Hillary's Not the Only One to Go From Seasonal Allergies to Pneumonia

Seasonal allergies. Then pneumonia. You might think I’m referring to Hillary Clinton’s recent medical history accentuated by her stumble as she tried unsuccessfully to depart gracefully from Sunday’s 9/11 commemoration ceremonies at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.

Actually, I was referring to Gilda’s condition in September 1970. We had been dating for a little more than six months when summer arrived. We each chose to counselor at different sleepaway camps. Gilda came home early with pneumonia triggered by what we later learned were seasonal allergies. One benefit—at 21-years-old she finally learned to swallow pills under threat of intravenous hospitalization.

For several late summers after that she would get sick, sometimes developing pneumonia. After we married in 1973 and moved to Connecticut our internist explained she had seasonal allergies. To avoid their blossoming into pneumonia she needed to be alert every day from late August-early September and diligently take an antihistamine at the first sign of itchy eyes. Since then she hasn’t had pneumonia.

And since that first summer of pneumonia we haven’t been apart for July and August for 46 years.

Hillary’s Real Stumble: Will there be political fallout from Hillary’s illness? I doubt it will diminish support from those already committed to her. 

Trumpsters, on the other hand, will just add this setback to their long list of anti-Hillary screeds. 

For non committed voters the decision might well depend on their differentiation between a physical illness and the mental stability of Donald Trump. He has given ample evidence of being unfit psychologically, temperamentally, and intellectually for the office of president. 

But there persists in this country a level of non belief in the debilitating impact of mental illness. Just ask the many veterans who suffer from PTSD how difficult an adjustment their family, peers and work associates have had in accepting their condition. So Trump might get a pass despite his unstable behavior.

When Hillary suffered through a coughing bout last week I joked to friends that we could expect a tweet from a Trumpster or from the man himself that she was afflicted with consumption. I wasn’t too far off in my diagnosis though I didn’t hear or see any such missive.

As usual, the coverup got Clinton in more hot water than the truth. No one except Trump and his Trumpsters expects her to be superwoman. She is human. But her failure to accept human frailty cost her credibility points, points of which she already has too few to spare.

When she gets back on the campaign trail, Clinton needs to humanize herself. Real people—not the moneybags she hobnobs with to finance this election—need to see her, speak with her, get spoken to, about their real concerns. Jobs. Healthcare. Wages. Homeland security. Social security. Personal safety. Discrimination. Climate change. 

As long as we’re on a medical theme, injuries from youth soccer figured in a 25-year study published in the most recent issue of Pediatrics. The magazine reported that injuries more than doubled over the course of the study, with head injuries climbing an astounding 1,596%.

Every day more than 300 kids visit emergency rooms with soccer-related injuries. Strains and sprains account for 35% of the trauma, 23% come in with broken bones.

Which brings me to the Forseter connection, specifically Dan Forseter’s time in youth soccer. Dan played on a travel all-star soccer team from the age of nine. As the goalkeeper he would fling his body towards the ball, even running headlong into any advancing forward. He did not give up goals lightly. One weekend tournament he played four games before the coaches noticed his left wrist was a little wobbly. Shuffled off to the local emergency room, he came back with a cast on his fractured wrist. 

For the record, this happened before 1990, so Dan was not part of the Pediatrics study.

A Parade of Thoughts on Soccer and Sanders

New York City is throwing a ticker-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes in Lower Manhattan Friday for the United States women’s national soccer team, winner of the World Cup. 

It is a most deserving tribute, but Gilda worried Wednesday morning that a Friday parade during the summer might attract fewer onlookers than past parades for World Series and Super Bowl winners. To which I replied, tongue in cheek, “that’s okay, after all the parade is for women and they are already used to getting less than men get.”

Gilda smiled wryly, perhaps remembering a story from Tuesday night’s CBS News with Scott Pelley. Elaine Quijano reported, “Recently, it was revealed the women’s team will split $2 million for their victory. Germany, which won last years Men’s World Cup, was awarded $35 million.”

She continued, “This year’s figures have not been released, but four years ago the Women’s World Cup brought in almost $73 million. The 2010 Men’s World Cup in South Africa made almost $4 billion. Those players got $348 million, or 9 percent of the total revenue. The women’s team got a higher percentage with 13 percent, but the bottom line was still much less, $10 million.”

Given the disparity in revenue it is difficult to argue for parity in payouts as compensation is tied to revenue. Clearly the differential should be much lower. 

The situation is not exactly comparable to women receiving lower pay for doing the same work as a man in an organization. That reality is unacceptable. Revenue and profit for a company generally are not contingent on gender when both sexes do the same tasks. There is no 21st century justification for slighting women.

Getting back to the parade, I wonder if Mayor de Blasio tapped into some of his Italian heritage when approving the salute to the athletes. I’m referring to the practice of Roman caesars to stage elaborate games at the Coliseum to divert the populous’ attention from problems at hand. Things haven’t been going exactly Hizzoner’s way lately, so I’m just wondering if shining a little spotlight on America’s most current sweethearts wouldn’t be a nice diversion upon his return from an eight-day vacation out west.

