Summer...Way Back Then, Way Back When...

A few weeks ago, someone suggested to me that I write about the shortness of summer. This caught me by surprise, since I had just spent a "spring" day in the city, on which people were passing out in the subways and on the streets from the unseasonable heat and humidity. I had had the distinct impression that the "new" winter lasted through baseball's Opening Day snow, far into April, to be immediately followed by a new, longer summer.

The season previously known as spring had gone the way of mortgages requiring repayment.

In other words, we had a summer that had outgrown its calendar boundaries whether we had wanted one or not. I, for one, do not celebrate this development, but in order to comply with the editorial request, I dipped deeply into memory's recesses to the delightful endless summers of the past. And so my thoughts drifted once more Way Back Then, Way Back When...

...you placed your new pair of Keds at the foot of the bed, and gained a supernatural ability to wake up early all by yourself as soon as the last day of school had passed. The streets were quiet in the early morning and dew hung on the windshields of the parked cars, things you never noticed on your way to school.

...The Giants were in Manhattan, the Dodgers were in Brooklyn, the Twins were the Senators, the A's were in Kansas City, Braves in Milwaukee and the Red Sox were just another team playing a Sunday afternoon double-header at the Stadium.

...you could wear a seersucker or linen suit into the city and most days have a reasonable chance of not expiring on the street or in the subway, and did not need to have the linings removed or have the trousers cut into shorts...

... the best tennis was lawn tennis, in which the white  ball, slowly turning green, could bounce this way and that, requiring creative and savvy players and favored those who risked rushing the net to volley in order to avoid too many bounces, rather than the baseline ball smashers of today who favor the perfect corporate bounce every time. Ho-hum.

...reading was something that many young people did all year long, but perhaps even more in summer, on their own, unrelated to a course, a test, or any other person's requirements and was certainly not meant to "improve" them, prepare them for banking careers, or make each one a much better person than their friends...

...you took a typing course, instead of Mandarin; flipped burgers by the pool, instead of interning; played games without coaches, schedules, recruiters, and most assuredly parents, who, if you returned home before 5 or 6 pm after a day on your own outside gave you a funny look that said, "What are you doing here?"

...you were full of energy, all day, and yet you cannot remember having eaten a single "healthy" thing for lunch, ever. In fact, you cannot actually remember ever eating lunch at all, nor can any of your friends, although you still get a certain glowing feeling when passing by the baloney at the deli counter in the grocery...

...it was entirely possible to buy some real estate in Alaska or Florida before leaving the house in the morning simply by tearing off the coupon on the side of the cereal box and having mom mail it. You probably still own that square foot just outside Fairbanks or under some busted condo off Alligator Alley...

...there was a breeze on most evenings, when you went out again to play with friends, and you might have worn a shetland sweater around your shoulders and actually put it on once in a while. I am not making this up, even though you cannot possibly wear a shetland today even on most winter days and cannot even wear merino at night in summer, except occasionally at the shore...

...we could locate lemon or cherry italian ices without using mapquest at any paper store or pizza parlor, we "went" for ice cream to Jahn's or frozen custard at Carvel, and could take a seat at the pharmacy, like Schmidt's or Sutton Hall and have an ice cream soda, a malt, or a banana split and they also sold some drugs...

...it was entirely possible to play a game of stickball at P.S. 144 in the morning, stoopball in the afternoon, and top it off with a wiffle ball game in early evening without getting a single text from your parents asking how you were doing...

...and it was possible to invent your own game called cupball, using scrunched-up paper cups from the snack bar at the beach and pieces of fencing, played underneath cabanas with full line-ups whose names and positions you can still remember, and to emerge in August nearly as pale as you looked when the season began in late June, and your mothers marveled at this ability to disappear and they were perfectly happy, not worrying that this might hold you back in some way from acceptance to college or advancement in a lucrative career in which you could not explain what you really did in a sentence or less, except that it involved being in the vicinity of a whole bunch of money...

...way back when, way back then...

Ed Note: PS 144, Schmidt's and Sutton Hall pharmacies were located near Forest Hills Gardens, NY. Only PS 144 remains today. We could have also noted the fine stickball games played at our alma mater  (K through K) PS 101, located inside the Gardens' confines; it still stands as well, which says something about public education relative to drugstore economics, but we're not exactly sure what it means.

