Yankees Doodle Dandy

In the wake of the Yankees' stirring World Series championship,* a friend sent congratulations, tempered by his Yankees loathing: “Every year the Yanks don't win it is a victory for our national pastime in my opinion.”

Another confessed inner conflict, saying he really likes the team “except for A-Rod.”

Well. So it goes.

We Yankee fans are accustomed to such. Everybody needs a villain, it seems, and let’s face it, teams like the Padres, the Royals or those adorable loser Cubs just aren’t up to the role.

And so the Yankees go about their business of beating up teams at home in the Bronx, or traveling around the country and filling stadiums for other teams, and then beating them up.

“They’re buying championships!” critics cry. “The best team that money can buy!”

As if there’s something wrong with an owner trying to put the best team on the field. Besides, if money is the be-all, where are all those championships Jason Giambi, Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano and Randy Johnson were supposed to bring? How about a little sympathy here for nine years without a ring?

“Steroids!” others shout. “Cheaters!”

Hey, the Yankees have been winning championships since the days when cigarettes and beer were their performance enhancers. Imagine what the Babe or Mickey could have done sober!

So, in the spirit of comity, let's give the Yankees their due for No. 27, move on to football season, and hate the team that really deserves it: the Patriots.




*Every Yankees' World Series championship is stirring. Every defeat is either gut-wrenching or heartbreaking (see Game 7, 2001).

A One, and a Two, and a ...

I count.

I don’t mean that in the sense of, “I’m important.” I mean, I count things. Actions. Stuff.

Not everything - that would be nuts. But a lot of things: stair steps, each skip of my jump rope, the number of pumps it takes to put air in my bicycle tires, the time it takes for my commuter train to arrive from the previous stop to mine.

I could tell you how many running strides I get to the minute, with a pretty fair degree of accuracy. On a driving trip, I could tell you how many miles I’d covered in the past hour, how that compared with the previous hour, and the overall average for the journey.

Research tells me this kind of behavior is consistent with obsessive-compulsive disorder, which I find unsurprising. It can also apparently be a sign of depression, which I find depressing. But I can’t stop.

It is, after all, a compulsion. Like, say, repeatedly checking to see if you turned off the stove or iron. Which I also do.

And sometimes it’s useful. I count breaths when meditating, up to 12 and then starting over. Unfortunately, that also leads me to keep track of the number of cycles I’ve been through and to keep a running tally of how many more I have to go, which more or less defeats the purpose of meditation to begin with.

Still, as compulsions go, counting seems to be relatively benign. At least I’m not compulsively gambling away all my money, washing my hands 20 times an hour or rearranging my CDs and books so that they’ll be in alphabetical order.

Come to think of it, I wonder how many CDs and books I have...

My Way

I’m thought to be mild-mannered, and I work for a great metropolitan (and beyond) newspaper, so let’s assume for the sake of discussion that I’m Superman.

In addition to fighting for Truth, Justice and the American Way, I’ve got some changes I think ought to be made for the benefit of society in general, and me in particular. Hey, I’m Superman. You gonna argue?

And so, henceforth:

Baseball players are to let their socks show below the knees - with stirrups. It’s baseball, not cricket.

Littering will be a felony. And that includes cigarette butts. Ditto loud talking, cellphone or otherwise, on trains, and trying to butt ahead when leaving a plane. That steams me.

Items someone - it doesn’t matter who - should always make sure are in my fridge: banana pudding, tuna salad, pimiento cheese, meatloaf.

The broadcast of singing by Tom Waits or Neil Young is prohibited, as are public performances by either.

Every bar must stock Double Diamond ale, on tap. And, say, Stella, Carlsberg and Harp (or at least two out of the three). And Guinness or Murphy's stout, for when I feel more heavy.

All dentists are required to use nitrous oxide upon request. Lots of it.

No more designated hitter.

TV and radio talking heads will be subject to fact-checking and review. More than five distortions, outright lies or blatant examples of idiocy, and it’s off the air for a month.

Facebook must return to the old practice of showing only a person’s most recent status update.

Professional basketball? Hockey? I don't think so.

The willingness to eat bugs, exotic internal organs or small slithery creatures will not be sufficient reason to have a TV show.

No college football polls before the second game of the season.

No commercials before movie screenings. Instead, a return to cartoons.

Women will not make the same amount of money for a tennis tournament unless they play the same number of sets as men.

No long-term guaranteed sports contracts.

Barq's will be the official and only root beer, and grape, orange and strawberry flavors will return. In glass bottles with blue labels.

No Christmas lawn decorations until after Thanksgiving.

Science will turn the attention of its greatest nutritional minds to subtracting all the calories (but none of the taste) from Cinnabons, Butterfingers and Snickers.

Leather and/or stretch pants will not be sold in a size above medium.

Oh, and June 28? National holiday.

Alpha to Omani

Kayne and I are eating our way around the world, alphabetically.

And slowly.

We started almost three years ago in Argentina. From there it was on to Burma, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and so on. The process has been instructive, in terms of cuisine -- we learned, for example, that it’s risky to be a cow in Argentina, or a chicken in Peru -- and not particularly expensive, since we don’t actually go to any of the countries involved.

That’s one of the benefits of living near the Big Apple Pie.

For example, Germany was a relatively easy drive to the Zum Stammtisch in Glendale, Queens. (Kassler rippchen, bratwurst und leberkase mitt sauerkraut. Yum!) Ethiopia? LIRR to Penn Station, walk to the Queen of Sheba on 10th Avenue. (Assorted meat stews and vegetable mushes, basically, scooped up with spongy bread. Better than it sounds!)

We did burn some miles for Lebanon and Morocco, both of which we sampled while on vacation last year in Vancouver. The food was pretty interchangeable, as was the belly dancer above, who appeared at both restaurants.

I’m not complaining. I love Middle Eastern food. And, given the right belly ...

A highly flexible rule is that we aim for less-familiar cuisines when possible: Filipino, not French; Tibetan, not Thai. Over all, there have been more hits than misses. At the top: Burma, at Village Mingala in the East Village.

