You Say You Want a Resolution

It’s that time of year again! If I ever felt like Sisyphus, the tragic Greek figure destined to roll the stone up the hill just to have it roll back down, it should be around New Year’s. The truth is, I’m the eternal optimist, I am a Met and Jet fan you know. Every year I turn over a new leaf, or leaves, and every year I think, this is the year some things will change!

Right around this time, we’ll be confronted with our friends who say, “I don’t do resolutions.” Don’t you hate these guys? So confident, so definitive, so self assured. When I hear, “I don’t do resolutions” I think, you bastard, who do you think you are? I contemplate what could make a person say “I don’t do resolutions.” Any of the choices make me hate Joe Noresolution. First, this person is happy with himself just the way he is. Imagine that! How come they aren’t guilt ridden and insecure like the rest of us? What did your parents do to you Joe? Second, Mr. Noresolution doesn’t care or is non-reflective in his personality. Ugh, that might be worse than the first choice. This Joe is more than likely a neanderthal, an obnoxious dolt who is just not smart enough to figure out that he’s a jackass and that he is in desperate need of change. I left Brooklyn to get away from guys like this. (Not necessarily named Joe) The third Joe thinks he’s perfect or close to it. This Joe is also deserving of our contempt and I would advise him to be careful or bone up on his Greek mythology. The gods will smite you for hubris.

There are people out there who “don’t do resolutions” and I am paralyzed by all the stuff I have to work on. I am consumed with thoughts of how can I become a better: father, husband, teacher, friend, son? New Year’s makes me think, this is my chance to wipe the slate clean, to start over. How can we not resolve to do something? Wouldn’t it be like giving up? Inviting complacency? Shouldn’t we all continue to strive to be better? Isn’t that what our country was founded on? This is the land of fresh starts, that’s what it says on the tablet the Statue of Liberty is holding. Bet you didn’t know that. We are the land of Jamestown and Pilgrims, Ellis Island and immigration? No resolutions? How un-American Joe! I always make resolutions, and my list looks eerily similar every year. Occasionally, I keep a resolution, usually my success rate is not so high. And next year, I’ll make a new list of resolves, I should just recycle the list from this year. This is what Jim Sisyphus, I mean Spinner, is working on this year…

Be a more patient father. I vow to stop yelling. Invariably, New Year’s Day rolls around, and my fresh promises are already in danger…if it’s a typical New Year’s Day I might have had a few cocktails the night before; my boys will be annoying each other about some inane topic like, “Yeh Nick, when we were in the car on the way home from the Adirondacks this summer, you said that you liked Derek Jeter.” “No I did not, I’m a Red Sox fan. Why would I say that?” “I don’t know but you did.” “Did not.” “Did too.” “Did not.” At which point I will calmly counsel from the couch, “Be nice to each other. Let’s get along.” As their conversation heats up and repeats itself over and over and over, their volume increases. After calmly telling my boys to “just get along” 17 times…I lose my temper, bolt upstairs, newspaper in hand and scream at my boys, of course I see the irony when I scream, “STOP YELLING! JUST STOP! HE DOESN’T LIKE DEREK JETER! AND WHAT DO YOU CARE WHAT THEY THINK? WHAT IF YOU DID SAY THAT???? WHO CARES? IS IT THAT IMPORTANT?!!!!!!!” January 1st, I return to the couch, red faced, wiping spittle from my lips…Now you see why my success rate is not so high.

Many of us resolve to cut down on our vices, whatever these might be. If you are like my wife and I, you rationalize, you agree to cut down. We decide that it might be impossible to go cold turkey on our palliatives. Our rationale is, if we cut out our vices entirely, life won't be tolerable. Sadly, my wife says, “Sometimes my morning coffee is the best part of my day.” Doesn’t say much for me I know. My boys already recognize what happens if Kira doesn’t have her morning coffee. As soon as that person’s head starts to spin they say, “Dad, Mom needs her coffee.” But this is about my vices. Coffee is not my beverage of choice, I am a tea drinker, my father was a tea drinker, most of the guys I hang out with drink tea. And I am not giving up my tea. I enjoy an ice cold tea once in a while. I do realize it would be healthier if I drank less tea. Every year I resolve to decrease my tea intake, and I have. Once you have kids, you have to drink less tea. I do see the benefits of drinking less tea; more productive the next day, more patient with my kids, healthier, do more writing…but like my wife, I can’t see cutting tea out of my life altogether. Life is a grind sometimes, as my former principal used to say, “Life is too long to be miserable.” A cold tea makes life more fun, it's relaxing. Often times I have a few teas and I laugh a lot with my friends. Don’t tell my wife, but sometimes a cold tea…

One of the many things I respected about my father was I rarely heard him swear. Apparently the swearing gene skips a generation. Regrettably I have a mouth like a drunken sailor. I do have the ability to clean it up though. I have been teaching for 13 years, and have been swear free within the confines of the school building. At least there’s nothing in my file anyway. I am equal parts Irish, Italian, Polish and German. Don’t know about that mix but I need help in this %$#@in’ department. Because I respected the hell out my dad, every year I resolve to clean up my language, to no avail. Recently, I hit rock bottom. My buddy Ian and his oldest son Ryan treated Nick and I to a Jet game for Nick’s 11th birthday. Two dads with their first born sons in the Meadowlands.  We had a great day, tailgaiting in the parking lot, whooping it up with other Jet fans, hot chocolate and hot dogs. On this most recent Sunday, the Jets have the Falcons on the ropes, all they need is a few first downs to run out the clock and win the game. With each missed field goal and each Jet mishap, every green-draped fan could feel the victory slipping away. It’s a performance we’ve seen before. It’s third down, late in the 4th quarter and the next play could ice the game. And 40 some odd years of Jet fan frustration erupts. I scream out to the Jets rookie quarterback, from the upper deck mind you, “Come on Sanchez make a *&%in’ play.” Both boys turn to me, mouths agape. Embarrassed doesn’t begin to describe how I felt. Luckily, Nicholas broke the tension with, “Dad, you have to put a quarter in the swear jar.” Every year I resolve to cut down on my swearing. We’ll try again this, um, year.

For years I resolved to become a morning person. Jealously, I noticed over the years that a lot of ultra-successful people, in all walks of life, seem to get up well before the crack of dawn. These type-A people all seem to run six miles, do a kickboxing class, write the next chapter of their novel, then shower and go to work. Why is it that all I can manage to do before every work day is hit the snooze bar three times? I am supposed to be in work at 7:14 and a few times a week that’s enough of a challenge!

Ah, but the resolution list, like our country’s Constitution, is amendable, it’s fluid. Sometimes we have successes. This blog, which I have been doing for one full year (And Ray Lynch said I wouldn't stick with it) was a result of last year’s resolution…pretty cool right? If you have been enjoying it, please keep reading. Maybe you could sign on to become a “Follower?” Or recommend it to some friends? I digress. Sometimes we accept ourselves for who we are. About 4 years ago I was reading a book about various writers and their writing lives. While a lot of writers did seem to get up early, I was relieved to see that there was some variety in these "writerly" routines. I read about writers who read the newspaper or their favorite author first, then write. I read about writers who only write in certain rooms. There were even some writers who do their best work after 10 o’clock at night! That was all I needed to hear. “Become a morning person” disappeared from my resolution list forever. This was step one, after years of fighting it, of accepting who I am. Maybe someday I will get to “I don’t do resolutions?”

Happy New Year! And let’s hear your resolutions.

A Nice Jewish Goy

One of my former students posted a clip from Southpark on Facebook. It was called, “A Jew on Christmas.” Knowing the show, I figured it would be stupid or crude and moved on. I paused to think about Jason. A recent graduate of Brown, Jay was in the first class I ever taught. I thought again of the South Park clip and realized, Jay’s Jewish. Intrigued, I scrolled back to watch the clip. As expected, it was about a lonely Jewish boy surrounded by all of his Christian friends. There was a series of jokes about dradles and not playing reindeer games. Some of it was funny, some of it made me cringe.

I thought about Jason growing up as the only Jewish kid in his group of friends in Woodbury, CT. I know Jason and his friends, they’re nice kids. I know he had a very happy childhood. I also think there had to be the occasional slip, the “Oh I didn’t mean anything by that Jason” comments. And outside Jason’s group of friends, the comments might not have been so benign. I thought if any of Jason’s gentile friends posted that clip, people might get mad. I thought about this age of political correctness and my own Jewish friends who might post something like that. Dave Gordon and Steve Stemmer came to mind, guys I joke around with all the time about our “differences.” I thought of my other Jewish friends who would never post something like that, who would have been insulted by the clip. Which response is better? Isn’t it hard to judge with humor? The Irish and the Jews have been making fun of ourselves for years. And when we are poking fun at some of our stereotypical behavior, if it’s meant in fun, if it’s not mean-spirited, is it okay?

My mind wandered to relationships I have had over the years. I could think of a lot of my friends, who happened to be Jewish, who seemed to hang out with a lot of Catholic, mostly Irish, guys. I thought of Glen Gruder, Dave Gordon, Eric Friedman and how their experiences were probably similar to Jason’s. Boys enduring the lighthearted ribbing, ignoring the occasional slight and sticking up for yourself when it’s warranted. I pondered the attraction between the Irish and the Jewish people. You could make the case that the Irish and the Jews have always been kindred spirits in their shared history of persecution, having for the longest time been second class citizens. We share an ability to laugh at life, to use our sense of humor as a tool, a weapon, a coping mechanism. Is it this shared sense of humor that brings us together?

