Prologue
Well, folks, the heat just went off in here. It made it up to 67 degrees before that happened, though, and, with the added reinforcement of hot coffee, I should make it through the next three hours. It’s 29 outside, by the way, for all of you who are jealous of Floridians. Mr. TV weatherman advises that we are the only state in the country (including Hawaii) that does not have snow on the ground, which is only because we don’t have mountains either.
Progress Report
You’ll all remember that Juno, Elf and Wilson departed about a month ago for training camp. We’re happy to report that all are doing well. Elf (above) was the first one to make it to the track. Juno, a little more nervous by nature, will follow this week. Wilson was a tad lame when we shipped him and got progressively worse for several days. The source of the problem, probably somewhere in the left hind foot, never became apparent and he gradually returned to soundness. The biggest of the three by far, Wilson will be asked to proceed at a slower rate and will, in all likelihood, be the last one to ship to the racetrack. Juno, Elf and Wilson now have real racing names, by the way. They are Cosmic Crown, Ice Elf (what can I tell you, Siobhan wanted “elf” in the name and her mother is Yukon Gold) and Super Chief, in that order. We expect the fillies to race by late June or July. Wilson will tell us when he feels like moving on.
Your Summer Vacation Planner
Alright, enough of this cold weather. We’re getting ready for Summer Vacation plans, as should you be. In which case, we’re here to help. Hopefully, Siobhan and Bill will be going to Glacier National Park in the Great Northwest, but you never know. We don’t know where you’re going but we have some wonderful suggestions. Henceforth:
Massachusetts and New Hampshire
We’re experts on this terrain. Everybody knows about Old Cape Cod, which is fine, but how many people know about Old Cape Ann? Proceeding North out of Boston’s Logan Airport, take US 1, then 1A and eventually Rte. 114 to check out Marblehead (double back to Salem later to visit Witch Country, if you’re so inclined), then pick up Rte. 128 to Gloucester, which used to be a major fishing town. It’s just a short hop to scenic Cape Ann and Rockport, which is very cute and clever and touristy. Almost everyone likes Rockport, with its plethora of tiny shops of every description. There’s even a quaint little restaurant right out on the point. Just guessing, but I imagine they’d have seafood. But I’d wait for the next stop.
From Rockport, proceed along on Rte. 133 to Essex, where you will find Woodman’s Restaurant. These people swear their founder, Lawrence (“Chubby”) Woodman, invented fried clams. I don’t know if you can invent a fried clam but no matter….these things are magnificent and there is nowhere better to enjoy them. If you go to Woodman’s and order something else instead of fried clams (like my friend Torrey Johnson did last year), you will be forever haunted by the fried clam aroma which permeates the restaurant (also like Torrey Johnson is). And then you, like Torrey Johnson, will have to go all the way back there to get the clams.
WARNING: Fried clams are unbelievably rich. Do not eat more than one pint, tops, or you may get mildly ill. Try a half-pint, first time. By the way, it’s not only Bill who likes Woodman’s. Forbes Magazine once called it “The best seafood restaurant in America.” America, fgawdsakes! Big place, that America.
Onward and Upward (it’s still 63 in here)
Alright, moving along. Proceed on to Salisbury Beach, northernmost beach in Massachusetts. We always stop there for a thincrust pizza at the iconic Tripoli Pizza stand before heading north to New Hampshire and Hampton Beach. In the Summer, Hampton is a beehive of activity with its thousands of tourists and temporary residents. The beach, itself, is expansive and clean, there are shops and hotels everywhere, fireworks weekly and the old Hampton Beach Casino, which is emphatically not a casino, brings in name entertainers on weekends.
The drive up the coast from Salisbury to Portsmouth, New Hampshire is one of the Great Drives in America. It’s an exciting, windy trip, mostly in view of the ocean, incredibly scenic as you pass through tiny beachside towns like Rye Beach and Wallis Sands on to Portsmouth. If you want to say you’ve been to Maine, it’s just across the bridge into Kittery.
Other Massachusetts Attractions
Obviously, there’s Cape Cod. Everybody goes to Hyannis and many people proceed on to Nantucket and/or Martha’s Vineyard, both fine places to go. My favorite place on the Cape, though, is Provincetown, all the way out on the tip.
In the Summer (and why would you go any other time?), Provincetown is teeming with activity. There are endless unique shops and restaurants, extremely well-kept Bed & Breakfast operations, at least one and probably more little theaters, whale-watching expeditions, etc. If you are in Boston and have limited time for a visit, consider a 25-minute flight from Logan Airport to Provincetown. A shuttle will take you to town and a car is not necessary (there’s no place to park it, anyway). You can walk the town in a few hours and fly back to Boston in the late afternoon on one of the many convenient flights. I once took my mother on this escapade and she kindly said “This was the best day of my life!” I knew that wasn’t true, of course. After all, what about the day I was born?
Boston and Cambridge (It’s still 63 and Perry the Handyman is on his way)
It’s no fun to drive in Boston. A lot of the streets are one-way and it’s easy to get lost. Better to learn the Subway. If you get lost on there, all you have to do is go back to Park Street Station under the Boston Common. Park Street trains connect with just about all others. And there are subway maps on all the station walls and all the trains, so don’t be afraid. And yes, I know the trains lurch and squeal like crazy but they almost never run into one another.
The Subway also goes across the river to Cambridge, if you want to visit Harvard or MIT. If you do not want to visit these places, I can think of no other reason to go to Cambridge. Also, across the river is the Museum of Science, definitely worth a visit—if just for the scary lightning show.
Everybody likes to walk through Boston Common and the adjoining Public Gardens. You can ride the legendary Swan Boats just to say you did it. The Massachusetts State Capitol is right across the street, if you’d like to witness some graft taking place. Nearby is Newbury Street with some of fancier shopping opportunities in the city. Bring your wallet. One thing you can afford is an iced coffee, none better than the ones made in Boston. Nearby, off Kenmore Square, is the world-famous home of the Red Sox, Fenway Park. In the early evening, the area surrounding the Park is a festival of fans and gawkers. If you have recently received a large inheritance, you might want to purchase a ticket for the game from one of the friendly scalpers. The last one I got cost $130, but it was five rows behind the right-handers’ batter’s box. And the game is a rare experience. The enthusiasm of Boston baseball fans is unequalled.
Another popular place in town is the Quincy market at historic Faneuil Hall. Scores of little wagons unload obscene amounts of tourist trinketry. Inside, however, the aromatic booths offer every food opportunity known to man. Nearby, at the docks, is the Boston Aquarium. The popular Boston Pops Orchestra is out of town in the Summer at Tanglewood in Lenox, in Western Massachusetts. James Taylor will join the orchestra on four occasions this year. Reservations for all performances are a must, as are reservations for hotels in the area. Sharon from the gym wants you all to go to Old Sturbridge Village nearby, but I have no experience with that one, so you’re on your own.
Maine
After your drive along the coast to Portsmouth, pick up I-95 and cross the border into Maine. Even though George H. W. Bush lives there, go first to Kennebunkport, a charming little village on the coast, full of interesting shops and restaurants. You are required to get a lobster roll for lunch here, even if you have to get a bank loan to pay for it. Many people think buying an entire lobster dinner in Maine is a good idea (That’s where they come from, right?), but there is nowhere on this earth more expensive to buy a lobster than Maine. So get one in Massachusetts or New Hampshire, instead. It came from the same place. And, oh yes, don’t forget to drive out to visit George and Barbara. Their house is enormous and there’ll be plenty of room for you and yours. Tell them Bill sent you.
Portland is a surprisingly nice place. Very cultured, art galleries and interesting little shops abound, mainly near the Old Dock area. If you stay in Portland, get a hotel further inland where they’re much cheaper.
Don’t forget to visit Acadia National Park, near Bar Harbor. This is a truly beautiful place right on the ocean. It is the first National Park this side of the Mississippi.
When in Maine, keep your eyes open for Stephen King, he’s everywhere. And when he’s not in Maine, he’s at Fenway Park, so you’ve got two chances.
If you’ve got any questions about these or any other destinations, feel free to write. Torrey called me last year from Maine, about to get on I-95 to drive back to Boston. I sent him back in the reverse order described above and he loved the coastal route. He did make the colossal error of getting an alternate dinner to clams at Woodman’s against my specific advice. And wouldn’t you know it—this year he was forced to have hip and double-knee replacement surgery as a result. Don’t let this happen to you. I’ll be here all week.
Old College Magazine Joke (I’ll bet you’re beginning to worry I’ll soon run out of these)
A fraternity man promised his girl he’d cut down on his drinking. About to receive a visit from her one evening, however, he found himself embarrassingly looped.
“I’ll sit down and read,” he thought. “Whoever heard of a drunk reading a book?”
His girl entered the house and walked into the living room.
“What in the world are you trying to do?” she demanded to know.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “I’m just sitting here, reading.”
“You drunken BUM!” she yelled, fitfully. “Close that suitcase and get the hell out of here!”
That’s all, folks. It’s still 62. We’re drinking hot tea. Hurry up, Perry.
Showing posts with label Gilbert Shelton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gilbert Shelton. Show all posts
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The Sidewalks Of New York
Down in front of Casey’s
Old brown wooden stoop,
On a summer’s evening,
We formed a merry group;
Boys and girls together,
We would sing and waltz,
While the ‘ginnie’ played the organ
On the sidewalks of New York.
East side, west side,
All around the town,
The tots sang ‘Ring-a-Rosie,'
'London Bridge is Falling Down.’
Boys and girls together,
Me and Mamie O’Rourke,
Tripped the light fantastic,
On the sidewalks of New York.
New York State Of Mind
Some of you asked about the photo accompanying last week’s column. Barbara the Cynic asked if it was taken in front of a backdrop, the twin towers having been gone for almost ten years. Actually, it was taken in the summer of 2000 from the Liberty Island Ferry on a return trip from a visit to the Statue of Liberty. It was Siobhan’s first visit to New York so the SOL was must viewing. Not to mention that I really needed that hat.
Our trip to NYC began inauspiciously. Shortly after our Delta jet rolled onto the runway in Orlando, a little yellow light went on in the cockpit and the captain announced he was heading back to the gate to have the problem checked. Siobhan was optimistic, but Bill has seen this sort of thing before. Takeoff time was moved back from the original ten a.m. to eleven, then twelve, then twelve-thirty, at which time Bill, holder of two nonrefundable $80 tickets to an 8 p.m. play, scurried off to book an alternate flight leaving at 1:45. Siobhan, who has never ever been on any flight in which all of her baggage made it through, was worried and rightly so. It didn’t make it this time, either, keeping her phenomenal record intact. One obvious lesson learned: don’t buy nonrefundable tickets for anything that occurs on the night your flight is scheduled to land. On a flight a year later to Las Vegas, I figured I’d wisely compensate for any delays by purchasing a ticket for a late (10 p.m.) Cirque du Soleil performance. That didn’t work so great, either. The plane arrived exactly on time and I almost went to sleep by the end of the after-midnight conclusion of the show.
But this is about New York. And we did make it to Rent, after a quick culinary feast at a nearby deli, where we won a ‘best-dressed’ award. Siobhan had wisely kept a rolled up dress in her carry-on bag due to previous experiences, so all was well. I know it won the Pulitzer in 1996 and was voted Best Musical the same year, but we didn’t like Rent all that much. The acoustics at the off-Broadway theater (the Nederlander, for Christ’s sake!) weren’t great, the lyrics to the songs weren’t clear and the story, though trite, was still difficult to follow. But maybe that’s just us.
We walked the 19 blocks back to the Park Lane Hotel, one of Leona’s little gems, on Central Park South, through a bustling Times Square, filled at 11:30 with every manner and make of humanity. Exiting playgoers, street hustlers, religious advocates, international gawkers and blasé locals merged into a raucous blend. Times Square had more—and bigger—signs than ever and more people seemed comfortable there since Mayor Rudy wasted all the sex shops.
(Back here in 2011, I recently saw in an issue of Esquire Magazine photos of a new incarnation of Times Square, featuring several reclaimed traffic lanes converted into pedestrian walkspace with a smattering of little tables thrown in, a happy improvement).
Day 2 started with a walk to breakfast around seven, then some picture-taking (partial results above) at the fountain fronting the Plaza Hotel, while awaiting old friend Tom Sutton, an ex-Gainesville guy then rattling around between CNN and occasional movie-acting roles. Tom is one of these guys—and I’m sure you have your own favorite—who is physically incapable of passing a Starbuck’s Coffee Shop without stopping in for a $75 cup of gilded joe. We walked down Fifth Avenue, dipped over to Rockefeller Center (Tom used to work for NBC), checked out the refurbished Grand Central Terminal and moseyed over to the Empire State Building. On a clear day, you can see forever. Clear it was. But hold on, you interject. What about Siobhan’s well-known trepidation with heights? Well, for some reason, it didn’t surface what with the Empire State Building having walls and all. We got a little swaying, but nothing scary. On we marched to Christopher Street, main thoroughfare of Gayland, where my favorite store in the world, Bellardo’s, had recently closed. Paul Bellardo was an icon in the NYC gay community, an artist with a shop for artists. Over the years, we had purchased at least a dozen art objects for Silver City from Paul (who once told Harolyn he would convert to heterosexuality if he could have her, the liar) and it was crushing to see the store gone. It was a similar experience to revisiting the site of a previous residence and having it gone. A visit to the voluminous Strand Bookstore on Broadway is always a requisite and we spent eons there, Siobhan poring over the endless mass of tempting purchases.
That night, we went to Tavern-On-The-Green, thanks to Mary, the Park Lane concierge, one of the few people in town who could get a table. A honey of a thunderstorm appeared from the north over Central Park, but played itself out by 8:30, an hour before our scheduled dinner. Tavern-On-The-Green was still in its heyday in 2000. It had been a regular stopping place during our 20 years of NYC buying trips for the Subterranean Circus and we were sorry to see it close a few years ago after several years of diminishing excellence. It has reopened under new management recently and, hopefully, can regain its former glory.
Day 3 featured the Statue of Liberty visit, a laborious process taking about 3 hours round trip. Much waiting. Bad boy Tom pretended to be sick in order to move to the head of the line and we were forced to go with him. He got a big spanking for that, rest assured. Then, on to Soho for major shopping and sightseeing. Siobhan was fascinated by a doo-wop group. Sutton loved a puppeteer. On weekends, Soho bustles with artists selling their wares along the streets and the work is so good—and inexpensive—that it’s virtually impossible to avoid buying something. So we did. Next time you’re at the house, we’ll show it to you.
Final meal of the trip was at Puglia’s in Little Italy. The place is an institution, so it must be still there. Prices, especially for the house wine, which was great, are very affordable, so many of the Italian families in the neighborhood frequent the place. The food is terrific. On weekends, a singer/pianoman shows up and the patrons, driven by copious amounts of wine-drinking, are on the tables singing and dancing, others forming conga lines around the place, some of which extend out one door and back in another. Tom was horrified at this noisy bacchanal, but we forced him to drink wine and he relented, eventually forming his own conga line. Hours passed and eventually we had to leave, walking through the packed and festive late-evening streets of Little Italy, one of the few places in the world where long lines extend from popular bakeries at midnight. (An important aside here: Siobhan’s brother Stuart optimistically took his family to Puglia’s one midweek evening expecting great jollity and clamor—to little avail. The frenzy is fairly limited to weekends. After all….you can’t be wearing out your little Italians with overuse).
We took a late taxi to the Roosevelt Island tram, a trip which affords a great view of lit-up Manhattan. A final goodbye to Tom and back to the Park Lane.
Siobhan wistfully looks out over the park before retiring, reminisces, and askes Bill what he liked best about the hotel. Sensitive as always, Bill replied “The sex.” Siobhan looks a little meek, not offering her favorite thing.
“Well,” Bill prodded, “what did you like best?”
“I was thinking the electric shoe polisher,” she said, trying unsuccessfully not to giggle.
Siobhan, you really know how to hurt a guy.
Windows On The World
Everyone was stunned when the Twin Towers went down, but especially if they’d ever been there. On an earlier visit to New York with Betsy Harper (she would never have said the electric shoe polisher, I bet), we had dinner at Windows On The World, high up in one of the towers. From your table, you could see all Manhattan through the almost floor-to-ceiling windows, a spectacular explosion of lights. Until, slowly but surely, the lights begin to disappear, first the ones northmost, then, gradually, the remainder, until there are no lights left. Uh oh. Are we going to be walking down a kazillion flights of stairs, Betsy wonders, in these very high heels? Well, our lights didn’t seem to be going out, for some reason. And despite the concerned murmur from the diners, the waiters kept a knowing little smirk on their respective faces, which bespoke reassurance. “It’s going to be okay,” I told her. “The waiters know what’s up.”
Suddenly, the lights began to reappear, in the same manner they departed.
“It’s a cloud,” our waiter smiled. “It happens fairly often.” A relieved audience chuckled its approval. Dinner became particularly delicious.
Sad Racing Report
Cosmic Song broke poorly on the rail, remained trapped inside horses most of the way around while following a slow pace, and could not gain sufficiently on the leaders at the finish, winding up fourth by 4 lengths. The race developed exactly as we suspected it would, but we hoped to be on the lead controlling the pace. The worst part of this race is that we did not learn much from it. Do we have a horse which is best at a distance or do we have a closing sprinter? She was strong at the end but not gaining much. Having just run a mile—coming off a sprint—we’d probably like to try the distance one more time. The next race up in our category is a 7-furlong $50,000 claimer on January 14, however, so we’ll likely go there. And the distance might be perfect. That’s Bill—ever the optimist.
It was nice to see Irana again after a couple of years.
Old College Magazine Joke (from 1964):
Zuckerman was bored, waiting all alone on the platform for a train. He noticed a scale and went over and put a penny in the slot and stepped on. Out popped a card which read, “Your name is Jonas Zuckerman. You weigh 156 pounds and you’re going to Westport.”
“What?!?” cried Zuckerman, astonished, stumbling backwards off the scale. “This is impossible. No scale could know all that!”
He inserted another penny. The message was the same. Thinking to trick the scale, Zuckerman then took off his coat, shoes and hat, emptied his pockets and stepped on the scale again. This time a different card popped out.
“Your name is Jonas Zuckerman. Without your coat, shoes and hat, and with nothing in your pockets, you weigh 150. And you’re still going to Westport.”
“No possible way!” exclaimed Zuckerman. He threw on his clothes and rushed down the platform, where he found a cooperative old gentleman who returned with him to the scale. Zuckerman sneered at his cleverness. He put a penny in the slot, the elderly man stepped on the scale and out came the card.
“Your name is James Miller,” it read. “You weigh 146 pounds. And that damn fool Zuckerman just missed his train.”
That’s all, folks….
Down in front of Casey’s
Old brown wooden stoop,
On a summer’s evening,
We formed a merry group;
Boys and girls together,
We would sing and waltz,
While the ‘ginnie’ played the organ
On the sidewalks of New York.
East side, west side,
All around the town,
The tots sang ‘Ring-a-Rosie,'
'London Bridge is Falling Down.’
Boys and girls together,
Me and Mamie O’Rourke,
Tripped the light fantastic,
On the sidewalks of New York.
New York State Of Mind
Some of you asked about the photo accompanying last week’s column. Barbara the Cynic asked if it was taken in front of a backdrop, the twin towers having been gone for almost ten years. Actually, it was taken in the summer of 2000 from the Liberty Island Ferry on a return trip from a visit to the Statue of Liberty. It was Siobhan’s first visit to New York so the SOL was must viewing. Not to mention that I really needed that hat.
