly scene on this lovely day at the park.
For kids of every age, there’s a certain thrill associated with being so close to the playing field, which all these stadiums afford. Today at Bright House the grass is intensely green and appears to have just returned from its regularly scheduled appointment at the Aveda salon. The infield dirt is Crayola chocolate brown, lightly dampened about 20 minutes before game time, with a result so perfectly smooth and serene it’s almost a shame anyone has to run on it. The grounds crew tends to the infield with enough care and precision to make even the gardeners at Versailles blush.
The game itself is accessible to the fans. Parents can take their kids without having to dip into the college tuition savings account. Women can get into and out of the restroom within five minutes! Concessions are plentiful and the lines are manageable. If you prefer, you can let the food and drink come to you.
Although this arrangement is no different from what one finds in the major league parks, the vendors seem more casual, even entertaining, perhaps because they don’t have to walk so far lugging around those back-breaking containers filled with beer, soft drinks and peanuts. It might also be that they have fewer badly behaved customers to contend with, although beer went on sale here this morning at 11:00 am.
For example, the middle-aged, pony-tailed “Beer Man” works the crowd hard, but takes time to chat and joke with the fans. During “last call,” he pleads with the crowd to buy one more beer so he can get a haircut and buy a new pair of shoes for his aching feet.
“Lemonade Man” has a standard mantra, which is amusing in the first inning, annoying by the fourth, but then as familiar by the seventh-inning stretch as the crack of a bat: “Dehydration, just say no. Lemonade, just say yo.” Cos-tan-za!
Even though “Italian Ice Man” is hawking three different colors—red, white and blue—today there are no takers. A couple of minutes later, he reappears in a yellow lemonade shirt carrying a rack of tall cups with those built-in straws. Unlike his colleague, however, he doesn’t have a catchy tune, and just can’t move his product.
Finally, for an avid Phillies fan such as I who hasn’t lived in the Philadelphia area since 1976, last attended a home game when the club played at Veterans Stadium, and only catches the Phils on TV or when they come to DC to play the Nationals, there is something comforting and reassuring about being surrounded by a community of like-minded souls, all wearing old- and new-school red caps and shirts!
I had to chuckle, however, at a few of those $95 replica jerseys with “C. Lee” on the back, a star from last year’s team who was traded during the winter to Seattle.
For a few blissful hours, I am in my comfort zone; I feel connected to my extended family, and to all those memories, good and bad, dating from 1960, when I first became assimilated into the Pinstripe Collective. Between 1960 and 2009, the 49 years I’ve been following the Phillies, they have played 7,952 regular season games, winning 3,936 of these, or 49.5%. Not that I’m keeping score!
This is also a very aberrant Philly crowd. Everyone is relaxed. There are smiles all around. Only gulls, no boo birds are in attendance. A lot of people are kicking back and enjoying themselves, the weather, and the game. Of course, today’s game has no effect on the pennant race. This is not to say that the fans are not paying attention or holding the players accountable—far from it.
For example, a shortstop fighting for a roster spot as a utility infielder made two fielding errors on easy plays in consecutive innings. In the next inning, upon fielding the ball cleanly and throwing out the runner, he was serenaded with a Bronx cheer. When he tipped his hat to the crowd, everyone laughed. If that were to happen in July, the shortstop wouldn’t dare make such a gesture, and it might not be boos alone reigning down on his head.
One of my greatest pleasures is to talk up the people sitting in my section, just to find out what brings them here and where they come from. I especially like the retirees, many of whom have Spring Training season tickets and have a very long and intimate history with and love of the Phillies organization. They are not bashful, however, about expressing their discomfort with the way the game is played today or with the amount of money the players “earn.” Some of them actually care who wins today’s game.
As I watch the 9th inning unfold, during which the Phillies eventually score a run to break a tie and win the game on a clutch pinch-hit single, my mind begins to wander.
I wonder how many of the key players will remain healthy throughout the 162-game season and thereby keep alive the promise of another successful campaign.
I wonder what Gail and I will do with the rest of our day. Hit the gulf beaches? Play a round of miniature golf? Dine on the beach? Stop at the Salvador Dali museum on the way home? I forget momentarily that we’re empty-nesters—we can do whatever we want! Maybe we’ll do everything.
And what about next year? I’m hoping I can talk Gail into two Spring trips: one back here, and the other to Arizona. I’ve never seen a Cactus League game!
That just doesn’t seem right.
For a sport that fields nine players at a time, usually with the highest-paid stars in the lineup, it is possible that none of them will play in today’s game; at best, some of them might play a third of it.
For a sport in which the home team usually thrives on playing in its own ballpark, the game I’m watching today is being played 1,000 miles away from the home team’s ballpark.
Why, then, would 7,000 people pay between $12 and $33 to watch the Philadelphia Phillies play the Houston Astros in the middle of a weekday afternoon in March in Gulf Coast Florida?