"Monday, Monday...No DMV"

"Monday, Monday"

* Did you know that Monday is a holiday in the state of CT? I, for one, did not know that. There I was, standing in the nearly empty parking lot at my newly adopted state's DMV office in Norwalk. Imagine my delight, when I exited the ramp at the end of Route 7 expressway, specifically designed to place your vehicle at the DMV's doorstep, when I saw a nearly empty parking lot. Ah, I thought, the excessive heat has kept other less hearty and hopeful motorists at home, and my reward will be perhaps a new world record time for registering three vehicles.

Not.

Only the cleaning crew was working on Monday, which is a holiday for DMV workers in CT. Every Monday. While I was there, a dozen fellow citizen motorists arrived with that same wondrous look in their eyes upon seeing so few other cars, but only for a moment, until they realized once more that what appears to be too good to be true, often is.

* Nationally, the official unemployment rate is 9.2%, which is approximately as correct as an old Soviet Five-Year Plan for wheat, meaning not correct at all. A Bureau of Labor statistician might take a brief walk around the block and have at least anecdotal evidence that the real rate may be twice that. She  might even return to desk to find that 176 people had tried to get her job while she was away gathering data.

In cities like Norwalk or nearby Stamford, 9.2% unemployment is a punch line to a not very funny joke.

Please.

* The state of CT is about to lay-off 6500 employees, who recently turned down a new deal negotiated by their union bosses and the new Governor. Like anyone else these days, they were merely acting in what they saw as their own best interests.

Standing there in the empty parking lot on a Monday, contemplating the locked DMV doors, realizing that Monday was a holiday, probably because the DMV is open a half-day on Saturday, a few citizens wondered how this could be. How is it possible that the state could not find enough people to work a schedule that included a half-day on Saturday and a Monday?

We were thinking that somewhere nearby were a whole bunch of people who would be willing to work those hours for what must be pretty decent wages and benefits. Actually, we were thinking that we would be willing to do that.

We were also thinking that we better get back there on Tuesday, early, to make sure that we got through the very complicated license and registration processes before those lay-offs hit the DMV, making Tuesday a holiday as well.

* How complicated are those processes? For a license you need: an app, your old NY license to surrender to the state, 2 proofs of residence, an original birth certificate or a passport, and an original Social Security card, beginning in October. Not making up that last one. Then you pay first an app fee, take an eye test, then pay a license fee (two separate transactions), and have your photo taken twice. It's all about identity and catching illegals. Strangely, nobody has any interest whatsoever in whether you know how to drive safely and any "points" are simply erased.

Customer Focus

To register your NY vehicles in CT you need: original titles, CT insurance cards, $20 emissions test/or $10 VIN verification certification. CT treats your your NY inspections and registrations, plus the titles as if they never existed, so they can get some fees. Then you pay tax on the vehicles. Oh yes, if one of the registrants should happen not to want to go to the DMV, imagine that, you need to have a notarized Power of Attorney too.

* During this ordeal, I visited my insurance broker's office in a very large, very expensive looking suburban office building. Here is a photo of the 20 or so putters outside an office there. Everyone was dressed in golf shirts and pants. The putters were not meant for customers.

* Whatever happened to the customer? Best not to think about it and just listen to The Mamas and the Papas "Monday, Monday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h81Ojd3d2rY

An Interview Exclusive: 8 Ball

3G: Since Rupert Murdoch let his hair go to its natural grey, he has had nothing but trouble with his Brit tabloids. Will he soon return to that orangey-brown tint?

8B: Signs point to yes.

3G: The President and Congress have "sequestered" themselves in full view of their adoring respective constituencies to "negotiate" a reported $4Trillion deficit reduction over ten years. Will it happen? Will it help?

8B: You may rely on it/ Until next time.

3G: New York State faces unprecedented budget deficits and massively underfunded public pension plans. Do you agree with those who think legalizing gay marriage is an important first step in solving
these fiscal problems ?

8B: Try the not.

Rupert's former tint

3G: The media have been unanimous in their praise of New York's Governor Cuomo during his first six months in office. Do you see this love affair continuing? Will he run for President in '16?

8B: Love is a many splintered thing/Undecided.

3G: Former Governor Spitzer's CNN show has been cancelled due to abysmal ratings. In leaving, he noted that his failure was actually a triumph of sorts. Can this man be humbled?

8B: Don't rely on it.

3G: Will "Unavailable" ever stop calling us?

8B: My sources say no.

Sans tint. Humble Dye?

3G: Our bank was once Village Savings Bank, then it became First Fidelity, which morphed into First Union, and was then merged into Wachovia, which was forced into the arms of Wells Fargo. Wouldn't it be easier just to have apple and google remake the whole banking thing into i$ and gdough?

