Chinese New Year

Today, January 31, 2014 begins the Chinese Year of the Horse. So while the equine animal is welcome in Chinatown, not so on Central Park South where the new mayor of New York is trying to ban the horse drawn carriages so popular with tourists and visitors. Next he may take aim on the stable ponies at Aqueduct and Belmont Park which would cause a mutiny in the ranks. These horse drawn carriages are also in evidence in Cape May N.J. and at the Independence National Park in Philadelphia. I often walked past them when I worked in Philly and if I ventured too close I swear old Dobbin went for my straw hat. Ah, but the pungent smell of fresh manure made you feel like you were back on the farm. So, as they sang back at the Camp Town "bet my money on da bobtail nag, somebody bet on da bay."
tjs

Super Bowl Light

It appears that the NCL cruise liner GETAWAY has arrived safely in New York from Europe with her 18 decks and 12 bars and will be positioned at Pier 88 on the Hudson River adjacent to the Intrepid Museum from Jan. 30 to Feb 3 under charter to Budweiser. She will be temporarily renamed BUD LIGHT SHIP and will be hosting VIPs and Bud retailers, etc. They are placing aboard towels and bedding with the Bud Light logo for your comfort and convenience. There will be several concerts and the neighbors in Hells Kitchen are not too happy with the anticipated partying and noise. After game day I would expect they will have to lay on a gang of cleaners before making her way down to Miami via Cape Hatteras to begin seasonal cruising o/a Feb. 8 when her real christening will be assisted by the Miami Dolphins cheerleaders. Oh, the GAME? Take your pick.
tjs

Winter Woes

If the current freeze continues much longer it may dissuade the groundhog from leaving his lair this weekend. If he declines to appear we will be left with the fall back to the Farmers Almanac. But I doubt if many farmers have seen the type of ice flows in the rivers - the U.S. Coast Guard has three boats in the Delaware River breaking up ice. So, Punxsutawney Phil, if you are within the sound of my plaintive voice and if you can hear the chattering of my teeth, please don't let this fellow Pennsylvanian down. And don't let those Super Bowl weather forecasters overSHADOW you. We can handle the truth! January, please go away!
tjs

The Dating Game

Stop misbehaving, you seniors! No, I don't mean you eighteen year olds out there. According to Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Vice-Provost of University of Pennsylvania, he has seen an increase in sexually transmitted diseases in retirement communities around the country. One family dropped off their father at a senior residence and three female residents stopped by to welcome him.
A woman friend - age 85 - but looks twenty years younger - had an appointment with a nutritionist and his first question was "Are you dating?" When he discovered her true age he got up and left the room and never returned.
Another female friend swims at the Y three times a week as therapy after knee surgery. A man she meets casually there one day confronted her with "Is your husband dead?" Is this the new pick-up line?
Finally, an octogenarian friend who is esconced in a plush senior community invited me to lunch and he brought with him a female companion who during the meal said "Vince is a keeper!" WOW!
It appears that more than knitting and bingo is going on within those walls.
tjs
http://seniorhousingnews.com/2014/01/21/sex-and-the-senior-living-community-n-y-times/

On the Wings of a Dove

Two white doves that were released from a window of the Vatican as symbols of Peace were subsequently attacked by a black crow and a seagull in a aggressive manner. Beaks were pecking and feathers were flying. Huffington Post called it a battle between good and evil. The Pope had been addressing the throng and seeking peace in the Ukraine and elsewhere and the doves were released by two little girls from his window. One cannot escape the symbolism here. The bullies are still out there - and now they have gone airborne.
tjs
http://www.aol.com/article/2014/01/26/birds-attack-peace-doves-freed-from-popes-window/20816102/?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl3|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D434814

Winters Past

Growing up, our house was the last one on the block to convert from anthracite coal to gas heat. As such we were the sole possessors of ashes when the neighbors needed traction for their tires in the snow. And before we had snow tires we had tire chains - some were single strands with a belt to insert thru wheel spokes with three or four to a tire - to be applied by the driver. Others were chains that completely circled the tire and best applied by a service station. The trouble occurred when the drivers kept the chains on driving on bare roads thereby creating potholes and having jagged chains break off - one of which caught my tire on a cold dark night. There was no AAA to call back then. So there I was with jack in hand changing a tire by the side of the road.  Then there was the family friend who stayed too long at the party after the snow began to fall. Upon his departure he enlisted the family to help dig out his car. Halfway thru this enterprise he remarked "This is a two door - my car is a four door!" And that's the way it was.
tjs