Jason made me think of one of my best friends, a real mensch…Around 5th grade, 1974, I was living what can only be called a parochial existence. Our neighborhood was mostly Irish and Italian. I attended Immaculate Heart of Mary, the local Catholic school. Considering I grew up in New York, I didn’t really know a Jewish person until Glen Gruder and his family moved onto East 4th Street. Thus began the education of a gentile in the ways of the sons of Abraham. Glen, 8th grade at the time, hung out with the older kids on our block. He was a curiosity to my friends and I for his newness and his Jewness. Come on that’s funny. We found him intriguing, we taunted him and he gave it right back to us. We’d pull a sneak attack with snowballs and he’d track us down and pummel one of us, usually me. Over the next few years, through the gauntlet of athletics and the verbal sparring of the street we began to learn about each other and respect each other. I often think, on our block, Glen was a Jewish Jackie Robinson.

As our lifelong friendship grew, Glen dispelled some of the myths about the Jewish people and confirmed a few of the stereotypes I suppose. First, he was a great athlete, something we found hard to believe. How can he be that good at football, he’s Jewish? I remember one of our jokes at I.H.M. was, “What’s the shortest book in the library?”Answer: Great Jewish Athletes. Glen was smart, we knew he was in “SP” classes at Ditmas Junior High School. Those classes were reserved for the brightest kids. Glen was hard-working, argumentative and had a boisterous personality. To top it off his father owned his own “candy company.” This confirmed for us New York City kids, the malicious rumor that Jewish people just might control a lot of really important things.

I don’t know how to tiptoe around this one, the elephant in the room. I have to address the scuttlebutt on the streets of Brooklyn and in the hallways of our Catholic school about Jewish people being “careful with money.” Starting with Glen Gruder, I have never found this to be the case. Three years older than me, Glen carried me financially until I was old enough to get a job. While I can say that all of my Jewish friends are very successful in their careers, and I suppose that they manage their money adeptly, I have found my Jewish friends, like my Irish friends, to be very generous. Maybe I’ve just been lucky in my friendships?

As I headed to John Dewey High School, my education about all kinds of people continued. Taking the F train out of our neighborhood, suddenly we weren’t in the majority anymore. At some point the boys from Windsor Terrace met Dave Gordon. Like Jason and Glen, Gordo was the only Jewish guy in our clique. This was my first exposure to class differences. Dave came to Dewey on the bus from Mill Basin, dubbed by most Deweyites as the J.A.P bus. Of course Neil O’Callaghan, one of my older buddies had to tell me what a Jewish American Princess was. In my Enriched Algebra class I was surrounded by Allison Mann, Tina Hoffman and Stacy Rheinhardt. These girls were a lot different from the girls in my neighborhood; starting with the Izod shirts, perfectly straight teeth and Stan Smith sneakers. Dave’s father, like Mr. Gruder, started his own company. The Coffee Holding Company, a family owned business that buys, ships, roasts, packages and sells coffee. I think of his father, Mr. Gordon, driving us all home from a Sweet 16 party around 1979 or so. In the car we had Vin and Dave Tomasi, Andrew O’Callaghan, Jimmy Dario, Dave Gordon and myself. The boys and I were duly impressed with the Gordon family station wagon. Maniacally clicking the power windows and door locks I shout from the back seat, “Wow Gordo, you must be rich!” I think about how far out of the way it was for Dave’s dad to drive us all home.

1986, as a recent college graduate I was having trouble finding a job on Wall Street. The Gordons were instrumental during the search, letting me use the office equipment at Coffee Holding to do my resumes and cover letters. As my search stretched from weeks to months, Mr. Gordon could see I was getting disheartened. So one day Dave gets all serious on me and tells me that his father advised him to offer me a job. I get vechlempt just thinking about that gesture. Sterling Gordon built this company by himself. He knew I didn’t know anything about the coffee business. But Mr. Gordon was willing to take a chance on me. He was willing to bring me into the fold of his family company. I will never forget that as long as I live. The funny thing about that is the reason I didn’t take the job. I thought about it overnight and told David that I appreciated the gesture but that I valued our friendship too much. I was sure we would all work well together but the slightest chance that it wouldn’t work out and alter the friendship was not worth the risk. Dave and I are still friends.

My buddy Steve Stemmer jokes that I am an honorary Jew. When I hear that I can feel his mom, Shelley, pinching my cheeks and calling me bubeleh. I suppose my honorary status really can be traced to…sophomore year in high school. I got a job at a kosher deli just outside of my neighborhood. Simon Althaus hired me to be a bus boy, waiter, delivery boy, porter, stock boy….While I was there I learned a lot about life. I learned words like shmate (rag), landsman (someone from your country) and schmuck. I hate to say this but for the owner of the Cortelyou Deli, that was my nickname. For the two years I worked there Sy called me, “Schmuck.” To my face! If he wanted me to refill the napkins or deliver an order he’d grunt, “Schmuck, put down the shmate, we’ve got a dewivery.” It was a few years before I realized what schmuck really meant; boy was I pissed.

What an interesting place to work. Can’t you see it, an aging Jewish counterman, a black cook from Harlem and a couple of Irish/Italian kids from the neighborhood as the cast for a new sitcom? Sy was a Holocaust survivor. I only knew this because he had a faded number tattooed on his forearm. I knew enough not to ask about the tattoo, and Sy never talked about it. That faded blue number probably explained his penchant for scotch and water. Every night around 7:30 I’d make Sy a scotch and water. Some nights he’d have more than one. And like my Irish/German father, that’s when Sy would get emotional. He’d slur his words and tear up and tell me that he wanted to take me up to the family vacation house in the Catskills. In a nod to my ethnicity he’d say, “Ach, Jeemy, vee gott awl kinds up dere, Irish, Italian, Polish. Jews and Gentiles. Ach, awl dah pretty girls, you have to come spend the weekend wit my family.”

Every day at the deli I was allowed a sandwich, soup and a soda. For the first three months I ate roast beef or corned beef. One afternoon the restaurant is empty, Sy and I are sitting at the back table and he says “Schmuck, why is it that all you eat is roast beef? Why don’t you try sompteeng else? Pastrami? Chopped liver? How 'bout I make you a nice tongue sandwich?” My answer to that was, “Sy, I’m not tasting anything that might taste me back.” Sy thought that was hysterical. He turns to Henry, “Henry, did you hear what the Schmuck said?” What a pair those two were.

It’s funny that Stemmer would dub me an honorary jew. I mean with all of the really close friends I have, who happen to light the menorah; at times in the gentile world I feel like an ambassador. When the jokes start flying in the locker room, “Did you hear the one about the priest, the minister, and the rabbi?” I always feel like an interloper. If the jokes are harmless, I laugh and say nothing. If they are mean spirited, if I can tell the person telling the joke really dislikes the people he is making fun of my response is usually different.

I recall a few years ago we were talking current events with my 8th grade history class and I mentioned the fact that this world leader was Jewish. I distinctly heard a handful of snickers in the room. So I jump in, “Why is that funny? I mention that this guy is Jewish and you laugh?” I get indignant, as I should, I get protective. A discussion ensues, and one of my students, sensing my anger asks, “Why Mr. Spinner are you Jewish?” I hesitate, I don’t know how to answer that. Should it matter? I want to say yes, but that would be lying but lying to make a point. In trying to answer my students I want to say, “I am not Jewish but I have many Jewish friends.” And how lame does that sound?

I feel bad for my students at these times, sequestered in their Connecticut world, snickering about somebody being Jewish. I know that before I met Gruder and Gordo, Sy and Stemmer, Kaplan and Woody that I was the snickerer. And the teacher in me recognizes that I was a product of my seclusion, that through exposure to all kinds of people I have benefited. Well, considering this is Hannukah, and thinking of how my life has been enriched by my Jewish friends, I’d have to say, I couldn’t have asked for a better gift.

A Veteran's Day Salute

At the Woodbury Middle School, we recently held a day in recognition of our veterans. My colleague, Scott Parkhouse, a veteran himself, arranged the day with the local VFW. A group of veterans, of multiple generations, came to speak to our 8th graders. Our kids were unbelievably respectful as we listened to the personal stories of D-Day survivors, guys who were deployed to the rice-paddies of Vietnam and today’s National Guardsman.

Early in the morning, as we were setting up the presentations in Scott’s empty classroom, our principal came on the loudspeaker to recite the pledge. “I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America…” To be standing there, in a Connecticut classroom, with my hand on my heart, surrounded by generations of men who had shouldered the burden of freedom for the world is a memory I will never forget.

My mind raced throughout the day as we heard people’s living history while surrounded by the trappings of a history classroom. Men in camouflage, standing in front of posters of the signers of our Declaration of Independence seemed particularly fitting.

I sat in the back while Sergeant Wilfred Cabana regaled our students with stories of Normandy Beach and German 88’s. All eyes were on the gravelly voiced octogenarian, in his full dress uniform, as he talked about the medals and citations he had received. Some stories, a lot of the stories the boys wanted to hear, he would not tell. He seemed to particularly enjoy telling us about the kindness of the people of the French countryside. His memory of an evening when a pair of mud-caked GI's were offered a hot bath in a wine cask by a scared French farmer and his young daughter made the Sergeant emotional every time he told the story.

I have four history sections so I listened to the same stories multiple times, and my mind began to wander. The history buff in me, with these Connecticut vets in front of me also thought of another Connecticut Yankee, Israel Putnam. Putnam, whose statue graces the grounds of our state house, has been credited with the phrase, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” A grisly veteran of many battles, Putnam knew the inaccurate nature of the American musket. He also knew for the Continentals to repel the Redcoat charges at Bunker Hill, the colonists would have to wait until those bayonets were gleaming, until they could hear the grunts of their adversaries heading up the hill, before firing.

