The Newell Post

It would be a foul thing altogether if the Covid virus only served to sicken and kill us. Let us hope that a side effect of this dreaded virus is that we all will resolve to forget about our differences much as Covid seems to.

We are all in this together, subject to the same effects of this disease. We are all frightened because we don’t know what the endgame looks like. The one thing I think is for certain is that we will not escape its effects unchanged.

Let us hope the change is for the better.

My faith tells me it will be.

Where we all have complained about the cost of healthcare, we now worry that our healthcare providers will stay well and have what they need to cure us.

Where we have all complained about the cost of food and going out to restaurants, maybe we will grow to savor those experiences and to applaud those who provide their service to us.

Despite the call for social distancing, I never talked to so many people (at a safe distance) commenting on our plight but with a joyful tone and sharing a smile and stay safe wishes.

A reminder, social distancing can be overcome by technology. Use your phone and computer to reach out to friends, old and new. Keep in touch with family by sending those annoying texts that we all love.

Cherish the people in your life and keep washing your hands while acknowledging that you are helping them stay safe.

Peace and love were words Baby Boomers used back in the day, and we need to say that today more than ever.

Peace and Love and share the joy while you show compassion and concern.

The Great Depression changed America forever. It changed it for the better thanks to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The Great Depression even changed Inauguration Day. George Washington was first installed as our first President on April 30, 1789. Thereafter, Inauguration Day would be March 4th.

The last President to be inaugurated on March 4th was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was inaugurated for the first time on March 4, 1933.

Because the economy suffered during the time of the election in 1932 through the winter of 1933, Congress changed the date of Inauguration Day to January 20th.

When FDR was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, he uttered those fateful words: “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself…”.

We should remember these words and live our lives by them.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the increasing numbers of coronavirus victims and fatalities. How could you not after listening to the men and women of science detail the potential of this pandemic?

It’s easy to polarize into two extremes: those who doubt the evidence and believe this is no more than a common cold or flu and those who believe we are all doomed.

To me, it’s easier to remember Franklin Delano Roosevelt reassuring a terrified nation facing economic ruin by simply saying, “…the only thing we have to fear…is fear itself.”

With apologies to Paul Simon.

Where have you gone, Franklin Delano Roosevelt?

Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you>

Ok, I think I have been on Coronavirus Information Overload for a month. Well, I have been a moderate germaphobe but not OCD about it. When the flood of information started overwhelming us, we were given some guidelines.

Basically, the bulk of our population would be able to weather this outbreak without fear or worry. It is very contagious but does not to be life-threatening to most people.

However, there are some who are at high risk and should avoid anyone who has contracted the virus.

The high-risk groups are: the elderly (Check); people who have a chronic medical condition including cancer (Check); and people with a compromised immune system (Check). The trifecta.

In the immortal words of Alfred E. Neuman, “What… me worry?”

Here are some helpful and healthful hints that I have included in my Coronavirus survival strategy.

I only watch the news for two or three five minute updates.

I ignore posts on Facebook and Twitter that are not helpful to my psyche.

I read the newspaper but spend more time doing the crossword puzzle.

I listen to the mass at St. Patrick’s on SiriusXM radio.

Quite honestly, that is as much as I can accomplish because the rest of the time I am washing my hands.

Look, I am doing my best, as I am sure you are to get through this, but I really do believe a positive attitude is the best vaccine that we can administer. Getting bummed out and worrying about all the uncertainties about this disease will serve no useful purpose.

When I was going through chemo in 2000, and again in 2007, I tried to be positive and laughed, and watched West Wing and Yankee baseball and downplayed the ordeal, I was going through. Of course. I could have been in denial, and I know my family and friends were not fooled by my reaction.

Nevertheless, I did survive.

I am confident that I will survive this too.

And I pray to God that all of you and all of my loved ones will be here with me.

I am baking my St. Patrick’s Day soda bread as I type. Getting used to baking with gas after thirty-three years using electric ovens posed a challenge that I think I have overcome. So, my advice is to make sure your bread is done by inserting a toothpick in the center of the bread just to ensure that it is done. The next issue is how to serve the finished product.