Oy Vey: Bernie Sanders is catching up to Hillary Clinton in the polls. As much as I’d like to see the election of the first Jewish president, let’s be clear about Bernie’s chances—it ain’t gonna happen. Fugetaboutit! 

It’s a long shot, but sure, maybe Bernie can overcome the odds and displace Hillary as the Democratic Party’s nominee. Stranger things have happened, such as Eugene McCarthy’s surprisingly strong turnout in the 1968 New Hampshire presidential primary that prompted President Lyndon Baines Johnson to decide against running for a second term (Johnson, FYI, actually won 49% of the NH vote to McCarthy’s 42%, but as a sitting president his victory was considered Pyrrhic).

The dissension among Democrats that year, following the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, led to the disruption of the nominating convention in Chicago. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey emerged as a scarred presidential candidate. Democrats rallied around him too late to defeat Richard Nixon. 

Four years later the Democrats shot themselves in the foot again by nominating a good man, Sen. George McGovern, but a candidate too liberal for the majority of the country. Nixon won re-election in a landslide.

If Bernie does manage to wrest the nomination from Hillary or any of the other more mainstream candidates, say goodbye to any hope the Democrats will have in keeping the White House in progressive hands. Simply stated, Bernie is too far out for America’s pragmatic center. He will not only lose the presidency but Democrats will be hard pressed to maintain their seats in the Senate and House of Representatives (I’m assuming, of course, the GOP doesn’t similarly inflict damage on itself by nominating an equally far out candidate such as Rand Paul or Donald Trump). 

The upshot—under Republican control of both houses of Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court, say goodbye to a woman’s right to choose, to Obamacare, to Social Security as we know it, to labor protections, to any hope hourly workers will see any increase in the minimum wage, to environmental laws, to limitations on Big Business, etc., etc., and so forth. Say hello to more overseas military (ad)ventures, more pandering to the Christian Right, more attempts to restrict individual rights, particularly voting rights. The only helping hand Republicans will provide will be to those digging graves for any remaining New Deal and Great Society legislation. 

Hillary is not a perfect candidate. But she would do a lot better than Bernie in a general election, and that’s what really counts in 2016.

(For a more scientific analysis of Bernie’s flawed chances of securing the nomination, follow this link from The New York Times: http://nyti.ms/1fmZsR2.)

Rescue, Triumph, Disaster and Irony

Rescue: Has this ever happened to you? You’ve set up your DVR to record a weekly TV series. All goes well until you discover, too late, that the season finale, the ultimate fadeout or cliffhanger, was not recorded. And that it will not be rebroadcast until months, months!, later.

You can ask Gilda—that’s happened to us more times than I care to recall, the last being for the 10th episode of the inaugural season of Better Call Saul, the prequel to Breaking Bad. I cannot figure out why it repeatedly happens. Why, after diligently recording nine episodes of a series, does the DVR mysteriously end its mission before the last show? Does Cablevision surreptitiously sneak into our DVR settings in the stealth of night to thwart our viewing pleasure? 

I checked the TV listings. AMC was not re-airing the finale. I checked the On Demand menu. AMC offers programs, but not Better Call Saul. I searched the Internet. No luck. Netflix advertised Better Call Saul; I couldn’t find it on its Web site. We called Netflix but the customer agent said it would be months before it would be available. So why did Netflix advertise it? She had no idea.  

We had given up hope until we our salvation stepped forward in the shape of our tech-savvy son-in-law, Donny.   He advised buying Chromecast ($35 at Costco) and then downloading Plex on our iPad ($4.95). Voilá. $40 and  hours of frustration later, courtesy of Donny’s tech expertise we were further enlightened to the development of Jimmy McGill into Saul Gooodman.

Now we can rest easy as we await Season 2.

Triumph: It would be hard to find a more glowing review of a performance by a Broadway star than the one Ellen Greene received from Ben Brantley of The New York Times for the age-defying, dazzling revival of her more than 30-year-old signature role as Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, the musical about a plant (Audrey II) from outer space hungry to eat its way toward human domination (http://nyti.ms/1R7CDBu). 

Audrey is one of my favorite musical theater characters for a very simple reason—Ellie played the part in a Play Group Theatre production. Wearing a short blonde wig, short skirt, push up bra and studded, stiletto black heels, Ellie hardly looked like the young teenager she was. She spoke in the high-pitched voice Ellen Greene used. When she sang, suddenly Seymour wasn’t the only one who knew Ellie was talented beyond her 14 years. 

After the play ended its short run, I salvaged one of her shoes as a nightstand memento. It’s been there for almost 20 years. 

Audrey was the first of many leading and featured roles Ellie enjoyed in PGT productions as well as plays produced by White Plains High School, a Scarsdale summer production company and the Skidmore College theater department. 

