Behind My Restless Night an Anthropomorphic Message

I had a lousy sleep Sunday night. My left knee felt sprained. My enlarged prostate kept demanding relief every 90 minutes or so. It was stuffy in the bedroom but I couldn’t open a window because Gilda’s allergies required us to keep outside air outside. And it was too cool for the air conditioner to go on. Perhaps I was tense about having to wake up early to drive Gilda to work in Manhattan. 

All legitimate and reasonable reasons why I tossed and turned all night. It wasn’t until I sat in the dentist’s chair Monday afternoon that I discovered the real reason behind my disappointing and unrestful night. I was being subjected to another bit of torture by an inanimate object that I was retiring from service. 

Mitch the dentist was putting the finishing touches on a new bite guard to lessen the impact of my teeth grinding and Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) syndrome. In other words, a persistent clenched jaw that really hurts and erodes the enamel on molars. 

After years of service my old bite guard needed replacement. It exacted its revenge on being displaced from usefulness in a most relative way, by denying me a good night’s sleep during its last hours of duty. 

Yes, I believe in anthropomorphism, the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. I’ve been anthropomorphisized before. 

My otherwise trustworthy 1973 Chevy Vega chose to partially lose its muffler on the day I was ending our 13 year relationship by handing it over to my brother-in-law. The muffler dropped as I was about to enter the Lincoln Tunnel. I had to get out and hook it back up to the undercarriage with a wire hangar a passing motorist gave me (I now keep such a hangar in my car trunk, just in case). By the time I reached the Manhattan corner where I was to give the Vega to my brother-in-law, the car could barely travel more than half a block without stalling. Clearly, the Vega was sending a message it was unhappy our time together was over.

Here’s another example: On the last day of my employment, after 32 years of walking up Park Avenue from Grand Central Terminal, it rained. Hard. It wasn’t a surprise, so I had planned accordingly. Instead of taking a collapsible small umbrella, I toted a large umbrella given to me as a gift by the Dolphin and Swan Hotels for bringing the SPECS conference to the Disney World properties for two years. 

It was a beautiful umbrella, automatic and vented to withstand wind gusts, with a carved wooden handle on which the logos of the two hotels were etched.

As I stepped out onto the street and opened the umbrella, a wind gust blew the canopy inside out. That was not supposed to happen. As I struggled to right the umbrella, the metal shaft broke in two, leaving me the handle and about three inches of shaft. A perfect metaphor for ending my paid journalism career.

I could give other examples, but I think those two suffice to convince you inanimate objects send messages, to me at least.

One would think the new bite guard would do everything within its power to insure that Monday night’s sleep was sound and refreshing. But one would be wrong. Apparently, anthropomorphic messages are sent only at the end of useful life, not at the onset. 

Hard to Believe My Son's 35 Today

Hard to believe, our son Daniel turned 35 today. Gilda and I can’t believe we’re that old, er, I mean, he’s that old. Seems like just yesterday Gilda told me not to go to work one Friday morning as contractions had started and it was time to go to the hospital. Some 16 hours later Dan finally decided to slide down the chute and change our lives forever.

I did some fall cleanup today, clearing out the shed in our yard. Out went an old perambulator, one of those big baby carriages common before the umbrella stroller and other modern conveyances turned baby portage into a fast-paced affair. We hardly ever transported Dan in this baby carriage which Gilda’s sister Barbara had used for her children. Shortly after Dan was born we installed a woodburning stove in the fireplace in the living room of our first home. We heated most of our house with wood I would gather as I drove around in my Chevy Vega, a chain saw in the back ready to cut up any fallen branches I came across. I used the baby carriage to move firewood from the driveway to the yard to a temporary pile on the porch. With its big wheels the baby carriage plowed through winter snow, even when weighted down by seven or eight logs. 

We don’t use the woodburning stove in the den of our current home very much; it was time to sever ties with the baby carriage. I’m nostalgic about it, not because Dan rode in it, but rather because it evoked memories of when we were younger, a time when I played lumberjack and the cozy warmth of a fire made our home toasty.

Eddie Mathews: Do you know who he is? He is a Hall of Fame third basemen who played most of his 17-year career with the Boston/Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves in the 1950s-1960s. I wasn’t a Braves fan. Neither was my brother Bernie, but one of the earliest of his baseball gloves was an Eddie Mathews model. I found his old, four-fingered glove at the bottom of a pile of sporting goods I was cleaning out today in the garage. Old doesn’t begin to describe its condition. It needs new stringing to keep the fingers together. The leather is dirty and maybe even moldy, but surprisingly, not cracked. I’ll give it some tender loving care and oil it up, though I’m not promising to give it back to him, despite his B. Forseter still legible across the band at the top of the glove. 

Pressure Picks: Who do you like in Monday night’s football game, the NY Giants or the Minnesota Vikings? The Giants are 0-6, the Vikings 1-4, so it’s not as if this game is between two powerhouse teams. I ask the question because for the second year I have joined a football pool and before Sunday’s games I was tied for third place among the 26 players. I might have had more points had I not remained loyal to the Giants, and been disappointed, for most of their games (I actually picked against them one game). 

I don’t have any scientific method for choosing winners. I don’t study results or injury reports as other pickers do. Success, so far, does mean there’s more pressure to pick winners. This week I’m on track for my lowest weekly total of the season.

