The Newell Post

The 19th of September in 1976 was a typically beautiful late summer day in the Bronx. I am guessing it was equally as beautiful in the other boroughs of the City of New York, but it was really more beautiful in the Bronx.

It was the kind of day that would enable even the most ardent New York Jet fans to forget the miserable loss to the Denver Broncos.

More importantly, it was the kind of day to get married.

Forty-four years ago today Eileen and I exchanged vows and, in the twinkling of an eye, three children were added to the compact. There would be job relocations and home relocations and commuting and long nights in the hospital and the million of other things that comprise a life.

There were family get togethers and farewells. There were celebrations and condolences. There was way more laughter than there were tears and then all of a sudden you are married forty-four years.

You go back to that day in 1976 in your mind and you can see neighbors and friends of your parents’ lining the aisle as you make your way up to the altar with your brother Mike. It’s no affectation to use “you” here as the person I am seeing can’t possibly be me! I have have brown hair…I have hair! I must be eighty pounds lighter! Could that really be me?

Oddly enough, today Eileen looks the same and so does everyone else who is captured on the film reel that makes up my memory.

Here are some other snippets:

After the mass, the two limos stop at the bodega down the corner from Eileen’s (where I bought Mrs Rooney the Kent cigarettes after she asked me if I wanted a soda…which I also had to buy along with the cigarettes) to stock up on some beer for the long ride to Queens.

We had grey limos as I ordered them only eight days before.

We got to our cocktail party late because Dino our photographer had us modeling for shots in his studio for over an hour.

While we suffered missing out on the food served, we had enough cocktails to get us through the initial phase of the reception.

Our reception cost $18 per plate. (It was forty-four years ago)

Eileen and I danced all night long, sometimes even with each other.

It was a Sunday but we were having such a good time we paid for an extra hour and there would be a  collective sick-out the next day.

We left the reception with our friends Pat and Paul and made our way to Eileen’s house for the suitcases etc. It took a while and I took a nap in the driveway, that is on the driveway.

From there we went to McGuinness and Farrel’s bar up in Throggs Neck, me in my tux and her in her wedding gown.

We hadn’t finished partying it seems.

From there, Pat and Paul drove us to the Plaza Hotel in the city.

I was so impressed with the size of the room that I invited Pat and Paul to come up and see it. Paul was ready but Pat thought better of it.

Eileen had picked up her suitcases alright but not the keys to open them up.

Eileen’s brother Jimmy came to the Plaza the next day with the keys.

We signed and deposited checks all morning. We were feeling pretty chipper. Well, we could barely hold our heads up.

We went to Schraffts and had the best cheesburger ever.

The next day we went to Bermuda

Forty-four years?

It’s been nineteen years since we all saw the towers collapse knowing hundreds of police and firefighters, and others instantly lost their lives. It was at that moment that we remarked that the day was September 11th, or 9/11. But it is only written as 911, the SOS phone number for police and fire assistance.

We can all remember where we were and whom we were with as if it had happened yesterday.

We were devastated, perhaps scared, but we were all angry Americans.
Then we heard about the other planes that were in the air and headed to some unknown target.

First, the Pentagon was attacked, and then the brave citizens on Flight 93 put an abrupt end to the third attack. These brave souls did not panic in the face of certain death but acted to save others.

That first 911 ushered in a time, however brief when we thought and felt and acted as THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

We weren’t pointing fingers, and whether you voted for George W. Bush or not, you cheered for him when he was at the World Trade Center site and when he threw out the first pitch of the Yankee World Series game a few weeks later.

That’s what Americans have always done. We unite in times of war. We don’t fight each other at these times. We fight our common enemy.

Maybe, if only on this one day a year, we can remember when Americans were united?

The nineteenth century was a time of rapid industrialization and urbanization for America. Millions of people migrated from farms to cities and worked in the new factories instead of the fields.

Farms became more mechanized. Therefore, fewer workers were needed to plant and reap, and factories and mines greeted these displaced workers with open arms if not good salaries and safe working conditions.