Our trip to NYC began inauspiciously. Shortly after our Delta jet rolled onto the runway in Orlando, a little yellow light went on in the cockpit and the captain announced he was heading back to the gate to have the problem checked. Siobhan was optimistic, but Bill has seen this sort of thing before. Takeoff time was moved back from the original ten a.m. to eleven, then twelve, then twelve-thirty, at which time Bill, holder of two nonrefundable $80 tickets to an 8 p.m. play, scurried off to book an alternate flight leaving at 1:45. Siobhan, who has never ever been on any flight in which all of her baggage made it through, was worried and rightly so. It didn’t make it this time, either, keeping her phenomenal record intact. One obvious lesson learned: don’t buy nonrefundable tickets for anything that occurs on the night your flight is scheduled to land. On a flight a year later to Las Vegas, I figured I’d wisely compensate for any delays by purchasing a ticket for a late (10 p.m.) Cirque du Soleil performance. That didn’t work so great, either. The plane arrived exactly on time and I almost went to sleep by the end of the after-midnight conclusion of the show.
But this is about New York. And we did make it to Rent, after a quick culinary feast at a nearby deli, where we won a ‘best-dressed’ award. Siobhan had wisely kept a rolled up dress in her carry-on bag due to previous experiences, so all was well. I know it won the Pulitzer in 1996 and was voted Best Musical the same year, but we didn’t like Rent all that much. The acoustics at the off-Broadway theater (the Nederlander, for Christ’s sake!) weren’t great, the lyrics to the songs weren’t clear and the story, though trite, was still difficult to follow. But maybe that’s just us.
We walked the 19 blocks back to the Park Lane Hotel, one of Leona’s little gems, on Central Park South, through a bustling Times Square, filled at 11:30 with every manner and make of humanity. Exiting playgoers, street hustlers, religious advocates, international gawkers and blasé locals merged into a raucous blend. Times Square had more—and bigger—signs than ever and more people seemed comfortable there since Mayor Rudy wasted all the sex shops.
(Back here in 2011, I recently saw in an issue of Esquire Magazine photos of a new incarnation of Times Square, featuring several reclaimed traffic lanes converted into pedestrian walkspace with a smattering of little tables thrown in, a happy improvement).
Day 2 started with a walk to breakfast around seven, then some picture-taking (partial results above) at the fountain fronting the Plaza Hotel, while awaiting old friend Tom Sutton, an ex-Gainesville guy then rattling around between CNN and occasional movie-acting roles. Tom is one of these guys—and I’m sure you have your own favorite—who is physically incapable of passing a Starbuck’s Coffee Shop without stopping in for a $75 cup of gilded joe. We walked down Fifth Avenue, dipped over to Rockefeller Center (Tom used to work for NBC), checked out the refurbished Grand Central Terminal and moseyed over to the Empire State Building. On a clear day, you can see forever. Clear it was. But hold on, you interject. What about Siobhan’s well-known trepidation with heights? Well, for some reason, it didn’t surface what with the Empire State Building having walls and all. We got a little swaying, but nothing scary. On we marched to Christopher Street, main thoroughfare of Gayland, where my favorite store in the world, Bellardo’s, had recently closed. Paul Bellardo was an icon in the NYC gay community, an artist with a shop for artists. Over the years, we had purchased at least a dozen art objects for Silver City from Paul (who once told Harolyn he would convert to heterosexuality if he could have her, the liar) and it was crushing to see the store gone. It was a similar experience to revisiting the site of a previous residence and having it gone. A visit to the voluminous Strand Bookstore on Broadway is always a requisite and we spent eons there, Siobhan poring over the endless mass of tempting purchases.
That night, we went to Tavern-On-The-Green, thanks to Mary, the Park Lane concierge, one of the few people in town who could get a table. A honey of a thunderstorm appeared from the north over Central Park, but played itself out by 8:30, an hour before our scheduled dinner. Tavern-On-The-Green was still in its heyday in 2000. It had been a regular stopping place during our 20 years of NYC buying trips for the Subterranean Circus and we were sorry to see it close a few years ago after several years of diminishing excellence. It has reopened under new management recently and, hopefully, can regain its former glory.
Day 3 featured the Statue of Liberty visit, a laborious process taking about 3 hours round trip. Much waiting. Bad boy Tom pretended to be sick in order to move to the head of the line and we were forced to go with him. He got a big spanking for that, rest assured. Then, on to Soho for major shopping and sightseeing. Siobhan was fascinated by a doo-wop group. Sutton loved a puppeteer. On weekends, Soho bustles with artists selling their wares along the streets and the work is so good—and inexpensive—that it’s virtually impossible to avoid buying something. So we did. Next time you’re at the house, we’ll show it to you.
Final meal of the trip was at Puglia’s in Little Italy. The place is an institution, so it must be still there. Prices, especially for the house wine, which was great, are very affordable, so many of the Italian families in the neighborhood frequent the place. The food is terrific. On weekends, a singer/pianoman shows up and the patrons, driven by copious amounts of wine-drinking, are on the tables singing and dancing, others forming conga lines around the place, some of which extend out one door and back in another. Tom was horrified at this noisy bacchanal, but we forced him to drink wine and he relented, eventually forming his own conga line. Hours passed and eventually we had to leave, walking through the packed and festive late-evening streets of Little Italy, one of the few places in the world where long lines extend from popular bakeries at midnight. (An important aside here: Siobhan’s brother Stuart optimistically took his family to Puglia’s one midweek evening expecting great jollity and clamor—to little avail. The frenzy is fairly limited to weekends. After all….you can’t be wearing out your little Italians with overuse).
We took a late taxi to the Roosevelt Island tram, a trip which affords a great view of lit-up Manhattan. A final goodbye to Tom and back to the Park Lane.
Siobhan wistfully looks out over the park before retiring, reminisces, and askes Bill what he liked best about the hotel. Sensitive as always, Bill replied “The sex.” Siobhan looks a little meek, not offering her favorite thing.
“Well,” Bill prodded, “what did you like best?”
“I was thinking the electric shoe polisher,” she said, trying unsuccessfully not to giggle.
Siobhan, you really know how to hurt a guy.
Windows On The World
Everyone was stunned when the Twin Towers went down, but especially if they’d ever been there. On an earlier visit to New York with Betsy Harper (she would never have said the electric shoe polisher, I bet), we had dinner at Windows On The World, high up in one of the towers. From your table, you could see all Manhattan through the almost floor-to-ceiling windows, a spectacular explosion of lights. Until, slowly but surely, the lights begin to disappear, first the ones northmost, then, gradually, the remainder, until there are no lights left. Uh oh. Are we going to be walking down a kazillion flights of stairs, Betsy wonders, in these very high heels? Well, our lights didn’t seem to be going out, for some reason. And despite the concerned murmur from the diners, the waiters kept a knowing little smirk on their respective faces, which bespoke reassurance. “It’s going to be okay,” I told her. “The waiters know what’s up.”
Suddenly, the lights began to reappear, in the same manner they departed.
“It’s a cloud,” our waiter smiled. “It happens fairly often.” A relieved audience chuckled its approval. Dinner became particularly delicious.
Sad Racing Report
Cosmic Song broke poorly on the rail, remained trapped inside horses most of the way around while following a slow pace, and could not gain sufficiently on the leaders at the finish, winding up fourth by 4 lengths. The race developed exactly as we suspected it would, but we hoped to be on the lead controlling the pace. The worst part of this race is that we did not learn much from it. Do we have a horse which is best at a distance or do we have a closing sprinter? She was strong at the end but not gaining much. Having just run a mile—coming off a sprint—we’d probably like to try the distance one more time. The next race up in our category is a 7-furlong $50,000 claimer on January 14, however, so we’ll likely go there. And the distance might be perfect. That’s Bill—ever the optimist.
It was nice to see Irana again after a couple of years.
Old College Magazine Joke (from 1964):
Zuckerman was bored, waiting all alone on the platform for a train. He noticed a scale and went over and put a penny in the slot and stepped on. Out popped a card which read, “Your name is Jonas Zuckerman. You weigh 156 pounds and you’re going to Westport.”
“What?!?” cried Zuckerman, astonished, stumbling backwards off the scale. “This is impossible. No scale could know all that!”
He inserted another penny. The message was the same. Thinking to trick the scale, Zuckerman then took off his coat, shoes and hat, emptied his pockets and stepped on the scale again. This time a different card popped out.
“Your name is Jonas Zuckerman. Without your coat, shoes and hat, and with nothing in your pockets, you weigh 150. And you’re still going to Westport.”
“No possible way!” exclaimed Zuckerman. He threw on his clothes and rushed down the platform, where he found a cooperative old gentleman who returned with him to the scale. Zuckerman sneered at his cleverness. He put a penny in the slot, the elderly man stepped on the scale and out came the card.
“Your name is James Miller,” it read. “You weigh 146 pounds. And that damn fool Zuckerman just missed his train.”
That’s all, folks….
Thursday, December 30, 2010
My Hero
Whenever you ask an old guy—henceforth men over 80—about longevity hopes or expectations, he’ll usually tell you something like “Oh, I’m just happy to make it to tomorrow.” Or, “I just take it a day at a time.” Or, “I’m ready anytime—I’ve had a good life.” I know they’re just loath to tempt the Fates with an optimistic prognosis but I don’t like listening to this crap. Therefore, my nomination for Man of the Year is my peripheral relative Ted (married to my Grandmother’s cousin), who occasionally calls to check in on the horses or just shoot the bull.
“How old are you now Ted,” I asked him the other day.
“I’m ninety-one!” he said, energetically. “And I’m going for the Big One!”
God bless you, Ted. And I bet you make it.
Racing Report
Cosmic Song runs on January 1 in the eighth race at Calder, a non winners of a race other than maiden or claiming at a mile and 70 yards. For an unlikely fourth time in a row, she gets the one hole, this time a benefit with the first turn coming up quickly after the start. She’s in against Lily’s Hope, second to Awesome Feather in the mile-and-a-sixteenth Florida Stallion Stakes, and Political Miss, winner of two races in three starts against cheaper horses. This is the distance Cosmic Song should excel at, so we’re optimistic.
Whatever Happened To Smiley Ipana?
Have you tried to buy any toothpaste lately (I certainly hope so)? What’s the deal with toothpaste? You used to be able to go in and get your little package of Colgate or Crest with no confusion and toddle on home. NOW you go in there and there’s FOUR HUNDRED different versions of Colgate and Crest and you can’t even find your very own beloved favorite kind because the boxes are so confusing. They’ve got WHITENING toothpastes (we don’t believe it), they’ve got toothpastes for sensitive teeth (what—now we’re hurting the teeth’s feelings?); they’ve got toothpastes that make your teeth dance and sing the theme from Bridge On The River Kwai. It’s too much. Where’s the Tea Party when you really need them? I want my Original Crest Number One Starter Kit back. Or there’ll be trouble!
California Screamin’
You’ve probably seen those images from California—mud and water crashing through the streets, sweeping up everything in front of them, burying cars, houses and what-have-you. Especially around Laguna Beach, where my old pal Jack Gordon hangs his hat. They didn’t get Jack, though. "We only got about two feet of water in our yard,” he said. “We’re not in a landslide zone.” A what? Gosh, I have to remember that next time I’m dealing with my realtor.
“If you don’t mind, kind sir, no need to show me anything in the landslide zone. Or the avalanche zone, either, for that matter. We’re OK with the earthquake zone, however, since it’s everywhere.”
Jack had bigger problems, anyway. His daughter had bought him oversized Boston Celtics slippers for Christmas and he was flopping around the house all day trying to avoid coming out of his slippers, lest the daughter be chagrined at her horrible error. An exemplary father, for sure. Jack, you do know they have exchange departments in the stores, right? Okay, then.
Meanwhile, Stuart Bentler, who gets in trouble every time he leaves Florida—and often when he stays here, too—was parked in LA traffic when a fearsome Alien Sleep Ray zapped him, knocking him unconscious and causing his now-unbraked little Saab to smush into a large delivery truck, rendering it almost inoperable. Stuart did manage to get the thing parked—an impressive feat in itself in LA—and continued on to his already scheduled appointment to (all together now) The Doctor, of all people. Neither he nor anyone else can figure out just what’s wrong with Stuart but he won’t be driving for awhile.
We suggest a course of LSD treatment.
Auld Lange Syne (which could be the theme song for our column)
As everybody knows, it’s time for New Year’s Resolutions. If you’ve got any good ones, let us know—we’re not proud. My first—and so far only—Resolution is to start practicing yoga. When you get back up from falling over laughing, I’ll tell you my reasons. Ready? OK. The main one is to stretch out those muscles. Stretching is great therapy, they tell me. And when you’re lifting weights three times a week, your muscles need to be stretched. I’m hoping this loosens up those aching back muscles and allows me to bend over and touch the floor with my fingertips. I’m about oh, say, a foot from the floor now, and yes, I know you and everybody else in the world can do better. That’s why I’m doing this, so as not to be Worst in the World. Siobhan, who has practiced yoga and is disgustingly lithe and supple, has advised that there will be other benefits. The yoga person will teach me to breathe, she says. Hmmn. Thought I had that one licked. And I will learn to meditate. From what I can gather about meditation, it sounds a lot like napping, so I’m all for that. Anyway, I tracked down a yoga lady named Marilyn and we start on January 4th. Marilyn advised me that she has worked with “older people”—I beg your pardon—and she can even teach “chair yoga” if called for. Oh, that sounds nice. Here’s poor old Uncle Kermit, who can barely walker himself across the room, loaded up and carried down to the yogi for some chair yoga. I picture a yoga parlor with lots of mattresses on the floor. Anyway, I’ll let you know how it goes.
Further Resolved
The most ubiquitous New Year’s Resolution is weight loss. Every year at this time, the gym is full of people who have decided to lose weight and shape up, the better to live as long as Ted. They thump around the place for a couple of months clogging up the treadmills, then suddenly disappear. Only a few make it to April, a pitiful few much longer. If this sounds like you and you regret your pathetic lack of will power, try some new tactics:
1. Make your exercise schedule a priority. Schedule doctors’ visits, haircuts, shopping, etc. on different days. If you absolutely have to be somewhere on an exercise day, fine, but keep it to a minimum. There are plenty of hours in the day for other activities.
2. Consider a gym. The people there are mostly just like you, nobody is going to laugh at you. You will even find comrades. If you pay a fee to the gym, you are more likely to go and exercise.
3. Find a partner to go with you. This way, you are less likely to blow it off—you’ve got a partner to explain to. Ideally, a husband, wife or close friend with whom you have some experience should be your choice.
And remember, no matter what else you could be doing during your gym hours, none of it will be as beneficial to you as what you are doing then.
Cops and Robbers
In a recent exciting episode, we described to you some of the thrilling confrontations that developed between the Brave Retailers of the Subterranean Circus and some of the less honorable segments of the general public. Some of these confrontations involved the Gainesville Police Department and if you think that we, like certain other hippie elements, are going to disparage these fine gentlemen, you are wrong. We had a great working relationship. It was, after all, the redoubtable A. W. Smith of Gainesville’s Finest who advised us after once responding to a shoplifter call, “Listen Bill—you’ll probably get a lot less of this if you just take them in the back and beat them up a little.”
Oh.
So we did. And word got around, I guess. We seemed to have less trouble than the other stores of our ilk. After closing, however, it was another kettle of fish. Despite an effective burglar alarm, installed after the demise of the Incredible Bonker, we had several breakins at night. Since I lived next door, of course, we had Quick Response. I kept a shotgun and a 45 in my bedroom and when the alarm went off I was there in a flash. Once, I caught a kid in one of the Silver City dressing rooms. He was only about 16. I dragged him out to my car, threw him into the front seat and started out for the police station, six blocks away. I drove along, holding him by the neck of his shirt but realizing the Quixotean probabilities of my task. He eventually pulled loose and limped off to a waiting bicycle. Okay, this would be fun.
I followed the kid, staying 1/2 inch behind his rear tire as he pedaled furiously down the streets. I had no false notions of catching him, just a desire to make him remember that crime does not pay when it involves the Subterranean Circus, so that he would take his criminal proclivities elsewhere in the future. We must have travelled at least a mile and a half before he peeled off, jumped a sidewalk and was gone, but probably with soiled underwear. “The Seed Of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit. The Shadow Knows.”
A Shot In The Dark
Another night, another alarm. I picked up my shotgun and responded, at first finding nothing. Walking around the north side of Silver City, however, I spied a large form through a window in front of the Circus. By the time I ran over there, he was halfway down the street. I fired the shotgun in the air. He stopped on a dime and came back. I realized that I had fired my one shell, however, and this guy was too big to hold onto. Dani Hughes was surveying the action from my front porch.
“Dani!” I yelled, “Go in and get my 45.” She looked at me quizzically. Wasn’t the shotgun enough? I nodded and she went in and got the chrome-plated pistol, which was scary just to look at. I made the miscreant kneel down in my driveway, stuck the 45 in my belt and held the empty (but how did he know?) shotgun on the guy. Eventually, the cops whizzed up, stopping half a block away. Uh oh—I didn’t recognize either of these guys, nor they me. Without a program, they probably couldn’t tell the bad guys from the good guys. So, just like on TV, they crouched down behind their car doors and aimed their guns my way.
“Point the shotgun in the air and discharge the shells!” one of them hollered. Rather than quibble about there being no shells left in the gun, I appeared to comply.
“Now place the gun on the ground!” You betcha.
The cops warily approached, not even noticing the gun in my waistband. After all, like Dani reasoned, who would need two? They almost went catatonic when they finally noticed that shiny silver thing in my belt, but we worked it out. They eventually deciphered who the crook was and took him off to jail. Almost. A few minutes later, they came rolling back. The driver got out and approached me as if relaying a confidence.
“This guy wants to file charges against you for firing a gun at him,” the cop said. I had, of course, neglected to mention this part of the adventure, knowing how police officials feel about “the reckless discharge of weapons.”
“He probably won’t get anywhere with that but it is an issue if you file charges.”
“And your solution for this is….” I asked him.
“Well, we could just take him out to the Interstate, dump him off and tell him next time we see him we charge him with a whole mess of stuff.”
A whole mess of stuff! “I like that idea,” I told him. And they were off, the cops without their undoubtedly onerous paper requirements and the hardened criminal without an overnight in the pokey. I had more important problems to consider. Where the hell were the rest of my shotgun shells?
Old College Magazine Joke (from 1966)
The defense attorney was bearing down hard:
“You say,” he sneered, “that the defendant came at you with a BOTTLE in his hand. But didn’t you earlier state that YOU had something in YOUR hand too?!?”
“Well, yes,” admitted the battered plaintiff, “….his wife. Charming, of course, but not much good in a fight.”
That’s all, folks….
Whenever you ask an old guy—henceforth men over 80—about longevity hopes or expectations, he’ll usually tell you something like “Oh, I’m just happy to make it to tomorrow.” Or, “I just take it a day at a time.” Or, “I’m ready anytime—I’ve had a good life.” I know they’re just loath to tempt the Fates with an optimistic prognosis but I don’t like listening to this crap. Therefore, my nomination for Man of the Year is my peripheral relative Ted (married to my Grandmother’s cousin), who occasionally calls to check in on the horses or just shoot the bull.
“How old are you now Ted,” I asked him the other day.
“I’m ninety-one!” he said, energetically. “And I’m going for the Big One!”
God bless you, Ted. And I bet you make it.
Racing Report
Cosmic Song runs on January 1 in the eighth race at Calder, a non winners of a race other than maiden or claiming at a mile and 70 yards. For an unlikely fourth time in a row, she gets the one hole, this time a benefit with the first turn coming up quickly after the start. She’s in against Lily’s Hope, second to Awesome Feather in the mile-and-a-sixteenth Florida Stallion Stakes, and Political Miss, winner of two races in three starts against cheaper horses. This is the distance Cosmic Song should excel at, so we’re optimistic.
Whatever Happened To Smiley Ipana?
Have you tried to buy any toothpaste lately (I certainly hope so)? What’s the deal with toothpaste? You used to be able to go in and get your little package of Colgate or Crest with no confusion and toddle on home. NOW you go in there and there’s FOUR HUNDRED different versions of Colgate and Crest and you can’t even find your very own beloved favorite kind because the boxes are so confusing. They’ve got WHITENING toothpastes (we don’t believe it), they’ve got toothpastes for sensitive teeth (what—now we’re hurting the teeth’s feelings?); they’ve got toothpastes that make your teeth dance and sing the theme from Bridge On The River Kwai. It’s too much. Where’s the Tea Party when you really need them? I want my Original Crest Number One Starter Kit back. Or there’ll be trouble!
