The Newell Post

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

Leave a Reply 

My wife and I were leaving our development here in Bradenton when we spotted a truck painted in a beautiful pastel purple. I thought it might be an ice cream truck making the lives of older people just a little bit brighter on a hot summer’s day.

It turned out to be a portable pet grooming service making a cocker spaniel’s day instead.

But it got me thinking of hot, August days many years ago when an ice cream truck was all you had to look forward to make your day playing curb ball or stickball just a little sweeter.

When I was a pre-teen, the ice cream was delivered to us by the Good Humor man who peddled a bicycle-powered cart while ringing bells announcing his arrival. It was the Leland Avenue equivalent of “Gentlemen Start Your Engines.”

Good Humor always had special ice cream bars. The Fourth Of July always had a red, white, and blue concoction to enhance your patriotic spirit. Then there was Strawberry Shortcake for no apparent reason, followed by Chocolate Eclair. My favorite was Coconut, or sometimes I would have a Toasted Almond just to shake it up a bit.

In the evening, the Bungalow Bar man would drive his truck down the street to pick up any of the stragglers who missed out on Good Humor earlier in the day. The truck was more interesting than the ice cream inside. The truck had the roof of a small house perched on top and a picket fence for the driver’s door. The ice cream? I forget. I know he had dixie cups and the like, but nothing truly memorable.

Then, of course, there was Mister Softee.

He was a newcomer complete with a head made out of an ice cream cone topped with soft serve vanilla. The ice cream was good and resembled Carvel Ice Cream, but Tom Carvel had no delivery vehicles, and the nearest Carvel was at least a mile away.

The only bad thing about Mister Softee was that damn jingle!

It was beautiful initially, but after the fifteenth time you heard it, you had enough, and you couldn’t wait for the truck and its ice cream to move on down the road.

Of course, our summers were filled with more than ice cream.

Despite the heat and the fact that baseball was still in season, playing football in the street took up most of our time. Just the smell of a good football was enough to forget about the heat for a while, realizing that fall and a nice cool down was on its way.

Perhaps the most unsettling thing about hot August afternoons was when you heard the Robert Hall commercial on the radio.

“School bells ringing, children singing, it’s back to Robert Hall again…”

Man, that was depressing!

But you couldn’t deny it. We would be going back to school before you knew it.

It was already getting darker earlier in the evening. I could smell the classroom and new books. They had that musty, haven’t been open in three months smell.

So, as I sit here longing for the sound of a bell or jingle announcing the coming of a summer treat, at least I won’t have to be going back to school in a couple of weeks.

But maybe I wouldn’t mind that either?

I was returning from a one-week stay-cation. Well, we didn’t call a vacation where you didn’t go anywhere a stay-cation back then but that’s what it was. Probably the most memorable part of that particular vacation was when my son Bryan and I went to a Yankee game. Down a run in the bottom of the ninth, the Oakland A’s brought in their closer.

He immediately blew the save on one pitch by giving up a game-tying home run to Bernie Williams. The closer followed this up with the next pitch which David Justice promptly delivered into the stands for the game-winner.

This game may have been the greatest game I ever witnessed at the stadium, including Game 1 of the World Series which would be played later that same season.

This was my frame of mind when I drove to work that Monday morning on my first day back from vacation.

Way back in my consciousness I might have remembered the physical I had the same day of that Yankee game. I know I wasn’t really thinking about it but that would soon change.

Having had my first cup of coffee and having caught up with my friends and staff, I started to delete the emails that had accumulated during my one-week hiatus. I didn’t get too far.

Shortly after 9:00 AM I received a telephone call. It was my doctor. This was highly unusual as he was normally so busy he barely had time to chat when I was in his office. From the moment I said hello my doctor ignoring pleasantries got right to the matter at hand.

He informed me that the results of the blood test that been performed indicated I had Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia or CLL.

I only heard leukemia.

Sensing my shock my doctor went on to explain that if I had to have cancer this was the type to have. He continued by saying that most CLL patients usually died of something other than leukemia.

I didn’t feel that much better.

Nevertheless, after hearing such alarming news so early in the morning, I did what most American Men would do under the circumstances. I called my mommy! No, sorry, I called my wife.

For those of you who are fans of Seinfeld, there was a scene where George is missing and Steinbrenner goes over to the Costanzas to tell them George is dead. Then Frank Costanza leaves a message in his famous staccato voice, “Jerry this is Frank Costanza. George is dead, call me back.”

I am not certain but my call to Eileen to let her know I had CLL may have resembled this.

Not realizing the impact this was having on her as she started her first day back from vacation, I lamely reassured her that this is no big deal. So, while she got on the phone to an oncologist to set up the rest of the week for me, I turned to the internet and confirmed what CLL was and whether it was treatable, etc etc etc. The things you would want to know when greeted with such news.

That was twenty years ago today.

I have endured chemotherapy on two separate occasions. Once in 2000 shortly after my diagnosis. Then, after a resurgence, I once again was treated in 2007. Then, starting in 2016, I began taking a daily regimen of a pill that has kept my blood work looking good.