8B: Without a doubt.

3G: If we buy a digital book from ibooks or kindle for $12.99, we get to put it on our laptop, tablet, and phone. If we buy a hardcover in an indie book shop for $26.95, we get the book. Shouldn't retail hardcover buyers get a download at no additional cost? What do trade publishers think about?

8B: Most assuredly so/ Lunch.

3G: The 2012 Presidential campaigns are in full swing in Iowa and New Hampshire for Republicans. Does one of them have a chance of winning? Are you excited?

8B: Tea leaves point to no/ Zzzzzzzzzz.

3G (quietly): Thanks.

The Best Graduation Speech Ever...Sort Of

"St. John's"

I have a friend named Mulligan who lives down the lane. Some mornings he comes by for coffee and a talk; mostly he talks and I listen. I do not know what Mulligan does for a living exactly, but he once told me that, "I made money the old fashioned way; by using other peoples' money." Apparently, this talent has also provided him with a lot of free time.

Since it's June, our "discussion" turned towards graduations:

"I went to St. John's College in Maryland; they also have a campus in Santa Fe," Mulligan explained. "I had gone to a Jesuit high school in New York, where they taught Latin and Greek as if it was punishment for some unknown offense. Still, there was something attractive about the Classics to me, and St. John's specialized in classical Great Books education, from both Western and Eastern traditions.

I'm not exactly proud of the way I wound up going there. My grandfather was a pretty successful guy; he had gone straight to work after graduating from the eighth grade, and never stopped. He was a self-made man, who disliked Joe Kennedy, 'Ivy Leaguers,' and off-the-rack clothing in that order. He told me that he would pay the entire cost of my college education as long as I attended the college of his choice, St. John's. He meant, of course, the one located in Queens, primarily known for its basketball and baseball teams, and for its Law School, an entry-ticket into the theatre of local politics.

Tenaka

I had been a very good student and was actually a serious candidate for admission to the schools today's parents slobber over, Harvard, Princeton and Yale, naturally; and, in my day, Columbia and MIT as well. But, it became obvious that I could not ask my parents to pay big bucks, while turning down a free ride. So, I played a little four-year trick on my unsuspecting grandfather, who dutifully made out the checks, including my allowance to 'St. John's.'

I 'read' only the Classics in college, Herodotus, Catullus, Confucius, and had a real passion for the Eastern spiritual traditions: Taoism, Buddhism, etc. As graduation neared, I was named to a select team to pick the speaker. Since both of the other two team members had gone off to join some lower case version of Kesey's Merry Pranksters near Santa Fe, I got to make the decision all by myself. So, I invited the Roshi from a well-known Zen Monastery on Maryland's Eastern shore, where I had spent some time: Tenaka.

At Commencement, Tenaka walked to the microphone on the stage full of academic dignitaries, and we all waited in the hot, muggy air for what he had to say, especially me, for obvious reasons. Roshi walked slowly to the mike in his saffron and crimson robes. He was short and the audience could just see his full head above the podium. He looked out at that audience, then turned and looked at the dignitaries behind him, all of whom smiled back at his calm, unlined face.

And we waited and waited....and then waited some more. Roshi just looked out into the crowd of black-robed graduates and expectant relatives and faculty. And he kept looking at them minute after minute, after very slow minute. You could almost hear a ticking sound as we began to shift uncomfortably in our chairs, wipe the sweat from our eyes, wonder if the old gentleman was having some kind of a stroke.

"Graduation"

After a while, the President of the College and the Head of the Trustees began to stare at me in my seat of honor in the front row, and I became the most uncomfortable one of all in a sea of discomfort. 'Say something. Anything.' I thought to my embarrassed self. But, it finally became clear that Tenaka wasn't going to say a thing; he was going to stand there, and I was going to have to suffer for it all the way through, I supposed, the full 12-15 minute suggested length of the "speech."

When the audience had tired of wiping all the sweat away, shimmying in their seats, giving funny looks, and rolling their eyeballs, the murmuring began, then it turned into a steady rumble, and then some began to shout some pretty rude things at Tenaka. He just continued to look over the crowd as if he were looking over a field of poppies or a beautiful seascape in his native Japan. The more uncomfortable we became, the more serene Roshi seemed to be.