Disaster: I can empathize with Laura Bassett, the defensewoman on England’s World Cup soccer team who accidentally kicked the winning goal into her own net in a semifinal match against Japan. During my middling career as part of the intramural soccer team of my Brooklyn College house plan, Knight House, I inadvertently headed a ball past our goalkeeper. Unlike Bassett’s miscue, mine did not alter the final outcome. We already were losing quite badly when I parked myself under a high kick, hoping to head it away from our goal line. Instead, the ball skipped off the back of my head into our net. 

Not one of my finer athletic achievements. It ranks up there with my seventh grade basketball debut. Inserted in the second half, I snagged a defensive rebound. I looked for the outlet pass. Someone called out, “Here.” I threw him the ball. He scored an easy layup. You probably guessed by now—he was on the other team. The coach quickly took me out of the game before I could do more damage.

Irony: Two decades ago, before she became a specialist on spine surgery, Gilda was an active medical expert and researcher of Lyme Disease as part of the Infectious Disease staff at Westchester County Medical Center in Valhalla, NY. She co-authored numerous studies on the debilitating ailment. She set up the hospital’s walk-in Lyme Clinic.

Now, 20 years later, how ironic that we were first in line at the clinic last Wednesday evening. She had been feeling significant fatigue for a few days, with a headache and a stiffness in the neck, when a large, telltale red rash, shaped like a bulls-eye, appeared under Gilda’s right shoulder. She knew immediately what it meant. To confirm the diagnosis, and rule out any of the four or five other diseases deer ticks can convey these days, a trip to her old stomping grounds was in order. 

She was greeted like a returning war hero. Veteran staffers kept stopping by her treatment room to reminisce and update. Newer personnel came to see the person who started the clinic so many years ago. Gary, the head of the department, even suggested she return to the clinic, but he readily agreed when Gilda responded, “Orthopedics pays a lot better than infectious diseases.”

A day after starting the two-week regimen of doxycycline Gilda was back to being her old self. She could just as easily have prescribed her own medication, fulfilling the admonition, “Physician, heal thyself.” But it was a worthwhile trip back in time and place to see the fruits of her labor in practice, this time from the patient’s perspective.

Confessions of an Addict

Hello. My name is Murray and I am an addict.

I bite my nails. Actually, just one nail. The one on my left pinky.

I used to bite all my nails. For the first 28 years of my life I was a constant nail biter. My parents threatened to put hot peppers on my nails to discourage the habit. Even after reaching adulthood, even after marriage, I persisted in the pernicious practice.

But the first day on the job at the company where I would work for the next 32 years, I stopped cold turkey. I had gone to lunch with a few of my new co-workers and felt self-conscious they would think lesser of me if they saw my fingers. It’s now 37 years later, and only in the last several weeks has my smallest digit become tasty again.

That’s not quite right. I don’t have a craving for fingernail. I started biting the nail again because I didn’t have my trusty nail clipper with me and I needed to trim it. One bite led to another and before I knew it I had eaten away half my nail. Each time the nail begins to grow back I wind up picking at it and eating it again. I’ve tried wrapping it in band-aids but they fall off, exposing the delicate, delectable nail.

If this all sounds crazy, it is. It’s an addiction, after all, with no equivalent of Alcoholics Anonymous, Odyssey House or 12-step program to counsel me through my compulsion, though I did just google Nail Biters Anonymous and sure enough, other desperate souls have publicly humiliated themselves by revealing their nasty habit. 

I’m confident one of these days I will overcome it. I did, after all, do it once before, for all 10 digits. Until then, if you see me, please don’t stare at my left pinky.

There’s Hope for America: Gilda and I went to Croton Point Park to sit along the Hudson River Saturday afternoon. There was a large gathering of Pakistani families, many of the women dressed in traditional garb. 

A hundred yards away from their parents, some two dozen boys played football. No, I do not mean football as Pakistanis normally call soccer. I mean American football. They were playing an intense game of two-hand touch football.

Take that, those of you who predict soccer will supplant the great American sport.

No Lines: One of the pleasures of retirement is my ability to shop stores such as Costco during the week when lines are shorter than on weekends. But two weeks ago, as we were making our way up to Maine for a week-long family vacation, Gilda and I had to stop at the Nashua, NH, Costco Saturday afternoon during peak shopping hours to stock up on supplies. 

The parking lot was pretty full, yet when the time came to check out, we were pleasantly surprised to find two registers completely devoid of customers and just one or two shoppers deep at the other lanes. It was obvious we were not in Westchester.

Freak of Nature: My ophthalmologist basically told me I am a freak of nature. He had no explanation as to why my long distance vision is as good without glasses as with corrective lenses, as I reported to you in mid-July.

He did caution me, however, that if a policeman stopped me I better have my eyeglasses handy.

Another Sign of Our Enlightened Time: Back at Costco in New Rochelle I read the following on a Puma long sleeved, light weight Tee Shirt care label: “Wash this when dirty.” 

