Fragmentation

This past summer, the travel gods conspired so that I was driving to our Adirondacks house with 4 boys, and no adults. Our annual trip to the Adirondacks with the Jorgensens had taken an interesting detour.  Usually we are a caravan, 2 vehicles packed to the brim with 9 people, 3 dogs and the trappings of summer vacation. This past year I had a 6 hour ride ahead of me and no navigator as all the boys- Brian, Charlie, Dane and Holt-chose to sit in the rear of our SUV. Nobody wanted to ride with the old man up front.   I had the FM airwaves to myself and other than that, complete silence as the boys were streaming Youtube videos, perusing Instagram, or watching DVD’s on their laptops…each in their own electronic cocoon.

Considering it’s the better part of six hours, I actually like the ride. For the first hour you’re getting rural, quickly, winding north up Connecticut’s Route 8. Then, a short jaunt west on Route 20 to the Mass Pike and eventually you’re on Interstate 87 North around Albany.  The terrain gets more and more mountainous as you head north past Saratoga and Lake George. Finally, exit the Northway at Exit 30 and traverse west on Route 73 through the high peaks of the Adirondack Mountains. The trip is varied enough, and so picturesque, that it’s not mind numbing. Actually, the opposite happens, you find yourself, thinking.

 Somewhere around Schenectady, “Daniel” by Elton John comes on the radio and I’m singing along, “And I can see Daniel waving good-bye, God it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes…” A melancholy feel overcomes me as scenes of long ago summers flutter through my brain.  I’m picturing a transistor radio tuned to WABC, AM, providing the soundtrack to our childhood: stickball with my buddies on East 4^th Street, Bomb Pops from Morris our ice cream man, games of tag around the pool at Twin Willows Cabins on our family vacations to the Poconos.  Oh those budding adolescent boys looking longingly at the Billard sisters, Lisa and Lynn, as they sun themselves on the concrete structure, painted swimming-pool blue, that houses the pool’s machinery.  

I look over my right shoulder to Brian, he’s right behind the passenger seat, “THIS SONG CAME OUT WHEN I WAS ABOUT YOUR AGE.” Brian, startled, removes his ear buds and humors me for a few minutes before heading back into his electronics. Back on my own I’m thinking…Most people of my generation would have a similar response to Elton John’s, “Daniel.”  The guys and gals from my neighborhood, some who had the actual 45 (that’s a record for you youngsters), would have similar memories connected to the songs from the 70’s and 80’s. There are so many songs that I could play, Motown tunes like Diana Ross’s “Ain’t no Mountain High Enough” or AM Pop one-hit wonders like Pilot with “Magic” that would elicit a wealth of similar memories for all of us.  If I were to play Thin Lizzy’s, “The Boys are Back in Town” I can predict, with pretty good accuracy, the flashback images of my friends. We’d have a great conversation about hanging out on Brooklyn street corners, tossing the football or Frisbee around, busting each other’s chops, growing up fast…

Continuing past Lake George on my right, my thoughts meander to a recent rainy day; an unseasonably cold June day, more November than approaching summer, the perfect day for a movie.  I lobbied my kids and my wife throughout the day for a family movie.   It was like trying to catch night crawlers with a spoon. My three boys were playing X-Box, streaming Youtube videos  and my wife was binge-watching episodes of,  “Orange is the New Black.” Nobody was interested in watching a movie together.  I’m not usually the type to bemoan the loss of the old days, well maybe I am sometimes, but I do see that progress is usually a good thing. I can’t help in this instance, as we have moved away from ABC, NBC and CBS towards hundreds of channels and customized programming, but think that as we’ve gained choices we’re losing quite a bit as a family and as a society.

Human beings need to connect to each other. It makes us feel less alone, we find comfort in our commonalities . Meeting someone new, we always look for connections. Don’t we always play the name game when you meet someone new?

“Oh, you’re from, Huntington, you might know my buddy, Ira Goldstein? “

“I see you went to Indiana, maybe you know…”

 “My whole family read the Percy Jackson series, did you guys read it?”

