The Newell Post

Today begins Unheated Pool Season in Florida, well, at least in my pool.

The water temperature was about 80 degrees which meant that it was a little chilly to my Florida adapted bones. Nevertheless, it was delightful. So much so that I began listening to one of my favorite playlists.

Back in the late ’60s, I didn’t have so much as a playlist as having several vinyl albums that would be part of my summer listening repertoire. The Byrds made up a significant portion of my summer fun.

Having my first unconditioned dip of the season, I decided to listen to the Byrds. Back in the days when I traveled the LIRR, I would get the Byrds onto my Walkman around Memorial Day. In Florida, the summer approaches sooner.

It was while in the pool and listening to the Byrds that I time traveled back to 1968 right into 1971. Specifically, the summers of these years.

To be a boy in New York at this time was glorious. I am sure it was great for girls too. I know this because one of my favorite things to do in these summers was to admire the girls in their summer dresses. Being a mail clerk that took me around to all the secretaries at P. Lorillard Corp., had its advantages.

There were times, also, that my assigned duties would have me make a delivery or a pick up requiring me to walk up Fifth Avenue. I used to love walking up Fifth and just admire the sea of people as their heads bobbed up and down as if in the surf at Jones Beach, You could see the heat, but it was still a beautiful sight to behold.

Of course, back in those summers, we didn’t have air conditioners. I felt fortunate because we had two fans at 1261 Leland Apartment 6. If you were lucky enough to sleep on those hot sultry nights, you were able to get up and dressed only because of the promise of what was to come.

Unfortunately, the promise was not readily available and would not be realized for nearly an hour. During that period of waiting, I had the distinct pleasure of riding the IRT number 6 from the Parkchester station.

The breeze of the line of subway cars that came when the train entered the station was exhilarating. However, the breeze and exhilaration were left on the platform as there was no air conditioning of subway cars in those days.

The train was hot and proceeded to get crowded. By the time you got to 125th Street and changed to the IRT 4 or 5, a damp mop could be made from your suit jacket and shirt. Happily, you got off the 6 and entered an even more crowded and hotter train. It was only an improvement because it was going to take ten minutes off my commute to 42nd Street.

Having arrived at my destination and made my way past the nun who sat incessantly on the top step of the Grand Central landing, my hopes for a better future were buoyed.

The corner of Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street was what you thought of as midtown New York City. The Chrysler Building, the Hotel Commodore and all the other buildings in the area were something I never took for granted.

But my destination was one block east. The Lorillard Building was situated on the southeastern corner of 3rd Avenue and 42nd Street. The address was 200 East 42nd Street, but the entrance was on 3rd Avenue. A Horn and Hardarts occupied the lower floor on the north side of the building. It was upon entering 200 East 42nd Street that the magic began and my promise for a brighter day was realized.

All you had to do was enter through the glass doors of the lobby and your day was transformed. A refreshing, aromatic breezed lifted you right off your feet. Your suit jacket didn’t seem to bother you. Hell, you could even scrunch up your tie a little tighter. There was a metal waterfall on the back wall of the lobby, so you imagined yourself walking beside a magic stream or river. Reading Herman Hesse on the train only seemed to enhance this fantasy.

I took the elevator to the 3rd floor and my day of work would soon commence. Chatting with my supervisors as we sorted the day’s mail and laughing at the give and take between my fellow mail clerks was always so much fun. We would get the mail sorted and broken down by floors, and each would complete his assigned round.

The first delivery of the day only resulted in cursory greetings to the office secretaries. They had jobs to do as more than one of their supervisors took great pleasure in reminding me. Additionally, the sooner we got our mail delivered, the sooner we could take our coffee break.

While a cart from Horn and Hardarts made the rounds to our office, we also frequented a coffee shop across 42nd Street that had great coffee and the best toasted blueberry and corn muffins. But it was the ensuing banter that was more enjoyable than the coffee.

Here it was weeks after Bobby Kennedy and two months after Martin Luter King were assassinated and yet black guys from Brooklyn, Hispanic guys from the South Bronx and Jewish guys from Queens along with this white guy from the Bronx were all happy and having fun with each other. It was the beauty of diversity before we ever knew what diversity was.

It was also multigenerational as our bosses were men in their sixties who had lived during WW II and were not so happy with the developments in the ’60s. Nevertheless, they, too, enjoyed us enjoying each other.