There have also been some cases of what even a generous soul might be inclined to refer to as “cheating.” For “O,” we ate “Oriental,” on Chinese New Year. (Hey, Omani restaurants aren’t as easy to come by as you might think, even in New York.)

Most recently, we fudged some more on “Q,” with a single dish called poutine that originated in Quebec. (French fries with cheese curd, smothered in chicken gravy. Let me just say that Filipino, long at the bottom of my list, has edged up one notch.)

But at least now we can move on to hit Russia in Brooklyn, followed by a few relatively simple to find countries scattered around the vicinity.

And though “X” was looming as a potential stumper, a friend, in the spirit of further cheating, has recommended Xunta, a tapas restaurant in the Village. Onward to the former Yugoslavia, or Yemen! Zambia, or Zimbabwe!

But I will not eat zebra.

Ever Endeavour

My house is full of books, most of which I’ll never read. Some were gifts that didn’t match my tastes but I can’t bring myself to toss. Others I know I should read, but don’t.

But there’s only one I bought with the specific intention never to read.

The title is "The Remorseful Day." The author is Colin Dexter; the protagonist is Inspector Morse. Chief Inspector Morse. Fans of the PBS television series “Mystery” may be familiar with Morse. This is him in a nutshell: Thames Valley, England, police official; brilliant and enigmatic; devotee of classical music, crossword puzzles and a well-pulled pint; chronic failure with women; thorn in the side for superiors; mentor and tormentor to junior partner, Sergeant Lewis (seen with him above); grumpy.

Endearing.

I got the chance to interview Dexter in 1993, while he was on a book tour in England for the paperback edition of his 10th book, “The Way Through the Woods.” I asked if he had lots of other Morse tales up his sleeve.

“Certainly not,” he said. “I have to struggle to get any ideas at all.’’ But, he added, “I know if I start, something will come.’’

Dexter added three novels. The last one I read, “Death Is Now My Neighbor,’’ revealed a long, jealously protected secret, the chief inspector’s first name: Endeavour.

A revelation of that nature should have been a clue to what lay ahead.

There’s precedent for authors killing off their detective creations, most famously Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s dispatching of Sherlock Holmes. The public was outraged, and so Doyle brought him back. Holmes lived on to retire and keep bees in Sussex, where for all we know he still is.

Dexter rejected any such riding-into-the-sunset.

“Morse never would have lasted in retirement,’’ he told an interviewer in 1999. “He had no lawn to mow. He would have gone spare. No, it’s better this way.’’

Better for Dexter, perhaps, whose health, I gather, has not been the best and on whom the writing came to take a physical toll. Not better for those of us who dearly miss the good, grumpy inspector.

To Have and To Hold

Kayne wanted a travel adventure. I wanted a handsome, suitable-for-framing marriage certificate to display proudly and invite envy.

So we decided on a destination wedding for our nuptials in 1998.

An anglophile, I liked the idea of Britain. I figured a place displaying such pomp would be able to serve up a pretty nifty marriage certificate, too. One with a handsome likeness of the queen, perhaps, and a regal golden seal. Maybe even a knight in armor, or appropriate heraldry. With printing and wording along the lines of Magna Carta:

"Joe, by the grace of God, born of Mississippi, and Kayne, helpmeet and co-equal, do hereby and forthwith..." etc., etc.

We settled on Scotland, which has no pesky residency requirement, opting for a civil ceremony in Edinburgh. A fax to the register office announced our intentions, and we set about collecting the required documents and forwarding the paperwork.

It wasn't simple. We had trouble downloading the forms. We had trouble understanding why some of the information - like our parents' occupations - was required. But we managed, and forwarded it all, including birth certificates to attest that we were at least legal age, 16.

After several weeks, the office informed us that we had an appointment for a wedding at 1 p.m. on our requested date. We flew to Glasgow, rented a car, and drove to Edinburgh. The next day a taxi took us from our hotel to the office for the ceremony.

The wedding party was small. The wedding party was us two.

That, the registrar reminded me, was at least two people short. We needed witnesses. I was about to step into the street in search of a pair of strangers, wondering what might be the proper approach:

“Excuse me, witness my wedding? Buy you a pint!”

Luckily, the registrar spotted another couple who had stopped by the office to fill out forms for their own coming wedding. And so J.M. Blues and S. Mouat of Drumdryan Street, Edinburgh, became part of our official record.

After the ceremony, a decidedly unromantic affair, Kayne and I headed for the nearest pub, the Bow Bar. At about that point the wedding segued into honeymoon trip, with later visits to St. Andrews, Aberdeen, Stirling, Glasgow, and with friends near Loch Lomond.

A successful mission, from my wife's travel adventure perspective.

Unfortunately for me, the marriage certificate did not live up to my hopes. I had traveled thousands of miles for a piece of paper about as impressive as a car title: a washed-out, mint green sheet with a swirling background of cream lettering that repeats Registrar General of Births Deaths and Marriages for Scotland. (Somehow, the word "death" seems to pop up more than any of the others.)

A dimly produced Scottish thistle topped by a crown doesn't add much luster. And all the pertinent information is typed, in a font reminiscent of a term paper.

In aesthetic terms, our friends Glenn and Nancy did much better a few months later, with a ketubah evoking the Garden of Eden, as pictured above. It has lavender butterflies, blue and green pansies, two peacocks in full and colorful display, a lyre and other colorful, if hard to recognize, adornments. Their commitment to each other is spelled out using words like “cherish” and “honor” and “faithfulness” and “integrity."

They solemnized it before their lovely and moving wedding ceremony - on the backyard deck of friends in Nashville. A rollicking celebration followed.

We keep our certificate in a file folder along with old tax forms, bank statements and car insurance policies. Glenn and Nancy's ketubah is proudly displayed on a wall and invites envy.

Especially mine.

Headed for a Fall

Spring is supposed to be the season of renewal, and maybe it is for Planet Earth, but for Planet Joe, it’s fall.

