Part of almost every guy’s wiring leads to the bone in his head that generates perpetual kidhood. A few somehow received only bone fragments and are old men by thirty, but I’m not interested in exceptions, only the rule. Most women’s wiring is more complex than ours and frequently shorts out at this level of operation, so I’ll leave them off the circuit board for a while, too … do not pass ‘go’, do not collect $200.  What I’m referring to are basic guy things like a fascination with flashing lights, digital readouts, switches that go click and cars that go fast!

Some guys can sit for hours, staring at row of colored lights with the same fascination a child has for the shiny new quarter his grandpa’ just gave him. Provide another row of buttons to turn them on and off, and he’s yours for life. That is, unless he prefers cars, boats, motorcycles or quad-runners. Of course, to fully appreciate this second group of attractions, you can’t have spent your youth in a semi-urban setting like, say, Brooklyn. The one in New York. My friend Dick is originally from Bay Ridge, and even though he now lives in the country, he remains more of a lights and switches kind of guy. It’s understandable … after all, he dated on a subway train instead of in the back seat of a ‘52 Ford. How is he supposed to relate?

Me? I’m a motorhead! I was brought up in a time and place where the roar of leg pipes was music, we measured horsepower in cubic inches [instead of liters like soda pop] and a V-8 was an engine, not a juice drink. To this day, one of my favorite sounds is the rumble of forty-three slightly dented steel chariots during a restart at a NASCAR race! The other is the sound of Veege whispering sweet somethings in my ear. Hey, guys are allowed to have a sensitive side too ya’ know!

Which brings me to my pet peeve at this time of year. Enter the female. Who says that Valentine’s Day is just for girls? It’s not like it’s Mothers’ Day or anything! Frankly, I’m tired of having every ad on radio, TV or in a magazine tell me to hurry up and do something nice to show how much I love ‘her’.

Apparently, I have several choices besides buying the house, setting off a chain reaction of kids, running shopping mall errands and showing up every night for dinner. For instance, I can give her a giant stuffed bear that has more hair than I do or a pair of furry leopard skin pajamas complete with hood, feet and a tail. ‘Scuse me, but just how am I supposed to fight my way through all of that … and by the way, she has a very fine tail of her own, thank you!

Then my choices widen. There are the usual flowers and candy of course … which my radio warns me are clichés to be avoided, unless of course I get her the one hundred blooms bouquet for only $29.95. Gee, that’s cheap enough so I can still afford the ginormous chocolate covered strawberries, drizzled and dipped in colored sprinkles, chopped nuts or little shards of crushed candy. But what about me … us … the guyz? I don’t hear anyone telling the girls to give us any stuff.

With all due respect to St. Valentine, Hallmark, and their advertisers, Vigi is a true romantic and enthusiastically promotes the spirit of, “It’s OUR day!” Maybe it’s because she hangs out with a guy who likes massages as well as ‘muscle cars’ … or maybe it’s because we’ve been lucky enough to get beyond the ‘hoodies’ and the ‘footies’ and berries with pituitary conditions. She has sent me flowers, given me candy, and even a Kermit the Frog once when I was in the hospital. He still hangs upside-down over the computer for literary inspiration.

We’re about 60/60 in the ‘remembering occasions’ department and nobody has to remind us how or when to celebrate. No one needs to create occasions for us, either. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Veege and I have different wiring all right. I mean, that’s the way Ma’ Nature rigged the game, right? But sometimes, when the bone in my head switches off and our wires finally cross, it’s even better than flashing lights!

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY

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Click for the ultimate in ‘Green’

Green has always been a pleasant color. Christmas trees are green, the soft grass tickling your toes in the backyard is green, some of the most nourishing veggies are green and my money is green … at least most of it. They’ve been mixing in other rainbow-like hues lately and making it look more like Monopoly money. That’s a good balance though, because it spends more like Monopoly money everyday, only I don’t have any hotels on Boardwalk or Park Place.

So how come, all of a sudden, ‘Green’ has become a politically correct religion and we’re being pummeled about the head and shoulders with it like a piñata? Ever see one of those lunatics risking his life in a ‘Smart Car’ doing his bit to save the world … or one of those expensive hybrid numbers that gets a bazillion miles-to-the-gallon but only travels about 30 miles before it starts sucking gas again? My personal favorite is the curly-fry lightbulb that requires HAZMET cleanup if you happen to break one on your living room carpet!

Someone sent me an eMail that seems to fit right in, having recently witnessed a young mother trying to balance an infant and a small variety of groceries, after telling the supermarket checker she preferred neither paper nor plastic to carry them home. I don’t know who originally wrote this but I wish it had been me. It’s brilliant!