Even after seven Springs of watching Grapefruit League games in eight Sunshine State stadiums—like today’s game at Bright House Field in Clearwater—I can’t presume to speak for the other 6,999 spectators in the stands, but I am reasonably sure that at least some of them are here today for the same reasons as I.
The majority of folks who attend these games generally fall into three categories. The first group is made up of the retirees who have lived most of their lives outside of Florida but now call the state home year-round. The second group consists of “Snowbirds”: retirees who pass three or four winter months in Florida but live elsewhere the rest of the year. The last group, of which I am a member, is composed of empty-nesters, young couples, and families on vacation for a week or two.
As generationally different as we may be, we all have one thing in common: we yearn to escape the East Coast and Mid-western snowdrifts, the back-breaking shoveling, the plows that dump the snow just cleared from your driveway back in your driveway, the numbing cold, and those damn ice dams in the gutters.
This place, this stadium, is where we meet to put out of our minds those not-so-distant, unpleasant memories to make room for the distant, more pleasing ones we associate with this splendid game of Spring and Summer.
At game time today—precisely 1:05 pm—the temperature in Clearwater is only about ten degrees warmer than it is in Philadelphia. Everyone in the stadium knows this thanks to a first-inning ritual—a 30-second weather broadcast on the jumbo screen in left field—which features a local meteorologist who announces, with a broad smile, the current temps in Clearwater and Philly.
In years past I have witnessed dramatic differences—from between 20 to 40 degrees. On those occasions, I can attest that the beneficiary of the loudest cheers of the day is not a baseball player but rather that forecaster with the shining white teeth!
Temperatures in the 70s, warm gulf breezes, the smell of sunscreen mixed with the aromas of cheesesteaks and brat fresh off the barbi, seagulls circling and sometime alighting in centerfield, even those distracting ballgirls from Hooters down the right and left field foul lines make it easy to forget about those back-to-back killer snowstorms in Maryland in February.
The second reason I love to come here is for the access. In no major league stadium can a fan get as close to so many players, managers and coaches (most of whom are former players) as he or she can in a Grapefruit League park. All the parks are autograph- and photograph-friendly, and the players and coaching staff expect and seem to genuinely enjoy the interaction with the fans.
While taking some pictures prior to the start of the game, at one point I had to step aside for two retirees who were making their way down the stairs and onto the field. Turns out they were on their way to meet with the Phillies manager. I was close enough to take some pictures of all of them.
When I returned to my seat before the first pitch, I had occasion to talk to one of the guys, who happened to be wearing one of those tropical fish shirts that even AARP members can only get away with in Florida. He was sitting in the seat in front of me and when I asked him how he managed that slick move, he explained that he and his buddy had gone to school with the manager, but that they hadn’t seen him for over 50 years! Despite the passage of time, the Phillies manager recognized them and invited them down to reminisce while he autographed some baseballs for them before the game. Now that’s access!
Unfortunately, I’m not able to send Trop Fish Shirt the nice digital photograph I took of him and his school chums. He may be the owner of a cool knit, but he has no email!
Young fans sitting in the first ten rows always have a reasonable chance of walking away with a souvenir baseball every half inning, as players routinely toss them to the kids in the crowd on their way to the dugout.
In the third inning of today’s game, an "adult" stepped in front of a kid and intercepted one of the balls—the kind of signature move that has earned the City of Brotherly Love sports fans a somewhat tainted reputation. The player who tossed it and followed its flight into the hands of this villain was on the verge of going ballistic when the “adult,” taking note of the reaction, quickly came to his senses and turned the ball over to the child, thereby avoiding a potentially ugly scene on this lovely day at the park.
For kids of every age, there’s a certain thrill associated with being so close to the playing field, which all these stadiums afford. Today at Bright House the grass is intensely green and appears to have just returned from its regularly scheduled appointment at the Aveda salon. The infield dirt is Crayola chocolate brown, lightly dampened about 20 minutes before game time, with a result so perfectly smooth and serene it’s almost a shame anyone has to run on it. The grounds crew tends to the infield with enough care and precision to make even the gardeners at Versailles blush.
The game itself is accessible to the fans. Parents can take their kids without having to dip into the college tuition savings account. Women can get into and out of the restroom within five minutes! Concessions are plentiful and the lines are manageable. If you prefer, you can let the food and drink come to you.
Although this arrangement is no different from what one finds in the major league parks, the vendors seem more casual, even entertaining, perhaps because they don’t have to walk so far lugging around those back-breaking containers filled with beer, soft drinks and peanuts. It might also be that they have fewer badly behaved customers to contend with, although beer went on sale here this morning at 11:00 am.
For example, the middle-aged, pony-tailed “Beer Man” works the crowd hard, but takes time to chat and joke with the fans. During “last call,” he pleads with the crowd to buy one more beer so he can get a haircut and buy a new pair of shoes for his aching feet.
