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

And That is Where the Children Play

It’s the end of the evening; the homework is done, the dinner dishes are drying in the rack. Now it’s reading time. I send my two oldest boys, Nick who is 10 and Brian 8, upstairs to read by themselves. I tell Charlie, my four year old, to go upstairs and grab us a book. We usually read in the living room. You see, I read aloud with Charlie, and my one foot voice is really more like a twenty five foot voice. We read downstairs so as to not disturb the big boys. Charlie scampers down the stairs with Margaret Wise Brown’s Big Red Barn. I smile. He’s excited, “Hey dad, I found this book! It looks like a good one.” Somehow, in the reading rotation, we have not seen this classic in a while. I say, “I know Charlie, that’s a special book. It’s been in the Spinner household for a long time. Nick got that when he was a baby. It’s gone through all three Spinner boys.” Something clicks. What are the chances? I think. A few hours before, Nick got off the school bus and asked me about “the movie.” We have been hearing about “the movie” for a few years now. Apparently towards the end of fourth grade, the boys and the girls go to separate rooms to see The Puberty Movie. As Nick says, "We learn about growing hair in weird places. And we are not allowed to laugh or we get sent to the principal’s office.” Not allowed to laugh? I’m having suppressed laughter just thinking of this "ABC After School Movie"/knock-off about growing up. A movie starring some Mister Rogers-type dad where the teacher talks about private parts and pubic hair. Not laugh. Fourth graders? My sentimental moment radar is tingling. I notice that Charlie and I are about to read a book we received as a gift when Nick was first born. And tomorrow morning my little Nicholas is going to learn about perspiration and hormones. I hug Charlie a little closer and I begin to read, “By the big red barn In the great green field…” While I am reading I am thinking…who gave us the book. I think it was Murph, Nick’s godfather, I'm thinking it was one of Kira's high school friends, Heather Burke. “There was a pink pig Who was learning to squeal.” What house were we living in when I first read this book to baby Nicholas? “There was a great big horse And a very little horse.” How many houses have we lived in? The “River House” in Oxford. When did I first read this book to Brian? Arden Road in Waterbury? Then the move to Middlebury...

“And on every barn…” I hear footsteps on the stairs. Nick peeks his head into the living room and says, “Dad I have to get my…Hey, I remember that book.” And he walks over, head tilted, with a quizzical look on his face. So I say, “Nick, you want to read it with us?” Because he’s ten, I’m thinking he might say no. “Sure.” Nick snuggles up next to Charlie and I. I think about how long until Nick recognizes this moment too. Those apples don't fall far from the tree. I continue to read. Nick says, "Hey I remember this part! On the next page the bats come out of the barn." I'm thinking this is going to be it. I continue to read, looking at the back of Nick's head and my voice cracks. Nick picks his head off my shoulder to look at me. He doesn’t say anything but I can see he’s getting emotional too. Charlie hears the emotion in my voice and cranes his neck and says, “Daddy, why are you crying?” To which I say, “I was just thinking about how long we’ve had this book. And that my Nicholas is growing up and sometimes I don’t want him to grow up.” And Charlie says, "I know Dad, me too." Then it’s three boys, a group hug and quite a few tears.

Parenting’s a lot of work but moments like that make it all worth it. “There was a big pile of hay And a little pile of hay, And that is where the children play.”

Road Rage

Road Rage

Kira and I were sitting on our front porch recently with another couple as our six boys played football in the backyard. Something I like to call a family play date. Melissa Migliaccio, our close friend asks, “Jim when’s the last time you washed your car.” She wasn’t being rude, just trying to point out that it needed a wash. Like you would point out to your roommate that his shirt was wrinkled as he was leaving for work. I smirked because I knew the reaction my response would get. Melissa and her husband Mark, both successful lawyers, drive fairly nice cars and make an effort at upkeep.
“Never.”
Mark’s head snapped. “Never!? You’ve never washed your car?”
“Not the outside. The rain does it for me.”
“What about road salt!? That stuff will eat at your undercarriage, it will cause rust.”
“Miggie, it’s a ‘98 Nissan Altima for Christ sakes, it lasted this long, what do you want from me?” Enjoying the game a little I continue, “I wash the inside; every once in a while I take a little Windex to the windows. That counts right?”

Honestly, I never saw the sense in washing the car when I could be reading a book or playing basketball. Most of the guys I knew in Brooklyn who washed and primped their cars were usually doing it to impress women. I always thought, You really must have no personality if you have to use your car to get a date. I could never fathom wanting to date a girl who would be attracted to you because you drove a shiny car with some nice rims and a spoiler.

