The World According to Mike

WHAT’S UP?  WELCOME.  APPRECIATE YOU FINDING YOUR WAY TO MY SLICE OF THE BLOG PIE.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE   

Just to be compulsively clear, this blog includes seven more pages (handily listed to the right).  This page is mostly an introductory page.  It includes a few older essays, my profile, and some random easy-breezy content. Additionally,  I will add new extended observations and some quirky fiction or word play to this page.  

 

WHY READ THIS BLOG?

In the 1940’s classic Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, during the climatic scene when a bell rings on the family Christmas tree, little daughter Zu Zu sweetly tells her father…  “Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings.”                                                                                     

 In the new Off Broadway stage adaptation, after a bell rings, Zu Zu says, “Daddy, teacher told us today that it’s unconstitutional to talk about angels in school.”  Then she told us, “Every time a bell rings it means you should read another entertaining self-indulgent blog.” 

 

WHO AM I?   THERE’S A PROFILE A BIT FURTHER DOWN THE PAGE

 

SOME FAVORITE WORDS AND SENTENCES

(ADDED 4/10/2024)

10)    muddled

9)      indulge

8)      frankfurter

7)      shenanigans   

6)      clunky

5)      Hey babe, I was thinking, can we try something I saw in a video?  

4)      Nutritionists have discovered that Brownie Sundaes are incredibly healthy

3)     I was wrong, Mr. Handy, you’re not due for a prostate exam 

2)     I love you

1)     I love you too

 

WORDPLAY AND RANDOM THOUGHTS & OBSERVATIONS

(12/20/20)

Though she has sunshine in her pocket and a silver tongue, all she talks about is the wagon train full of memories moving from raindrops to toad stools while pottery wheels spin. Some in the valley shade their eyes on a perfect day, while others wallow in the foggy train station lot wondering why tulips and turnips are in short supply, and how anyone plays checkers in the dark.  Purple lollipops, fresh candy canes, and old movie reels tilt eastward toward the breathless funk, crumbs from hastily eaten apple strudel float down the wide sleepy river, then flow in smiling swirls past a fleet of festooned pirate ships put on display to soothe the restless souls of those who softly yearn for mutinies and hard rum. 

(10/18/20)

Well, like everyone else, most of what I’m seeing in the broader world the past many months pertains to the pandemic, the election season, and Trump’s lying and ranting. It’s frustrating and profoundly sad, but thankfully everyone I know is muddling through.  A lot of people (220,000) haven’t muddled through, though, and I mourn for all the heartbreak and anxiety they and their families have endured. Since March, I’ve only been inside my house, our empty lake cottage, and clinics for medical appointments.  Yes, that is crazy.  I have to be extra careful because of being immune suppressed since my second kidney transplant in Oct. 2019. I’ll write more about the transplant sometime, but I’m not going to dwell on it in this blog. You can read about parts of my transplant saga on the GETTING MY TRANSPLANT page.

Our family has spent a lot of time together, socially distanced with masks on. The weather has been great this summer and fall, but here comes the northeast version of winter. Hoping that a lot of sunny days will buffer us from the clouds and cold.  Getting through the election and finding treatments and a vaccine are on the horizon.  Better times ahead.

(7/21/16)

I was in line at the grocery store this past Saturday night about 10:30 pm.  At first I wasn’t sure the store was open, but I figured they must be because the automatic doors opened for me.  Then, because it was so low-lit and spooky and quiet, I wondered for a second if maybe the door was supposed to be locked. I quickly, though, spotted a teenager lazily mopping an aisle floor and realized everything was Saturday night normal, just creepy and solemn because the store is in an isolated shopping center.

The point is that after going up and down a few aisles, I settled on getting a package of mint OREO COOKIES.  When I got to the register there was one guy ahead of me, a 20-something dude dressed all in black, buying a 12 pack of Bud-Lite.  While I was waiting for him to get rung up, another young guy appeared behind me in line with two giant bottles of beer. I smiled at the contrast between me going home to  eat Oreo cookies and watch a movie and these younger dudes going somewhere to get sloshed. The amount of relative enjoyment one gets while drinking beer or munching on cookies does, though, depend on who you’re doing it with.  I’d eat mud between stale crackers if I was hanging out with Halle Berry. 

