24 posts from September 2008

Show us a picture of someone you will never forget.

The woman sitting in the theater seat is my friend Marybeth.  This photo was taken in June of 2005.  That's her husband Joe, and her daughter.  She had just watched her daughter perform in a recital, and everyone was happy.  Four months later, MB was gone.  Dead from breast cancer at the age of 42.  Her daughter Laura would now be 15, her son Joseph 13, and her youngest Katherine 10. 

MB was first diagnosed with breast cancer in April of 2002.  She fought it like a berserker.  There was no give-up in her ever.

I knew MB originally from a forum on About.com on US Politics.  After the 2000 election, the atmosphere got very toxic over there.  MB decided to set up her own forum, so that folks she liked could talk and debate without rancor.  I can't tell you exactly when I was invited to join her (invitation only) forum. But I do remember when MB became more than simply an on-line friend. 

It was fall of 2003, and my wife and I were scheduled to travel to California, in order to help my parents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.  As you might imagine, it was a pretty big deal.  My wife started complaining that she didn't want to go.  This was pretty much a non-starter in my mind.  But I knew how negatively disruptive she could be when she was unhappy, and this was a once-in-a-lifetime event.  So I told her I really wanted her to go, that it was very important to me.  But I also told her that if she couldn't commit to going, and having a good time, rather than being a wet blanket, our son and I would go without her.  She relented.  We all went, and even though she wasn't perfect, my wife acted reasonably well, and I had a good time.

We were scheduled to spend the next week after the party.  The next morning, my wife came to me, and said she wanted to leave.  Immediately.  I was crushed.  I arranged a flight for her, and took her to the airport.  I knew then that our marriage was over. 

I had nobody to talk to outside my family.  In despair, I went on the forum, and spilled my guts.  MB was there for me, as were others, immediately.  She railed against my wife, when I was too despairing to think that way.  She told me how special I was, and how badly I was being treated.  For months afterward, until that day in March when my wife finally moved out, she was there every step of the way for me.  If I didn't post, she wrote me.

Marybeth and I planned to meet several times.  She lived in Northern New Jersey, and I live in Philadelphia.  But her cancer kept getting in the way.  She would be in remission, and then would suffer a setback.  Her last visit to her own forum was three weeks before her passing.  Finally, it was too much for her.

  When we finally got word that she had passed, I was logged in from home.  I turned off the computer, and went outside.  It was drizzling lightly.  As I walked, the rain became more steady.  I'm not sure how long I walked, or how far.  But I know that I wept.

The forum she started, which she called The Front Stoop, still exists.  There are not many of us left; indeed it was always a small outpost of sanity:

Welcome

Welcome to the Front Stoop! We're a band of friends that have known each other for YEARS! Please join us......we may not always agree, but we do have some fun. Post a message in the "Introduction" folder, and we'll open up the other folders to you. This is to keep spammers out (hopefully). Marybeth originated this forum as a place where we friends could excape the insanity of some political forums (although we do get pretty political here, too, lol). She is no longer with us, and we do miss her. We will carry on this forum as long as we can as a way of keeping ourselves together, and also to preserve MB's ideas and thoughts. ------- MARYBETH , 42, died Monday, Oct. 10, at home, after bravely fighting metastatic breast cancer since April 2002. She was raised in Jersey City, but spent every summer in Sea Bright, where she embedded in herself her love of the ocean and of Bruce Springsteen, a devotion she maintained for her entire life. In Jersey City, she attended Our Lady of Mount Carmel Elementary School and St. Dominic Academy, a wonderful high school that empowered young girls by making them smart. She attended St. Michael's College, Colchester, Vt., and Seton Hall University School of Law, Newark. She practiced law briefly at the firm of Wolf and Samson and later at Bumgardner, Hardin & Ellis. She, however, chose to leave the practice of law after the birth of her second child and devoted her life to raising her three small children and spending time with her wonderful husband who stood by her side as she fought off cancer. Her interests were diverse. Favorite books: "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and "The Great Gatsby." Her favorite songs: "Thunder Road" and "Rhapsody in Blue." Her favorite movies: "Field of Dreams" and "Out of Africa." Her favorite interests: Broadway theater, Sea Bright and the New York Yankees. She was predeceased by her mother, Barbara; her sister, Patricia; her maternal grandparents, John and Eleanor; her mother-in-law and father-in-law, Julia and Pedro; and her cousin, Kerry. She missed them all deeply. Surviving are her husband, Joe; her daughter, Laura, 12; her son, Joseph, 10; her daughter, Katherine, 7; her father, Thomas ; her brothers, Thomas and Robert, their children and their spouses; a host of aunts and uncles, sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law and their children; and too many friends to list.