That’s because decades after I last stepped into a classroom, internally I still function on a school calendar. Fall always offered a fresh start, no matter what complications the previous school year had brought.

New clothes, because I’d outgrown the ones I got last year. (My early sartorial models were Timmy on “Lassie” and Opie Taylor, which meant blue jeans and high-top Keds.)

New notebooks, rulers, protractors, compasses, pencils. (I was a big believer in the proper tools of the trade. Major advance: the authorization of ballpoints in the fourth grade.)

A new teacher, or set of teachers, who could help make or break a year. (Which is why fifth grade sucked.)

New subjects and challenges. (I recall wondering whether I could master cursive writing. The answer: not really.)

New textbooks, or at least unfamiliar ones, to be diligently enclosed in manila covers for protection. (Turning the covers inside-out allowed for personalized lettering and artwork.)

New classmates, to offset the ones who had moved away. (Growing up in a paper mill town, the transfer of parents helped provide both.) And reconnecting with others you hadn’t seen all summer, because they lived across town or didn’t play baseball.

A new season of high school football. (Perhaps the highest level of football that can be played with true integrity.)

Of course, none of those new starts apply directly for me now, one reason why each year tends to blur into the next with little distinction.

But I still find myself, in the August heat, straining to detect traces of the coming cooler, drier days. I try to imagine the smell of burning leaves, the feel of the approaching crisp evenings.

And I think: Fall sure comes a lot faster than it used to.

Erin Go? Not

I heard Kayne say my name in that drawn-out, questioning tone that, in my experience, never precedes good news:

JOOOOOOEEEEEEE....?

Uh-oh, I thought.

We were five days away from boarding a KLM flight to Dublin. For a week we would explore the Emerald Isle, or such parts as we could get to.

Pubs! The Guinness brewery! Jameson distillery! More pubs!

And of course many cultural, historic and artistic sites. I hear Ireland has them, too.

But then Kayne came into the room, peering closely at something in her hands. A book? Blue, it appeared. My brain ran through the possibilities, and quickly got a hit:

Passport.

Uh-oh.

I like to think of myself as a reasonably seasoned traveler. I do my homework, search for the best fares, investigate suitable lodging, check the weather forecast, take notes on attractions, collect tips from people who have been to my destination before.

Lacking, in this case, was due diligence to the little document that, if you are leaving the country, pretty much trumps everything else in terms of importance. I last renewed in February 1999. Which meant that it expired ... in February 2009. Six months ago, almost to the day.

Kayne, bless her, uttered not one word of reproach, but I had plenty for myself. Efforts to schedule an emergency renewal appointment went for naught. The passport officials, while polite, did not feel obliged to let me butt in line.

So we started trying to formulate fallback travel plans - domestic, obviously. Maybe something within driving distance, even, for three or four days. Upstate New York, say.. Or ... uh ...

Every possibility seemed to me likely to suffer from the comparison: We’re here, when we could have been in Ireland?

Which is why, as I write this, Kayne is on that KLM flight to Dublin. I don’t mind paying for my mistakes. But I can’t let the innocent be punished.

She gets back next week. I look forward to seeing the pictures.

The Test and the Brightest

My job used to afford lots of empty time in the post-midnight hours that required filling, and one early morning my mind found itself attracted to one of those online IQ tests that seem to be everywhere.

So I took it.

And thought, when I looked at the result, I’m smarter than that.

I don’t claim to be an Einstein. I started running into people smarter than I am quite early in life, and the trend has not abated. But still, to have ranked in the IQ vicinity of one of our less-celebrated presidents (according to information thoughtfully provided by the test makers) rankled me. So I looked for a different test, and took it, too.

And scored exactly the same.

Which led to my finding another test, and taking it.

And scoring about 20 points lower.

All right. That last one I attributed to mental fatigue. Testing experts probably would not recommend back-to-back-to-back efforts when your mind has already been taxed by a full day of work and the midnight drowsies and such. Furthermore, I thought, who’s to say that these pop-psychology quizzes of the type that show up online have any real validity, preying as they do on the bored and vain. So I decided to put the test to the test, so to speak.

A few days later, I persuaded my wife to take the first one that I’d taken.

I will not reveal the results. But a word of advice to any fellow husband who might ever be tempted to match brainpower with his wife:

It’s not a smart idea.

Here, There and Everywhere

Cato patiently awaits a decision about what to do with his earthly remains.

My plan had always been to bury him next to his “brother” Clouseau, beneath the day lilies in the side flowerbed. I had a wooden “casket” picked out and the burial shroud - an old, hooded gray sweatshirt of mine. (Clouseau is in a navy blue one.)

But then, on impulse, I had Cato cremated. Ironic, in a sense: After all the time and effort we spent almost every day in his final months to hydrate him, he is now the ultimate in dehydration.

Just as I expect to be someday.

I have plans for the disposal of my own ashes which involve a final trip to my hometown for repose in a place I will not publicly reveal, lest it not be strictly legal. Let’s just say it will be a rare immersion for Joe in water.

A friend with cremation plans wants his ashes divvied up among his best mates, with instructions to disperse them in the place that each identifies most with him. If I should be one of those so entrusted, I will have to find a way to deposit him in the vicinity of what used to be a pool hall on Nolensville Road in Nashville. A private ceremonial scattering in the parking lot, perhaps, with appropriate wording like, “You beat me again, Ed.”

Cato’s ashes could still be buried beneath the flowers, with appropriate ceremony. And I was somewhere between aghast and amused when I saw some of the storage alternatives, including the Buddha cat urn above. But a little research turned up some more palatable choices, and now I‘m reconsidering.

After all, 20 years as the World’s Sweetest (and Sometimes Loudest) Cat certainly earned Cato a permanent spot around the place.

The Tie That Binds

Even as a kid, I never subscribed to the Beaver Cleaver theory that girls are yucky. Pretty much from Day 1 of the first grade, I would scan my female classmates, settle on the perfect one for me, and instantly develop a crush.