(8/20/15)  

I was sitting in my car in the Jimmy Johns’ parking lot, eating my veggie sub (no lettuce) when I looked in the rear view mirror. I noticed that my hair looked weird the way it hung down over my ears. I’ve gotten in the habit lately of not wanting to put things off.  If I can’t do something right away, then I put it on a list of things to do. I should add FIND OUT WHY THE TOILET ROCKS BACK AND FORTH to my list

In this case I decided I wanted to fix my hair immediately.  I searched the glove compartment and shuffled past the outdoor landscaping gloves, an old flashlight, and the records documenting all my oil changes before finding the giant blue-handled scissors.  They look like scissors you’d use in kindergarten to cut out pictures drawn on very thick construction paper. I put the sub on my lap and did the quick hair snipping above my ear.  I stared at my head in the mirror briefly, feeling satisfaction, and then finished off my Jimmy John’s dinner.

CRAZY THING… I ALSO HAVE A BOOK 

Yeah, I put together a book. Who knew? I self-published a compilation of essays & short stories under the title, A GOOD LIFE, BAD KIDNEYS, AND EXCELLENT BOWLING.  It’s available at LuLu.com.  If you do happen to get one, buy the paperback or eBook!  The hardback is too expensive and it doesn’t include some additional copy editing included in the paperback and eBook versions. Some of the essays and stories in the book are included in this blog, but they are often refined and expanded upon. 

ADDITIONS MADE TO OTHER PAGES

10/20/20

Added a poem called UNDERSTANDING, and an essay called ACCEPTANCE to the POETRY & LITERARY ESSAY page.

 

ABOUT ME

           This is My Hometown

NOTES:

Expanded this profile extensively on 10/18/20.  It feels self-indulgent to write this much about myself, but it does give readers a picture of the person behind the words

Much more detailed narratives about some of the people and events in the profile exist on other pages

There are a few essays below this profile

I was born in 1958 and raised in Norwich, N.Y, a charming and gritty small town in central New York (pop. c. 6,500), about seventy miles from Syracuse. There is a column about Norwich on the PUBLISHED WORKS page and an essay on the MY LIFE IN ESSAYS page. There’s also a short essay about a chunk of my childhood on the MY LIFE IN ESSAYS page, under the heading HALE ROAD.

We have a very close family. I have two very smart funny brothers, two wonderful sister-in-laws, five remarkably gifted nieces and nephews, and my lovely smart hard working and kind-hearted Mom, the rock and guiding light of our family.

One of my nephews is married to a smart creative wonderful woman, one niece is married to a smart loving admirably grounded man, and another nephew has a very cool, talented, and compassionate boyfriend. My youngest niece is in her first year at college and her brother is still in high school.  There’s so much to say about my brothers, nieces and nephews, their spouses and their boyfriends & girlfriends, too much to write about here. I’ll leave it for another time and another blog space. I brag about them all constantly. I’m proud of them and love them immensely.

My Dad passed away in August 2017. He was an industrious, precise, demanding, kind, and very intelligent man. He was a teacher, a guidance counselor, fire chief, county fire coordinator, and a leader in the community. In 1966, he was honored as both Fireman of the Year and Teacher of the Year. 

I graduated from the State University of New York at Oswego in ’83. I’ll be writing about the life-changing experiences and relationships at Oswego on the MY LIFE IN ESSAYS page. Almost immediately after graduation, I moved to Albany, N.Y. and lived there for ten years. I moved to Albany because my very close friends Ellen and Val invited me to move there. I lived in the same house with Ellen the first summer and Val was right down the block.

I’m sentimental about Albany. It remains one of my favorite places. I worked in some very tedious and quirky low wage jobs in Albany, some high stress jobs working with emotionally challenged and mentally ill kids, and some very rewarding and meaningful jobs. I made a lot of special cool friends there. I also had some sketchy roommates and some sensational roommates. 

The most rewarding job I had there was working as a Manager in a very cool well-known bookstore, called The Boulevard. I loved and cherished the place. There’s an essay about The Boulevard on the MY LIFE IN ESSAYS page. 

Four years after moving to Albany I met a woman named Jackie. We quickly had a deep comfort level with each other. Very soon after meeting our budding friendship turned into an intimate relationship. As time went by, I gradually realized I loved her. She is fun, honest, intelligent, dynamic, wise, and attractive. We indulged in hours of easy free-flowing conversations and developed a comfortable physical and emotional chemistry. She bought me a book for Christmas about sites to see in the Hudson Valley region and told me she was looking forward to seeing a lot of them with me. We enjoyed going to the movies and out to eat. We went to see the musical CATS together. I loved what was happening between us.