I always loved the first piece that my mother would give me nearly right out of the oven. It was hot and melted the butter to a glorious topping for any fine bread. Jam and marmalade of course make a delicious alternative, but always on top of the butter and always after the first piece.

That’s my habit but you are welcome to enjoy your technique for eating your own slice of Heaven..

Enjoy and eat well.

Every culture that has sent its representatives to our grateful shores has, along with hard-working people who had dreams of a new life and guts of cast iron, given America its language, folklore but, most of all, food. This morning our subject is Irish Soda Bread.

I have always viewed Irish Soda Bread the way my Italian friends thought of gravy, what we call sauce. Just as any self-respecting Italian would rather go hungry than be forced to eat pasta covered in Ragu, so, too, do I have my standards when it comes to Irish Soda Bread for no two soda breads are ever alike.

No matter how nice they look in their bakery wrapper, and regardless of the wonderful aroma that permeates the bakery, when you get the bakery-bought Irish Soda Bread home and attempt to slather it with butter, well, let’s just say it sucks. Supermarket Irish Soda Bread may suck even more. The only recourse true Irish Soda Bread Aficionados have is to only eat homemade Irish Soda Bread. But even here one must tread carefully. There are a lot of wannabes out there, but Jimmy is here to help you. Take this down:

Lizzie McHugh’s Irish Soda Bread Recipe

First. My Mother never had a recipe. She winged it. One day when Eileen and I were still living in New Rochelle, I called her for her recipe. She obliged, and I baked. I love having the first piece when the bread is still piping hot and the butter melts right into it. I didn’t love it this time. It didn’t even taste as good as a supermarket bread. I called her back and told her. She was confused and had me repeat what I had done. “I never said a tablespoon of sugar, you need at least a third of a cup.” Ok, I wrote the corrected recipe down and made a terrific Irish Soda Bread, just like Momma’s. Here it is for your baking and eating pleasure:

Ingredients

Combine

3 1/2 cups of flour

2/3 cup of sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1-tbsp caraway seeds (I like more I’m just saying)

1/2 half box of raisins

2 eggs

Buttermilk

2tblsps-melted butter

Beat the two eggs and add butter (let melted butter cool down) and enough buttermilk to bring the total mixture to 2 cups.

Add the liquid and dry mixtures and combine and place into a greased baking pan, round or loaf.

Put into a pre-heated 350-degree oven and bake for about an hour. Ovens vary so I would check at the 50-minute mark.

Let cool…but not that long as there is nothing on Earth quite like a warm piece of Irish Soda Bread.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day everybody.

First of all, thank God for iTunes, Netflix, Prime Video, and Acorn.

I guess we could all read books too, but it’s nice knowing we have video alternatives. I have a nice collection of recent Yankee World Series wins as well as a collection of the New York Rangers Stanley Cup run in 1994. Of course, YouTube is always there to provide us what we don’t already own.

On a more serious note, I just did a TP review, and I think we are fine. I would guess we have over 20 rolls, so we won’t be having to wait on a Costco line for that. We also have water.

Quite frankly, the run on TP (if I can use that expression) and water is a bit confusing. From what I have heard and read, I did not think that frequent bathroom trips or thirst were high on the symptoms list of Corona. Nevertheless, some people must have heard differently.

My only clinical suggestion to survive our current ordeal is to stay away from cable news and broadcast TV. If you have to watch cable TV, try the cooking shows.

If you are lucky enough to still own your vinyl LPs, listening to them will rekindle happier times when you had a real need for binge buying and eating. A little Jethro Tull and the Moody Blues will restore the state of optimism that sustained you throughout the 1970s. You may also want to set your black and white TV to a non-broadcast channel while listening to the soundtrack of 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Those little specks of light twinkling on the black screen are actually cosmic noise originating at the Big Bang.

Oh, for a bottle of Bali Hai!

I have been off Facebook for a while. I also got off Twitter but have since returned. Primarily I abandoned social media because it was anything but.

Now, as I mentioned, I have come back to Twitter, but I have overcome the Kryptonite of hate-inspired tweets by using my Superpower of Deletion.

Well, on Twitter, you delete by blocking.