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.” The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.” She was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books. But too bad we didn’t do the green thing back then.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint. But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much for some young smartass to piss us off with a lesson on ecology when, in fact, we actually wrote the book!

On behalf of all the selfish older folks who spent countless generations destroying the planet, may I simply add … Amen!

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I have a birthday coming up in a week or so and I’ve been reflecting upon my life, as we all do from time-to-time. It’s just that after a certain age those times occur more frequently … especially as you near the annual celebration of your parents’ fecundity.

It occurs to me that I’ve had three great women in my life: One who taught me what was possible, one who showed me what I didn’t want, and one that helped me find what I really needed. Most guys are lucky to experience even one great woman, so I guess I’ve been blessed with more than my share! They were all significant influences in making me the man I am today so if you have any complaints, in a few paragraphs, you’ll know who to blame.

About the time I started closing in on the ripe old age of five, my mom thought about enrolling me in parochial school, so I could get a healthy dose of religion along with my readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic. Fortunately, she was a very smart lady and well ahead of many of her contemporaries in the kid-raising category. Before surrendering me to the nuns, she sat in on a couple of classes to see exactly how and what the other crumb-crunchers were being taught.

The wee folk were busy working their crayons, little tongues clenched between teeth, intent on fine tuning their sense of security by staying inside the lines on the page. Suddenly one of the Sisters snatched some poor kid’s paper out from under his Crayola and held it up for everyone to see, laughing loudly with a distinct note of mockery in her tone. “Look at this class … a purple monkey! Who ever heard of a purple monkey?” Apparently my mom not only heard of one but had no problem with seeing one. She was so horrified at the Nun’s behavior that she marched me straight over to the nearest public school and signed me up for a lifetime of secular education.

Heck, back then we used to say The Lord’s Prayer and The Pledge of Allegiance right there in the classroom … right there in front of the flag and God and everybody! I guess that was good enough for her. It was certainly good enough for me … although I stumbled around this planet for thirty-three more years before I figured out that, not only were purple monkeys okay, but it was actually preferable to color outside the lines! If you’ve ever wondered why I frequently talk about taking such bold liberties, while the rest of the world is merely content to ‘think outside the box’, now you’ve got the inside skinny. It’s more than just an expression. It has become a way of life.

Shortly after making the transition from puberty into adultery, I met a young woman who appeared to be perfect in every way. I passionately pursued her until she caught me. Unfortunately, people change, and over the next nine years she developed a rather annoying habit … every time I’d pick up a purple crayon, she’d remove it from my grasp, replace it with a brown one, and hand me a new coloring book! You know, I’ve never figured out where she was able to buy so many boxes of crayons that were all the same color.

Eons seemed to pass, and I had almost begun to believe the nuns might have been right, when a new lady sashayed into my life with a ginormous box of Crayolas. She handed me a big blank sheet of paper and said, “Let’s draw some pictures!” I brought her home and even Mom said I could keep her, especially once she saw my purple monkeys. That was nearly thirty-four years ago and Vigi is still showing me colors that weren’t in that original box. Now, that’s a ‘born day’ reflection that keeps on shining … and the only thing about her that has ever been brown is a backless dress with white polka dots she reserves for long walks on sunny summer afternoons.

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.

As you tread the long road between first tooth and last, you stumble into some things that most of us are never really ready to do … you just do them and work out the consequences along the way. Getting married, having kids or buying a house are a few of the ‘just do it’ things that leap to mind. If you examine them too closely or too logically, you’ll end up lonely, childless and renting a one room flat where the bed folds out of the wall, because you won’t do any of them. I believe retirement ranks high on that list.

My concept of retirement was to be able to do all the things I’ve always wanted, without worrying about being successful at them or having to impress anyone. That included working at my own pace, not someone else’s. I’m amazed at how many of my friends are working longer and harder in retirement, ‘gratis’, than back when they were collecting a pretty decent paycheck for their labor!

My friend Bob volunteered for the Coast Guard Auxiliary, became some sort of high-ranking VIP and works twice the number of hours he did when he was teaching. Bill maintains a military museum and gives motivational speeches. He used to be a Bank Veep. After an illustrious career with the Navy Department, my cousin Dale returned to his Alma Mater to do mentoring … among the many other activities he has dug his teeth into at The University. There are more, including some of Vigi’s girlfriends, but I’d rather not cause your eyes to glaze over.