Putnam’s story has always resonated in Connecticut as he literally left his plow in the field and grabbed his musket. According to the web site Connecticut Society for the Sons of the American Revolution, “The intelligence of the recent battles at Lexington and Concord roused the whole country in April of the following year. Putnam was employed in ploughing a field of Indian corn when the news reached him. He was swift to act. Leaving the cattle and plough in the furrow, not stopping to change his clothes, he mounted a fleet horse and was soon well on his way to Cambridge, which he reached at sunrise the next morning, and his gallant steed galloped into Concord later the same day. At the same time that George Washington was appointed commander-in-chief, Putnam was made brigadier-general and given command of the army-center at Cambridge.”

I continued to watch the eager eyes of my students and I thought of how we had recently discussed Nathan Hale, another forerunner to these Connecticut vets. Most of you know the story of Nathan Hale, barely in his twenties when George Washington asked him to spy on the British in New York City. After getting caught and tried for treason, as we were still British Colonies then, Hale was sentenced to be hung. All Connecticut students can recite his famous words, “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”

A Yale graduate in the 1770’s, Nathan Hale became a teacher in New London, CT. But the cause of Liberty had a strong pull on the young school master. Nathan put down his books and his chalk to fight the greatest military power in the world at that time, the British empire. In a hasty farewell address to his students as he was leaving for Boston, Hale said, “Let us march immediately and never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence.”

Nathan Hale, not only was one of the first to mention our fight for independence, but also was at the vanguard for women’s rights. The Connecticut Society for SAR website also has an excellent biographical sketch of Nathan Hale. The site mentions that Hale went so far as to volunteer to teach the young women of the town on his own time. I bet there were a few cute ones I suppose. “And, in the arrangement of the Union School at New London, it was determined that between the hours of five and seven in the morning, he should teach a class of “twenty young ladies” in the studies which occupied their brothers at a later hour.”

How much has our country changed since 1774, when Nathan Hale was forced to teach these young ladies well before the sun rose? And now today, after years of struggling, we see everyone over the age of 18 has the right to vote. Everyone who would like to, participating in our democracy, and if they choose, serving in the military.

Our military looks a lot different than it did in 1776. President Obama’s words recently at the memorial services for the victims of the massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, seem to resonate. “They are man and woman; white, black and brown; of all faiths and all stations — all Americans, serving together to protect our people, while giving others half a world away the chance to lead a better life.”

Listening to our president tell the stories of all 13 of the victims, it was the story of Amy Krueger that stood out for me. How similar her situation was to Israel Putnam, Nathan Hale or the waves of veterans who have put down plow and pen, hammer and firehose, to take up arms to protect freedoms around the world.

Amy Krueger, who joined the military after 9/11, as many before her had done in the wake of Pearl Harbor. Whose mother, Janet Krueger told this 20 year old from Keil, Wisconsin, “You know you can’t take on Osama Bin Laden all by yourself.” Only to hear her daughter, full of the bravado of the American soldier say, “Watch me.”

Baseball Dreams

“Hey Dad, wanna have a catch?” I have a Pavlovian response to these words. I can’t say no and I don’t think my boys have realized this yet. Not only do I hear their simple plea but through the decades I hear my own. I think of all the times, and all the ways I accosted my dad. Usually he was just returning from a hard day of banging nails and squaring boards. Physically spent, Jim Spinner Sr. would park the family wagon on East 4th Street and slouch toward the front porch, drained by another work day. I can’t imagine what his thoughts were as he was greeted by me, the Energizer Bunny of children…“Hey Dad, wanna have a catch?” “Not right now Butch, maybe later.”

I am a glass is half full kind of guy but the times my dad said yes, the times that we smacked that leather back and forth are so vivid in my mind I know it’s not as many times as I would have liked. Of course, if I was anything like my boys, maybe I was insatiable? Maybe my timing was off? Too eager, I probably should have waited until he actually got out of the car? Maybe during his after dinner cigarette on the porch would have had better results? What I think now, as a father, is how can you say no? This I am sure is connected to the fatalist in me. My father passed when I was in college and that peppers all the things I do, or don’t do, with my boys.

Now don’t get me wrong he was a great father, he coached my teams, he took me to ball games, he taught me things, about our national pastime. Taught me how to keep score. Taught me how to “bribe the ush” if we bought upper deck seats and we wanted to move down. Taught me that a pitcher will waste a pitch if he’s ahead in the count. Now when I watch the game with my boys I pass on the same knowledge to them. “No way Lester throws Guerrero a strike here. He’s a bad ball hitter, you really gotta waste one here. He’ll throw him a nasty curve low and away and Guerrero’ll whiff.” And when it happens my boys give that wide-eyed, Dad how did you know look. My dad taught me, that’s how I know.

I have an old cassette tape of my dad and I on the phone. It’s a one sided conversation. I was in 407 Fargo Quad, SUNY Buffalo, futzing around with a tape recorder. I was working on a class project when I made my Sunday night call home. For some odd reason, I never turned the tape recorder off; so I captured my end of the conversation…“Hey Padre, what’s up?” Many of you would recognize the conversation because as soon as we run out of things to say there’s a pause and I say, “Mets look good.” It must be 1984 because we are talking about Darling, Gooden and Fernandez as young pitchers. But the rhythm of the conversation is what strikes me. At first listen you might hear a desire for closeness but an unwillingness to delve into anything of substance. Dad and I seem to stay on the surface, with, baseball. But those of you trained in guyspeak would hear something different. The perceptive ear would recognize that’s not surface, that’s us, that’s tribal. I know Woody Allen or Billy Crystal has done this conversation in a movie with subtitles below it but...”Mets look good.” Really means, I miss you Dad, it would be nice to sit on the porch and watch the game with a few Schaefers. “Yeh, if the pitching holds up.” Means, I hear you and it would be really nice to grab a pair of tickets and head over to Shea.

"American Heritage" magazine deals with American history and a few years ago they conducted a poll. “If you could travel back in time to any moment in American history, where would you go?” Number one on the list was to travel with the Lewis Clark expedition. There were a lot of cool answers like Walk on the Moon with Neil Armstrong or On the dunes at Kitty Hawk with the Wright Brothers. The history teacher in me might say Philadelphia for the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. On a more personal level…

It would be my own Field of Dreams, one of the greatest baseball movies of all time by the way. One of the few movies guys will admit makes them cry. As I am traveling back in time, I can hear James Earl Jones’s deep voice as I enter Prospect Park at Park Circle, walking across the park towards the Eastern Parkway side…”The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.” I travel back through the years, past Three Devils Hill, past the band shell, as I travel the trees are changing, people's fashions change, the automobiles are getting bigger, shinier...

When I emerge on the other side of Prospect Park, it’s 1955 and the Dodgers are still in Brooklyn. I walk along Eastern Parkway and head east toward Ebbett’s Field. Closer to the ballpark, I follow the crowd, all in Dodger blue. I smell stale beer and peanuts. Engulfed in the pre-game bustle I am struck when the ballpark emerges organically, like Fenway, from the surrounding neighborhood. Trying to buy a ticket for the game I meet a 17 year old with a James Dean haircut; a wiry kid with blue jeans, a white t-shirt and a pack of smokes rolled in the sleeve. He spies me, “Wanna catch the game?” “You bet I do!” “Follow me.” His movements are familiar to me, the hair, the slouchy gait, the gray eyes. He’s only 17 years old, but I recognize my dad, Jim Spinner Sr. before life beat him down.

We sneak into the game, and root for Dem Bums, Brooklyn’s beloved team. It’s a game for the ages and I know the details from the stories my dad told me…Pee Wee Reese at short, Jackie Robinson at second, Carl Furillo (could throw a strike to home plate with his back against the right field fence)  in right, Duke Snider in center, Johnny Podres on the mound. I smile at the Abe Stark sign in right field, “Hit this sign Win a Suit." In the end, the Dodgers beat the hated Yankees. Brooklyn goes crazy. Leaving the ballpark cars are honking, people are hanging out of apartment house windows banging pots and pans, strangers are dancing in the streets, dad and I are caught up in the mayhem. Together we cross Prospect Park. And as we near Bartel Pritchard Square prepared to go to our respective boyhood homes, my Dad turns to me and says, “Hey kid, see you in a couple of years and we’ll have a catch.”

I know it’s a bit hokey but it’s my Field of Dreams and on the opening night of the World Series I thought it would be appropriate. I'm going to have a catch with my boys. Play Ball!

A Time to Reap, a Time for Reunions

Recent evidence suggests that my friends and I are at the age (46) for reunions. Not sure if it’s a product of age or these new internet social networks like Facebook. Over the past few months I’ve gotten invitations to all manner of reunions. Like many of you, I have a decided ambivalence to these get-togethers. I know that I'd love to see some of the people I have lost touch with over the years. There’s also a part of me that thinks maybe there’s a reason why I’ve lost touch with many of the people I will see. I think I keep in touch with the people I want to keep in touch with. Why do I want to go?

This past weekend, my wife and I headed off to our camp reunion. Kira and I were counselors together at this amazing place, Silver Lake, a YMCA camp in Sussex, County NJ. Our jobs at Silver Lake were formative to both of us, ending with our marriage I suppose. Many of my best friends are people I met at Silver Lake. Saturday morning, I grab my duffel bag and head towards the door and Kira says to me, “That’s what you are wearing to the reunion?” Befuddled I look down at my “outfit” and say, “Yeh, why? Gutlerner (our camp director) said we are going to play basketball.” Kira just shakes her head and heads to the car.

