HB, Mom… on Your 100th Birthday

Today would have been my mother’s 100th birthday. Given how vibrant she was throughout her golden years, I had always hoped that we would be able to celebrate this milestone together, but it was not to be. She passed 9 years ago, and while memories of our time together are still fresh, I am startled by all that had happened since, and feel sad that we could not share those moments with her. I have occasional moments of disbelief that she’s not here.

Mom worked in Accounting at Abraham & Straus, a department store that was subsequently acquired by Macy’s. She described her role as comptometer operator, meaning she spent much of her day adding numbers. Automation was just beginning during her time there, and she would laugh that when the previous day’s sales were compiled by mom and her colleagues, the results were on executives’ desks way before noon… once they automated, the numbers didn’t come out until 5:00 PM. And she always contended that for all other arithmetic operations, a comptometer was useless, but for adding numbers, comptometer was tops.

Mom thoroughly enjoyed going to the theater with her colleagues. She kept the Playbill for every show she saw, and the stack was huge. I think she acquired the love of the theater from her father, who used to take the entire family to his beloved Metropolitan Opera. I love re-telling mom’s story of her father being mortified when his kids fell asleep during the performance, asking rhetorically ‘what kind of people don’t like the opera?’ Donna and I often extend his sentiment to anyone we know who doesn’t like… well, you fill it in.

Mom kept going to the theater throughout her life. At age 85, she traveled by bus with her senior center group to see a matinee. After the show, as the ladies were showing their age navigating the steps of the bus and stopping to chat in the aisle, mom and her close friend waited patiently to get to their seats, whereupon mom turned to her friend and said ‘I hate old ladies’, despite being a bona fide member of that demographic.

Mom’s friendships were deep, whether it was her high school friend (also Rose), her co-workers (Claire and Hilda), or friends from later years (Vida and Tillie), just to name a few. She was a great listener, which I suspect was among the reasons she was such a great friend. We could always count on her to patiently listen to stuff we were facing and calmly support us no matter what nonsense we brought her. She was a role model when it came to commitment to family. Nieces and nephews on both sides of our family embraced her deeply, which made her time being among the last of her generation really special. She felt the love, and gave even more back. Mom was far less about talking-the-talk than she was about walking-the-talk. And she was a super grandmother and great-grandmother, forming strong bonds with each next generation member.

And talk about growing old gracefully. Mom lived independently, with tons of support from Linda (Lynn: words are inadequate to describe all you did…you’re the best). Because her mother had dementia – or Alzheimer’s, or whatever it was before we gave them specific names – mom was always terrified that same fate awaited her, which thankfully it never did. If I was with her while she was watching Wheel of Fortune, she’d kick my ass. Linda and I… and mom’s doctor, to whom she gave more weight… convinced her to give up driving at 88. We had someone come in twice a week to drive her to appointments and errands. Mom was giving directions for a shortcut to her driver, a young lady who had reason to doubt the navigation skills of an 88-year old. When they arrived as intended and bypassed the traffic, the driver said to her ‘you’re pretty sharp, Rose’. Her feisty spirit was on vivid display even to the week she died. I overheard her telling her caregiver ‘in my next life, I’m not giving up the car!’

Independent. Strong. Patient. Devoted. Loving. Everyone who knew her could add lots more to describe her. I hope all those who knew her will cherish the moments they shared. I do.

Meet Joseph Thomas Marchese

Mom and Dad, August 5, 1943

Joseph Thomas Marchese, Sr., that is. Yeah, I’m a Jr., though I don’t think I have used that since elementary school. Today would have been dad’s 100^th birthday, so it’s time to reflect and honor.

He’s been gone too long, more than half my life, passing a few months shy of his 61^st birthday. With so much time since he passed, its easy for memories to fade, and I don’t want to lose them.  There are so many stories, I don’t know where to start. Everyone who knew him would say that his sense of humor virtually defined him, even if it was over-populated with what are now referred to as dad jokes. He was the life of the party, always up for fun. And he could find the fun in anything. Often it was obvious stuff like softball on weekends with the Knights of Columbus. He had fun on a Saturday morning driving 25 miles each way to Dunkin’ Donuts when there was only one of those in the area. There was the occasion when he gave my cousin Peter a tough time for wearing sneakers to a holiday gathering, then changing into sneakers himself to show he could dress as the young guys do, despite the fact that he looked ridiculous in his-generation sneakers. Dad wasn’t afraid to be silly on occasion. With mom, he was always first on the dance floor at a wedding. One time, as the band’s singer was out on the floor and pushing the mic to someone to sing the next line, when it was dad’s turn, his voice cracked, and the band guy asks “are your shorts too tight?” Everyone laughed, but none more than dad did at himself.