The American Myth of Rugged Individualism lost its appeal when men no longer blazed trails to the west or scratched a living on newly settled land. Huddled with thousands like him to compete for factory jobs, the new American Working Man was alone and incapable of negotiating a better life for him and his family.

Then the Labor Union was born.

Strength in Numbers replaced rugged individualism. While the birth of the new labor unions was always a struggle that sometimes turned bloody and deadly, workers realized they needed to band together against the robber barons to get a decent wage and safe working conditions.

Many Americans have forgotten that struggle and have turned their back on labor unions. 

Believing that somehow they are un-American, many have accepted the new robber barons’ notion that unions hurt good workers as they protect poor workers. Seeking to weaken unions, these new robber barons, known as politicians or protectors of the rich, have created Right To Work laws, which simply mean that unions cannot require membership of all workers at a plant or other facility.

It does sound American, Right To Work. I mean everything with RIGHT in front of it is American if you simply want to believe it.

In this case, you might as well call it Right To Work For The Minimum Wage.

I am pro-union, and you should be too.

My father provided for my family because he was in a labor union when he worked for Con Ed in New York City.

I was in labor unions when I worked for the City of New York and the State University of New York.

I worked for other entities in which I was not a member of a union but enjoyed similar benefits of union membership because we had other unionized workers.

Unions helped to build this country, protecting this country during times of war, stood by this country during economic crisis, and aided in all the American Century’s greatness.

Unions, like every institution in America, have not always been perfect. Discrimination and favoritism, and corruption have marred its past. But, without unions, this country’s workers would be relegated to low pay and dangerous working conditions.

Please take a minute to realize that in this year of COVID, millions of our Essential Workers are members of a Union.

Thank God for them.

I went to my local beer and wine distributor last weekend. I had hoped to get a few six-packs of summer ale. Last year around this time, they were looking to unload it, and what would have typically cost me twenty dollars or more only amounted to eight dollars for two six-packs. No such luck this year.

There was only one six-pack of my Long Island favorite Blue Point Summer Ale waiting for me at home so that would have to suffice.

So, there I was with a little more than a month left of summer, and summer ale was no longer available in the store. To make matters worse, there were big displays of Pumpkin Ale.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Pumpkin Ale and can’t wait to have some, but there’s something antithetical to me to be drinking an autumnal brew when it is 90 degrees. Of course, it probably will still be 90 degrees here in Florida when the calendar morphs from summer to fall, but at least I will have the pretense of drinking an autumnal ale at the appropriate time.

Buying Pumpkin Ale in the summer would be akin to decorating for Halloween in the summer. Well, my next stop on my shopping spree took me to Lowes, which had huge displays of all types of Halloween decorations

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I know merchandising is big business, and you always have to be a season ahead to entice shoppers and reach your quarterly quotas, but it just doesn’t seem decent to be pushing Halloween when you haven’t made it to September. And now that it is finally September, will the Christmas displays be far away?

You can bet your credit card balance that they are in the pipeline even as we prepare for Labor Day.

Then there are the hurricanes.

Just when you are beginning to rest easy thinking that you might be escaping another hurricane season, a storm crops up on the radar sending us all into panic mode. We have been watching hurricanes for weeks, and while they have stayed away from Florida’s shores shifting out to sea or to other gulf states, you can’t rest easy until you see the calendar change to November, and even then, you are on the lookout.

But still, if I only had a little more Summe Ale, my hurricane angst might not seem so bad.

If that were the only thing to worry about this Labor Day weekend, Florida and the Southeastern coast would rest easy. But 2020 has provided us all with a host of worries, not including hurricanes.

Be well.
Stay safe.

Seventy-Five years ago World War II came to an end.

It would be the last time America won a war.

So it begins.

Today is the meteorological first day of autumn.

I never heard that before.

A New York weatherman mentioned that June 1st was the meterological first day of summer back on June 1st and yesterday he mentioned that today would be be the first day of autumn.

It’s funny because on June 1st it certainly felt like summer but you would have to be delusional (which I strive fervently to be) to accept that autumn has arrived…especially here in Florida.