And the possibilities for finding common ground are decreasing.  Today we are all secluded, zombie-like, just like Ray Bradbury warned us…we are disconnecting from the rest of the world and this isn’t a good thing.  So many of the posts we see on Facebook, in all of these, "I Grew Up in___________ in the 60's, 70's..." mention the feeling of community we had in our neighborhoods, in our towns, on our blocks...and we miss it and I think we need it back.

 

People of a certain age all know who The Fonz is, we recognize his signature phrase, “Ayyyy” and the thumbs-up. “Bang Zoom to the Moon” we all know is Ralph talking to Alice Kramden. Say things like, “NORM!” or “Yadda Yadda Yadda” and we will all know your reference. In a sense, we speak the same language, there’s a lexicon for people who grew up in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s…Future generations won’t have this, our  limitless choices are taking care of that. 

The best example of this was Roots. We all remember the mini-series about slavery and America’s history that captivated the entire country. It was on 6 or 7 nights in a row and it felt like EVERYONE was watching it. We talked about it at school, around the dinner table, at the office, on our stoops. Kunta Kinte was everywhere.  Current generations are living in their Ipod world, streaming their individual soundtracks and customizing their own viewing experiences.  Everyone is watching, something else. That Roots phenomenon will never happen again. Sure it felt like a lot of us were watching Breaking Bad, The Wire and Mad Men…but in comparison, the percentage of the population was not even close.

 

 

Think about any recent conversation you’ve had with someone about TV shows. Was it a meandering conversation about a bunch of shows that you loved and a bunch of shows that they loved but you had few in common?

“I’m watching, ‘Shameless’ have you seen that? It’s great.”

“No, but I’ve heard good things. You know what I’m watching? I’m watching ‘Homeland.’  Have you seen “Homeland?” 

“No, but you know what I did really love?”

More than likely you came away with recommendations for new shows to watch and not much of a connection. Satellite TV is giving us hundreds choices but it’s secluding us.

And it's happening in our fan affiliations too. In our neighborhood, everybody rooted for the local teams. You were a Met or a Yankee fan. In hoops, mostly Knicks. Hockey? Rangers or Islanders. Of course there were a few outliers but I can tell you, to this day, what teams my boyhood friends rooted for. As a matter of fact, whenever we catch up, that’s always a topic of conversation.  One of the first things you’ll hear is, “Mets look good.”

“Yeh, if the pitching holds up.” When I talk to my sons today, their friends will just as easily be Portland Trail Blazer or St. Louis Cardinals fans.  It’s all so individualistic; when these guys catch up in 10 or 20 years it’ll be, “So you still a Trailblazers fan?”  “Yes.”  Zzzzz… When I catch up with Ronny Lopez, who was a huge Islander fan like me, we talk about games at the Nassau Coliseum, we talk about the four Stanley Cups, about Trottier, Bossy, Gillies…We talk about how the team looks today. With other friends we’ll talk about the Mets of today and the ’86 Mets, and the ticker tape parade, about Lenny Dykstra and Dwight Gooden…

And if this piece is about electronic cocoons, I have to mention video games. It’s such an isolative activity. Besides the fact that most games are ultra-violent, they keep kids indoors, not socializing, not getting fresh air, there’s something very wrong with this. Kids are happiest when they are outside, running around, together.  Sure you can say some of the recent games kids play together but it's just not the same thing. Not too long ago, I took a long bike ride with a couple of old friends from the neighborhood. We actually went from our old neighborhood in Brooklyn, out to Breezy Point and back, rolling through Windsor Terrace, Kensington, Midwood, Gravesend, Marine Park, Flatbush and back again. It was the perfect warm fall day, and in that 4 hour ride it was eerie, we didn’t see one touch football game, not one stickball game, no kids playing punch ball, nobody jumping rope. It was nothing like the Brooklyn we grew up in. This can’t be good. I can’t help but think that if Adam Lanza just got outside more, socialized more, people would have known him, maybe he would have had a few friends? Maybe he would have been happier? Or someone would have noticed he was in danger and gotten him the help he needed? Instead he was sequestered in his basement, with hefty bags covering the windows, playing Grand Theft Auto. In his, it turned out, very dangerous electronic dungeon.