Snow Disposal II

On February 12, 2013, after a heavy snowfall in New England, I wrote the following: They will have trouble disposing of it as cannot dump into river or streams. Some years ago a community in the midwest  decided to load the snow into railroad gondola cars and head the train south until the warmer temperature would melt it. This reminded me of an incident with a USLines cargo ship on a westbound winter voyage from Europe to New York carrying containers on deck. She encountered considerable ocean spray which froze everything on deck including the stacked containers and their lashings. Upon arriving at her Hudson River pier no amount of steaming could melt the ice so cargo operations could not commence. After several futile days it was decided to sail the vessel south to pick up the Gulf stream warm current after which the ice could be dislodged. By the time she returned to New York she was a week behind schedule and a mariner said "We dumped a few tons of ice on Castro's doorstep!"
tjs

Winter Wonderland

January IS the cruelest month - thirty-one days, minimal daylight, Holiday bills arriving and throw in a few snow storms - super storms to knock the Super Bowl off the front page. Super Bowl? How about a Bowl of Soup instead. The only "super" I am applauding is the building super who is plowing our driveway and sidewalk as I lie in bed smelling the aroma of the coffee maker. After twenty-two years in Florida I was not ready for yesterday's white out and with single digit temperatures forecast, this powdery stuff will be with us for a while in varying colors until February when the groundhog will speak his mind. All in all it was a beastly day for commuters and travelers. So it's hot cocoa or hot toddy, your option.
tjs

On Tour: Hamburg, Germany

The train ride from LeHavre up to Hamburg was hardly something out of Wagons Lits. First I had surrendered my passport to a foreign speaking conductor and since we were crossing borders there was much shunting in and out of rail yards in the middle of the night as we changed crews and engines. Couple that with a slight case of Montezuma's revenge and I was glad to set foot in Hamburg and retire to the comfort of the Atlantic Hotel which was on a lake and had a telephone in the bathroom along with heated towel racks and this being 1964. The "Hamburger" is a no nonsense businessman as compared with the gentler "Bremener" competitor.
A staffer was assigned to give me a walking tour of the St. Pauli "red light" district - the famous Reeperbahn. Sailors of the day called it "two mark alley" to reflect the price of services rendered. My escort walked very fast - the way we used to walk down 42nd Street before Giuliani cleaned it up. I often wondered whether those ladies are still sitting in the windows.
tjs
(Excerpted from EagleBlue Vol. 4 No. 6  April 30, 2007)

A Bolt from the Blue

The World Cup of "Futball" championship will be held in Brasil commencing June 12 with games in thirteen cities including the Amazon Basin. The referees have been designated last week and the final game will be held in Rio de Janeiro late June. The game has its own unique method of assessing penalties for infractions. If serious the referee will pull a yellow card from his pocket and hold it between his thumb and forefinger and wave it over the miscreant. I only mention this practice in light of a recent report from the Associated Press regarding the statue of Christ the Redeemer that sits atop a mountain near Rio. It seems that the statue was struck by lightning a month ago chipping a finger and just last week it was struck again chipping the thumb of the same right hand.
It would appear that the almighty may be sending a signal to the officials to be lenient drawing their yellow cards. I didn't know that Christ was a soccer fan.
tjs

The Jersey Shore

This in defense of New Jersey - although they/it do not need it. As a native Philadelphian I was first exposed to the South Jersey shore as an infant. Later, circa 1938, our family spent one summer week in a third floor walkup in Sea Isle City where the iceman would climb three flights with a cake of ice for the icebox. (Don't forget to empty the drip pan.) We walked everywhere - the beach a block away and a back bay pier for dropping a fishing line in the water. I recall at age nine standing outside a local cafe listening to the Joe Louis - Billy Conn fight on the radio. As teenagers we all liked to go "Dinah Shore" to escape the summer heat as there was no air conditioning.
In later years we rented in Ocean City - another spit of sand - all affected by Storm Sandy. My wife's family introduced me to Cape May at the southern tip of the Garden State - exit Zero! - a charming Victorian town. As adults we bought a home in Union County in the mid-1980s when mortgage rates were 14% which no fault of the governor. So I have a fondness for New Jersey and I don't need to hear Jon Stewart's bleeping comments. The place has been the butt of jokes for too long. The current political contretemps will pass and I look forward to continuing my love affair with the Jersey Shore.
tjs

