Trick or Treat

Today we are off to Cape May for some bird watching and porch sitting. A few facebook postings this week mentioned the feeling of ghostly appearances in some of the older buildings there which the B&B folks never mention. But I doubt if such sightings will keep the tricksters off the street. As for the treaters, many parents are keeping their kids on short leashes which is vastly different from the days of my youth. During WWII all luxuries were in short supply but Mr. Spreckley on our street was Sales Manager for Wrigley Chewing Gum. As the word spread we costumed kids filled his living room and parlor. But there was a quid pro quo or "carrot and stick". He and his wife made each of us perform - sing or dance or recite. The best I could do was say the Lord's Prayer in Gaelic taught to me phonetically by my Irish grandmother. Anything to get that spearmint "stick".
tjs

Uber over all

A private taxi service has sprung up in many large cities much to the consternation of the medallion cab companies. It is Called UBER and you can summon your private driver with the touch of your hand held app. The word has German roots and Merriam Webster defines it as "being a superlative example of its kind or class." I happened to grow up on Uber Street in Philadelphia in the 1930s - a tree lined block of brick row houses - it just ran for one block with dead ends which eliminated thru traffic. Our families were a melting pot of Irish, German, Italian, Jewish and Greek. Back then we didn't think of ourselves as "a superlative example of kind or class" - but just maybe we were - thanks to Merriam Webster.
tjs

World Series II

It appears that the exciting series may go the full seven game route. I had earlier posted that since a few of the starting pitchers had faltered, it might fall to the "battle of the bullpens." It would not surprise me if game seven were started by relief pitchers. In 1950 the Phillies started Jim Konstanty, a relief pitcher, in game one against the N.Y. Yankees. He went eight innings losing 1-0. I was in the grandstand that day with Joe DiMaggio in center field for New York in the twilight of his career. If it goes to a seventh and deciding game it will be "all hands on deck."
tjs
P.S. - Konstanty's personal pitching coach was an undertaker which may have helped him put hitters away.

The Indian Game

A few days ago my afternoon nap was disturbed by a thumping on the wall. Thinking it was children on an upper floor I went to investigate. All was quiet. I  then checked the boiler room and basement but found no trace. As I exited the basement door I came face to face with a neighbor wielding a lacrosse stick and flipping a hard rubber ball against the brickwork. We exchanged smiles and he apologized for the disturbance. Seems he was a professional lacrosse player with a local team which was being sold and relocated to Connecticut which meant that any further thumping would be short lived. I then thought about my childhood habit of bouncing a soft pink rubber "spaldeen" off my neighbor's wall and suffered a pang of conscience. In any event, never argue with an athlete wielding a lacrosse stick.
tjs

Joe Camel

If you passed thru Times Square in the 1990s you could not avoid seeing Joe Camel on a large billboard. During that period, R.J. Reynolds, the cigarette's maker was accused of targeting children and teenagers with that image. To counter that allegation they began an ad campaign "Let's clear the air on smoking!" Apparently, twenty years later they are now fulfilling that promise as Reynolds has announced they will be banning cigarette smoking in all their offices next year. Wow! What an about face!
As a sop to those addicted they will be constructing an indoor smoking area on their premises.
tjs

The Seven Deadly Sins

They named a street in Manhattan this week for the late George Carlin, an irreverent comedian who grew up on West 121st Street and loved that neighborhood.  The street sign - green and white - reads "George Carlin Way" but it is a one way street so they only gave him half an accolade. He is best known for his gig "seven dirty words" that you could not say on television. (Any grammarians can find "them" on YouTube if interested.) I learned from my Baltimore catechism the seven deadly sins which you CAN say on television but no one would be listening. I recall when Elvis appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show - 1957 - the straight-laced Sullivan tried to keep the cameras above the entertainer's waist. And when NBC censored Jack Paar - 1960 - for using the term W.C. he walked off the show. I guess we have come a long way but in what direction?
tjs

The Painless Dentist

The following received from a former colleague:
A woman of a certain age visited a new dentist for the first time having received a referral. To scope him out while in the waiting room she checked his framed diplomas on the wall. It appeared that they were about the same age and she wondered what he looked like. Upon meeting she asked if he went to the local high school. He said "Yes, I graduated in 1968." She then said "Oh, then you were in my class." He replied "What did you teach?" Her pain was inflicted before she even got in the chair.
tjs