North on Route 206 the conversation is flowing, Who do you think we’ll see? I hope so and so is there….We stop for a bite at the Chester Diner. Walking up the steps to the diner, Kira broaches the subject of my dress again. “Are you sure this is what you want to wear to the camp reunion?” Chuckling I say, “Yeh, I don’t feel like putting on long pants and then having to change when I get there.” To which Kira shakes her head and says, “You’re not normal.” Enjoying the fact that she’s flustered I say, “What? Should I change? What should I wear?” She huffs, “Jim you are going to see people you have not seen in 25 years and you are wearing a pair of stretched out Champion shorts and your “Ride for Rick” give-away t-shirt. That’s not normal.” She walks into the diner. I glance at my reflection in the diner window before walking in. I wish I could say I just didn’t care what people would think. Or maybe it would be better if it was a carefully calculated insouciance, but I can’t take credit for any of these things. Truth is, my outfit was dictated by comfort and convenience.

By comfort I mean comfort in the people we were going to see. My camp friends know me, they know the real me. What am I going to hide behind a new JCrew sweater, a pair of jeans and some shiny cordovan oxfords? I might not be this comfortable with other reunions but a camp reunion is a no-brainer. In Connecticut I am a suburban Dad in a town Kira and I moved to about 6 years ago. And we’ve made some really good friends, mostly people who moved there recently too. At times I can’t shake the feeling, as I stand on the side of a soccer field on any Saturday morning, that I am a caricature. That the people I know only know what I show them. But as a counselor, you live with your coworkers, and the campers, 24 hours a day 7 days a week for two months.

An example might help...I knew at the Silver Lake reunion I would see Craig Calzaretta. My first year as a counselor, (1980) Craig was a camper in my bunk. I was a 17 year old wise-ass from Brooklyn, leading trail rides for our ranch camp. I knew less about horses than most of the campers. Craig was a fairly accomplished 13 year old equestrian, from Wayne, NJ. I can still picture him with his 70’s afro and his aw-shucks manner. He was the best camper I ever had, him and Randy Giles. What he and Randy shared was a zest for life, an engaging sense of humor yet the maturity to be responsible when the need arose. A counselor’s dream.

Starting with my first summer, Craig and I shared many adventures, created many inside jokes. All I have to say to Craig is, “Stupid American fish” and he’ll laugh. I know that even though I’ve only seen Craig a few times in the last 10 years, Craig and I are tighter than many of the guys I see every day. When you share a cabin or a tent with someone for two months straight, during high school and college, a bond develops. At camp we all shared a bathroom that was more like an amphitheater, so there was no privacy. That seems a fitting metaphor for the fact that we had no secrets. Sleeping in a platform tent, talking ourselves to sleep at night, you really get to know the guys you bunk with.

The first day of a new session at camp, you get your bunk together and you head down the dirt road to "flagpole" for a camp orientation. On the way down the camp road we come into contact with other bunks heading down for this all-camp meeting. I can see Craig and I observing our campers getting to know one another as we walk. We smile at the familiarity of the routine. Invariably some wannabe-tough guy from Anytown, NJ announces, “I know Karate.” Every session some kid thinks he has a clean slate, he figures that nobody knows him at camp and decides to create a new persona. Craig and I will smirk. The smart kids in the bunk will be skeptical and a few of the rubes in the bunk might actually buy it. “Really?” And here’s the thing you learn about living at camp, You can’t tell people you know Karate if it isn’t true. Eventually, who you really are shines through.

That’s why, this past Saturday, I didn’t care that I had on a pair of stretched out Champion shorts. Because I know my camp friends, guys like Craig and Steve Swierczek and Mike Parker and Glen Gruder already know me. People like Julie Anzel. In an email exchange in the wake of the reunion, Julie mentioned that she is a single Mom and that at the reunion it felt like she was with family. She mentioned that for her and her son Jackson to be around Silver Lakers was a feeling they don’t get often enough. That’s what I am talking about, comfort. It’s so funny that Julie would say that because I was looking at her photo albums this past Saturday night in the dining hall. Julie was at Silver Lake every summer I was there. And Julie and I always seemed to have a love/hate thing going. We flirted with each other, we teased each other, and we comforted each other. In looking at Julie’s photo album this weekend we came upon photos of Julie as a 5th grader, and she said, “Oh, those aren’t camp photos, you don’t want to see them.” But I did want to see them. To see Julie, someone I feel I really know, as a wee 5th grader was pretty cool. Kind of like family.

Now I really don’t consider myself a “reunion guy.” I prefer to remember everything as it was. It’s nice to have this image of everyone as young and full of promise. Yet I have never gone to a reunion and regretted it. Although Time the Avenger is taking his toll on us all, underneath our graying temples and thickening bodies those twenty-somethings are still there, just below the surface. You could see it as many of us took on familiar roles: standing around the campfire trying valiantly to come up with the next one-liner that will make everyone laugh, Glen Gruder taking charge on the basketball court and telling us what the teams are, the camp stoners disappearing occasionally to alter their state of consciousness. There’s a comfort in this predictability. I smiled when I matched up with Larry Gutlerner, knowing without even thinking about it, after almost three decades, that I have to defend him differently because he’s lefty. For that moment, on that b-ball court, and around the campfire we were 40 something and 20 something at the same time.

As the Silver Lake alumni were leaving the dining hall Sunday morning after our final meal together, I so wanted to turn to Calzaretta and say “Did you know I know Karate?” But the moment passed and I didn’t get a chance to float that one-liner out there. I am sure he would have gotten the joke, he knows me so well.

The Memory Fades

My FDNY/Ladder 118 t-shirt is fading, it's torn, it's tattered. I hardly wear it any more. You see this shirt was given to me by a true American hero and I can't let it go. I know it's a piece of history, my history, our history. And as it fades, it saddens me. I notice that my receding memories of 9/11 seem to parallel the decline of Pete's t-shirt, and for this I feel guilty.

Pete Vega, Ladder 118, literally gave me this shirt, off his back. A group of us were vacationing on Block Island the summer of 2000. We were getting ready to go to the beach and I walked into Pete and Regan's room. I noticed he had on a long sleeve, navy blue, FDNY shirt complete with the Ladder 118 logo and the fire department's Maltese Cross. Figuring a lot of guys asked Pete for shirts, I never did. I knew firemen didn't make much money and I was sure giving away all those shirts could set you back a bit. Plus back then, it seemed kind of "girlie" to wear a FDNY shirt. Especially if you weren't really on the job. Most of the time it seemed the shirts were worn by wives or girlfriends kind of like an old hockey jersey. But this shirt was impressive, you know long sleeves and all. So without thinking I said, "Man that's a nice shirt Pete." Without blinking, he pulled it over his big head (Pete was known to have a big head) and tossed it across the room to me. "You want it Jimmy, it's yours."

Wearing that shirt before 9/11, if someone came up to me on the beach and said, "Are you a fireman?" I'd lie, I'd say yes. It seemed kind of fun, pulling the wool over some unsuspecting rube's eyes. I'd use the terminology that I had picked up over the years living in an Irish neighborhood. "Sure I'm on the job. 118 truck. Been there since '85, almost got my 20 in." Kira, my wife, would get all flustered, looking back and forth nervously during the conversation. Embarrassed by my fibs. She would clearly break under questioning. After the conversation, as my straight man walked down the beach, I would always hear, "Why do you do that? You're not a firefighter." "No I'm not. But when I wear my Michigan t-shirt I also tell people I went to Michigan. It's just more fun. My life's just not that interesting I guess."

In our post 9/11 world, wearing my shirt in tribute to Pete and his 342 fallen comrades, when someone asks me if I am a fireman I say, "No." As you can imagine, it doesn't feel right to lie; to take credit for all that those men sacrificed. Instead, if the time is right, I use the occasion to say, "No, this shirt was given to me by my friend Pete Vega, Ladder 118. His house is also known as Fire Under the Bridge. Ladder 118/Engine 205 is on Middagh Street, at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge."  I tell people to Google "Pete Vega" or Ladder 118 FDNY and they will find a wealth of stories about how brave he and the other guys from 118 truck were on that fateful Tuesday. I add that a number of survivors, in an article in the Daily News, talked about how they were... "Guided through the lobby of The Vista Hotel to safety by a bunch of really tall guys with the number 118 on their helmets." That was Pete and his crew, none of whom made it out alive. I might add how the Daily News showed a picture of 118 truck crossing the bridge as the towers burned. And how the paper featured Regan, his widow, in a series of articles as she shared her grief with the rest of New York and in doing so helped us all get through that national tragedy.

Now, 9/11 is starting to feel like history. I know, we know, that at some point in the distant future, it's going to take it's place alongside Pearl Harbor Day. Eventually, 9/11 will be a sad day that fewer and fewer people really remember. How many of us really give pause on December 7th? In an effort to forestall that or to assuage my own guilt, I thought it might be nice to once again take a minute to remember Pete and some of the other heroes of this sad day from our not so distant past.

http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2001/10/05/2001-10-05_ladder_118_s_final_run__into.html

http://www.fallenbrothers.com/community/showthread.php?t=755

Yes, we are there yet!

Standing on the lakeside, the Spinner family is partaking in one of our family traditions. At the close of our annual summer vacation to Mossflower, our family’s camp in the Adirondacks, we walk together to say good-bye to various parts of the camp. “Good-bye boat house. Good-bye lake. Good-bye hot tub.” Kira's father John, and his wife Lucy bought this camp ten years ago. And it has become a special place for our whole family. We started talking to inanimate objects when our boys were little, in an effort to ease their sadness at vacation's end. Of course I feel silly talking to a canoe but I always get a little catch in my throat as I come to the realization that never again will Nick, Brian and Charlie be 10, 8 and 5 respectively. I know, because everyone tells me, that in the blink of an eye, they’ll be 22, 20 and 17.

