New York by Train, Feb 2011

New York by Train, Feb 2011

 

A couple of Saturday nights ago, daughter Ashley's family had tickets for the ice show at MSG. Son-in-law Tom was scheduled to drive in with daughter Emma after her swim meet. I was going to ride the train with Ash and the two boys, Ed and John – as their guide. Since I love riding trains, being with the family, there was no hardship. After shepherding Ash and the boys to MSG I was going to meet Mikki in NYC for dinner.

Tom ended up making the 5:38 train. Mickey canceled because of the cold. My friend, Manzi, called in the afternoon looking for something to do and said he wanted to come along. 

At 6 PM we are all on the train heading to NYC. Ash and Emma are sitting in front of Manzi and me. The two boys are with Tom-dad across the aisle. Mid trip Emma turns and looks over the back of the seat. “Want to know what we do at swimming practice?” she says.

 “Yes,” I say.

“It’s called pyramid. It’s … Ok, first, it’s 25-butterfly, then 50-butterfly-kick, then 75-butterfly-drill, then 100-butterfly-pyramid,  a 75-butterfly-drill, a 50-butterfly-kick, then 25-butterfly. Emma’s description, with the exact progression of 25-50-75-100-75-50-25 continues for all other events: freestyle, backstroke, and breaststroke. It takes a while. At the end I say to Emma, “Could you repeat that?” and all laugh, including Emma.

Manzi, also trying to pretend to be funny, says that someone should call Caroline and tell her that he is on the train to NYC ... and he's very relaxed about it. Ash dials Brett in California - relays the message.

Emma turns again and asks, “Why is Manzi here?” I explain that he has a pretend "girlfriend" in California - Carolyn - and he wants her to know that he is capable of riding the train and that he is very nonchalant about it. Everyone laughs at this – Emma only half. (FYI - re. Carolyn - Manzi has never seen her and never will, but CA daughter Brett thinks they'd be a great pair so the joke escalated after Carolyn sent Manzi a Christmas card)

Emma’s question was offered with such childlike sincerity that I feel bad that my response was not returned with the same sincere wholeheartedness. My thought falls away and the trip continues.  

The next day, my thought returns. I tell Emma that I’m sorry that I didn’t answer her truthfully when she described her swim practice and asked about Manzi. She accepts my apology but seems uncertain why I have said it. My reason, of course, was her sweet earnestness which, upon reflection, reminded me of why and how life is beautiful and true, or at least how it might be if we (me) could just “become like little children,” and actually see the other instead of always only one's self,

 

And so, however small it may seem, I am, once again, sorry that I missed the opportunity to respond truthfully to her instead of making a joke to please myself.

So, I tried to make up for it. I hope she remembers this and, more importantly, that I do as well.

Overheard in the men’s locker room - 2004

Overheard in the men’s locker room - 2004

 

I'm in the men's locker room at the local YMCA, shower finished, I'm packing my gym bag.It's a Thursday, mid-morning.

 

“Whew!” a very sweaty guy brushes by, heading for his locker. Finding his spot, he fiddles with the combination lock. He looks over at a nearby fellow, a middle aged gent, tying his sneakers. 

 

"Wheeew!" sweaty guy offers.

 

“What’s the matter?” says the gent.

 

“That was some workout,” sweaty says.

 

“Yeah, I saw you. You sure did it, there. What’d you do?” gent asks.

 

“I did HIT! That’s H-I-I-T”

 

Huh?

 

"H-I-I-T," Sweaty says, still out of breath.

 

“I know it's an acronym. Let me guess!” says gent.

 

“High Intensity Interval Training.” Sweaty says. He didn't let him guess.

 

“Yeah, I was gonna say something … some kind of interval training.”

 

“Yeah. Thirty seconds run … fast, then thirty seconds jog. Do it for fifteen minutes. ”

 

“Of course, well that’s been around for some time. We used to do it to train for speed,” says new voice,  chiming in. It's octogenarian Stan, who had a stroke seven years ago. Margaret, a septuagenarian-plus, and Y regular (obviously not currently part of this locker room talk) said Stan had the stroke because he ran a marathon and then went home and had sex. This, Margaret says, always makes Stan smile – stroke or no stroke - whenever she repeats the story.

“We did that in college, in football practice,” someone within earshot pipes up from a far locker.

 

“Yeah.” A chorus of “yeahs” follow. All ex-footballers, I presume.In college? I wonder who that is?

 

Then another voice, from across the room, “Yeah! Hit is right!”

 

“Didn’t you hate that?”
 

Hate what? The conversation seems to have veered away ... sideways. 

 

“Of course, but you want to know the good thing about it? What I liked about it” This from a another new voice.

 

“What?”

 

“It meant that practice was over.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Yeah!”

 

“I hear ya!” a final comment, from a far corner.