I made the equivalent of $5,000 a year, and I was able to save a few bucks and add to my vinyl collection as well.

It was a good time, but perhaps that is what the lesson of it all is.

There were assassinations, and crime, political unrest, demonstrations against the war, racial unrest, and on and on. In many ways, things are so much better today than back then.

Maybe it would be a good idea to put a music list together and remember that these are still the good old days?

I wrote this entry back in 2012. It was a far more innocent time when you could write about gratitude and actually have something to write. Sadly, today we seem to be beaten and downtrodden by those we have entrusted to be our leaders. It’s hard to trust anyone today in any position of leadership. So, let’s forget about the state of 2019 America and remember the good old days of 2012.

May 1st is May Day. Back during the Cold War the Soviet Union would parade out their ICBMs to celebrate the Russian worker. They didn’t have toilet paper but they had some big ass missiles. I remember that we used to celebrate May 1st as the Feast Day of St Joseph The Worker to kind of shoot down the May Day thing.

Well, the reason I am writing about this tonight is that I was waiting for my train and there were these two college students handing out May Day Rally newsletters. Apparently, there will be a march in the spirit of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The 99% are marching against the 1%.

I talked to one of the students and commiserated with him about the economy and job prospects. He was a grad student getting a degree in Social Anthropology. In the day when if you are not trained for a specific job, not a university professor, he will have a tough time. I didn’t have the heart to ask him about his student loans.

Then I came home and as soon as I got in the house Eileen made me watch Oprah. It’s Monday…(remember my Monday Monday blog?) and both the Rangers and Yankees are on and I have about 11 points to eat so the last thing I wanted to do was to sit down and watch Oprah. Don’t get me wrong I love Oprah but the Yankees, Rangers and those points, come on.

But I sit down and watch. She really does have great shows and tonight’s was about gratitude. She had a panel consisting of Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra and a couple of other interesting speakers. The short message they had to deliver was that we all need to be in a state of gratitude. Regardless of what our station in life happens to be, we must show gratitude.

I thought of the college students and the May Day  Rally and the Occupy Wall Streeters and I was wondering if they feel gratitude? I would expect they don’t. I am not sure if you asked me as I was getting off the train tonight if I was grateful, what I would say. But watching Oprah tonight I hope I would say that I am.

There was a time when I was probably more grateful than I feel right this second. An ache here and a case of the shingles there and you can get crabby and not feel especially happy and certainly not grateful. That’s why you need Oprah to sit you down, via Eileen, and dope it out as my Uncle Al used to say.

I am grateful for everything I have, all the people in my life. The people I work with. The people I used to work with…I have lots of them in my life. The people who read my blog. I may be going into singing Bing’s “I’ve Got Plenty To Be Thankful For” if I don’t watch it. (By the way, that song is from Holiday Inn when he is cutting into Mr. Jonesy the turkey.)

I would bet that even on a Monday night you could identify quite a bit for which you are grateful. Perhaps you are grateful that I am going to be ending this blog…

Now!

Goodnight everyone and thanks!

Forty-eight years ago a few hundred thousand people descended on Washington DC to protest the War In Viet Nam. At the time it was said that it was the largest demonstration in DC history.

The War In Viet Nam divided this country more than any issue in modern times.

Fathers who fought in World War II didn’t understand their sons who didn’t want to fight in Viet Nam. The fathers remembered a time when to be patriotic was not a virtue it was simply what one should be.

Being patriotic meant that you went to war when your leaders said you should. Don’t question the President just do your duty.

Worthy sentiments, indeed, when your President was FDR and the enemy threatened the annihilation of civilization. In 1971 things were not so clearly defined.

While we hadn’t yet learned that President Lyndon Johnson’s reason for escalating the war was a political decision to offset the Hawkish Republican challenger, Barry Goldwater,  and not a military decision many, nevertheless, came to believe that the war was a failure of American policy and that it was an unwinnable war. We never won the Korean War so what made Viet Nam different?

America was still reeling from the Kennedy Assassination and, while the nation appeared to mourn together, whatever unity may have existed was short lived.

While LBJ may have faltered when it came to waging war on Viet Nam, his War On Poverty and enacting the Civil Rights Ace were noble achievements.

On the homefront,  LBJ was a master statesman. But still, a sizable portion of the American electorate was not happy. Illustrative of a great divide is the fact that in the 1968 Presidential election George C. Wallace, the hero of segregationists, was able to win five states and thirteen percent of the popular vote, over nine million votes.