Girls, I thought, are not yucky at all. They’re nifty.

And so through elementary school I had a succession of love affairs, many (O.K., most) of them entirely unrequited. As a result, some girls who have long since disappeared from my life - who, let’s face it, never were much in it - nevertheless occupy a fond place in my memory.

But there was one who really held my heart, one with staying power, one whom I watched grow from a feisty little kindergartner into a slinky young teenager: Angela Cartwright.

From “Make Room for Daddy” through “Lost in Space” she captured my imagination, the embodiment of the girl next door who just happened to be a TV actress. Not a particularly good actress, truth be told, but I’m a forgiving sort when dazzled by looks.

Alas, like the others, she eventually fell out of my life. The last I remember of her was a peanut butter commercial - or was it toothpaste? - and then I lost track.

Until I Googled her.

And learned that Angela has her own Web site (of course), with filmography and interviews and scrapbook photos of her career and various calendars, T-shirts, coffee mugs, postcards and the like featuring her own artwork (who knew?). She’ll even autograph pictures, like the one above, as Penny in “Lost in Space,” for $20.

Does she look like that anymore? No. She’s 56. Does she still look good? I think so.

Some crushes have staying power.

Who You Gonna Yell For?

My experience with high school football pep rallies was that they were a group celebration of self-denial.

The students would get together on game day to much music and cheering, attempt to work themselves into a school-spirit frenzy and then demand that the game captains come up and say something rousing like, “Y’all come out and watch us beat Hattiesburg tonight.”

I actually said that at a rally, knowing full well that the only chance we had of beating Hattiesburg was if their entire first (and, to be safe, second) string were to be struck with hysterical blindness very early in the game. If not before.

Fortunately, the ineptness of our team was offset by the attractiveness of our cheerleaders and the enthusiasm of the band. And the rallies gave us all a chance to join in the singing of our shared anthem, the Moss Point High School alma mater.

“On our city’s western borders, reared against the sky,
Proudly stands our alma mater, as the years go by.”

And so on.

I’m not one of those best-years-of-my-life, Springsteen-song guys, but I do have a soft spot for high school and the friends I had there. I don’t even know what my college alma mater was (“Dixie?”) but a high school alma mater has a certain tender nostalgia. (One of the most poignant scenes in TV history is when Ange and Barn sang the Mayberry Union High alma mater after a bittersweet 20th reunion.)

And so it was with considerable distress that I learned that the Moss Point alma mater had been replaced with an entirely new version sometime after my departure.

Who did this, I wondered. And why?

I’m not arguing that the lyrics were particularly, well, lyrical. Nor were they unique; it turns out that Marshall County High School in Lewisburg, Tenn., has the same words exactly, except for the school name, of course. But that isn’t the point. The point is that an alma mater doesn’t belong to some particular group or class, it belongs to years - generations - of alumni.

And I want to find out who thought otherwise.

Hand Me That Hydrometer, Pal

Popular Mechanics published a list of 100 skills its editors decided that every man should know. Some of them are predictable (jump-start a car) some are puzzling (survive lightning) and almost all are stereotypical (rescue damsel in distress).

O.K. That last one isn’t really in there.

But the tenor is the pretty much the same. Except for the occasional androgynous task (use a sewing machine, iron a shirt) the overall implication is that men do manly things, and lots of them.

“I am lucky, my husband surpasses this 100 and can do more,” one female respondent crowed.

Well. I think I’m glad she didn’t feel the need to enlighten us further. But of course we all have additional skills not on the list. For instance, I am fluent in three languages (if you count Igpay Atinlay and Dulfouble Talfalk); can properly use “comprise,” “purport” and “begs the question”; and remember the birthdays of tons of people who have long since gone out of my life.

But do I really need to know how to stick weld or master a coolant hydrometer? I think not.

Instead, here are a few skills I wish I had that aren’t on the list:

Detecting and avoiding a boxing glove headed to my face.

Keeping my mouth shut when I know that opening it is just going to tick my wife off.

Performing routine computer functions without having to e-mail my geek friends in Nashville.

Making a cue ball go where I want it to go.

And playing a musical instrument. But not just any instrument. The guitar, say. Or harmonica.

You know. Something manly.

Either Write Things Worth Reading, Or...

My friend Alan Huffman once asked why I hadn’t considered writing a book. I told him I didn’t know enough words.

“Use some of them twice,” he said.

That approach must work for Alan, who has since written several books, including the latest, “Sultana.”

But the problem for me with nonfiction is that I’m far too lazy to do the kind of research required, even on a subject close to my heart. (Besides, does the world need another book on the refreshing qualities of beer?)

I tried fiction once, with a short story. And I quickly learned that it isn’t enough just to come up with a title. There have to be characters, and they have to say and do stuff. As if I had the imagination for that.

Which leaves available the memoir, a popular field I’ve never fully understood. Is it that these writers all have much better memories than I do, or simply that they’ve led lives filled with experiences much more tragic, comic or inspiring than mine? Or, as with Frank McCourt, both?

I’m not saying my years have been entirely without highlights, but near-starvation and a ne’er-do-well drunk of a father in Depression-era Ireland are not among them. And I’m not sure there is a market for my tale of angst about having to dance at the Farmer’s Ball in high school, or of hydrophobic trepidation at my full-immersion baptism.

Of course, James Frey and “Margaret B. Jones”, among others, have demonstrated that adherence to truth is not necessarily a requirement to get a memoir published. But I suspect that if I tried to mention my rewarding two years of Peace Corps service in Africa, or my daring rescue of 12 first graders trapped in a burning bus, someone in the know would quickly rat me out.

So I remain unpublished, at least in the book world. But if I should ever muster the gumption to try to tell my life story, I at least have constructed the opening line:

“About the time my face cleared up, my hair started falling out.”

Why the Grass Is Greener on the Other Side

The little signs on neighborhood lawns announcing chemical beautification treatments taunt me, reminders that my own grass is trying to make it without performance enhancers.

This is my doing.