Peas in a Pod

The World Series begins tonight in Kansas City, an American League town. But since I live in a National League city my allegiance will be with the San Francisco Giants. They are an interesting group of "vegans" - I call them "peas in a pod" with the following lineup - Panik - Posey - Panda - Pence and throw in Peavy and Pagan - stir - enjoy - but don't bet against them. After the exciting playoffs the Series may be anti-climactic. It could come down to a battle of the bullpens. Some years ago there was a boxing ring announcer at the old Madison Square Garden, one Harry Balogh, who used to intone in his Brooklynese "And may the more worthy adversary emerge triumphant!" And so it will be.
tjs

Keeping Cool

Charlie Crist is running for Governor of Florida - this time as a Democrat. In his undergrad days he played quarterback for Wake Forest football team. All quarterbacks are taught to "keep cool." Charlie takes it a step further considering the heat and humidity of Florida by carrying a portable fan with him to all events. At last week's debate he had the fan placed under his lectern to which his opponent objected and refused to enter debate for all of seven minutes. This petty flap got all the attention and
 buzz and nobody remembers the substance of the debate. Dick Nixon could have used a fan when debating JFK as he had refused makeup for his five o'clock shadow and the klieg lights in the television  studio caused him to break out in copious perspiration. FANcy that!
tjs

Extra! Extra!

Every time the young reporter called in to the office the crusty old editor always demanded to know  "Are there any news - are there any news?" Finally, the rookie replied "No, there is no NEW!" But the news today is/are not very good - except for the S.F. Giants winning the NL pennant in storybook style. So I'll apply a few band aids to my portfolio and take the weekend off and yearn to get that hour back on November 2nd.
tjs

America's Pastime

No, it's not football. The current Major League baseball playoffs are underway and every game has been closely contested and exciting. This may render the upcoming World Series as anti-climactic.
The Baltimore Orioles  - down three games to none - are facing elimination so for all my friends in Maryland I am reciting the final stanza of that famous poem "Casey at the Bat":
-Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright - the band is playing somewhere - and somewhere hearts are light. And somewhere men are laughing - and somewhere children shout - but there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.
tjs

Don't Bet on It

Sports gambling is big business and what happens in Vegas doesn't always stay there. There has always been a dark side going back to the BlackSox scandal of 1919 which also invaded college basketball in the early 1950s wherein gamblers could mingle with the athletes. And now we read of attempted bribes of Danish badminton players to fix matches. Is nothing sacred? What could be purer than that little feathered "shuttlecock" soaring over the net. The conspirators approached the players via Facebook where privacy is unheard of. Alas!
tjs

Believe it or Not

Those of you who remember the Ed Sullivan Show may recall the comedy duo of Smith & Dale doing their skit "The Doctor" wherein the patient spouts his symptoms and the doctor says "I'm dubious!" Then the patient addresses him as Doctor Dubious. Well, as my name is Thomas I have learned to be dubious at times as when some individual last week placed a placard on Fbook stating that clocks would be rolled back October 12th weekend and another "friend" shared and perpetuated the misinformation. Whom can you trust these days? As Groucho Marx used to say "Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?"
tjs

What's in a Name?

The Nobel Peace Prize is named after the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel who made his money in explosives and dynamite!!
Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was on the witness stand last week on the A.I.G. bailout issue. It turns out he wrote a lot of emails under the pseudonym "Edward Quince".......quince is a fruit jelly and Spanish for fifteen so go figure what he had in mind. Now there is speculation on what alias his successor Janet Yellen will use. A review of social media would indicate that no one today is using their right name. My own resort to obfuscation only occurred when checking into a motel as my real surname caused snickering by the staff - and there was the time that a restaurant gave my table away. But if your name fits on the marquee then the rest is tolerable.
tjs

My Brother's Keeper

There is a court case underway in Upstate New York attempting to seek "habeas corpus" and treat a chimpanzee as a person. An animal rights group is filing on behalf of Tommy a 26 year old chimp to grant him the "right to liberty". The attempt is unprecedented and if successful his proponents want to retire him to a Florida sanctuary which they describe as a "Chimpanzee Club Med".  Now at 26 Tommy is still a youngster as chimp ages go -but what a shock he will find if he goes from a cage to a Club Med environment. I hope he has a strong heart.
tjs
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/science/rights-group-sues-to-have-chimp-recognized-as-legal-person.html?pagewanted=all&module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw%2C{%221%22%3A%22RI%3A9%22}