A Debt to Stephen Colbert, A Package from Restoration Hardware and Soccer-Mania

I’m indebted to Stephen Colbert, actually we all are, for putting into context the ascension of Josh Earnest to White House press secretary this week. Speaking last Thursday with Earnest’s predecessor, Jay Carney, Colbert noted that Josh Earnest had the perfect name for the job. “His name literally means ‘just kidding, but seriously,’” said Colbert.

I’ve been to Washington dozens of times but stepped inside the White House only once. I enjoyed a visit most do not experience. As a graduate journalism student in pre-Watergate early 1972, I gained entry to the West Wing and the press office as part of my research for a paper on pack journalism.  I interviewed several White House correspondents including Peter Lisagor of the Chicago Daily News and Robert Pierpoint of CBS. I had hoped to meet with Richard Nixon’s press secretary, Ron Ziegler, but he passed me off to one of his assistants whose name is lost to me and history. Years later Ziegler’s and my paths crossed again—Ziegler was head of the chain drug store association and I attended conferences he presented. 

The White House press room was rather drab back then. The offices of Ziegler’s staff also did not compare favorably to the more elaborate Hollywood versions we’ve grown accustomed to seeing on The West Wing and other portrayals of the seat of power of our government. 

I doubt I’ll ever gain entry to the press room again but it’s nice to recall walking through the gate on Pennsylvania Avenue up the circular driveway to the White House and going where relatively few have gone before and after. As I wrote once before, I even had the “pleasure” of getting a presidential wave from none other than Nixon himself. As I was leaving the White House Nixon was walking back from the next door Executive Office Building. He waved to me, and only me, as I was the only person on the White House grounds at the time. I waved back.

I wasn’t home when UPS dropped by, but we were overwhelmed by Restoration Hardware’s latest marketing effort. Nine, count ‘em, nine beautifully photographed and printed catalogs, a 3,300-page deluge of style and sophistication weighing a combined 11 pounds, 2 ounces. 

In case your home was spared, each catalog was themed: Furniture, Leather, Interiors, Small Spaces, Upholstery, Rugs, Linens, Bath and Lighting. In the past, the books arrived separately. Restoration Hardware claims sending the catalogs out in one batch was more environmentally friendly than separate shipments. 

Sorry to say, they’ll be recycled on Friday.

Soccer-mania, I’m also sorry to say, has not inhabited my being.  

Almost 30 years ago when Dan started playing youth soccer, and then matriculated to an all-star traveling team and then his high school varsity, there were predictions real football would sweep the nation and United States citizenry would come to appreciate the sport the rest of the world did. I didn’t buy it then and still don’t, except that with immigration bringing more foreigners, legal and illegal, to our shores there is bound to be more enthusiasm for soccer. 

American football has all those concussions to scare parents away, but heading a soccer ball or an opponent when both go up for a ball also produces concussions, so there’s no safety factor to sway allegiance to one sport over the other. 

Soccer, I’m afraid, will have no wider draw than hockey, which, I believe, is a much more exciting game and, to my knowledge, not tainted by allegations of game-fixing. 

Enjoy the World Cup while the frenzy lasts, and let’s hope the U.S. team beats or at least ties Germany Thursday. 

Remembering Birthdays Past

Spent the weekend in Massachusetts for Finley’s fourth birthday. Twenty-two kiddies, more than half girls, and about 20 adults entertained by a guitar playing children's singer. Outdoor play followed by the music, birthday cake and then free play in a carpeted basement with more trucks and trains than Ford, GM and Chrysler combined. A fun time for all, but as Gilda presciently noted, probably the last time until Finley’s bar mitzvah there will be so many girls at the annual festivities.

I can't remember all of Dan’s birthday parties though several of them stand out in my memory. There was the one when he was five, in our old house. Dan wasn't the most adventurous of small children when it came to animals beyond our three cats. So I was a little bemused when Gilda booked a visit by a menagerie from the Greenburgh Nature Center. The highlight was when Dan was somehow talked into permitting a snake to slither around his body. 

Before his next birthday we moved to our current home. One year we engaged one of his baby sitters, the son of a United Nations official from either Nigeria or Ghana. Whatever. The point is, the lad was a budding magician. Poor fellow ran into a most unappreciative, even disruptive, audience of boys. Whenever he’d attempt to do a trick, at least one youngster would cry out he knew the trick and its secret. They were so dismissive that we had to stop the performance in midstream.

We had to fill time till the parents came to retrieve their Dennis the Menaces, so Gilda took them outside for a good old-fashioned tug-of-war. As luck would have it, the ground was moist. The losing team was dragged through the mud. Most parents went with the flow when they arrived to find their “darlings” in soiled clothing. One father, however, would not let his son into his new Cadillac unless he was wrapped in towels. 

Dan’s most memorable birthday party was his 11th. He asked if he and six of his friends could have an “all-nighter” on Saturday. We agreed, reasoning to ourselves the boys would surely fall asleep by 2 am. We’d take turns staying awake till then. 