But be that as it may autumn apparently is here.

Well, first off, I find myself behind in my duties and chores. I have five cans of Summer Ale that have to be consumed, you would think, in the summer. So, for summer ale purposes and for the purposes of my annual post, The Last Of The Summer Ale, I will continue under my perpetual delusion that summer continues up to the calendar date we have all come to love and accept as the official first date of autumn, or the Autumnal Equinox as it is officially known, which for 2020 is September 22nd.

I know most of you will argue that the seasons change on the 21st of the month but this is 2020 and the leap year started us off on an abysmal journey so why should anything so regular and dependable as the start of spring, summer, fall, and winter be anything else but confusing and contrary to the norm?

BTW (as the kids text) winter starts on December 1st.

With the beginning of September comes Labor Day.

Labor Day was always a special beach day for us in the Hamptons. It was the last official beach day of course because the kids would be going back to school the next day and it would also be the last day for the lifeguards.

So, a representative showing of a typical Newell-Rooney gathering would amass at Ponquogue beach and Eileen would provide snacks, bubbles, and The Big Sandwich on a crusty round loaf of Sullivan Street’s best Italian bread purchased at Sonny’s Market in East Quogue.

It was not unusual for me to sneak in a couple of cold ones which I surreptitiously sipped from a large solo cup to mask the identity of my beverage, beer having been banned for over twenty years. This ruse was taught to me by my able friend PJ with whom I shared many a plastic cupped beer over the years.

We soaked up the sun.

I tossed a frisbee and a football with my kids.

I was in Paradise.

The good thing was I was awake the entire time. I never took it for just another beach day or just another day in a life made up of other days. It was a special day. Every year, though it was a re-run of the year before, it remained a special day and actually aged like fine wine and cheese.

Then, when the beer had been drunk, when the Big Sandwich had be thoroughly relished, and sun was on the wane, at promptly 5:00 PM, the lifeguards blew their whistles for the last time that season and the remaining crowd of beachgoers stood and applauded them like they were rock stars

It was the kind of day that makes you sad but at the same moment carries you through this summer of COVID.

We’re stuck in Florida away from our children and friends and we haven’t been to any beach this summer but those summers and those Labor Days back on Long Island continue to nourish our souls.

We have lost much since those halcyon days on Ponquogue beach. Some friends and family have left us which only inspires appreciation for those who remain and a commitment never to take any of you for granted.

When I was graduating from high school, I almost made the Senior Dozen or Golden Dozen, and I know it wasn’t the Dirty Dozen.

This was a group of seniors that were being honored for various achievements; Best Student; Most Handsome; Most Likely To Succeed.

I was the runner up for Most Polite Student.

How sad was that?

It’s bad enough not being in contention for any of the more glamorous awards, but to come out second in the Polite Student category was devastating.

I had labored ceaselessly on being nice and polite, and respectful.

Okay, I did get caught throwing chairs off the boat coming home from Rye Playland. But I was still polite when the Principal caught me in mid-toss and demanded to know, “What are you doing with that chair?”

Alright, so that probably short-circuited any road to glory as a senior. But it was the sixties and chairs were the symbol of the establishment and all that was wrong with our society!

Well, no.

Nevertheless, and notwithstanding (to quote Felix Unger), I was and remain a polite boy.

My mother would expect no less, and I have tried, without perfect success, to shield her from such embarrassment that I might induce.

It started when I was a child…being nice, I mean.

Being nice wasn’t unusual, and it was relatively easy to achieve as everyone I associate with was nice. Of course, there were the usual detractors of all that is nice, and that is all I will say of them because anything more accusatory would be, not nice.

Our group of friends, boys and girls were quite nice, in fact. We didn’t fight or argue because there was barely time to laugh and laugh some more. We did a lot of laughing as teenagers, very little angst.

Being nice may not have been part of our DNA, but if you met all the people I hung around with, you might argue we were genetically pre-dispositioned to one another.

It is what it is, and we were what we were.