The rule here is: Give an ex-footballer the scantest of segues for a football anecdote and he’s off and running. 

“When I’m done a workout I go home and have a cognac. I mean if it’s after dinner.” This from Ed, a muscular, serious body-builder, and a septuagenarian, no less.

 

“Oh, Cognac, that’s sweet stuff. You’ll really feel that the next day,” a bloke, agreeing with Ed.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Yeah!”

 

“You know what I used to drink? Ed says, "Bourbon.”

 

“Oh! You’ll feel that.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Yeah!”

 

“But that was good!”

 

“Bourbon is good stuff.” another agreement.

 

“Yeah.”

 

 “I like gin and tonic,” someone new says.

 

“That’s a woman’s drink,” muscular Ed says.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Yeah!”

 

“Yeah, but I like it,” says the new voice.

 

“It’s a woman’s drink.” say Ed, finality in his tone. 

 

Conversation ends.  Seems that Ed gets the final word.

 

 

 

 

Time to hang it up - circa 2009

Time to hang it up - circa 2009

 

How many of us still own a jock? Or to put it another way - You’re seventy; do you know where your jock strap is?

Jock-strapping, that’s what they called it (playing sports) in the army, and all real killers, like our drill sergeants, frowned upon it, as I recall.

Regardless, I grew up thinking that athletic excellence was synonymous with honor. Didn’t everyone agree with that? It sure seemed like the truth. College was no different; jocks garnered envy as well as reverence, or so I thought. The jock-house was an esteemed fraternity - or so I thought - and I lived in one while an undergrad. In those days if you called me a jock it pleased me. Call me that today and it would still please me. Or better yet, give me an excuse to talk about my former jock life and then you’ve made my day. Was I a tough guy? Far from it – period. But let me spin a yarn about the old days and one might think, “I bet he was tough. He’s just being modest.”

 Alas, for me, playing sports was a pursuit of the highest order.

 Thus, my memory is vivid about a conversation some years back, when my friend Doug Yano and I were talking about how we had slowed our workouts and generally abandoned other athletic activity and he said, “I don’t even own a jock,” which shocked me because it occurred to me that, come to think of it, neither did I.

 Was this what life had come to?

 I thought about it some more and then remembered that actually I did have one jock, or so I thought, but exactly where it was, I was uncertain, which was beside the point because I had not actually worn my one jock in years, maybe decades.

So, where was my jock? I thought I recalled seeing it recently, in the basement, somewhere around the tool bench. What was it doing there? Anyway, I went to look and after darting my eyes in every direction, when suddenly, I spied it above the workbench, hanging on a nail. Huh???? 

I can’t remember the last time it was in my gym bag, much less used – worn. Obviously, it had been saved through a half-dozen house moves over the years.  Why? Who knows? And why now hanging on the nail? Oh well.

It was not that I thought that I might need it someday. Like there was ever going to be another tackle football game.  Nor was it that a jock was something to save, to pass on to the grandkids, like an old baseball mitt. And it wasn’t at all like my old football practice jersey, now somehow full of holes (again, why? how?) that I hoped after my demise, my surviving heirs would come across the jersey and pause briefly to reflect kindly upon my athleticism first, and my life, second. I believe that I saved the jock because – well - what else could I have done with it? A jock is not something one gives to the goodwill.

Of course, I could have thrown it out, but think of this: “Tossing it,” into the bottom of this week’s garbage pail, or on the top for that matter. That didn’t seem right, because there it would sit, or lay, until 7:30 AM Monday when the truck comes around, the cans are emptied and the contents head for the landfill for a million years. Not right, not at all. 

For kids in the fifties and sixties there was the phrase, “Hang it up,” as in “It’s time to hang it up,” which we muttered from time to time as gentle ridicule. What we were hanging up was a jock. I don’t hear that much - at all - these days, but then why would I? It’s not a popular phrase in senior circles.

But from my youth I recall a college teammate, Al Richmond, (I include his name because if anyone ever reads this I’m certain that Al would appreciate the citation) who tried to invoke a ceremony in the locker room after our football season’s last game, his last, when he shouted to all, “I’m hanging up my jock,” and with that he draped it on a hook in the visitor’s locker at Lafayette College. I think a few heads turned and that it got a laugh, or two. 

Oh, did I mention that I was on the college football team? OK, not important, but I was.

Blogging, 2/2011

Blogging

 

I started writing this blog some days ago (years now, 2011). 

 

I’m excited about it. 

 

OK, No one reads it but me. 

 

Still my writing is “out there” which has the effect of causing some concern on my part to improve it, to rewrite and edit, to make it the best that I can. To date (it's April 2011) we're at three weeks and counting – I have not abandoned the effort, which is encouraging. Will anyone ever read it? No – unless I ask them to do so.

