Dis 'n Dat

I was never a huge McEnroe fan, due to his obnoxious behavior on the court, although I always appreciated his artistry with a racquet, his agility, and his competitiveness. I never thought that I would be quoting him, as I have done above; yet, his words seem to be the perfect antidote to so much we see and hear around us today.

The words also serve as a personal reminder. As much as I'd like to be serious and often fall asleep thinking serious novelist thoughts, day after day I wake up as a cartoon writer who cannot draw and has to borrow pictures.

Tomorrow, I will be on the island of Saint James* and will absolutely not be serious.

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GEMINI: "...The Sun's voyage through the sign of Aries is a call to explore your options and expand your horizons. Once Mercury starts moving forward on the 23rd, you're going to know exactly what you need to do next to stop tormenting yourself about all the ifs and maybes." 

Sysa...Sisy...

Actually, I just wanted to be able to sleep all the way through a night without waking from a dream that I am a human abacus, a melting snowball, or that I'm Sisyphus being chased down the hill by the rock.

Since the mercury starts moving far upward for the air and the sea sometime tomorrow afternoon when I arrive on the island of Saint James, I will know exactly what to do: find Chico and order some lobsters for Monday.

                                                                           *

I love my American Heritage Dictionary, which has been by my side since 1979. Strangely, I have always had a faculty for being able to spell many, if not all difficult words and a complete inability to spell certain easy words, such as racquet, used above (much preferred to racket). My only problem with my beloved AHD, or any dictionary, is that, in order to look up a word like Sisyphus, you pretty much need to know how to spell it. 

I confess, it's becoming easier, simply to google  words like exercize and legnth, which stump me every time.

                                                                        *

Today's Correspondence:

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From: Thomas McDermott [mailto:twmcdermott@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2011 9:28 AM
To:DPW
Subject: [BULK] Refusal to Take Recycling

We recently corresponded about snowplow damage to our fence; now, we have a new problem. For three straight weeks the recycling truck has refused to take glass and plastic material from our curb. For the first two weeks, I noticed that our helpers had placed those materials in the blue or wrong basket (photo), but the recycle crew did take all of the paper. Today, the glass and plastic were in the proper basket, but my wife has just reported that they left it again with no explanation whatsoever. We have been leaving these kinds of materials in the same place for several years with little problem.

Why is this occurring? What are we suddenly doing incorrectly? How to we fix this problem?

If this is not under your jurisdiction in Public Works, please pass this message on to someone who can help us with this problem. We are unaware of any changes in city recycling procedures and simply think it's strange to suddenly have the crew leave these items without the courtesy of a note or any message about why. For nearly $XX,XXX annually in taxes, we find this unusual, especially since we are perfectly willing to abide by your new rules, if we know what they are.

Thank you.

Tom & The DG

1 Hidden Spring Lane

Good Morning Mr.. McDermott and DG,

The reason the recycling has not been collected for the past few weeks, is that the bin is broken.  If the recycler goes to pick it up, all the recycling will fall all over the ground an then we will have another problem. If you would like to replace the bin we sell them at public works for $7.00 all you would need to do is come and pick it up. 

Angie

City of Rye

914-967-7464

Dear A: 

Thank you for responding so quickly. Please mention to someone in City Hall that it would simply be common courtesy, not to mention good service, to put a little tag in the bin so people can replace them before the bottles and other material build up. Or, perhaps I just did not see it or respond when the crew member walked up to our door to let us know, in which case, sincere apologies.

Tom

While I was hitting send on this last ditty, two DPW gentlemen arrived at the door to explain the situation in person. They listened politely to my suggestion to actually let people know about broken bins, but told me people pay no attention to those kinds of things. They very nicely offered to return with a new bin and I have prepared a check for $7. He appeared, I paid, and I have a new bin.

Only after writing the check did I realize that these bins get broken by the crews themselves more often than not, but case closed.