California Screamin’
You’ve probably seen those images from California—mud and water crashing through the streets, sweeping up everything in front of them, burying cars, houses and what-have-you. Especially around Laguna Beach, where my old pal Jack Gordon hangs his hat. They didn’t get Jack, though. "We only got about two feet of water in our yard,” he said. “We’re not in a landslide zone.” A what? Gosh, I have to remember that next time I’m dealing with my realtor.
“If you don’t mind, kind sir, no need to show me anything in the landslide zone. Or the avalanche zone, either, for that matter. We’re OK with the earthquake zone, however, since it’s everywhere.”
Jack had bigger problems, anyway. His daughter had bought him oversized Boston Celtics slippers for Christmas and he was flopping around the house all day trying to avoid coming out of his slippers, lest the daughter be chagrined at her horrible error. An exemplary father, for sure. Jack, you do know they have exchange departments in the stores, right? Okay, then.
Meanwhile, Stuart Bentler, who gets in trouble every time he leaves Florida—and often when he stays here, too—was parked in LA traffic when a fearsome Alien Sleep Ray zapped him, knocking him unconscious and causing his now-unbraked little Saab to smush into a large delivery truck, rendering it almost inoperable. Stuart did manage to get the thing parked—an impressive feat in itself in LA—and continued on to his already scheduled appointment to (all together now) The Doctor, of all people. Neither he nor anyone else can figure out just what’s wrong with Stuart but he won’t be driving for awhile.
We suggest a course of LSD treatment.
Auld Lange Syne (which could be the theme song for our column)
As everybody knows, it’s time for New Year’s Resolutions. If you’ve got any good ones, let us know—we’re not proud. My first—and so far only—Resolution is to start practicing yoga. When you get back up from falling over laughing, I’ll tell you my reasons. Ready? OK. The main one is to stretch out those muscles. Stretching is great therapy, they tell me. And when you’re lifting weights three times a week, your muscles need to be stretched. I’m hoping this loosens up those aching back muscles and allows me to bend over and touch the floor with my fingertips. I’m about oh, say, a foot from the floor now, and yes, I know you and everybody else in the world can do better. That’s why I’m doing this, so as not to be Worst in the World. Siobhan, who has practiced yoga and is disgustingly lithe and supple, has advised that there will be other benefits. The yoga person will teach me to breathe, she says. Hmmn. Thought I had that one licked. And I will learn to meditate. From what I can gather about meditation, it sounds a lot like napping, so I’m all for that. Anyway, I tracked down a yoga lady named Marilyn and we start on January 4th. Marilyn advised me that she has worked with “older people”—I beg your pardon—and she can even teach “chair yoga” if called for. Oh, that sounds nice. Here’s poor old Uncle Kermit, who can barely walker himself across the room, loaded up and carried down to the yogi for some chair yoga. I picture a yoga parlor with lots of mattresses on the floor. Anyway, I’ll let you know how it goes.
Further Resolved
The most ubiquitous New Year’s Resolution is weight loss. Every year at this time, the gym is full of people who have decided to lose weight and shape up, the better to live as long as Ted. They thump around the place for a couple of months clogging up the treadmills, then suddenly disappear. Only a few make it to April, a pitiful few much longer. If this sounds like you and you regret your pathetic lack of will power, try some new tactics:
1. Make your exercise schedule a priority. Schedule doctors’ visits, haircuts, shopping, etc. on different days. If you absolutely have to be somewhere on an exercise day, fine, but keep it to a minimum. There are plenty of hours in the day for other activities.
2. Consider a gym. The people there are mostly just like you, nobody is going to laugh at you. You will even find comrades. If you pay a fee to the gym, you are more likely to go and exercise.
3. Find a partner to go with you. This way, you are less likely to blow it off—you’ve got a partner to explain to. Ideally, a husband, wife or close friend with whom you have some experience should be your choice.
And remember, no matter what else you could be doing during your gym hours, none of it will be as beneficial to you as what you are doing then.
Cops and Robbers
In a recent exciting episode, we described to you some of the thrilling confrontations that developed between the Brave Retailers of the Subterranean Circus and some of the less honorable segments of the general public. Some of these confrontations involved the Gainesville Police Department and if you think that we, like certain other hippie elements, are going to disparage these fine gentlemen, you are wrong. We had a great working relationship. It was, after all, the redoubtable A. W. Smith of Gainesville’s Finest who advised us after once responding to a shoplifter call, “Listen Bill—you’ll probably get a lot less of this if you just take them in the back and beat them up a little.”
Oh.
So we did. And word got around, I guess. We seemed to have less trouble than the other stores of our ilk. After closing, however, it was another kettle of fish. Despite an effective burglar alarm, installed after the demise of the Incredible Bonker, we had several breakins at night. Since I lived next door, of course, we had Quick Response. I kept a shotgun and a 45 in my bedroom and when the alarm went off I was there in a flash. Once, I caught a kid in one of the Silver City dressing rooms. He was only about 16. I dragged him out to my car, threw him into the front seat and started out for the police station, six blocks away. I drove along, holding him by the neck of his shirt but realizing the Quixotean probabilities of my task. He eventually pulled loose and limped off to a waiting bicycle. Okay, this would be fun.
I followed the kid, staying 1/2 inch behind his rear tire as he pedaled furiously down the streets. I had no false notions of catching him, just a desire to make him remember that crime does not pay when it involves the Subterranean Circus, so that he would take his criminal proclivities elsewhere in the future. We must have travelled at least a mile and a half before he peeled off, jumped a sidewalk and was gone, but probably with soiled underwear. “The Seed Of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit. The Shadow Knows.”
A Shot In The Dark
Another night, another alarm. I picked up my shotgun and responded, at first finding nothing. Walking around the north side of Silver City, however, I spied a large form through a window in front of the Circus. By the time I ran over there, he was halfway down the street. I fired the shotgun in the air. He stopped on a dime and came back. I realized that I had fired my one shell, however, and this guy was too big to hold onto. Dani Hughes was surveying the action from my front porch.
“Dani!” I yelled, “Go in and get my 45.” She looked at me quizzically. Wasn’t the shotgun enough? I nodded and she went in and got the chrome-plated pistol, which was scary just to look at. I made the miscreant kneel down in my driveway, stuck the 45 in my belt and held the empty (but how did he know?) shotgun on the guy. Eventually, the cops whizzed up, stopping half a block away. Uh oh—I didn’t recognize either of these guys, nor they me. Without a program, they probably couldn’t tell the bad guys from the good guys. So, just like on TV, they crouched down behind their car doors and aimed their guns my way.
“Point the shotgun in the air and discharge the shells!” one of them hollered. Rather than quibble about there being no shells left in the gun, I appeared to comply.
“Now place the gun on the ground!” You betcha.
The cops warily approached, not even noticing the gun in my waistband. After all, like Dani reasoned, who would need two? They almost went catatonic when they finally noticed that shiny silver thing in my belt, but we worked it out. They eventually deciphered who the crook was and took him off to jail. Almost. A few minutes later, they came rolling back. The driver got out and approached me as if relaying a confidence.
“This guy wants to file charges against you for firing a gun at him,” the cop said. I had, of course, neglected to mention this part of the adventure, knowing how police officials feel about “the reckless discharge of weapons.”
“He probably won’t get anywhere with that but it is an issue if you file charges.”
“And your solution for this is….” I asked him.
“Well, we could just take him out to the Interstate, dump him off and tell him next time we see him we charge him with a whole mess of stuff.”
A whole mess of stuff! “I like that idea,” I told him. And they were off, the cops without their undoubtedly onerous paper requirements and the hardened criminal without an overnight in the pokey. I had more important problems to consider. Where the hell were the rest of my shotgun shells?
Old College Magazine Joke (from 1966)
The defense attorney was bearing down hard:
“You say,” he sneered, “that the defendant came at you with a BOTTLE in his hand. But didn’t you earlier state that YOU had something in YOUR hand too?!?”
“Well, yes,” admitted the battered plaintiff, “….his wife. Charming, of course, but not much good in a fight.”
That’s all, folks….
Thursday, December 23, 2010
I’ll Be Home For Christmas (or maybe not)
Where is home, anyway? Is it the place we grew up? Or the place we live now? Or the esteemed locale where we spent the most happy years? Does “home” change when our parents are no more? I guess for me home is Fairfield now, but a close second is 53 Garfield Street in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where I lived from ages four to seventeen in an old New England two-story house, my grandmother and grandfather upstairs.
Some people kvetch and moan about their childhoods. Not me. We lived in a great neighborhood, kids to play with in every house and the B. & M. Railroad field nearby for sports. Jackie Fournier (Gordon, now) lived a couple houses down and was as fanatical a Red Sox fan as I was. We’d sit on his porch in the afternoons, listening to games on the radio and bitching about the tactics of whichever manager was there at the time (they never took the pitchers out soon enough). Jack was the most devoted rock n’ roll fan in the neighborhood, working his radio at night to draw in faraway New York disc jockeys who were like heroes to us in their defiance of societal prejudices against the new music.
Jackie Mercier, another great friend, lived around the corner on Boxford Street, next to a little black kid adopted by white parents (we thought nothing of it) named Mickey Murphy. Murphy had long vines in his back yard which he manipulated like “Tarzan swings.” Bobby Bennett, the neighborhood intellectual lived a few houses down, in back of Joey Peppalardo, who always played shortstop and never got tired of reminding us he was remotely related to Heisman Trophy winner Joe Bellino.
My sister, Alice, two years younger, had her own crew, notably the infamous Irene Chaff of the ubiquitous Chaff family of hundreds, who could charm the spots off a leopard. Alice was not a sports fan but she would show up at any activity if boys were there.
One day, our parents came to us and asked us if we would like a new car or a baby brother or sister. We foolishly chose the latter and that’s the only reason you’re here today, Kathy.
Except for Fournier, a shady Protestant (whatever they were), we all went to St. Patrick’s School, a ten-minute walk away, patrolled by the scary Sisters of Charity. We had a schoolyard with a fat white line down the middle, the boys on one side, the girls the other. The nuns roamed the area to inhibit comingling of the sexes. At eight-thirty in the morning, the bell would ring, the marches would play and we would tromp inside for another day of inculcation and education. There always seemed to be another reason we would all be going to hell.
It was cold as the devil up there, but nobody seemed to mind. We came home from school, throwing snowballs across Winthrop Avenue at the patrols on the other side, despite constant admonishment from the brown-nosing patrol leaders. When we got home, we couldn’t wait to get outside to construct snow forts from the roadside banks piled up by the city’s snowplows overnight. In the Spring, often with snow still on the ground, we’d go off to the B. & M. field and try to play baseball, quickly turning the stitched horsehide covers into spheres resurfaced with black electrical tape. Upon completing our efforts, everyone would traipse down to Leo Gervais’ store to choose from the fifty favors of sodas in his ice machine or the counterful of candies. In deference to Mickey Murphy, we never bought the nigger babies. Even kids are sensitive about some things.
On Summer nights, the ice-cream man came by, ringing his little bell and creating a frenzy of activity as kids ran screaming to their parents for popsicle and fudgesicle money. Summer also meant beach time. Salisbury and Hampton beaches were only about twenty miles away, but it seemed like it took forever to get there on the little two-lane roads our parents drove. Salisbury, the northernmost beach in Massachusetts, featured amusement park rides like the merry-go-round or the roller-coaster, favored by Alice. There was no roller-coaster Alice feared, but she absolutely would not go on a ferris wheel, which seemed tame by comparison.
“Why, Alice?”
“You can get stuck at the top. And they’ll never get you down.”
Years later, visiting Canobie Lake Park in Salem, N. H. with her grandchildren, Alice had not budged from her vows of ferris wheel abstinence. I pointed out to her that in this day and age ferris wheels virtually never got stuck and the children would probably enjoy the ride. Alice begrudgingly consented and we got on. I probably don’t need to tell you that on this occasion the ferris wheel, seizing an opportunity it had been awaiting impatiently for decades, stopped with Alice’s car at the very top. Suspicions finally confirmed, she looked over at me with a superior expression. “See!” she said.
I rarely left Massachusetts until I went off to college at 17. It was a very long train trip to Stillwater, Oklahoma and, with limited funds for school, I couldn’t afford to be flying home often. The first Christmas I was there, however, my fraternity brothers, Joe Alexander and John Muscato from upstate New York, offered to drive me to Albany, from whence I could bus home. It was during this drive that I realized there were worse things in this world than not being home for Christmas. Being the trip rookie, I was consigned to the middle seat in back, a brain-numbing experience I would wish on no one. It was probably someone who experienced this torture who was the original wonderer “Are we there yet?” I vowed never to repeat it—after, of course, the equally charming trip back.
The following year, my weirdest Christmas, I remained in Stillwater. As the days crawled by, I found myself writing more into the night, eventually all night long, and sleeping through the lonesome days. Stillwater was a very small town despite the college campus and you could walk the streets for blocks during this time of year and see almost nobody. Lonely or not, it still beat driving a few thousand miles in the back seat of a car and I never regretted the decision. On Christmas, I telephoned home and talked with about fifty people. For a little while, it was almost like being there.
Years later and despite a dubious $300 car I bought expressly for the purpose, Marilyn and I headed for Lawrence for another Christmas. We thought we had enough money to make it but we didn’t reckon with the tolls and we ran out of cash on the Connecticut Turnpike. We couldn’t take the back roads or we would never make it in time, not to mention being in a blizzard which would compromise all but the best highways. So we pulled up in the exact change lanes which had no tollbooth operators, tossed a few pennies out so they would spill on the ground (but noisily), and be impatiently waved through by adjacent operators as the alarms announced their displeasure.
This was all well and good until we began experiencing a little knocking from the engine. We had enough gas, but no money for oil even if we had known that oil was what we needed. Oh well, we were almost there, how bad could it be? Pretty bad, it turned out. Shortly after the rattling increased to a thundering roar (think of yourself encased in a revolving clothes drier with a thousand loose nuts and bolts), POOF, all the noise stopped. And so did the car, which had thrown a rod. It was only 10 miles from home. Eventually the State Police picked us up and, it being Christmas Eve, handed us off to the sympathetic Lawrence cops, who took us the rest of the way to Garfield Street, where everyone celebrated our arrival with great acclaim and the drinking of ceremonial nectar.
The neighbors probably thought “Well, here comes Billy Killeen….brought home by the cops yet again.”
Fairfield
The current homestead is in Fairfield, an unincorporated little hamlet equidistant between Gainesville and Ocala in northern Marion County. It takes about 25 minutes to get to either city. The slogan here should be (and maybe it is): “Not Much Happens In Fairfield—And That’s The Way We Like It.”
We’ve got horse farms, of course. And our own Post Office, run by long-time postmistress Julie Dare, who will commiserate with you over the plight of the Gators or any of your own personal issues. Julie is also very helpful in directing newcomers to your house should they become befuddled. This is not always so great.
Once a Canadian goofball named Serge came bicycling down from the hinterlands, looking for Siobhan. He was a distant relative of one of Siobhan’s clients, was somehow involved in veterinary medicine and wished to “ride around” with her as she visited her various clients. This was not an unusual request—Siobhan was often asked by high-school teachers, etc., to take on a student with a predilection for the practice, usually with good result.
We were a little leery of Serge, though. He would e-mail long messages of appreciation and expectation for this future venture which bade concern for his intellectual capacities. Then, one day, the person who recommended him called Siobhan to advise her that Serge had arrived in Tampa and said he was coming to Ocala to kill the recommender, another woman, and, oh yes, also Siobhan. Huh?
We called the Sheriff, of course. And Siobhan, who didn’t like having guns around the house, allowed that, well, under the circumstances….
I went out and bought a shotgun.
Serge showed up in Gainesville at the vet school, looking for Siobhan and scaring everybody with his weirdness. They called her to register their unhappiness,
“Keep him there,” she said. “I’ll call the cops!”
You know as well as I do, however, that the crazy guy always leaves before the sheriff arrives. It’s a fact of life. So Serge headed for Fairfield, arriving at the Post Office, where that helpful rascal Julie Dare told him how to find our place. As often happens with crazy people, however, his muddled brain confused the directions (maybe Julie is cleverer than we thought) and the next thing we knew Serge had been arrested in Key West, his father notified and he shipped back to Canada for incarceration. Julie says she won’t do it any more.
Old College Magazine Joke (from 1964):
A Texas A&M lab technician was assigned the task of providing an exhaustive study about fleas. He agonizingly trained a good-sized flea to hop over his finger every time he said “Hup!” Then, he pulled off two of the flea’s six legs. “Hup!” he shouted, and the flea jumped over his finger. Off came two more legs. “Hup!” repeated the technician. Again, the flea jumped. Then he removed the flea’s final pair of legs.
“Hup!”
No response
“Hup!”
Still none.
The technician nodded wisely and finalized his report.
“When a flea loses all its six legs, “ he wrote, it becomes deaf.”
That’s all, folks. And have a great Christmas.
Where is home, anyway? Is it the place we grew up? Or the place we live now? Or the esteemed locale where we spent the most happy years? Does “home” change when our parents are no more? I guess for me home is Fairfield now, but a close second is 53 Garfield Street in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where I lived from ages four to seventeen in an old New England two-story house, my grandmother and grandfather upstairs.
Some people kvetch and moan about their childhoods. Not me. We lived in a great neighborhood, kids to play with in every house and the B. & M. Railroad field nearby for sports. Jackie Fournier (Gordon, now) lived a couple houses down and was as fanatical a Red Sox fan as I was. We’d sit on his porch in the afternoons, listening to games on the radio and bitching about the tactics of whichever manager was there at the time (they never took the pitchers out soon enough). Jack was the most devoted rock n’ roll fan in the neighborhood, working his radio at night to draw in faraway New York disc jockeys who were like heroes to us in their defiance of societal prejudices against the new music.
Jackie Mercier, another great friend, lived around the corner on Boxford Street, next to a little black kid adopted by white parents (we thought nothing of it) named Mickey Murphy. Murphy had long vines in his back yard which he manipulated like “Tarzan swings.” Bobby Bennett, the neighborhood intellectual lived a few houses down, in back of Joey Peppalardo, who always played shortstop and never got tired of reminding us he was remotely related to Heisman Trophy winner Joe Bellino.
My sister, Alice, two years younger, had her own crew, notably the infamous Irene Chaff of the ubiquitous Chaff family of hundreds, who could charm the spots off a leopard. Alice was not a sports fan but she would show up at any activity if boys were there.
One day, our parents came to us and asked us if we would like a new car or a baby brother or sister. We foolishly chose the latter and that’s the only reason you’re here today, Kathy.
Except for Fournier, a shady Protestant (whatever they were), we all went to St. Patrick’s School, a ten-minute walk away, patrolled by the scary Sisters of Charity. We had a schoolyard with a fat white line down the middle, the boys on one side, the girls the other. The nuns roamed the area to inhibit comingling of the sexes. At eight-thirty in the morning, the bell would ring, the marches would play and we would tromp inside for another day of inculcation and education. There always seemed to be another reason we would all be going to hell.
It was cold as the devil up there, but nobody seemed to mind. We came home from school, throwing snowballs across Winthrop Avenue at the patrols on the other side, despite constant admonishment from the brown-nosing patrol leaders. When we got home, we couldn’t wait to get outside to construct snow forts from the roadside banks piled up by the city’s snowplows overnight. In the Spring, often with snow still on the ground, we’d go off to the B. & M. field and try to play baseball, quickly turning the stitched horsehide covers into spheres resurfaced with black electrical tape. Upon completing our efforts, everyone would traipse down to Leo Gervais’ store to choose from the fifty favors of sodas in his ice machine or the counterful of candies. In deference to Mickey Murphy, we never bought the nigger babies. Even kids are sensitive about some things.