I had many great times the first few years in Albany, moving from one adventure to another. That changed, though. When Jackie and I met I had recently been diagnosed with a kidney disease, which led me to temporarily stop playing sports I love while I dealt with the fresh psychological impact of the news. Additionally, two of my best friends had just moved away, and I had recently dropped out of grad school, leaving me rudderless. I still had a lot of support from friends and family but it was not the best of times. In retrospect, it’s easy to see that where I was at in my life left me extra susceptible to depending too much on someone or something to fill the voids.

About a year into the relationship, we decided to take a leap and move in together. We got ourselves settled in and I felt like we were probably on our way to a longer-term relationship. Unfortunately though, things deteriorated about 5-6 months after we moved in. I’ll spare you the details of what happened and just give the broad strokes. After Jackie decided she needed to move out and live by herself, the relationship continued for a short time, but she soon told me she wanted to end it. For quite a while, I unwisely and desperately tried to cling to her and to the relationship. I finally accepted the fact that I had to deal with the pain myself and leave her alone for a while.

It was a very hard breakup. I went through the common feelings of sadness, loss, and isolation. I also, though, felt guilt and shame about unintentionally but clearly contributing greatly to the unhappiness and stress she experienced the last few months we lived together. I lost confidence in myself. I wasn’t mature enough to avoid wallowing in self-doubt and excessive analyzing.

I had put way too much emphasis on deriving my happiness from Jackie and our relationship. Jackie brought me a lot of joy and satisfaction (and I think I did the same for her… until I didn’t), but cutting myself off from many of the other fulfilling and foundational aspects of my life (as the relationship began and probably more so as it progressed) was very unhealthy. 

While we were still living together and as things went south, Jackie was blunt with me about my shortcomings. She was in understandable self-preservation mode as she became more unhappy with our situation. I could have pointed out a couple ways she negatively impacted the relationship. Any smaller grievances I had, though, were not relevant at that point because she was the one deeply unsatisfied with our living arrangement. The criticisms were painful to hear and made me feel confused, sad, and cutoff. I was deeply unprepared and shaken by the turn of events as she distanced herself from me.

Her assessments, though, were mostly correct. It was ultimately eye-opening and helpful to acknowledge and work on the exposed negative qualities… mainly passivity, dependence in some relationships, and indecisiveness. It took a long time, though, to get passed being depressed about the flaws. I had to stop analyzing them and get on with the job of accepting them and then working on becoming more assertive and decisive. 

After regaining some of my equilibrium and giving us enough of a complete break from each other, Jackie and I were able to continue being close friends. It all worked out as it should have in the end. I moved on to other relationships and adventures. She moved on to getting married about six years later. She invited me to the wedding and I was happy to go. She has two wonderful kids and a very successful career. Our friendship continues to this day and I still care about her a lot. 

I met a lot of great friends in Albany. Three of the most significant new friends were Valerie, Wayne, and Kathie. I lived with Wayne and Kathie near downtown Albany after living in a dumpy town near Albany for a few years after the breakup with Jackie. I was honored when Kathie asked me to move into her house because I knew she was picky about housemates. After a blind date and then getting to know each other as we developed a friendship, Kathie introduced me to live performances of the NYC ballet at Saratoga, the Albany Symphony Orchestra, and a deeply flawed one time attempt at ballroom dancing.

Wayne and I shared a love of humor and movies and were easy-breezy, yuks-sharing full-time close buddies the last few years I lived in Albany. I enjoyed our friendship a whole lot. As I said, there were a lot of laughs and we spent a lot of time together. He’s a super intelligent, quick-witted, and knowledgeable guy. He has a wide range of facts at his fingertips about a lot of subjects, and possesses a deep understanding of certain topics, primarily literature and film. I learned quite a bit from him.

After Wayne introduced me to her, I spent a lot of rewarding and very enjoyable time with Valerie. The three of us became a cozy trio. I also worked with Val and spent a lot of very enjoyable solo time with her. Val and I have remained friends and she currently lives an hour away from me. She’s a cat lover and a musician, a lover of Carl Jung and philosophy generally.  She’s sincere and honest, and a lover of nature. She enjoys and thrives on coming to deeper understandings of humanity. We had many free-flowing and rewarding conversations about a myriad of topics. She’s a fascinating person and I always enjoyed her company. 

