The Newell Post

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.

Well, here is another momentous anniversary to ponder. Seventy-five years ago, the Second World War in Europe came to an end, and the Nazis were defeated. Three months later, the war would finally come to an end in the Pacific after we dropped two Atomic bombs on Japan.

Although I was born in 1950, World War II was something my generation grew up in its shadow. You couldn’t watch TV in the 50s without seeing a documentary or drama with a war theme. Even the games we played were invaded by the war.

We played with soldiers and had rifles; some had toy hand grenades. We played I Declare War, which was a game that combined tag with dodge ball. Each player chose a country, and we put a ball in the middle of the sewer cap in the middle of Leland Avenue. With chalk, radii were drawn out from the center and each segment represented a country where you would stand waiting for the next round to start.

The first player to be “it” retrieved the ball from the center and in a loud voice proclaimed, “I declare war on RUSSIA” and proceeded to bounce the ball as high as possible while the kid who was Russia ran after the ball and the rest of us ran away as fast as possible.

Once the ball was caught, we were all ordered to stop, and then the kid with the ball would try to hit one of us, and then that person would be it and on and on the game would go.

You always wanted to be USA, and you didn’t want to be Russia or Japan.

We knew what was what in the 50s.

On May 8, 1945, people rejoiced in Times Square, and a sailor kissed a girl that has been memorialized in huge statues, two of which I have seen. One was in San Diego and the other in Sarasota.

People were happy.

Happiness seemed to endure into the 50s and early 60s.

Why wouldn’t people be happy? Most adults had lived during the Great Depression and then fought the war. Once the war was over, America was poised to explode more than A-bombs. Our economy took off. Technology started to impact our lives as televisions and telephones were standard features in most homes.

Life was good, even if it remained scary.

War was always right around the corner. Whether in Korea or fearing that the United States would wind up going into WWIII against the Soviet Union, war was still in our psyche.

The Cuban Missle Crisis in 1962 brought that right into our living rooms.

But today is to remember a day of joy, a day of happiness, and a day of victory of Light over Darkness.

It is also a day to remember the brave men and women who served and died so that we could still enjoy the freedom of America.

Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the Kent State shootings. It was a dark day on all college campuses following this tragedy. More than that, It was a defining moment in our history as a nation as a divide was created that still exists today.

There were other fiftieth anniversaries that I highlighted with a blog. Last year we had the fiftieth anniversary of the first moon landing (perhaps????)

In 2018 we had the fiftieth anniversary of the Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy assassinations

Then in 2014 we had the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles first coming to America and appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show.

A few months before this, in November 2013, we had the fiftieth anniversary of the JFK Assassination.

But yesterday I was thinking about September 11, 2001.

I was able to process the fiftieth anniversaries of those events sighted as they did happen quite a while ago, and I was quite young. Thirteen for JFK and The Beatles, seventeen for MLK and Bobby, and nineteen for the moon landing and Kent State.

Somehow, however, the notion that we will be acknowledging the nineteenth anniversary of 9/11 blew my mind.

It hardly seems possible.

What a different world was created in the rubble of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the patch of ground in rural Pennsylvania.

The shock that we all experienced seemed to last for a long time. For, unfortunately, a short time, Americans were united as a nation. The partisanship that has torn our country apart from the Viet Nam War era until the present day was put on hold in September 2001.

You would think that a pandemic would do the same.

We are as divided as we ever have been, and it seems that each side hates the other with such passion and conviction that the prospect of working together to help our nation is more unlikely than ever.

I have tried to be positive on these pages and have not recently railed against any political leader, but anger has morphed into despondency, and I fear the America that we used to know and love may never be seen again.

We might as well be talking about Yankees and Rebels when we talk about Blue and Red states. There is so much disdain for the leaders of both parties and for their supporters.

We need reconciliation, on and we need it now or else the numbers of victims of this dreaded disease will continue to climb as we look for someone to blame for its spread.

Here we are in lockdown despite the fact that Florida will be opening up again. How many Floridian canaries will venture into the coal mine of living in corona?

It’s a scary proposition one that we all hope will prove to be far less dangerous than it appears today.

Scarier (to me) than corona was what I saw on the news a couple of days ago regarding the armed assault on the Michigan Statehouse. Strapped with automatic weapons, armed protestors sought to work (shoot?) their way into the state legislature.