On Summer nights, the ice-cream man came by, ringing his little bell and creating a frenzy of activity as kids ran screaming to their parents for popsicle and fudgesicle money. Summer also meant beach time. Salisbury and Hampton beaches were only about twenty miles away, but it seemed like it took forever to get there on the little two-lane roads our parents drove. Salisbury, the northernmost beach in Massachusetts, featured amusement park rides like the merry-go-round or the roller-coaster, favored by Alice. There was no roller-coaster Alice feared, but she absolutely would not go on a ferris wheel, which seemed tame by comparison.
“Why, Alice?”
“You can get stuck at the top. And they’ll never get you down.”
Years later, visiting Canobie Lake Park in Salem, N. H. with her grandchildren, Alice had not budged from her vows of ferris wheel abstinence. I pointed out to her that in this day and age ferris wheels virtually never got stuck and the children would probably enjoy the ride. Alice begrudgingly consented and we got on. I probably don’t need to tell you that on this occasion the ferris wheel, seizing an opportunity it had been awaiting impatiently for decades, stopped with Alice’s car at the very top. Suspicions finally confirmed, she looked over at me with a superior expression. “See!” she said.
I rarely left Massachusetts until I went off to college at 17. It was a very long train trip to Stillwater, Oklahoma and, with limited funds for school, I couldn’t afford to be flying home often. The first Christmas I was there, however, my fraternity brothers, Joe Alexander and John Muscato from upstate New York, offered to drive me to Albany, from whence I could bus home. It was during this drive that I realized there were worse things in this world than not being home for Christmas. Being the trip rookie, I was consigned to the middle seat in back, a brain-numbing experience I would wish on no one. It was probably someone who experienced this torture who was the original wonderer “Are we there yet?” I vowed never to repeat it—after, of course, the equally charming trip back.
The following year, my weirdest Christmas, I remained in Stillwater. As the days crawled by, I found myself writing more into the night, eventually all night long, and sleeping through the lonesome days. Stillwater was a very small town despite the college campus and you could walk the streets for blocks during this time of year and see almost nobody. Lonely or not, it still beat driving a few thousand miles in the back seat of a car and I never regretted the decision. On Christmas, I telephoned home and talked with about fifty people. For a little while, it was almost like being there.
Years later and despite a dubious $300 car I bought expressly for the purpose, Marilyn and I headed for Lawrence for another Christmas. We thought we had enough money to make it but we didn’t reckon with the tolls and we ran out of cash on the Connecticut Turnpike. We couldn’t take the back roads or we would never make it in time, not to mention being in a blizzard which would compromise all but the best highways. So we pulled up in the exact change lanes which had no tollbooth operators, tossed a few pennies out so they would spill on the ground (but noisily), and be impatiently waved through by adjacent operators as the alarms announced their displeasure.
This was all well and good until we began experiencing a little knocking from the engine. We had enough gas, but no money for oil even if we had known that oil was what we needed. Oh well, we were almost there, how bad could it be? Pretty bad, it turned out. Shortly after the rattling increased to a thundering roar (think of yourself encased in a revolving clothes drier with a thousand loose nuts and bolts), POOF, all the noise stopped. And so did the car, which had thrown a rod. It was only 10 miles from home. Eventually the State Police picked us up and, it being Christmas Eve, handed us off to the sympathetic Lawrence cops, who took us the rest of the way to Garfield Street, where everyone celebrated our arrival with great acclaim and the drinking of ceremonial nectar.
The neighbors probably thought “Well, here comes Billy Killeen….brought home by the cops yet again.”
Fairfield
The current homestead is in Fairfield, an unincorporated little hamlet equidistant between Gainesville and Ocala in northern Marion County. It takes about 25 minutes to get to either city. The slogan here should be (and maybe it is): “Not Much Happens In Fairfield—And That’s The Way We Like It.”
We’ve got horse farms, of course. And our own Post Office, run by long-time postmistress Julie Dare, who will commiserate with you over the plight of the Gators or any of your own personal issues. Julie is also very helpful in directing newcomers to your house should they become befuddled. This is not always so great.
Once a Canadian goofball named Serge came bicycling down from the hinterlands, looking for Siobhan. He was a distant relative of one of Siobhan’s clients, was somehow involved in veterinary medicine and wished to “ride around” with her as she visited her various clients. This was not an unusual request—Siobhan was often asked by high-school teachers, etc., to take on a student with a predilection for the practice, usually with good result.
We were a little leery of Serge, though. He would e-mail long messages of appreciation and expectation for this future venture which bade concern for his intellectual capacities. Then, one day, the person who recommended him called Siobhan to advise her that Serge had arrived in Tampa and said he was coming to Ocala to kill the recommender, another woman, and, oh yes, also Siobhan. Huh?
We called the Sheriff, of course. And Siobhan, who didn’t like having guns around the house, allowed that, well, under the circumstances….
I went out and bought a shotgun.
Serge showed up in Gainesville at the vet school, looking for Siobhan and scaring everybody with his weirdness. They called her to register their unhappiness,
“Keep him there,” she said. “I’ll call the cops!”
You know as well as I do, however, that the crazy guy always leaves before the sheriff arrives. It’s a fact of life. So Serge headed for Fairfield, arriving at the Post Office, where that helpful rascal Julie Dare told him how to find our place. As often happens with crazy people, however, his muddled brain confused the directions (maybe Julie is cleverer than we thought) and the next thing we knew Serge had been arrested in Key West, his father notified and he shipped back to Canada for incarceration. Julie says she won’t do it any more.
Old College Magazine Joke (from 1964):
A Texas A&M lab technician was assigned the task of providing an exhaustive study about fleas. He agonizingly trained a good-sized flea to hop over his finger every time he said “Hup!” Then, he pulled off two of the flea’s six legs. “Hup!” he shouted, and the flea jumped over his finger. Off came two more legs. “Hup!” repeated the technician. Again, the flea jumped. Then he removed the flea’s final pair of legs.
“Hup!”
No response
“Hup!”
Still none.
The technician nodded wisely and finalized his report.
“When a flea loses all its six legs, “ he wrote, it becomes deaf.”
That’s all, folks. And have a great Christmas.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Prologue
This is the time of year little ads start appearing in Wire To Wire looking for night-watch personnel and reminding us that another foaling season is almost upon us. Mares start dropping babies on January 1, 2011 (except for a few cheaters, who have already done so) and will continue on into June. Our two mares, Dot and Wanda—officially known as Cosmic Light and Fortyninejewels—are due in late March and mid-April.
January 1 is also the birthday for all thoroughbreds. Weanlings become yearlings and yearlings become two-year-olds. At the racetrack, Cosmic Song races for the first time as a three-year-old filly on January 1, if the race goes. The distance is a mile-and-70-yards. This would be her last race at Calder until April, as Gulfstream opens January 5th. For those of you who asked, no, the horses do not move to Gulfstream—they stay at Calder, are transported a short distance across town the morning of their races and vanned back to Calder after they’ve had time to cool out. Gulfstream has a horse population of its own in Hallandale and another large contingent at Palm Meadows Training Center about an hour north, just off the turnpike. Obviously, the horse pool is larger for the Gulfstream meet and the fields are generally larger. The purses are significantly higher for allowance races but the competition is much tougher.
Call Me Ishmael
After the Subterranean Circus was open for awhile, we decided we needed a better façade. The building was made of grey concrete blocks, none too glamorous for a psychedelic shop, so we decided the first step forward would be to paint the front of the building with red day-glo paint. And then to hang a few 48-inch blacklights outside to illuminate the wall. It worked out great, the place was brilliant at night.
Then one day, Ishmael showed up. This guy was right out of a Donovan song, mellow yellow, with a gigantic grin constantly plastered on his face. He had probably started taking LSD five years ago and made it a part of his daily breakfast. The sappy hippie girls loved him, me not so much. He brought in some paintings he wanted us to sell on commission but they were embarrassingly bad and I couldn’t do it. He was a good technician, however, so I offered to let him paint a verse from an Incredible String Band song on the front of the building in Old English letters. Stoned as he was, it took him weeks to finish, but when he did it looked great. It said:
May the long-time sun shine upon you,
All love surround you,
And the pure light within you
Guide you all the way on.
That was our wish for everyone who passed or entered our doors. And that is our wish for all of you out there now.
That Old Gang Of Mine (Part II)
The Subterranean Circus ownership, being a fairly liberal crew, decided it would only be appropriate if we hired a few minority employees. We got a two-for-one deal with Ricky Childs, a gay black fellow who fit in just peachy in our clothing store, Silver City. Ricky was maybe 5-5 on a good day, weighed just under a hundred pounds counting his 2-pound afro, but he had style. With a very thin clothing budget, he managed to mix and match like a champ and dressed better than anybody in the store. When I interviewed him, I asked him what was his first consideration when trying to match a customer with an outfit.
“Their complexion,” he stated, surprisingly.
“You’re hired,” I told him. And Ricky stayed hired for 18 years, through thick and thin, the longest-lived of any employee we ever had.
“Is Ricky working today?” the customers would call and ask.
“No, he’ll be in tomorrow. Can I help you?”
“Oh, no—I’ll just come in tomorrow.”
Many of them trusted Ricky so much they’d call and ask him to pick out whatever suited them, often hundreds of dollars worth of stuff, and they’d be down to pick it up. He made everyone feel unique. If something came in that was perfect for a particular customer, he’d call them and they’d be in to get it. Everyone trusted him to make them look good and he almost never made a mistake.
Ricky being gay, of course, exposed us some segments of society we might otherwise have missed out on. Like the drag-queen segment. These people had major beauty contests at local watering holes and they were serious about them, which led to some agonizing moments watching size-32 drag queens trying to squeeze themselves into your nice size 9 dresses. Not to mention the perspiration odor problems. But they spent money like it was water so we let Ricky have his drag queens. One day Ricky approached me, serious in demeanor.
“Bill,” he said, “we should sponsor Patricia in the ‘Miss Florida’ contest, we definitely should.”
“Um…what’s the ‘Miss Florida’ contest? You know what….never mind, I don’t need to know. What’s it going to cost us?”
“Just the dresses and accessories. And some cosmetics. I’ll do her up.”
“Fine.”
“Oh, and Bill…?” I didn’t like that pregnant pause.
“Yes?”
“Could you come, do you think? The store owner should support his candidate.”
So I went. And I must say, I have never attended another event which compared. The gaiety, the passion, the drag-queens trash-talking and threatening one another. And tearing one another’s clothes, if they got the opportunity. This led to at least one big fight and several smaller skirmishes, which you certainly don’t get to see in the other Miss Florida contest, I bet. Or maybe you do. But anyway, after much posing and posturing and counting of votes, our girl Patricia won. I hate to admit it but I got excited, temporarily. Ricky, of course, was on Cloud 9.
“This is incredible, Bill. This means Patricia moves on to National! She’s going to be in all the gay newspapers and magazines and so is the store. The next thing we have to do is….”
“Hey, Ricky….”
“Yes?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
Ricky Visits The Big City
As you know from earlier columns, we visited New York City twice a year to purchase our inventory at The National Boutique Show. After years of listening to Ricky's begging, we finally decided to take him along. And Ricky, who took fashion more seriously than anybody (“It’s my life!”), was very helpful choosing styles and colors. He showed up every morning promptly at 8 for the trip to the McAlpin. But when the show was over at 5, Ricky disappeared. The rest of us went to dinner, a play, a movie, the Village, but Ricky had discovered Christopher Street and the gay bars. He found a tall cowboy he temporarily fell in love with, bemoaning to Harolyn his concerns that the cowboy might not be equally smitten. It was an exhausting week for Ricky, a soap opera of Fashion, Excitement, Love-at-first-sight, Doubts, Remorse, all in the glamour of The Big City. Harolyn was worn out in her role as counselor. We went back to New York a million more times in future years, continuing our ritual each Summer and Winter, buying clothes, traipsing the town, constantly discovering Manhattan.
Sad to report, never again did we take Ricky.
Bad Boys, Bad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do? (Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?)
We told you in last week’s column that the Circus was never robbed. By that we meant never robbed while it was open. After closing was another matter, thus the earlier depiction of our formidable anti-burglar device, The Incredible Bonker, described in the Great Garcia section. And, of course, there were the shoplifters.
In Silver City, the teen-aged high-school girls were the worst. Especially when it came to bathing suits. Fortunately, they weren’t particularly talented at their trade and Ricky almost always caught them, leaving them crying and pleading not to be arrested. Mostly, we just scared them and let them go, forbidding them to return. We did have a young employee named Patty Bert, however, who, despite her gentle demeanor and quiet beauty, took it personally when someone tried to steal something on her watch and, well, so to speak, sort of beat the shit out of the poor unsuspecting thief. You’ve got to watch those quiet girls (she could also throw a football 30 yards in the air).
One day, a rowdy group of hippie thieves tried to make off with a couple of shirts. Their leader, in possession of the stolen items, tried to run out the door, which was blocked by me. He raised a can of mace and squirted it right in my face. Fortunately, I was wearing glasses or things would have been much worse. But I will tell you something now about the use of mace. If you ever squirt it at anyone, make sure they don’t catch you. My right arm went around this guy's waist, and I grabbed his long hair with my left hand, all this with eyes closed. I pulled him to the ground and damn near beat the guy to death, so enraged by the stinging, burning mace, which makes your skin feel like it’s bubbling. And once it’s on your clothes, every time you move another little pocket of the stuff puffs up into your face and starts the aggravation all over again. The guy tried to jump up and escape, but I retackled him in the parking lot and held him on the ground. His friends yelled and threatened, but by now Bob Sturm, my counterman, had a large pipe in his hands and a fierce look on his face. They backed off, but kept screaming.
“You’re going to kill him!” one said. And it occurred to me that they were right. I grudgingly stopped belting the guy.
About this time, Louie Bliziotes, my Real Estate man and the absolute picture of a gentleman, pulled up in his car and rolled down the window.
“Hi Bill,” he said without batting an eye. “I came to talk to you about something, but I can see you’re busy. I’ll come back later.” And he was on his way. Eventually, the cops arrived and hauled the miscreants off. I was back to normal by the next day.
Ted And Bill’s Excellent Adventure. Not.
Ted Hanson rented space in back of the Circus for his record store. Being a great fan of the roadrunner, he called it Acme Records. Ted had a ton of business, mainly due to his great personality (amazing what a couple of joints will do for you first thing in the morning) and the personal service he offered customers. Nice as he was, however, Ted had played football in high school so when a trio of 16-year-old black kids decided to make off with a few of his albums, he went right out the door after them. And so did I. We caught them across University Avenue in the Central Florida Office Supply parking lot.
Ted ripped the coat off the first guy, who fled, the record albums falling to the ground. I knocked the second guy into some newspaper machines, which promptly proceeded to fall on him. While I bent over to drag him up from the ground, the third kid came back and hit me in the back of the head with something that left modest depressions in my skull. They all ran off, but the abandoned coat had the leader’s ID inside and they were all arrested, eventually escaping with mere probation. I returned to the store looking like Jesus Christ after the Crowning With Thorns. Harolyn looked at the blood coming down my face and was horrified.
“You should see the other guy,” I told her.
Ted looked over at me and shook his head.
“We have to plan less dangerous recreational activities,” he said. No joke.
And you thought retail store people led dull lives.
Old College Magazine Joke (from 1966):
Principal: “Johnny!!! What in the world are you doing walking around like that?”
Johnny: “Well, I asked the teacher if I could go to the bathroom and she told me to stick it out ‘til lunch.”
That’s all, folks….
This is the time of year little ads start appearing in Wire To Wire looking for night-watch personnel and reminding us that another foaling season is almost upon us. Mares start dropping babies on January 1, 2011 (except for a few cheaters, who have already done so) and will continue on into June. Our two mares, Dot and Wanda—officially known as Cosmic Light and Fortyninejewels—are due in late March and mid-April.
January 1 is also the birthday for all thoroughbreds. Weanlings become yearlings and yearlings become two-year-olds. At the racetrack, Cosmic Song races for the first time as a three-year-old filly on January 1, if the race goes. The distance is a mile-and-70-yards. This would be her last race at Calder until April, as Gulfstream opens January 5th. For those of you who asked, no, the horses do not move to Gulfstream—they stay at Calder, are transported a short distance across town the morning of their races and vanned back to Calder after they’ve had time to cool out. Gulfstream has a horse population of its own in Hallandale and another large contingent at Palm Meadows Training Center about an hour north, just off the turnpike. Obviously, the horse pool is larger for the Gulfstream meet and the fields are generally larger. The purses are significantly higher for allowance races but the competition is much tougher.
Call Me Ishmael
After the Subterranean Circus was open for awhile, we decided we needed a better façade. The building was made of grey concrete blocks, none too glamorous for a psychedelic shop, so we decided the first step forward would be to paint the front of the building with red day-glo paint. And then to hang a few 48-inch blacklights outside to illuminate the wall. It worked out great, the place was brilliant at night.
Then one day, Ishmael showed up. This guy was right out of a Donovan song, mellow yellow, with a gigantic grin constantly plastered on his face. He had probably started taking LSD five years ago and made it a part of his daily breakfast. The sappy hippie girls loved him, me not so much. He brought in some paintings he wanted us to sell on commission but they were embarrassingly bad and I couldn’t do it. He was a good technician, however, so I offered to let him paint a verse from an Incredible String Band song on the front of the building in Old English letters. Stoned as he was, it took him weeks to finish, but when he did it looked great. It said:
May the long-time sun shine upon you,
All love surround you,
And the pure light within you
Guide you all the way on.
That was our wish for everyone who passed or entered our doors. And that is our wish for all of you out there now.
That Old Gang Of Mine (Part II)
The Subterranean Circus ownership, being a fairly liberal crew, decided it would only be appropriate if we hired a few minority employees. We got a two-for-one deal with Ricky Childs, a gay black fellow who fit in just peachy in our clothing store, Silver City. Ricky was maybe 5-5 on a good day, weighed just under a hundred pounds counting his 2-pound afro, but he had style. With a very thin clothing budget, he managed to mix and match like a champ and dressed better than anybody in the store. When I interviewed him, I asked him what was his first consideration when trying to match a customer with an outfit.
“Their complexion,” he stated, surprisingly.
“You’re hired,” I told him. And Ricky stayed hired for 18 years, through thick and thin, the longest-lived of any employee we ever had.
“Is Ricky working today?” the customers would call and ask.
“No, he’ll be in tomorrow. Can I help you?”
“Oh, no—I’ll just come in tomorrow.”
Many of them trusted Ricky so much they’d call and ask him to pick out whatever suited them, often hundreds of dollars worth of stuff, and they’d be down to pick it up. He made everyone feel unique. If something came in that was perfect for a particular customer, he’d call them and they’d be in to get it. Everyone trusted him to make them look good and he almost never made a mistake.
Ricky being gay, of course, exposed us some segments of society we might otherwise have missed out on. Like the drag-queen segment. These people had major beauty contests at local watering holes and they were serious about them, which led to some agonizing moments watching size-32 drag queens trying to squeeze themselves into your nice size 9 dresses. Not to mention the perspiration odor problems. But they spent money like it was water so we let Ricky have his drag queens. One day Ricky approached me, serious in demeanor.
“Bill,” he said, “we should sponsor Patricia in the ‘Miss Florida’ contest, we definitely should.”
“Um…what’s the ‘Miss Florida’ contest? You know what….never mind, I don’t need to know. What’s it going to cost us?”
“Just the dresses and accessories. And some cosmetics. I’ll do her up.”
“Fine.”
“Oh, and Bill…?” I didn’t like that pregnant pause.
“Yes?”
“Could you come, do you think? The store owner should support his candidate.”