As I write about friends, I’m reminded of the personality and character traits my friends share, especially my best friends. The main commonalities are sincerity, honesty, caring, a sense of humor, and some desire to understand people and the broader world. I’ve been lucky to meet a lot of people with these general characteristics.

Setting aside the generalities, the fun and the closeness in any relationship comes, of course, from  learning about what makes them unique. As we all know, it comes from getting to know about each others’s likes and dislikes, loves, beliefs, quirks, and habits.  

The fact that I have many close friends, yet I’m on balance more of an introvert than an extrovert, is an example of my contradictory nature. I love crowds and love people, but I’m picky about who I hang out with. I need a certain comfort level. I don’t mind being alone at all but I also love being with friends and I enjoy being the center of attention. I can be easy-breezy and freewheeling, but can also be quite analytical and tense. I can be very optimistic and hard-nosed and tough, but also can be fragile and stuck in my thoughts.

I think I’ve gotten wiser  and more mature over the years, better able to adjust course when needed. 

There were many other great friendships in Albany. Ann F. was a co-worker and great friend, very funny and very cool. I spent fun and rewarding times with Julie & Elizabeth (they were Jackie’s friends and housemates).

I met a guy named Doug at a part-time stupid job my first summer in Albany and we ended up sharing a shabby apartment that fall. We played a shitload of basketball together in the park (I played a ton of  park basketball in general during my early years in Albany) and shared a whole lot of laughs about our bohemian existence, b-ball and work, and whatever else popped into our wandering minds. He ended up marrying his girlfriend Tara, who lived on the SUNY Albany campus at the time. Doug went to SUNY Albany and played on the football team until an ankle injury sidelined him. 

Cosmo  was a crazy, fun co-worker and good buddy, had a personality somewhat like Seinfeld’s Kramer. We spent a whole lot of time together. I had a big one year long crush on hot Meg, a young woman I met at work. She was at a hot lava level of fun, as was her cool housemate Jo. I spent a lot of hell-raising times with them and their housemate Mike. Linda and Joanna were close buddies and confidants. We spent many lovely, fun times together. I had a short fling with sexy smart Roxanne, another person I met at work. These were all people I met the first few years in Albany, during or around the time I worked as a teacher of emotionally challenged kids at a place called Parsons and then worked with “troubled kids” as a counselor at a place called St Anne’s. 

Mellow sophisticated cool Roz was a co-worker at The Boulevard, a place I worked at after breaking up with Jackie and after working 2-3 yeas at two Friar Tuck Bookshops.  I talked with Roz a lot while working. She was easy-breezy and disarming. I liked her a lot. It was a friendship confined to work and it ended after the stored closed, but I still felt an unusually deep connection to her, considering the circumstances. I learned a lot from from her about literature and life. 

As I alluded to earlier, the first few years in Albany I alternately  lived with and regularly hung out with two of my life-long friends, Ellen and Val.  They have been my confidants, the closest of close friends. We’ve loved each other and leaned on each other for support and friendship since our college days in the early 80’s. I love them and cherish our deep and long-lasting friendships. Ellen and I drifted apart for a while because of geography; and, I think, partly because I had a crush on her when I first met her which created a complicated transition. 

Val and I communicated a lot and saw each other regularly after the three of us left Albany. I’m probably more raw and honest with her than anyone else in my life.  I love her and revel in the fact that we are so comfortable with each other. 

I continued my extremely tight friendship with Andy B, my college roommate who lived near Albany. He joined me in many adventures in and around Albany on playing fields, in bars, and later on with his wife and two sons. We were inseparable at Oswego and during my Albany years, especially the first few years there. 

I moved to Chapel Hill, NC in late December 1994. It’s one of the most dynamic and pleasant college towns in the country. The vibe fit me perfectly. Moving south was a new beginning and I loved Chapel Hill… loved experiencing the highest quality college sports, the vibrant music scene, working with college students on campus, the warm sunny weather, the wide range of restaurants, the highly diverse demographics, and the progressive nature of the place. People around there often refer to Chapel Hill as, “The Southern Part of Heaven.”

