Bless me, Father, it has been an extremely long time since my last confession. In fact, the Catholic Church was still calling the sacrament Confession. Now, I hear, it is called the Rite of Reconciliation.

It seems that America needs a Right Of Reconciliation if American Exceptionalism is to be restored.

For a country that has served as a beacon of hope and opportunity for so many years and countless numbers of refugees drawn to our shores, there’s just too much hate and division keeping us from being the country so many have given their lives to preserve.

Clearly, 2020 has been a year when so many of us are at odds with one another. The Viet Nam War divided us but never like what we have witnessed these last ten years or so. Race relations have always challenged our ability to be a united country but never have we faced such challenges as we do today.

Then there’s COVID.

Who would have thought Pole, Cancer, Typhoid, or Small Pox would have caused such a nation’s polarization as has COVID?

It’s a disease! Not a belief system.

Still, that is what I profess to believe.

We know that at least seventy million voters think otherwise.
The question is, why do so many people differ on matters of science?

Well, let’s look at the other side for a moment.

Back in the early 1970s, Archie Bunker was the symbol of the Old Order.
He was deemed a bigot. He was a World War II veteran who didn’t understand how young people could protest against their country and President.

His world was changing in so many ways, and he had no way of adapting to the new world order as his world was being replaced.

There is so much about the people who support Trump that I don’t understand. There is so much about me that Trump supporters don’t know about me. It’s time to try to understand each other even if we will never agree with each other.

The trouble is so much of what we believe is rife with inconsistencies.

Many Americans support a woman’s right to choose but refuse to consider…just consider, what other people believe.

Then you have the Pro-Life people who look the other way when babies are ripped out of their mothers’ arms.

Can we just think about the other point of view for a second?

I am so sick of the Constitution.

It’s ambiguous at best. It was written at a time when women didn’t vote, and blacks weren’t even considered citizens and had no rights. Nevertheless, let’s continue to look at the Original Intent of the Constitution for guidance!

We profess to be a people of faith, but that only seems to apply on the Sabbath.

We talk about the separation of Church and State, which may be a fine concept to apply to government, but it is an inconsistent policy to apply to one’s life. We should not separate our religious beliefs from our daily actions.

Jesus, for one, wouldn’t like that.

The sad thing is that this election has shown us all that nothing will change unless we change. We don’t need a President to change for us. We are reasonable people who know what needs to be done.

So before you cast that first stone at the other side, consider if you are without fault.

I have been a Yankee fan for as long as I can remember. My earliest recollection of being a fan was my birthday in 1956 when I was six years old. My Uncle Al worked for Railway Express and had Yankee Stadium on his route.
He frequently went into the locker room with a delivery, and as my birthday neared, he asked for an autographed hat for his nephew and God Child. Being 1956, he got Mickey to sign a hat.

Anyway, for over sixty years, I have been a die-hard Yankee fan. During those sixty-plus years, the Yankees have been a source of great joy, and I have cherished every moment, even the losing seasons.

But then, in 1965, when I was fifteen, I went to my first professional football game.

My brother had just gotten season tickets for the American Football League New York Jets, and he took me to a game. Now, you must know my brother and I were die-hard New York Giant fans and loved all of their stars. Tittle and Gifford and Huff were some of our favorites, but you could never get a ticket to a Giant game, and you only saw them on TV when they were playing an away game.
Thank God for Marty Glickman and Al DeRogatis, who expertly described the games on the radio.

So, in 1965 I attended my first football game and watched Joe Namath throw a football like no one I had ever seen.

It was love at first sight.

Eventually, my friend Mike and I got our own season tickets in 1968, and we won the AFL Championship Game, which we attended at Shea Stadium, and then the Jets won the Super Bowl.

The Jets did a lot to earn our love, and through the years, we have been loyal fans.
Lately, however, the Jets have not done much to sustain our love. They haven’t loved us back. They have taken our love for granted and have broken our hearts on a seasonal basis.