In a year when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were both assassinated, a segregationist could muster thirteen percent to support him.

Enter Richard Nixon and his Peace With Honor campaign which included invading Cambodia.

While Nixon cannot be blamed for being the first President to send troops or “advisors” as Kennedy called them, nor was he the one who had first sent thousands of more soldiers. Nixon, was, however, the President who was in charge for most of the time America waged war on Viet Nam.

Peace with Honor was proving hard to come by.

So, to say that in 1971 America was a nation divided is no exaggeration.

Many American grew tired of watching a scroll of names every Friday evening listing the brave soldiers who gave their lives in Viet Nam. Sadly many of the returning war heroes were never acknowledged for their service or their loss. It took nearly twenty years to recognize these brave soldiers with a monument in Washington DC.

Today we are bombarded with Politician testimonials regarding the service provided by veterans. Ignoring that so many suffer from PTSD and so many are homeless, these politicians proudly proclaim that we love our Veterans.

It must be a kind of tough love.

It takes more than words to thank these brave men and women for what they have done and for what they have sacrificed.

We are greatly divided today, perhaps even more than in 1971. Can’t we at least agree that our veterans deserve much more than we are giving them? Can’t we have a government that can at least accomplish something for them?

There is such an ado about obtaining tax returns and other documents from Trump and his White House. I think this is being short-sighted. I think Congress should get his DNA.

At a family reunion this past weekend, one of my cousins had a map of the McHugh Diaspora. I made that term up. McHugh is my mother’s family name and the origination of the McHugh DNA was in central Africa. Well, East Central Africa.

Immediately upon seeing the arc of travel of my DNA, I said that this was the great equalizer. The McHughs are not alone in having their history begin in Africa. We probably all can call Africa our original home.

How terrific if we could all remember this fact when haters spew out their bigotry and bias. What more do we need to consider to illustrate that there is more that we share than what drives us apart?

A couple of bits of genetic material may not seem powerful enough to overturn centuries of racism and xenophobia but even if creates a nagging sensation in your head when you say something stupid about a group of people you have designated worthy of your wrath, then perhaps that little speck of DNA will prove too strong to ignore.

After a long arduous, frozen, gray winter, the first day of spring is a welcome arrival.

March can still be a bugger, don’t get me wrong. And April? For some reason, I feel the cold of forty degrees in April more than the fifteen degrees in February. I expect it to be cold in February but we are already a few weeks into spring when April arrives and I want it to be spring-like, and forty degrees is not spring-like.

Of course, since I have been living in Florida these last two years my right to complain about the cold of April or even February has been relinquished to the people I have left behind in the frozen tundra of New York and Long Island.

And while today is the first full day of spring, I always feel that spring really begins when pitchers and catchers report to spring training. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t spring in February, even in Florida. But, baseball has returned and that’s all that matters and little else is required to warm the cockles of an old man’s heart…but then there’s Saint Patrick’s Day. Another arrow in the quiver of spring.

As a kid, the arrival of spring inspired me and my friends to find our gloves and bats and balls (I’m sorry there’s just no other way to put it) and to meet in the schoolyard. Having done so for so many years you would have thought that we could have avoided the second rite of spring…throwing the softball too hard and throwing your arm out.

I can still feel the pain except that it is brought on by arthritis these days.

There were times that we had to bring a shovel to clean the field of yesterday’s snow. But it was still spring and we were officially entering the first day of summer countdown and the more important first day of summer vacation that would soon follow.

Happy Spring!

I came of age when graduating from high school was still a big deal. Neither of my parents attended high school as they had to work as teenagers. So, having five children that graduated from high school was an accomplishment for parents who worked hard all their lives and strove to make a better life for their kids.

Graduating from high school, notwithstanding, I was encouraged to go to college. It wasn’t because I possessed such a brilliant mind that had to be shared with the universe. It was more because it was such a grand step to take towards a promising future.

In addition to having parents that supported the notion of my attending college, I also had siblings who set a high bar for achievement. To keep pace with them I knew I had to go to college. The gang of friends that I had the pleasure and good fortune to latch on to was also pushing and prodding me along the way to college because I couldn’t let them go without me.

It was peer pressure all around.

As I entered my senior year of high school in 1967 I identified two colleges that I wanted to attend.

My brother Johnny attended St. John’s University in Queens and that became my first choice. The fact that my good buddy was going to be there with me made the choice easier.