Driving home, the boys give the running commentary as we pass our landmarks, “There’s the dalmation at the Saranac Lake Fire House. There’s Tail of the Pup! There’s the big beaver!” I always snicker when they say big beaver. Kira backhands me in the ribs and tells me to grow up. Some day the boys will think, “There’s the big beaver” is funny. Eventually they settle in to watch a movie, Kira begins to nap and I begin to the think, about family vacations past…

In the blink of my mind's eye, we are in the Spinner family station wagon. We are finally leaving East 4th Street (my father was a notoriously slow starter) en route to Beach Lake, Penna. Have to use the old abbreviation. Going to "The Country" as we liked to say. It was maybe a three hour ride but boy did it feel like forever. Makes me appreciate how my kids feel driving 6 plus hours to The Adirondacks.

Like most of you, memories of my childhood vacations are seared into my brain. Just like our kid’s will be. I always thought it interesting that there were 51 other weeks, but for all of us, memories from that week are turbo charged. Our landmarks were different going from Brooklyn to PA. (Of course, we were not in seat belts, didn’t have a movie system in the car and hand held Gameboys were something out of The Twilight Zone) But this is more about similarities than differences…My father would take the Battery Tunnel, to the West Side Highway then to the Lincoln Tunnel. Along the way we’d pass the new Twin Towers, the gritty meat packing district while the Hudson River rolls to my left. To this day I take comfort in the fact that Yale Trucking still has the same replica truck up on the second floor of their building. Although it’s weather beaten, it’s a connection to those trips from long ago.

The Spinners were introduced to Twin Willows Cabins, by John Tracy, my best friend at the time. Because of our friendship, our fathers became tight and coached our baseball team together. I can imagine the conversation after practice, Mr. Tracy holding a can of Schaefer, telling my father, “You have to come up, we’ll have a great time, there’s a ton a things for the kids to do.

As soon as we get to our log cabin, Cabin 4 on the far right side, we are greeted by the familiar smell; a combination of moisture and pine needles. We pick our respective bedrooms. After we unpack, we run around the horseshoe of 14 cabins, looking to see “who else is here?” A haven for working class families from Brooklyn and Queens, we see a lot of the same families every year. Always hope to see Danny and Kevin Reilly from Rego Park, Queens. Mr. Reilly and my dad became fishing buddies. Usually we’d see Linda Wagner and her family, she was a little blonde tom-boy and her dad looked like John Wayne. My friends and I would all vie for Linda’s attention.

Like Kira and I today, my parents knew this week was special. Mom and Dad seemed to smile more, they said YES more often. One of my fondest memories,if you can believe it, is food shopping. We'd go to the Giant supermarket in Honesdale and Judy Spinner would finally throw financial caution to the wind. “Mom, can we get Skippy Peanut Butter please?” “Sure.” Name brand items were a luxury. “Mom, how about Wonder Bread?” “Why not?”
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Out to dinner at Belly's in Mountain View, NY and the boys ask, “Can we get soda dad?” Kira and I exchange a look and a shrug of the shoulder, “Alright.” Brian, Nick and Charlie, in unison squeal, “YES!” I see them exchanging giddy looks that say, Can you believe our luck? Who are these people we are on vacation with? They wise up, they recognize, it’s Vacation Mom and Vacation Dad. “Can we stop for ice cream? “Oh alright.” “Yaaaaay.”

Back to the Poconos. After helping unpack the groceries we would don our bathing suits and head to the pool. Walking across the grass field that was the center of the horseshoe of cabins, in bare feet! We never did that in Brooklyn! The built in pool was the center of the social scene at Twin Willows Cabins. Like the cabins, the pool was not the greatest, the diving board was home-made, wood covered in some type of vinyl protection, but it was ours. The water was cold and refreshing. John Tracy would usually bring a friend, Jimmy Quinlan, and we would play for hours. Tag around the pool, relay races, diving contests (cannonball, pencil dive, flips) and occasionally someone would get thrown in the pool by a particularly exuberant father. Sometimes we would try to throw Dad in! The concrete housing for the pool's filter was where all the teenagers sunbathed. It was here that the Billard sisters, Lisa and Lynn would place their radio and tune it to WABC, a.m. Today, listening to Sirius 70’s on the satellite radio, songs like "Afternoon Delight" or "Band on the Run" come on and I am transported poolside to Twin Willows Cabins.

Walking back from the pool, asking “Dad can we have a catch?” Vacation Dad always says, “Yes.” Or even better, we would organize a baseball game on the big field with all of the kids and the fathers. I always liked the fact that my dad was pretty good, even if he did overswing and try to cream the ball all the time. This was one of the few times of the year my father would don his sneakers. They were "no-name" sneakers my mother bought him. I used to think, don’t you care enough to buy decent sneakers? You let MOM pick them out for you? You had to see these sneakers; black with little car racing checkered flags on each side of the foot. I think those sneakers might still be in the bottom of my Mom’s closet. The sound of a man running with keys and change in his pocket makes me smile as I see Jimmy Spinner Sr. gamboling around the bases like a graceful janitor. Never knew why he had so many keys, he was a carpenter.

Vacation Mom and Dad did other fun stuff with us too! We’d head down to Cosmos, a combination mini-golf, go kart, batting cages, arcade, ice cream, hamburger joint. What a gold mine for a kid! As we got older, sometimes, we were mischievous. One year, I guess we were around 12, 7th graders I suppose. I teach middle school and I am pretty sure 7th graders send their brains out for maintenance for the year. So Quinland Tweety and I decided to play a practical joke on the guy who ran the go-karts. It was an oval track with tires around the outside and on the inside just on the turns. On the straightaways, there were no tires. So my friends and I decide to ride across the grass infield of the oval. You had to see that carny dude running after us. Looked like a Little Rascals episode. Three go-karts going this way and that and one guy in his Cat Diesel Power hat trying to catch us. Carny guy got the last laugh. Turns out he wasn’t some tobacco-chewing carny guy, he and his brother owned Cosmos. The next summer, 51 weeks later, we buy our tickets and wait on line. Mr. Cosmos waited for us to get to the front of the line then wagged his tobacco stained finger at us and shook his head No. Never did ride those go-karts again.

Beach Lake was a novel town for Brooklyn boys. Even things like walking seemed more fun on vacation. One of the things we did was the “four mile walk.” If you left the Twin Willows Cabins, made a right turn and then walked to the end of each road and just keep making lefts, you would eventually go in a big square. Scuttlebutt around the cabins was that this was four miles. And we would do this, for fun. We spent the walk looking for turtles and frogs, chucking apples at trees and most of the time just talking about things little boys talk about.

We loved to walk to The Beach Lake General Store, it was like going to the store with Half Pint from Little House on the Prairie. Dusty wooden floor, proprietor selling sundries, place smelled like Teaberry gum, remember that stuff? Basically they sold the same stuff we could get at home, but these Beach Lakers knew city people would pay a premium for shopping at The General Store. The best was being old enough to pick out a pocket knife. Then my friends and I would become " little hicks" for the week, whittling sticks and carving things. We'd swear when we got back to Brooklyn that our accents had changed a little. I bet they had.
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As the summer nights are growing shorter and cooler, and the school year nears, this was my effort at remembering some of my family vacations past. I was hoping my musings would remind you of the family vacations you used to take. I would love to hear about them.

P.S. Thanks Vacation Mom and Dad! You were a lot of fun!

Among the Great Unwashed

“Daddy this year I am jumping off the cliff at the waterfall hike,” Brian pipes in from the back seat. We are on our way to our annual camping trip to Hickory Run State Park. I smile, put my book down and look through the windshield. Before I reply, Kira pipes in from the driver’s seat, “Oh no you’re not.” I am wondering why my wife is taking the bait. Brian, my middle boy, the self proclaimed “risk taker,” is looking to get a rise out of us. I am not sure if he is really an 8 year old adrenaline junky or if he has created this persona in an effort to differentiate himself from his siblings. This birth order stuff is awfully intriguing don’t you think? “Daddy almost did it last year! I’m jumping off the cliff. I think it will be cool.” Now I pipe in. “Brian, you might recall that I went to the edge of the cliff. I looked at how far the jump was. I listened to your mother shrieking, If you get a spinal cord injury don’t think I’m going to take care of you ‘cause I already have three kids! It was then that I did something called risk/reward analysis Brian. I decided the thrill of flying through the air for a second and a half, to land in a pool of ice cold water was not worth the bad things that could happen. Maybe I would land safely and swim away. Or I might wind up braking an arm, a leg or wind up spending the rest of my life in a wheelchair.” “Or Worse!” Kira shrieks again. “You could DIE!” “Well your mother is being melodramatic but that was why I decided the reward was not worth the risk.”

I leave Brian to ponder that. He stares out the passenger window as the Pennsylvania countryside rolls past. After a few minutes he says, “You know, maybe I won’t do it.” Kira and I exchange a knowing smile as we continue west on Route 80. I thought about how this was an apt analogy to explain why we go camping. A handful of our friends enjoy tent camping as much as we do but the majority seem to look askance at us when they find out we enjoy camping in tents. It’s similar to the look you might get if you say you enjoy going to the dentist. A neighbor will pull up in my driveway and say,

“Hey, you guys packing to go on vacation?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going? Camping? You mean like in tents?”

I had one friend get out of his car, come over and ask me, “Is everything okay? You know, financially?” I assured him we were fine that we were choosing to camp.