The problem is, how do you know if you’re retired? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Like most people, these three guys had an advantage … there was a line of demarcation between career and retirement. It may have been a party, a bonus, a gold watch or just the physical change of scene from wherever they were to where they are now. Whatever the farewell, one day they left, got up the next morning and their lives were clearly different. Neither my friend Dick nor I are that lucky.

I don’t think either of us ever meant to retire. For me, it just sort of happened. Dick? Well, he’s still working despite being my senior by a few years. I’m not sure whether he’s afraid of making the transition or of not having enough resources once he hangs up his Rock ‘n Roll shoes. As far as those almighty ‘bucks’ go, I’m sure even Donald Trump won’t feel he has enough when his time comes. It’s all relative.

Like myself, Dick was in radio and when no one needed a couple of savvy old dudes anymore, he started his own radio-related business, primarily working out of the house, also like myself. This meant we were already spending copious amounts of time at work, within the same four walls, among the same electronic debris where we’d spend our retirement! Since he still has his shoulder to the wheel, he has yet to experience the mental turmoil that I did … in fact, that I’m still facing. Good luck Dick!

There were no fanfares, no parties, no ceremonies … just fewer clients and a diminishing income, as I quietly osmosed into a retired-like state over a period of several years. My only recollection of any line of demarcation was the sound of my last patron slamming down the phone, refusing to pay the amount of my invoice for a rush commercial I had stayed up all night to finish. He’s not on the radio anymore, either.

About a month ago, I was verifying my employment status to a small girl wielding a large stack of forms, and she asked, “Still work for Mediacorp Productions?” From out of nowhere I heard someone say, “Not anymore, I’m retired.” Darting a glance or two around the room, I suddenly realized it was me. That was the first time I ever said it out loud. Geez, what a creepy feeling! I always figured, someday, someone would just find me slumped over a microphone at some radio station in Topeka or someplace.

So, is retirement something you’re ever really ready to do? If you don’t like what you’ve been doing, it’s probably a no brainer. If you love your work, it gets a bit more complicated, and sometimes you don’t even get to make the call. I guess, in the final analysis, it’s something very personal … and the only important thing is that on the long road between first tooth and last, you simply keep moving!

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.

About the time I was entering my teens, I remember counting the decades on my fingers to figure out if I’d be alive in the year 2000 for the arrival of the new millennium. With the typical hubris that heralds the arrival of excess growth hormones and causes a kid to walk ten paces in front of his parents at the mall, I decided I’d probably still be here … but I’d be so bleepin’ old it wouldn’t matter. Well, I was and it does! It’s interesting how your perspective changes, depending upon which end of the telescope you’re looking through. Here I am with the millennium just a speck in my rear view mirror and I still feel an excitement about watching the mile markers zip by, especially on New Year’s Eve.

It wasn’t until after I graduated from home that I was able to grasp why so many people made such a big deal out of December 31st. As a kid, I didn’t have much to go on since my parents didn’t drink or party much … although, even for them, New Years Eve was sort of an exception. They used to concoct a thing they called a ‘highball’, which contained about seven ounces of ginger ale and a half-ounce of some sort of whiskey. I suspect this was the rye and ginger I discovered in later years and quickly replaced with scotch and soda. Anyway, as soon as I stopped falling asleep in somebody’s lap by 10 o’clock, they let me stay up to watch the famous ball drop at midnight in Times Square. For anyone from out-of-town, that’s in New York. Once I stuck a big toe into puberty, they presented me with full celebration rights … only I don’t think I ever got the full half-ounce of liquor.

In those days Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians were a fixture on everyone’s television, if they had one. I don’t know if they were actually royal or even Canadian but they were said to play, The Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven. I never figured out how anyone knew that, either! At 12 o’clock sharp they’d play “Auld Lang Syne” while six or eight guys lowered a shimmering ball atop the Times Building (Allied Chemical after 1961), to the cheers of a seething mass of human gel in the street below. My family would clank glasses, kiss, and I would be told to stop nursing my drink and go to bed. Happy New Year, kid!

The formal Lombardo celebration lasted several more years until they couldn’t dust it off anymore. When something gets really dusty it’s either called a tradition, an antique, or it’s simply tossed aside. Elegant gowns and tight hairdos were tossed aside in favor of less formal attire and replaced with Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Years Eve … sort of a counterpoint to The Sweetest Music era. Now, after forty years of passing for “The World’s Oldest Teenager,” they’re having to dust off Dick Clark. Last year, he looked almost life-like!

Through all the changes and my own half-century odyssey from evenings with my folks, to large parties, small gatherings and finally quiet times with close friends, three things have remained constant on New Years Eve. We always watch the ball drop at midnight, everybody sings Auld Lang Syne and I’m still counting on my fingers. Oh, I’ve clearly made it past the new millennium but now there’s something even bigger and badder trying to come between me and centenarianhood. A calendar. Specifically, the Mayan calendar.