“Lemonade Man” has a standard mantra, which is amusing in the first inning, annoying by the fourth, but then as familiar by the seventh-inning stretch as the crack of a bat: “Dehydration, just say no. Lemonade, just say yo.” Cos-tan-za!
Even though “Italian Ice Man” is hawking three different colors—red, white and blue—today there are no takers. A couple of minutes later, he reappears in a yellow lemonade shirt carrying a rack of tall cups with those built-in straws. Unlike his colleague, however, he doesn’t have a catchy tune, and just can’t move his product.
Finally, for an avid Phillies fan such as I who hasn’t lived in the Philadelphia area since 1976, last attended a home game when the club played at Veterans Stadium, and only catches the Phils on TV or when they come to DC to play the Nationals, there is something comforting and reassuring about being surrounded by a community of like-minded souls, all wearing old- and new-school red caps and shirts!
I had to chuckle, however, at a few of those $95 replica jerseys with “C. Lee” on the back, a star from last year’s team who was traded during the winter to Seattle.
For a few blissful hours, I am in my comfort zone; I feel connected to my extended family, and to all those memories, good and bad, dating from 1960, when I first became assimilated into the Pinstripe Collective. Between 1960 and 2009, the 49 years I’ve been following the Phillies, they have played 7,952 regular season games, winning 3,936 of these, or 49.5%. Not that I’m keeping score!
This is also a very aberrant Philly crowd. Everyone is relaxed. There are smiles all around. Only gulls, no boo birds are in attendance. A lot of people are kicking back and enjoying themselves, the weather, and the game. Of course, today’s game has no effect on the pennant race. This is not to say that the fans are not paying attention or holding the players accountable—far from it.
For example, a shortstop fighting for a roster spot as a utility infielder made two fielding errors on easy plays in consecutive innings. In the next inning, upon fielding the ball cleanly and throwing out the runner, he was serenaded with a Bronx cheer. When he tipped his hat to the crowd, everyone laughed. If that were to happen in July, the shortstop wouldn’t dare make such a gesture, and it might not be boos alone reigning down on his head.
One of my greatest pleasures is to talk up the people sitting in my section, just to find out what brings them here and where they come from. I especially like the retirees, many of whom have Spring Training season tickets and have a very long and intimate history with and love of the Phillies organization. They are not bashful, however, about expressing their discomfort with the way the game is played today or with the amount of money the players “earn.” Some of them actually care who wins today’s game.
As I watch the 9th inning unfold, during which the Phillies eventually score a run to break a tie and win the game on a clutch pinch-hit single, my mind begins to wander.
I wonder how many of the key players will remain healthy throughout the 162-game season and thereby keep alive the promise of another successful campaign.
I wonder what Gail and I will do with the rest of our day. Hit the gulf beaches? Play a round of miniature golf? Dine on the beach? Stop at the Salvador Dali museum on the way home? I forget momentarily that we’re empty-nesters—we can do whatever we want! Maybe we’ll do everything.
And what about next year? I’m hoping I can talk Gail into two Spring trips: one back here, and the other to Arizona. I’ve never seen a Cactus League game!
That just doesn’t seem right.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
CHUNK!
“First time out?” he asked with a chuckle, soon to be followed by a broad grin that traveled from the west coast of his left ear to the east coast of his right lobe as he passed in front of me and headed down the path to the parking lot, his golf bag slung over his shoulder.
“How did you guess?” I hollered after him, as I painstakingly peeled the plastic off each of my twelve Wilson club heads while standing on the steps of the pro shop.
It was bad enough that it had taken me such a long time to get to a golf course; yet here I was, five minutes before my first lesson, and I’m fumbling around with the factory-sealed packaging. This can’t be the way Nicklaus started, I thought.
Worse yet, as I stood there in the freezing cold on this windy Friday afternoon in February, dressed more like a spectator who had just returned from the bobsledding venue in Vancouver than an aspiring golfer, I could already hear the guys at Easy J’s D.C. lounge rolling with laughter as their buddy regaled them with alcohol-embellished tales of "Rube the Left-Handed Rookie."
“Bartender,” I could imagine my smiling friend calling out later this afternoon, “Another round for my friends so we can toast the next Phil Mickelson.”
When I decided to give up running and men’s basketball because of multiple ankle surgeries several years ago, I thought of taking up golf. But instead I caught the cycling bug, which I’ve not been able to shake. It has consumed all of my free time. When I’m not riding outside, I’m riding inside.
But then last summer, on the 15th of July, my son, an ex-college baseball player turned golfer sent me a set of left-handed starter clubs for my 55th birthday. When I called him on his mobile to thank him, he said, “Take some lessons, Dad. It’s something we can do together for the rest of our lives.”