Facebook offers a similar strategy for combating the inane and annoying. You simply De-Friend the offender.

Recently I have visited Facebook once again, and while I haven’t had the need to de-friend just ye,t I have taken to the lesser superpower of ignoring the inane and annoying.

It’s like keeping Fox News (or if you prefer MSNBC) off your favorite channel list but requiring a more satisfying effort to send the miscreant to the phantom zone of the etherworld.

So, my advice to anyone who has suffered the pain and anguish of stupid posts and tweets is to delete, ban, block, de-friend. Banish them to Bogey Land.

Such an action was anticipated in the US Constitution. Free Speech is indeed a marvelous gift that the Founding Fathers provided, but along with the right to speak freely comes the equally powerful right to ignore.

So, as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison might be opining today, when in the course of human events, you are subjected to the inane and annoying, delete, de-friend, block.

It is our right. It is our privilege. It is our duty.

One last thing, feel free to delete, de-friend, or otherwise block me.

That’s your right too.

So here we are in the midst of another leap year celebration. February 29th! It seems like it was only four years ago that we were last celebrating. Of course, then, in 2016, leap year only served to prove that Phil the Groundhog was wrong as winter was even more prolonged than it usually is.

This year, however, I am first celebrating a Floridian Leap Year, which is a grand occasion to rejoice that summer will not start as early as the year before.

An extra day of winter is just what the weatherman ordered for a state that has two hundred ninety degree days and what appears to be a summer season that extends to Black Friday.

I am exaggerating, but it is Leap Year Saturday, and I won’t get the opportunity for another four years.

The whole concept of a leap year is a bit confusing and disheartening. No one could come up with an accurate calendar or even a precise measurement of a day. I was shocked to learn that our whole concept of time is an approximation and that to create the illusion that our calendars and timepieces are precise, we have to create an extra day once every four years to narrow the gap in our precision.

It kind of reminds me of the difficulty the National Football League has been having in defining what a catch is. It always seemed an easy thing for my friends and me to describe, but the NFL has been tinkering with the concept for several years, and still, no one can accurately explain to me when a receiver has actually caught a ball.

How can we ever have peace in the middle east if we can’t even get that straightened out?

Anyway, a nagging question that I have always had but never dared to ask is how do leap year birthday people celebrate their birthdays?

Well, of course, today is their birthday, so Happy Birthday to you all.

My question pertains to last year and next year, for example.

Do you celebrate March 1st? That seems to be a logical assumption, but why not February 28th?

I think I would alternate between the two. I would rationalize that you can’t be born the day before you were born and so March 1st is the better choice. Nevertheless, if I were actually born in February, I would want a February birthday because I have all that birthstone jewelry.

It’s a conundrum, to say the least. But it is a far more enjoyable conundrum than say wondering if I should be taking that trip to England and Ireland in the face of the Coronavirus?

So, enjoy the leap everybody.

Before I moved to Florida, going to Disney in the first week of March became a ritual for my two sons and me. My daughter could never join us as she is a teacher and did not have that week off. But she was there with us in spirit.

The week became special for us because we included a trip to Legends Field as it was then called to attend a Yankee Spring Training Game.

I capitalized it because it was indeed a special time.

For one thing, coming from New York in early March, you were greeted with bright sunshine and warm breezes. Then you went to the ballpark and walked around the facility and hung out by the practice field. Our first year was the best. As we hung by the chain-link fence encircling the field, there was a high bench set up behind the batting cage.

There, perched atop the bench sat Joe Torre, Zim, Donny Baseball, and Yogi.

I could almost cry as I type.

It was just a special moment, and no matter how old you are, you just had to be struck by the sight. All that was needed was James Earl Jones giving his Field of Dreams speech.

In addition to walking around the field, we also would visit Monument Park South. This was a display of all the retired numbers with a plaque for each player. If I only had a dollar for every selfie that had been taken at the various numbers.

I attended another spring training event with my friend and, at the time, my boss. Jeffrey was as big a Yankee fan as I, and he even went to the gift shop to purchase a baseball to have autographed should we come across a player or two.

I was not that motivated and didn’t buy a ball for myself.