I have found that many, if not most, of the people I have encountered, colleagues and new friends, value being nice as necessary and desired. There is no manipulation or guile in their being nice.

They do not so much as act nice but define nice in all things and all ways.

It really isn’t hard to do, but it is always much appreciated.

I posted this every August 26 for several years to commemorate the passing of my brother Michael. Although it has been twenty-three years, losing Michael has been a life-long emptiness that all who knew and loved Michael have endured.

A few years ago, I stopped commemorating his death and concentrated on remembering his life. So, August 23, his birthday, became a focal point.

This year I decided to tell this story once again because it gave me hope at a time when the sting of his death still gripped me as it had on the day he died. I always find it a nice way to remember Mike.

                                                                AUGUST 26, 1998

August 26, 1998, ended one of my most distressing years. It was a distressing year for everyone in my family. It was, in fact, a distressing year for anyone who knew my brother Mike. On August 26, 1997, we lost my brother, and it seemed I relived that loss every day of the year that followed, his wife and sons and daughter in law, even more so. But on the first anniversary of his death, something happened to make me smile and shake my head, and things began to get better.

To set the mood for what will follow, I must go back to the day of his funeral mass. For some reason, I felt that I had to give the eulogy. Although some of you may not believe it, I was never comfortable getting up and talking in front of a crowd. Certainly, the prospect of giving my brother’s eulogy was not something I had wanted to do, but I felt compelled to say goodbye and to represent everyone who loved him.

One of the things that struck during the days and nights of his wake was the huge turnout of people who came to pay their respect. They were waiting outside on Castle Hill Avenue for over an hour to get into the funeral parlor. My friend Paul asked if Mike had been a Pope. There were so many people there that it was hard to grieve. The crowd overwhelmed us and just made us realize that Mike wasn’t just special to his family, but he was beloved to all who came in contact with him. It reminded me of George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life. In fact, I used that in my eulogy.

I also quoted a line from the Wizard of Oz. I said, “In The Wizard Of Oz, the Wizard tells the Tin Man that a heart is judged not by how much you love but by how much you are loved by others. Mike had a magnificent heart.”

Many of you know that I love Lionel trains and have a considerable collection. I blame Mike for this. He had me loving Lionel trains just like he had me loving Mickey Mantle and the Yankees and Joe Namath and the New York Jets. Sometimes Mike made mistakes, but we always loved our Jets.

A few years before he died, I told Mike that I saw a beautiful Santa Fe locomotive. Unbeknownst to me the next day, he went to the train store. He called me when he got home and said that he saw the engine and put $50 on deposit for me. He said, “You just have to get it.” From time to time, when I am searching on eBay, I still hear that voice. Back to1998.

I started my day on August 26, 1998, like I did most days. I called Margaret, Mike’s wife, and we talked and cried like we did every other day, and we both said that it felt like twenty years or just last week that Mike left us. I then went about my work and had a typical day talking to students and pushing paper. Then before I knew it, lunchtime had arrived. I always do the New York Times crossword puzzle at lunchtime, and this day was no exception.

I started the puzzle and was going along pretty well for a Wednesday when I came to a clue that had me smiling and shaking my head. “Name of Famous Train,” six letters. It was amazing because the answer was “Lionel”!

I immediately called Margaret and told her of this remarkable coincidence. She said, “He’s watching you, Jimmy.”

I continued the puzzle, and then a clue or two later came upon “Eulogizes.” The answer was “Lauds.” I gave his eulogy! Can you believe this? Now, it was getting freaky. I called Margaret again, and she was amazed.

Now, this was one of those puzzles that had a clue for an answer that spanned the entire puzzle going across. I’m not too fond of those because it’s usually something I am not familiar with like Greek Mythology. I couldn’t avoid it any longer, so I read the clue. “Frequently aired movie.” I was hyperventilating. I was sure it was It’s A Wonderful Life”. It wasn’t, and I was kind of upset. It would have made a nice trifecta and a great story. But then I had another thought.