With the anticipation of a bright future of considerable father-son bonding fresh in my mind, I introduced myself to my instructor, and then asked him straightaway if 55 wasn’t too late to be learning how to play this game.
“Not at all,” he said. “This is a game you can play for the rest of your life.”
With two lessons under my belt now, I’m convinced that he left out an important adverb that first day, a word he should have inserted immediately after the word play: that would be “poorly.” A few initial impressions that have led me to this preliminary conclusion follow.
First, there seems to be way more geometry and physics involved than I am capable of mastering.
There is a lot of talk about straight lines, body parts forming triangles, and feet and shoulder squaring. Torque is key, of course. There is even an analogy to a lever and pully system, and something about pulling strings. My instructor fails to understand, however, that I barely passed high school geometry, and that I opted for psychology over physics.
I’ve never been a particularly good visual thinker. My spouse and sons can put things together without looking at the instructions; even with a video, simple drawings that any fourth-grader could understand, and user-friendly Allen wrenches, I can’t assemble an IKEA shoe rack.
Second, the ball is disturbingly small, exacting, and seems to have a mind of its own.
Any ball small enough that can be concealed in a player’s pocket shouldn’t be allowed on the field of play, in my opinion. It’s not even big enough for a professional to autograph, for goodness sake.
Basketballs, baseballs, softballs, footballs—in my book they are all o.k. You can’t hide them from other players or the referees, and you can get everybody on the team, from the office, or in the fraternity to sign one!
Weighing in at 1.62 ounces (45.93 grams) with a diameter of 1.68 inches (42.67 mm) the golf ball just sits there on the ground challenging me—a kinetic, heat producing 180-pound human—to simply hit it. Advantage: golf ball.
That lifeless, little white orb obliges me to think about six things when addressing it, twelve things during the backswing, and then twenty-four more on contact and follow-through. Any pre-conceived notion that I had about golf being a simple game of “Seeing the ball and hitting it” evaporated within the first fifteen minutes of the first lesson. This little mass of dimples (anywhere between 250 and 450 of them) shouldn’t be able to exercise that kind of power over any person, male or female.
After finishing my second lesson and wishing my instructor a nice weekend, I stayed at the driving range and hit a bucket of 100 of these wicked spheres with my 7 iron. Approximately nine of them flew straight (and I’m fairly certain that I am exaggerating, by a large measure).
Finally, I fear this game may be more of an art than a science, despite the money I’m plunking down for lessons from a pro.
“Hey, Lefty!” I heard from over my shoulder while I was bending over to place another handful of balls on the mat.
I looked up to discover I had been joined in my cage by another soul who just couldn’t wait until Spring to get started. He didn’t look like much of a golfer, and he certainly wasn’t dressing the part. He was wearing big clunky work boots—the kind construction guys wear to the site each day.
“While I was standing out there on the path, I heard the way you were making contact,” he said. “You’re hitting the mat before the ball on too many shots. You’re chunking it, Lefty! Move the ball back. It’s is too far forward,” he opined.
Of course, my instructor had just finished telling me to move the ball UP because I had it too far back.
“You have to find your own comfort zone, man,” he continued. “Don’t let these guys try to make you into the next Tiger Woods. Just find what works for you and whack that sucker.”
“Thanks for your advice,” I said, turning my head ever so slightly to prevent him from seeing my eyeballs rolling around in my head. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
As I was reviewing the half-dozen things I needed to do when addressing the ball, my train of thought was interrupted by another “Hey, Lefty!”
“Another thing—you’re bending over the ball too far,” he offered. “Try to stand up more, pull your head back, but keep your head in when you hit it. You don’t need to look up. I’ll tell you whether it was a good shot.”
This unsolicited torrent of advice continued for another fifteen minutes or so, until he mercifully moved to the tee in the next cage.
After “whacking” a couple more balls, I hear from the other side of the wall: “Hey, Lefty, sounds to me like your ball is drifting forward again. Move it back. You’ll be o.k. Find your spot!”
After sending each of my last five balls slicing down the fairway, I packed my things, and paused to watch my “coach” hit a few.
Wouldn’t you know it, he hit every ball a ton, and every one of them was straight as an arrow.
He was really enjoying himself.
Go figure.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
COZY SANCTUARY
My wife consumes more books in a week than Red Sox fans knock back over-priced cups of beer in a season at Fenway.
During the last two weeks alone, she read La’s Orchestra Saves the World, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Olive Kitteridge, and Three Cups of Tea—all while on a rather intense business trip to Uganda! All four have been sitting on my bedside table since the holidays, but I’ve managed to read only one!
Being in a book club certainly helps her keep her production numbers up—she’s been in three clubs off and on during the last thirteen years here in the DC area.
She’s an unabashed, card-carrying library patron and comes from a long line of librarians: her mother was a librarian, her sister is a librarian, and for two years she herself cataloged Spanish and Portuguese publications at the UNC-Chapel Hill Graduate Library.