I have been really fortunate. Had that phone call been received in 1970 or 1980 or even in 1990 my outcome may have not been so positive. While a vaccine has not yet been developed to eliminate CLL or any cancer, new drugs and treatments have enabled patients to live a relatively normal life.

That is why I have great faith that a vaccine or treatment for COVID 19 will be developed.

I didn’t think about a long term survival twenty years ago. I really didn’t think about anything at all. I felt ok and probably thought there was some kind of mistake.

Plausible deniability I think they call it.

I posted this in early a while back but I find myself in need of another visit to the Park. Hoping you are all having a marvelous Saturday and a nice walk in your special park.

Starting in the summer of 1969, I often spent Saturday afternoons exploring Central Park. In those days walking through The Park was a little like visiting Woodstock every week.

There were people wherever you went, no social distancing required. We didn’t use the term diversity to apply to people back then, but New York City diversity was on full display wherever my walk took me.

One of my favorite spots to linger was the Bethesda Fountain and Terrace.

It was typical for what seemed like hundreds of frisbees to be flying from one side of the terrace to the other with an equal number of very capable frisbee enthusiasts winging their discs to and fro. My son Bryan, an avid Ultimate Frisbee participant, would have felt quite at home.

But back in the late 60s early 70s, it was one of many sites to visit at least for a little while on your journey through the park.

My favorite spot, however, was Literary Way. Not only was it a beautiful walk adorned with statues of many of history’s greatest authors, but it was sheltered by a canopy of branches from stately trees offering a well-appreciated relief from the summer sun.

It was also a gathering of several folk artists who were only too happy to sing and play our songs for free. They didn’t even seem to mind when you sang along.

Further down the road, I always stopped by the Band Shell on the off chance that a performer might be playing there as well. I was spoiled one Saturday afternoon by coming upon a free concert given by Pete Seeger, so from then on, I always made sure to check. Usually, I just sat down on a bench to read for a few minutes.

Of course, I went to the Park on other occasions to attend concerts at the Wollman Skating Rink. Tickets were ridiculously cheap even for those days. I was able to see The Byrds, Melanie, and Harry Chapin, among others, for one dollar or, if I splurged for the best seats, I was set back for two bucks.

There were times, however, when tickets were sold out, so you merely sat on the rock hill outside the entrance, and I heard great music for free.

Living in Florida now, I am missing these days in New York City and perhaps my youth along with it. This heinous virus has to be eliminated so that New Yorkers cand return to Central Par and all the places that make New York what it is.

Central Park and Yankee Stadium are my favorites right now, aside from the living rooms of my children.

Be well, stay safe, be tough, New York.

Chill is such a wonderful word, especially if you live in Florida. You soon get to appreciate a good chill, you know, like when the temperature in your pool is 84 degrees?

I guess chills are relative after all.

I am sure we have all emailed something we wish we could have taken back but we hit that send button just a little too quickly, I certainly have. Better to write the email to get whatever snit you’re in off your chest, count to ten or longer, and delete the better-off-not-sent missive from your computer. It probably will result in less grief for you in the long run.

I have written several blog posts only to do the same. Rather than share my wrath with the universe, I thought the better of it and deleted it.

It seems I am writing more about delete than chill but in a way that’s exactly what taking a chill is all about. Delete the moment you are in when you need to chill.

I took a chill just as I started typing this blog.

The Yankees lost last night and I was mad at baseball. I started thinking (unintentionally) of all the things that upset me relative to watching major league baseball.

You see? Taking a chill works. After I typed that last sentence I had a sip of coffee and decided not to tell you what irritates me about baseball. Why should I ruin your day by encouraging you to get angry at baseball?

My daughter helps me take a chill or rather she has taught me the value of taking a chill.

At her suggestion, I took an online course on Mindfulness.

I know that sounds like a lot of New Age hokum but I happen to like New Age music and the like and I have always been a big fan of hokum.

In a crude way, I describe Mindfulness as being in the moment, of stepping out of yourself for a second and seeing and feeling who you are. Simply put, Mindfulness is taking a chill.

I used to be able to realize when I was dreaming. In my dream, I saw myself becoming aware that I was in a dream. Sometimes, I got out of my dream and woke up. They weren’t necessarily nightmares just dreams.

This year of COVID has at times seemed like a dream I would like to escape but it hasn’t worked for me as yet.

Taking a chill is the next best remedy I have come upon.

Step out, observe, delete the negativity, move on.

Today marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

I had to specify “Japan” because so many Americans have a desparingly lack of historical knowledge and appreciation. Just for additional clarification, we dropped the bomb on Japan during World War II. (In another post I recounted the experience of a WW ll veteran who was introduced by a teacher to her grammar school class as a “Veteran of World War ELEVEN!)

As a kid growing up the dropping of the bomb was a curiosity as much as a source of dread. Everyone loves fireworks and the atomic bomb represented the ultimate magnificence of pyrotechnics.