It was a pure joy to found and host an Open Mic night on Fridays at The Intimate Bookshop on dynamic and often crowded Franklin Stteet, the main street in town.  We would draw musician and authors to come in to read and perform in front of appreciative crowds. The performers were situated on the second floor above the open air section of the store, near the entrance to the store, so people entering the store could look up and see and hear what was going on. When we didn’t have as many performers signed up as usual, I went out and solicited street musicians to come in and do their thing. The whole experience was a thrill, often leaving me bubbling with energy afterwards as I thought about the rush I got from meeting the participants and watching them perform.

I was in a writing group in Chapel Hill, founded by Nancy Peacock, an award winning and wonderfully talented and dynamic writer. I learned about writing style, timed writings, integrity, and showing rather than telling as you develop plot and narrative. The friendships I had with Nancy, Tony, Charmin, Stephen, Mandy, and others were smooth and intimate, easy and long-lasting. We learned a lot about ourselves and about writing. 

While at the bookstore, I started a reading group and a movie discussion group, which lived on for years beyond the closing of the store. The people in the group bonded in a special way. We had fun, intelligent, lively, sweetly meandering discussions. Our core group stayed the same but we regularly added temporary guests and semi-permanent members of all ages and backgrounds. We enjoyed each other’s company immensely and the fact that the two groups lasted for about ten years was a testament to our cozy camaraderie. I remember Marion, one of our core members, moving back from Atlanta years later and telling me she couldn’t find a reading group there that could even approximate the same vibe. 

My longest and most gratifying job was working at The UNC-Chapel Hill Bookstore, where I generally supervised 50-55 students at a time. I loved UNC and loved the students. I loved their young energy. I met hundreds of bright, funny, sophisticated, fun students.  We all worked hard at getting the very challenging work done in our very busy store, but we also had many, many great times. The time I spent with the students and my non-student co-workers was deeply satisfying and a whole lot of fun.

The dazzling picture at the top of this page is of me on a last fling before dialysis (July ’05). I was on a trip around the state of Washington with one of my best friends, Andrew. He and I played hundreds of hours of tennis together in Chapel Hill and spent tons of time entertaining each other and becoming like brothers. We basically agreed on everything of importance and it felt like we had known each other for a long time almost right from the start. He helped me get through dialysis. We leaned on each other in many ways for support and simply had a great time together. I also became very close with his parents. Later on, when Andrew married, I became close with his wife Becky. As with all of my best friends, he and I are still friends today.

I received my new kidney from a great guy who saw my profile on the internet. (None of my family and friends could donate for a wide variety of medical reasons.) I was on a waiting list for about five years before Terry contacted me. Anyway…there’s a lot more about my kidney saga in the essays on the GETTING MY TRANSPLANT page.

I moved back to Norwich in 2016, after twenty-two years in Chapel Hill. I greatly miss Chapel Hill and the friends I met down there. The above mentioned Andrew, plus…. Dana, Erica, Matt, John W. Don M, Dana & Tristan, a girlfriend named Suzanne (story about her is on the MY LIFE page), Grant, Waffie, Tracy, the students and co-workers I worked with, plus many other great people along the way. 

There’s a lot to say about my many Chapel Hill friends… I’ll be adding more later on. I’ll also write about Oswego on another page eventually…. writing about Andy, Ronnie, Hart, Jim, Ellen, Val, Steve, Waffie, and many others. 

Like everyone else, I’m now coping with the pandemic and the accompanying uncertainty. I’m back in the womb-like atmosphere of my hometown, enjoying my family, trying to reconnect with people and places here in ways I couldn’t when I was only visiting during the three decades I lived in Albany and Chapel Hill.

—Mike   

NOTE:  As I’ve alluded to, some of the people and places in this profile are talked about in more detail on other pages of the blog.

       

                           

MY VISION

One of my literary goals was to publish a book of essays and short stories.  My self-published book, A GOOD LIFE, BAD KIDNEYS, AND EXCELLENT BOWLING, is available at Lulu.com.  Another focus is working on this blog—streamlining  it and adding to it. 

I also want to write new short stories or essays that are honest, thoughtful, and entertaining… and get some of them published. 

I want to continue to volunteer in the community to help people in need and to be involved in promoting the arts once the pandemic is under control. I hope to host an Open Mic or start a reading or a writing group, but that’s a stretch at this point. 