A good plan goes awry when the “party-of-the-second-part” (that is, the boys) do no adhere to your script. They did not fall asleep at 2 am. Nor at 3 am, 4 am, or 5 am. By 6 am, Gilda decided she’d make lemonade out of this lemon of an idea and take the half dozen boys on a trek in nearby Saxon Woods Park. (I, by the way, had gone to sleep at 2 am. Gilda had pity on me and never woke me up for my watch, not even when she took them on the hike.) 

The boys came back shortly before their parents arrived to take them home, exhilarated by their achievement and ready to impolre their respective mothers and fathers for a similar experience. We heard later than one set of parents enforced a 2 am curfew on their son’s “all-nighter.”

Dan’s birthday triumph did not end when his friends went home. An hour later he was to start in goal for the first time for his traveling all-star soccer team. The weekend before, when Dan was a defenseman, the team played a tournament in Yonkers. In each of the four games they had surrendered more than 10 goals. Now they were to play a strong team from Rye, led by the coach’s son whose name (not sure if it was his first or last name) was Winchester. 

I worried how Dan would respond to the new challenge, especially since he had not slept since Saturday morning. The game was tense. Each time Rye controlled the ball, its coach would be screaming for Winchester to make a play. Midway through the second half, Winchester blocked a ball at midfield and took off in pursuit of the sphere as it bounced toward the White Plains goal. There was no one between him and Dan. 

Time for a slight digression. You should know that as a defenseman, Dan had been among the most polite. If he and an opponent contested a ball, he was generally content to allow the other team to come away with it, reasoning, no doubt, that someone else on his team would get the ball back before a goal could be scored. Of course, by the scores of the previous games, that usually did not happen. 

But now, he was the only one standing between Winchester and the goal. He made a decision not to stand his ground. He charged at the ball. Like two knights on horseback charging at each other, Dan and Winchester converged, crunching together. The slightly larger Winchester kept going straight toward the goal, but Dan had succeeded in diverting the ball to the sideline. Though he had been run over, he had saved a goal. 

I don’t recall, seriously, I don’t remember, if Dan’s team won that game, but it was that play that transformed him into an all-star goalie in more than name only. 

Wrist Shot

Gilda woke up in the middle of the night with excruciating pain in her left wrist, a remnant of a fall she took over the summer as she descended a friend’s sloped driveway. She's been suffering off and on, made all the more inconvenient because she's a lefty. She's going to see a hand specialist this week. Until then she's been wearing a wrist brace at night, a souvenir of one of my bicycling misfortunes.

We were out in Uniondale for a weekend soccer tournament for Dan’s traveling all star team. We took our bikes with us as we knew there'd be lots of down time between and after games. Uniondale is next to Garden City where we rode.

The end of our family jaunt was on Stewart Avenue, a major roadway. I’d recently learned to ride a two-wheeler (shortly after I turned 40), so I wasn’t too comfortable riding on a busy thoroughfare. I suggested we bike on the sidewalk. Gilda said it would be safer in the street as the roadway was better maintained than the sidewalk. Fearful of cars, I insisted on the sidewalk. While Gilda, Dan and Ellie rode on the street, I pedaled along on the sidewalk. 

As we approached a massive tree with a low hanging branch, Dan said he would try to reach up to touch it. I turned my head to tell him not to, in so doing steered my bike directly into the tree trunk. I crashed, breaking my fall with my right forearm. X-rays from a midnight trip to the emergency room revealed no broken bones, but the wrist took months to heal, less time than it took my ego to admit Gilda was right about where to ride.

Now, careful readers should have noted Gilda hurt her left wrist, I hurt my right. Thus, she could not possibly be using the brace from my fall in Garden City. Correct! She’s wearing the brace from the fall I took the next summer on a charity bicycle ride along the shore in Norwalk, Conn. On a hairpin turn a car came, in my view, perilously close to knocking me over. I panicked and tumbled to my left, breaking the fall with my left wrist. 

I was lucky. I escaped both times with no more than a bone bruise, no torn ligaments, no hairline fracture. It was inconvenient trying to type while wearing the brace, but I survived. We’re really hoping Gilda is at least equally fortunate.

Anniversary's Over, Now Back to the News

Almost a week since my last post, not that there weren’t things to write about but I chose to take some quality time to enjoy a long family weekend celebration of Gilda’s and my 40th wedding anniversary which officially was Monday. This last year of our four decades together has been quite eventful—Ellie married Donny, and Donny started a new job; Dan and Allison produced their second child, Dagny, they moved into a new home and Allison started working outside the home again, as a kindergarten teacher in a town near their new residence; Gilda’s spine surgery medical practice shifted to a new hospital, Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan; and I earned my real estate salesperson license. Lots of good things to be thankful for. 

The festivities over, time for some thoughts on current events ...