This is not a nation at war with an invisible enemy.

At a time when it appeared that we were getting the point that this virus does not distinguish between red and blue, north and south, or, despite early reports, young versus old, we now appear anxious to get back to our days of division and animosity.

The reality, however, is that we are all on the same page except for the timing.

I want professional basketball and hockey to complete their seasons and to have their playoffs.

I desperately want to see the New York Yankees play games at Yankee Stadium and hear Frank sing New York New York after every game.

I want to be able to re-schedule my trip to England and Ireland.

I want to be able to go to Disney World in September as we have planned.

I want to be able to visit my sisters and nieces and nephews in Stuart.

I want to be licked to the point of crying uncle when I see Scout and Rudy.

I want to have a nice dinner with my wife and kids.

I want to be able to go out to dinner and not have to worry about getting sick.

I want to see the New York Jets play and see if our new players will help us win.

I want to do all these things and more starting tomorrow, but that probably will not happen.

We all want to do these things or our own version of what life has to offer us and gives us pleasure.

Being locked up on lockdown is not fun when compared to what we are missing, but it may be the only thing we can do to ensure that we will once again get to enjoy our pleasures.

The Greatest Generation has been given this title because they endured the Great Depression and World War II.

We are now being challenged to see if we can approach their standing as a generation worthy of such a title.  This is not a time for drawing guns on our leaders, but it is a time for our leaders to unite all of us and to help us understand what needs to be done and what are the risks to be faced.

Going out to dinner and a movie used to be a nice date when it was safe to go to a restaurant and a crowded movie theater. It will be again, but we may just have to wait to make sure.

A small price for greatness, wouldn’t you say?

Warren G. Harding was the Republican nominee for the Presidential election of 1920. His campaign slogan promised a Return To Normalcy.

Many scoffed at the term, pointing out that “normality” was the proper term.

In any event, the slogan was successful as Americ did want to return to a time before World War I, and perhaps the Spanish Flu and Harding won the election.

Now Harding was not a great President, and he did bring us the Teapot Dome Scandal, which was only eclipsed in Presidential history by Watergate. There was also something about women secreted away in a closet in the White House. Still, perhaps the only accomplishment for Harding’s time in office was dying and allowing Calvin Coolidge to assume the office.

Here we are one hundred years later, and you can almost hear the ads proclaiming that our presidential candidates will bring us back to normalcy or normality or back from the brink of disaster.

Here I was all set for a new round of the Roaring Twenties with modern-day Flappers and bootlegged hooch, but instead, we have at least another six months or a year (some say two years) of sheltering in place.

The Florida governor willing to use me as a guinea pig for his theory that Covid has already peaked. He has chosen to ignore the President’s recent guidance as to when a state should open up (guidance, in all fairness, that the President himself seems to be ignoring). Nevertheless, I am going to continue to shelter in place.

So, yes, I am looking to return to normalcy or normality or a time when going to a Yankee game isn’t toxic to my health save the Blue Moon beers and the sausage and pepper sandwich.

It’s the little things that we miss during a pandemic.

Like all of you who are taking this sheltering at home seriously, I am getting a little batty.

So much so that last night, I had a difficult time getting to sleep. I kept thinking about The Prodigal Son, and I was tempted to get up and write a blog in the middle of my insomnia.

I didn’t.

All day long, I thought about not writing anything about what kept me up all night long. But, having just finished dinner, I thought I really should.

The parable of the Prodigal Son remains my favorite parable as it clearly encapsulates what it means to be a good person.

We see a son who, by all accounts, was a scoundrel. He took his share of his father’s money and lived a life of debauchery. He drank to excess and womanized and just squandered all his father’s money to the point that he was penniless and homeless.

When he finally had reached rock bottom, the Son had an epiphany.

He realized that even the lowliest of his father’s servants had a roof over his head and food to eat. So, he travels back to his home to beg his father to let him live with the servants.

The father got word that the son was on his way back, and he was beside himself with joy.

He told his servants to put a celebration together and to prepare the fatted calf for the feast.

There’s another brother who never did anything but work hard for his father, and he was a little miffed at all the hubbub being made for his drunk of a brother.