He would always make fun of my Volkswagen Beetle, but he drove it every chance he could even though his own car was just as available. In my advancing years, whenever a young man offers to help me with manual labor, I think of the first time a younger man addressed my father as sir, to which dad replied “howzabout I knock you on your ass”. And in the classic case of how irreverent he could be, when another cousin was prompted by her dad to ‘have Uncle Joe show you his new teeth’, he happily removed his denture to see the kid run away screaming… don’t think she’s been seen since.

Dad worked a few blocks from home with a walking commute. Whenever he turned the corner onto our street, it was the equivalent of “NORM!!!” walking into Cheers. He was a union man, but not a zealot. When the union went on strike, dad went to work because he knew the owners of his company were ready to accept the union’s proposal on the spot and saw no reason to penalize them because other owners dragged their feet. He stood up to the union rep who wanted him to walk, refuse deliveries, and try to close down the shop.

He served in the infantry during World War II, going to camps across the country to build the 86^th Infantry Black Hawk Division, then deploying with them to Europe. He was a Master Sergeant, which I think suited him perfectly: a Non-Commissioned Officer, an everyman leader, very smart if not very educated, with a common sense approach we should all have.

There are no words to describe how sad we feel that we didn’t have him in our lives for decades longer, or that he never got to enjoy the retirement to which he was so looking forward. Still, I bet he’s having fun because that’s his way.

HB, Dad… as you taught us by example, we enjoyed our moments together.

 

Thanksgiving 2013

I’ve gotten into a bad habit of not blogging, professionally and personally. I always enjoy reading blogs, columns, whatever, on Thanksgiving Day that note the many things for which we have to be thankful. So with a little different slant, here’s mine.

It goes without saying that I’m thankful for my family, whom I love more every year, sustained by the blessing of having another year together. And for my friends, for relationships that deepen every year.

From my years on the Board of the Parish Resource Center, I learned that guidance to people who want to know how to pray is in the acronym ACTS: Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Too often we only think of prayer when we want something, so we’ve got that supplication thing down pretty good. But I find that when I pray, I start with thanks, spend most of middle with thanks, and always end with thanks… with some of the other stuff sprinkled in. I have so much for which to be thankful that it is always top of mind. Thanksgiving Day makes us feel great; it’s a booster shot to give thanks on as many days as we can.

I had an experience recently that underscored just how thankful we should be. I was attending a conference in downtown Brooklyn, and because of the conference I dressed for a business event (which is to say that I looked like a ‘Suit’). I decided to take a short walk at lunch just to get some air. My attire made me feel out of place among most of the locals, but not so much that I would change anything. I passed a man on the street, and as I looked at him he said to me ‘man, you must have won the lottery’. I smiled and nodded, and we each continued our day.

It’s amazing when someone you don’t know takes a look at you and concludes you have a lot for which to be thankful. He doesn’t know me, doesn’t know any problems I might have, yet concludes that I should be thankful. He was right… and he made me thankful for the reminder, as well as all our blessings.

My birthday message to Facebook friends is always ‘HB… enjoy the moment’. With a lot of help from Donna, I find myself enjoying each moment more than ever, and thankful that I can. [I’m not naïve… some moments are more enjoyable than others.] Being in the moment, grateful to enjoy it, is the essence of being happy. No need for a bucket list when every experience leaves you happy and thankful.

So in a convergence of both feelings, be Happy this Thanksgiving… we are blessed.

Remembering Rose

Today would have been mom’s 95th birthday. I was always convinced she would have lived way past 95, but it was not to be. So to honor her today, and remind us all of the great lady we knew, here is the eulogy we offered to her.