If I can’t find her in the stacks of the local public library, it’s a sure bet I can track her down at Barnes and Noble, sometimes running into her while she’s standing in line with her selections and her cherished Discount Membership Card, often reading a magazine while she waits.
In a word, she’s a page-turner who loves a tome with a spine, and has no plans to make the jump from papyrus to E-Book. Speaking of loyalty, she also has her favorites: Kingsolver, McCall Smith, Tolkein, Asimov, Christie, LeGuin, Francis, Conan Doyle, and Rowling—she’s read everything they’ve written.
When I asked her recently about her earliest memories of reading, she told me that comic books and comic strips were among her first loves. When she was young, her mother bought her an Archie, a Superman, or an Aqua Man (not to be confused with the Aqua Velva Man) once a week at Tom’s Grocery in Fitchburg, MA—notwithstanding the contemptuous looks from her mother’s friends, who were convinced that these rags would impede her intellectual development.
With the exception of a brief period of motherhood when she introduced the X-Men to our sons, she put away the comics a long time ago. The comic strips, however, have remained a life-long habit. First thing Sunday morning, she has black tea at the kitchen table with Zits, Doonsebury, Prince Valiant, Hagar the Horrible, Dennis the Menace, Garfield, and the incomparable characters from Peanuts.
As serendipity would have it, in 2005 she had the opportunity to meet all her favorite Charles Schulz characters, up-close and personal, when our younger son was cast as Linus in his high school production of the Broadway Musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Snoopy, “Chuck,” Lucy, Sally, Linus, Shroeder, Peppermint Patty, Pig Pen, and the Little Girl with the Red Hair—they were all up there on the big stage for several performances.
We still laugh whenever we recall Linus’s ill-fated effort to convince his friends, and himself, that he could live without his beloved blanket in the number “My Blanket and Me:”
It’s a cozy sanctuary
But it’s far from necessary
Cause I’m just as self-reliant as before
As a simple demonstration
Of my independent station
I will go and leave my blanket on the floor
Yes I’ll walk away and leave it
Though I know you won’t believe it
I’ll just walk away and leave it on the floor
Yes, I’ll walk
Away
And
Leave
It
On
The…
AAARRRRGGGHHH!
[He runs back to gather the blanket and while clutching it to his chest, says to the blanket:]
Don’t ever let me do that again!
So I had to chuckle when not long after the final curtain had been drawn on the show she told me she was joining the “Linus Project” at her office. The first image that came to mind was that of a collection of blanket-dependent cerebral types, spreading then sitting upon their special keepsakes at lunch time, to think about and reflect deeply upon the nature of the world as it is and could be—a kind of a “quiet time” for adults.
Following a strategically placed poke with her crochet hook, she explained that the Project is a national network of people who knit or crochet blankets for children in crisis. In 2009 alone, colleagues, friends and family from my wife’s office donated 458 blankets to hospitals, shelters for battered women and children, and other agencies in the greater Washington metropolitan area and North Carolina. The group is planning a shipment of blankets to Haiti next month. Since 2005, my wife has averaged about four blankets a year.
Although I kid her about how she will have plenty of time later in life to make blankets in her front-porch rocker while sitting there in her fashionable housecoat and hairnet, the response from the service professionals who receive and distribute the blankets is no joke.
Sometimes their letters of thanks can produce goose bumps on even the thickest-skinned.
"It is a pleasure to thank you again…for the beautiful blankets and quilts that we have received from you via the Project Linus…Your kindness to the patients we serve is tremendously appreciated. We will be giving them to mothers who have already or will soon be giving birth as well as to the many children who are admitted as patients to the Hospital. Your outreach to our families helps us to send the message of caring that is so important. It is through the efforts that you have taken that the hearts of the staff and the people we serve are filled. Again, thank you for your commitment, your talent and your generosity in sharing yourself with us."
****
"…I thank you so very much for the fifteen blankets that you donated. These “hold-able hugs” will be distributed to hospitalized or traumatized children in local hospitals or shelters so that they may be available for holiday admissions. It will make a hospital stay over the holidays easier for children who would much rather be at home. The colors of your blankets are always so child-friendly…They will bring both physical and emotional warmth and comfort to the children who receive them. They will bring comfort to their parents as well, who are often more frightened than the children…It is only through donations from caring people like you that Project Linus can continue to reach so many children…"
****
In the months ahead I am confident my wife will continue to burn through those paperbacks at a high rate. How she can find more time to increase her blanket production numbers, however, is another question. Yesterday she muttered something about a “Husband Project.”
Oh, good grief!
During the last two weeks alone, she read La’s Orchestra Saves the World, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Olive Kitteridge, and Three Cups of Tea—all while on a rather intense business trip to Uganda! All four have been sitting on my bedside table since the holidays, but I’ve managed to read only one!