Sure enough, “The Wizard Of Oz” was the correct answer. Mike was there, and he was messing with my head. I called Margaret, and we were both speechless, but we knew what we felt was true. Mike was with us.

That puzzle was sacred to me, and I stopped doing it upon entering The Wizard Of Oz. I never went back to it. I put it in my bag and there it remained until the summer of 2002.

We were getting rid of our van, and as I was cleaning out the back seat, I came across my bag. I took it out and reviewed its contents, and saw the puzzle. I began telling a neighbor the story of the puzzle, just as I have outlined it here for you. I added that I never went back to the puzzle, and as I said this, I happened upon another clue. “Brooklyn Sch.” The answer to this, as those of you who do the puzzle, should already know because it is a repeater like Bobby Orr, is “LIU.” One of the campuses of LIU was Southampton College, where I had just recently started working.

Believe what you want, but no agnostic, atheist or whatever nonbeliever can ever convince me that this life is all that there is. The puzzle of life and death has, for me, been solved by another puzzle, and while I got neither a job nor my faith through the New York Times, I sure got a strong editorial in its support that only the clueless would deny.

In August of 1985 a tradition began thanks to my brother Johnny and his wife Mary.

They had recently bought a house  in Lake Luzerne in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. Every August beginning in that year my brother Michael and his family would make the journey from the Bronx for a two week vacation.

Eileen and our children always joined them for one of those weeks.

It wasn’t glamorous.

It wasn’t Disney.

We certainly didn’t spend a lot of money.

It was, however, pure heaven.

If life were fair, we would be heading up there now because this is the week in August that we always spent at the Lake.

Tomorrow would have been my brother Michael’s 76th birthday and, instead of sharing the eulogy story that I have done in the past, I thought it would be more fitting to remember the joyful times that we had at Lake Luzerne.

It is also a way of remembering my brother Johnny who provided these opportunities as well as his wife, Mary and I plan to have a nice hot cup of coffee remembering Mike’s wife, Margaret who always made the coffee, morning and night.

Now to the memories.

They will not be in chronological order but in sentimental order.

Well, the first is not really a sentimental story but it is funny.

We had driven up Friday night and Michael and Margaret were already there. After a cup of coffee and maybe a round or two of May I, we all went to bed.

One of the things that we always spoke about was that invariably we all had vivd dreams when we were up in Lake Luzerne. Eileen and I slept in the coffins in the living room. They really weren’t coffins, though that is how we referred to the This End Up couches that morphed into beds.

The following morning Margaret had the coffee brewing and Bryan was on the porch with Unda Michael…which is how Bryan referred to Michael as a two year old. Michael and Bryan joined us in the kitchen and of course the topic of the moment was what did we dream.

Eileen led off and told about her dream. Apparently she had this terrible dream of something crawling all over her, like a mouse. We chuchkled at that but then I saw Michael get this sheepish, almost guilty look and then he exclaimed.

“We actually do have a mouse.”

Well, that was the end of our trip as I didn’t even get to finsih my coffee as we were quickly packed and on the road heading back to East Quogue.

Another memory.

Eileen was pregnant with Bryan but, being the  trooper that she was, she still made sure we got to The Magic Forrest and The North Pole. These were two amusement parks that the Sean and Jeannine loved. They also loved The Great Escape which was a Six Flags amusement park that served as our annual prilgrimage.

But this year on our way home from The Magic Forrest, Eileen proclaimed that she was very tired and that we wouldn’t be going to The Great Escape.

Jeannine was furious and she angily stated, “I don’t know why I saved my money!”

You see, Jeannine loved the aracades at The Great Escape. So, a compromise was reached and it was decided that the next day I would be taking Sean and Jeannine to The Great Escape.

One of our earliest memories occurred in the cabin.

Michael and Margaret were in one bedroom; their sons, Kevin and Chris, were in the bedroom in bunk beds. Eileen and I and Sean and Jeannine were in the living room in the coffins.

It was like a scene out of The Waltons.

We were all talking , possibly in an neverending “Goodnight Johnboy” conversation.