Just before he 'finished,' it finally occurred to me that he had in fact made the perfect speech. By saying nothing, he had said it all, at least to me. It was as if he really had said, 'you're all so full of yourselves that you do not even remember who you really are or were meant to be. You've been getting your pablum in many forms for a long time and I am not going to give you any more. You expected a message about the evils of money or war, helping people in Africa, or following your 'bliss.' But, life is not about anything, not health or love or soul or body or meditation, and certainly not about a bliss derived from drugs or ego...

...Life is, is all. Tough luck. Thank you, now, I'm going.' Or, something like that, I supposed. It sounded better unsaid.

By the time we had received our diplomas, most people were just happy to get into the shade and smoke a doob, rather than to think too much about the 'stunt' the so-called speaker had sprung on them. For some parents, it confirmed what they had thought all along about their daughters' and sons' decision to study only the Great Books. What kind of job could you get with that, they wondered? And might be wondering still.

I escorted Roshi to the car waiting to take him back to the monastery. I'm proud to say that neither one of us said a single word. He just got into the car and drove off.

"But what happened," I asked Mulligsn, "when your grandfather asked about attending his St. John's graduation?"

"Aquaduct"

"I couldn't disappoint him. I had a friend who worked in administration at his St. John's in Queens. She simply added me to the list of graduates and diplomas to be printed. They had such a large graduating class that nobody noticed. I invited my grandfather (I had already 'confessed' to my parents some time before), took my seat, received my 'diploma,' and went to lunch at 21 Club, wearing a new graduation suit made for me by my grandfather's tailor, Promevitz. Later I went to Aqueduct and made the last two races."

"Who was the speaker at that graduation?" I asked. "Haven't a clue." said Mulligan.

From Caveat Emptor To Carpe Diem

4 for me, 1 for you, 4 for...

Am I the only one who thinks that we have become a nation of accountants and interns? No, I though so.

Growing up, even in a largely upper-middle class community, I do not remember people being so interested in the Dow Jones Average, the Federal Budget, and Secretary of the Treasury, bank CEO's (please), and certainly not the head of the Federal Reserve Board. We're even becoming experts on public pensions, which requires knowledge of a very special kind of math.

We used to save all that boring stuff for school. Yuch.

Yet, pick up what passes for a newspaper today, turn on the TV, or simply stand in line at a bank or waiting for a plane, and somebody is telling you all about these things...and more: The Deficit (again!), Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security (again!), interest on the National Debt, etc. The sky is falling in pieces made of quarters and dimes.

Meanwhile, corporate America has trillions in cash on hand, while we hear and read ad infinitum about the official jobless rate of 9% plus, which means to anyone with a brain that the real jobless rate is closer to 15-18% or higher.

In-Turns

And, while some companies are hiring, they are not adding any new jobs. Why would bean-counting CFO's approve jobs, when people who still have jobs are working overtime for no extra pay? When they leave the office, they work on their BlackBerrys and computers at home, on the train/plane, even while driving ? These folks are willing to hold on to these jobs despite the disappearance of some benefits and the ever-escalating cost of their share of healthcare premiums. How do we account for this insanity?

Every business and non-profit organization appears to have fallen in love with "internships." At Thirdgarage, we call these "in-turnships," in which the worker does everything asked, for free or for very low pay and zero benefits, and the organization, in-turn, owns the value of the work and does not owe squat to the worker.

What a great concept! For accountants. But, not so great for young college grads or boomers trying to stay in or re-enter the workforce.

Shanghaied

Is it a wonder that in an environment, in which we politely and incorrectly refer to the result of organized, massive stealing (really bad accounting!) by those who were meant to protect our financial system as a "recession," we do not have great political leadership? In Washington, Albany, Sacramento, they all sound like accountants, or more precisely, accounting professors, whom in-turns have provided massive amounts of mind-numbing data.

But, nobody actually ever does anything, unless, of course, you call playing accounting-chicken real action. It' just cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. Oy.

We bought the whole concept of corporate and public capitalism and quarterly accounting hook, line and sinker. Even the Chinese thought it was a great idea, and it is for about 300 million of their 1.3 billion people. They even continue to lend us money so that their Party can keep our party going strong until...we have to account for our actions and do something about it.

Seize! Not Seizure.

Which would be right about now. Until we wake up to that fact, we will be stuck listening to the accountants jabber. Where is our Lincoln, our Churchill, our Ike at D-Day. Where is the next generation of women to call all of this BS and lead us beyond the balance sheets and Power Points and get us balanced and powerful again?