Maybe, if we were finding it easier to connect these days, we wouldn’t be so polarized, politically? Maybe it would be easier for us to find common ground if we already had quite a bit? Instead of antagonizing and labeling maybe we would start with the realization that we have a lot more in common than we think? And starting from those commonalities, maybe polite discourse and compromise would be a possibility? 

Now I don’t know what the answer is, it’s just something I noticed and I thought maybe other people have noticed it too? I know we are not going to go “backward” but are there better ways for us to continue to connect to each other?

Montauk Memories

2016-We’re in Montauk again to celebrate. It’s late June so this time it’s my wife’s birthday and Father’s Day. We leave the Grice house on Franklin Drive, flip flops flapping, beach accoutrements jangling. It’s early in the season so most of the summer people are still not out yet. It’s quiet, except for the sound of a nail gun close by, someone’s putting the tiles on a new roof. We cross Old Montauk Highway, skirt the highway on the black sidewalk and continue to a sandy path. I catch my breath when I see the ocean for the first time since last summer as we come through the dunes, this always reminds me of seeing the grass of Shea Stadium for the first time. I know Kira, my wife of 22 years, will want a spot close to the water; we find something just above the high tide line. I ascertain the wind direction, dig a hole for the umbrella and angle it just so. We set up beach chairs, mine in the shade, Kira’s in the sun. Sitting there, book in hand, looking out at a lone gull hovering, gliding  over the blue ocean, I breathe deeply of the salt air-peace. This is my, this is OUR Happy Place.

Sitting there glancing at a fishing boat on the horizon, oddly enough, my thoughts turn to my father, Jimmy Spinner Sr. It’s odd because he passed away in 1985 and as far as I know, he had never been to Montauk. I can tell you this, my old man loved Brooklyn but he loved the ocean and fishing more. Had my father ever visited Montauk, I can tell you, he never would have left.

If Montauk is The End this story begins at The Beginning, in Brooklyn.

My father was a carpenter by trade but a fisherman in his heart. I used to joke with my friends, who all seemed to love fishing with my father, that my dad could enjoy fishing in a puddle. I never visit my father’s grave site in Greenwood Cemetery because that’s not where he is. I commune with my father whenever I’m near the ocean. All that I know about the ocean, the beginnings of my love for the sea, started with my Pops. He loved the ocean, was drawn to it, and he nurtured that love in me too.   In the early 70’s, my father purchased a working man’s fishing boat; wood, worn, small cabin underneath, inboard motor. Jimmy Spinner Sr. was happiest rocking to the waves, sunburnt forearms holding a fishing pole, his son at his side, a cooler full of Schaefer and C&C Cola within easy reach.

We docked our boat in a marina behind Floyd’s (now Toys ‘R’ Us) on Flatbush Avenue. It was there I learned about: the push and pull of the tides, the prehistoric looking horseshoe crab and the molar-like barnacles growing on the pylons of the piers. My handsome, weathered father knew about buoys, knots, lures and bait…I was hooked.

Summer 1975, Dad takes me to see "Jaws" and my love for the ocean deepens. I devour every book I can find about sharks at our local libraries. As 8^th grade graduation from Immaculate Heart of Mary looms, my thoughts turn to studying the ocean. Glancing through the book of New York City High Schools I find that John Dewey offers Marine Biology. My fate is sealed. Freshman year I took Marine Biology with Lou Siegel and all of our science labs were at the beach. We’d take the train one stop to Stillwell Avenue and spend time measuring wave amplitudes and frequency, in Coney Island; or we’d examine the creatures in the tidal flats at Plumb Beach. By Advanced Marine Biology junior year, my knowledge, love and respect for the ocean swelled.