The father explained that he was rejoicing because his son, who was dead is now alive. He was lost and is now found.

Ok, well, that’s the gist of the parable, but I think there is something more for us today.

The father threw the party for HIM. HE was dead and was given new life because his son was coming home. By forgiving his son, who was a lazy lout, the father was able to celebrate and rejoice. Forgiveness made the Father a new man.

By forgiving his son, by giving his son a celebration, the father received a much more powerful gift.

We experience this every Christmas.

When I was a kid, I may have been nine years old, my father and mother picked me up after school. This was unusual. My father was never home that early, and it was only a few blocks for me to walk home. Anyway, they were waiting for me, and as I got in the car, my father gave me a kinda deke. He nodded to the back seat where on the floor lay a box with big letters LIONEL TRAINS.

It wasn’t even Halloween, and he was giving me a set of trains. Now, another father would have tucked that box away and saved it for Christmas. Not my father. He couldn’t wait.

I never fully appreciated why until I saw A Christmas Story.

In the movie, the father is a boisterous Old Man whose greatest characteristic is mastering the art of cursing. Of course, in the movie, he employs the WC Fields technique of substituting nonsense words that cannot help but be understood for profanity.

Anyway, we follow Ralphie try to ensure that this Christmas, he will receive a Red Rider BB Gun. His mother thinks he will shoot his eye out, so blurting his wish out at breakfast failed. His composition detailing what he wanted for Christmas also failed as his teacher echoed his mother’s “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out.” Finally, even Santa disappoints.

But it is his father who comes through in the end.

To me, the whole movie revolves around one scene. It’s the look that Ralphie’s father has when Ralphie is opening his BB gun.

If you are only a decent Dad, you’ve had that look as your son or daughter opened their gifts.

Again, it is the giving that provides the ultimate joy.

Hoarding our wealth does nothing but make us miserable…miserly…a miser.

So what does this all have to do with Looking Forward?

We have to do a better job of creating essential access to essential commodities. It’s not enough to rely on market philosophies that put burdens on the least of us.

Food and shelter. Water and healthcare. Education and security from harm. These are things that we shouldn’t dole out to only the worthy amongst us. How ironic that many of our essential workers actually have the least access to these essential commodities?

America needs a Marshall Plan. We need to take care of those who have the least, and while it will be lifesaving to these people, it will be life-changing to us.

Get over the blue state red state thing. Don’t let politicians divide us.

To suggest that only certain people in certain states deserve our love is despicable.

We’re better than that America.

If you don’t want to read the bible and learn about the Prodigal Son, at least YouTube A Christmas Story.

Edward Bellamy wrote Looking Backward in 1888. It’s a Rip Van Winkle/Utopian novel.

The main character falls asleep in 1887 and wakes up in 2000.

All sorts of societal evolution took place in the intervening years of the main character’s nap, to which his guide will bring him up to speed.

I read this book in college in the fall of 1971 when I was still learning the Science Fiction ABC’s as written by Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke. So, futurism was popular with me, and it had yet to turn dystopian in nature despite Animal Farm, 1984, and Brave New World.

Bellamy created a world in which people got along. Where crime and inequality were eliminated. But that’s now what is important to us today as we hope to enter a post-covid-19 world.

In a brief scene when our character is taken to a 21st Century restaurant (remember going out to eat?), he is struck by the deference that his host affords the waiter who is tending to them. In this new world, citizens are required to provide National Service, similar to the draft that was in full force when I read this book.

However, instead of going off to war, recruits are serving the nation in more benign activities. They do so willingly because that is what citizens do. And because of that, no distinction is placed on the type of service that is performed by the citizen. Being a waiter, or a cleaner, or a sanitation worker, actually is more favorably looked upon simply because they are not glamorous jobs. To put in today’s vernacular, they are, however, essential.

Perhaps as we think about a new world after covid no longer threatens us, we can remember those who provided essential service while we stayed in our homes?

Naturally, healthcare workers and first responders, including members of the Fire Department, Police Department, and EMS, and of course teachers who are already held high in our esteem. But it is the grocers and the staff who stock shelves and put up with pandemic shopping as well as the truckers who have traveled thousands of miles transporting our much needed food and, let’s not forget toilet paper.