You may have heard … it runs out of days December 21, 2012 and many who study such events, in lieu of holding gainful employment, predict one of three things will happen. There will be a great apocalypse and the world will end; there will be a number of cataclysmic events but the world will not end; the Mayan calendar will just roll over like the odometer in your car, begin again, and nothing will happen. My own theory is that the poor dolt who created five thousand years worth of calendars in the first place developed a godawful carpal tunnel syndrome and had to stop writing.

I’m not ready to make a bucket list or anything, but just in case I’m wrong and the ‘woe-is-me’ crowd is onto something, Vigi and I are going make a point of enjoying the Times Square ball drop just a little more than usual this year … and at midnight sharp, after listening to some of The Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven, we’ll “take a cup o’ kindness yet for Auld Lang Syne!” For anyone from out-of-town, that roughly means “Times Gone By.” (See last year’s 12/31 post, “A Cup O’ Somethingorother”)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.

The high school I occupied during my pre-adult period was nearly ninety percent Jewish. When many of the more important Hebrew holidays were celebrated, like in September and October, they actually consolidated as many as three or four classes for any given subject into a single room. Even with that arrangement, I was one of only a tiny hand-full of students in there. We had a lot of fall study halls back then.

Chanukah was different because it usually seemed to coincide pretty closely with Christmas and everybody was off from school … even the kids that celebrated holidays with names most of us never heard of, until ‘political correctness’ came to town a few years later. In those days you were either a Christian or a Jew and nobody was offended by wishes of “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Chanukah,” even if you got it wrong. In my neighborhood, the Christmas tree and the Menorah lived side by side. In fact, a few Jewish people celebrated both occasions.

When I was around nine or ten, I remember my friend Carl proudly inviting me over to see his Chanukah bush! At the time, I didn’t see why it was such a big deal. I mean, by any other name a Christmas tree is still a Christmas tree, right? As I came to understand later, Carl’s family was more the exception than the rule. I used to feel sorry for the Jewish kids at Christmastime. There we were, laughin’ and scratchin’ with our new bikes, scooters, skates, Flexible Flyers and trains from Santa Claus … and those kids had nothing. It was like they were poor or something. They just stared at all our stuff and marveled at our big, broad grins.

As the years passed, three revelations replaced my pity. First of all, I discovered that these kids got presents for Chanukah just like the rest of us did for Christmas … only at a slightly different time and without benefit of a jolly old elf to deliver them. Second, they not only celebrated Jewish holidays but Christian ones too, which meant they had twice as much time off from school as the rest of us! Finally and most important of all, I came to know it isn’t the glitter that matters, it’s the substance.

Particularly where Christmas is concerned, I hear a lot of grousing about “the commercialism, the stress and the spending that is such an integral part of the holiday.” I’ve even read articles about people ‘opting out’ of the celebration altogether. It’s sad that some confuse the tangible with the spiritual, the shopping mall with the manger … and for them the glitz and glitter has become the traditional way to celebrate. Many view Christmas, itself, as a tradition rather than the historically significant occasion it represents. Christmas contains traditions the same way the Fourth of July has fireworks but its true meaning goes far beyond mere repetition, even over a couple of centuries.

By the way, for those who advocate beginning “a new tradition”, whether to do with Christmas or something else, by definition it’s a conflict in terms. Declaring a practice to be a tradition without first having it re-occur over a reasonable period of time is like looking through the wrong end of a telescope!

Oddly enough, in their determination to avoid potential hassle and expense, people are rediscovering the magic instead of the frustrations of The Holiday. Instead of gifts, which she can’t afford, one single mom has her kids writing letters to each other that they’ll open on Christmas morning, She says, “We’re going to tell each other what we love about our family. And that’s it.” There is nothing wrong with giving a homemade present, a letter, a song or some other form of personal expression. In fact, there’s everything right with it and, often, recipients prefer such gifts! Do you suppose the pioneers hitched up the ol’ Conestoga and ran out to Sears or the Apple Store to pick up a last minute something for the kids … or might they have had to use a little more imagination?

Some of my most cherished memories are connected with Christmas. To me, it would be unthinkable to deprive anyone of the joy that is to be found at this wonderful time of year, if you are willing to look for it. I can’t imagine not celebrating Christmas anymore than I can imagine a clean-shaven Santa or a child without a toy. Christmas or Chanukah, Christian or Jew … at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter how you celebrate or what you believe, it only matters that you do!

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.