But, when you are trapped in a relationship, it is tough to walk away. You believe them when they hire a new coach who promises to be a winner. You believe them when they draft a new quarterback who will restore the team to greatness. You believe them that things will get better.

To be sure, there have been times when we had every reason to believe that the Jets were sincere about their love for us. We had some very satisfying years. I am not talking about winning a Super Bowl but a season where the Jets are still relevant at Thanksgiving.

Lately, the Jets haven’t been relevant on Columbus Day.

Love hurts when you are taken for granted, and when your feelings aren’t acknowledged by your beloved. But you disdain the concept of loving another. You refuse to move on. You still think there is hope for this relationship.
It’s hard to believe that you are still stuck in this quagmire, but you always wear your Green proudly even as people look at you in dismay.

So it’s still J E T S Jets! Jets! Jets!

Halloween is one of those holidays that started off as a quasi-religious holiday, All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saints Day.

It has morphed into a joyful, secular feast day for adults who binge on their children’s trick or treat booty.

It’s a wonderful day for kids of all ages.

Because the specter of COVID has tainted this year’s celebration, I thought I would share some of my happiest memories of Halloween as a sort of tribute to better times to which we all yearn to return.

I am not sure how old I was, but my first recollection of dressing up for Halloween was a clown. I even had a red nose provided by the lipstick in my mother’s purse or maybe my sister’s? In any event, I had that red nose the rest of my life, or so it has seemed.

In my early grammar school years, dressing up as a hobo (not sure the word hobo is politically correct any longer) for which you wore ragged clothes, which was not hard to do, and a relatively complete darkening of the countenance provided by burnt cork. I can still smell the burnt cork as it was delicious.

Now, please understand this was not blackface ala minstrel shows so offensive to African Americans. If anything, we were emulating Emmett Kelly, the clown, and Freddy The Freeloader. (Look these up if you are unfamiliar with them. That’s what Google is for.)

Also, during these years, it was not uncommon to fill an old sock with flour and then use it as a weapon of sorts meant to leave a white blast of flour on your friends’ pants or jackets. Alternatively, we often bought a couple of pastel chalk sticks and put them into the sock and smash it up as fine as possible. The beautiful marks these sock bombs would leave continue to fill me with Halloween joy and bliss.

But then I matured.

Halloween 1963 arrived, and our friend Jeannie had a party.
We had a great group of eighth and seventh graders, and hormones were arriving on every corner of our neighborhood. Suddenly, the girls in our group were absolutely gorgeous, so the prospect of a party with girls was reason enough to leave the old worn out Halloween cliches behind.

I got dressed as a beatnik.

Jimmy wanted to be cool, and for that one night only, October 31, 1963, I may have, in fact, pulled it off. (It’s kind of sad realizing that one’s ultimate moment of coolness occurred when you were 13, and it was all downhill after that.)

Nevertheless, there I was in a black turtleneck sweater, black jeans, a burnt cork provided goatee (some cliches are often cliches for a reason), a pair of sunglasses, and a beret.

Trying to talk like Maynard G Krebs ( look it up) was the icing on my bohemian cake.

Nothing much happened during the next twenty-five years in the Halloween category.

My next adventure occurred when I was teaching at St. Vito’s school in Mamaroneck.

Eileen and I lived in Flushing, and one of the teachers I worked with, Ann, was hosting a Halloween party with her husband, Marty.
Ann was enthusiastic about her guests dressing up for her parties, as you will learn in a subsequent account.

For this party in 1977, I was flummoxed as to what to wear. I had the idea of wrapping myself in bandages like a mummy. I spent quite a bit on those bandages, but it went really well. So well that when I paid the toll on the White Stone Bridge, I got quite a double-take from the toll collector. The good news it was an acceptable costume, but they may have gone easy on the new teacher that year.

The following year Eileen and I got dressed up as Harpo and Grouch Marx.
We were terrific and had prepared little bits.
Groucho advises Harpo, “Young man, don’t you realize you cannot burn a candle at both ends?”

To which Harpo responds by pulling out a candle burning at both ends from underneath his coat.