Apologia

Up to now I have restrained myself from discussing politics but I find we are being inundated with the subject. Why is it we remember the "quotes" long after forgetting the slogans? Here are a few that have lived on:
"I am not a crook!" (Richard Milhous Nixon)

"I did not have sex with that woman!" (William Jefferson Clinton)

"It depends on what the meaning of "IS" is." (Also WJC)

"I am not a bully!" (Chris Christie)

"Mistakes were clearly made!" (Also CC)

And here is one I resurrected from the dustbin:

"I shouldn't have said what I am reported to have said. And if I did I apologized!" (Jon S. Corzine, Senate candidate in New Jersey)
tjs

Chirp! Chirp!

No, this is not a tweet - it is a chirp! Our community has a busy highway - US 30 - running thru it.  It accommodates a variety of pedestrian crossings - some with blinking lights - others with buttons to push to explain your intentions. These latter crossings show a RED hand to halt you and presently a WHITE hand appears for ten seconds to enable you to cross without delay. But there is one intersection marked as a "blind" crossing to facilitate sightless people to navigate but since they cannot recognize the WHITE hand, the signal also begins to "chirp" like a canary for ten seconds. The first time you hear it it is startling but heartwarming to know that our disabled are being cared for in this way.
tjs

Fifty Year Review

After reading of the commemoration of events that occurred fifty years ago viz. LBJ with Civil Rights  and MLK with his Nobel Prize speech, I began to think "Where was I in 1964?" Well, that was the year of my European orientation tour. While I was in Liverpool, the seat of Beatlemania - the Beatles were in New York with Ed Sullivan. And while the Phillies were blowing the National League pennant, I was in mid-Atlantic ocean coming home on a U.S. Lines freighter. Nothing like being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I should be lacking in new copy I may bore you readers with other facets of my "tour".
tjs

Evacuation

I read recently that Viet Nam had accepted its first submarine - built elsewhere - delivered at the port of Cam Ranh Bay.  For those of you who remember the VietNam war, Cam Ranh & Danang were key ports where we had bases. In March 1975 - in the latter stages of the conflict - the Military Sealift Command was instrumental in lifting 113,000 refugees out of harm's way. The USLines had three conventional Challenger class - six hatch - vessels under contract to the MSC. Our SS PIONEER CONTENDER under command of Capt. Edward C. Flink was called upon to evacuate 6000 refugees from DaNang to CamRanh and repeated that operation followed by a third voyage carrying 16,600 refugees out of harms way - the largest group moved in a single ship during the evacuation effort. All told, three USLines vessels carried 80,000 souls to safety. It was truly a remarkable effort by our civilian crews during a very difficult time. The PIONEER CONTENDER was built in Quincy, Mass. in 1963 - length 560 feet - beam 75 feet. Many of these refugees were moved on to Guam and the Philippines to a new life.
tjs

Labor Relations

We read about the weakening position of unions in this country. But the following has occurred in France: A Goodyear Tire factory is facing closure and negotiations have broken down. So the employees reacted by kidnapping the company executives. It's called "Boss-napping" - while they seek demands for severance etc. Police had to intervene to free the captives. French labor has a history of using this tactic in the past against Caterpillar, Sony and 3M.  Japanese employees used to consider their jobs as lifetime employment contracts.  So when U.S. Lines declared bankruptcy in 1986 the employees kept our Tokyo manager in his office for several days - but not as flagrant as the French.
tjs
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/business/international/french-workers-hold-goodyear-managers-over-jobs.html

Class Distinction

Downton Abbey resumed its new season last Sunday viewed by 10.2 million viewers - two of which were yours truly for the first time beginning to end and Maureen Dowd of the NY Times reluctantly. While the popular drama is fictionalized, it does depict a certain class distinction that was prevalent in Britain during that period - a snobbery that M. Dowd still resents as she tells of her ten grand-aunts coming to this country from Ireland circa 1915 to find employment as maids, cooks and nannies for rich families.  My own grandmother, Ellen, along with sister Alice, came over "on the boat" from Ennis in County Clare circa 1880 to also take jobs as upstairs/downstairs maids for a wealthy family, so perhaps my ancestors paved the way for M. Dowd's forebears 35 years later. The fact of life in Ireland then was when the parents died the oldest son got the farm and the rest of the siblings including Ellen and Alice scattered and landed in the new world. Curiously, the head writer for the "Abbey" has been engaged by NBC to write a similar drama to be set in New York in the 1880s so perhaps there will be a part for my grandma Ellen - either upstairs or downstairs.
tjs
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/business/media/downton-abbey-returns-to-a-record-audience.html?ref=arts