As the national debate on immigration reform is propelled forward by pronouncements from President Obama and a plan from a bi-partisan group of senators, I’m reminded of a Forseter family story of illegal entry into the United States by one of our cousins (for the record, my mother beat the quota in 1921 when she came from Poland, while my father arrived in 1939 from Poland, half a year before the start of World War II).

My father’s cousin Jack Fürsetzer snuck into New York in the early 1920’s, I believe. Hearing that a roundup of suspected illegal immigrants was about to happen, he asked around for a good place to hide. He was told Minnesota, so off he went to the hinterlands, settling in the Twin Cities area. He changed his name to Brushman. In the 1930s there was an amnesty for illegals, which explains why some of his six children have his assumed last name and some have his real last name. 

About 20 years ago I met with my cousins during one of my trips to Minneapolis, but sadly I did not keep up contact. ...

Immigration is but one of the hot topics being debated these days. Since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, gun control has been topic one. Sadly, during a forum last night in Hartford, pro-gun advocates heckled the father of one of the young victims as he called for stricter gun control measures. 

Even if tighter laws on guns, especially on assault rifles, are passed, the chances of a meaningful reduction in deadly firearms availability is unlikely. As Dave Ross explained in a recent commentary I heard on CBS Radio, gun runners are already passing along ideas on how to get around any potential ban. Read his short commentary: http://mynorthwest.com/813/2184540/Just-calmly-getting-ready ...

Less than a week to go before the Super Bowl, a time to ponder why we are so enthralled with watching athletes, from high school age through their late 30s, abuse their bodies in pursuit of glory and, at least on the professional level, financial gain, however fleeting that might be. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy watching my New York Giants as much as any fan relishes rooting on his or her preferred team. I will watch some pro games in which I have no rooting interest, mostly out of curiosity or lack of anything better to do. After all, I do want to be able to be up to date on trending sports news and conversation, even if I don’t have a water cooler to hang around at work. But given repeated revelations about the medical complications football bequeaths its behemoths, don’t you wonder why so many parents permit, nay even encourage, their children to take up a sport that will torment them for life, or possibly even lead to their suicide?

The other day, president Barack Obama indicated if he had a son he might not let him play football. It’s a sentiment expressed increasingly by many parents, including sportscaster Michael Kay on ESPN Radio. Kay and his wife recently celebrated the birth of their first child, a daughter. I remember when Dan was a tween and interested in catching a football in our yard, Gilda let him know in no uncertain terms he would not be permitted to play organized football. He pouted for a while, but soon got over it. 

He played soccer, instead. Goalie. During one game he blocked a hard, close-in shot with his head. Down he went. The game stopped as the referee and coaches tended to him. On the sidelines, Gilda had to be restrained from rushing out onto the field. In her frustration she asked, “What type of game is this where a mother can’t go out to her injured son?” Dan quickly recovered and finished the game, but Gilda rarely went to see him play soccer again. She did, however, enjoy watching him play Ultimate Frisbee. ...  

Want to be truly scared? I’m not talking some creepy Nightmare on Elm Street/Freddy Kruger horror flick. I’m talking real world, red and blue state election results. 

While Democrats savor Barack Obama’s second term, and his progressive inaugural address, there’s mayhem underfoot, as Republicans wax up their plans to put the skids on any future possibility of a Democratic president. In states where Republicans control the legislature and the governorship they are exploring changes in the way Electoral College votes are allocated. Here are two links worth taking the time to explore. Unless you’re a bedrock conservative, they'll have you quaking in your boots:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/24/republican-vote-rigging-electoral-college_n_2546010.htmlutm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=012513&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeatureTitle&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/423163/january-23-2013/alpha-dog-of-the-week---virginia-state-senate-republicans?xrs=share_copy

A Mother's Vindication and Muscle Bound

A Mother’s Vindication: Gilda doesn’t normally read the sports pages, but she sent me an article the other day that must have found its way onto the most emailed list of The NY Times. The article recounted how many parents, including professional and retired athletes, are reticent about allowing their children to play football because of the fear of injury, especially head injury. 

“How nice that people are coming to these conclusions about football 30 years after I said I would never allow Dan to play!,” she wrote in a note to Dan and me accompanying the article (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/sports/football/with-fears-about-safety-football-faces-uncertain-evolution.html?_r=1). 

Can’t say I fault her for crowing and being clairvoyant.

The article even quoted Hall of Fame quarterback and football analyst Terry Bradshaw predicting within 10 years football would be “eclipsed in popularity by soccer and other sports.”

Of course, playing soccer is no guarantee a child will be injury-free and mothers will be worry-free. Case in point: Dan played on a travel all-star soccer team from the time he was nine years old. Except for most of that first fall season, he was the goalie, which was rather startling as he was a less than determined player when he played defense. You might say he was the most accommodating defender there ever was. If the ball was between him and a player from another team, his politeness gene kicked in. He deferred to his foe, giving him free rein to kick the ball to the goal. 