Senior year, 1981, I am at a keg party in Brighton Beach. We’re a large group of seniors sitting in a circle on the sand, waves crashing in the background, drinking beers when Steve Schiffman, a friend from homeroom walks over with a buddy. “Jim Spinner, meet Ian Grice, you guys will both be going to the University Buffalo in the fall."   Sometimes life comes down to a few moments. I mean, it’s not exactly Lennon meets McCartney but we became fast friends. And it’s the Grice family that introduces me to the Atlantic Ocean beyond Jamaica Bay…

 
Ian’s parents, Eddie and Maureen Grice, both teachers, rent a beach house every summer. By the time I was hanging with the Grices, they had narrowed in on the East End of Long Island. The Grice family loved to entertain, to eat and drink and talk with friends. Each summer we would learn about a new town and the local bars, restaurants and beaches of: East Hampton, South Hampton, Sag Harbor, Shelter Island. I loved them all. It was a fun, exciting, meandering journey but eventually the family  buys  a place in Montauk. Now I loved Shelter Island for its romance, the fact that everyone on SI made a special journey to get there, was romantic. Sag Harbor I loved for its Americana and the connection to John Steinbeck. I loved all the towns but when the Grices landed in Montauk, it was different. In the Hamptons, Sag Harbor, Shelter Island, I felt like a poseur in my Macy’s purchased madras shorts. Montauk felt like, home. I loved the working class feel of the town, bars like the Shagwong had real fisherman in them. I never liked the t-shirt slogan, “Montauk, A drinking town with a fishing problem.” It seemed crass to me but I understood right away Montauk’s real fisherman bona fides. One of the first things I thought was, my father would love this place. Sadly, right around the time I was graduating from college, my father passed. But Eddie and Maureen filled the void, continuing the work my father had started.

After college, Ian, my friends and I were a cliché, Wall Street nubes, taking the train out to the Hamptons for the weekend. Never did I laugh so much as we did in the bar car of the Montauk Cannonball, letting off steam after a long work week. I rarely drink Budweiser in a can but when I do it always reminds me of those weekend trips in the 80’s and 90’s.

Those days were golden, Jimmy Buffet providing the soundtrack as we were body-surfing, reading books on the beach, biking out to the lighthouse, taking an outdoor shower and dining on mussels marinara. What I remember most about those weekends was the conversation. The driving force was the matriarch, Ian’s Mom, Maureen Grice. Brooklyn Irish, (born Maureen Murphy) she was wise, educated, she taught me stuff about the East End, throughout our friendship,  I would go to her for answers to all of life’s questions. To this day I know the philosophy behind Occam’s Razor because of Maureen, she was my Google before Google.


Over the years, I got disillusioned with Wall Street, frustrated with my lack of personal fulfillment. One Saturday night, Coronas in hand, sitting on the dock overlooking Lake Montauk, Maureen says, “Jimmy, maybe you should teach? I think you would love it.”

The seed had been planted. With every walk along the beach, every hour sitting around a fire, every bike ride, I’m reflecting about my life. Eddie and Maureen keep watering the seed and I’m thinking, Maybe I should teach? Look at how happy Eddie and Maureen are. They’re both teachers and they can afford a summer rental every summer. So it was in Montauk that I found the answer to what I really wanted to do with my life.

Over the years, I had the good fortune to convince some beautiful, smart women to spend time with me. I always loved introducing these ladies to my second family, the Grices, and to the East End. Right around 1990, I’m dating a girl and it’s getting serious. I know in my heart that Kira is the one but... Sitting with Ian and Maureen on the deck, the sun beginning to set, I’m boasting, “Ah, we’re never getting married right Ian?” At which point Maureen holds court, “You know Jimmy” with the emphasis on Jimmy as she begins as if I am ridiculous, “if you are serious about this I’ll tell you something. At some point, you’ll cease to be interesting.” Hmmm, I took this two ways. First it was a compliment because Maureen, a tough judge of character, was admitting that I was in fact interesting. But if I lived the life of a bachelor, moving into my 30’s and beyond, that would cease to be the case. I thought about what I wanted out of life… once again, I found the answers, in Montauk. Kira and I got engaged on the beach. I knew she was the one when she “got” Montauk, when she loved it as much as I do.

So here I sit on a Montauk beach, Summer of 2016, my girl at my side, and I’m reflecting back on time spent on the East End. It’s so obvious that this is where I am supposed to be. Kira feels it too. My father taught me about the ocean.  A couple of teachers taught me about the East End of Long Island and it was in Montauk that I learned about what’s really important in life. I know that if my father had ever been to Montauk, he never would have left. My problem is, I have been there, and now I have to figure out a way to stay.