Unconvinced that the hundreds of dollars a year we had been spending were doing any particular good, I suspended our lawn service last summer. And I’ve persisted in that stance, despite repeated telephone entreaties to re-up.

The last (and what I hope is final) time I told a guy no, he seemed genuinely puzzled that anyone could be so uncaring.

“What are you doing with your lawn?” he asked.

The answer, which I did not feel obliged to give him, is “nothing.” I have reverted to my previous practice, observed for decades, of a simpler relationship with grass: It grows; I cut it.

Granted, this is contrary to standard practice on Long Island, where chemicals to make grass green (and a wide array of other plants, as well as bugs, dead) are considered essential. So what if, in using them, people are turning the whole place toxic?

Thus I have environmental, as well as economic, principles to stand on.

I also, unfortunately, have some rather bare spots of dirt to stand on, especially in my front yard. (Why is it the grass will happily strive to grow across the sidewalk, without first filling in the yard gaps?) My wife fears an invasion of dandelions from the yard behind (which, in addition to a generally carefree attitude about grass maintenance, displays the same approach for children’s toys, wheelbarrows, discarded furniture and the like).

So my resolve is being tested. Will good triumph over evil? I’m ready to do my part: mow. Grass, the ball’s in your court. Man up.

Stick a Cork in It

So it’s come to this: Kayne took a bottle of screw-cap wine as a party offering the other night.

“The thing is,” she said, “it’s really perfect for a party, because --”

She stopped at that point, no doubt considering the possibility that I was gearing up to mock her.

Well…

I have a brief and undistinguished history with screw-cap wine, dating to some high school experimentation with a brand called Ripple. “A 90-cent drunk,” one of my more frugal friends called it admiringly, a comment that I think speaks succinctly to more than just the cost.

In college, I flirted for a while with both Boone’s Farm Apple and Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill. One night my roommate, Furby, pitched in as I studied for a test in the easiest college course I ever took, physical science. We tossed back a few bottles of the strawberry while he called out questions and I answered. Mental acuity deteriorated rather rapidly. I remember this exchange in particular:

Furby: “How far is the nearest star?”

Me: “Far!”

Us: Raucous laughter.

Perhaps needless to say, I flunked that test.

But association with academic failure is not the basis of my long-held anti-screw-cap bias; it’s the association with inferiority. I’m not saying the screw-cap stuff won’t deliver the goods, if you define the goods as teeth-melting inebriation. But, typically, screw-cap wines have not been the ones that evoked discussion on bouquet, balance, aftertaste and the like. No hints of allspice, no traces of morello cherry. Recommended cheese pairing: Velveeta.

So to take a bottle as a gift to a party....

I know, I know, true, tree-based corks have been going the way of the dodo for a while now, for environmental and other reasons. But at least the plastic substitutes had the advantage of still allowing a suave gent (or me) the chance to deftly apply a corkscrew and demonstrate the seductive appeal of a smooth, powerful extraction.

“Shall I pour, my dear?”

Somehow the romance suffers when the operation amounts to, “Here, baby, I twisted one off for you.” I mean, she might as well be drinking beer.

Which, in a case like that, I already am.

The Dark Age

These are the doldrums in my neighborhood, that becalmed time when, try as they might, no one can find an excuse to decorate their lawns or houses.

It begins as Easter ends, and the assorted bunnies, eggs and baskets go back into storage until next year. (Odd, isn’t it, that the holiest day of Christianity seems to inspire no creche-like, Jesus-centric displays?)

And the slump continues until the first stirrings of Halloween, which seem to be creeping earlier and earlier into September.

That begins the high season, with Halloween morphing into Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then Valentine’s Day, then St. Patrick’s Day, then Easter again, each with its own ornamental symbols: jack-o-lanterns, witches, ghosts, turkeys, Pilgrims, St. Nick, reindeer, hearts, cupids, shamrocks, leprechauns, those bunnies and eggs ...

Then nothing.

Oh, there might be the occasional Old Glory put out to proclaim patriotism on Memorial Day, or Flag Day, or the Fourth of July. But nothing inflatable, nothing with movement, nothing consuming electricity.

You’d think the Festive Yard Association, or some such trade group, would be hard at work trying to expand the market, tapping into what is no doubt a pent-up desire that lacks only the proper encouragement to flourish. As calendars reveal, there’s no shortage of under-appreciated commemorations: National Maritime Day. Nurses Day. World Environment Day. Women’s Equality Day. The Opening of Hurricane Season. Whatever.

Shoot, on Long Island, Cinco de Mayo should probably be a paid holiday. Giant plastic shots of tequila, 10-foot bottles of Corona - wouldn’t it be glorious?

Instead, we have to make do with an explosion of blooming daffodils, crocuses, tulips, dogwoods, azaleas, day lilies, camellias, magnolias, forsythia, roses and the like.

They don’t even glow in the dark. What good is that?

Tommy E. Furby, 1953-2009

Furby and I had a deal, that whoever survived would speak at the other's funeral. That duty - and honor - fell to me on Tuesday, way, way too soon.

"I'm up here today because of a conversation Furby and I had more than 20 years ago. It was one of those days when life seems to be treating you especially right, and we were counting our blessings just before going to see Ole Miss play L.S.U.

He talked about how he had already done things he never would have imagined when we were boys.

He had not only made it to college, but had worked hard to put himself through undergraduate school and then law school. What he didn’t say, but what I knew, was that he finished first in his class in law school.

He had worked his way into a practice that was taking him around the country to cities big and not so big. He and Beth had traveled overseas together, had a home to admire, a fine son and another one that was about two weeks away at that point.

We both figured that even if it all ended tomorrow for one of us, the other one should tell people that things had been pretty good.

And in the years since, we updated that account. Furby got to see those two boys grow into fine young men he was proud of. The family expanded to include a daughter-in-law he considered a daughter, then a granddaughter he loved to tell me about.

Something else he loved was coaching boys and girls in baseball and softball and soccer and trying to teach them that there was a way the game was supposed to be played, and a way it wasn’t. When it came to some things, Furby didn’t see a lot of gray.