We forgot about Caveat Emptor, big time, but we can still Carpe this f*@#*#g Diem. 

Moving

move. v. to change in position from one point to another; to follow some specified course; to stir the emotions.

                                                                         I

ginkgos never forget

My favorite dictionary, which has remained nearby on various desks and tables in a number of rooms and homes over forty years, devotes seven inches to the verb, move. Nowhere in those seven inches is there a warning about why one might not even attempt to do so, and maybe there should be. But, we would ignore it, I'm sure, out of curiosity, or just because we must do what we must do, sometimes when we least want to do it, but also, on occasion, at just the right time. We don't get to decide these things, no matter the size our car, bank account, or ego; we just get to think that we do, because we're human and because we're inherently silly.

Sometimes in life, we really do get what we wish for: the girl or boy, that perfect job, the last- second goal, the house to die for. Before the dream plays out, we suffer. Awake at night, on too many nights, we stare out the window from our bed at the red light on the corner; the headlights of a turning car shine on us, as if God has answered our plea, but it won't be that night, or the next, or even the next.

Walking the dog in the dark late on another night ,we reach out to touch the bark of a beloved gingko tree, as we might reach out from the platform to someone we love who is departing on a train too soon. "Don't go yet," our fingers seem to be spelling out in braille. For, in love for people and homes, we are indeed blind.

But, we've had one more autumn than we supposed, when the yellow ginkgo leaves mixed with the crimson ones from the japanese maple, forming a path up the stairs, little buddhist monks ascending. And that is a very good thing to have had.



                                                                             II

Little Monks

These wishes come in their own time, and while you are waiting and waiting, you discover things that you had forgotten or never knew. You will open an old wooden box with rope handles and find treasure: a brother's first baseman's mitt; an old Jack Kramer from camp; another like it in a green 1962 canvas cover, still perfect in its press, gut intact; hockey pucks and a well-used mouthguard.

Old

Did someone say books? A regular Strand on each floor, musty cellar to vast attic, many not even on the library shelves, where there are about 1200. Almost all keepers there. So, you must donate, discard, dust each one you save, then box, bag, stack and carry every last blessed one of them. All your life, you've loved books from the very first two -a Grossett & Dunlap Riders of The Purple Sage and a Doubleday orange Kipling - and you will come mighty close to not wanting to see or hold another book...ever again, but it will pass, while you chose the 100 or so that will fit snuggly on the new shelves.



And, you stand in the kitchen, looking at the big old Paris clock and think: where in the world will we put that?

In fact, you also sit on the floor of the new place, months before you will move and wonder what it will be like to live here. Where will this and that go? Will the TV work over the fireplace and mantle? Will the dining room table from our old, old house work again in this one? And, where, oh where will we fit all of the things, generations of things, in 2500 sq ft. that lazed about so easily in 6,000? Yet, you love this new place in a way that is hard to describe, perhaps because you have not yet let yourself fully love it for fear of offending the memories still residing in the other place you've loved much longer.

And, where will that clock go?

                                                                          III

Last Train, 35 Mins.


Where some home browsers hear noise, you hear sounds: trains arriving and departing, tooting; especially the diesels, and the last train departing GCT at 1:40am, hopefully with a son or daughter on it and your friends' too, and its arrival at exactly 2:40am; you count the ten minutes until you hear the front door open. Glorious, safe sound.

Oh joyous moment, on that first night in the new place, when you hear the train toot at the new nearby station together. Ecstasy of a kind.

The big clock ticks in the new place, but the hands will not move, as if time has actually stopped and you are stuck in between one universe and another.



                                                                        IV

New

Where other visitors saw and heard traffic and dust, you witnessed the world going by on ancient and new roads outside the old gate.

Again, you rejoice one morning while showing the dog her newly appointed path, as you hear the traffic on the Turnpike and it sounds just the same as it used to, at least in your imagination, like waves constantly breaking on a shore.

Boxes get filled, trucks get filled, a new cellar is filled with what got emptied from another one. Too many clothes try to get into smaller closets, like one who has not been exercising trying to get into that favorite suit or dress. Well, we 'll have to start feeding these closets!

And one day, one amazing day, after near-panic, actual panic, fear of this and that and an exhaustion you've never quite felt before except when someone close had died, after sleeping like the proverbial baby...it is over. You've moved. You begin to recognize a kind of buoyancy that you've been missing.

Good As Old

You go downstairs and into the new library, push the minute hand of the big clock in a certain way, and, it begins to move, one minute at a time, and keeps on moving, and so do you.