Then there are the farmers and the laborers in the field that have been too long considered illegals. Ask yourself, where would we be if they had not come to pick the crops we need to survive?

And restaurant workers who provide a diversion with delivered foods or curbside pick-ups.

All of these workers and their families have taken the chance on exposure to this dreaded virus so we can survive.

Let’s hope we remember their sacrifice when this is all over. Let’s hope we have learned an appreciation of the little things we used to take for granted only to realize they really weren’t that little in the first place.

Ok, rambling on a bit, but you get the point.

I’m looking forward, and it really will be forward and not looking to return to a past that wasn’t all that nice to begin with.

We have to remember that the virus cares nothing about Red or Blue states. We should try to remember that ourselves.

I am not sure what Samuel Becket’s “Waiting For Godot” is all about. I am sure if I really wanted to learn the meaning of the play that there would be a myriad of sources to tell me. I don’t want that.

I think one of the joys, if not the only joy of reading art or witnessing it performed, is making your own evaluations and finding your own meaning.

So, what does this have to do with my Saturday Morning Rant? In fact, what does Godot have to do with you or me?

I guess it would be useful to know who Godot is and why the characters are waiting for him. It might indeed be useful to know this but quite unnecessary.

To me, the keyword in the tile of the play is WAITING.

Becket was living in Paris when the Nazis invaded France.  He would join the French Resistance, so maybe he was waiting for the Americans to come to France’s rescue? What I take away from the title is a question.

What am I waiting for?

It seems that I have always been waiting.

When I was in school, I was waiting for Thanksgiving and then Christmas vacation. No sooner was I back in school than I was waiting for Easter vacation and then summer vacation.

Those were simple waits but still significant enough to create a sense of longing and joyful expectation. It was a reachable goal.

As an adult? Well, I won’t bore you with all of that.

The fact is I am still waiting and longing and, despite the fact that I am nearly seventy years old, my expectations haven’t really changed at all. With the exception of the addition of one more wait. A wait that seems as far off as those Christmas vacations and summer vacations seemed over sixty years ago.

I am waiting for the end of COVID-19 and all the impact that it is having on our lives.

Sadly, there are so many who have been impacted with tragedy and loss that there is no amount of waiting and truly maybe nothing to wait for that will put this miserable experience out of our mind.

Still, we will rejoice when COVID-19 is defeated.

It is commonly believed that Godot was a representation of GOD. I am not sure as every explanation I have heard seems to offer a different opinion. But, I believe it is God.

While the act of waiting may seem arduous and excruciating depending on what it is you are expecting, it is also a manifestation of your hope in something good about to happen.

So, despite the daily recitation of positive tests and fatalities and just listening to the accounts of suffering detailed by health care workers, I have hope, and I truly believe the rest of us do too.

There will be a cure or a method of lessening the effects of the virus. There will one day be a vaccine (of course, we will have to convince the lunatic anti-vaxers to let us use it).

The world’s scientists and researchers are on the case, and they will develop a treatment. I have no doubt about that.

That is a good thing to wait for. It offers hope. Despite the fact that we do have to wait and, by waiting, endure more daily updates of the devastation continuing to wreak havoc on civilization, we will survive and one day thrive.

That is one of my waits. That is my hope.

But I have others.

I am waiting for the divisions of this country to be eradicated along with COVID-19.

I am waiting for Americans to stop fighting this civil war that has wasted so much time.

I am waiting for all of us to see all of us as worthy of respect despite our color, creed, and sexual orientation.

I am waiting for America to wake up and realize that our nation’s physical health is a National Security issue. We don’t need Russian hackers to destroy us if we are going to destroy ourselves.

I am waiting to go to the Bronx to see Sean and Jeannine and York and, of course, Rudy and Scout.

I am waiting for Bryan to come home for the summer.

I am waiting to go to Disney with our friends Karen and Connie.

I am waiting to go to our club for a Hoptical Illusion that they have on hand especially for me.

I am waiting to have a pint in an English pub and a second one in Sligo.

I am waiting to stress out when Aaron Judge strikes out, or Gary Sanchez gives up a pass ball. (It’s funny how precious even those moments can seem now.)

Ok, you have the idea.

Life has its waits, and that is a really, really good thing.

God bless.

Be well.

Stay safe.

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. It is a day that, for many, represents the holiest day of the year.