It all ended too soon, of course, and things weren’t always good, just as they aren’t for any of us. But he touched a lot of lives before he left us, and I count mine as one of those near the top."

One Thumb Up

The four of us were at McCoy’s Public House in Kansas City on our annual guy/baseball trip, deep in a philosophical conversation on the merits of assorted movies. Beer was present.

I mentioned that Roger Ebert was my favorite reviewer.

Oh, no, the other guys said, we don’t like what he likes.

That’s beside the point, I said. I don’t always like what he likes, either, but I almost always like how he writes about what he does or doesn’t like. I went on to defend him rather too vehemently, which I attribute, in that particular instance, to an accumulation of Landing Light Lagers.

I was reminded of my defense recently when I came across this line in a review Ebert wrote: “Wherever you live, when this film opens, it will be the best film in town.”

He was writing about “Goodbye Solo,” which I haven’t seen, but which I made a note not to miss. And that’s the kind of thing I mean about Ebert.

Here’s another example, about a movie he doesn’t like too much: “‘Fast & Furious’ is exactly and precisely what you'd expect. Nothing more, unfortunately.”

And another, about one he does, “W.”: “This is the tragedy of a victim of the Peter Principle. Wounded by his father's disapproval and preference for his brother Jeb, the movie argues, George W. Bush rose and rose until he was finally powerful enough to stain his family's legacy.”

I admire his ability to educate and to express his views whether positive or negative. Sometimes he’s effusive in his praise. Other times he’s not. Here he is on “North”: “I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it.”

As you might imagine, you can find that review on his list of most-hated movies. And upon that point, comes an area of disagreement for me.

As it happens, the all-time favorite guy/baseball trip movie is “Joe Dirt.”

As it further happens, “Joe Dirt” leads the Ebert list of most-hated movies, comedy category. But that’s O.K. with me.

Ebert’s good even when he’s wrong. And you can’t say that about everybody.

iWant 1, 2

In keeping with our policy of staying on the cutting edge of technology, Kayne has begun using a newfangled gadget called an iPod.

Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

As near as I can figure, hers has the capacity to hold pretty much all the music recorded since 1927. She has been endeavoring to stock it with songs from our own collection, supplemented by borrowings from the local library. Today I notice that includes the soundtrack of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

I gave her the iPod. Now, I’m envious. I want my own. And my own, separate iTunes library.

Because while there is some overlap in our taste (Prine, Hiatt, Clapton and Delbert, among others), there are also significant departures. My iPod will not include Depeche Mode or Abba, for example. Hers will not include Conway Twitty or Ricky Nelson.

Nor do I need as much capacity. But even a relatively modest 8 gig version has room for 2,000 songs. And after the requisite 200 or so Beatle songs, my must-haves tail off.

So I started making a list of potential others: Dave Clark 5. Elvis. Kinks. Doors. Simon & Garfunkel. Amy Winehouse. (Hey, I’m not all retro.) Linda Ronstadt. Animals. Byrds. Everly Brothers. Sam Cooke. Cat Stevens. Carole King. Bob Marley. Who. Police. Robert Palmer. (O.K., I’m almost all retro.)

Might I be the only guy who would have the Monkees, but no Stones? Herman’s Hermits, but no Springsteen? Gary Lewis and the Playboys, but no Dylan?

O.K., maybe some Dylan.

And if I feel obliged to fill to capacity, where do I draw the line? Would Three Dog Night make my cut? Grand Funk? The Grass Roots? Bloodrock? How deep would I have to go before including the Indigo Girls? What in the world could qualify as my 1,975th favorite song, for Pete’s sake? Something by Neil Sedaka? Paul Revere and the Raiders? Devo?

Somehow I suspect I’ll find out. Just as Kayne may be on her way to deciding what is her 19,750th favorite song.

And I don’t think Judy Collins will make either list.

Deer Joe:

Sometime around age 11 I decided that my name was no longer working for me. “Joe” lacked flair. I needed a nickname, something memorable that would command instant respect.

After careful consideration, I settled on my pick: Cobra.

Quick! Fearsome! Deadly!

And, of course: Ridiculous!

“Cobra” never caught on for me, as you might imagine. A friend offered an animal alternative, “Deer,” because, he said, “You look like one.” I didn’t think much of the suggestion (Skittish! Meek! Harmless!) and so continued as Joe or, among my high school football buddies, Rogers.

All this while guys called Squeezer, Stump, Pear, Red, Scooter, Bones, Wild Man, Wild Bill, MiniBrute, Winky and Spud crossed my path.

Then, at 25, I went to work for my first newspaper to employ computers. The log-ons tended to be some combination of first and last names, a process that had already produced, for a guy named Jerome David Oglethorpe, the memorable “jdog”: jay-dog.

I became jrog: jay-raj.

And so I remain to this day for some people, chiefly those who know me through newspaper connections. I suppose that, in the great scheme of things, it has no more flair than “Joe,” and doesn’t exactly command instant respect.

Which, come to think of it, probably makes it perfect.

Frolicking in the Mist

It’s 12:30 in the morning, sprinkling rain, and I’m pedaling my bicycle into the driveway, one hand on the handlebar and the other holding a three-foot-tall, stuffed green dragon with a yellow belly and blue horns.

My wife sees me and laughs. As well she might: this is all her doing

Kayne is a practiced scavenger, often coming home with things that had been set out for the garbage collectors. I had always mildly discouraged her. But she argued that she was being environmentally conscious, helping keep landfills unclogged.

It all struck me a little like rummaging through a city dump after dark. Still, I seemed to recall reading somewhere that an item clearly intended to be thrown away can’t be stolen.

So one morning about 1:30 I agreed to accompany her to check out two bar stools she had seen. They weren’t exactly what I might buy, perhaps, but close enough, at a much lower price. I scooped up both, and started walking furtively home.