Would I like for some stranger(s) to drop a note to the effect that they were enthralled by my writings? 

Get real! 

But still, it is a step beyond a "writer in residence on hard-drive only." A small step but enough that I don’t want it to be drivel which inspires me work at it - which is a good thing.    

Life as we know it - 2/2011

Life as we know it 

 

Last night I went to bed around midnight. I turned out the light, made my way over to the bed in the dark, then suddenly got the idea – almost like a voice in my head - that I should go back to the bathroom. What? I thought. Why? I opened my bedroom door.  The light was still on in the bathroom. I turned it off.

I know, no big deal. It's a 60 watt bulb. But I couldn't stop wondering what it was that reminded me? I offered a thank-you to the unknown universe.

Today I tightened the small screw in my glasses frames. I applied some glue, to the head of the screw on the advice of a student in my class decades ago. As I worked I reflected on where I should put the screw driver when I finished, so I’d know where it was the next time it was needed.

I set the repaired glasses on the kitchen counter to dry. I noticed a few crumbs, brushed them into the wastebasket, moved some utensils and cereal bowl to the dishwasher, crumpled a plastic bag and walked it over to a recycling container.

Out the front window I spied the neighbor walking her dog. She has two; where’s the other? I moved closer to the window, watched for a few seconds. I turned back and saw the small pile of tax documents on my desk. I should look on-line, I thought, for a rough calculation or rate chart, to see if I’m going to get killed with taxes this year. So I think.

Back now to where I should put the mini-screwdriver. Ok – so first - where is that screwdriver?

I look on the kitchen counter. No.

I walk to the front window, glance around. No.
The desk? No. Over by the recyclables? No.   

I repeat the same path again. Still no screwdriver.

I reflect on last night, the voice (or something) that said “Go back into the bathroom.” I could call upon that voice again I think I should go back to the kitchen once more. But I pause here. And I reflect, should I sit down to call “the voice?” I should, I just think – to concentrate. I pause again. Do I want to sit now, to better think? Who is that “voice” anyway? My deceased mom or dad I imagine. I remain standing in the dining room, not moving, thinking of my parents, when I turn my head and notice the screwdriver laying in the folds of a sweater on the dining room table.

Again, I think it was my parents.

What can I say? It seems, stuff like that, it’s in our nature. 

I am Paul Fryer, 2/2010

I am Paul Fryer

                

 I Was Quite a Baseball Player
Who am I really? Well it’s like this. Actually a man named Paul Fryer said it best when I met him for the first time some decades ago in the late 1970s. At that time Paul was approaching eighty and was visiting my widowed mother, as they had known each other during the early years of their marriages.

     We were standing in my mom’s kitchen, making introductory, idle small talk. Stuff like ‘Where do you live now? Are you retired? (Of course) How was your trip up?’ and so forth. I asked the questions but not sure I always listened for the response. I was in my thirties; I had things on my mind. Suddenly out of the blue Paul blurts out who he really is, “You know I was quite a baseball player when I was a young man.”

  Is That Going to be Me?
     I looked at him – and allowed a smile. “That was strange,” I thought to myself, but I immediately saw into my own future: the day when I would be like Paul - standing alone, facing a stranger, much younger than I, who saw me only as an old man who probably never really was much of anything and saying to the stranger, “You know I was quite an athlete when I was a young man.”

I made a vow of caution to not plagiarize Paul. God bless him.

    Moving ahead to today – it is thirty-five years later, a mid-Winter Saturday, 4:00 PM., 2010. By now my vow of caution has been broken many times.

 Yes, It's Me
     It is a bright day in northern New Jersey, the kids are out front playing street hockey. Through my window I see grandson Ed, age 6, heading toward the fray, outfitted in full NHL goalie gear. He trudges along slow and bowlegged from the pads’ bulk but with the determined stride of a young cowpoke. I join up with the spectator parents sidling up next to a young father. I notice that there is a Naval Academy decal on his car. “So you went to Navy?” I say.

     “Yes,” he answers and I feel that I should probably mention I was recruited by Navy for basketball which I do say (the short version) despite my awareness of the strain this places on credulity, as things appear now. The father offers that he met his wife there. I add some details to my "recruited" story to authenticate my claim, “I stayed on campus, in the boathouse,” I say.

The father nods. Midshipmen usually know the boathouse is the Academy accommodation for recruited athletes, or so I think. Regardless, the kids continue to scurry about before us with childlike earnestness, raising sticks and cheering for goals scored. The conversation turns to the notion that pick-up games like this are great - that starting organized sports too young is risky. The father then adds “Twelve years of football is more than enough for anyone.”

     I see another segue. I pause my thoughts, then decide to go with it. “Hey, I know, I played four years in high school, a year in prep school then four more years in college, and my body aches often.” Not really (don't know why I put that in, about the aches - dumb).