While Mike and I would be attending St. John’s University, my other friends would be (or soon would be) attending Fordham University, Manhattan College, and Iona College. Only two of our friends ventured away from home.

For us going to college had nothing to do with rock climbing walls or sixty person hot tubs and if our parents had enough money to bribe our way into the Ivy League they sure wouldn’t have spent it on bribing our way into the Ivy League.

To be honest, back in 1967 I didn’t know what the Ivy League was.

All of my friends went to college and the only thing we debated was the quality of the basketball programs. We took for granted that the quality of education was a given. No matter where you went you would be afforded the opportunity to learn.

You were going to be exposed to ideas and people who were serious thinkers. You were going to have to work hard to keep pace. It wasn’t going to be all basketball games and beer rackets, though in my first two years I wouldn’t have thought anything else mattered.

The fact is I did learn at St. John’s and I did grow and I had an explosion in maturity that helped me make up for those first two years and was able to proceed from there to a lifelong journey of learning.

I think that is all my parents could have hoped for and the good news is that they didn’t have to bribe anyone to get me to that point of awareness.

Yesterday’s story about the college admissions scandal had no impact on me. Having worked at Universities for over thirty years, I saw firsthand how much has changed since 1967.

These parents who bribed officials to get their kids into “elite” schools had no illusion of getting their children an opportunity to learn. They were only concerned in the name of the school on the sweatshirt. They were only concerned with the logo on the diploma. These schools are not elite but they do serve elitist,

As millions of students have accrued over a trillion dollars in student loan debt to give this story any airtime on news channels is a misuse of the airwaves. More attention should be given to the increasingly dangerous reliance on student loans to and other federal programs to keep these elite schools open.

If the government wants to eliminate this type of fraud, make the penalty fit the crime. Eliminate federal aid eligibility for schools that continue to abuse the admissions system.

Also, parents wake up! Don’t get suckered in by glitz and glam of the elites. There are hundreds of colleges and universities that offer quality education where students learn much more the notion that money can buy anything.

Despite the fact that my last three Irish Soda Breads have been disappointing, I, nevertheless, repeat my annual self-appointed duty to share my mother’s Irish Soda Bread with you.

The disappointing breads had their issues. On one occasion my wife Eileen left the caraway on the counter for me to use when I made the bread the following morning. I put everything together and proceeded to shake the container and added the caraway to the dry ingredients. After one shake I realized something was amiss. The caraway turned out to be celery seed.

The next bread was yet again sabotaged by Eileen. She bought the buttermilk, but it was not the usual variety that we normally use. This was made from buttermilk flakes which I don’t even know what that meant. The bread looked good, but there was a very bland and had an un-Irish-Soda-bread taste.

Bread three was underdone. Despite the fact that I applied the toothpick test, the bread was clearly undercooked and disappointing. But, I will be getting up on the horse next week to celebrate and remember.

Hopefully, you will too.

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.

As if we don’t have enough to annoy us, there is a new debate going on regarding DST.

A few weeks ago I read about a bill in Congress, supported by one of our Florida Senators, that would permanently establish DST as the time of the land.

Then, more recently, I have read that DST should be permanently abolished.

There are reasons proffered for both points of view on DST.

The little boy in me favors DST.

The joy that you felt as a kid in the Bronx when spring rolled around, and you could go out after dinner because it was still light is something that never leaves you. Stoop ball and box ball and any number of Bronx activities could be enjoyed into the wee hours of 7:00 pm.

It was the vernal equinox equivalent of Christmas with time as the ultimate gift.

Even in my late sixties, the thought of eliminating that special time from my experience is not acceptable. It is no bargain to make DST the permanent time either as it is the change, the transformation, that gives the joy to DST.

I don’t even mind returning to EST as it is good to go dark in the fall. It gets cold so why shouldn’t it get dark too?

It reminds you that Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas are all just around the corner. When it’s cold, you are looking for an excuse to go inside not play ringolevio in the frigid tundra of Leland Avenue. The darkness only excuses your presence from the outside.

The darkness also enhances the coming of spring and DST.

And so, God Bless Daylight Savings Time!

I wrote this on February 12th but only shared it with my Family Facebook Page. I now share it with you.

I moved down to Florida from East Quogue New York. Before moving to  East Quogue, I lived in the  Bronx for over twenty-six years. Thirty-three years in East Quogue did nothing but reinforce the Bronx in me.