Then I noticed a weight bench in another yard. Again, not as good as one I would consider buying, but better than the nothing I had. And another bargain. My wife took one of the stools, I picked up the bench, and we continued on, hoping very much not to be seen.

That’s how it started for me.

Mondays and Thursdays are trash days in our neighborhood, which means Sundays and Wednesdays are now treasure nights. My work schedule already has me walking home from the train station after midnight, so I don’t have to make special efforts to be up when others are asleep. All I have to do is cast a different eye on what I used to consider refuse.

I see a board roughly the size of a door, with two holes cut in it, and think, What can I use that for?

Nothing, I decide. But that small aquarium - surely it could be turned into a terrarium. Those random-length two-by-fours - firewood? I hate those stackable, white plastic lawn chairs, but...

I soon realized that walking allowed only a limited coverage area. What if tonight the big score is not on this street, but one block over?

That’s when I turned to the bicycle, and, my first night on wheels, someone several blocks over had thrown out what appeared to be a perfectly good pedestal fan. I managed to get it home, only to plug it in and learn that, while having fan looks, it lacked fan action. It quickly went to the trash in front of my house.

My wife brought home a metal shoe rack that night. This would be shoe-holder No. 6 or so for the household, but I no longer begrudge her.

Instead, I look forward to the next treasure night, when I will again sniff through the discards like one of the neighborhood cats. In this manner we’ve cluttered the garage with some items -- a door, a wooden fence gate, an animal cage, assorted screens and shutters and tables and chairs -- whose usefulness has not yet become apparent.

But we’ve had our successes, too, in addition to the stools and weight bench. There’s the wine rack now holding magazines in the dining room. The two excellent ice chests, now protecting bird seed. The sisal rug in the basement, the wicker love seat in the bedroom, the metal cabinet in the pantry.

And, on one rainy night, a stuffed green dragon. In need of rescue.

How to Hydrate a Cat

1. Have a cat actually in need of hydration, perhaps for kidney issues. One way to tell: his skin has taken on the elasticity of a prune’s.

2. Have the foresight to have married a vet or vet tech.

3. Absent that, try to get the cat to drink more liquids by spiking his water with clam juice.

4.When that fails (he’s no fool), try seafood stock.

5. When that fails (perhaps he’s watching his sodium intake), buy a bottle of electrolyte solution intended for hydrating infants. Try to hold the cat still while you shoot it down his throat with a syringe.

6. When that fails (and startles the hell out of him), spend $50 on a device that offers a constant flow of enticing, filtered water.

7. When that fails (the constant flow is accompanied by a constant unenticing electric hum), be thankful that your wife volunteers to go to the vet and learn how to administer subcutaneous injections.

8. Try not to express visible horror when she comes home with the kind of plastic drip bag that reminds you of your unfortunate trip to the hospital last summer, and a collection of needles.

9. Find a spot your cat enjoys and will be comfortable in during the procedure, like the bed, which is as much his as yours anyway. Lie down with him near your shoulder, and encourage him to be still and nuzzle your chin the way he loves to at 5:30 in the morning when you’re trying to sleep.

10. Secure the cat gently but firmly as he realizes that something sharp and pointed has entered his flesh.

11. Be supportive of your wife through her initial trial-and-error jabs -- some of which poke completely through the skin, others of which become dislodged and spray you and the bed -- keeping in mind that you didn’t have the guts to do the job yourself.

12. Stroke the cat’s head and face in a manner that says, This too shall pass. Try to remind yourself of the same thing.

13. When the process is completed in five minutes or so (trying to do it faster can result in a leaking cat), give him a treat of his very favorite canned food so he will have pleasant associations.

14. Give yourself a treat of your very favorite canned or bottled beverage, for the same reason.

15. Repeat Step 14 as needed.

The Art of Spar

In case you've never experienced the thrill of martial arts sparring, let me describe it to you based on my own first experience:
Punch. Miss.
Punch. Miss.
Punch punch (a combination!). Miss miss.
Punch. Miss.
WHAP!
Brain rattles inside head.
(Thought:)Where the hell did that come from?
And so on.
This was not the plan. My art is Jeet Kune Do: the way of the intercepting fist. If someone throws a punch at me, Sifu Dino says, the proper response is “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to hit you!”
And to hit him first.
Instead, it seemed as if my arms had suddenly grown shorter. Try as I might, I could not reach my opponent, Sergeant Steve.
Ha, he seemed to say, as he swatted my efforts aside - sometimes with this hand, sometimes with that one - or simply leaned slightly back to render them impotent. Puzzled but undaunted, I kept trying again.
WHAP!
I should mention we were both wearing headgear, which, as I discovered, seemed to function primarily not to cushion the blow but to spread the force around and amplify sound. In my mouth was a plastic piece designed to protect my teeth and keep me from biting off my tongue but which also made it next to impossible to swallow so my mouth filled with saliva and I felt like it was about to drool all over...
WHAP!
Geez.
Don’t get me wrong. Over the course of two opponents, I am dimly aware that I landed a punch or two of my own. But had either contest been a real confrontation I would probably have been a TKO victim at best. Which, the optimist in me says, just goes to show how much room there is for self-esteem-building improvement.
My next opportunity comes in two days. Maybe by then, my jaw will have returned to its proper alignment.

Of Mice and Zen

My wife has inadvertently confirmed that we share our house not only with two cats but also with an unknown quantity of mice who are apparently having a fine time.

“Isn’t it the cats’ job to address that?” you might ask. But at their age, they’re basically retired.

So we've begun to look into professional services. We've found businesses offering promises of eradication for various costs (none cheap) by assorted means, chief among them traps and bait.

For “bait,” read “poison.” One business - - the most expensive, as it turns out -- spurns that chemical approach, which it says creates the potential for walls filled with decomposing rodents.

But among the “traps” that eco-friendly exterminator employs is something known as a glue board, which offers the potential for slow starvation. Not exactly the kind of entry we want included on our karmic permanent record.

Nonprofessional advice has included setting our own conventional, spring-loaded traps. Supposed advantage: a quick, merciful demise. Obvious disadvantage: need for mouse carcass disposal.