So I went. And I must say, I have never attended another event which compared. The gaiety, the passion, the drag-queens trash-talking and threatening one another. And tearing one another’s clothes, if they got the opportunity. This led to at least one big fight and several smaller skirmishes, which you certainly don’t get to see in the other Miss Florida contest, I bet. Or maybe you do. But anyway, after much posing and posturing and counting of votes, our girl Patricia won. I hate to admit it but I got excited, temporarily. Ricky, of course, was on Cloud 9.
“This is incredible, Bill. This means Patricia moves on to National! She’s going to be in all the gay newspapers and magazines and so is the store. The next thing we have to do is….”
“Hey, Ricky….”
“Yes?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
Ricky Visits The Big City
As you know from earlier columns, we visited New York City twice a year to purchase our inventory at The National Boutique Show. After years of listening to Ricky's begging, we finally decided to take him along. And Ricky, who took fashion more seriously than anybody (“It’s my life!”), was very helpful choosing styles and colors. He showed up every morning promptly at 8 for the trip to the McAlpin. But when the show was over at 5, Ricky disappeared. The rest of us went to dinner, a play, a movie, the Village, but Ricky had discovered Christopher Street and the gay bars. He found a tall cowboy he temporarily fell in love with, bemoaning to Harolyn his concerns that the cowboy might not be equally smitten. It was an exhausting week for Ricky, a soap opera of Fashion, Excitement, Love-at-first-sight, Doubts, Remorse, all in the glamour of The Big City. Harolyn was worn out in her role as counselor. We went back to New York a million more times in future years, continuing our ritual each Summer and Winter, buying clothes, traipsing the town, constantly discovering Manhattan.
Sad to report, never again did we take Ricky.
Bad Boys, Bad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do? (Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?)
We told you in last week’s column that the Circus was never robbed. By that we meant never robbed while it was open. After closing was another matter, thus the earlier depiction of our formidable anti-burglar device, The Incredible Bonker, described in the Great Garcia section. And, of course, there were the shoplifters.
In Silver City, the teen-aged high-school girls were the worst. Especially when it came to bathing suits. Fortunately, they weren’t particularly talented at their trade and Ricky almost always caught them, leaving them crying and pleading not to be arrested. Mostly, we just scared them and let them go, forbidding them to return. We did have a young employee named Patty Bert, however, who, despite her gentle demeanor and quiet beauty, took it personally when someone tried to steal something on her watch and, well, so to speak, sort of beat the shit out of the poor unsuspecting thief. You’ve got to watch those quiet girls (she could also throw a football 30 yards in the air).
One day, a rowdy group of hippie thieves tried to make off with a couple of shirts. Their leader, in possession of the stolen items, tried to run out the door, which was blocked by me. He raised a can of mace and squirted it right in my face. Fortunately, I was wearing glasses or things would have been much worse. But I will tell you something now about the use of mace. If you ever squirt it at anyone, make sure they don’t catch you. My right arm went around this guy's waist, and I grabbed his long hair with my left hand, all this with eyes closed. I pulled him to the ground and damn near beat the guy to death, so enraged by the stinging, burning mace, which makes your skin feel like it’s bubbling. And once it’s on your clothes, every time you move another little pocket of the stuff puffs up into your face and starts the aggravation all over again. The guy tried to jump up and escape, but I retackled him in the parking lot and held him on the ground. His friends yelled and threatened, but by now Bob Sturm, my counterman, had a large pipe in his hands and a fierce look on his face. They backed off, but kept screaming.
“You’re going to kill him!” one said. And it occurred to me that they were right. I grudgingly stopped belting the guy.
About this time, Louie Bliziotes, my Real Estate man and the absolute picture of a gentleman, pulled up in his car and rolled down the window.
“Hi Bill,” he said without batting an eye. “I came to talk to you about something, but I can see you’re busy. I’ll come back later.” And he was on his way. Eventually, the cops arrived and hauled the miscreants off. I was back to normal by the next day.
Ted And Bill’s Excellent Adventure. Not.
Ted Hanson rented space in back of the Circus for his record store. Being a great fan of the roadrunner, he called it Acme Records. Ted had a ton of business, mainly due to his great personality (amazing what a couple of joints will do for you first thing in the morning) and the personal service he offered customers. Nice as he was, however, Ted had played football in high school so when a trio of 16-year-old black kids decided to make off with a few of his albums, he went right out the door after them. And so did I. We caught them across University Avenue in the Central Florida Office Supply parking lot.
Ted ripped the coat off the first guy, who fled, the record albums falling to the ground. I knocked the second guy into some newspaper machines, which promptly proceeded to fall on him. While I bent over to drag him up from the ground, the third kid came back and hit me in the back of the head with something that left modest depressions in my skull. They all ran off, but the abandoned coat had the leader’s ID inside and they were all arrested, eventually escaping with mere probation. I returned to the store looking like Jesus Christ after the Crowning With Thorns. Harolyn looked at the blood coming down my face and was horrified.
“You should see the other guy,” I told her.
Ted looked over at me and shook his head.
“We have to plan less dangerous recreational activities,” he said. No joke.
And you thought retail store people led dull lives.
Old College Magazine Joke (from 1966):
Principal: “Johnny!!! What in the world are you doing walking around like that?”
Johnny: “Well, I asked the teacher if I could go to the bathroom and she told me to stick it out ‘til lunch.”
That’s all, folks….
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Racing Report
Cosmic Song returns to the races tomorrow (Dec. 3) in a six-furlong allowance race at Calder. She’s third in the morning line, with odds of 4-1. The favorite is Cristal Jak, who finished second in Cosmic Song’s last race. Cristal Jak is 5-2. Amazingly, for the third time in a row Cosmic Song gets the rail. This is a winnable race in which positioning is key. Cosmic Song comes from off the pace and will need room to navigate but she has a big shot in here.
What I’ve Learned: Melatonin + Valerian = Sleep
When Siobhan and I visited Alaska a few years ago, I wondered if the abundance of night light would inhibit sleeping (in July, it was dark from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.). No problem. Close the blinds and sleep normally. For some reason, however, when we returned I couldn’t get to sleep. And when I did, waking at all hours would be common. I thought this was only a transitional problem but it continued for several days. I wasn’t willing to take Ambien or Nyquil on a daily basis, I needed something benign with no side effects. So I tried melatonin. Our bodies produce melatonin naturally, but production decreases as we age. Production of lots of things decreases as we age. I think nature is trying to tell us something. Something like ‘Get lost, fogies!’ So we must find clever devices to deter nature’s ambitions.
Melatonin (I get it from the Vitamin Shop—the brand is Source Naturals) comes in 1, 2 or 3 gram tablets. I use the 1 gram and have a few at bedside in case I wake up at night and need another one, which rarely happens. If I wake up later than two, I don’t take an additional tablet because I don’t want to have difficulty waking up in the morning.
Valerian derives from a root and seems to smooth out your sleeping. You still dream, but the dreams don’t seem to be as disruptive. This is just my own personal experience, I doubt the manufacturers make any claims of dream enhancement. By the way, if anybody knows of a product that insures you don’t lose your car in a dream, let me know. Happens to me all the time. Anyway, Valerian is also available from the same retailer. The brand I use is Solaray and the amount per capsule is 470 mg. Both of these resources are harmless and have been approved by my doctors. If you’re considering using them, you might feel better if you check with your own. But don’t be put off by flimsy reasons to avoid. And, if you check melatonin and valerian for possible side effects, your computer will help you find them because there are possible side effects to everything. After several years of use, I haven’t had any. Except, every Thursday I have this strange compulsion to produce a little blog column. Hopefully, this won’t happen to you.
Allen Morgan
A few years ago, our new neighbors, Barbara and Scott, advised Siobhan that Barbara’s dad, Allen (“Don’t call me ‘Al’”) Morgan would be moving up from Martin County to join them. Since both Scott and Barbara worked all day, they expected Allen to get a little lonely and asked us to check in on him every now and then. Sure. Why not?
Well, it turns out we liked Allen even better than Barbara and Scott. We started taking him to the movies with us on Friday nights. And, since he liked sports, we brought him along to an occasional volleyball, baseball or softball game at UF. Allen has now become a devoted follower of Florida’s #1 ranked volleyball team and 3-time College World Series participant softball team. Last year, we got him a signed softball from his favorite player, home run hitter Francesca Enea, for his 85th birthday. You’d think it was the Hope Diamond.
Allen now has his own mobile home on the acreage. He originally lived with Scott and Barbara, but one day Barbara came home unexpectedly with a colleague and ran into Allen walking around the house naked. What the hell—you see one little naked old man, you’ve seen them all. But anyway, Allen blew town for awhile, going back to Martin County to help a friend sell real estate. And when he returned, he brought his trailer. Now he can walk around nakedly to his heart’s content. We always make sure to knock loudly before entering, though.
Allen was born on April 26, 1925 in Illinois. I am glad to point this out because it makes him about my only acquaintance who is older than me. (Excepting, of course, the invincible Dominic, who has been looking more vincible of late).
Allen has an interesting background. After graduating from high school, he spent a year at Furman, then joined the U.S Army Corp of Engineers and worked on the Burma Road. Allen says he never needs to go on any cruises because the one he was on to get to Burma took forty lifetimes. After the service, he went to Georgia Tech on the G.I. Bill and graduated from there, eventually going into sales and getting married twice, each time for 25 years. His marital “shelf life” is 25 years, no more, no less, says Allen.
Mr. Morgan is a lifetime registered Republican and you know how we feel about them. But he sorely disliked George Bush, isn’t too enamoured of wars (having spent time in one of them, unlike most of our current politicians), especially when those wars are removing kajillions of dollars from our coffers. He even thinks Barack Obama is trying to do a good job, despite the impediments. I don’t think we’ll get him to change parties, though. Eighty five years of Republican is hard to overcome.
Anyway, we’re glad Allen is our neighbor. He is a true gentleman. When he is ill and you bring him a pot of soup, he will tell you it’s the best pot of soup he’s had in his life. When you remember his birthday or perform some other elementary service, you will get a card in the mail expressing appreciation. All in all, Allen is an exemplary compadre, and we’d wish you had one in your neighborhood. Except for that naked stuff.
Danny
The first few times I went out with Harolyn Locklair, she neglected to mention her son, Danny. This is a little trick single mothers pull. Once you get to liking them a lot, they spring the kid on you. But I didn’t really mind. What the hell—in for a dime, in for a dollar. So Rick and Lynn Nihlen took me down to Miami in their Volkswagen van and we loaded up Harolyn, Danny and all their earthly belongings and drove back to Gainesville.
First night, I heard Danny crying. On his way to the bathroom, he had gotten lost in my sprawling two-story house. I went out and found him and took him back to his room.
“We don’t cry about stuff like this,” I told him. “If you need something, just call me, even if it’s late. We’ll fix it. But no crying.” And Danny, who had previously been primarily raised by a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, never cried again.
Danny had a normal childhood, particularly for a kid whose parents owned a headshop (which was cool with the other kids, but dubious to a few parents). He knew he was loved and was given the amount of independence he could tolerate without abusing it. We went to his kiddie league football games, where he was more a toiler than trapeze artist. He played on the offensive line and made an all-star team that travelled to New Orleans. Later, in high-school, he was on the wrestling team. He always got behind early and was always gaining late. He won his share. If they had added another period, he’d have won them all. He practiced his holds on me. With great difficulty, I’d get out.
“Bill, you cheat!” Danny would say.
“What—bending your fingers back is cheating? The TV wrestlers do that kind of stuff all the time.”
“Yeah, well this is real wrestling. That TV stuff is fake.”
Gee, he used to like it. Anyway, we had little trouble with Danny. There was that time when he and a friend burned down an unoccupied hovel in the woods, but what kid doesn’t? And then, in high school I did come home one Halloween (no, not that Halloween) and found Danny and a friend sitting at my dining room table accompanied by Mr. Policeman.
“What’s all this?” I wanted to know. The boys looked sheepish.
“Well, Mr. Killeen, your son here was shooting off firecrackers in the woods over by P. K. Yonge and somebody thought they heard shots so they called us in. We had a lot of patrol cars over there for a good while before we found them.”
I knew he’d leave sooner if he expected retribution to be exacted, so I inferred there’d be hell to pay. But boys will play with firecrackers, you know. It’s indigenous to the species. The firecrackers weren’t particularly dangerous, so I told the kids to be more careful.
“Don’t bring any more cops home, Danny. You never know what they might find.”
Danny’s Big Accident
After I split up with Harolyn, Danny was on his own when I had to leave town on buying trips, etc. The store being right next door to our house, he hung out there some nights. Various employees looked in on him periodically. Other nights, he stayed with friends. During this period, Danny learned to drive. It was an uneventful progression. He drove as well as the next person. On very rare occasions, since we had only one car, an Oldsmobile Toronado, which I really liked, I let him drive somewhere by himself.
“What if I ever have an accident, Bill, and trash your car?”
“Well, Danny, in that case you should emerge from the car, dust yourself off and keep walking. Don’t bother to come home.”
“For real?”
“Yep.”
Arriving back in Gainesville from New York, I looked for Danny at the airport. He was supposed to pick me up, but no Danny. If you’ve ever been to the Gainesville airport, you know that it’s not too hard to see everyone in the building. Eventually, I saw one of my employees, Layne Hayford. Layne, having children of her own, was very maternal.
“Well, he had an accident with your car and he was afraid to come.”
“Is he alright? What happened?”
“Well, supposedly a guy went through a stop sign and hit him on the right front fender. His friend Gary got a little shook up, but he’s alright, too. Anyway, Bill, I think ya gotta cut him a little slack.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when I went to get him, he was walking off down the road. He said you told him if he ever trashed your car he should just keep walking and not come home.”
You had to laugh. I reassured Layne that I would probably keep him. She called him and told him he was safe. Danny told me he would work in the store until the bill was paid off, but I don’t think he counted on $600 of fender repairs. Anyway, Danny didn’t drive so much for awhile.
After graduating from GHS, Danny had no desire to continue school. He knew what he wanted to do. He joined his mother in Ocala and began working in the horse business. Hell, he already knew how to feed and care for horses (he even held the mares when I brought the stallion up for breeding), drive the tractor, and perform all the day-to-day minutiae of the farm. He got into the training side of the business, working his way up to assistant trainer for Joe Orseno’s stable in New Jersey. He got his trainer’s license, went to Texas and trained a string of horses for Hilmer Schmidt, for whom he had earlier managed a farm in Ocala. He found a perfect wife in Laurie Lewis, of the expansive Marion Lewis thoroughbred family, to whom he’s been married for 16 of his 45 years.
Danny called me the Father’s Day after my heart attack. Awkward as it was for him to say these things, he wanted me to know he loved me and appreciated the way he was brought up. He told me I had been a good role model.
I don’t know. Hard-working guy, not afraid to travel the country in pursuit of his goals, never in trouble, married once and to the same woman for 16 years. He’s a pretty good role model himself.
That’s all, folks…..
Cosmic Song returns to the races tomorrow (Dec. 3) in a six-furlong allowance race at Calder. She’s third in the morning line, with odds of 4-1. The favorite is Cristal Jak, who finished second in Cosmic Song’s last race. Cristal Jak is 5-2. Amazingly, for the third time in a row Cosmic Song gets the rail. This is a winnable race in which positioning is key. Cosmic Song comes from off the pace and will need room to navigate but she has a big shot in here.
What I’ve Learned: Melatonin + Valerian = Sleep
When Siobhan and I visited Alaska a few years ago, I wondered if the abundance of night light would inhibit sleeping (in July, it was dark from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.). No problem. Close the blinds and sleep normally. For some reason, however, when we returned I couldn’t get to sleep. And when I did, waking at all hours would be common. I thought this was only a transitional problem but it continued for several days. I wasn’t willing to take Ambien or Nyquil on a daily basis, I needed something benign with no side effects. So I tried melatonin. Our bodies produce melatonin naturally, but production decreases as we age. Production of lots of things decreases as we age. I think nature is trying to tell us something. Something like ‘Get lost, fogies!’ So we must find clever devices to deter nature’s ambitions.
Melatonin (I get it from the Vitamin Shop—the brand is Source Naturals) comes in 1, 2 or 3 gram tablets. I use the 1 gram and have a few at bedside in case I wake up at night and need another one, which rarely happens. If I wake up later than two, I don’t take an additional tablet because I don’t want to have difficulty waking up in the morning.
Valerian derives from a root and seems to smooth out your sleeping. You still dream, but the dreams don’t seem to be as disruptive. This is just my own personal experience, I doubt the manufacturers make any claims of dream enhancement. By the way, if anybody knows of a product that insures you don’t lose your car in a dream, let me know. Happens to me all the time. Anyway, Valerian is also available from the same retailer. The brand I use is Solaray and the amount per capsule is 470 mg. Both of these resources are harmless and have been approved by my doctors. If you’re considering using them, you might feel better if you check with your own. But don’t be put off by flimsy reasons to avoid. And, if you check melatonin and valerian for possible side effects, your computer will help you find them because there are possible side effects to everything. After several years of use, I haven’t had any. Except, every Thursday I have this strange compulsion to produce a little blog column. Hopefully, this won’t happen to you.
Allen Morgan
A few years ago, our new neighbors, Barbara and Scott, advised Siobhan that Barbara’s dad, Allen (“Don’t call me ‘Al’”) Morgan would be moving up from Martin County to join them. Since both Scott and Barbara worked all day, they expected Allen to get a little lonely and asked us to check in on him every now and then. Sure. Why not?
Well, it turns out we liked Allen even better than Barbara and Scott. We started taking him to the movies with us on Friday nights. And, since he liked sports, we brought him along to an occasional volleyball, baseball or softball game at UF. Allen has now become a devoted follower of Florida’s #1 ranked volleyball team and 3-time College World Series participant softball team. Last year, we got him a signed softball from his favorite player, home run hitter Francesca Enea, for his 85th birthday. You’d think it was the Hope Diamond.
Allen now has his own mobile home on the acreage. He originally lived with Scott and Barbara, but one day Barbara came home unexpectedly with a colleague and ran into Allen walking around the house naked. What the hell—you see one little naked old man, you’ve seen them all. But anyway, Allen blew town for awhile, going back to Martin County to help a friend sell real estate. And when he returned, he brought his trailer. Now he can walk around nakedly to his heart’s content. We always make sure to knock loudly before entering, though.
Allen was born on April 26, 1925 in Illinois. I am glad to point this out because it makes him about my only acquaintance who is older than me. (Excepting, of course, the invincible Dominic, who has been looking more vincible of late).
Allen has an interesting background. After graduating from high school, he spent a year at Furman, then joined the U.S Army Corp of Engineers and worked on the Burma Road. Allen says he never needs to go on any cruises because the one he was on to get to Burma took forty lifetimes. After the service, he went to Georgia Tech on the G.I. Bill and graduated from there, eventually going into sales and getting married twice, each time for 25 years. His marital “shelf life” is 25 years, no more, no less, says Allen.
Mr. Morgan is a lifetime registered Republican and you know how we feel about them. But he sorely disliked George Bush, isn’t too enamoured of wars (having spent time in one of them, unlike most of our current politicians), especially when those wars are removing kajillions of dollars from our coffers. He even thinks Barack Obama is trying to do a good job, despite the impediments. I don’t think we’ll get him to change parties, though. Eighty five years of Republican is hard to overcome.
Anyway, we’re glad Allen is our neighbor. He is a true gentleman. When he is ill and you bring him a pot of soup, he will tell you it’s the best pot of soup he’s had in his life. When you remember his birthday or perform some other elementary service, you will get a card in the mail expressing appreciation. All in all, Allen is an exemplary compadre, and we’d wish you had one in your neighborhood. Except for that naked stuff.
Danny
The first few times I went out with Harolyn Locklair, she neglected to mention her son, Danny. This is a little trick single mothers pull. Once you get to liking them a lot, they spring the kid on you. But I didn’t really mind. What the hell—in for a dime, in for a dollar. So Rick and Lynn Nihlen took me down to Miami in their Volkswagen van and we loaded up Harolyn, Danny and all their earthly belongings and drove back to Gainesville.