The word ‘eulogy’ comes from the Greek and means to ‘speak well of’… I looked it up because I want to get it right for mom.  That’s the least I could do.  I’ve been trying to think of characteristics or events that capture the essence of mom.  Are there things or moments that don’t merely describe her, but define her?  My first reaction was no, that her essence is more characterized by consistency rather than random, fleeting moments.  So I started to think of attributes and among those that come to mind are her being supportive (often in ways that were predictable but that we didn’t always get), being loving, being worried for us… she did a good amount of worrying for us. 

A key characteristic of mom’s is her great sense of humor, honed by being my father’s best audience.  Could you imagine being married to him for 34 years and not being his best audience?  I only recently came to the perspective that her own sense of humor is deeper than that, that she is an un-indicted co-conspirator, that she gets his humor in ways that the rest of us only saw superficially.  She is his straight man, setting him up at every opportunity.  Gracie got all the laughs, but I suspect that we wouldn’t have laughed as hard without George setting it up and seeing the gleam in his eye from knowing what was coming.

Mom setting him up is typical of her, that she made him feel good about being the life of the party.  She makes things happen in ways that aren’t about her, but about us.  She consistently makes us feel good about ourselves.  So with that perspective, I listened to all the stories that family and friends told effortlessly but deeply, starting Friday night when I think she was proud of us as we set aside our grief to celebrate her life.  And on Sunday and Monday, as more family and friends visited, so many more stories were told, all with a smile and a laugh.  I bet she’s happy about that.  I didn’t hear the same story twice, which means that there are so many stories each thought to be the essence of mom.  So what makes mom special is that she consistently leaves an impact in every one of those stories, not just a blockbuster belly-laugher that lives in infamy or an isolated poignant moment that was out of character.  Her essence is in that there are so many ways that typify who she is, and not merely what she does, and all that we feel about her.

Our friends would refer to her as the Energizer Bunny, who keeps going and going.  She had a couple of health issues to manage in the last few years, but she would always bounce back like a champ.  Her doctor would ask her for her secret and she always replied ‘good genes’.  So thanks for the genes, mom.  Only something so hidden and sinister, that it took a group of specialists over a week to uncover, could stop her.

When I looked up ‘eulogy’ in a reference work, they had translations in over a dozen languages, some in character sets that I can’t read and the majority of others that I can read but I can’t pronounce.  One caught my eye.  The word for eulogy in Danish is spelled L-O-V-T-A-L-E.  I doubt it is pronounced the way it looks, but I like it for mom.  LOVE TALE.  So our eulogy for mom is our love tale.  We will always love her, that’s our tale, and we’re sticking with it.

Thanksgiving 2011

Here are the things, among many others, for which I am thankful in 2011.

• The top of the list has to go to Colin, our grandson born in May. What a sweetie! He has a quick smile and an easy disposition… what more could you want? Jess and Tom take him everywhere all the time, and the kid just seems to thrive on it. Seeing him loving his Johnny Jump Up instantly invokes awesome memories of Tom and creates great new memories through Tom’s family.
• Colin is the catalyst to be thankful for all family, both in the immediate as well as in the extended sense of family. I’ll spare you other TV and movie wisdom (for now, anyway), but this came from a humorous, TV-inspired book I read almost 20 years ago: good friends become family, and family is the center of the universe. [Leave it to me to lift Star Trek to such a lofty place.] Donna, Jill, Tom, Jess, and Colin are the center of my universe, and our sibs and their families along with our friends make the universe very big indeed.
• I’m thankful that I made good on a resolution to get a massage every month. Running beats me up pretty good, and after every summer I feel as if I was hit by a truck. A massage makes all the soreness go away. And I got a tip from my massage therapist that helped my breathing, and therefore my running, so much that it makes me enjoy the running all the more.
• I’ve had an idea for over a dozen years for a IT-based product (not sure that product is the right word, but I’ll use it for now) that is being built as we speak. I’m thankful for the amazing feeling of seeing an idea come to life (way too slowly, but this is, after all, about giving thanks) and to see the possibilities it can create. Stay tuned…
• I had a powerful moment this year on my birthday. It wasn’t as a result of turning 60 (thanx for reminding me), but something I did that day. I’ve been saying for years that ‘I am __-years old, and I’ve never had a barber shave’. [Have you ever heard of a bigger tragedy?] So on my birthday, after my haircut, I had my barber give me a shave. The experience was luxurious, but the shave… sucked. I get a far better shave, a lot faster every day, from a Gillette Fusion. Sometimes we ascribe great meaning and impact from things or experiences we don’t have rather than being thankful for the things we do. It’s a big world, and we can never experience more of it than we don’t. On my birthday, I chose to find happiness in the moments I experience, with those I love, rather than fixate on a bucket list of moments yet to occur. Aspirations are great, but they shouldn’t be the reason to defer happiness or not first be thankful for all the moments we have.