As you can see, I’m not a car guy, for me, a car is a conveyance. I suppose the utilitarian nature of the automobile was ingrained by my urban upbringing. In Brooklyn, you didn’t need a car. I took the F train to get to high school. When I joined the work force after college, the F train proved very handy then as well.

I would have loved it back in the day when Henry Ford’s assembly line was pumping out Model T’s in only one color, black. I wonder what the early car entrepreneurs would think of all of today’s makes, models and accessories. When did this movable appliance become so caught up in our image? Why does this material possession seem to say something about us? I suppose in America, this kind of thing was bound to happen.

100 years or so of mass-produced cars and some interesting things have happened. People use their cars as mobile bulletin boards. Let’s dispense with the most obvious, the cost of the car telling everyone how successful you are. Given that, it also seems that certain makes and models seem to attract certain kinds of people. What this amounts to is one giant high school clique…clearly the worst are the Jeep owners.

“You wouldn’t understand, it’s a Jeep thing.” I see this phrase on the tire cover of some dude filling up at the pump in front of me at a local gas station. I’m not sure but I think I may have laughed out loud. I may have even said, under my breath, “How cool are you?” Have you seen these Jeep people on the road? One giant fraternity/sorority waving to each other as they drive past each other? What they are saying is… “Hey, you’re a Jeep guy, I’m a Jeep guy aren't we so cool?” Big deal. So you bought the same car. And now you are compelled to make goo-goo eyes at all the other 4.5 million Jeep owners on the road? I mean how hard is it to get into this club? You go to the dealership, fill out some paperwork, and wallah, I’m a Jeep guy! Puhlease. These guys are one step away from the dork in your office who always points out when you are wearing the same shirt.

Speaking of making goo-goo eyes. When the nice weather comes to the NW corner of Connecticut, it’s time for riding motorcycles. And apparently, like the Jeep guys, if you join this frat, you must wave at every other motorcycle guy or gal you pass. And there's a lot of them! What’s up with this? I mean I am all for being friendly but, shouldn’t these motorcyclists keep both hands on the wheel?

Back to the cars. Not only are we buying our cars to impress, or to make a statement, Americans use their cars to tell us all manner of things about themselves. Bumper Stickers? Do you think this is what James Madison and our Founders had in mind for the first amendment? Was the Constitutional Convention fighting for my right to free speech so that I could tell you that I Cruise? Like I care? A lot of people choose to brag on their bumper about all of the really cool places they’ve been. ADK, BI, ACK. If I were to put one on my car it would say, BFD.

Once I was behind a mini-van cueing up to school and I read, “Don’t even think about talking to me until I’ve had my coffee.” I chuckled and I’m thinking, How much would I have to love a beverage to go to all that trouble?

I guess Ben Franklin and company would be heartened by Americans using their vehicles to persuade fellow voters to choose their respective candidate. (Obama/Biden, yes!) I do see some benefits to bumper stickers, at least they give us something to look at while we sit in traffic. I often wonder at the wisdom of espousing radical opinions on the bumper of your car. No matter which side of the Pro-Life/Pro-Choice issue you land, we all know there are zealots on either side. If these people get worked up enough about this issue to blow up a clinic, what do you think they might do to the Honda Odyssey you left unattended in the mall parking lot while you went to pick out lawn furniture?

I laugh heartily at the red-necks who drive their pick-ups around all-white, rural, enclaves with their Confederate flags announcing their rebel (read racist) nature. I’d love to see Mr. Lynard Skynard wind up with some car trouble in Hollis, Queens on the way to Kennedy Airport. Wouldn’t that be a scene? Big old pick-up rumbling off The Van Wyck Expressway in a neighborhood that would not take too kindly to the Stars and Bars.

And aren’t some things private? Why should we be announcing our sexual leanings on our vehicles? Do I want to know what you are doing in your bedroom as you careen past me on the Merritt Parkway? It’s mostly members of the gay community that feel compelled to show their true colors to other motorists. Should heterosexuals do this too? My buddy Steve likes his wife to dress up as a cheerleader. Should he tell his fellow commuters that? I mean just to be fair?

Lastly, I have to talk about Vanity plates. Just the name itself is a turnoff to me. If I even get past that, I can’t imagine purchasing something that would have me spending more time in the DMV. Is there any word or phrase, composed of 9 characters or less, that I would want on my car for the life of the vehicle? Isn’t this tantamount to a tattoo for your car? I am paralyzed trying to think of some witty phrase that I could use to entertain and impress for the next 3 years or 36,000 miles.

What’s the deal with people who talk in code on their license plates? How the heck are we supposed to figure out what all the letters and numbers mean? Well, if I did get a vanity plate, I suppose I might actually do something in code. I think I would like, FA Q. If that is taken I suppose I would settle for FA Q2.

Happy Motoring!