Through the window of the Enola Gay shortly after the bomb was released from its bay, we witnessed a flash and a glorious cloud that rose ever higher. Of course, the view from the ground was much different. It was not until I read, Hiroshima by John Hersey that I understood just how destructive the bomb had been.

I remember reading that for some of its victims all that remained was a shadow etched into the ground by the ferocious light emanating from the core of the blast. It is no wonder that no sooner had the war ended that America feared the bomb.

As children hid under their desks during drills in school and as Air Raid Shelter signs were put on buildings in our neighborhood, nuclear energy was being promoted as a cheap, efficient, and clean source of electricity.

The Nuclear Age was upon us.

A source of controversy in its own right, nuclear energy pales in the utter destruction housed in one nuclear warhead. But, here we are seventy-five years later, and more Americans have been killed by a virus than Japanese killed in Hiroshima. A total ranging from 129,000 to 226,000 people, were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the second city to suffer a nuclear attack days after Hiroshima.

Sadly we are still in the throes of the pandemic and no end in sight.

Harry S. Truman was the wartime American President who gave the order to drop both bombs. The decision has been defended on the basis that the bomb ended the war where a protracted battle would have cost over a million lives. It’s easy to criticize when your 2020 vision is blurred by seventy-five years.

Still, maybe we can better understand the logic of that day as we shelter in place and wear masks and live in our own dread.

The Mercy Rule should be invoked.

You know when a baseball game is getting out of hand with one team holding an 11-0 lead? I mean, there is no mystery as to whom will win the game so, let’s call it a day and move on.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

I think it’s time that we start applying the Mercy Rule to 2020.

From its inception, 2020 has been disappointing. I am not even considering politics at this point. It seems that from the very moment the ball fell in Times Square, upon the last note of Auld Lang Syne, 2020 was just a techno-enhanced version of 1968.

COVID, the collapse of the US economy, George Floyd, and the other African Americans who fell victim to racism all have derailed the country as we approach the third decade of the twenty-first century.

It’s time to reboot the system.

I propose that at the stroke of midnight, September 1st, we fast forward to 2021.
I realize it’s more psychological than astronomical, but pretending to put an early end to 2020 is called for under our present conditions.

In addition to all of these items we have been dealing with all year, a tropical storm wreaks havoc on the NYC metropolitan area…but don’t mention global warming to the buffoons who mock science.

Now, zooming ( if I may use the word in a non-video sharing sense) right to 2021 is an excellent idea, but it might also be of value to zoom directly to December.

They keep promising a vaccine by the end of the year, so maybe skipping ahead a few months might be just the trick to get us out of our houses so that we could be eating a pizza in a pizza parlor with no fear of anything except maybe a little agita?

Avoiding September, October, and November would also put an end to the whole back to school thing. Let’s just pass GO and straight to Free Parking for a Christmas Vacation.

The parallels of this year to 1968 evoke stark memories and a divided country that remained that way except for a brief time in September 2001.

I was eighteen in 1968, and I stayed home on New Year’s Eve.

There was nothing to celebrate.

Watching TV with my mother as Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadiens usher in 1969, I remember saying to my mother, “Thank God this year’s over!” I have a feeling we all might be saying that this year.

I wonder if you can download Guy Lombardo on iTunes?

I was watching “Opening Day” at Yankee Stadium the other night when the oddity of opening day in late July and the fact that there were no fans in the stadium was obscured by a revelation.

For the first time in my memory, the Bleacher Creature Roll Call was not greeting the Yankees and their fans at the opening of a home game, much less opening day. Instead, a group of health care workers and first responders were called to “take their position” as if they were the ballplayers we idolized.

I was amused to see players from both squads salute these workers by banging the equivalent of pots and pans,  the tradition honor bestowed on these heroes every evening at 7 PM. (Of course, I presumed the “pots and pans” to be replicas of trash cans thereby mocking the Houston Astros and their methodology of cheating)

The only thing that made this moment less meaningful was the absence of fans to show their appreciation of our essential champions.

Nevertheless, those represented at Yankee Stadium as well as other essential workers have persevered to provide on a daily basis what users of Facebook and Twitter often fail to illustrate in their posts and tweets.

Making the world a better place is not as hard as you may think.

It only takes one less negative post or hateful tweet.

The power of scrolling enables us to ignore those items that offend us and, as the nuns of Blessed Sacrament and the Baltimore Catechism advised, avoid the near occasion of sin by showing our disdain to the offending poster/tweeter.

Make an effort in your own use of social media to avoid the near occasion of sin.

I am not always successful as I frequently “heart” the items that offend others and put my own two cents in to comment on somebody else’s post. I have to stop doing that.

Of course, I endeavor to be funny or at least ironic and don’t often spout hatred but being sarcastic never made the world a better place.

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

I often try to write with the thought in mind that my mother will be reading this.

If you had as loving a mother as I had, maybe keep her in mind when you put something out there on social media.

I am sure she would want you to make the world a better place.