I am proud of my Bronx heritage, as proud as I am of my Irish and British heritage.

Being a Yankee fan if not a Yankee, I came to Florida with not a few pre-conceived notions of the South and Southerners.  I guess studying history and all that the South represented at one time, to say nothing of the great divide between those who voted for Trump and those who did not, only served to strengthen these pre-conceived notions.

I have been pleased to find out that you don’t stop learning important things in your late sixties.

Last week I had the unfortunate experience of being broadsided by a garbage truck. I was driving my Rav4 past a shopping center when the garbage truck attempting to drive across the road to make a left turn rammed me.

I saw the truck at the exit to the shopping center but never saw it coming.

I heard what sounded like an explosion and glass shattering and then I felt the impact. I skidded for a bit, and then the car rolled over on its roof.

Finally coming to a stop, I unfastened my seat belt and shut the car off while hanging upside down.

Within seconds, maybe twenty, I had people calling to me if I was ok. I responded that I was but needed help getting out.

Fifteen seconds later I was up on my feet being tended to.

Naturally, I was in shock, or so one of my Grand Floridians told me.

There must have been fifteen to twenty people who stopped to help. One guy in a shirt and tie was administering to the cuts on my left leg. When I asked him if he was an EMT, (he may have thought I was checking his credentials), he told me that he was in the National Guard and had EMS training. He had a full emergency kit and cleaned my cuts and the blood dripping down my leg. I told him how grateful I was.

Another guy was on the phone, presumably with the 911 people, and asked me questions about how I was feeling and checked the usual parts, neck, legs, arms, etc. He relayed the information so that the EMT staff would know what they were facing.

Others just asked how I was doing.

I learned from these people what I knew already but tend to forget when I am watching the news.

No one asked me who I voted for. No one asked me if I was in favor of the wall. No one asked me if that was a Bronx accent  I was emitting. No one cared about any of that insignificant personal data.

They saw someone who needed help, and they took time out of their day to ensure that they helped me.

So now when I think about living in Florida and the people of Florida, I realize I am a better person because I do live in Florida and I had the great privilege of meeting these Grand Floridians.

I just wished the garbage truck missed me.

In closing, I am fine. I have been stunned by my good fortune, and I will try to never take that for granted.

Eighty-six years ago today, March 4, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the oath of office for the first of four times.

At that time the terms of President and Vice President began on March 4th. Because of the deepening of the Great Depression after the election of 1932, it was deemed that waiting to install a new President until March was no longer acceptable. Therefore, the twentieth amendment was passed and ratified, and the date was changed to January 20th.

We suffered a great recession in 2008 but as devastating as that economic disaster was it was nothing compared to the Great Depression. There were no Hoovervilles, people living in tents because they had been evicted. There were no long lines of people waiting in the cold to get a bowl of soup.

To be sure millions did suffer. Many lost their jobs. Many lost their homes. But for most of us, we carried on working and living and even enjoying life. You may not have checked your retirement account as often as it took a big hit, but you probably survived and recouped your losses in time.

Thanks to the socialist programs and ideas that have been embedded in our society since that day in March of 1933, we are able to survive economic catastrophe.

We have unemployment insurance, we have Medicare and Medicaid. We have Social Security and Social Security Income and Disability Insurance. Our savings accounts are protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

FDR brought this country back from economic ruin because he was not afraid of creating programs for poor people. Poor people were not the enemy of the people, poverty was.

Republicans like Herbert Hoover, the outgoing President in 1933, were stuck in the nineteenth century and loved their laissez-faire and didn’t want to interfere in the market place. The Republicans of that time were not evil, they were merely wrong. Hoover was a good man and, up until the crash, a good President. But we needed FDR to turn the country around, and he did it with programs that many call socialist and that many Republicans today want to dismantle. These Republicans are evil.

They want a small government, and they want to reduce federal spending all the while they represent states that take more federal money than they give back. Hey Mitch! You want small government? Resign today and give up one seat for Kentucky.

We are a socialist country and thank God we are. How else could people retire? You know Republicans in office may want to work and keep on the government dole until they die, but I don’t. Medicare and Social Security made it possible for me to retire.

If there are people out there who disagree with socialism, don’t apply for Medicare and refuse to collect Social Security.

Let the capitalists take care of you. I am sure that corporate America will provide for you in your old age. Maybe they will redefine Corporate Welfare?