Day Game

The Old Bat

Oprah is closing her show before inviting me as a guest. Elaine's is closing before I attained good-table status. And there is no bat where fans can meet at the New Stadium.

It seems like a good time for moving on to something big, something new. But, what exactly? Good question: when in doubt, take in a game. When is serious doubt, take in a day game.

I sat out by the left field foul pole in the shade of an overhang to watch a game in the New Stadium. A few other singletons sat nearby. Admittedly, they were some years ahead of me with little else to do and, judging by the quality of their clothing and their plastic lunch bags, perhaps not much in the bank to help them do it. I was hoping that I didn't fit in.

We saw a good home-team win and were forced to listen to some of the worst white rock & roll music ever recorded, at superhuman volume, just so we'd have something to do between batters, pitches, and just about anything else that might happen naturally during a beautiful May afternoon game.

Fortunately, even noxious music and a corporate lack of faith in the game itself cannot diminish some things:

• the newest old Yank, who no longer has the speed or the eye of his youth, on a given day, can hit two 400 ft. homers to center. Andruw Jones. 
• Jeter getting his 2,976th hit. A double.
• Mo, making his 1,000th appearance. Mo-ver! 
• Sinatra doing it His Way one more time after a win over the listless Jays.

There were people there, mostly young and mostly male who actually paid $9.50 for a single bottle of beer. These are the ones who moaned deeply about the $4.59 per gallon they had to pay somewhere in New Jersey in order to get across the GW. Yet, they will pay over $100 per gallon for a beer at the New Stadium. Go figure.

Mo & Tex

Some, no, many of these people were very poorly dressed:

• in "gym" shorts, although they had definitely not seen a gym since high school.
• in undershirts that should have been under something.
• in too many calories stuffed into too short-shorts and too skimpy-shirts.
• in remarkably bad suits and haircuts, nervously looking at their BlackBerrys for a command from their boss or client.

And the most attractive person there by far? Naturally, she was wearing a SF Giants cap, orange brim.
Cool, even in the hot sun.

As much as I loved baseball, and as much as I loved a day game above all others, I honestly wanted to be somewhere else, and it wasn't just because of the haberdashery. I couldn't envision exactly where I'd rather be, but could not help thinking: how could most of these people, who look so unhealthy, who dress so poorly, who will pay anything to drink watery beer have full-time paying jobs. 

Today's Lonely Bat

How these people found and retained good jobs and kept them with absolutely no sense of style is a mystery as great as the true location of the strike zone is to pitchers and batters. We may still be over-employed, and that's a scary thought.

I had no doubt that thousands of these people loved being mercifully away from their too-busy jobs. But, I had little compassion for them, wanting instead to steal their jobs, while they were not looking,  as Granderson surely should have stolen third in the second inning, while the Jays third-baseman was napping. 

When you're at a day game in May, in the shade, with the sun shining after days of rain, as the home team is walloping homers, and you wish you were somewhere else, it's time to make something happen. It didn't need to be a Saint Oprah grand slam, a sold single would do.

Most people believe that reaching the age of sixty to be a form of early death. They won't even walk past Frank Campbell's fine Funeral Emporium on Madison Avenue for fear that they will be magnetically attracted upstairs among the bouquets. Well, maybe they haven't heard the news: Sixty is The New Thirty! I know this is true, because I made it up.

I walk past Frank's any time I please on a lunch break from the Writers & Artist's Club Members' Reading Room after a brief waltz around Crawford Doyle, one of the last great independent book emporiums on the Isle of Manhatta. I may even do a little jig just to prove a point.

Forever Is A Long Long Time

They're all over Jeter and Posada for being near dead too. Who's next, Mo? In baseball, when you're forty, "they" think your sixty.Yet, Posada played a huge part in a walk-off win recently and Jete will soon get his 3,000th. And there is still much Mo to go.

And what about Andruw Jones! Two huge shots to center, one in the visiting bullpen, the other into the Memorial Park, over the 408 sign. Many say he's washed up. Once upon a time, I watched him play in center for Turner's Braves in '96, and face Mo in late innings, the first of the Torre-Yanks' string of Series wins. Now, he's an add-on cagey vet, who just might get that game winner in another October.

The Yanks always know where they want to be.

Dear Andruw, Jorge, Mo, and Jete, You're not washed up until you say you're washed up. And then some.

Walking to the train after the last out, seeing the ghost of Joe D in front of me, I almost believed it myself.