We had others, and we had a great time.

If you know anything about me, you know that I am a big Superman fan. No kid who grew up in the 50s wasn’t a fan of Superman, but I am 70 years old, and I watch the Superman DVDs every Saturday.

I had left St. Vito’s and eventually teaching and started a career in higher education thanks to my great friend Mike. I was working as a Director of Financial Aid, and Anne was having another Halloween Party.

Again, I was stumped as to what kind of costume to wear.

The party’s day arrived, and Karen, another teacher from St Vito’s, asked if we would give her a lift up to Ann and Marty’s.

Ann and Marty now lived in Brewster, NY, and it got cold early there. Marty invested in a wood-burning stove to offset the ridiculous cost of oil. On any given evening, the temperature in the house could be in the 80’s. This has a bearing on later events.

I was wearing a pinstripe suit more conducive to Wall Street than Yankee Stadium. My reply to the Million Dollar Question, “What are you supposed to be?” was simple. A Director of Financial Aid.

Karen seemed to buy it but barely.

She, on the other hand, got dressed up as a ballerina, only a tutu. Karen was cold.
I have a wool suit on, and I had to have the heat in the car blasting because she was in a tutu.

We get to Anne and Marty’s, and it was a full house. Between the crowd and the stove, it felt like it was ninety degrees. I was wilting.
To make matters worse, I had to put up with Anne’s disappointment.

Halfway through the party, Anne finally confronted me and asked me what I was supposed to be. I said a Director of Financial Aid.

She Mocked me, but then I continued.

I put on a pair of glasses and said, “Or perhaps a mild-mannered reporter?”
Her eyes widened, and her voice quivered, “Y y y you d d d didn’t!!

“Oh, didn’t I!”

I then took off my glasses and took off my suit and shirt and tie to reveal a stunning Superman outfit created out of blue thermal underwear and a red cape.

I got the bottle of Champagne for the best costume five seconds later.

I sweat a lot that Halloween, but I made someone’s night, I am sure.

I guess that is what really made Halloween so special. You got to spend it with your best friends, your life’s friends. Friends you still hold dear in your seventies.

The candy is just a bonus.

One of the things I have tried to do over the last ten months is to resist the urge to go negative. Sometimes I even strive to avoid serious or grave concerns. It’s not because I am devoid of opinions or afraid to write my mind, so to speak(?), but I concluded that dwelling on the negative or the serious isn’t really doing me any good at all.

Let’s face it. If it isn’t doing me any good at all, it can hardly benefit the four people who regularly read The Newell Post.

Actually, there are more than four of you out there. In fact, there are several Chinese reading from China. Perhaps being on lockdown, they welcome the diversions I offer? I used to have a following in Ukraine, and I notice the French are getting into my act this morning.

It would be nice to know that these foreign readers enjoy my writing rather than viewed as a viable hacking entry to America, but I guess I will never know.

So, it is October 27th, and it promises to reach ninety degrees in Bradenton, and I see that there will be areas just north of NYC that may get a flurry or two at the end of the week. When I was still in NY, I would be hooting and hollering about the warm sunny skies of Florida while Old Man Winter was rearing his frigid head on my doorstep. But now I envy my northern family and friends who will soon greet the first year’s snowfall.

The lesson learned is that you better be happy where and who you are because any radical change may not be what the doctor ordered.

COVID has been grave enough to keep us negative, but we have to persevere and get through the next few months with the hope that an end will come in the new year. It won’t come soon enough, of course, but when it does come, how will you react?

I won’t waste my time. I’ll tell you.

I won’t pay attention to haters of any kind. I will, in fact, hug all my family and friends often and without warning. There will be baseball games and visits to The Bronx, and Zoom will be an adjective on my speed to see you all.

There will be a little boy who will get to know is Nana and Pop, and my children’s dogs, Rudy and Scout, will have carte blanche to lick us and climb into bed with us as often as they deem sufficient.