     I don’t look at the dad when I say this. I don’t want to see the doubt or disbelief, or worse – a smirk. So I concentrate on the game, my eyes straight ahead. I notice that the name Paul Fryer has popped into my head, as in I have become ....

     Seriously – I really was quite a basketball player as a young man.

Life's Dreams

Some Years Down the Road

This post is speculation about the future, something I think that I might do someday. My daydream, if you will. Right now, it's some years down the road - if ever.

I turned 78 in March 2018.

Here are some thoughts currently living in my imagination.

As I imagine myself, I have just turned 80 and three of my grandchildren are in college, in New England. The daydream is that I am in a window seat on a Northbound Amtrak train out of NY, headed for Boston. The whole way up I'm trying to decide if this late in life venture is true destiny, the icing on the cake of a life, now all but completed, or if it will be the nadir, a final testimony for a life of silly errors. I so much want the former but fear the latter. As I listen to the sound of the rolling cars, I try to keep two thoughts in my mind - one thought has been around for forty years the other for half of that.

Update, March 2021

The Covid19 Pandemic hit, in earnest, a year ago. Despite that hardship the three college-age grand kids did make it to New England colleges: Mike and Anna were both recruited for ice hockey by Amherst College and Brown University respectively. Emma got into her dream school, Boston University, but the pandemic upended her plans, and she finished the semester Studying remotely from her NJ home. Spring 2021: Anna is on the Brown campus, Mike is remote, currently in CA but headed to a "hockey house" in SC, with Amherst teammates. Weird. 

Update 2022: Mike at Amherst, Anna at Brown, Emma at Salve Regina U. in Newport, RI, Eddie enrolled at Boston College in Fall '22. Johnny, 17, still at home in high school.  Me, happily living in my daughter Ashley's sun-porch.

(update: 2024, I am 84 in March, four grandchildren are still in New England colleges. Johnny, is a HS senior)   

As for the two thoughts in my mind, mentioned above: The first, older thought, from Thomas Merton, is this: “The love of God seeks you in every situation.” This sentence has stayed with me through the years. It struck me because it suggested that to seek the ever elusive Love of God involved trying to consciously notice every situation, every person, not for what they think of me, or how they affect me, but to see myself, and all of those people, without distraction, as children, of God. Thinking that way seemed true - and doable. Somehow I could sow the priority of kindness into the everyday events of my conscious life, into every situation, and that kindness would be triggered by each person I met. 

Or so I thought.

I glance up the aisle between the rows of seats for possible signs. Nothing yet.

The other thought, more recent, moved me as well. It is from Gore Vidal, as follows: “Without knowing precisely, I have long sought and tried to create, a life of a proper human scale. In my repertoire it went by other names. Mostly I called it community, meaning closeness to both nature and other people. I would add, also a closeness to God which indicated at least some space and time for reflection.”

Would this venture lead me to either the love of God or community? Preferably both. 

It was eight years ago that I hit on what I thought was a brilliant idea. I would sell my house in the New Jersey suburbs and move to a cozy, in-town apartment in the college town that my first grandchild had chosen (Amherst MA). I would take courses, join the college gym, attend sporting events, and spend my days writing in the library.

And my nights? 

True, nights would be the challenge for an eighty year old male of limited means in a new town. But I would meet the challenge. I would comb the city for friends and attend senior events after dark. I could do it. I would force myself to enter the unfamiliar, discomforting world of senior activities – to find community and – dare I say it? - God.

Perhaps I should retract that, the bit about finding God. Why? Because “finding God,” if there is such a thing, would not depend on one’s location. At least not the God that I imagine. So, if you’re looking for God, I'd say, go for it now – wherever you are, don’t wait until you get to Boston.

Nevertheless, my one true sentence, here and now, boils down to: Finding God. I’m not exactly sure what that means.

If I have a blessing that might indicate the words of God - something that I believe and something that appears to be universal, it is this: my mind has found it fit to believe in the maxim, “Do unto others.” Just a small caveat: “believe in” is not always the same as “live by.”

So, I believe that I should live by the words “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  

At times, yes, but the rest of life, my eighty years of experience is consumed with everyday petty emotions that seem, to always be present and to automatically grab my attention.

What can I say? Only that I’m trying - or think I am.

Meanwhile, it’s off to Boston.

Seriously? Probably not.

It is my dream however, a house in New England. It’s just that I always seem to be about $400,000 short.

Epilogue: OK, not going to Boston. One might have guessed as much. 

And ... consequently, won’t be buying a home there. Instead, I sold my New Jersey condo and moved into the sun-porch in my daughter’s NJ home (dimensions 8' X 13'). Therefore, I've subtracted a home rather than adding one. But the good news is, the important part of the dream, finding God / Do unto others: if that is at all possible, one can do it in New Jersey and it doesn’t require $400K.