I see the drawbacks, or risks of camping. I do. For the most part I am with the majority. I am an admitted germophobe. Usually it would take an act of Congress to get me to use a public restroom. I tell Kira I don’t like to play “away games.” I’m a teacher and I don’t even like to use the faculty bathroom. Then again, you should see some of my colleagues. On that note, you should see some of the clientele at some of our nation’s parks. I have never seen more donut boxes and body ink in my life. My boys always wind up bike riding with the requisite kid with the “hair tail.” What I like to call, "the mullet starter kit." The thought that we are sharing a restroom with Mr. and Mrs. Marlboro red pack and their children is not enough of a deterrent, even for me. Camping is still worth it.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, I’m really not a big bug guy either. Who is? I don’t have the patience for every flying, buzzing, biting, annoying creature that seems to love to spend time with ME every time I am communing outdoors. Sitting on my porch, reading the paper, I high-tail it inside at the first buzz. While camping, you just lather yourself up with some Deet-enhanced liquid and hope for the best. Mosquitoes, black flies, deer flies, horse flies, yellow jackets, white-faced hornets…still worth it.

Like most of you, particularly as we head toward our “advanced years,” I love my creature comforts. There was a day I would sleep on a Funyun-caked couch just to spend the weekend partying in Belmar, New Jersey. Now I will drive to Manhattan for dinner and unless I am guaranteed a bed at my buddy Murph’s apartment, I drive the 90 miles back to Middlebury, CT so that I can sleep in my own bed. I like ice in my soda, crisp clean sheets, preferably of a decent thread count, on a nice firm mattress and a hot shower. These are all things that you eschew once you decide to go camping. Any given camping weekend you might wind up with a root in your back or with your tent on a slope so the blood rushes to your head all night. A "nature call" in the middle of the night is really a hassle. You have to zip out of your sleeping bag, put your shoes back on, grab your flashlight, unzip the tent, crawl out, zip the tent back up, then traipse to the communal bathroom or find yourself a nice tree. Then back to the tent.....Still worth it!

Checking in at Hickory Run State Park, the lady with the Smoky the Bear hat tells us that we have to watch for black bears. As if the numerous signs printed on neon green paper weren’t enough warning. Apparently bears know that campgrounds are a gold mine for food,. She recommends that we keep our food locked safely in our car overnight and take other necessary precautions. “Please make sure your kids don’t hide any sweets in the tent, we had a bear pull two boys out of their tent a few years ago to get to their Hershey bars.” Wide-eyed I stare. She looks back at the trail map and says, “Hate to tell you this, but they were staying in your campsite, site 11. Bear came right down the hill. You see you guys are the most secluded, the closest to the real woods, so be extra careful. Enjoy your stay.” Gulp. Still worth it!

So what is it about camping? Sleeping out in tents? Carousing with other campers, who I like to call, “The Great Unwashed.” Since Memorial Day, we have camped out a grand total of 9 nights. Luckily for us, one of the things I failed to mention, mother nature for the most part has cooperated. Camping in tents is a bitch when it rains. Actually this year’s trip with The Boyles, The Quiltys and The Grices to Hickory Run was pushed back to Saturday morning after we looked at the local forecast and made a communal decision to pitch our tents on Saturday morning. Some risks are not worth taking.

Like any vacation, you have to pack, a lot: tents, sleeping bags, bug spray, sunscreen, flashlights, clothes, food and beer. Then, like any vacation, you have to drive. Here’s the kicker. Then you have to, as a family, create your lodging. In addition to building your weekend home, other things become more difficult as well, like cooking, doing dishes, showering. That being said, our network of national and state parks that allow camping are really quite good. They know what people will need while sleeping outdoors and they do their best to make everything, let’s say, reasonable.

What are the rewards for all this hard work? First is a feeling of accomplishment, of working together as a family and or a group of families. Mom, Dad and the boys, packing and unpacking the car, pitching the tents, and then breaking down camp is a challenge we enjoy. “Braving” the great outdoors, sleeping in a temporary shelter of your own creation, binds everyone together, kind of like a team.

The best reward is seeing the kid’s faces as they run excitedly around the campground. They have the feeling that they are free, that we are not watching, but we are. At Hickory Run, Elaine Boyle, the architect of our trip, ensures that we have our own little cul-de-sac of campsites. Running along the left side of our campsite oasis is a stream. The boys play in the water all day long. I love to watch them building dams and racing makeshift boats of sticks and leaves down the stream. Kids being kids. There’s nothing like watching a little boy’s face as he expectantly turns over a mossy rock in the hopes of finding a salamander. THAT makes it all worth it.

Fire! One of the rewards is the community fire. Boys, big boys, girls and big girls, love the fire. We build it and tend it together. As a group, we gather the wood. Then we teach the kids how to build the fire from paper, to kindling, to bigger sticks, to logs. There’s something intrinsically human about the process. We are cavemen again, We build fire. You can see the kids gaining a respect for the power and the dangers of fire. This year, 11 year old Brian Quilty pulls a stick out of the fire and burns his hand on the hot embers. After that mishap, he or any of the other kids won’t make that mistake again. Fire! Beats another park and rec soccer game.

Staying with the caveman connection, while camping….people get dirty. Covered in bug spray and sunscreen, smelling like campfire, wearing the same t-shirt for a while is par for the course. Mark Migliaccio, another friend and fellow camper, didn’t take his Yankee hat off the entire Memorial Day weekend. I think he might have slept with it on. We'll have to ask his wife. Memorial day weekend this year, at the end of the first night, we realized the kids had not brushed their teeth. And this would mean traipsing the lot of them to the communal bathroom a few hundred yards away. Melissa Migliaccio made an executive decision and said, “Ah, it’s alright, we’re camping, it’s only one night right?” There’s something liberating about that. Shower or no shower? Brush teeth or no brushing of teeth. Who cares? You feel removed from civilization, leaving behind the ties, the bounds of everyday life. And it feels really good.

Speaking of severing ties…there’s no internet! No TV! No Gameboy. And nobody notices. Not once this summer did I hear my boys say, “I’m bored,” while we were camping. Too many adventures to be had, mushrooms to discover, trees to climb and waterfalls to traverse. They don’t have Wii Hiking. You have to go camping!

Of course there is a bit more in it for the adults. We are not THAT altruistic. After a communal dinner of marinated London Broil, cooked over an open fire, assorted salads, topped off by smores, we sit around the campfire satiated. The last activity of the night, the kids play flashlight tag. Around 10 or so the kids go to bed. Comfortable in the knowledge that our offspring are exhausted from the day and snug in their sleeping bags, the adults then sit around the fire and enjoy a cold beer or two. Ensconced in a hooded sweatshirt, looking up at the stars, there’s no better way to spend an evening as the “truth syrum” begins to take effect. Steve Boyle usually orchestrates the conversation by tossing out what I would call a “Kumbaya” prompt. You know the, “Tell us why you love camping out.” Or, “Say something positive about each of your kids.” Sitting around the campfire with a group of close friends, I would highly recommend it. The risk is definitely worth the reward. “Hold on, I think I hear a bear!”

Confessions of a Lapsed Catholic

Confessions of a lapsed Catholic

The wheels fell off the religion chariot very early for me. Not sure if I was a cynic in the womb but shortly thereafter for sure. I know that I drove my parents, especially my Mom who is myopically religious, crazy. It was right around the time I realized that Santa Claus was a fictional character, created by the adults, that I realized that this Jesus character might need a closer look too. I figured, if adults made up Santa to make Christmas a little more enjoyable for us kids; well maybe they were making up some other stuff too?

At Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Brooklyn, in the early 70’s, we received the sacrament of holy communion in the second grade. Then in third grade we practiced to receive the holy sacrament of confession. If you asked me, I thought this was backwards. I mean they taught us how bad we were. The priests and nuns taught us that our virginal white souls were pockmarked with the heinous taint of “original sin.” Glancing over a few rows at my angelic Susan Shaughnessy, in her maroon plaid skirt, patent leather shoes and white socks, it was hard to picture that she could be tainted with ANYTHING. Sitting there in my desk, playing with my blue tie with the little IHM embroidered on it, I’m thinking, Shouldn’t we have purified our souls of this horrible imperfection before we received the body of Christ? Just one of the many questions I had.

Sister Christine, my third grade teacher, was an ancient, elongated, veiny woman. What I remember most was her skin was practically see-through. And that after she blew her nose, a fog-horn, phlegmy sound, she kept her handkerchief tucked up her black and white sleeve. I wasn’t sure why, I guessed they didn’t have pockets on the nun’s habits.

About mid-year, Sister Christine is preparing us to receive our first confession.
Monday morning comes, our class walks down Fort Hamilton Parkway, to IHM church. We gather in the little side pews next to the confessional booths; and Sister Christine is teaching us step-by-step directions to receive confession. “Now boys and girls, you walk into the confessional. Kneel on the cushioned kneeler in front of the screen. Wait for the priest to slide the screen open. Then say, “Bless me father for I have sinned. This is my first confession.” Sister tells us that then you are supposed to tell the priest all the bad stuff you have done. As we are waiting in church to “practice” my friends and I are whispering and snickering, Sully says, “What do you think you get for cheating on a test?” Timmy Boyle pipes in, “Or stealing a Milky Way?” Chrissy Ryan, “What if you stole a car!?” Mark Bowen, always the smartest of us, ”What if you murder someone? Do you have to tell the priest? And if you tell him, does he have to turn you in?”

Something about confession just didn’t sit right in my third grade brain. All during the practice week I pester my mother with questions but her answers have been lacking. After a few days of practice, I am annoyed with the power this gives the priest. The major fly in the ointment for me is, Why does he have to know what everyone is doing? Sitting in class one morning, I raise my hand. “Yes, James?”

“Uh, Sister Christine, I just have a question about this whole confession thing.”

“Yes?”

“Well, I don’t understand why I have to tell the priest everything? Why does he have to know?” “You see Mr. Spinner, the priest is like the mailman. He brings your sins to god.”