2013 has not been a good year for my sporting life. The Yankees succumbed. The Rangers floundered on ice. The Giants are on life support (a charitable assessment). The teams I don’t want to win are winning—I root against the Jets, yet they beat the New England Patriots in overtime today. I also don’t want the Washington Redskins to win, but they edged the Chicago Bears in the last minute today, an achievement the Giants failed to do last week. Aargh! I hate the Red Sox, but they triumphed over the Detroit Tigers to make it to the World Series. At least the Mets didn’t disappoint. 

My Watergate Summer Link

Forty years ago this Friday afternoon before Labor Day, I was sitting in the third floor newsroom of The New Haven Register trying to finish up my Sunday feature story. I don't recall what it was about, but I do remember suburban editor Larry French calling me over to tell me I had been chosen for a special assignment that could only be done later that afternoon.

It was the summer of the Watergate hearings. Gilda watched most of the hearings as she crocheted a quilt we still have (but hardly ever use). I would watch highlights on the evening news. Folksy Sam Ervin (D-NC) chaired the Senate committee. Sam Dash, whose daughter, Judy, I would work with four years later on Nation’s Restaurant News, served as lead majority counsel of the committee. Howard Baker was the ranking minority senator on the panel. The most vocal and righteously aggrieved Republican was Lowell Weicker, the junior senator from Connecticut.

With Congress in recess, Weicker was back home in Greenwich. At the last moment he agreed to sit for an interview, a personality profile.

The newsroom was mostly depleted by early weekend evacuees. Looking over their options, the top editors chose me, a 24-year-old reporter with barely a year of small town reporting on my résumé.

It was a hot muggy afternoon. I drove my un-airconditioned Chevy Vega down the Merritt Parkway to the Round Hill Road exit, made a few turns, and came to the Weicker estate. An heir to the Squibb pharmaceutical company, Weicker had a stately colonial home which, like my Vega, I soon discovered, lacked air conditioning. No a/c, not even a fan to agitate the dank hot air.

We sat and talked for about an hour in the study. Or maybe it was the living room. I sweat onto the fabric of the couch I sat on. I took pictures of Weicker and his then wife Bunny and one or more of their children walking on the property. 

I remember little about the interview except Weicker’s stern admonishment that no one should seek political gain from service on the Watergate committee. He forcefully asserted he would not run for president.

That was my lead. The front page Sunday story was picked up by the Associated Press. My first national story. Seven years later, reacting to the increasingly conservative tone of his party, Weicker sought the Republican presidential nomination. He did not get it. Ronald Reagan did.

Weicker served in the Senate until 1989, losing his seat to Joseph Lieberman. His liberal leanings led him to leave the GOP.  He was elected governor of Connecticut as an independent in 1990. It was during his first and only term of office that Connecticut enacted a state income tax.

About two years ago one Sunday afternoon, while Gilda and I were enjoying one of the best pizzas anywhere in Sal’s on Wooster Square in New Haven, I noticed Weicker, most probably with his current wife, sitting at one of the tables near the kitchen. I resolved to say hello to him, but didn't want to disturb his meal. As we were sitting near the front door, I decided to wait till he was on his way out. 

The encounter never happened. I didn't realize there was a side door near the kitchen. Weicker had shifted passed me again. 

Towing the Line

I see where New York City is planning to reduce its dependency on towing illegally parked cars in favor of booting them, forcing scofflaws to pay up on the spot to release their cars from incarceration (http://nyti.ms/13aJblz).

Did you ever have your car towed? I did. In the spring of 1977 Gilda and I were living in New Haven, Conn. I had recently joined Nation’s Restaurant News as a field editor in the New York office. Based on the success of “A Taste of Chicago” the previous year, New York restaurateurs decided to support “A Taste of the Big Apple” on May 22 in Central Park. Chefs would show off their culinary talents to the hungry masses who would be inspired, they hoped, to reserve tables for complete meals at some future date at the respective fine-dining establishments. I wasn't assigned to cover the extravaganza but couldn't resist a chance to frolic in the park and nosh on some gourmet delights.

We drove down in our 1973 Chevy Vega hatchback, arriving at West 66 Street and Central Park West around noon. I couldn't believe our good fortune. A parking space. I read the posted signs and determined the spot was legal. We crossed into the park.  It was a spectacular spring day, full of sunshine and the aroma of delicious food. Around 4 pm we decided it was time to head home. 

As this is a story of being towed there's little reason to make our discovery of no-car-where-we-parked any more suspenseful than a Mister Rogers episode. I quickly discovered the “tow-away zone, no parking Saturday” sign I had missed in my earlier reconnaissance. All we could do was flag down a passing policeman to find out where the redemption pound was. 

Over near Chelsea Piers along the Hudson. In other words, a cab ride over. We had to pay a $75 towing fee and the illegal parking ticket before they'd release our car. By now it was close to 6 pm. Normally it took almost two hours to drive back to New Haven. But the towers had done something terrible to the Vega. I couldn't get the car to drive faster than 40 miles per hour the entire ride home. We crawled along the Connecticut Turnpike with our flashers blinking away, arriving home close to 10 pm, uncomfortable in the knowledge that the next morning I'd be chug-chugging along to my mechanic in Seymour to fix the Vega. 

He did a good job. I kept that Vega until 1986, reluctantly replacing it only after a teenager mistook his gas pedal for the brake and slammed into the rear of my car with such force the bumper collapsed into the back tires. All in all, the “Taste of the Big Apple” took a big bite out of our finances.