As a kid, it was a day to don a new outfit that was more important to my mother than I. In the weeks coming up to Easter, we would be implored to give up something for Lent. I was never quite good enough at that. Nevertheless, I had my own rituals.

As a college student, I would listen to Jesus Christ Superstar as part of my devotion, but I also attended Holy Thursday and Good Friday services as well as Mass on Easter Sunday.

For Holy Week in 1971, I vowed to make a special sacrifice. I fasted for the last three days. Well, I had my “Last Supper” on Thursday and did not eat any food at all on Good Friday or Holy Saturday. I went to Mass on Easter Sunday, received communion and, went home to break my fast with a well-represented breakfast.

While my mother was preparing the eggs and bacon and brewing the coffee, I had a nice piece of her famous cheesecake. This would not have been Christ’s first task on Easter Sunday but I had done my penance and cheesecake was my salvation.

I did no such fasting this year, but I did forego eating meat on Good Friday…which reminds me of another story.

My sister Maureen related this tale to me a few years ago.

It seems back in the day when meant had to be abstained on all Fridays by edict of the Pope, Maureen witnessed something that shocked me when she told me.

One Thursday evening, my mother was preparing my father’s lunch for the next day. Maureen was beside herself when she asked my mother what on earth she was doing.

“I’m fixing your father’s lunch.”

“But momma, you’re making ham sandwiches!” (One sandwich was never enough.)

“So I am.”

“But tomorrow is Friday!!!”

“Luv, your father works very hard and needs a good lunch to get him through the day. Not eating meat on Friday is a man-made rule and was never demanded by Jesus.”

So it was that my mother became the first cafeteria Catholic.

Now the nuns and priest of that day, probably late 1940s, would have deemed my mother’s actions as sinful if not heretical. But Jesus wouldn’t.

She understood that. She understood that Jesus was above petty rules and regulations.

Never once did you read Jesus, saying that it was a sin to eat meat at any time.

Never once did you read Jesus saying that you had to go to church every Sunday.

In fact, the only times I remember Jesus in a church was when he was lecturing the priests about God’s law and when he kicked the gamblers out of His Father’s House.

The point is that giving up meat and going to mass are wonderful traditions and should be encouraged as they provide a focus on living a good life. But when going to church can put you or others in danger due to an extremely contagious disease, well Jesus wants us to stay home, and all you have to do is to read the Bible to know that.

Tomorrow there will be many chances to attend mass for me. I can either listen to it on SiriusXM radio or on WFUV. Mass will be available on television as well and on YouTube.

Would it be better to attend in person? Of course.

The splendor and the beauty of the Mass are always better in person, but we have a good reason to forego that this year.

Let’s just hope that this will be the last Easter we have to pray in isolation.

Happy Easter everyone.

Look, I’ve tried to keep a positive outlick during this corona mayhem. I have taken to practice social distancing from listening to cable news, except when Governor Cuomo is on. I’ve gotten used to trying to keep myself amused by writing blogs if only for my own sanity. I have even tried to smile, although, as you may know, no one has to teach me to be nice!

Anyway, a few chinks in my armor are beginning to breakthrough.

I’m starting to have nightmares about running out of toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

I have more food in my freezer than they had on the Titanic (which I realize is not the metaphor I was looking for).

I am trying to put a Coronavirus PlayList together but have only come up with a couple of songs, Another Day In Paradise and Ave Maria.

It just seems that one day flows into the other. There is very little difference between Monday and Friday. The weekend has no meaning whatsoever.

There’s no baseball.

There was no March Madness.

It doesn’t seem likely that there will be hockey or basketball playoffs.

There isn’t even NASCAR! Although I did watch a video-game-like version of NASCAR last  Sunday and how pathetic is that?

It’s not that I am complaining, I’m merely voicing,  or in this case, writing, what so many people around the world are experiencing.

I should be planning my trip to London and Ireland, which would be happening one month from tomorrow. Instead, I will resort to watching YouTube for all the places we would be visiting in a coronoa-free world.

I am purposely ignoring the real suffering brought on by this terrible disease. My goal here is to make a few of you smile in the face of a terrible time.

God bless all of those who do so much to protect us and keep us healthy and to keep us safe.

Please stay safe.