At different times during those days, I will step out of myself and fully view what is going on and marvel at God’s glory. The family, the friends, the simple acts of enjoying our company. The beer will be cold. The hot dogs will be resplendent with mustard and sauerkraut, and the odd hot Italian sausage will be fully savored.

We will talk about 2021’s holidays. We will plan 2021’s vacations. We will over plan and overdo, but it will be spectacular.

It will, indeed, be spectacular.

Last night I was searching for something to watch on TV. Fed up with cable news programs and no Yankee baseball to watch, I resorted to my DVR library of movies I had recently recorded but, as yet, had not watched.

I came across a goodie. Monterey Pop.

In the Summer of Love, a precursor to Woodstock, Monterey Pop was a three-day music festival featuring artists, who already were or soon would be, Rock and Roll Royalty members.

Many of us were introduced to Janis Joplin and Jimmi Hendrix for the first time. The Animals and The Byrds, as well as The Jefferson Airplane, were there with a host of others.

We were admonished by Scott McKenzie to be sure to wear some flowers in our hair if we were going to San Francisco.

In 1967 we all wanted to go to San Francisco.

The Mamas and The Papas set our mood as they complained about a winters day on the east coast where trees had leaves of brown if they had any leaves at all, and the skies were always gray. They lamented that they would be safe and warm if they were in LA.

Everyone wanted to go to LA.

Sadly, I never got to San Francisco or LA until the lure of California had withered like the brown leaves of which John Phillips sang. Both California and I had grown old, and the aging process ravaged the American Ideal California had become after World War II.

California no longer inspires visions of a carefree, artistic gathering of like-minded souls searching for Eden or the Fields of Elysian. Skies clogged with thick acrid clouds of smoke that make the air unbreathable have replaced a counter-culture vision that would create a new world order of peace, love, and rock and roll.

California has become the Three Mile Island of States.

Out of control wildfires. Persistent drought eventually followed by mudslides brought on by torrential rain. The ever-present danger of earthquakes, one of which, many fear, will be The Big One. Now you add COVID to the mix, and few are dreamin about California these days.

Back in the Summer Of Love, many of us in New York believed that anything new happened in California first. Whatever fad caught on in LA or San Francisco would surely arrive in New York and Boston.

California was America’s barometer, which told us of the changes that would be coming our way.

It might be wise to remember that as we see California burning and struggling to survive.

Go to Church?

Well, the sex scandals by Catholic priests took the pressure to attend mass away. Then, there is COVID 19. The desire to sit in a crowded church with people sneezing into their hands and then want to exchange the handshake of peace no longer has any appeal to me for some reason.

Watch baseball?

Well, I may be a sore loser, but once the Yankees are out of the playoffs, I no longer have any interest in baseball save looking forward to spring training.

Watch football?

I am a Jet fan. So, you know.

Big family get-togethers in front of a nice roaring fire?

First, I am in Florida, so we only have to sit outside to feel the heat of a fire. Then, I am in Florida, and my kids are in New York and Arizona.

And, even if they were here, we probably would be social distancing…I am only writing that to be socially responsible. My kids, and their dogs, would be fully ensconced in watching football or a favorite movie of ours. The dogs? Well, they were never any good at social distancing, especially in our bed.

So, here I am annoying you by writing on a Sunday afternoon.

But, despite being a Jet fan, I will go now and watch some football. I am wearing my Sam Darnold jersey while he is still a Jet, and while I am still a Jet fan.

Wherever you are, I wish you a happy and healthy Sunday afternoon with the people you love and who love you.

Classic literature provides an apt allegory for life in the Twenty-First Century.

The Adventures of Superman is introduced to our American culture with a tale of an unheeded warning and foreboding doom due to a willful act of ignorance.

The planet Krypton, we are told, was the home of human beings who had evolved to ultimate perfection. Well, that was a load of crap.

No sooner are we introduced to the marvels of the Kryptonian society than we are brought to the “Temple Of Wisdom,” another load of crap.