On The Block

Above souvenir photo announced the auction of the contents of the liner S.S. UNITED STATES held by Guernsey's Auction in Norfolk, Va. in October 1984 - fifteen years after her final voyage. A gala preview of the catalog of contents was held at the Seventh Regiment Armory in New York City. The invitation reads "Black Tie" @ $65. per person to benefit the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Museum. I fared better ten years prior when the S.S. AMERICA contents were sold off in a warehouse in Jersey City, coming away with six deck chair blankets (steamer rugs) still in their wrappers @ $9.per (circa 1970s). Rather than Black Tie you might say my venture was Blue Jeans. My son still has several of these blankets. As a bit of trivia, sometimes during an Atlantic crossing a blanket might be holed by pipe or cigar ashes. The company  - USLines employed seamstresses on Pier 60 North River to rework these damaged items into blankets for the on board dog kennels. Nothing wasted!
tjs

What's in a Name?

The star of Spain's soccer team Atletico Madrid is named Jorge Resurreccion - he has his team in first place. They seem to win every third day which has the Las Vegas oddsmakers scratching their heads.

Then there is Andrew LUCK - what a name! The quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts who brought his team from 28 points down to win a playoff game. His name has one syllable, fits nicely on the marquee, has a Stanford resume and is handsome as heck. And he is on the way to make those Hoosiers forget Peyton Manning.

The star of the Syracuse basketball team is C.J. FAIR but rather than fair his playing has been superb to help his team to current 14-0 record.

But here I sit with a name symbolizing a "horse-shooer" whose only claim to fame was a solo rendition of the Anvil Chorus. However, lest we forget "For the want of a nail the shoe was lost and for the want of a shoe the race was lost." Perhaps, with a FAIR amount of LUCK my reputation might be RESURRECTED.
tjs

Full Ahead

Above is a photo postcard of the SS UNITED STATES sailing outbound down the Hudson River with the Manhattan skyline in the background. The caption on the back reads "S.S. UNITED STATES passing 42nd street" - this much is accurate as her berth was at West 46th street. But it dates the photo as 1950 while her maiden voyage was in July 1952 so I guess this may be why I keep it as a collector's item. Great photo, though!
tjs

The Crossword Puzzle

This mind tickler was first created in December 1913 by a gentleman in Liverpool, England and recently celebrated its centenary. The original style was in the shape of a diamond. Its Latin motto was "ignorantia non est argumentum" translated as "ignorance is not an argument". Wow! I eagerly attack the NY Times puzzle on a daily basis - Monday relatively easy - Friday/Saturday difficult - but not from ignorance. The record for solving the Monday puzzle is 82 seconds. I use a pen - not from hubris - but it is hard to find good erasers these days. The former NYT puzzle editor was a fellow named Maleska - you could usually depend that his would be one word answers but his successor injected multi-word answers which makes it  trickier. Over the years I caught Maleska in one error when cluing a famous football player of the day - nicknamed "Crazylegs" Hirsch. I knew him as Elroy but the editor called him Leroy which fit his grid but frustrated me. The Sunday puzzle 21 x 21 squares usually requires a committee to solve but I always plunge in anyway. As the man said "ignorance is not an argument." Have fun!
tjs

Christmas Music

While visiting Dewey Beach in Delaware many summers ago, we were searching for a friend's cottage. It was a very rustic beach area that used to permit bonfires at night and was popular with LBJ's daughters and others from the D.C. area. We came upon a fellow sporting a three day beard strumming his guitar on his cottage porch and we asked him directions. Upon reaching our destination we were introduced to a Mrs. Byrd, a neighbor and presently the bearded gent came thru the doorway and I shook hands with Charlie Byrd whose LPs I had at home. As I recall he had a very soft handshake similar to a surgeon. While I do not foist my music tastes on anyone, I will tell you that the CD that got the most play in our household this Christmas was "The Charlie Byrd Christmas Album" - recorded in 1982 and performed solo ala Andres Segovia with whom he studied. Charlie played in a few D.C. clubs but his regular haunt was the Maryland Inn in Annapolis, Md. - the city where he lived from 1973 until his death in 1999. (Sorry for the name dropping)
tjs