June 11, 1994:
The party took much preparation. June did it all with a bit of help in the food department from friends and relatives. The only thing June couldn’t control was the weather. We needed to hold the party outside with the numbers invited reaching 60 plus. We even had an offer from our good friends and neighbors, the Keeleys, to open their pool to our guests. They offered to open the fence that lay between our immediate neighbor, Franco’s yard and theirs. We had prepared and now the weather was the one determining factor. June had suggested that Sunday be a rain date, but come Friday and its gloomy weather report, it looked like Sunday might be worse. So she prayed that the slow moving low-pressure system would stay in the Carolinas a few more hours. And so it did. We later learned that Father Dick had prayed for the opposite, since he couldn’t make it on Saturday, but June’s prayers prevailed!
We had three tent structures. One was a food tent, another a canvas on poles and a sun tent. The rain we did get was slight and we managed to have every one stay dry. We even, thanks to Betty Hopkins, had a cake, which gave the grandchildren a chance to blow out some candles. They, the grandchildren, also helped Pop-Pop unwrap his gifts. Regrettably, it was lots of fun for the kids, but Pop-Pop lost the cards indicating who gave what.
I just finished Peter Hamill’s “A Drinking Life”. A memoir. It entertained. It amused and it said in great prose my thoughts on my life with and in the drinking culture. Pete Hamill is, or was, a columnist for the New York Post and was its Editor-in-Chief at one time, a novelist, journalist, reporter and high school dropout. Twenty years ago he took his last drink. His observations and feelings that fly across the page found me nodding in agreement. He was the son of Irish immigrants living in a poor district in Brooklyn. His father was crippled, he lost a leg playing soccer, a drunk and a typical Irish Catholic father, who was never supposed to let his son see him as anything but a “man”, roughly defined as a macho beer-drinking tough guy who knows his place in society and in bars.
The book came to me as a gift from Bill King. He had promised it to me at Christmas time but another good friend got there first. I had read a review of the book in the New York Times Book Review and was looking forward to reading it, but refrained from purchasing it when Bill told me he was giving me a copy. So it came in June and was devoured in a week.
Hamill’s observation of parochial schools at or about the time I attended and the Church’s deep concern about virginity and masturbation while his father could not find a job hit me right between my “recollections”. He is a good student and wins a scholarship to a Jesuit High School. Even though it means leaving his buddies he goes. He likes Latin, as I did. He likes the English courses and can’t stand geometry –ditto. He ultimately leaves under a mutual agreement, which begins with him writing a composition, a novel or short story, using the name of his principal for one of the characters. The character is not a good one. He is murderer. His English teacher gives him an “F” and thinks he is a sophomoric wise guy, and so does the principal who concludes from the story that Mr. Hamill is not happy at Regis, so he’s put on probation and quits at 15, only halfway home. Even at that age he is into the drinking – beer in cardboard containers purchased by the older guys.
I could go on and on, but I think the message is clear. This is a book I wish I had written, and it echoed so many of my sentiments in such a witty, precise way that I can only regret I hadn’t, and recommend it to any and all to read. Let me quote just an example. In the introduction,
Peter Hamill says:
“The culture of drink endures because it offers so many rewards: confidence for the shy, clarity for the uncertain, solace for the wounded and lonely and above all, the elusive promise of friendship and love. From almost the beginning of awareness, drinking was a part of my life; there is no way that I could tell the story of drinking without telling the story of my life. Much of the story is wonderful. In the snug darkness of saloons, I learned much about being a human and about mastering a craft. I had, as they say, a million laughs. But those good times also caused great moral, physical, or psychological damage to myself and others. Some of that harm was probably permanent. There is little to be done now but take responsibility. No man’s past can be changed; it’s a fact, like red hair.”
The OJ Simpson inundation brought one quick comment I enjoyed from John Malone even before his arrest. He said “Hey, how about OJ! Guess he won’t be running through any more airports!”
The other was a commentator whose name I didn’t get who pointed out that the Prosecutor’s calling OJ an “American Hero” was a gross exaggeration in that at best he was only “an American football hero”. Viva la difference!
June wondered aloud as we were overrun with stories, comments, specials, etc. “What if” this hadn’t happened? What other so-called, monumental event would be the media frenzy? Another “Bobbit” frenzy – media making heroes out of non-entities.
I remember a cartoon drawn around the time of the Bobbit fiasco. It showed the small Courthouse in Virginia. Outside on almost every available space, other than a lane through the street and up to the Courthouse doors, was TV equipment, cameras and signs of various stations and networks. A rather lost looking citizen stands below a cameraman perched upon a local Civil War monument. He looks up and says to the cameraman “What’s happening in Sarajevo?” To which the cameraman with a startled look replies “They got a Bobbit like trial there?” – So much for “newsworthy” and what the word encompasses.
June 25, 1994:
Reflecting on the first “run” after my operation a 5K (3.1) race on June 25th. I felt no discomfort associated with the blockage – that strange pain across my shoulders, behind my neck. The only discomfort was the normal fatigue from lack of training at an 8 minute a mile pace. I ran the first mile in just under 8 minutes. Fatigue and oxygen debt required that a little after the 2nd mile I walk for a few yards to get my rhythms back to my training level. I finished at 28:30 or an average of a little over 9 minutes a mile.
I enjoyed, even more, the usual social activities, the hubbub of the crowd before the run, meeting old friends as they lied to each other about their poor condition (and then proceeded to run better than ever); talking to contemporaries like Mike Bertolini, 71 years of age who is still setting age records. I smiled as he said “I’m just glad to be above ground, without concern as to how fast I move over it!” I also learned who was no longer there and why, like Mike Naples, not quite 50 and now wearing a pace maker, after a virus damaged his heart. Mike was a super over 40 runner; and on and on. It was great to be back!
This was the run attended last year by Mary T., Bill, with June walking with the twins, Tommy and Kelly. It was remembered mostly because we had arrived at the starting line one hour before registration time and 2 hours before the run began. For some reason all of them declined to attend this year, stating they were very busy elsewhere, not in fear that Grandpop, a.k.a. Pop-Pop, a.k.a. Husband would roust them from their beauty sleep 2 hours earlier than required.
We close the month of June with a birthday for June. Ah! What is so rare as a day in June! Except maybe a day that made June possible, the rarest of the rare, that day needs celebrating. So it will be!
I received notice that my verse, “Healing”, submitted some months ago in a verse contest in still in the semi-finals. They also will print it in a book of poetry entitled “The Edge of Twilight”. They want me to approve the proof and, of course, order a book or two for my poetic friends I suppose. The suggestion is in adjudication with a decision expected in due time.
Happy Fourth of July! “The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but like what one has to do!”–Barrie