Sure enough, we noticed a player and a queue starting to form.
Jeffrey and I headed over there. I stayed with Jeffrey because that is what friends do. I had no interest in getting the autograph of some Single-A baseball player.
And, since I hadn’t purchased a ball, I didn’t have anything to sign.

We were at the end of a long line and couldn’t make out what player was designated for autograph duty. We speculated that it was some would-be rookie.
As we got closer, I asked one of the security guys, “Who do we have here.” He just looked at me and smiled.

Then Jeffrey looked over and recognized that it was Andy Pettitte!

SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY!

Man, I was in a real tizzy. I giggled like a schoolgirl. I had palpitations. I scrambled to get something Andy could sign. Fortunately, I had a hat. Not my new one but last year’s spring training hat.

Finally, we got up to the head of the line. Jeffrey got his autograph as I took his picture. He will tell you I didn’t take a great one with all the shaking and jittering. Then it was my turn.

Now, I should mention that Andy was protected by a chain-link fence, and we had to pass our items through a gate. As I approached the gate, I was aquiver. I had to say something, but what?

I may have blurted out, “I LOVE YOU, ANDY !” Then I pleaded with Jeffrey to take our picture. I goobered up my best doofus smile and left Andy at the gate.

Then the day proceeded to get better.

On our drive to Tampa, Jeffrey got a tweet stating that Joe Namath was at batting practice. I was disappointed that we were probably going to miss him as we were more than an hour away.

So as we entered the game and, still feeling more than a little starstruck, I wasn’t at the top of my game. I started looking towards the dugout area and saw a clearly older player sporting a number 12 Yankees spring training jersey. “Who is that?” “It looks like Ron Guidry, but he wasn’t number 12.”

Now, number 12 was soft-tossing to one of the other players, “Probably going to throw out the first pitch.”

IT’S JOE NAMATH!!!!

SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY!

I had to sit down, well I was already sitting. I could have gone home after that. We saw Joe throw out the first pitch and it was 1968 all over again for me, except that my season ticket for the Jets back then was less than the cost of my one spring training ticket.

Joe had me bubbling, almost blubbering.

Then I get a message from my friend PJ. He tells me that the head coach of the Jets, Rex Ryan, is at the game. Sure enough, there he is talking to Jeter. Man O man, the things that affect us.

I may look sixty-three and a half on the outside, but after my spring training encounters of the awesome kind, I remain a teenager in my heart.

Well, this spring training moment occurred a few years ago. Namath was at spring training that year because Derek Jeter was beginning his final season as a Yankee.

I went to the opening game just this Saturday, and the emotion for me was the same. I am nearly seventy, but I felt like a little kid because that is what spring training does to you.

People who don’t understand the power of baseball don’t understand this emotion that fans have about their team and the game.

It’s just baseball, but it’s time travel as well.

When I go to games, I can still hear my father talk about Babe and Lou and Joe when he was taking me to see Mickey, Yogi, and Whitey.

My kids have heard all this before when I started taking them to see Donny, and Paul, and Bernie. Then along came Jeter and Jorge and Judge and Gleyber and…

It’s Yankee baseball, and it’s spring training.

The Day The Music Died?

February 3, 1959, was a day I will forever remember. I can still see my brother Mike and me watching our Mother prepare breakfast. I cannot tell you what the weather was like. If there was snow on the ground, I could not tell you. What I do remember, though, is listening to the green Zenith radio that was up on the shelf over our refrigerator.

In those days, my Mother would often have on a rock and roll channel. It would be years later that she would turn to listen to Rambling With Gambling. So, back in 1959, she was probably listening to Herb Oscar Anderson or someone like him. On that particular day, it did not matter what channel you had tuned into, nor did it matter who the DJ or radio host was. That day it was all the same news and music. Buddy Holly had died, and that is all we heard that day. Even as an eight-year-old, I saw the irony in his most recent recording that every station was playing. ‘It Doesn’t Matter Anymore’, written by Paul Anka, just about summed up the feeling of that day.