Moral: pack an extra swimsuit, the water's fine and don't go all kerplonkety about silly stuff, as they say on Saint James. Or, as Chico tells me, "Tom, you here now, man, hear what I'm saying?"

And I will hear.

* you will not find this very small Bahamian island on your map, because I have changed the name to protect the innocent from having too many visitors, anyway, there is no golf, service is really, really slow, roosters may wake you before dawn and well known celebs might run you over on their way to harass Queen Conch, who just ignores them. She knows real royalty when she sees, since she sees through royal eyes.

Road Trip

How easily we allow ourselves to get caught up in a whirlwind about one thing or another. When events seem to conspire against us, we hope and pray that they will go away, but first we want them resolved in our favor, of course. And soon! We may lie awake at night wondering when something is going to happen, when something is going to end, and when are we going to feel much, much better.

We always seem to be sitting in the back seat, wondering, "When are we going to get there!"

I know that this kind of thing never happens to you, Pilgrims, but certain recent events reminded me of a moderately silly poem I wrote a couple of years ago; we had just visited a friend's house far, far to the north, then further to the southeast, then a short sail from a long dock. I thought it might be worth sharing (Note: For those of you viewing this on a phone-screen, the lines may get jumbled. Google is working on it):

Road-Trip

Alone in the back seat,

parents in front,

maybe grandparents ahead

or behind

in a house with creaks

and smells.

Life,

like driving up to Maine,

coastal route,

in and out, town after town,

rock after rock,

breaker after breaker,

white paint, white paint, white paint,

fog here and there.

Tee-shirt, sweater, jacket,

tee-shirt.

Sticky leather seat, mom’s

godawful music.

Are we there yet? No!

Regular choir up there,

sun melting the dash.

Find a space, lug the bags,
run for tickets,

board the mailboat,

climb the dock, walk the sandy path,

fishy smell, welcoming gull.

Are we there yet? Yes!

Life.

Soon as we arrive,

we want to go home.

Shock And Awe...From Phones

"...the mobilization power of the internet was one of the Egyptian opposition's most potent weapons..."

Main Beach, Laguna

On Friday March 19, 1976, I loaded my scruffy '67 Chevy Malibu, made a right on Pacific Coast Highway in Laguna Beach, CA, and pointed the hood north towards San Francisco.

I had a hundred bucks in my pocket (gas was hideously cheap back then) and a dream of the writer's life in my head. After a year and a half, I had finally tired of Laguna's beautiful women sun-bathing topless on its beaches, Pacific sunsets perfectly framed in my kitchen window, the sweet smell of the avocado grove across the narrow road from my bedroom in Bluebird Canyon, and a series of cushy outdoor jobs. What was I thinking!

Somewhere near San Luis Obispo, roughly where southern California begins to fade, the Malibu  developed homesickness in the form of a knocking sound beneath my feet. Figuring that car-misery loves company, especially if that company just happens to be a mechanic, I picked up a hitchhiker (Dear Millennials, this act of faith should not be confused with the death-wish that picking up a stranger would be today).

Creative Anachronism

He was a cherub-like being with a thick scraggly beard, glasses and a head full of tangled curls; alas, he could not identify the cause or possible effect of the occasional knocking sound (it later proved to be a broken U-joint). He was on his way to Santa Cruz to attend a "jousting" contest, and I immediately thought maybe he was a wayward member of Kesey's Merry Pranksters, except that he seemed too young. Instead, he was a member of The Society For Creative Anachronism. No, he was not an early Reagan supporter, he was on his way to one of this society's medieval pageants ( http://www.sca.org/ ).

"...But quickly lost in the swirl of revolution was the government's ferocious counter-attack, a dark achievement that many had thought impossible in the age of global connectedness..."

You might think that this would have been the most interesting thing about my young passenger. You would be wrong. The most interesting thing he told me was that he and his grad-student friends from Stanford and Berkeley had been participating in a Department of Defense project. They were using the universities' mainframes to communicate and invent games with one another. He could speak to someone across the country or around the globe on a computer and they could speak with him through this new network ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET ).