There is no limit to the things for which I am thankful, and no list could ever be complete.  We are blessed… celebrate the moments.

Great Vacation: Disconnected from Email

Here’s a formula for a great vacation.
• Pick a great destination
• Disconnect from business email

Want more details? This is what I did. [Sorry the specifics surround Microsoft Outlook, but I bet most of you can set up your email client to suit.]

To enroll office colleagues in the process… admittedly in a far more heavy-handed way than my usual approach… I set up the following Out of Office message:

I am out of the office until April 13, with no access to email or vmail. In order to make it truly time away, all messages received before then are being deleted. Please use this practice as the opportunity to evaluate the number and nature of emails that you Send and Forward.

People sending messages from outside the office received an Out of Office Reply that said only the first sentence. [I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid.]

I then set up a Rule that deleted messages before they were sent to my BlackBerry, foregoing the real-time dunning that only serves to break the very vacation mood you went away to find in the first place.

[In addition to not being stupid, I’m not reckless: I knew those messages would be there for me waiting in the Deleted Items folder… most of which will, in fact, stay deleted. I also set up other Rules that allowed messages from certain people to come through, two of which actually were worth the effort to Reply, which I was happy to do on the spot.]

I can’t begin to describe the calm that resulted from not having every bloody email fly at you and interrupt the vacation effect you were away from work to create. There are no doubt other ways to disconnect, but however you do it, you will find that it results in a recharge you will not have any other way. I know we live in a 24×7 culture with expectations of 100% accessibility. When you push back on that, people will be shocked… and then they’ll say ‘good for you’. Go for it.

Thanksgiving 2010

Here are the things, among many others, for which I am thankful in 2010.

• If perhaps only as a matter of contrast, if 2009 was the worst year of my life health-wise, 2010 was among the best. I saw a lot fewer doctors, and that in itself made me feel great. That contrasted feeling is a great reinforcement for investing in my health, so I am also thankful that I joined a gym after an absence of several years. OK, so I’m a foul weather friend, but those winter months away from running on the roads renews my body. A month into it, my previously unworked muscle groups are sore, but it hurts so good.

• Donna and I often say that we share a brain to the degree that words are no longer necessary. But our relationship has advanced to including more of a celebration of our one-ness. Even our friends remark that two of us have become one person. That may be so, but I think this gig works because we retain our individual identities while creating that joint identity. Recent studies show that fewer people are choosing marriage to formalize their sustaining relationship, but I would marry Don again in a heartbeat. We joke about the key to success being low expectations, but I’m most thankful because we keep hitting new highs.

• New York Magazine ran a cover story earlier this year about the joys and challenges of children. I’m ever so thankful for Jill, Tom, and Jess in that they bring joy and fun. Those special times create feel-good moments like no other. I’ve come to learn a new empathy with my mother in that those moments when your children are challenged used to result in parent action when they were young, but parent worry when they have become adults… the action is now on them as they lead their own lives. I used to tell mom all the time that she was a compulsive worrier and how dysfunctional that is. Now I get it. [It’s still dysfunctional, but I understand.]

• Speaking of mom, I am ever more thankful for her and cherish her memory. Thanksgiving has become bittersweet in that she passed the day after Thanksgiving 2007. But our whole family honors her memory each holiday. More than that, Don and I often remark how much we wish she were still with us to give us what she always gave us, unconditional love and priceless wisdom.

• I think mom must be pleased that my sister Linda and I have made it a regular practice of speaking at least once a week. I love our Saturday phone calls to share what’s going on in our lives. OK, so we sometimes miss a week, but those weeks definitely feel like something’s missing. It’s great to feel closer to your sib as you both move through life.