“Well, didn’t you teach us that god was all-seeing and all-knowing?”

“Yes, and what is your point?”

“Well then doesn’t that mean that god sees and knows all of the bad stuff, and good stuff, I am doing? So couldn’t I just confess my sins to god?”

“No, it doesn’t work like that. You have to tell your sins to the priest to get absolution.” That explanation didn’t sit well with me.

Towards the middle of third grade, we all started to connect the dots on the Santa Claus thing. Sitting in the school cafeteria, eating our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, my friends and I are discussing…Sully, ”How does Santa know the houses that have Christians? I mean how does he know how to skip the Jewish kid’s houses? Is there a star of David on the roof?” Jimmy Quinlan, “How does he fit down the chimney? And what if you don’t have a chimney?” Mark Bowen,“How many people in the world? And he gets to them ALL in one night?”

From Santa, my thoughts turned to Jesus. Exactly how did he turn a few loaves and fishes into enough food to feed the hundreds gathered to hear him talk? And if he really had this power, why was Jesus so selective with the miracles? I thought, If I could just make food out of thin air, and turn water into wine, then it would just be a miracle frenzy! I envisioned that Jesus had a little “Barbara Eden/I Dream of Jeanie” twitch he would do and BAM, Lazarus rises from the dead. I couldn’t imagine how anyone with this power wouldn’t be miracle happy. Wouldn’t you just be sprinkling miracles around pell-mell for the masses? If I was Jesus and I came upon a sick boy in the village. "How sad, you need a kidney?” BAM “There you go kid. Ah, don’t mention it, it was nothing, I’m the son of God for Christ sakes. Ooops"

The more I learned, the more questions I had…If Jesus could perform miracles in biblical times, why is he so stingy with the miracles today? Why do we still have people starving all over the world in 1973? People have been praying to him for almost 2000 years. And god has been, for the most part, saying no for 2000 years! Think of all the unanswered prayers! In 4th grade, in Mrs. Gaglio’s class, we joined “Friends of Animals” to prevent the clubbing of the baby seals and other atrocities against animals. Why couldn’t Jesus help us with the baby seals? Our whole class, pious little boys and girls, praying for the baby seals; and still the baby seals become fur coats. How could god say no to all of his little uniformed disciples?

I envisioned that god was up there in heaven, cooking dinner and watching t.v. and stuff and he ignores pretty much every request he gets. Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit (don’t even get me started on the Holy Trinity) are up in heaven trying to watch Password and they keep getting interrupted with people’s prayers… “Ah, what’s her name is praying for her husband again. Why doesn’t she just leave me alone? Take that thing off the hook will ya?”

The more I learned about world history, the more I thought of all the horrible things that god could have prevented. And didn’t. I mean if he was a merciful and christian god…He couldn’t step in during the Holocaust to save 6 million jews? How many wars could have been prevented? Couldn’t god step in and make sure Archduke Ferdinand doesn’t get shot? Why wouldn’t you make sure Hitler got into art school? Then he wouldn’t have been so angry. I mean if he had an outlet you know?

At the end of my days at IHM, by papal decree, they took away Limbo. We were taught there was heaven, hell, purgatory and limbo. Limbo, we were told, was this nebulous place for unbaptized babies. I pictured all of the cherubic babies floating around on clouds. One day the priests and nuns just told us that limbo was "out." We weren’t doing limbo anymore. Gazing up at the ceiling in my classroom I wondered what happened to all those babies floating carefree in the stratosphere? I worried that they might get hit by a plane or a rocket. Did these babies get an automatic upgrade to heaven? Was it a lateral move to purgatory for a few years? Or maybe worse?

So many questions…Hmmmm, if they could get rid of Limbo, just like that. I had the feeling then that heaven and hell, like Santa Claus, were constructs to make life a little more enjoyable. I thought, If Thomas Jefferson and Abe Lincoln and Thomas Edison and Lou Gehrig and my grandparents, were all in heaven, I mean, how crowded would it get? If all the people, who EVER lived were either in heaven or hell, I mean, that's a lot of people. If you did go to heaven, what age would you be? If you died at 96 would you be 96 or would you be able to choose? The thought of our loved ones up there, with all of the other people we knew who died was just so appealing. I mean what a nice thought. But then I realized, similar to Santa Claus, this heaven thing was just to make us feel better. Death itself makes us sad, it’s hard to grasp the concept, so we create this nice place in the clouds where everyone is happy and that makes us all feel better.

Catholicism is not a religion that cottons to questioners well. The answer to most questions is, “It was God’s will.” Or, “You just have to have faith.” If you don’t get what you want by praying, you still have to keep having faith. Despite all of the evidence I accrued over the years that prayer did not work, and this Holy Trinity just might be the same as Zeus and Poseidon, people would say, “You just have to have faith.” If you ask too many questions, if you are unsure, they call you a Doubting Thomas. Now Thomas was the first guy in the bible, that I had any respect for. Here was a guy with a brain. Here was a guy thinking like me. All Thomas was saying was, “Alright, if you really were crucified and came back to life, let’s see the scars, let’s see some proof." The little cynic in me liked Thomas. I knew if I was there, little Jimmy Spinner would have been right next to Thomas saying, “Wait, Jesus, I just have a few questions about this whole 40 days in the desert with no food thing.”

Baby Face Finster

The summer of 1980, I packed my Brooklyn wise-guy self off to the woods. That June, I started a junior counselor job at a YMCA camp in Sussex County New Jersey. According to the brochure, the camp was in the Hamburg "Mountains." But those of you familiar with geography in the east know that they were, I would say, "verdant hills." I jumped into the Silver Lake culture whole-heartedly. There were many people to meet, traditions to follow and camp songs to learn that added to the fabric of day to day life. To this day, Silver Lake was the best job I have ever had.

Most of the skits and songs were connected to various personalities. During my time at Silver Lake I recall-Glen Gruder with his Oscar Gamble afro and Larry Montanye with his bushy, boy-scout troop leader mustache as they donned their togas to spit water on each other in “the Greek Water Boys.” And I see a red-faced Steve Swierczek, feathered blonde hair in 80’s style, sneakers, shorts and a two-colored baseball shirt as he leads the Silver Lake dining hall in a rousing rendition of "Little Rabbit Foo-Foo." I could go on about the personalities I met at Silver Lake, still some of my best friends to this day. But this piece is about someone in particular…

The family name Quinn at Silver Lake was a brand-name. As a counselor, you knew if you had a Quinn in your bunk you got a whole bunch of freckles, a permanent smile and a kid who would brush his or her teeth before bed without having to be asked. The Quinns: Judy, Corey, John and Connor were from Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. I can still picture Mr. and Mrs. Quinn dropping their brood off in the wood paneled station wagon. The scene always made me smile because I knew the Quinn house was a warm house, an active house. I always pictured a house where the muddy soccer cleats were piled near the door, opening a closet meant a surprise of baseball gloves and or Christmas ornaments. I pictured big meals of Irish stew with a lot of laughter, the Quinns poking fun at each other for their various idiosyncrasies. And of course I see the scene after dinner. The table would be covered with school books because Mr. and Mrs. Quinn ran a pretty tight ship. Yes there was time for laughter and a hug from Mom and Dad too but you don’t raise four responsible kids without some expectations.

This past March, decades removed from Silver Lake, I was skiing Mount Snow Vermont with a few friends. We were, three dads in their mid-40’s, enjoying a St. Patrick’s Day weekend without our respective families. Late in the day, I was scanning the crowd as we inched our way toward one of the ski lifts, and I see a familiar face. I spied Corey’s Quinn-ness through her hat, goggles and parka. I yelled across four lines of people. Actually I had my buddy Ian yell because for some reason I was being shy. “Corey!” She turned, looked around. I waved. She peered through the crowd and I said, “Spinner, it’s Jim Spinner.!” She dragged her husband and their two kids across the entire ski-lift line, to say hello. Those Silver Lake bonds are strong.

We continued to inch toward the lift and after some introductions, Corey and I played catch-up and I said… “Last I heard, Judy was in Rochester, New York and she was a nurse......Last I saw Connor, I had gotten him an internship with me at The Carson Group............

I can see now that Corey had to know what was coming. That the subject must come up all the time and it must cost all of the Quinns a great deal of anxiety. I continued, “Last I saw John, we were up here. I rented your mom’s ski house for the weekend and she asked if it was okay if John and his friend overlapped with us for a day or so. Of course I said that was okay. We had a great time skiing for a few days. If I recall, John was about to leave for Central America to do some work for the Peace Corps or something.” As her family schussed to be the next on the lift Corey said, “Oh, you haven’t heard, my brother John was murdered.”

What do you say to that? I stammered something, I think? Corey added some details and then she and her family were on the lift. I was left standing there with my two buddies, baby-stepping our way onto the lift with the sound of “My brother John was murdered” echoing in my head.

I knew my buddies didn’t know John, but they had heard enough of my camp stories to have some clue. “Jesus. I don’t believe it. John Quinn was murdered.” I proceeded to tell them a bit about John and the word Sweet kept popping up. John Quinn was truly one of the sweetest guys you'd ever want to meet. The kind of guy who'd help you move. The kind of guy you'd want your daughter or sister to date. I mean why else would he be down in Honduras teaching kids to speak English? What kind of a guy graduates from The University of Vermont and decides that he wants to help people in a third world country have a better life? John Quinn, that’s who.

The news weighed heavily on me as we continued to ski. I’d look out at the snow covered mountains, enjoying the view and I would think, John Quinn was murdered. Doing the après ski beer thing, we were singing along to "Brown Eyed Girl" and the thought pops into my head again. How? Why? Who would do such a thing? To John Quinn?