Who would you hope to never face in a political debate?

In his prime, William F. Buckley.  His show Firing Line was one of the great intellectual triumphs for conservative advocacy in the last century.  Unlike, what passes for commentary today, Buckley was not afraid to bring onto his show the giants of liberalism to debate.  And, more often than not, his intellingence, biting wit and timing carried the day.  (I write that as someone who disagreed with a great many of his beliefs). A couple of the great lines he pulled off:

I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.

or the variation:

I would like to take you seriously. but to do so would affront your intelligence.

Now, we're reduced to John McCain, acting like a giggling schoolboy saying No you are, what am I?

And Rush Limbaugh would not have lasted five minutes with Buckley, who suffered no fools gladly, even those whose views were close to his own.

What is your all time favorite board game?

  I was the youngest and smallest child in my family.  But, every once in a while, I could kick my siblings' ass playing Risk.  That was a rush, I must tell you.

Show us your favorite person in uniform.

Ryan Howard.  2005 NL Rookie of the year.  2006 MVP.  Quickest Ever to 100 home runs (60 games faster than the anyone in history).  Quickest Ever to 150 home runs (74 games faster than anyone in history).  9th highest slugging percentage in history. 

Not to mention that he reminds me of my childhood hero: 

Willie "Stretch" McCovey. 

Both left-handed hitters, both with majestic power, and graceful demeanors.

This questionnaire came to me from Proust, via Lightchaser.  I was reluctant to try to complete this, as it was so long, and I could have no real expectation of matching the heart and eloquence already displayed by Lightchaser in her answers.  So, I have worked on this over time, rather than tried to finish it in one fell swoop.  I hope you all enjoy the results.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Joyfulness coupled with pure clarity.

What is your greatest fear?
That my autistic son gets killed, due to my inattention, while manifesting an autistic trait.

What historical figure do you most identify with?
The truth is that I have not the greatness to identify myself with someone who has had enough of an impact to make it into a history book.  My life and my character are fairly ordinary.  There was a time when that person would have been the actor William Holden.  He was a mostly solitary man, who used to drink by himself at home until he passed out.  He died after cutting himself having fallen down while drunk.  If he had gone to the hospital, he would have been fine.  They found his body next to a mound of bloody Kleenex; he had kept daubing at the wound until he passed out.  But I don't drink anymore.  I would like to think that you might find me in the fond recollections of some who may become famous one day.  One of my natural abilities seems to be to recognize that which is special about people, and to encourage them to believe in themselves.  There are a few musicians, artists, and writers and businesspeople whom I have cheerled along the way of their own quest for greatness.

Which living person do you most admire?
I had to look up her name:  Mata Amritananamayi Devi.  The so-called Hugging Guru, better known as Amma.  The idea of devoting ones whole life to one of the most intimate expressions of love possible pleases me. 

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My occasional bouts of indolence.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Contempt for others, particularly as manifested in violence, whether physical or psychic.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Food.  I buy fresh ingredients and cook my own food nearly every day.  I don't look for the cheapest, just the best. 

What is your favourite journey?
The effort to see all that is best in a person, and to believe in them.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Justice.  An impossible feat in an imperfect world, it often falls prey to prejudice, fear, and intolerance.