I want to do whatever I can to help kidney patients work through the challenges of finding a kidney donor. All these things, other than the writing, are mostly on hold until the pandemic ends. 

My more important long term goal is to find a way to eat all the pumpkin pies and brownie sundaes I want to without getting fat.

You like?

A FEW ESSAYS….

(All written c. 2013)

A TINY BIT ABOUT BLUE

Each day we wonder what the sky will show us. On clear days, blue demands center stage. On those postcard perfect, in your face, drop-dead gorgeous days blue calmly dominates.

Because there is something inviting, silky, and serene about the blue sky, I imagine that the blueness could somehow stand aside, or flip over, or pull at us in order to reveal something beyond the blue.

As colors go, sky blue is my signature love, my main squeeze… but my lust for blue doesn’t keep me from digesting other shades. I see attention-seeking rainbows, rich red spaghetti sauce, tasty orange sherbet, screaming auburn hair, super-fine black sneakers.

Blue, though, has a surreal soothing quality. What is it about blue? Why does nature display it so pervasively?  Setting aside  the raw realities of science, I imagine it was simply the natural choice.

HEAT

In the middle of a particularly frigid somewhat depressing winter day, I like to imagine sizzling hamburgers on a grill on a sweet sunny summer day.

I love heat. Heat conjures up cool images for me. I love movies that revolve around hot times—Cat on A Hot Tin Roof; A Street Car Named Desire; Body Heat, etc. I don’t think an actor could ask for anything more in a dramatic scene than to have to deal with sweat on their brow, or just the general strain of intense heat—the sweat, grunts, and moans add so much drama to the moment. A person in a hot movie will often eventually pull out a handkerchief with no regard for how crumpled it might be, or wet, or anything else, because they just need it that badly. At that moment, they need it right NOW to get those damn beads of perspiration away from their eyes. But, even when one is straining to deal with the intensity of heat, it still seems like it’s healthy to sweat, and somehow noble to deal with it.

I adore a movie scene in which someone saunters down the street under a blazing sun, shirt unbuttoned, sweat glistening in places, dabs of moisture showing everywhere. As you watch the sweaty soul struggle, they finally arrive in front of the local diner. The place is tiny and raw and has no air conditioning; but there are fans whirling, beckoning, throwing out slight wisps of air, enough to soothe. The person enters and mutters something about the heat as they pull out their hanky. They don’t have to order a tall glass of sweet tea–the owner knows. They get the person a drink with dazzling, hard, chilled ice floating in it, adding that perfect crisp coldness that will absolutely save their throat from the unyielding dryness. When you watch the overheated guy pick up the glass, you sense the pure pleasure of it. In a good movie, I could watch that scene over and over again.

In Body Heat, there was a scene where Ned Racine and his friend meet at a diner on one of the hottest days of a long, hot summer. As they talked, they sucked on a couple of cold sodas (out of the bottle) and it just spoke volumes about the tone of the movie. The movie was HOT, passionate, and intensely sexy,… and if you were in the movie you damn well needed a cold drink, or else you were just going to “blow your lid.”

Yes, heat is hot. Even on the hottest days when you think you can’t deal with it, it’s still better than extreme cold.

I love to sweat in buckets. After my football practices my mom would always say that it looked like my jersey had gone through the rinse cycle of the washer. In the summer I sweat in the shower; I sweat when I talk; I sweat everywhere, which makes me feel like I’m really doing something, working up a good sweat–as they say.

What I don’t like about summer is grocery stores anti-heat—the air conditioners that scream to you that you’ve stepped into artificial coldness, a coldness that is far too brisk, not refreshing, just overwhelmingly cold. It does no good to step from one extreme to another. Give me a big ceiling fan any day.

HEAT–I love the word. Maybe this is why I’m in the “Heart of Carolina.” Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina on a sweet, WARM, southern night.

WHERE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO PARK?

Another national election has ended; and again, though politicians did talk about the easy issues (like taxes, poverty, deficits, energy, crime, and immigration), they completely avoided discussing the toughest issue—-PARKING.

If you live in a bigger city, or certain mid-sized cities, or a crowded urban neighborhood, or work on a campus, then you know what I’m talking about. It is possible to find a legal space within binocular’s range of where you’re headed, but it is the search that can be maddening. We see street poles with four (or more) signs on them—30 minute parking/except Tuesdays/ or some Wednesdays/ No Parking on Holidays or Weekdays. One would need a speed reading course to read parking signs while horns are blaring behind you, telling you to move on.