As soon as Dan was shifted to goalkeeper late that first all-star season, he underwent a transformation. Perhaps it was realizing he was the last line of defense, Dan became downright protective of his space. He would fling his body towards the ball, even running headlong into an advancing forward. He did not give up goals lightly. One weekend tournament he played four games before the coaches realized he had fractured his wrist. His team won all four of those games.

At another tournament when Dan was around 12, this one attended by Gilda as well, an opponent took a shot from about 30 feet away. Screened on the play, Dan nevertheless made the save—with his face. Down he went. Play stopped as his teammates and coaches gathered around his dazed body. 

Standing on the sidelines, Gilda’s maternal instincts took over. She started to rush onto the field, but was restrained by the referees. To no avail she cried out, “What kind of game is this where a parent can’t run to her injured son?” Dan recovered soon enough and completed the game. His team won that one, too.

Muscle Bound: Ever been to Muscle Beach, that stretch of surf and sand in Venice, Calif., made famous by body builders including Arnold Schwarzenegger? I have, though a look at my frame would not immediately conjure up images of muscles. The closest I’ve come to enjoying muscles is partaking some steamed mussels along with a basket of crisp French fries, otherwise known as moules et frites. But I digress.

A front page article in The Times the other day brought to light the concerns of Venetians that their honky-tonk world is under threat. Seems Google, and even the ex-guv Arnold himself, might be buying up properties to reshape the terrain away from street people, body builders, drop-outs, skateboarders, medical marijuana dispensaries and the homeless (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/us/bodybuilders-flinch-at-googles-venice-beach-incursion.html). 

Gilda and I have been to Venice Beach, just down the way from Santa Monica, several times, but it was only during our most recent trip to California, last November as part of the time we spent in Los Angeles for our nephew Ari’s wedding, that we opted to stay at the Venice Beach Suites and Hotel, in a third floor room overlooking the boardwalk and beach. It was lovely watching the setting sun from our window. I wouldn’t say we were fearful of the street people. Cautious would be a better word. We’re generally adventurous tourists, but quite content to say “been there, done that” once the experience is over. I doubt we will rebook a room on Venice Beach.

Games, Songs, Films and Sales

World Cup Update: No, not the soccer, er, football, matches in South Africa. I’m talking Ultimate Frisbee Club Championships in Prague! Dan’s team, Ironside, is one of five representing the U.S. at the quadrennial competition featuring 48 squads from 29 countries in the Open Club division (overall, there are 136 teams from 37 countries participating in four classes: Open, Women’s, Mixed, and Masters).

Five of the top six Open teams are from the United States. Ironside is seeded fourth in the world, behind two U.S. teams and one from Japan. In the preliminary round, Ironside has vanquished its three opponents, teams from France, Germany and Slovakia. Tuesday’s foes include a team from Great Britain and another from Germany, on Wednesday it will be Australia and Finland, followed by another team from Down Under on Thursday.

Keep checking for updates, or, if you’re really into Ultimate, here’s the web site: http://wucc2010.com/node.


Felipe Melo, I feel your pain: For those who don’t know who Felipe Melo is, he’s a star midfielder on the Brazilian World Cup soccer team who accidentally headed a ball into his own net in a loss to The Netherlands last Friday. Although upon further review the benevolent soccer gods credited a Dutchman with the goal, Melo and everyone else in Brazil and around the world know his mistake in letting a shot glance off his head cost his team a goal. When you lose 2-1, that really hurts.

I made the same mistake when playing intramural soccer back in college, but in a much more lopsided loss (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/06/goooooooooooooooooallllllllll.html). Felipe, don’t worry, you get over it in, say, 30-40 years. At least that’s the time span for intramural play. Heaven knows what the recuperatory period is for World Cup f---ups!


Born in the USA: Gilda and I went to the White Plains fireworks extravaganza at the high school last Thursday. A local band did a lot of covers of Bruce Springsteen songs, capping their performance with "Born in the USA" as the fireworks started exploding. This anthem to working class values and a search for connection to the government and family pulsates with the title refrain. It’s transcended any meaning Springsteen might have had for the song into a form of national anthem.

I couldn’t stop wondering as "Born in the USA" reverberated in my ears—what does it say about immigration policy? Is only someone “born in the USA” kosher, capable of feeling the patriotism devotees of the song have adopted? I can’t believe Springsteen would want his song co-opted by anyone who believes, as they do in Arizona, that illegal immigrants are deliberately causing crashes on state highways; that they are beheading people and leaving corpses in the desert; and that they are all “mules” carrying illegal drugs across the border.

I am glad, I am blessed, that I and the rest of my family were born in the USA, that my parents were allowed to emigrate here. “Born in the USA” should be a mindset, not a requirement for citizenship. It should be a reminder that we are a nation of immigrants, that tolerance has distinguished our country from all others.