A special session has been brought to order by the President of the Council so that our hero’s father, Jorel, can enlighten the Council as to recent phenomena affecting the planet Krypton.

As we are introduced to the Council Members, we are struck by their appearance. They do not look like superhumans to me. In fact, they seem to lack much in the knowledge department. As we soon find out, this will be their downfall, and millions of Kryptonians will perish due to their shortsightedness.

A little bit more about our Council members. No one on the Council is younger than fifty. No women make up its membership as well as any people of color (a term Kryptonians never seemed to adopt. Well, to be fair, they didn’t have much time left for further evolution.)

Rodan, the President, introduces Jorel as “our brilliant young scientist.”

This is a setup. You continue to believe that Kryptonians are these super people, dare I say, Master Race? Jorel’s presentation will destroy that notion.

Jorel proceeds to tell the Council that Krypton is being drawn closer to its red sun. This will result in Krypton “popping like a bubble” into millions of fragments and the demise of all Kryptonians.”

UNLESS WE ACT!

Jorel proposes the construction of a large rocket fleet to whisk the population away and leave all their problems (at least the sudden and catastrophic destruction of their planet) behind them.

Council Member Gogan poses a question to Jorel, “And where will we go in these rockets”?

Jorel calmly and succinctly replies, “To the Earth, Gogan. To the planet Earth, Gogan.”

The council members laughed hysterically and, as Jorel later relates to his wife, Lara, “They marked me for a fool.”

Subsequently, Jorel and Lara put their baby boy, Ka-El, into a prototype rocket that Jorel was prepared to use to test his plan out, hoping to have the Council fund the production of a large fleet.

Within seconds of the rocket’s departure, Krypton explodes into a million fragments just as Jorel, Krypton’s brilliant young scientist, predicted. Presumably, with millions of Kryptonians with the fateful words of Jorel echoing in the Council members’ ears.

So, back in 1938, when Superman comics first appeared and again in 1952 when The Adventures of Superman first aired on American TV, we were introduced to the concepts that we should not ignore science or scientists and that climate change could be devastating.

I am not sure those were the academic goals of both Superman iterations. Still, it is interesting to learn a lesson or two from an American Immigrant who fights a never-ending battle for Truth, Justice, and The American Way.

So, what have we learned?

Immigrants have made this country better.

We should listen to science and scientists.

Mocking research because we don’t like the result is not a good thing.

I realize this is a lot to take in on a Saturday morning, but I felt it necessary to share these lessons from people who should have known better.

I hope that the people who should have known better take note now and try to put their partisanship back in their pants and think intelligently about the issues that now confront us.

If over 200,000 Americans dying of COVID-19 was not enough to prove that the pandemic is not a hoax, perhaps the President and a few of his entourage coming down with it can convince Trump’s camp that COVID is real and it’s a killer.

There is much speculation as to the President’s condition as there seems, as has often been the case with this administration, that doublespeak and inconsistency subvert truth and candor.

While HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) privacy and security regulations protect a patient’s health records from public scrutiny, our President’s health is a vital national interest that should take precedent over privacy concerns.

The President has come into contact with many staff, supporters, and donors, perhaps during a time when he was already infected. It is imperative that all these people be notified and quarantined and tested if warranted.

Even though the President has gotten infected with COVID after six months of mocking mask wearers, he must come out and address the nation and order us to wear masks to prevent the second wave of the virus.

It is estimated that nearly 3,000 people a day will be dying of COVID in December.

Trump lied to us all these months, but he can show remorse by wearing the mask and urging all Americans to do the same.

COVID is NO HOAX!

One evening in the summer of 1965, my brother Michael came home from work and announced that he and a few friends bought season tickets to the New York Jets. The Jets used to be the Titans and played their games in the aging Polo Grounds. A year earlier, a name change and a new stadium meant that the New York Jets were the darlings of Queens and played their games in the brand new Shea Stadium.

I wasn’t sure what that had to do with me or with my brother Michael for that matter.

For as long as I could remember, we were fans of the New York Football Giants. Even though the New York Baseball Giants left New York years ago, you still had to add “Football” to the New York Football Giants for the sake of clarity.