• I mentioned our friends earlier. Lemme tell ya, we don’t just have good friends… we have great friends. We’ve had good friends over the years, but the people with whom we have become and continue to be close over the years are the people you want to have in your life. We celebrate them.

• I acknowledge that I am a simple creature. I can be pretty satisfied with simple gifts. There is no more simple pleasure than going to the beach. Don and I rediscovered the beach in 2009 (we live on Long Island, for Pete’s sake!! What the hell?) and we are so thankful for Nickerson Beach, a gorgeous facility. We thank Nassau County for making it even nicer in 2010 despite budget cuts that have curtailed many county services.

There is no limit to the things for which I am thankful, and no list could ever be complete. We are blessed… celebrate the moments.

Who’s A Bum!

 That was the headline of the New York Daily News on October 5, 1955, 55 years ago today. There was no explanation needed to describe the cartoon of the Brooklyn Bum who the paper consistently used to portray the Brooklyn Dodgers, who won their only World Series the day before.

There are so many feelings to take away from that day, among my earliest memories (alas, I was just 4 years old). Listening on the radio (I was sick enough to be confined to bed) to Johnny Podres pitch a gem, and then asking over and over, ‘did they really win?’ Even at that age, I was conditioned to question if the Dodgers could ever really win it all. The joy my father felt that evening was palpable. The special joy of having your perseverance rewarded, and of lovable players being lovable for something more than their foibles. And of that feeling the next day, upon seeing the newspaper and realizing that everyone else shared the joy too. As I write this, that Daily News Page 1 is looking back at me, hanging from the bookcase across from my desk. BTW: the newsstand price is prominent in the upper right hand corner… 4¢. [Geez, I’m old.]

Talk about the stars aligning: The Boys of Summer played in the Field of Dreams, and won it all 55 years ago in ’55. Too bad they closed out the series in Yankee Stadium, a sweet victory with just a bit of the shine removed for not having won in their home ballpark… a small price to pay to remember that the Dodgers were still the Dodgers… never perfect.

I just obtained my first vanity license plates, having ceded the moral high ground. The plates read (only space for 6 characters) 55SULL, for 55 Sullivan Place, the street address of Ebbets Field, now gone 50 years.  Only a handful of those Dodgers players are still with us… this one’s for them. Thanx for the memories and lasting good feelings.

Volksie

Today is the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day.  I believe that we need Earth Day more than ever, but that’s not what each April 22 means to me.  And it’s not just a reminder of my brother-in-law’s (Lance Armstrong… no, not that Lance Armstrong) birthday, though I never forget it.

You see, 40 years ago today I bought my first car, a 1965 Volkswagen.  I bought it from an NYPD Tactical Patrol Force officer, guys who liked to chew up college students and spit them out… scared the hell out of me.  It seemed like a lot of money at the time, but my last pair of eyeglasses cost me far more (and boy, did that ever piss me off!).  I had an intense emotional relation with the bug, so intense that I haven’t had an emotional relationship with an automobile ever since.  That’s probably a good thing.

I always found it ironic that I became part of a group of the world’s worst polluters (car owners) on Earth Day.  Despite that irony, I didn’t care, as it meant far more to me.  It still means a lot to me, now in the form of vivid memories that are timeless:

• Donna’s excitement (yeah, we were together even 40 years ago… that’s a very good thing) when I changed the standard cheapo plastic knobs and shifter to faux wood grain, even though it could be argued that it is the same principle as putting whipped cream on a hot dog.  She humored me through endless purchases from the JC Whitney catalog, most of which were more therapy than utility.
• My mother laughing at coming home from work and finding me having taken the car apart with pieces scattered all over the driveway.  I was emboldened by the best automotive repair book ever written:  How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive – A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot (that’s not a typo… that’s how they spelled Compleat).  Mom said it was the first time I ever showed patience for anything. Then we all laughed when I put everything back together, with parts left over.  And it still worked.  That was to become my trademark. [As my T-shirt says, “Curious enough to take it apart. Talented enough to put it back together. Clever enough to hide the leftover parts.] Now, doctors keep removing parts from me, and I still work.
• Seeing my father choosing to drive the bug when his own car was readily available.  He got a kick out it… but still preferred that not too many people see him behind the wheel.  I think he wanted young guys in the neighborhood to see him, not his friends.
• The time I picked up Professor LeMee at JFK airport (he was lost trying to find PanAm operations for our field trip… cheap engineering thrills) the morning after a heavy rain at a time when the sunroof leaked so badly there was water sloshing around in the back seat.  And he didn’t flunk me, though I could tell he was horrified by the experience.
• After having been stuck a number of times from one breakdown or another, I was determined not to let it happen again.  I even made it possible (JC Whitney again) to start it with a pull start like a lawnmower.  Then my friends, in an attempt to thwart my demo, unplugged two spark plugs so it wouldn’t start… and we all went nuts when it started any way.  Gotta love a bug.
• The joy I had at being a VW owner when their TV commercials were hysterical.  Check out The Funeral… it epitomized the giddy pleasure of owning a Beetle.
• And finally, the enduring memory of Donna and I bawling like babies when we sold it 3 years later.  We got $500 for it (remember it was 1973), and my Uncle Mike thought that was highway robbery… until it sold in about 30 minutes with multiple offers still coming in.

So here’s to Earth Day, and the memory of our Volksie.  Oh, and Happy Birthday, Lance!

Ebbets Field: April 9, 1913 – February 23, 1960

Where were you 50 years ago today? [For those of you younger than 50… shut up.  But please keep reading.]

Fifty years ago today, Ebbets Field was torn down. It took more than a day, but today marks the date.  I remember that they painted the wrecking ball white with red markings to mimic the stitches on a baseball.  To an 8-year-old, the irony looked cruel.

So other than emotional geezers from Brooklyn, why should anyone care? Like most sentiments about the good ol’ days, Ebbets Field may be the symbol of a romanticized era which wasn’t quite as good as people remember.  But that feel good memory is powerful.  Several years ago, I bought my mom, a passionate Brooklynite, a coffee table book called When Brooklyn Was The World, 1920-1957. The period 1920-1957 was marked by the subway reaching the farthest points in the borough to when the Dodgers moved away. She loved it, and I loved giving it to her.  Brooklyn remains a special place today.  I love Borough President Marty Markowitz and his road signs upon entering and leaving Brooklyn.  They also evoke good feelings, and while I laugh at some (Leaving Brooklyn: Fuhgeddaboudit, or Leaving Brooklyn: Oy Vey!), my favorite sign is Welcome to Brooklyn: Home to Everyone From Everywhere. Brooklyn is a place as emblematic of America as I can imagine.

Ebbets Field marked a different kind of relationship between a sports team and the local community.  There’s no evidence that Dodger fans were more passionate than fans anywhere today. It’s about accessibility.  [OK, Duke wasn’t always so accessible.] We knew where the players lived, and it wasn’t in a gated community. Fans would buy groceries and bring them to the players’ homes. Players often took local jobs as working stiffs during the off-season.

It was a feel good time.  And that’s the entire point. I often treat symbols with less respect and reverence than some others, but each of us has symbols that powerfully evoke memories that can instantly recreate the feel good moment. I have a few others, but Ebbets Field has a hold on me. It’s on my PC desktop as the wallpaper. Pictures and posters of Ebbets are taking over a greater part of our house.  I want to thank my wife for being so agreeable about my obsession… at least it’s a harmless obsession.

So why should you care? Being something of a movie freak, I love the line from Field of Dreams, where James Earl Jones, whose character Terence Mann always wanted to play at Ebbets Field, talks about a reminder “of all that once was good, and could be again”.

It’s ironic that a relatively small (by today’s standards) structure torn down 50 years ago could instantly show us the power of possibilities.  Our sense of possibilities drives how we see and create our future. In these difficult times, we need a strong sense of possibilities more than ever.

So thanks to Charlie Ebbets (Charles Hercules Ebbets… glad it wasn’t named Hercules Field) for spending $750,000 to build a baseball stadium in the old neighborhood.  He, and all who lived and played there, gave us much more than that.

Do you have memories that simultaneously make you feel good about the past and the future? Add your comments and share them with others.