First night, I heard Danny crying. On his way to the bathroom, he had gotten lost in my sprawling two-story house. I went out and found him and took him back to his room.
“We don’t cry about stuff like this,” I told him. “If you need something, just call me, even if it’s late. We’ll fix it. But no crying.” And Danny, who had previously been primarily raised by a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, never cried again.
Danny had a normal childhood, particularly for a kid whose parents owned a headshop (which was cool with the other kids, but dubious to a few parents). He knew he was loved and was given the amount of independence he could tolerate without abusing it. We went to his kiddie league football games, where he was more a toiler than trapeze artist. He played on the offensive line and made an all-star team that travelled to New Orleans. Later, in high-school, he was on the wrestling team. He always got behind early and was always gaining late. He won his share. If they had added another period, he’d have won them all. He practiced his holds on me. With great difficulty, I’d get out.
“Bill, you cheat!” Danny would say.
“What—bending your fingers back is cheating? The TV wrestlers do that kind of stuff all the time.”
“Yeah, well this is real wrestling. That TV stuff is fake.”
Gee, he used to like it. Anyway, we had little trouble with Danny. There was that time when he and a friend burned down an unoccupied hovel in the woods, but what kid doesn’t? And then, in high school I did come home one Halloween (no, not that Halloween) and found Danny and a friend sitting at my dining room table accompanied by Mr. Policeman.
“What’s all this?” I wanted to know. The boys looked sheepish.
“Well, Mr. Killeen, your son here was shooting off firecrackers in the woods over by P. K. Yonge and somebody thought they heard shots so they called us in. We had a lot of patrol cars over there for a good while before we found them.”
I knew he’d leave sooner if he expected retribution to be exacted, so I inferred there’d be hell to pay. But boys will play with firecrackers, you know. It’s indigenous to the species. The firecrackers weren’t particularly dangerous, so I told the kids to be more careful.
“Don’t bring any more cops home, Danny. You never know what they might find.”
Danny’s Big Accident
After I split up with Harolyn, Danny was on his own when I had to leave town on buying trips, etc. The store being right next door to our house, he hung out there some nights. Various employees looked in on him periodically. Other nights, he stayed with friends. During this period, Danny learned to drive. It was an uneventful progression. He drove as well as the next person. On very rare occasions, since we had only one car, an Oldsmobile Toronado, which I really liked, I let him drive somewhere by himself.
“What if I ever have an accident, Bill, and trash your car?”
“Well, Danny, in that case you should emerge from the car, dust yourself off and keep walking. Don’t bother to come home.”
“For real?”
“Yep.”
Arriving back in Gainesville from New York, I looked for Danny at the airport. He was supposed to pick me up, but no Danny. If you’ve ever been to the Gainesville airport, you know that it’s not too hard to see everyone in the building. Eventually, I saw one of my employees, Layne Hayford. Layne, having children of her own, was very maternal.
“Well, he had an accident with your car and he was afraid to come.”
“Is he alright? What happened?”
“Well, supposedly a guy went through a stop sign and hit him on the right front fender. His friend Gary got a little shook up, but he’s alright, too. Anyway, Bill, I think ya gotta cut him a little slack.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when I went to get him, he was walking off down the road. He said you told him if he ever trashed your car he should just keep walking and not come home.”
You had to laugh. I reassured Layne that I would probably keep him. She called him and told him he was safe. Danny told me he would work in the store until the bill was paid off, but I don’t think he counted on $600 of fender repairs. Anyway, Danny didn’t drive so much for awhile.
After graduating from GHS, Danny had no desire to continue school. He knew what he wanted to do. He joined his mother in Ocala and began working in the horse business. Hell, he already knew how to feed and care for horses (he even held the mares when I brought the stallion up for breeding), drive the tractor, and perform all the day-to-day minutiae of the farm. He got into the training side of the business, working his way up to assistant trainer for Joe Orseno’s stable in New Jersey. He got his trainer’s license, went to Texas and trained a string of horses for Hilmer Schmidt, for whom he had earlier managed a farm in Ocala. He found a perfect wife in Laurie Lewis, of the expansive Marion Lewis thoroughbred family, to whom he’s been married for 16 of his 45 years.
Danny called me the Father’s Day after my heart attack. Awkward as it was for him to say these things, he wanted me to know he loved me and appreciated the way he was brought up. He told me I had been a good role model.
I don’t know. Hard-working guy, not afraid to travel the country in pursuit of his goals, never in trouble, married once and to the same woman for 16 years. He’s a pretty good role model himself.
That’s all, folks…..
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Racing Report
Cosmic Song, always close on the rail, moved to the leader at the eighth pole, was blocked and taken up, moved outside that one and finished well, placing third. While she was encumbered, the winner was blasting down the stretch outside horses for a facile victory. That’s what happens sometimes when you’re the rail horse in a 5 ½ furlong sprint. We’ll go further next time. Meanwhile, Sharon needs to come up with a prayer for blocking on the rail. And that reminds us:
Alleluia, Alleluia, Let The Golden Anthem Rise!
For all those who have been asking, Pat Brown called the other day and reported that her tumors were diminishing. She’s celebrating with a trip to New Mexico. This does not mean everybody should put away their magical implements of healing, which are obviously working. Either that or Pat has good doctors.
And how about a good thought for poor old Torrey Johnson, recuperating up in Pennsylvania from not only hip replacement surgery, but also double-knee replacement. Ah, for the days when everybody we knew had the measles.
Fairfield, Benevolent Home of the Turkeys
Those turkeys in the photo up in the corner are just four of the two dozen or more who live on our and the surrounding properties. They’re here year-round, probably aware that Siobhan watches over them, casting an ill glance at anyone who would do them harm. Outlanders are aware of our burgeoning turkey population in this area and every so often some fool asks Siobhan if would be okay to come out and do some hunting. This is like asking Barack Obama if it would be okay to bring some Klan friends to the White House for soup and a sandwich. Nobody ever asks twice.
The Battle For The Intergalactic Cup
Irana keeps badgering me to tell you all about the great struggles for the Intergalactic Cup, but really, what is there to say?
The Intergalactic Cup, which looked like a gigantic milk jug, was the trophy given the winning croquet team in battles between the Subterranean Circus and the University of Florida Architecture Department, held on what Danny Levine called “The Old Golden Land,” some exotic acreage I once owned on Newberry Road a few miles west of Gainesville. It really would be “The Old Golden Land” if I owned it now, having quintupled in value since the early seventies.
Anyway, on many Sundays, great crowds of croquet fans and camp followers made their ways out to The Old Golden Land to view these great battles. The tension was so great, it often required drug-taking and drinking of ceremonial nectars to calm the nerves of the crowd. Other people (like, for instance, Irana) paid scant attention to the croquet match, preferring instead to drive their yellow motorcycles through the forests, crashing into trees willy-nilly. There were also reports of people consummating relationships deep into the wilderness, but irresponsible tales of lewdness are not appreciated here. It could also be mentioned that people occasionally forgot things when they left the property, a lot of times their clothes.
The Architecture Department was led by Professor Leland George Shaw, a merry bon vivant and world traveler of the first stripe. I never thought much about it at the time, but Lee, though married to the cute and tiny Suzie, often seemed to have an eye for the ladies. And Suzie was a little flirty herself. Save this useful information for later.
At the time, I was involved with Claudine (of earlier blogs’ LSD fame), ace photographer and sexual rascal. Eventually, Claudine departed for a summer in Europe and I took up with others. Years passed. Then one day, Rose Coward, one of my employees at the Circus (and a would-be matchmaker if ever there was one), looked out the window and saw a girl approaching.
“Bill!” she exclaimed, breathlessly. “There’s a woman coming down the street who is exactly the type of girl you should be dating.” I looked. It was Claudine. She came bearing gifts of photography. We reminisced, to Rose’s delight. Then she decided I should meet her for dinner that night at the Shaws in Micanopy. What the hell, why not?
Dinner, as always with Leland and company, was exotic. Nice music. Good wine. Great meal. Eventually, Claudine and I were left alone to converse and, I assumed, get friendlier. After a short period of banter and Claudine’s apparent discomfort with any increasing friendliness, she excused herself for a moment. This seemed odd. After all, what was I here for? I soon found out, naïve fool that I was. Suzie entered the room and sat down to talk. I thought she was holding Claudine’s place. I soon found out this was not the case.
“Wow,” said Suzie. “I needed that.” Obviously, there had been sexual drudgery in the family and arrangements had been made by the other principals to rectify the situation, no need to advise old Bill.
Gee, I thought. I’m only a pawn in their game. Somehow, this sad revelation did not prevent me from smiling all the way home. My first (and last) experience with wife swapping. Or something like it.
What I’ve Learned: Sometimes You Have To Remove The Hook And Throw ‘Em Back In
After ten years of marriage to Harolyn, we split up in 1980. Danny remained with me to finish high school in Gainesville. I wanted to think about the failure of the marriage and my contributions to that so I avoided dating for about seven months. Then one night, when I and several of the Circus crew were out gallivanting around Gainesville bars, I somehow wound up with Dani Hughes, 19. I was 41 at the time so you can tell this would not be a popular result. Nonetheless, we got along great. We played racquetball together (and with Danny), listened in amazement to each other’s music, went to the beach, etc. Just like normal closer-in-age couples. Nobody seemed to care. Well….except Danny, who had a bit of a crush on my new friend (and, for that matter, any other girl with a significant rack).
“Bill,” said Danny. “You’re 41. And Dani is 19.”
“Yeah,” I said, “and?....”
“Well, I dunnow….”
“Danny, it’s not like she’d be dating you, y’know….”
“Yeh, I guess.”
Danny grew to accept the relationship, particularly when Dani drove him and his friends all over the place when I was working or when we showed up at his high-school wrestling matches and she was the loudest person in the stands.
“Dani’s cool,” he said. And Dani was cool. Even when we had our horrible episode at Washington Oaks State Park.
This place is located just south of Marineland, on both sides of the highway. On one side is a very nice garden and on the other side is the beach. It’s not the best beach, but it’s very scenic, much of it covered by unusual (and large) black rock, big enough to lay out on—or in, the erosive persistence of the waves having hollowed out the centers of some of the rocks. The place is usually almost uninhabited and a photographer’s delight.
Having had a couple of drinks while meandering along the beach, we eventually found ourselves naked in the waves and having a great old time. Until we heard, in the distance, a loud whistle. What the hell could that be? Well, it could be a man calling his dog or it could be a cop with binoculars standing on the rocks, peering out at lawbreakers. Guess which one it was?
I left Dani out in the waves while I trudged in to get her a towel.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing out here?” asked the cop. “This is a public place!”
“Well, you’re the only public I see,” I told him. “And you could barely see us without the binoculars.”
I went out and gave Dani her towel and we both walked back in. The cop let us follow him back to the station in our own car, oblivious to the fact we’d been drinking. He continued to act appalled.
“Jesus!” he said (jealously, if you ask me). “You’re 41 years old, just like me! This girl is only 19!”
“Oh, come on,” I told him, “you mean you’ve never had anything going on with a young girl?” You can always nail guys with this one.
“Well, there was that time in Germany….” He smiled. I had him right where I wanted him.
“Look, we’ll pay whatever fines there are. I just don’t want this to be a bad experience for her. Let’s make it fun, as much it’s possible.” And the cop did. By the time Dani left, she was bouncy and smiling about her Great Experience. I was less ebullient, being lighter in the wallet by $400, but glad to see her unruffled by it all. The drive home was full of laughter and outrage.
We had been living together for few months when Dani approached me with a letter.
“My brother wants me to spend some time with him and his family in Palm Desert (Cal.),” she told me. “I always wanted to go out there and see him.”
“You gotta do it,” I told her.
“But, you know….I’ve never left a relationship when it was going well.”
“Dani, we don’t talk a lot about it, but I’m 41. You’re 19. My father died when he was 63. My mother was 38.”
“Oh, Bill—you’ll never die!”
“But just on the off chance….”
So Dani went to California and ports beyond. We didn’t hear from her for awhile. Then, two years later, she came back to Gainesville to show off her new husband. He was trying hard, but, truth be told, he was a little bit of a jerk. But then again, what can you expect? You don’t get Prince Charming every time ‘round.
That’s all, folks….
Cosmic Song, always close on the rail, moved to the leader at the eighth pole, was blocked and taken up, moved outside that one and finished well, placing third. While she was encumbered, the winner was blasting down the stretch outside horses for a facile victory. That’s what happens sometimes when you’re the rail horse in a 5 ½ furlong sprint. We’ll go further next time. Meanwhile, Sharon needs to come up with a prayer for blocking on the rail. And that reminds us:
Alleluia, Alleluia, Let The Golden Anthem Rise!
For all those who have been asking, Pat Brown called the other day and reported that her tumors were diminishing. She’s celebrating with a trip to New Mexico. This does not mean everybody should put away their magical implements of healing, which are obviously working. Either that or Pat has good doctors.
And how about a good thought for poor old Torrey Johnson, recuperating up in Pennsylvania from not only hip replacement surgery, but also double-knee replacement. Ah, for the days when everybody we knew had the measles.
Fairfield, Benevolent Home of the Turkeys
Those turkeys in the photo up in the corner are just four of the two dozen or more who live on our and the surrounding properties. They’re here year-round, probably aware that Siobhan watches over them, casting an ill glance at anyone who would do them harm. Outlanders are aware of our burgeoning turkey population in this area and every so often some fool asks Siobhan if would be okay to come out and do some hunting. This is like asking Barack Obama if it would be okay to bring some Klan friends to the White House for soup and a sandwich. Nobody ever asks twice.
The Battle For The Intergalactic Cup
Irana keeps badgering me to tell you all about the great struggles for the Intergalactic Cup, but really, what is there to say?
The Intergalactic Cup, which looked like a gigantic milk jug, was the trophy given the winning croquet team in battles between the Subterranean Circus and the University of Florida Architecture Department, held on what Danny Levine called “The Old Golden Land,” some exotic acreage I once owned on Newberry Road a few miles west of Gainesville. It really would be “The Old Golden Land” if I owned it now, having quintupled in value since the early seventies.
Anyway, on many Sundays, great crowds of croquet fans and camp followers made their ways out to The Old Golden Land to view these great battles. The tension was so great, it often required drug-taking and drinking of ceremonial nectars to calm the nerves of the crowd. Other people (like, for instance, Irana) paid scant attention to the croquet match, preferring instead to drive their yellow motorcycles through the forests, crashing into trees willy-nilly. There were also reports of people consummating relationships deep into the wilderness, but irresponsible tales of lewdness are not appreciated here. It could also be mentioned that people occasionally forgot things when they left the property, a lot of times their clothes.
The Architecture Department was led by Professor Leland George Shaw, a merry bon vivant and world traveler of the first stripe. I never thought much about it at the time, but Lee, though married to the cute and tiny Suzie, often seemed to have an eye for the ladies. And Suzie was a little flirty herself. Save this useful information for later.
At the time, I was involved with Claudine (of earlier blogs’ LSD fame), ace photographer and sexual rascal. Eventually, Claudine departed for a summer in Europe and I took up with others. Years passed. Then one day, Rose Coward, one of my employees at the Circus (and a would-be matchmaker if ever there was one), looked out the window and saw a girl approaching.
“Bill!” she exclaimed, breathlessly. “There’s a woman coming down the street who is exactly the type of girl you should be dating.” I looked. It was Claudine. She came bearing gifts of photography. We reminisced, to Rose’s delight. Then she decided I should meet her for dinner that night at the Shaws in Micanopy. What the hell, why not?
Dinner, as always with Leland and company, was exotic. Nice music. Good wine. Great meal. Eventually, Claudine and I were left alone to converse and, I assumed, get friendlier. After a short period of banter and Claudine’s apparent discomfort with any increasing friendliness, she excused herself for a moment. This seemed odd. After all, what was I here for? I soon found out, naïve fool that I was. Suzie entered the room and sat down to talk. I thought she was holding Claudine’s place. I soon found out this was not the case.
“Wow,” said Suzie. “I needed that.” Obviously, there had been sexual drudgery in the family and arrangements had been made by the other principals to rectify the situation, no need to advise old Bill.
Gee, I thought. I’m only a pawn in their game. Somehow, this sad revelation did not prevent me from smiling all the way home. My first (and last) experience with wife swapping. Or something like it.
What I’ve Learned: Sometimes You Have To Remove The Hook And Throw ‘Em Back In
After ten years of marriage to Harolyn, we split up in 1980. Danny remained with me to finish high school in Gainesville. I wanted to think about the failure of the marriage and my contributions to that so I avoided dating for about seven months. Then one night, when I and several of the Circus crew were out gallivanting around Gainesville bars, I somehow wound up with Dani Hughes, 19. I was 41 at the time so you can tell this would not be a popular result. Nonetheless, we got along great. We played racquetball together (and with Danny), listened in amazement to each other’s music, went to the beach, etc. Just like normal closer-in-age couples. Nobody seemed to care. Well….except Danny, who had a bit of a crush on my new friend (and, for that matter, any other girl with a significant rack).
“Bill,” said Danny. “You’re 41. And Dani is 19.”
“Yeah,” I said, “and?....”
“Well, I dunnow….”
“Danny, it’s not like she’d be dating you, y’know….”
“Yeh, I guess.”
Danny grew to accept the relationship, particularly when Dani drove him and his friends all over the place when I was working or when we showed up at his high-school wrestling matches and she was the loudest person in the stands.
“Dani’s cool,” he said. And Dani was cool. Even when we had our horrible episode at Washington Oaks State Park.
This place is located just south of Marineland, on both sides of the highway. On one side is a very nice garden and on the other side is the beach. It’s not the best beach, but it’s very scenic, much of it covered by unusual (and large) black rock, big enough to lay out on—or in, the erosive persistence of the waves having hollowed out the centers of some of the rocks. The place is usually almost uninhabited and a photographer’s delight.
Having had a couple of drinks while meandering along the beach, we eventually found ourselves naked in the waves and having a great old time. Until we heard, in the distance, a loud whistle. What the hell could that be? Well, it could be a man calling his dog or it could be a cop with binoculars standing on the rocks, peering out at lawbreakers. Guess which one it was?
I left Dani out in the waves while I trudged in to get her a towel.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing out here?” asked the cop. “This is a public place!”
“Well, you’re the only public I see,” I told him. “And you could barely see us without the binoculars.”
I went out and gave Dani her towel and we both walked back in. The cop let us follow him back to the station in our own car, oblivious to the fact we’d been drinking. He continued to act appalled.
“Jesus!” he said (jealously, if you ask me). “You’re 41 years old, just like me! This girl is only 19!”
“Oh, come on,” I told him, “you mean you’ve never had anything going on with a young girl?” You can always nail guys with this one.
“Well, there was that time in Germany….” He smiled. I had him right where I wanted him.
“Look, we’ll pay whatever fines there are. I just don’t want this to be a bad experience for her. Let’s make it fun, as much it’s possible.” And the cop did. By the time Dani left, she was bouncy and smiling about her Great Experience. I was less ebullient, being lighter in the wallet by $400, but glad to see her unruffled by it all. The drive home was full of laughter and outrage.
We had been living together for few months when Dani approached me with a letter.
“My brother wants me to spend some time with him and his family in Palm Desert (Cal.),” she told me. “I always wanted to go out there and see him.”
“You gotta do it,” I told her.
“But, you know….I’ve never left a relationship when it was going well.”
“Dani, we don’t talk a lot about it, but I’m 41. You’re 19. My father died when he was 63. My mother was 38.”
“Oh, Bill—you’ll never die!”
“But just on the off chance….”
So Dani went to California and ports beyond. We didn’t hear from her for awhile. Then, two years later, she came back to Gainesville to show off her new husband. He was trying hard, but, truth be told, he was a little bit of a jerk. But then again, what can you expect? You don’t get Prince Charming every time ‘round.
That’s all, folks….