There was Charlie Conerly, Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, Andy Robustelli, Jim Katcavage, Jimmy Patton, and my favorites YA Tittle and Del Shofner. All of New York, especially the Bronx, were New York Giant fans.

So, I greeted Michael’s announcement with more than a little incredulity.

“You’re going to the new league?” I asked.

“Yeah, I am. You can’t get tickets to a Giant game, and we can only see them seven times a year when they are on TV. Now, I’ll be going to seven games and will be watching Joe Namath!”

I had heard of this guy Namath from my friend Mike, so I knew something about him.

Anyway, the season started, and I began to watch games with my brother when the Jets were away and listened to Michael’s account of the games he attended. So, I was slowly coming around.

Then, a few games into the season, my brother had an extra ticket, and I went to the game with him.

That game changed me forever.

Seeing Namath in person as he speedily hobbled from the Center and almost immediately threw a dart to George Sauer or Don Maynard was exhilarating. These weren’t five-yard dump passes; they were thirty or forty-yard bombs. I never saw anyone throw a football like that.

So, fifty-five years later, I remain the Jet fan that was overwhelmed by the majesty of a Joe Namath pass.

When I was fifteen in 1965 or especially when I was eighteen and dancing on the frozen Shea Stadium field with my friend Mike after the Jets won the AFC Championship Game and we were going to the Super Bowl, I never thought that moment would be the last happy moment as a Jet fan.

Of course, we have had some other moments, but none that compare to winning a championship game and then the Super Bowl.

I can fully appreciate what the Cubs fans and even the Red Sox fans went through all those years in between championships. But it’s more than winning championships.

I can accept not making the Super Bowl. I can take not making the playoffs, but no Jet fan wants to be the laughing stock of all sports, not just football, is a cross I never expected to bear when I first saw Namath throw a pass.

When the Jets beat the Colts in Super Bowl III, we used to say that Namath or maybe Weeb Ewbank, sold their soul to win.

Not that it wouldn’t be worth it, but I would never have expected that I would be the one living in hell in payback to the devil.

Twenty years ago, as we had survived the IT Terror of Y2K, I was diagnosed with leukemia.

The word leukemia was enough to scare most people back then and still is a deadly disease today.

I was able to survive because I had an indolent variety that was not as aggressive as the disease often can be. I also survived because I had excellent health care and excellent health insurance.

Although America at the dawn of the twenty-first century was lagging behind other industrialized nations in various categories affecting the quality of life, including education and health care, both were accessible to you and your family if you had money.

Today, while I still receive daily and monthly leukemia treatments, a more significant threat confronts me and the rest of the world.

COVID 19 cares nothing about national rankings in any category. It holds no bias in favor of any degree you may possess or health insurance policy to which you may subscribe. However, the lesser-educated, uninsured, and economically disadvantaged of our population are incredibly susceptible to its ravages.

In the days when our nation was able to put a man on the moon seemingly at will, I would have written, “We can put a man on the moon, but we cannot effectively deal with a pandemic.”

The sad reality is that today we are no longer able to put a man on the moon, and we have failed miserably in dealing with COVID 19.

Along with this sad reality, we are bombarded every day with the absurdity and maniacal incompetence of our national government that has been unable to protect its citizens. Politicians cry out about preserving the Constitution! The hell with the Constitution, protect US!

An outdated piece of parchment that is incapable of protecting itself from daily violations surely isn’t doing We The People any good at all.

While the Republicans and Democrats toss spitballs at each other, Nero is fiddling with history and truth while the west coast burns, the southeast drowns, and the northeast hunkers down for a COVID 19 second wave.

It’s time we wake up and take our country back from the losers who would destroy it.

It’s just startling that a country that helped save civilization and helped to re-build Europe can fail so miserably in addressing its citizens’ needs. America First? Oh, no one believes that.

If America were first in our leaders’ minds and hearts, we wouldn’t have to ask Why 200K?