After I got back to Connecticut that Sunday night, I felt the need to connect with some old camp friends who knew John. I didn’t want to be the guy who calls with bad news, but I really had to talk to someone, someone who knew John. Eventually I got in contact with Gray Goldfarb, he and John were the same age and we all worked in Ranch Camp together. I knew he would want to know, and that it would be good to talk to him. Gray’s a New Yorker, born and raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Gray was one of the first white kids I knew who was really into rap. I stumbled through the conversation to eventually reveal, John Quinn was murdered. I had uncovered some of the details of John’s death through Corey’s emails and a few Google searches. So I told Gray--that as far as the family could tell, John was living in Honduras, his second trip down there, and someone stole his CD collection. John and some friends were at a bar in Honduras when John recognizes the thieves. And in his "Aw Shucks" manner confronts these apparent gang members and one of them shoots him in the face. Gray’s response, in his cynical New York way was, “You see that makes sense. John Quinn would get murdered in Honduras. That wouldn’t happen to you or I. First of all, John would be the one to go down there to help people, something you or I wouldn’t do. And then, he would be just naïve enough and just pissed off enough, because John always knew right from wrong, that he would confront these gang-bangers from Honduras. You see Spinner, you or I would have seen these guys for the bad people they were and we would have said, they can keep my CD collection.” I knew that Gray was upset. And I was shocked at what Gray was saying. I felt as if he were trampling on his grave or something. And I was glad that Corey or the Quinns couldn’t hear it.

Then I realized, Gray was saying, that’s how pure John was, that’s how innocent, he couldn’t imagine a world, or a person evil enough to shoot someone in the face over a CD collection.

I just wish we lived in a world where John Quinn was right.

John’s story was so touching and so heart wrenching that the local Jersey congressman, whose district includes Franklin Lakes, talked at length about John on the floor of the House of Representatives. Do a little searching on the internet, take some time to remember or at least think about John Quinn. In talking about John, my buddy Gruder said to me, "Didn't we used to call him "Baby Faced Finster?" I told him, "Yes we did...but that nickname never stuck, he was too sweet a guy."

Ahhh, Summer Reading

Winter:1990/1991. I was a ski bum in Colorado. After work, most of the guys that worked the mountain at Beaver Creek would go to The Coyote Café. If you were a local, you got a mug with your number on it and it was dollar drafts all season. The Coyote was an interesting combination of hippy-infused, ski bum dudes and the well-heeled clientele who could afford to ski Beaver Creek on vacation. At some point, mid January, I am at the bar, talking to Billy, the bushy-haired bartender. As is the way in bars sometimes, I eventually wind up chatting up this woman as Billy walks away to help another patron. If I was 27 she was probably early 50’s. We got on famously, we chatted, animatedly for two hours. And the entire time, the stoners I worked with on the mountain, combined their brain cells to try to figure out what I was doing. I know this, because my companion and I could hear every word the shredders were saying. "Dude, what do you think Spinner’s doing? That chick’s gotta be twice his age.

"Man she’s really old. Do you think he’s actually attracted to her?"

"Man, somebody’s gotta stop him.”

At the end of our conversation, I tucked a bar napkin into my wallet and walked calmly back over to the guys.
“Yo, you got her number?”
“No.”
“You talked to her for two hours and you didn’t get her phone number?”
“Didn’t ask for it.”
“So what did she write down on that napkin?”
“Something better, a list of book recommendations.”
“I told you man, Spinner’s weird. He reads books.”

I thought that was an appropriate story to begin a blog about…Reading.

Ahhh, summer, time for unfettered reading time. That’s the second best thing about teaching. Of course I have to say, all that extra time I can spend with my family is number one on the list. That’s why I am in the local library typing on my lap top right now. The best thing about being a teacher, I get to read anything I want, all summer long.

What is it about reading that does it for so many of us? I can tell you, the second thing I packed for my honeymoon, was a stack of books, that’s how much I love reading. If I am buying a gift for someone I really care about, I will go to the bookstore and spend quality time to find just the right book. One of the best gifts I ever gave, (if I do say so myself) was for my buddy Jim Conroy and his wife Zoe. They got married right after 9/11, out in San Francisco. In an effort to do something thoughtful, I gave the newlyweds a Barnes & Noble gift certificate and enclosed a list of recommendations. Composing that list was a labor of love. I walked around the bookstore for 3 hours with a yellow legal pad and, with Jim and Zoe in mind, jotted down numerous titles I thought they would enjoy.

After I have chosen a book for someone, I become a literary pit bull. (It’s on my list of things I have to work on) I will hound them every time I see them, “So, did you read it yet?” A few years ago, in her continuing effort to better me, Kira (my wife) says, “Jim, don’t you think if they read it, knowing that you gave it to them, that they would say something without you asking?” So, I stopped asking.

Taking a class at Columbia a few summers ago, I like to put the Columbia thing in there because I have a state school guy’s insecurity. Truth is anyone could have walked in off the street and taken this class but I think it makes me sound smarter. “I was taking this class at Columbia….and the keynote speaker, in this huge, old, lecture hall walks over to the podium. She waits, and waits, while 800 teachers quiet down. Teachers are worse than the kids. When we are all quiet she says, “Writers write and readers read because they are searching for soul-to-soul contact.” Silence. In unison, 800 teachers shook our heads in the affirmative. I reached for my journal, to write down verbatim what she said.

She was right. That’s one of the reasons why I read, to feel less alone. I always think back to the first time I read a whole book in one night. (Besides anything featuring Curious George) I loved Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye because in the midst of my teen angst, here was Holden Caulfield, speaking the same language and feeling the same things I was feeling. At some point Holden talks about finishing a book and wanting to call the author on the phone. I knew what he was talking about because I wanted to call J.D. Salinger to tell him how much I loved his book.

Of course there’s more to it than soul-to-soul contact…I read to learn “stuff.” Knowledge is power and over the past 15 years or so, most of my reading has been non-fiction, it makes me feel like I am doing something worthwhile. I got hooked on non-fiction when I picked up a copy of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s No Ordinary Time. It’s narrative history about the FDR White House during WWII. That book is one of the reasons I became a history teacher.

We also read to see how others are playing the game of life and in turn to reflect on how we are playing the game. Isn’t it fun to read a biography of someone we admire, say Lou Gherig, and find similarities in our lives? Hey, the Iron Horse played stickball on the street just like we did! We make judgments of character’s actions. We put ourselves into the book’s situations and decide, what would I do if I were Ponyboy Curtis and Johnny stabbed the Soc?

We read to stir our emotions. Roddy Doyle is one of the few writers who can make me laugh so that fluids come out of my nose. I remember reading The Van on the F train on the way home from work during my Wall Street days. It’s about these bumbling, working–class, Irish guys who buy a delapidated fish and chips van. They hatch their capitalist scheme as Ireland is making a run in soccer’s World Cup. The protagonist and his compadre figure the entire country will be drinking and thus eating more fish and chips as Ireland continues to win soccer games. Picture Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton move to Ireland. Reading Doyle’s novella during my evening commute, I was snickering to myself and eventually burst out laughing. When I looked up, the other passengers were moving away and staring at me as if I might be deranged. Of course, having a looney on the subway would not be out of the question but I remember thinking, “You are all crazy, you should be reading this book, it’s that funny.”

We read to be sad…English teachers always talk about three dimensional characters, whatever that is. I liked Vonnegut’s advice to aspiring writers, “Give a reader at least one character to root for.” I love that! That’s what I am looking for. How can you not root for McMurphy against Nurse Ratched in Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? I cried at the end of Edwin O’Connor’s The Last Hurrah. That’s how much I cared. O’Connor created this fictional world, based on Mayor Curley’s old-ward Boston, where I really cared about the people in it. To think that he could do it so convincingly that I could be moved to tears, shows you how powerful these little paper rectangles are.

We read to live vicariously through others. I read to be a Kennedy, if for just a few hours. To be in the room with Jack and Bobby while they are deciding what to do with Castro and Kruschev during the Cuban missile crisis is enthralling. I read to be there when Paul McCartney meets John Lennon for the first time at the church fete. Talk about a moment, “This is my friend Paul, he plays a little guitar.” I read to explore the new continent with Lewis & Clark as they see the Great Falls of Montana for the first time. To be on the dunes at Kitty Hawk with the Wright Brothers and to climb Mount Everest with Jon Krakauer…

We read to be inspired. How many times when I'm moaning because my 4 year old spilled another juice box in the car, and I am sitting in traffic, do I think to myself, Morrie Schwartz (from Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie) would love to be sitting in traffic, he would relish the chance to clean up another juice box spill. Here was a guy fighting a losing battle with Lou Gherig's disease and appreciating every day and every moment for what it was, something he was never going to get back.

We read to escape. We want to visit fanciful worlds, sometimes full of wizards, werewolves or vampires. That’s why Harry Potter and the Twilight series are so popular. Reading takes us away from the stresses and or the boredom of our humdrum lives as we join Bilbo on his quest.

To think that these little symbols on this white page can make us laugh, cry or hold our breath in suspense is nothing short of a miracle.

William Blake once said, and I am paraphrasing, “My wish for my granddaughter is that she will enjoy reading and writing as much as I did.”

A few friends asked me to do a post about reading. My friend Tracy said she wanted to know what books I would recommend. That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever asked of me. Maybe I don’t get that many compliments. So my friends thank you for reading my thoughts about, well Reading. Can I leave you with a few summer reading suggestions?…and then you can share yours with me?

Novels

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Trinity by Leon Uris

Memoir

The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer
Final Rounds by Jim Dobson

Nonfiction

The Bedford Boys by Alex Kershaw