When all of a sudden there was a terrific bang!

Michael came running out in his underwear to see what was afoot. (Michael was a big Sherlock Holmes fan.)

Eileen and I laughed uncontrolably. I am not sure we ever got to sleep that nigh.

You have to understand that, though these memories may not have you rolling in the aisle, to those of us who shared the magic of Lake Luzerne, they are woven into the fabric of our lives. They are part of our DNA.

One last moment about me and my brother.

It was a hot day and we took the kids to the arcades in Lake George. At one point Mike turned to me and asked. “Would you have a beer with me?”

What’s a boy to do? When your brother asks you to have a beer with him you enthusiastically say YES!

Eileen and Margaret took the kids to the arcade and Michael and I headed for a bar. There was a nice place just a few stores down from the arcade and Michael and I ordered two beers.

We sat there for a while, just enjoying our company. Michael had maybe half a beer.

I finished mine.

It wasn’t a momentus day but it is one I would love to relive over and over.

Not being able to sucks

I went to two Yankee spring training games in February.

I was toying with the idea of flying up to the Bronx for Opening Day but thought better of it as we were planning to go to London the following month.

The spring training games were the only baseball I saw in person and. For everyone else who attended a spring training game, that was it for them as well.

A week before my third and final spring training game, two NBA players tested positive for COVID 19, resulting in a complete shutdown of all sports. It would prove to the country that this virus was real, and we needed to take it seriously.

So, here we are five months later, and sports are back. Unfortunately, the fans aren’t.

We are relegated to watching games from our homes as broadcasters isolate themselves from each other and basically have a zoom chat while they are watching the game like we are. Announcers go to home games but broadcast games from an empty stadium when the team is on the road.

Fake fan noise is pumped in to make it sound like a game, and some stations digitize fake fans. Not sure if Trump approves of his favorite channel making things up, but I’m guessing he’s okay with it.

Baseball has been good.

The NBA and the NHL have played in “Bubbles” and have quarantined their players in one location for the NBA and two Canadian locations for the NHL. Both leagues are now in their playoff seasons, completing the 2019-20 year.

Both leagues are putting on great games, and the shortage of fans in the arenas doesn’t seem to bother the players or have any impact on the quality of the game.

But now, as we approach autumn, football will come forward with new challenges.

First, college football presents the dilemma of encouraging amateur players, who receive no compensation other than a scholarship, to play a high-contact sport. At the same time, their classmates are safely ensconced in their homes, attending online classes.

Even though many colleges profess to hold in-person classes, many are already experiencing COVID clusters and have opted to cancel in-person classes and have implemented online learning once again.

Then there are NCAA conferences that have already canceled fall sports, including football. The question remains whether all college programs will follow suit.

Then in the NFL, other concerns have arisen.

The virus seems to affect people of color, especially those with underlying conditions, including obesity.

Many offensive and defensive linemen are both young men of color and obese.

Some players have already opted out of playing football this year.

Unlike the NBA and the NHL, the NFL will not be playing in a bubble, and extensive travel will be required. Also, because different states have different COVID protocols established, it is possible that some games will be played in front of fans, possibly exposing the fans and players to exposure to the virus.

Since many medical experts felt that a second wave combined with the traditional flu would make the fall months even worse than what we experienced in the spring, there is a risk that even young athletes will be putting their lives and careers in jeopardy.

While I have enjoyed watching the Yankees play, I am not fully invested as in other seasons. It could be because a sixty game season is not a baseball season. It seems more like an extended spring training. It’s still entertaining to watch, but the results seem inconsequential to me. It’s nice if they win but hardly matters if they lose.

If there is a World Series and if the Yankees win the World Series. I will be excited, but it won’t be like anything I have experienced in the past.

It will be ironic if the Jets win the Super Bowl.

We haven’t been to a Super Bowl in what will be fifty-two years, and then we win it with absolutely no fans? Or maybe the Super Bowl gets canceled.

Bad dreams sometimes invade reality.

Like many things this year of COVID, we can just designate it as TBD.

← In The Summertime

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