Consequently, we circle city blocks. rapidly reading signs, gauging the size of open spaces, analyzing their legality, feeling a knot forming in our necks, while watching parking police moving from car to car, shaking their hands, trying to avoid writer’s cramp as they write tickets.

You might literally orbit buildings like a satellite, probing and staring, and then moaning in frustration as a sports car glides into a newly opened space before you can get to it.

Parking garages help, but I don’t like them. They’re eye sores and they’re costly. Instead, there should be enhanced public transportation, bike paths, more cheap outdoor spaces available, and whatever else it takes to unclog things.

If you live in a smaller town, or work close to your home, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. If you live some of the places I have, you know exactly what I mean. When I lived in downtown Albany (where all the residents park on the street), my housemate Val used to stop in front of our house and loudly honk the horn so I’d come outside and hop in the car to keep her company while she drove around trying to find a parking space. We had time for long chatty conversations while we circled the blocks around our apartment looking for an elusive open space.

Often times, while you’re orbiting city blocks, you see blurred images of things you’d like to take a closer look at. In your desperate rush to find a space, however, you usually miss seeing the sights that you’d gaze at casually if you could. You know what I mean?

ON A MORE SERIOUS TOPIC…GUN VIOLENCE:

Why is there so much more handgun violence in the U.S. than there is in the other industrialized countries? This is obviously a topic discussed over and over and over again—and the solution to gun violence is obviously not an easy one to come up with and even harder to agree upon (yes, that’s a Herman Munster size understatement).

This issue is on my mind again because I grew up very near Binghamton, NY, the place where the killing of fourteen people took place. As a kid, my family traveled the forty miles down Route 12 many, many times to see all my cousins and my Aunt Barb & Uncle Red, who lived in Endicott (which borders on the city limits of Binghamton). It was our home away from home. Along with my brother Tim and all of my cousins, we spent our time playing basketball and baseball in the street, football in the backyard, and romping through the woods behind the house, running up the rocky creek, building dams, pretending we were adventurers like Daniel Boone. Now, my sweet niece Alison goes to college at the University at Binghamton, and many of my cousins and a few of my friends still live there. So, when I heard about the horrible shooting spree, I was shocked and frustrated.

After calling home and talking with my family to sort through our reactions to what happened, I spent parts of the next couple of days thinking about how events like this can be tempered. I am a strong Gun Control advocate, but I don’t think it’s realistic to get rid of millions of handguns. It is realistic, however, to make it at least as hard to get a handgun as it is to get a driver’s license or a permit to drop a fishing line in the water.

My problem with people claiming their right to own guns is that they are putting the rest of us at risk. And, unlike other dangerous items like cars, knives, and planes, there are no significant positive uses for handguns. Though there are tragic accidents involving cars and planes, no one wants to get rid of them because the positives crush the negatives. What are the positive uses regarding handguns? They can be polished to a perfect shine and then admired in a glass case, or they can be used for target practice. They can also be handled and fondled.

Oh yes, there is the other thing that people always remind us of…handguns can be used to protect yourself! But, here’s the problem with that claim…you’re mostly protecting yourself from other guns! If there were fewer handguns easily available, then there wouldn’t be the need for such intense protection. Plus, in a battle between you (and your hidden gun) and a surprise attack from a criminal who already has their gun drawn, I think the innocent person will lose most of the time. Former New York Senator John Patrick Moynihan said a long time ago that we need bullet control. Maybe there’s something to be said for that.

Look, I’m no nerd and I’m not a wimp. I have no problem with rifles. I’m simply sick of people who are either angry, or frustrated, or mentally ill having such ready access to easily concealed killing machines. Poverty, despair, immaturity, mental illness, copy cat killings, and a variety of other social issues are obviously big contributing factors related to violent behavior, but those issues are more complicated than the simple idea of just making it much harder to get a handgun. I love watching Clint Eastwood blow away bad guys as much as the next person, but the reality of gun play doesn’t match the fiction. We don’t have quick draws and fake bullets like Clint does.

There are way too many innocent vulnerable people being slaughtered. The answer is not more guns. Whatever the answers are…we need to figure them out quickly. I don’t want to keep seeing peaceful places like Binghamton shattered by bizarre gun violence.

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