Being in a book club certainly helps her keep her production numbers up—she’s been in three clubs off and on during the last thirteen years here in the DC area.
She’s an unabashed, card-carrying library patron and comes from a long line of librarians: her mother was a librarian, her sister is a librarian, and for two years she herself cataloged Spanish and Portuguese publications at the UNC-Chapel Hill Graduate Library.
If I can’t find her in the stacks of the local public library, it’s a sure bet I can track her down at Barnes and Noble, sometimes running into her while she’s standing in line with her selections and her cherished Discount Membership Card, often reading a magazine while she waits.
In a word, she’s a page-turner who loves a tome with a spine, and has no plans to make the jump from papyrus to E-Book. Speaking of loyalty, she also has her favorites: Kingsolver, McCall Smith, Tolkein, Asimov, Christie, LeGuin, Francis, Conan Doyle, and Rowling—she’s read everything they’ve written.
When I asked her recently about her earliest memories of reading, she told me that comic books and comic strips were among her first loves. When she was young, her mother bought her an Archie, a Superman, or an Aqua Man (not to be confused with the Aqua Velva Man) once a week at Tom’s Grocery in Fitchburg, MA—notwithstanding the contemptuous looks from her mother’s friends, who were convinced that these rags would impede her intellectual development.
With the exception of a brief period of motherhood when she introduced the X-Men to our sons, she put away the comics a long time ago. The comic strips, however, have remained a life-long habit. First thing Sunday morning, she has black tea at the kitchen table with Zits, Doonsebury, Prince Valiant, Hagar the Horrible, Dennis the Menace, Garfield, and the incomparable characters from Peanuts.
As serendipity would have it, in 2005 she had the opportunity to meet all her favorite Charles Schulz characters, up-close and personal, when our younger son was cast as Linus in his high school production of the Broadway Musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Snoopy, “Chuck,” Lucy, Sally, Linus, Shroeder, Peppermint Patty, Pig Pen, and the Little Girl with the Red Hair—they were all up there on the big stage for several performances.
We still laugh whenever we recall Linus’s ill-fated effort to convince his friends, and himself, that he could live without his beloved blanket in the number “My Blanket and Me:”
It’s a cozy sanctuary
But it’s far from necessary
Cause I’m just as self-reliant as before
As a simple demonstration
Of my independent station
I will go and leave my blanket on the floor
Yes I’ll walk away and leave it
Though I know you won’t believe it
I’ll just walk away and leave it on the floor
Yes, I’ll walk
Away
And
Leave
It
On
The…
AAARRRRGGGHHH!
[He runs back to gather the blanket and while clutching it to his chest, says to the blanket:]
Don’t ever let me do that again!
So I had to chuckle when not long after the final curtain had been drawn on the show she told me she was joining the “Linus Project” at her office. The first image that came to mind was that of a collection of blanket-dependent cerebral types, spreading then sitting upon their special keepsakes at lunch time, to think about and reflect deeply upon the nature of the world as it is and could be—a kind of a “quiet time” for adults.
Following a strategically placed poke with her crochet hook, she explained that the Project is a national network of people who knit or crochet blankets for children in crisis. In 2009 alone, colleagues, friends and family from my wife’s office donated 458 blankets to hospitals, shelters for battered women and children, and other agencies in the greater Washington metropolitan area and North Carolina. The group is planning a shipment of blankets to Haiti next month. Since 2005, my wife has averaged about four blankets a year.
Although I kid her about how she will have plenty of time later in life to make blankets in her front-porch rocker while sitting there in her fashionable housecoat and hairnet, the response from the service professionals who receive and distribute the blankets is no joke.
Sometimes their letters of thanks can produce goose bumps on even the thickest-skinned.
"It is a pleasure to thank you again…for the beautiful blankets and quilts that we have received from you via the Project Linus…Your kindness to the patients we serve is tremendously appreciated. We will be giving them to mothers who have already or will soon be giving birth as well as to the many children who are admitted as patients to the Hospital. Your outreach to our families helps us to send the message of caring that is so important. It is through the efforts that you have taken that the hearts of the staff and the people we serve are filled. Again, thank you for your commitment, your talent and your generosity in sharing yourself with us."
****
"…I thank you so very much for the fifteen blankets that you donated. These “hold-able hugs” will be distributed to hospitalized or traumatized children in local hospitals or shelters so that they may be available for holiday admissions. It will make a hospital stay over the holidays easier for children who would much rather be at home. The colors of your blankets are always so child-friendly…They will bring both physical and emotional warmth and comfort to the children who receive them. They will bring comfort to their parents as well, who are often more frightened than the children…It is only through donations from caring people like you that Project Linus can continue to reach so many children…"
****
In the months ahead I am confident my wife will continue to burn through those paperbacks at a high rate. How she can find more time to increase her blanket production numbers, however, is another question. Yesterday she muttered something about a “Husband Project.”