Other advice is for a live trap. Advantage: clean karmic record. Obvious disadvantage: need for live mouse disposal.

But we have no more inclination for the de-mousing job than our cats do.

Instead of any of this, we would like to hire a guy to come along with some sort of hypnotic flute and lure our small visitors to a sylvan wood where they could live out their days in harmony with nature.

Applications accepted.

Where'd You Get That?

I don’t understand why so many people wear clothes that advertise the store they bought them from. Then again, they may not understand why I would wear a hat that advertises my choice in beer.

I believe that some sort of balancing force of the universe makes you take on the qualities you criticize in others. So I have decided to start criticizing people for their good looks.

A problem with listening to golden oldies radio stations is that after all the Beatles and Kinks and Dave Clark Five and Otis Redding and Simon & Garfunkel and such sooner or later you’re going to hear “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

Overheard wisdom from unseen philosopher in Penn Station men’s room: “EVERYbody has a song he can sing better than anybody else. EVERYbody has a song he can sing better than anybody else. EVERYbody...”
Overheard response from unseen critic: “Shut the FUCK up!”

Current favorite movie line:
“Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most.” Robert Duvall, “Secondhand Lions.”
Previous favorite:
“To the tables everyone, and stuff yourselves!” from “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (but not spoken by Errol Flynn)

Between Keats and Yeats I sometimes forget which to rhyme with Bates.

I don’t think my ego is looking out for my best interests.

I pretty much need a blood relationship not to find a talkative child annoying.

Disaster, Circa 1965

I was reading a New Yorker article about whether our brains are wired for mathematics (apparently, yes) when I came across a reference to “new math,” followed by the apposition “now widely thought to have been an educational disaster.”

I flashed back. I was a participant in this educational disaster, in the seventh grade.

I remember learning about number systems other than our so-called base 10, like base 2. We learned about set theory, including the empty (or null) set, and Venn diagrams, which could describe the overlapping (or intersection) of sets, and functions and properties and ...

I could go on, but I sense that you are falling asleep.

So imagine having that kind of stuff rattling around in your head at age 12, with the unspoken but clear implication from the teacher that if we Americans don’t all get this and get it pronto, the Russians are going to beat us to the moon.

The Russians, as you are aware, did not beat us to the moon.

But apparently the new math played no role in our success. And as well as I can remember, it was not in the curriculum beyond that one year.

Still, parts of it continue to rattle around in my head, though much closer to the back. For instance, this is how you would express my age in base 2: 110111. Base 3? 2001. Base 4? 313. While both addition and multiplication have commutative and associative properties, subtraction and division do not. And do you know what is the set of numbers overlapping two sets of prime factors, the first for 42, the second for 79?

Ha! This is a trick question! 79 is a prime number! There is no overlap (expressed by the null set, alternately {}, or the Greek letter ∅).

I could go on. But I’m falling asleep.

We Hardly Knew Me

(Inspired by assorted obituaries in The Mississippi Press.)


Friend, ex-husband, lapsed agnostic, middle-aged white guy, all these
words described Joe Rogers, who went home with the angels (perhaps while kicking and screaming) on [insert date here].

He was preceded in death by generations of ancestors he never could manage to trace on the Internet; pet cats Tiger, Penny, Son, Taco, Clouseau and others whose names became but misty memories, including one he backed over in the family car, for which he never forgave himself. Ever.

Mr. Rogers was born on June 28, near the middle of the 20th century,in Moss Point, Miss., and attended public schools there. The first three years he spent at Charlotte Hyatt Elementary (named for a teacher of his daddy’s); then to a middle school named for Dr. R. Carl Eley Sr., perhaps the oldest person he ever met; then junior high followed by high school, where he cut more classes than teachers (or his parents) ever knew but graduated without incident.

He gained admission to the University of Mississippi, where, despite pre-admission testing that indicated potential facility as an undertaker, he studied journalism. In that field he found gainful if unspectacular employment throughout his life, allowing him to indulge in his primary passions: Beatles trivia; Andy Griffith Show reruns; travel to Britain; competitive endeavors including tennis and pool; and the consumption and occasional manufacture of malt beverages.

He was a longtime member of the First Baptist Church of Moss Point, though,except to attend the first in his series of weddings, he basically stopped going at age 15 because of strong doubts about the existence of God. In his late 30s he renewed his association with a church, though not Baptist and while retaining strong doubts about the existence of God as a guy in the sky with a beard. Taoism became a guiding philosophy, despite its not-infrequent imagery of guys with beards.

Those left to cherish his memory [may] include a wife who is wondering whether he actually told anybody else that he wanted the nontraditional funeral she’d better be giving him. And the answer is that he meant to, so maybe he did.

Poetry Is Crap

Excuse the hyperbole of the headline. A more nearly accurate representation of my view would be something like Most Poetry Is Crap, or Contemporary Poetry Is Crap, but as you can see those lack the same punch.


This is not a new opinion but one that is reinforced every time I am so foolish as to read any of the poetry offerings in The New Yorker, my favorite magazine. I give you an example from the current issue, titled “Eh?”:

Eh he said and she
dreamed eh. It was
like that between them.

It goes on a good bit after that, and I invite you to read the rest, if you have masochistic tendencies or this is your religious season for self-flagellation.

Curiosity led me to check out the poetry of another poet, Elizabeth Alexander, selected by Barack Obama to compose an occasional poem for his inauguration. Here’s the start of her poem titled “Blues”:

I am lazy, the laziest
girl in the world. I sleep during
the day when I want to, 'til
my face is creased and swollen,
'til my lips are dry and hot. I
eat as I please: cookies and milk
after lunch, butter and sour cream
on my baked potato...

I don’t know about you, but to me that does not say “I am ready to follow in the footsteps of Robert Frost.” It says, “Here are my FaceBook ramblings for the day.”

If I must have poetry, give me the kind I read in college lit classes. Give me Pope, Auden, Thomas.

Short of that, at least make it rhyme.