The Demise of Racing

The bugler blew taps at the Suffolk Downs Race Track last Saturday to mark the end of racing forever at this historic oval opened in 1935. There was a mist in the air and a muddy track to mark the occasion. The great SEABISCUIT had run there in 1937 and the Beatles performed there in the 1960s. Horseplayers come from all walks of life and many are loners. When I lived in Phladelphia I visited a friend in New York and together we went out to Aqueduct Race Course in Queens. In a crowd of 40,000 improvers of the breed I spotted my neighbor from Philadelphia. When I related this coincidence to my friend's father who was a police lieutenant in the NYPD, he asked if said neighbor was a banker. I replied "Yes, how did you know?" He said bankers never visit the track in their hometown. Ah, the policeman's mind at work!
tjs

Stranger Than Fiction

An eyebrow raiser this week was reading that Ben Bernanke, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, was having trouble refinancing his mortgage. This person of stature was certainly not a deadbeat. His only sin was that he had recently changed jobs. Many of us can empathize with his situation as we all have felt the frustration of dealing with mortgage companies and banks and the red tape associated with such exercises. It is hoped that Mr. Bernanke can furnish suitable references and collateral to satisfy his tormenters.
tjs

The Buck Stops Here II

At the end of September 1951 the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers were tied for the National League pennant resulting in a one game playoff at the New York Polo Grounds. In the bottom of the ninth inning with Brooklyn holding a slim lead, the Giants put on a rally. The Dodger manager at the time was Charlie Dressen and he called to his bullpen coach, Clyde Sukeforth, and Ralph Branca was selected to relieve the pitcher on that fateful day. The Giants' Bobby Thomson proceeded to hit Branca's pitch for the Home Run "heard around the world." When interviewed, Dressen could only say "Sukey said he was ready" - presumably laying the blame on his bullpen coach. Dressen's managerial reign in Brooklyn was brief - lasting only three years. His boss was Walter O'Malley whose practice was to grant only one year contracts. This grated Dressen's wife who nagged her husband to complain which probably hastened his departure for greener pastures.
tjs

The Buck Stops Here

This is the time of year when we baseball fans can sit in the grandstand and second guess the managers. Last Saturday night, with the S.F. Giants playing the Washington Nationals, the Nats pitcher was working on a shut-out with two outs in the ninth inning when he walked the next batter. The manager immediately replaced him with his "closer" with disastrous results. When questioned he said that this had been his instinct and routine thru out the regular season. But as a seasoned professional he should know that October is different from the regular season as unsung heroes can appear in the playoffs from unexpected sources. BTW, the Baltimore Orioles manager's name is "Buck" and after winning three games in a row it does not appear that he is ready to stop anywhere.
tjs

Something in the Air

Al Capp was the cartoonist who created Li'l Abner and the Yokum family of Dogpatch, Kentucky. At times he mentioned a hamlet called Skunk Hollow which was a suburb of Dogpatch. The name came to mind as I read of the proliferation of skunks in Cape May, N.J. just as we are planning a visit there next week. I'm sure the Chamber of Commerce is not happy. The natives indicate that this is the normal fall forage for food and shelter to prepare for the winter. But this year's crop seem to be more aggressive  - chasing dog walkers and staring down residents - and if they spray your pet you are in for a long cleaning session. I have been stared at by brazen raccoons but I don't wish to tangle with the fellow with the white stripe. Caveat emptor! or "let the pedestrian beware!
tjs

Hard Hat Humor

This is a variation on an old story. Felix was a construction worker who just signed on to a new job. While his references were sketchy, the foreman liked his punctuality and regular attendance. The employer had recently suffered a spate of thefts of tools and equipment so had tightened security. Since Felix was a new face he underwent scrutiny at the exit gate so when the four o'clock whistle blew he piled his personal items - hard hat, gloves, safety vest and lunch pail with the empty thermos - into a wheel barrow and proceeded to the security gate where they checked him out. After a week of the same routine they began to wave him thru. About a month later the alarm bells went off - an inventory check revealed a shortage of thirty wheelbarrows.
tjs

The Moralist

Apropos of nothing more than a flip of the monthly calendar recalls the following from long ago:
-One evening in October - when I was far from sober - and lugging home a load with manly pride - my feet began to stutter so I sat down in the gutter and a pig came up and sat down by my side. I remarked that it's fair weather when good fellows get together - til a lady passing by was heard to say "You can tell a man who boozes by the playmates that he chooses"- and the pig got up and slowly walked away.
I was never clear whether this was animal cruelty or a vote for abstinence - or none of the above.
tjs