For what fault do you have the greatest tolerance?
Absent-mindedness.  Often, it is the sign of an active mind, or of a confused mind.  I contrast that with a pattern of inattention to the importance of others, which is sometimes confused with absent-mindedness.

On what occasion do you lie?
When telling the truth would be a purely vindictive act.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
I have too much weight around my belly.  I have lost a fair amount of weight, but am not yet satisfied

Which living person do you most despise?
Dick Cheney.  One of the most dangerous men of the early 21st century.  The influence, to the bad, that he has had on US history and governence in incalculably great.

 Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"Like".  I am so embarrassed to, like, admit that.

What is your greatest regret?
Not accepting that scholarship to the University of South Florida for underwater archaeology.  (I don't really regret anything.  But that might have been a real gas.)

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My son.  I have had a few great loves romantically, but no love I have ever felt holds a candle to what I feel for my boy.

Which talent would you most like to have?
A great musical proficiency, particularly as a composer. 

What is your current state of mind?
Nervousness, trending towards excitement about the future.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
That's tough.  I might say my son, but a power greater than me came up with him.  Same for my having stopped drinking; I had outside help.  I do believe that my encouragement gave my former girlfriend Mary the determination to pursue her talent as a singer.  And twenty-five years later, she is still a professional singer.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be?
If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?

A unicorn.  Think of all the virgins...

.
What is your most treasured possession?
I possess nothing material which is irreplaceable.  But I suppose that I would miss my sight greatly.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
To feel utterly alone.

Where would you like to live?
Rivendell.

What is your favourite occupation?
Reading.  More accurately, buying tons of books at the thrift store, and planning to read them.

What is your most marked characteristic?
Effective listening skills.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
Gentleness.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Optimism.

What do you most value in your friends?
The ability to be honest without being unkind.

Who are your favourite writers?
Tolkien, Eiseley, Austen, Halliburton.

Who are your favourite poets?
Euripides, Thomas, Whitman, Khayyam.

Who is your favourite hero of fiction?
Sam Gamgee.

Who are your heroes in real life?

Those who have come up from the depths, and use their experience to help others.

What are your favourite names?
Lorin, Geneva, Eleanor, Bronwyn. 

What is it that you most dislike?
Cruelty.  Especially when I am the one being cruel.

How would you like to die?
Surrounded by those I love, in a natural way that allowed a smiling goodbye. 

What is your favourite motto/quote?
Michelangelo:  Ancora Impara.  It means "Still learning.

Show us something that is one of a kind.

This is Christo's Running Fence.  It was installed on the Marin Headlands in 1976.  Some of the panels, after its two week life-span, were donated to the Sausalito Art Fair, where they served as exhibit dividers for years.  My mother was a huge art buff, working as a docent at the DeYoung and the Palace of the Legion of Honor museums in San Francisco.  My sister, who is now an art dealer, was involved, as were countless others, in the project.  The fence ran for 40 kilometers (approximately 24 1/2 miles).  If you check my profile photo, you will see Christo's The Gates in the background.  This was an installation in Central Park in 2005.  That was interesting.  But the Running Fence was absolutely glorious.  Makes up for all the other stuff Christo has done that didn't work at all.

That my ass is dragging today.  Why?

Because of her brilliant comment the other day that she was watching the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice.  So, what did I do last night?  Watch it from stem to stern.  After my son went to sleep.  That put me in bed at 1:15 in the morning.  I get up during the week at 5:15.  Thanks, Cori.

Oh, by the way, it was totally worth it.

New Yorkers are sad to say goodbye to their much-loved Yankee Stadium. What would you miss most from your home town if it were torn down?

 

P1000105

This is 5 Josephine Street, in the town of Sausalito, California.  I lived here for the first eight years of my life.  My parents bought this place in the late '50s, shortly before I was born.  We lived on the main floor, the picture window of which you see just above the tree in the photograph.  The window looked down over a small inlet beside the road down from the Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito proper.