Tahrir Square, Cairo

Naturally, I thought the guy was totally nuts, but I now recognize that this was the first time I had ever heard of the Internet. 1976. He may be sitting by his pool counting his billions while I, Dear Friends, live out my own dream in these humble words.

I dropped him by the side of the road and continued on to San Francisco, where I met my friend Karen. The next day, Saturday, I called a friend of a friend and got a construction-labor job. I began Monday. On Tuesday, my boss offered me a free apartment in the building we were renovating on Fillmore Street. I parked the Malibu one last time on a steep hill across from the light blue French-American School on Alamo Square with its tennis court with a chain-link net.

"...just after midnight on Jan 28, a technologically advanced, densely wired country with more than 20 million people online was essentially severed from the global Internet."


During the last two weeks, as Egyptian youths and others gathered in their square, determined for myriad reasons to bring down Mubarak's homegrown version of Creative Anachronism, I could not help thinking of that conversation with my hitchhiking friend. I wondered what he might have to say about the power of global, free services like Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to connect hopeful people and put fear in the hearts of hapless leaders.

Finally, we may have seen the real shock and awe of the Defense Department after all these years, not falling from planes, but ringing and glowing from phones through its own invention, the weapon of mass construction, the Internet.


Ed Note: The quotes used above are from a Feb 16 NYT's front page article by James Glanz and John Markoff, available at The New York Times . In addition to being a Contributor to The Rye (NY) Record, we are now writing a series of profiles and features  for Volunteer Square

Battle Hymn Of My Tiger Parents!

• One time, after I only flunked three math tests in a row, they made me see a tutor for five whole weeks! Then, I had to get two C's in a row before they would let me stop. Talk about strict.

• Another time, they would not let me go out one night to see my friends, even though my sister had only been missing for a couple of days. When I protested by sitting on top of my bureau reading the entire Constitution to find the part about my rights, they thought it was great, and handed me the D. of I. to read too! Torture!

• I snuck out my first-storey bedroom window often, but this one time I forgot and came back in the front door early the next morning. They actually thought I had just gotten up early for a change; then, they smelled gasoline from my helping a friend siphon from another car. Grounded for a week. Brutal!

• Sometimes they went to see a musical, ugh, and I refused to go. I had a party one time, and really cleaned up carefully before they returned. They woke me up later to ask where was the dog; they couldn't find him. They accused me of losing him. Totally unfair! He turned up in a couple of days and they made me wash him and walk him everyday for a month. Heartless.

• Every couple of months, my dad made his favorite meal: codfish cakes, baked beans and black-bread that came out of a can; and they made me eat it like in a prison or something. Then they got mad when my sister and I couldn't hold back the gas and laughed 'til it hurt. Food Abuse!

• They got really upset, when I said they could not attend my college graduation, because I had not exactly been attending college and had invested the tuition they'd given me at the track. They totally lost it and didn't understand that learning about horses and track finance from my friend John "Little Tush" Tuccio and his brother Tony "Big Tush" was just as good as college. They made me get a job in an office to pay them back and didn't speak to me for more than a year. Way too harsh!

• When I was only 30, and living at their place, working feverishly (not hard, I just always had a fever) on my third screenplay, they became aware that I had not actually sold the first two yet. They asked me to leave! And they only would give me five measly grand for a fresh start! Unforgivable!

• The final straw was after I had sold more derivative mortgage-backed securities than anyone else in my firm, and had accumulated a solid eight figures worth of cash bonuses. I wanted to buy them a new house. They wouldn't come to the door and told me to go away. They were embarrassed to even know me. So ungrateful. The irony of success!

Ed Note: If there is anyone left who has not heard of The Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, a Yale Law School Professor, they must have been in Borneo for a while. Before some of you write to tell me that you actually knew my parents and that they were very loving people, save the ink; this was just for fun and I even made some of it up.