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Prologue
The carefree years of frolicking in the fields will soon come to an abrupt end for our yearlings, Juno, Elf and Wilson. One scary day, a trailer will pull up just outside their stalls and they will be herded inside, grumbling and unhappy, to be transported across town to the training facility where they will spend the next few months learning to be racehorses.
First, they will be circled in both directions in their stalls and, later, a round pen. Soon, a saddle will be added, and, eventually, a rider. In a month’s time, they will be going to the training track. As time passes, they will pick up the pace, learn to gallop inside and outside another horse, then between horses. They will learn to change leads at specific times. After about three months, they will be asked for a two-minute-lick pace (travelling each eighth of a mile in fifteen seconds) for a distance of two furlongs, then three. When this is accomplished satisfactorily a few times, they will move on to “working” a quarter mile, then three-eighths. This is your first opportunity to assess the horse’s speed but you must be careful not to discern “fool’s gold.” A lot of people, some with fast stopwatches, are prone to self-deception at this stage. You must be realistic about your animals. And even if you have a horse working three-eighths of a mile in thirty-six seconds at the farm, there’s a long way to go. Unless you’re a Quarter Horse, nobody wins races at three-eighths of a mile. When they get to the track, the horses will work a half-mile, then five-eighths, perhaps longer before they run. Even then, good work horses do not always convert their promise in the morning to the racetrack in the afternoon, where they find themselves banging around the track at breakneck speeds with a bunch of like-minded brutes.
We visit them at least once a week and marvel at their progress. We get excited when some empty-headed rider tells us how good they are (you’d think we’d learn). After about 120 days of this, barring no impediments, they will go to Calder, the racetrack in Miami where they will compete, usually within six weeks of arrival. So keep your fingers crossed for Juno, Elf and Wilson. There are many perils to be conquered or avoided between the starting gate and the finish. A horse has to be talented—and brave—to make it. Our hopes hang in the balance.
The Last Time I Saw Janis
Somebody asked me the other day if I ever ran into Janis again after she became famous. Yes….once. In the summer of 1969, as the Subterranean Circus continued to thrive, some of our employees were getting excited about the first Atlanta Pop Festival, a three-day rock extravaganza featuring a mind-boggling array of talent. We should rent a booth, they advised, and sell stuff up there to the kajillions of concertgoers. Nobody would be in Gainesville anyway. So we did.
I was not at Woodstock, which is just as well, because this place was overwhelming enough. The traffic was incomprehensible. If you somehow got in, you were not getting out without waiting through frustrating hours of immobility. Dick North and Pamme Brewer went with me, plus a couple of underlings to man the sales tent. I don’t remember the exact number of attendees, but 100,000 was probably a gross understatement. Real drugs were rampant and fake drugs even more so. Medical tents were set up to attend to heat or overdose victims and they stayed quite busy. The music was non-stop, loud and often great. The weather remained good.
Eventually, Dick North came up to me. “Janis is back there,” he said, pointing to the security area behind the stage. “Are you going to try to see her?”
I pondered the problem. The security area was bound by a Very High Fence and patrolled by Very Mean Bikers. Nonetheless, the perimeter was considerable, and if you chose the right location at the right time, there weren’t enough security personnel to nab you. I picked out a location near the stage, where security was absorbed by the performers, and jumped over. Now where the hell was Janis?
I saw her walking by herself and headed in my general direction. I greeted her with the classic question uttered by all past acquaintances when encountering now-famous people: “Hi Janis—remember me?”
She squinted the suspicious squint of the performer who more often than not does not remember you and doesn’t want to, then broke into a big smile and came running up. She actually picked me up off the ground and swung me in a small arc. “Killeen, you old motherf**er! What are you doing here? How’d you get in?”
“Well, I came to see you. And I had to climb a Very High Fence, guarded by Very Mean Bikers.”
“Good thing they didn’t catch you. They’re even meaner than you think.”
“Well, do you remember all your discussions back in Austin with Powell and Lannie about who would ‘make it’? I guess it’s fair to say you made it.”
“Shit, Killeen—I’m a f**king corporation! The only thing that’s scary is that this business picks you up and spits you out like nobody’s business. So I’m gonna get what I can while I can before they boot me out. Hey, do you ever see any of the old Austin crowd?”
“Well, Lieuen moved to Tallahassee for awhile. And Pat Brown came through Gainesville, spent a few days.”
“I saw Shelton last year. He’s still the same, turned into a big comic-book honcho. I’m gonna get him to draw an album cover. Gotta take care of the old pals. Hey, you should come out with us tonight—we’re going to Atlanta to raise hell.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got a booth back there. And I came up here with someone.”
“You’ve always got a girlfriend, Killeen.”
“Well listen, Janis, I just wanted to see you and tell you how happy I was for your success.”
“Aw shucks, man. I’m just a little old hippy girl from Port Arthur,” she said, walking off across the field. Then she stopped, turned and winked. “World-famous, though!” And she cackled off into the distance.
What I’ve Learned: (2) Stay Away From Crazy People
When I was in the first-grade, we had a little kid named Timmy Cunningham in the class who couldn’t say still. Timmy was always catching grief from the nuns because he seemed physically incapable of sitting down and following instructions.
“Timothy Cunningham!” roared Sister Joseph Ambrose, “Do not stand on your seat!” Or run through the classroom. Or talk indiscriminately in the middle of a lesson. Or throw your crayons at your neighbor.
They threatened Timmy with dire consequences. They called in Timmy’s parents. They stood Timmy in the corner. They sent Timmy to Sister Superior’s office. All for naught. They couldn’t get Timmy to calm down. One day, in the midst of hollering and great consternation, Timmy climbed up on a windowsill, bid everyone a fond adieu and jumped out the window. Okay, it was only on the first floor, but still. We never saw Timmy anymore after that. I asked my mother about it. “Timmy is crazy,” she said. Oh. Crazy. What’s that?
There was a woman in our neighborhood named Grace Dineen. As you passed her house on Dorchester Street, you could often hear her playing the piano and beautifully so. At one time, she had been a piano teacher. You could also look up at her front windows and see signs posted therein written in various colors of crayon.
“Beware—bitches and doos!” one of them said. I wasn’t about to utter any questions of my mother that required me to say the word “bitches” but I thought “doos” might be alright.
“Ma—what’s a doo?” I asked. “Grace Dineen says we should beware.”
“Grace Dineen is crazy,” my mother told me.
“Like Timmy Cunningham?”
“No….worse.”
Okay then, there were different degrees of crazy. As bad as Timmy was, he didn’t dress in rags, wear a paper hat or keep a hundred cats, like Grace Dineen did. It seems that the number of cats owned has a direct relationship to the degree of craziness exhibited. Anyway, my mother had instructions for me regarding all this. “Stay away from crazy people,” she said. “Something bad could happen to you.” And there is absolutely no doubt I could have saved myself a lot of aggravation if I had followed this sage advice.
When I was in college, I foolishly decided to pledge a fraternity. Nobody sane can live in a dorm forever, right? The president of this fraternity was a sadist named Ernie Walker, who proved to my satisfaction that a crazy person can and did get elected to a position of significance. Among other things Ernie did to the pledge class, one night he and a half-dozen other members overpowered three of us, wrapped blankets around us, drove us several miles into the country and dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. It was about ten o’clock at night.
I kept reassuring myself (and the others, who remained unconvinced) that nobody would leave us out in such a potentially dangerous situation all night. We were supposed to find our ways back, but had little to go on. We were marooned on a country road with no buildings and no idea what direction to go in. We finally discovered a darkened farmhouse (about midnight) and foolishly crept in, hoping for help. The first thing I saw was a shotgun leaning against the kitchen wall. The farmer and his wife were sleeping in the adjacent bedroom. We got the hell out of there and reconsidered entering future farmhouses. Dogs barked at us, straining at their fences as we made our ways down the road, following a faint glow in the sky. Eventually, we went to sleep in a wheat field. The farmer found us the next day and offered us a ride back to town for a dollar. Best dollar I ever spent. Next time I spoke to my mother I told her she was right.
“About what?” she asked.
“Crazy people,” I told her.
“Oh,” she said.
One night, I came home from the Circus at about 10 p.m. I usually left the house door unlocked since it was right next door to the business and I went back and forth. When I walked into the house, I saw a shabby-looking character sitting in my recliner watching television. My 9-year-old stepson, Danny, was asleep on the floor and our 100-pound Doberman, Baron, was lying on top of him, staring fixedly at the intruder. Baron was wired tight and looked like he might leap on the guy at any moment.
I started hollering at the guy, asked him what the hell he was doing there and told him to get out forthwith.
“Well, I woulda left already he said, except for one thing,” he whined.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Him,” he said, nodding at Baron, afraid even to move his arm enough to point. About then, Danny woke up. “What’s going on?” he wanted to know. I dragged the guy, who was afraid to move, up from the chair and out the door.
“Thanks, man” he said. “I didn’t think I was going to get out of there alive.”
I went back inside. Danny was astounded. He looked to me for guidance.
“Stay away from crazy people,” I told him. “Something bad could happen to you.”
The Craziest Person Of All
Robert Kovalczek was a regular customer at the Subterranean Circus. He came in all the time, was friendly and spent a good bit of money. Robert had been in Viet Nam and had not tolerated it well. He was a heavy drinker after having been a heavy coke user after having been a heavy meth head. Robert needed one crutch or another to make it through life. He had reached a point where, when his government check rolled in, he just took it over and gave it to Dan Ianarelli at Dan’s Beverages to take care of his bill. Then he decided to stop drinking. Just like that. This is not something most people can do. Shortly after embarking on this course, he came into the store a little on edge.
“Bill,” he said, “I’ve got all kinds of creatures in my house. They’re climbing up the walls and coming out of the floor.”
“Richard, you’ve got DT’s. You need to go to a clinic.”
“No, I’m not imagining it—they’re really there.”
“Have you ever seen them before—when you were drinking?”
“Well, no.”
Richard went home and came back the next day. The creatures were still there, but not so bad, he said. But even worse, people were trying to break into his house. I knew this wasn’t the case, he was just paranoid. He went home and came back the next day.
“Bill, I need you to come out to my house. There are footprints outside my bathroom window and there’s paint off the wall where they’ve tried to pry the window open. I’m not kidding, somebody’s trying to get in.”
I foolishly agreed to go to Robert’s house with him to assay the situation. I figured I’d be able to explain to him what was going on, which I expected to be nothing, and put him more at ease. What a dumb idea. There’s no reasoning with crazy people.
I looked at the ground outside his bathroom window. There were no footprints. I looked at the paint. It had worn off long ago. I went inside the house to find Richard. I turned a corner to find him standing there holding a shotgun on me.
“There are people who are trying to get me,” Richard spit out, angrily. “And I think you’re one of them!”
This was a definite ‘oh-oh’ moment, but I was as mad as I was worried. I decided valor was the better part of discretion.
“I can’t believe you, Richard,” I said, angrily, moving toward him. “I’m the only person you could find who would come out here to help you and this is how you treat me? Give me that gun,” I demanded, taking it from him, complaining all the while of this great breach of friendship. I took the thing outside and locked it in the trunk of my car, only then reflecting on the possibilities of a different outcome.
“I’m sorry,” Richard Kovalczek said.
“It’s just as much my fault, Richard,” I told him. “I didn’t listen when my mother warned me there’d be days like this.”
The carefree years of frolicking in the fields will soon come to an abrupt end for our yearlings, Juno, Elf and Wilson. One scary day, a trailer will pull up just outside their stalls and they will be herded inside, grumbling and unhappy, to be transported across town to the training facility where they will spend the next few months learning to be racehorses.
First, they will be circled in both directions in their stalls and, later, a round pen. Soon, a saddle will be added, and, eventually, a rider. In a month’s time, they will be going to the training track. As time passes, they will pick up the pace, learn to gallop inside and outside another horse, then between horses. They will learn to change leads at specific times. After about three months, they will be asked for a two-minute-lick pace (travelling each eighth of a mile in fifteen seconds) for a distance of two furlongs, then three. When this is accomplished satisfactorily a few times, they will move on to “working” a quarter mile, then three-eighths. This is your first opportunity to assess the horse’s speed but you must be careful not to discern “fool’s gold.” A lot of people, some with fast stopwatches, are prone to self-deception at this stage. You must be realistic about your animals. And even if you have a horse working three-eighths of a mile in thirty-six seconds at the farm, there’s a long way to go. Unless you’re a Quarter Horse, nobody wins races at three-eighths of a mile. When they get to the track, the horses will work a half-mile, then five-eighths, perhaps longer before they run. Even then, good work horses do not always convert their promise in the morning to the racetrack in the afternoon, where they find themselves banging around the track at breakneck speeds with a bunch of like-minded brutes.
We visit them at least once a week and marvel at their progress. We get excited when some empty-headed rider tells us how good they are (you’d think we’d learn). After about 120 days of this, barring no impediments, they will go to Calder, the racetrack in Miami where they will compete, usually within six weeks of arrival. So keep your fingers crossed for Juno, Elf and Wilson. There are many perils to be conquered or avoided between the starting gate and the finish. A horse has to be talented—and brave—to make it. Our hopes hang in the balance.
The Last Time I Saw Janis
Somebody asked me the other day if I ever ran into Janis again after she became famous. Yes….once. In the summer of 1969, as the Subterranean Circus continued to thrive, some of our employees were getting excited about the first Atlanta Pop Festival, a three-day rock extravaganza featuring a mind-boggling array of talent. We should rent a booth, they advised, and sell stuff up there to the kajillions of concertgoers. Nobody would be in Gainesville anyway. So we did.
I was not at Woodstock, which is just as well, because this place was overwhelming enough. The traffic was incomprehensible. If you somehow got in, you were not getting out without waiting through frustrating hours of immobility. Dick North and Pamme Brewer went with me, plus a couple of underlings to man the sales tent. I don’t remember the exact number of attendees, but 100,000 was probably a gross understatement. Real drugs were rampant and fake drugs even more so. Medical tents were set up to attend to heat or overdose victims and they stayed quite busy. The music was non-stop, loud and often great. The weather remained good.
Eventually, Dick North came up to me. “Janis is back there,” he said, pointing to the security area behind the stage. “Are you going to try to see her?”
I pondered the problem. The security area was bound by a Very High Fence and patrolled by Very Mean Bikers. Nonetheless, the perimeter was considerable, and if you chose the right location at the right time, there weren’t enough security personnel to nab you. I picked out a location near the stage, where security was absorbed by the performers, and jumped over. Now where the hell was Janis?
I saw her walking by herself and headed in my general direction. I greeted her with the classic question uttered by all past acquaintances when encountering now-famous people: “Hi Janis—remember me?”
She squinted the suspicious squint of the performer who more often than not does not remember you and doesn’t want to, then broke into a big smile and came running up. She actually picked me up off the ground and swung me in a small arc. “Killeen, you old motherf**er! What are you doing here? How’d you get in?”
“Well, I came to see you. And I had to climb a Very High Fence, guarded by Very Mean Bikers.”
“Good thing they didn’t catch you. They’re even meaner than you think.”
“Well, do you remember all your discussions back in Austin with Powell and Lannie about who would ‘make it’? I guess it’s fair to say you made it.”
“Shit, Killeen—I’m a f**king corporation! The only thing that’s scary is that this business picks you up and spits you out like nobody’s business. So I’m gonna get what I can while I can before they boot me out. Hey, do you ever see any of the old Austin crowd?”
“Well, Lieuen moved to Tallahassee for awhile. And Pat Brown came through Gainesville, spent a few days.”
“I saw Shelton last year. He’s still the same, turned into a big comic-book honcho. I’m gonna get him to draw an album cover. Gotta take care of the old pals. Hey, you should come out with us tonight—we’re going to Atlanta to raise hell.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got a booth back there. And I came up here with someone.”
“You’ve always got a girlfriend, Killeen.”
“Well listen, Janis, I just wanted to see you and tell you how happy I was for your success.”
“Aw shucks, man. I’m just a little old hippy girl from Port Arthur,” she said, walking off across the field. Then she stopped, turned and winked. “World-famous, though!” And she cackled off into the distance.
What I’ve Learned: (2) Stay Away From Crazy People
When I was in the first-grade, we had a little kid named Timmy Cunningham in the class who couldn’t say still. Timmy was always catching grief from the nuns because he seemed physically incapable of sitting down and following instructions.
“Timothy Cunningham!” roared Sister Joseph Ambrose, “Do not stand on your seat!” Or run through the classroom. Or talk indiscriminately in the middle of a lesson. Or throw your crayons at your neighbor.
They threatened Timmy with dire consequences. They called in Timmy’s parents. They stood Timmy in the corner. They sent Timmy to Sister Superior’s office. All for naught. They couldn’t get Timmy to calm down. One day, in the midst of hollering and great consternation, Timmy climbed up on a windowsill, bid everyone a fond adieu and jumped out the window. Okay, it was only on the first floor, but still. We never saw Timmy anymore after that. I asked my mother about it. “Timmy is crazy,” she said. Oh. Crazy. What’s that?
There was a woman in our neighborhood named Grace Dineen. As you passed her house on Dorchester Street, you could often hear her playing the piano and beautifully so. At one time, she had been a piano teacher. You could also look up at her front windows and see signs posted therein written in various colors of crayon.
“Beware—bitches and doos!” one of them said. I wasn’t about to utter any questions of my mother that required me to say the word “bitches” but I thought “doos” might be alright.
“Ma—what’s a doo?” I asked. “Grace Dineen says we should beware.”
“Grace Dineen is crazy,” my mother told me.
“Like Timmy Cunningham?”
“No….worse.”
Okay then, there were different degrees of crazy. As bad as Timmy was, he didn’t dress in rags, wear a paper hat or keep a hundred cats, like Grace Dineen did. It seems that the number of cats owned has a direct relationship to the degree of craziness exhibited. Anyway, my mother had instructions for me regarding all this. “Stay away from crazy people,” she said. “Something bad could happen to you.” And there is absolutely no doubt I could have saved myself a lot of aggravation if I had followed this sage advice.
When I was in college, I foolishly decided to pledge a fraternity. Nobody sane can live in a dorm forever, right? The president of this fraternity was a sadist named Ernie Walker, who proved to my satisfaction that a crazy person can and did get elected to a position of significance. Among other things Ernie did to the pledge class, one night he and a half-dozen other members overpowered three of us, wrapped blankets around us, drove us several miles into the country and dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. It was about ten o’clock at night.
I kept reassuring myself (and the others, who remained unconvinced) that nobody would leave us out in such a potentially dangerous situation all night. We were supposed to find our ways back, but had little to go on. We were marooned on a country road with no buildings and no idea what direction to go in. We finally discovered a darkened farmhouse (about midnight) and foolishly crept in, hoping for help. The first thing I saw was a shotgun leaning against the kitchen wall. The farmer and his wife were sleeping in the adjacent bedroom. We got the hell out of there and reconsidered entering future farmhouses. Dogs barked at us, straining at their fences as we made our ways down the road, following a faint glow in the sky. Eventually, we went to sleep in a wheat field. The farmer found us the next day and offered us a ride back to town for a dollar. Best dollar I ever spent. Next time I spoke to my mother I told her she was right.
“About what?” she asked.
“Crazy people,” I told her.
“Oh,” she said.
One night, I came home from the Circus at about 10 p.m. I usually left the house door unlocked since it was right next door to the business and I went back and forth. When I walked into the house, I saw a shabby-looking character sitting in my recliner watching television. My 9-year-old stepson, Danny, was asleep on the floor and our 100-pound Doberman, Baron, was lying on top of him, staring fixedly at the intruder. Baron was wired tight and looked like he might leap on the guy at any moment.
I started hollering at the guy, asked him what the hell he was doing there and told him to get out forthwith.
“Well, I woulda left already he said, except for one thing,” he whined.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Him,” he said, nodding at Baron, afraid even to move his arm enough to point. About then, Danny woke up. “What’s going on?” he wanted to know. I dragged the guy, who was afraid to move, up from the chair and out the door.