Oh, good grief!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The Beast Is Still In The Box
As the nation’s jobless rate hovers at around 10%, a frightening statistic, I think there may be some hope on the horizon that employment prospects will improve, at least for the unemployed twenty-somethings, who are having a particularly difficult time finding interesting and gainful employment these days.
Baby-boomers, particularly those who initially were happy to see their children move out of the house, now find themselves desperately in need of “translators,” “enablers,” and “corner ring managers”—young people who can help us find our way in the modern world.
Nowhere is this need more apparent than in an Apple Store.
A colleague convinced me to buy an IPod Touch. The device has a nice array of features that my cellphone-for-dummies does not, most importantly, internet and email access wherever there is wireless connectivity.
What is most attractive is the one-time payment; purchasing an IPhone, for example, would entail a subscription with a new service, monthly charges, and a fat penalty plus twenty short, sharp lashes across my back applied by some guy in a cape from my existing service for voiding my current contract.
I had no doubt whatsoever that this acquisition was a good idea, or so I thought until I walked into this very strange establishment.
The encounter started off on a high note: within ten seconds, a young saleswoman, as tall as I, greeted me with a bright smile and immediately asked how she could help. I said I was in search of an IPod Touch.
“Excellent,” she replied, as she pulled her red hair back from in front of her eyes and tucked the strands behind her ear. “Do you have any questions?”
I responded that my colleague had given me a quick demo of the power of the machine and that I was convinced that this was exactly what I wanted.
Although in retrospect I cannot recall with certainty what she said next, I believe an “Awesome” fell from her lips, or perhaps that was merely what I had expected to hear from a woman young enough to be my daughter, and who’s hair had just fallen in front of her eyes for a second time in the space of the ninety seconds that I had been standing there.
Her next query—“You are aware, are you not, that you can only get access to the internet if you are in a wireless area?”—I initially found a bit strange, but then realized that she was probably obliged, by virtue of her training and the insistence of her handlers, to push the IPhone or some other costly device that she was led to believe (not incorrectly) that middle-aged people are incapable of mastering.
I was aware of the Touch’s access limitation, but the mere posing of the question was enough to put the slightest doubt in my mind about the merit of this purchase, and made me painfully aware that I had entered into a foreign country without passport or translator.
In my less confident state, I muttered, “Are there instructions in the box?”—as though I would be able to follow them even if there were!
She declared, with what I registered to be just the slightest bit of derision, “Here at Apple, we are very green.”
Had my translator been by my side, he would have explained, “Mr. Naimoli, she is saying you are in deep do-do.”
Having realized that her left lead had struck a glancing blow, she followed with a right hook, “It’s all very INTUITIVE. When I bought my IPhone, I just stayed up all night until I figured it out.”
Translation: “Mr. Naimoli, do you remember how you hated those video games your kids used to play because you could never figure out exactly what was the objective? Welcome back, Kotter! You are in for a world of hurt, more than you ever imagined.”
As I began to sway, I first felt my knees buckle, and then I desperately tried to regain my balance with one last squeaky, nerdy question:“Will I need a stylus?”
She backed me into the corner with a left-right combination, and with her left eyebrow ever so slightly raised in the form of a soft arc, which was only partially visible through that reckless hair of hers that had fallen in front of her face, again, she sighed: “No, your finger will do fine. Only people who have trouble reading the small keys need those things.”
Kaboom! Thud!
“Stay right here and don’t move,” she barked with authority, like a referee standing over a boxer who had just hit the deck and was being counted out, “while I go in the back room to look for your Touch.”
As I stood there perspiring and taking short, deep, frequent breaths, another salesman came to my aid.
“You look a little lost, sir.” “Is there anything I can do to help you?”
I warbled, “No, thanks,” as I suppressed a very intense urge to ask for a cool damp cloth and some smelling salts.
Within five minutes she reappeared with my IPod in one hand and a mobile checkout machine in the other, like the ones they use at airport rental car agencies when you return your car. I was in such a fragile state that had she asked for my keys I would have probably turned them over to her as well!
“One IPod Touch and 2 screensavers. There you go,” she snapped, sounding eerily like the former governor of Alaska. She then uttered a string of instructions about downloading ITunes, and something about an App Store, and I believe I heard the word “interface” thrown into that Scrabble-like jumble of words that were spilling from her mouth, none of which I was absorbing in my highly compromised state.
I thanked her, but midway through my turn for the door, I remembered the other reason I had come to the store. I inquired: “Do you have any mousepads?"
“Mousepads?” she hissed, incredulously. “I haven’t seen one of those in years!” she laughed.
Translation: “Mr. Naimoli, you’ve been exposed. Run from this place as fast as those wobbly legs can carry you before she rips that IPod out of your trembling hands. And never come back!”
