Rant #2,323: I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter

First, the snow ...

As I told my wife yesterday as we drove back and forth to the Veterans home in Stony Brook, Long Island, to see her father--about a 100-mile round-trip for us--it was too warm for us to get much snow yesterday, and it appears that I was correct in my summation.

I am not saying it isn't bad out right now, but as we were driving back and forth there, the temperature, according to my car's readings, was 48 degrees.

Yes, it dropped to freezing levels, or near freezing levels, but I simply did not believe that it was actually going to drop enough for us to get a substantial amount of snow, and although the TV weather forecasters said we could get anywhere from three to nine inches, I look outside my window right now and it doesn't look like we got that much ... or maybe the rain washed away what we did get.

It still looks kind of messy out there as it is, so whatever we got will be bad enough.

Now, let me try to make a segueway to the gist of this post.

I am a writer, not a shoveler, and that came out to anyone who doubted that yesterday.

In Newsday, Long Island's daily newspaper, in the Act 2 section--the section of the Sunday newspaper basically devoted to older Long Islanders, anyone from about 50 on up--I had an article published in the My Turn section, where readers can send in their views on just about any subject under the sun.

The previous Sunday, right after I got up and ate breakfast, I decided to go on the computer and write about the life--and death--of the Monkees' Peter Tork. something I had written about pretty extensively already both here and on Facebook.

His passing was still a fresh wound, and I guess, as a writer, that I needed to express my feelings even further.

I sat down at the computer, typed up what I wanted to say in literally about five to 10 minutes--the piece just flowed out of me, almost writing itself--and I sent it to Newsday for a specific section in the newspaper--

And it was quickly rejected, as not fitting the theme of that section.

However, the editors still liked the piece, so they sent it to the editor of the Act 2 section, and lo and behold, it fit into the "My Turn" part of that section like a glove. Through the week, I was in contact with the editor of the section, who edited the piece down to a more workable length, and also worked with me to get photos of myself from 1966--the year the Monkees burst on the scene--which in the final product, weren't used.

I told few people--my wife and son, my parents, and one person at work--and that was that.

And yesterday it was published, and at 7 a.m. in the morning on a Sunday, my sister called me, and told me how surprised she was to see my efforts in the newspaper, and all day, I got numerous kudos on Facebook about the story, so I am satisfied and happy with the response.

In a nutshell, I basically paralleled, to a certain extent, Peter's rise and fall and rise again with my own peccadillos over the years, and how the news of his death put me in a certain state of mind.

Like I said, the story basically poured out of me, wrote itself, and it was tightened up a bit by some editing, but in the final copy, it really read pretty well, I thought.

I had been in Newsday many times before over the past 40 some years or so, but I hadn't been in the newspaper since the reunion of my old neighborhood a couple of years ago.

Ironically, this coming Saturday, my family and I are going to see "The Micky and Mike Show," pretty much what is left of the Monkees today with Peter's passing and Davy Jones' passing a few years ago.

I think it should be a generally happy affair, but it will also be a poignant one, as Peter--who was not part of this tour, handling his own health matters--will certainly be remembered.

The outpouring of interest--and love--for Peter when he died took a lot of people by surprise, and it even forced MeTV to put the Monkees TV show into their Sunday TV sitcom rotation.

Maybe it will open some eyes at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, although I am certainly not holding my breath on that. Nominations and entrance voting appears to be as phony there as a WWE match, so you throw the baby out with the bathwater trying to reason out such things.

But whatever the case, a piece of my childhood is gone with Peter's passing, and I hope I got across to readers exactly how I was feeling at that time and place.

You can access the article at https://www-newsday-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.newsday.com/amp/lifestyle/retirement/peter-tork-s-death-takes-part-of-baby-boomer-childhood-1.27830766?usqp=mq331AQCCAE%3D&fbclid=IwAR33-JJkcKKqVwwp9fNOkaBLo7JixrlRpxQyTcQpSgxS8AoqP07werFApiQ&amp_js_v=0.1#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsday.com%2Flifestyle%2Fretirement%2Fpeter-tork-s-death-takes-part-of-baby-boomer-childhood-1.27830766