Prescient Quote: Flipping through TV channels a week ago I stopped momentarily on the movie The Wind and the Lion. It’s a rousing tale based on a true incident in 1904 when Berber chieftain Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli (the lion) kidnaps an American and President Teddy Roosevelt (the wind) sends a rescue mission to Morocco. In real life, Raisuli took a man and his son into custody. For the Hollywood version, Raisuli, played by Sean Connery, kidnapped Eden Perdicaris (Candice Bergen) and her two children.

During the course of the film, Raisuli and Perdicaris develop an understanding relationship. But it starts out, as might be expected, rather strained. Riasuli, after all, did kidnap her and her children, in the process killing many of her servants and a guest while trashing her home. Moreover, at their first stop after fleeing the city, a well owned by Raisuli, he summarily executes two of four men who drew water without his permission.

In explaining his actions, Raisuli says, “You see the man at the well (one of his loyal band). When one bucket empties, the other fills. It is so with the world. At present, you (meaning the Western countries) are full of power, but you are spilling it wastefully and Islam is lapping up the drops as they spill from your bucket.”

Hearing that matter-of-fact explanation of global transformation curdled my brain. How easily the dialogue could have come from Osama bin Laden. How prescient of the screenwriters. Keep in mind, The Wind and the Lion came out in 1975!


I brake for...tag sales. I am regressing, going back to the years when our children were young and we stocked their playpens with cheap finds at garage sales. The fountain of youth is a grandchild, at least as far as backyard commerce goes.

This past weekend I scored major finds, several Fisher Price/Sesame Street trucks, a Play and Speak animal sounds toy, plus a riding front loader, all for just $5. Also, a huge wooden pick-up truck for $3. I was in a feeding frenzy. I would have bought more, but calmer minds (Gilda, in other words) prevailed.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLLLL

To some degree, to a very small degree, I know how Robert Green feels. He’s the goalkeeper of England’s World Cup soccer team who muffed a seemingly easy save, allowing the United States to secure a 1-1 tie in their first round match on Saturday.

I never played goalie, but in college I headed a ball past a keeper. Too bad he was protecting my team’s net. Ouch. Had it been the deciding goal in the intramural game, I would possibly be scarred for life. But my Brooklyn College house plan (like a fraternity but without national affiliation or dormitory privileges) had already given up too many scores to win the game when a high kick came soaring towards our goal. Playing fullback, one of the defensemen, I retreated towards the net, positioning myself where I thought the ball would land. I miscalculated. Instead of hitting my head square, the ball skidded off the back of my crown. Right past our goalie. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!

I never really liked soccer. Like most yuppie parents I brought our son Dan to soccer tryouts when he turned 7. Dan really wasn’t too enthusiastic a player back then, even when he “made” our city’s traveling all-star team two years later. Everyone “made” the team. The better players went onto the A team. Dan was placed on the B team. He played fullback, like his dad, only Dan turned out to be the politest of defenders. If a ball rolled between him and an opponent, Dan exhibited his own brand of sportsmanship by not interfering with that player’s forward motion. It was frustrating to watch, especially since schlepping him to practices was quite inconvenient. On a positive note, Dan was no worse a player than most of the others on the team.

Early October 1987 proved to be pivotal in Dan’s athletic development. His team was playing a four-game weekend tournament in Yonkers. It was a pitiful showing, made all the more gloomy by torrential rains (unlike baseball, soccer is played in the rain). His team lost the first game something like 11-3, the second game 10-2, the third game 13-4. As he waited to play the final game, Dan asked me if he could be goalie. I told him to ask the coach, who quickly said, no, he was still trying to evaluate the team’s goalie. Near the end of a 10-0 rout, the coach relented and allowed Dan to play the last five minutes in goal. Now, with no one except himself as the last line of defense, something inside Dan clicked. He attacked the forwards charging at him. He dove in the mud to make saves. The coach took notice. From that mucky, yucky finish, Dan became the team’s starting goalie, a position he didn’t relinquish even after elevation to the A team and through high school varsity.

I loved watching Dan in goal. He was decisive. Athletic. Demanding of himself and his teammates. He played hurt. One tournament he played four games before the coach realized he had fractured his wrist. White Plains won all four of those games.

I didn’t get to see any of Dan’s high school varsity games because of work. So I made a point of getting to the state sectional match against Mamaroneck in Dan’s senior year. I arrived at Mamaroneck’s field during half-time of a 0-0 game, found a seat in the bleachers and waited for the teams to emerge. Dan didn’t come out. Someone else was in goal. Turns out, Dan had injured his leg thwarting a breakaway. My disappointment, as well as Dan’s, was made even more palpable by a 1-0 overtime loss.

To my knowledge, that was the last organized soccer game Dan played. He shifted his athletic allegiance to Ultimate Frisbee, first at college and then at the club level (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/02/ultimate-serendipity.html). In a little less than three weeks his Boston-based frisbee team will travel to Prague to compete in the world championships. The tournament won’t get the same international attention the World Cup is generating from South Africa, except, that is, among Ultimate’s fanatical base of players and supporters.