As I was taken up in the rush of mall shoppers who were entering and exiting this popular location, I thought I heard a trailing shout-out: “Mr. Naimoli, call me on my IPhone if you have any trouble over at Radio Shack.”
Baby-boomers, particularly those who initially were happy to see their children move out of the house, now find themselves desperately in need of “translators,” “enablers,” and “corner ring managers”—young people who can help us find our way in the modern world.
Nowhere is this need more apparent than in an Apple Store.
A colleague convinced me to buy an IPod Touch. The device has a nice array of features that my cellphone-for-dummies does not, most importantly, internet and email access wherever there is wireless connectivity.
What is most attractive is the one-time payment; purchasing an IPhone, for example, would entail a subscription with a new service, monthly charges, and a fat penalty plus twenty short, sharp lashes across my back applied by some guy in a cape from my existing service for voiding my current contract.
I had no doubt whatsoever that this acquisition was a good idea, or so I thought until I walked into this very strange establishment.
The encounter started off on a high note: within ten seconds, a young saleswoman, as tall as I, greeted me with a bright smile and immediately asked how she could help. I said I was in search of an IPod Touch.
“Excellent,” she replied, as she pulled her red hair back from in front of her eyes and tucked the strands behind her ear. “Do you have any questions?”
I responded that my colleague had given me a quick demo of the power of the machine and that I was convinced that this was exactly what I wanted.
Although in retrospect I cannot recall with certainty what she said next, I believe an “Awesome” fell from her lips, or perhaps that was merely what I had expected to hear from a woman young enough to be my daughter, and who’s hair had just fallen in front of her eyes for a second time in the space of the ninety seconds that I had been standing there.
Her next query—“You are aware, are you not, that you can only get access to the internet if you are in a wireless area?”—I initially found a bit strange, but then realized that she was probably obliged, by virtue of her training and the insistence of her handlers, to push the IPhone or some other costly device that she was led to believe (not incorrectly) that middle-aged people are incapable of mastering.
I was aware of the Touch’s access limitation, but the mere posing of the question was enough to put the slightest doubt in my mind about the merit of this purchase, and made me painfully aware that I had entered into a foreign country without passport or translator.
In my less confident state, I muttered, “Are there instructions in the box?”—as though I would be able to follow them even if there were!
She declared, with what I registered to be just the slightest bit of derision, “Here at Apple, we are very green.”
Had my translator been by my side, he would have explained, “Mr. Naimoli, she is saying you are in deep do-do.”
Having realized that her left lead had struck a glancing blow, she followed with a right hook, “It’s all very INTUITIVE. When I bought my IPhone, I just stayed up all night until I figured it out.”
Translation: “Mr. Naimoli, do you remember how you hated those video games your kids used to play because you could never figure out exactly what was the objective? Welcome back, Kotter! You are in for a world of hurt, more than you ever imagined.”
As I began to sway, I first felt my knees buckle, and then I desperately tried to regain my balance with one last squeaky, nerdy question:“Will I need a stylus?”
She backed me into the corner with a left-right combination, and with her left eyebrow ever so slightly raised in the form of a soft arc, which was only partially visible through that reckless hair of hers that had fallen in front of her face, again, she sighed: “No, your finger will do fine. Only people who have trouble reading the small keys need those things.”
Kaboom! Thud!
“Stay right here and don’t move,” she barked with authority, like a referee standing over a boxer who had just hit the deck and was being counted out, “while I go in the back room to look for your Touch.”
As I stood there perspiring and taking short, deep, frequent breaths, another salesman came to my aid.
“You look a little lost, sir.” “Is there anything I can do to help you?”
I warbled, “No, thanks,” as I suppressed a very intense urge to ask for a cool damp cloth and some smelling salts.
Within five minutes she reappeared with my IPod in one hand and a mobile checkout machine in the other, like the ones they use at airport rental car agencies when you return your car. I was in such a fragile state that had she asked for my keys I would have probably turned them over to her as well!
“One IPod Touch and 2 screensavers. There you go,” she snapped, sounding eerily like the former governor of Alaska. She then uttered a string of instructions about downloading ITunes, and something about an App Store, and I believe I heard the word “interface” thrown into that Scrabble-like jumble of words that were spilling from her mouth, none of which I was absorbing in my highly compromised state.
I thanked her, but midway through my turn for the door, I remembered the other reason I had come to the store. I inquired: “Do you have any mousepads?"
“Mousepads?” she hissed, incredulously. “I haven’t seen one of those in years!” she laughed.
Translation: “Mr. Naimoli, you’ve been exposed. Run from this place as fast as those wobbly legs can carry you before she rips that IPod out of your trembling hands. And never come back!”
As I was taken up in the rush of mall shoppers who were entering and exiting this popular location, I thought I heard a trailing shout-out: “Mr. Naimoli, call me on my IPhone if you have any trouble over at Radio Shack.”
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