“Thanks, man” he said. “I didn’t think I was going to get out of there alive.”
I went back inside. Danny was astounded. He looked to me for guidance.
“Stay away from crazy people,” I told him. “Something bad could happen to you.”
The Craziest Person Of All
Robert Kovalczek was a regular customer at the Subterranean Circus. He came in all the time, was friendly and spent a good bit of money. Robert had been in Viet Nam and had not tolerated it well. He was a heavy drinker after having been a heavy coke user after having been a heavy meth head. Robert needed one crutch or another to make it through life. He had reached a point where, when his government check rolled in, he just took it over and gave it to Dan Ianarelli at Dan’s Beverages to take care of his bill. Then he decided to stop drinking. Just like that. This is not something most people can do. Shortly after embarking on this course, he came into the store a little on edge.
“Bill,” he said, “I’ve got all kinds of creatures in my house. They’re climbing up the walls and coming out of the floor.”
“Richard, you’ve got DT’s. You need to go to a clinic.”
“No, I’m not imagining it—they’re really there.”
“Have you ever seen them before—when you were drinking?”
“Well, no.”
Richard went home and came back the next day. The creatures were still there, but not so bad, he said. But even worse, people were trying to break into his house. I knew this wasn’t the case, he was just paranoid. He went home and came back the next day.
“Bill, I need you to come out to my house. There are footprints outside my bathroom window and there’s paint off the wall where they’ve tried to pry the window open. I’m not kidding, somebody’s trying to get in.”
I foolishly agreed to go to Robert’s house with him to assay the situation. I figured I’d be able to explain to him what was going on, which I expected to be nothing, and put him more at ease. What a dumb idea. There’s no reasoning with crazy people.
I looked at the ground outside his bathroom window. There were no footprints. I looked at the paint. It had worn off long ago. I went inside the house to find Richard. I turned a corner to find him standing there holding a shotgun on me.
“There are people who are trying to get me,” Richard spit out, angrily. “And I think you’re one of them!”
This was a definite ‘oh-oh’ moment, but I was as mad as I was worried. I decided valor was the better part of discretion.
“I can’t believe you, Richard,” I said, angrily, moving toward him. “I’m the only person you could find who would come out here to help you and this is how you treat me? Give me that gun,” I demanded, taking it from him, complaining all the while of this great breach of friendship. I took the thing outside and locked it in the trunk of my car, only then reflecting on the possibilities of a different outcome.
“I’m sorry,” Richard Kovalczek said.
“It’s just as much my fault, Richard,” I told him. “I didn’t listen when my mother warned me there’d be days like this.”
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Fighting Father Time
“Nobody gets out of this place alive.” I’m familiar with the line, I was just hoping to be the first exception. When you’re young, of course, none of this stuff bothers you….or probably even occurs to you. But when you hit thirty (at least in my case), mortality becomes at least a remote presence, stealthily moving closer. I hated becoming thirty, realizing one-third (yikes—maybe one-half) of my life had passed and the rest of it was racing along. After coming to grips with all that angst at thirty, however, I never let it bother me again. Now, at seventy, I’m stubbornly continuing on with most of my gym rituals but with one change. I seldom increase the weights anymore and I rarely increase the treadmill speed past 7 miles an hour. In the past, I might swing over a fence or jump down from a nominal height. Now, I think about potential broken bones, not that I’ve ever had one.
Before I was 55, I couldn’t gain a pound to save my life. At that age, I noticed my stomach was beginning to grow just a little. I had friends who had grown giant stomachs in very short periods of time (the ones with tiny asses were particularly repugnant) and I wasn’t going to let that happen. Siobhan bought me a 30-day gym membership at Lifetime Fitness, a gym/rehab facility owned by Marion County Regional Hospital.
“Try it for a month. If you don’t like it, quit,” she said. I’ve been going there three times a week ever since. I’ve outlasted twelve trainers, a couple dozen interns, three floor managers and countless other staff. When clients want to know how a machine works, they’re as likely to ask me as an intern. I have met people who have become friends and I have met people I would like to push down the stairs, it’s all a part of the game. I have woven Lifetime Fitness around my MWF schedule of doctor’s visits, car repairs, prescription pickups, post office visits and the like. And it’s a good thing I have, as you will discover in the next article.
What I’ve Learned
Esquire Magazine, the nation’s best monthly read, has a recurring feature called “What I’ve Learned,” which takes a prominent personality and gives him or her a page of the magazine to recite some of the more important lessons they have garnered in life so far. This is a great idea, but the problem is most of these people do not stick to the purpose of the page. In addition to the paltry few things they’ve learned, they elaborate various other likings which, while often interesting or entertaining, do not hew to the line of ‘What I’ve Learned.’ I will not falter in this regard in my collection of lessons which I will begin right now.
What I’ve Learned: (1) Exercise, Like Mighty Mouse, Will Save The Day
You can’t pick up a newspaper or magazine these days without seeing an article regarding some new, heretofore unknown benefit of exercise. It must drive the couch potatoes crazy. But the benefits of exercise are impossible to overstate. Exercise keeps my weight under 155 and my waist size 32. Exercise allowed me the endurance to climb Half-Dome in Yosemite National Park at age 65 (when I reached the top, nobody else was over 35). And exercise probably prevented me from being dead right now.
Four years ago, Siobhan and I were driving back from visiting friends at a farm in Fort McCoy, a ramshackle little town just east of Ocala. It was around noon. I had a slightly upset stomach and a minor ache in two small arcs just below the nipples on each side of my chest. I attributed the latter to overdoing my bench press a day earlier and figured it would disappear by next day. We went home, had lunch and fed the horses. The achiness remained modest but the stomach discomfort grew worse. I thought it was some variable of a gas problem, but Siobhan insisted we see my primary physician, James DeStephens, in Gainesville.
I had periods of improvement and regression, but the doctor thought it would be a good idea to have cardiac catheterization to see if anything was going on. My blood pressure and heart rate were a little high, but nothing scary. I thought I would get over it, but Siobhan wasn’t satisfied. The doctor offered to set up the cardiac cath, which, at this hour, required an overnight hospital stay, but I refused. All the warnings of heart attack I ever heard of—pain radiating down the arm, tightness in the chest, etc.—were not present. Riding back home across Payne’s Prairie, Siobhan read me the riot act and I finally agreed to have the procedure performed next morning at seven a.m.
I had a rough night, not sleeping much and clunking around the house, much sicker, but still able to take a shower while Siobhan fed the horses. By the time we reached the hospital, now 19 hours after the onset of the original symptoms, I was in Big Trouble. They put me in a wheelchair and I vomited—or tried to—continuously. They took me in ahead of the prior appointments. Dr. Daniel Van Roy, from Interventional Cardiologists in Gainesville, told Siobhan to stand by in case “decisions” had to be made.
“What decision?” Siobhan asked. “You’re the doctor—the decision is save him. I can’t just go to the corner and find another Bill.” He told her I could come out anywhere from halfway decent to oxygen-dependent to well, um….dead. Siobhan had a little over half an hour to ponder my fate. Eventually, an empty bed rolled by, which gave her a bad moment, then Dr. Van Roy.
“He’s pretty good,” Van Roy told her. "The heart attack was in the left anterior descending artery, about the worst possible place. We call this type of heart attack ‘The Widowmaker.’ Ten out of eleven people don’t survive it. We won’t know how much damage there is for awhile, but I did what you told me to. I put in a stent and saved him.” Siobhan smiled in gratitude.
I was supposed to be in ICU for a day, so I took it as a good sign when they moved me into a regular hospital room after several hours. When I was visited by Dr. Imperi, one of the partners at Interventional Cardiologists, I expressed my disappointment. All this religious exercise and I still get a heart attack.
“Without being in the kind of shape you are,” he said, “you’re dead now. Your heart wouldn’t tolerate a 19 hour siege. You’ve probably built up co-lateral circulation which allowed you to survive.” Dr. Imperi told me my arteries were “pristine” with the exception of the blood clot which secured itself in the worst possible location. Where did that blood clot come from? There’s a strong possibility it derived from an experimental drug I had been taking as part of a University of Tennessee study on prostate cancer. I had reached a pre-cancerous condition called P.I.N. at which time I decided that rather than just let cancer take its course, it might be a good idea to do something about it. The literature on the drug, which was already being used successfully against breast cancer, warned, among other horrors, that “blood clots can result.” So could everything else under the sun—you know how those things are. I dismissed the warnings and gave greater consideration to the more immediate problem. Obviously, Dr. Imperi took me off the drug and out of the program, putting prostate considerations on hiatus. I remained in the hospital three more days and went home.
Recovery
The last day of my hospital stay, I was visited by Mary, of Cardiac Rehab. She told me my doctors wanted me to start a recovery program “as soon as possible” after my release date. I showed up the next day.
“We didn’t exactly expect you this soon,” Mary said. Then she made me sit down and listen to the sad tale, filled with bad enzymes and the like, of how awful my heart attack was.
“Your Ejection Fraction, considering your activity level, was probably 55 or 60 before the heart attack. Now it’s 25.”
I learned that during each heartbeat cycle, the heart contracts and relaxes. When your heart contracts, it ejects blood from the two pumping chambers (ventricles). When your heart relaxes, the ventricles refill with blood. No matter how forceful the contraction, it doesn’t empty all of the blood out of a ventricle. The term ‘Ejection Fraction’ refers to the percentage of blood that’s pumped out of a filled ventricle with each heartbeat. Because the left ventricle is the heart’s main pumping chamber, Ejection Fraction is usually measured only in the left ventricle (LV). A normal LV Ejection Fraction is 55 to 70 percent.
Bottom line being, take the recovery slowly, said Mary. She called the doctor, who allowed me to walk on the treadmill a little bit. As the days passed, I was allowed to walk more aggressively and to begin on a rowing machine and a stationary bike, all the while monitored by an EKG machine which picked up signals from a very heavy machine on my belt which sent out a generous web of leads to every part of me. This went on for a month. Eventually, I graduated and was allowed to return to Lifetime Fitness, although with a reduced workload. I never experienced any discomfort and, as the months passed, I gradually returned to my old routine. A month later, it was time to return to Interventional Cardiologists to see how much damage had been done. Having had no difficulties, I was cautiously optimistic.
“You have almost no permanent heart damage,” Dr. Van Roy told us. “There is a slight scar at the apex of the heart, which should present no problems. The Ejection Fraction is 55.” Somehow, despite everything, I was back to normal. Handshakes all around. Drunken revelry well into the night. Well….maybe not.
After this incident, I am a lot more prepared to jump in the car at any provocation and go to the emergency room. Once, I went for a slight bout of vertigo, which I had never had before or since. Once, I went for a kidney stone. I am not so stubborn anymore. That’s one of the wonderful benefits almost dying will give to you.
What I’ve Learned is that exercise can save your life, literally. I once wrote an exercise-and-diet screed to my friend Pat Brown (before all this happened) back when my health program was burgeoning. I didn’t hear back from Pat for quite a while. Nobody likes an evangelist, so I calmed down and haven’t said much of anything since. But I’m still on the program. Not only would I like to continue living for a while, I’d like to do it on my own terms, without many limitations. I do not want to spend my declining days in a wheelchair in the company of the droolers on the front porch of the Bide-A-Wie Nursing Home. And I don’t want to visit you there, either.
“Nobody gets out of this place alive.” I’m familiar with the line, I was just hoping to be the first exception. When you’re young, of course, none of this stuff bothers you….or probably even occurs to you. But when you hit thirty (at least in my case), mortality becomes at least a remote presence, stealthily moving closer. I hated becoming thirty, realizing one-third (yikes—maybe one-half) of my life had passed and the rest of it was racing along. After coming to grips with all that angst at thirty, however, I never let it bother me again. Now, at seventy, I’m stubbornly continuing on with most of my gym rituals but with one change. I seldom increase the weights anymore and I rarely increase the treadmill speed past 7 miles an hour. In the past, I might swing over a fence or jump down from a nominal height. Now, I think about potential broken bones, not that I’ve ever had one.
Before I was 55, I couldn’t gain a pound to save my life. At that age, I noticed my stomach was beginning to grow just a little. I had friends who had grown giant stomachs in very short periods of time (the ones with tiny asses were particularly repugnant) and I wasn’t going to let that happen. Siobhan bought me a 30-day gym membership at Lifetime Fitness, a gym/rehab facility owned by Marion County Regional Hospital.
“Try it for a month. If you don’t like it, quit,” she said. I’ve been going there three times a week ever since. I’ve outlasted twelve trainers, a couple dozen interns, three floor managers and countless other staff. When clients want to know how a machine works, they’re as likely to ask me as an intern. I have met people who have become friends and I have met people I would like to push down the stairs, it’s all a part of the game. I have woven Lifetime Fitness around my MWF schedule of doctor’s visits, car repairs, prescription pickups, post office visits and the like. And it’s a good thing I have, as you will discover in the next article.
What I’ve Learned
Esquire Magazine, the nation’s best monthly read, has a recurring feature called “What I’ve Learned,” which takes a prominent personality and gives him or her a page of the magazine to recite some of the more important lessons they have garnered in life so far. This is a great idea, but the problem is most of these people do not stick to the purpose of the page. In addition to the paltry few things they’ve learned, they elaborate various other likings which, while often interesting or entertaining, do not hew to the line of ‘What I’ve Learned.’ I will not falter in this regard in my collection of lessons which I will begin right now.
What I’ve Learned: (1) Exercise, Like Mighty Mouse, Will Save The Day
You can’t pick up a newspaper or magazine these days without seeing an article regarding some new, heretofore unknown benefit of exercise. It must drive the couch potatoes crazy. But the benefits of exercise are impossible to overstate. Exercise keeps my weight under 155 and my waist size 32. Exercise allowed me the endurance to climb Half-Dome in Yosemite National Park at age 65 (when I reached the top, nobody else was over 35). And exercise probably prevented me from being dead right now.
Four years ago, Siobhan and I were driving back from visiting friends at a farm in Fort McCoy, a ramshackle little town just east of Ocala. It was around noon. I had a slightly upset stomach and a minor ache in two small arcs just below the nipples on each side of my chest. I attributed the latter to overdoing my bench press a day earlier and figured it would disappear by next day. We went home, had lunch and fed the horses. The achiness remained modest but the stomach discomfort grew worse. I thought it was some variable of a gas problem, but Siobhan insisted we see my primary physician, James DeStephens, in Gainesville.
I had periods of improvement and regression, but the doctor thought it would be a good idea to have cardiac catheterization to see if anything was going on. My blood pressure and heart rate were a little high, but nothing scary. I thought I would get over it, but Siobhan wasn’t satisfied. The doctor offered to set up the cardiac cath, which, at this hour, required an overnight hospital stay, but I refused. All the warnings of heart attack I ever heard of—pain radiating down the arm, tightness in the chest, etc.—were not present. Riding back home across Payne’s Prairie, Siobhan read me the riot act and I finally agreed to have the procedure performed next morning at seven a.m.
I had a rough night, not sleeping much and clunking around the house, much sicker, but still able to take a shower while Siobhan fed the horses. By the time we reached the hospital, now 19 hours after the onset of the original symptoms, I was in Big Trouble. They put me in a wheelchair and I vomited—or tried to—continuously. They took me in ahead of the prior appointments. Dr. Daniel Van Roy, from Interventional Cardiologists in Gainesville, told Siobhan to stand by in case “decisions” had to be made.
“What decision?” Siobhan asked. “You’re the doctor—the decision is save him. I can’t just go to the corner and find another Bill.” He told her I could come out anywhere from halfway decent to oxygen-dependent to well, um….dead. Siobhan had a little over half an hour to ponder my fate. Eventually, an empty bed rolled by, which gave her a bad moment, then Dr. Van Roy.
“He’s pretty good,” Van Roy told her. "The heart attack was in the left anterior descending artery, about the worst possible place. We call this type of heart attack ‘The Widowmaker.’ Ten out of eleven people don’t survive it. We won’t know how much damage there is for awhile, but I did what you told me to. I put in a stent and saved him.” Siobhan smiled in gratitude.
I was supposed to be in ICU for a day, so I took it as a good sign when they moved me into a regular hospital room after several hours. When I was visited by Dr. Imperi, one of the partners at Interventional Cardiologists, I expressed my disappointment. All this religious exercise and I still get a heart attack.
“Without being in the kind of shape you are,” he said, “you’re dead now. Your heart wouldn’t tolerate a 19 hour siege. You’ve probably built up co-lateral circulation which allowed you to survive.” Dr. Imperi told me my arteries were “pristine” with the exception of the blood clot which secured itself in the worst possible location. Where did that blood clot come from? There’s a strong possibility it derived from an experimental drug I had been taking as part of a University of Tennessee study on prostate cancer. I had reached a pre-cancerous condition called P.I.N. at which time I decided that rather than just let cancer take its course, it might be a good idea to do something about it. The literature on the drug, which was already being used successfully against breast cancer, warned, among other horrors, that “blood clots can result.” So could everything else under the sun—you know how those things are. I dismissed the warnings and gave greater consideration to the more immediate problem. Obviously, Dr. Imperi took me off the drug and out of the program, putting prostate considerations on hiatus. I remained in the hospital three more days and went home.
Recovery
The last day of my hospital stay, I was visited by Mary, of Cardiac Rehab. She told me my doctors wanted me to start a recovery program “as soon as possible” after my release date. I showed up the next day.
“We didn’t exactly expect you this soon,” Mary said. Then she made me sit down and listen to the sad tale, filled with bad enzymes and the like, of how awful my heart attack was.
“Your Ejection Fraction, considering your activity level, was probably 55 or 60 before the heart attack. Now it’s 25.”
I learned that during each heartbeat cycle, the heart contracts and relaxes. When your heart contracts, it ejects blood from the two pumping chambers (ventricles). When your heart relaxes, the ventricles refill with blood. No matter how forceful the contraction, it doesn’t empty all of the blood out of a ventricle. The term ‘Ejection Fraction’ refers to the percentage of blood that’s pumped out of a filled ventricle with each heartbeat. Because the left ventricle is the heart’s main pumping chamber, Ejection Fraction is usually measured only in the left ventricle (LV). A normal LV Ejection Fraction is 55 to 70 percent.
Bottom line being, take the recovery slowly, said Mary. She called the doctor, who allowed me to walk on the treadmill a little bit. As the days passed, I was allowed to walk more aggressively and to begin on a rowing machine and a stationary bike, all the while monitored by an EKG machine which picked up signals from a very heavy machine on my belt which sent out a generous web of leads to every part of me. This went on for a month. Eventually, I graduated and was allowed to return to Lifetime Fitness, although with a reduced workload. I never experienced any discomfort and, as the months passed, I gradually returned to my old routine. A month later, it was time to return to Interventional Cardiologists to see how much damage had been done. Having had no difficulties, I was cautiously optimistic.
“You have almost no permanent heart damage,” Dr. Van Roy told us. “There is a slight scar at the apex of the heart, which should present no problems. The Ejection Fraction is 55.” Somehow, despite everything, I was back to normal. Handshakes all around. Drunken revelry well into the night. Well….maybe not.
After this incident, I am a lot more prepared to jump in the car at any provocation and go to the emergency room. Once, I went for a slight bout of vertigo, which I had never had before or since. Once, I went for a kidney stone. I am not so stubborn anymore. That’s one of the wonderful benefits almost dying will give to you.
What I’ve Learned is that exercise can save your life, literally. I once wrote an exercise-and-diet screed to my friend Pat Brown (before all this happened) back when my health program was burgeoning. I didn’t hear back from Pat for quite a while. Nobody likes an evangelist, so I calmed down and haven’t said much of anything since. But I’m still on the program. Not only would I like to continue living for a while, I’d like to do it on my own terms, without many limitations. I do not want to spend my declining days in a wheelchair in the company of the droolers on the front porch of the Bide-A-Wie Nursing Home. And I don’t want to visit you there, either.
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