We also heard that Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper had died as well, in the same airplane crash as Buddy Holly. Twelve years later, Don McLean would refer to this day as The Day The Music Died. While music most certainly did not die that day in February, it was never the same. I am not sure what impact The Big Bopper would continue to have had on the course of music, but Buddy Holly and Ritchie  Valens would surely have continued to provide terrific music and, no doubt, to inspire new artists and bring new innovations to rock and roll. It is not coincidental that The Beatles recorded ‘Words Of Love’ in deference to Buddy Holly’s contribution to music.
Twenty Five Years Later
Now it is February 3, 1984. Eileen and I are expecting our second child. The plan was that we would go to the hospital that Monday, February 6th, for the birth of our child. That taught me a lesson. There are some things you can plan and some that you cannot.

It was a Friday evening. We had a nice dinner, and I was just about to put a fire on and watch the Winter Olympics. No sooner had I had the logs in the hearth than Eileen called out from the bathroom that we would need to be going to the hospital instead. My first reaction was to push my way into the bathroom and to take a shower. To this day, I cannot fathom why I thought it necessary for me to be showered and shampooed. I guess I was recalling when Sean was born and that it was going to be a long night/day.

Now we had made plans with friends to take care of Sean on Monday, but they were nowhere to be found. So, we called our friend’s mother, who promptly drove over and picked up Sean. Eileen and I then made our way to Southampton Hospital. Upon arriving at the Hospital, Eileen’s doctor came in, shaking his head, saying, “I thought we agreed this was going to happen Monday. I was just about to watch the ice skating competition.” I told him I was too but that at least I did get my shower in.

We then made our way to the OR room, and I got the chance, again, to sit next to Eileen as our baby was being born. (Let me tell you, that’s the type of sex education we need in our schools.)

The birth of your child is always amazing. One minute she wasn’t there, and the next minute she was. Before that minute had elapsed, however, we named her Jeannine. It was 9:30 PM.

She was a sight to behold. A beautiful round face trimmed with a wisp of reddish hair. We always thought she would be a redhead like her mother. The maternity nurse took her and got her ready for her crib, and then both of us walked Jeannine up to her room. Eileen was in recovery and would join us later.

When we get to the room, the nurse asked me if I wanted to hold her. So, I picked her up out of the little crib and took her in my arms. She turned her head up to me, and I swear she looked me right in the eyes, and I think she was a little miffed for being disturbed while she was napping. She had a look, and I also think she was eying me up wondering what her fate would be with this big doofus that was holding her. Her eyes were wide open and deep blue, and her lips were puckered, and the nose that I would spend most of her early years stealing and hiding, was as cute as could be.

It was then that I first sang ‘You’re Sugar….” but it was by far not the last time.

Happy Birthday, Jeannine.

Though the music may have died back in 1959, it was resurrected in 1984.

The first Superbowl (don’t think they actually called it the Superbowl then) was in 1967, and it featured the American Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs against the National Football League’s Greenbay Packers. The Packers won.

Then in 1968, Superbowl II was played pitting once again the NFL’s Greenbay Packers against the AFL’s Oakland Raiders. The Packers won again.

In both Superbowls, the AFL never had a chance.

The Packers dominated both the Chiefs and the Raiders.

To be fair, the Packers dominated the NFL as well, but that did not matter.

What did matter is that the NFL appeared not only to be the better league but so far superior as to suggest that a merger of the NFL with a decidedly inferior AFL might not be worth the effort.

The AFL was causing NFL owners to spend much more money on salaries to keep players from straying to the new league, and that certainly was more than enough reason to quash the new league and put it out of business. Allowing the AFL to compete in the Superbowl only kept it in competition with the NFL, and why would the owners want to do that?

So, in 1969 with the New York Jets winning the AFL championship and the Baltimore Colts winning the NFL championship, many thought another lopsided victory for the NFL  would be the death knell for the Superbowl and the American Football League.

Joe Namath’s audacious boast and guarantee of a New York Jet victory would only serve to make the NFL victory sweeter and, perhaps, once and for all eliminate the inferior league.

Well, Namath was right, and professional football was forever changed so that this Sunday will make Superbowl LIV a spectacle for all of us to enjoy.

Without Joe’s Superbowl III, there might not have been a Superbowl IV much less LIV.