The Newell Post

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?

I was listening to WFUV, the public radio station of Fordham University. They were doing one of their themed sets of songs, today’s having to do with songs with Mrs. in them.

The song that inspired me to write about expressions was Harper Valley P.T.A. sung by Jeannie C. Riley.

The lyric that struck me was, “The day my momma socked it to the Harper Valley P.T.A.”

Socked it to!

Whatever did that mean?

I had a general idea at the time, but I could have been all wrong. The funny thing is that for a short time in the late 1960s, sock it to me was the most ubiquitous slogan and defined the moment of the sixties.

Sly and the Family Stone, Country Joe and The Fish, Jim Hendrix used the phrase in their songs. However, the most famous use of the expression occurred on the comedy show, Laugh-In, when, then-presidential candidate, Richard Nixon uttered the magical words in the form of a question.

Even Nixon had a sense of humor.

Sock it to me got me thinking about other catchphrases that seem to have gone out of style.

You may remember “Right On!”

I was never too comfortable uttering right on. I was too white. My hair wasn’t quite long enough. My jeans were just a tad too new. You would go to a demonstration, and some speaker would say all the right anti-establishment things, and you were supposed to voice your approval by yelling out Right On!

John Lennon used it in one of his solo career songs, Power To The People. One verse ended “Power To The People, Right On!”  He got away with it.

Nelson Rockefeller, however, was not as fortunate.

My friend PJ and I, at my suggestion that we would make fifty dollars a week, joined the Rockefeller’s 1970 re-election campaign for Governor of New York. One Saturday morning we showed up a rally in Astoria, Queens. Our assignment was to hand out buttons and leaflets to the tens of people who showed up to support the Governor. You guessed it. One of the buttons was emblazoned in hippie script with the immortal words:

RIGHT ON ROCKY

I don’t remember ever using Right On after that.

“He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Brother.”

The story was that a priest saw a boy holding a baby and he asked the boy, “Is he heavy?” The boy replied, “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”

Talk about a public service announcement waiting to happen!

But then “heavy” took on new meaning. Thoughts became heavy. Words and actions became heavy. You were never quite sure if it was a good thing, but you knew it was heavy when you heard or saw it.

The only time I hear heavy anymore is when I go to the doctor.

“Are You Together”

I just googled that phrase, and one of the responses was. “32 Signs You Have A Future Together.”

Back in the day, Together had nothing to do with being a couple. It was more a term indicating you were one with right thinkers. You were hip if not a hippie. It was important to be together, and I am not sure what the alternative would have been. In any case, it was a subjective determination that might be in dispute on occasion.

These few examples of arcanery (my word) represent a specific time in American culture. I suppose we have no business using them in the twenty-first century any more than using the phrase Twenty-Three Skiddoo at Woodstock would have been proper. This had me thinking of twenty-first American catchphrases.

I had to go to google again to learn if there were any current terms or sayings that correspond to my time sensitive vocabulary.

There is a list of television phrases that seemed cute. There was a list of things that supposedly millennials say that seemed more foreign to me.

I chose not to record them as they only served to make me feel older than I am.

I am much more together, and I refuse to sock it to millennials who routinely get abused for being young.

Right On!

The presidential campaign for Howard Schultz-Bucks got a big boost from Democrat contenders, Warren and Gillibrand.

In the wake of the revelations regarding Virginia Governor, Ralph Northam for appearing-not appearing, admitting it was he-not admitting it was he in a med school yearbook in blackface or wearing a klan outfit, a new allegation against the would be next in line to be Virginia’s governor, Justin Fairfax regarding sexual assault fifteen years ago.

Unlike when Al Franken was accused of sexual assault, and more recently when Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault during his confirmation hearing, both Warren and Gillibrand called for each to resign.

Now, they appear to have lost their Me-Too voice.

It’s a terrible thing when you throw stones at windmills. You can’t be selective as to which windmill you stone. You can’t be against injustice in certain instances.

There was a time when candidates could get away with their inconsistencies. Lincoln may have been the last President to enjoy time to change his mind without having to eat his words.

Radio and television made prevarication hard to ingore or escape.

Add Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, well, let’s just say, candidates who misspeak, misremember, or just out and out lie are better off confessing, “mea culpa, please forgive me, and I’ll never do it again.”

When I was caught throwing chairs off a boat on a high school trip to Rye Beach Playland, that’s what I did. Brother Kevin was merciful but kept a close watch on my behavior until I graduated.

As to the sexual assault charge?

Unfortunately, men of power do the types of things of which these three men have been accused.   The timing of the accusation compared to the time when the assault took place should have no bearing on determining the credibility of the charge.

How you assess the credibility of the charge?

That’s the question we all have to consider.

The one lesson we should have learned is that political affiliation, race, gender, and sexual orientation should not determine credibility.

It would be wise for Democrats to remember that.

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.