This is a screen still from the 1948 film noir thriller The Lady from Shanghai, directed by and starring Orson Welles, along with his then-wife Rita Hayworth:

Shanghai05

If you look to the left upper portion of the shot, you can see the peak of the roof of the house.  There were public stairs leading down from Josephine to the small beach you see in the center-right.  We used to go down the steps to the beach to skip stones.  Sometimes, our neighbor across the street, Ben Chamberlain, would let us take his dog Sigmund Freud, a beautiful lab, down with us to throw sticks or balls into the water for him to fetch and retrieve.  When Ben died, my family adopted Sigmund.  The beach no longer exists.  The widow Mrs. B lived in a house along the stairway.  I used to visit her all the time, even though she disliked children.  For some reason, she made an exception for me.

If you went up the stairs of you see in the first photograph, the first landing had a lawn with a hedge on the right, where my mother planted roses.  She was so upset when we pulled all the petals off of the roses, in order to boil them to make perfume.  To the left, the grass and hedge continued, and there was a prickly pear bush, which did pretty well, considering how cold and clammy it could be there. 

My oldest friend, Jimmy Purcell, initially lived in the first apartment, just past the first landing.  Later, he moved to one of the apartments above our flat.  I was probably three when we met, and Jimmy was just out of grad school for psychology.  Every Sunday, after Jimmy moved upstairs, I would go up, and he would make me silver dollar pancakes.  Afterwards, his friends would show up, and they would play jazz together, while I sat and watched.  Jimmy delights in telling the story of the one morning I came into his apartment without knocking, as was my wont, and found him in bed with his girlfriend of the evening.  He relates that I looked at them, and asked him "Jimmy, is that your mother?"

Up the driveway on the right side of the photo, there is a garage with a dirt basement behind.  I found a cache of French francs in there.  Perhaps the previous owner was a soldier in the War.

This is what we saw coming down the hills to us most mornings and evenings:

Fog_Sausalito

   As the fog covered the town, the foghorn on Alcatraz would begin to blow.  It was still a prison when I was a very small child.  I often wonder how it is that all of the inmates did not go mad, rather than just many.

Were you to pass along the right side of the photo, and up the street parallelling the house, you would see a large ivy patch, which, aside from stairs winding up to the slat covered porchlike landing and entrance to our flat, covered the whole side of the hill beneath the house.  In a certain season, monarch butterflies on migration would rest on the ivy, thousands of brilliant orange and black bodies carpeting the hillside.  I thought for a while that this memory was a fanciful construct of my imagination, as neither my parents nor my brother remembered it.  But my sister, in recent conversation, also recalled the wonderful event.

I have so many snippets of memory floating around from those very early days.  The time I saw two guys sitting in the playground, talking about what one of them who had just been drafted should do.  Walking down to Ole's Bakery, long gone, to buy fresh bread in the morning.  Ben's daughter, a flower child who made beaded jewelry, ironing her very lenghty blond hair.  Greasing the circular metal slide up with Crisco, to make the transit down quicker.  Burying my brother's chameleon beneath the wooden car-deck above the house.  Our oldest cat, Miss Blue, baiting dogs with her friend, a huge tabby.  The smell of the tar used by the street crews to cover cracks in the road.

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I would miss the house, were it to be torn down.  After all, its very being is now a part of me.  All that is important remains as whispers in my soul,

How do you know when a relationship has run its course and it's time to call it quits?

When she wants to borrow the car to go out on a date with another guy.  Seriously.

I don't know how many of you read Doonesbury this Sunday.  The strip refers to a way of communicating political views effectively to raise yourself and demean your opponent.  The memo which it references, written by Newt Gingrich is here. 

Feel free to refer to the list as the cacophony of political advocacy and advertising reaches its peak over the next few weeks.  And don't let anyone con you into thinking that words don't matter.