The BlackBoard: Tools & Others Stuff

I will put wheels on all my baggage and roll, not carry.


I will eat dessert, drink caffeinated, say yes "with cheese, please" and walk 3 miles daily.


I believe that the meek will inherit the earth, but not the one they thought.


I and 111 million other people watched the Super Bowl; 6.78 Billion others didn't.


I will cease heavy-lifting and get a twin-handled snow shovel to push.


I will still need to develop a strong back to climb upon.


I promise to quit trying to eat life-soup with a fork.


I will throw away any key on my keychain that I have not used in five years.


I know that at least 50 million viewers did not know what a steeler or a packer is or was.


I know that it will snow tomorrow, because I did not buy the push-ovel today.


I want to be like Tom Sawyer and have many people improving my fence.


I will watch out for the free pen containing ordinary ideas.


I know that schools have walls, but learning has no boundaries.


I recommend reading Genesis in the present tense.


I will try to be fearless, while keeping in mind that T Rex is extinct and the Monarch Butterfly thrives.

My Blackboard

I will stop doing my childrens' homework when they get to college.


I will not speak to my Boomer friends about what Twitter does or does not do.

I will try to remember that I am a person and not just a brand.

I will no longer try to figure out why we champion democracy, except where/when we don't.

I will admit that residential real estate is not of this world despite use of the term real.

I will forget that the Super Bowl is just a 4-hr Fox-GOP commercial in which a game is played.

I will continue to buy and eat thinly sliced baloney whenever possible.

I will remember that "senior" means high school or college, and "retire" is what to do to a vehicle.

I will wear a coat and tie whenever I damn well feel like it.
I will stop trying to get others in my family to change the oil.
I will continue eating Brussels sprouts despite unpleasant childhood memories of same.
I will dream of the day when I no longer need to shovel, sand, and salt every morning.

Still More Way Back When....

©copyrightTWMcDermott2011

Way Back When.....

We had one password for everything: "Open Sesame."

A friend was someone we'd actually met and a job came with pay.

Banks employed more tellers than fortune tellers.

The only trader we knew was Vic.

Where there was smoke, there was a smoker.

And....smoke was in the office, butter was on the roll, fat was in the gym, and bacon in the pan.

Starbuck's was the brick place on Main Street, Nantucket.

healthcare provider

A visit to the doctor or his/her visit to you did not require three separate corporations to send/explain the bill, process payment of the bill, or mail your prescription in 10 days.

Soho was in London, Tribeca was a message with a phone number on a wall, and meat packers really did.


All real pizza began below 14th St, crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, spread and changed the world.

A brand was what cowboys put on a cow.

No Ball Playing!

Amazingly, many adults still read books. Reading was something that actually happened all year, not just in summer. Children read books that had absolutely nothing to do with any test, list, or anything other than the pure whimsy of doing something entirely on their own without any merit, medals, or meddling. Imagine the audacity of growing an imagination, right in their own homes! It's scary to think about, but it's true.

Kids often went outdoors after school, unescorted, on foot or bicycle, unsupervised, un-coached, and unscheduled to an open space clearly marked NO BALL PLAYING, where they proceeded to play every conceivable kind of ball game....just because.



Ed Note: We really did say, "Open Sesame," even if there was nothing behind the door or curtain; it was an adaptation of the opening lines of Ali Baba. Yes, Millennials, doctors made house visits, prescribed sulpha tablets for everything from a sore throat to a "charlie-horse," to an addiction to watching re-runs of My Little Margie. The photo is of Hawthorne Park, Forest Hills Gardens, NY, where ball playing was prohibited, and the author and his friends endlessly tormented Bill The Park Warden (RIP). This was our greatest game of all, except perhaps when we learned to lure Charlie The Private Detective into a chase each night. But, that is another story.