Rant #3,103: Winners and Losers

 

“The Yankees Win … The Yankees Win!”

So went opening day of the Major League Baseball season for the team in the Bronx, and I am happy about that.

And as I predicted, I watched scant little of the game, as I was busy as a bee yesterday with work and with family things.

I saw exactly one batter in the top of the eighth inning, the full bottom of the eighth, and the top of the ninth, and that was that.

Better seeing such a small sample size in a winning effort than watching that little amount in a losing effort … you better believe it!

And then later on in the day, I heard what everyone else heard, that former President Donald Trump was indicted on criminal charges in New York.

Honestly, I don’t really get this thing, and we don’t even yet know what the charges are, which made yesterday’s announcement even more bizarre.

But when the former president is arrested—whenever that will be—it will make an interesting case study into how such a high-profile potential felon is treated by the justice system which vows to treat everyone equally.

First of all, I simply do not understand how he can be charged with anything other than having committed adultery, which is bad enough but certainly not illegal in New York State.

And that it happened before he was President and happened upwards of seven years ago … shouldn’t the statute of limitations apply here … I mean, this is not a murder case, is it?

Once we hear the charges—and they must be just way beyond paying hush money to this woman to keep her mouth closed about whatever may have happened between the two—then we can make a better judgment and better understand why Trump has been indicted.

And it is not a crime to pay someone to shut up about things, by the way … Michael Jackson was one celebrity who clearly did this during that period where he supposedly bedded some children at his estate in California.

And these wealthy people don’t necessarily pay off someone to shut them up about something that did actually happen … sometimes it is simply better to pay someone off than to hear anything they have to say, whether true or false, in a court of law, because, as you know, “loose lips sink ships.”

That is why the charges must go way beyond just paying this woman money to shut her up about something that no one has ever proven actually happened.

To me, this is between Trump and his wife, but what do I know?

And once he is arrested, so many questions will need to be answered:

Will he be handcuffed?

How will he be led into the Manhattan court building?

Will he be jailed, or let out on his own recognizance?

To me at least, this is nothing but grandstanding by the New York District Attorney, because again to me, this case really isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things.

The other cases against the former President are so much more important—egging on the crowd of hooligans during the insurrection and the storing of off-limits, top-secret documents at his home—that it makes this one seem to be frivolous and a waste of taxpayer money.

But Trump is right about one thing: the more beleaguered he becomes through the court system, the more popular he becomes.

He is already running for President, and each one of these indictments—present and future—will push him up in the polls.

And that might just be scarier than seeing him in handcuffs, to be honest about it.

So I wouldn’t gets joyous about this latest indictment, because quite honestly, do you really think that Trump can get a fair trial anywhere in the United States, and in particular, in New York City?

Guaranteed his lawyers will ask that the trail, if there is one, be moved somewhere else, perhaps even in a part of the state that is pro-Trump.

But no jury pool is going to be completely brain-drained about Trump, as he is probably one of the most famous people in the world, for good and for bad.

And looking at it from a different perspective, the world is laughing at us now, as we are trying a former President for what appears to be adultery and hush payments, something that is such a normal part of the political process overseas that it has to have the people in other countries spinning their heads with laughter.

And in this country, are you going to tell me that Trump is the only President that ever slept around and paid people off to keep quiet?

Let’s say “John Fitzgerald Kennedy” and move on from that. FDR, Eisenhower, and probably several others had paramours on the side that we either didn’t know about or found out about much later on.

And personally, that is not to say that I condone these actions at all.

If in fact what they are saying actually happened, Trump needs to check his gut and question why he cheated on his wife.

And as far as his wife, well, a nice kick to a certain area of his anatomy would be warranted, don’t you think?

Have a good weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Rant #3,102: Hope of Deliverance

Today is almost like a holiday, but it is more almost like a religious experience for myself and millions of others.

That is because today is the opening day of Major League Baseball, which I firmly believe is the only sport that counts in the world of professional athletics.

You can say all you want about football, but its fan base is geared to betting, and even though betting is now legal in many states, placing wagers really has nothing to do with athletics.

Again, now that betting is legal in many states, you can also place wagers on baseball games, but the whole sport has never had anything to do with betting—and when it has, like in 1919, or more recently, when Pete Rose was outed as betting on his own team, it was stamped out immediately.

Baseball has absolutely nothing to do with betting, it has to do with the athletic performance of those playing it.

So today, Thursday, March 30, is the official beginning of Major League Baseball’s 2023 season, a season that is going to see a lot of changes in how the game is played.

You have the pitch clock, which forces the pitcher to throw the ball to the plate within 30 seconds … which should have been a no-brainer for every pitcher to reach this level, but simply isn’t.

And the batter will also have to be ready in a lesser amount of time, which also should be part of their DNA, too, but often isn’t.

These time elements were instituted to speed the game up, and at least in spring training, about 20 minutes was sheared off the average game time, so the ploy might have worked … but let’s see how it impacts regular season games, where the intensity level, and stakes, are much higher.

The bases will be larger, looking more like the bases that we used when we were in day camp playing ball than major league bags. This was done to increase the action with men on base.

There are some other rule changes, including how many times a pitcher can throw to first base to keep a runner close, but baseball really was never broken, and didn’t need the fixing that has been implemented for this year.

Baseball is the only major sport not to play out with a time clock, so it is supposed to be slow.

The slowness simply adds to the intensity and excitement, but some people don’t see it that way … because they simply do not understand the sport.

Major League Baseball is a sport that plays out 162 games in 180 days, so it plays out over six months’ time, where each team plays about five games a week.

You can’t rush this, you can’t hurry this … so why even try?

Anyway, I root for the New York Yankees, and hope springs eternal with the most famous sports franchise in the world.

There is extra excitement this season.

Aaron Judge is coming off a historic 62-homer season, and while it is doubtful that he can duplicate that feat again in consecutive seasons, if anyone can do it—steroid free—it would be him.

And the Yankees have Anthony Volpe as their starting shortstop. To some, he is the second coming of Derek Jeter, but I won’t go that far, just yet. He is a 21-year-old who will inject his youth into the team, and I, personally, can’t go wrong rooting for a guy who shares the same birthdate as I do (45 years separated, of course).

The Yankees play in the best division in sports, and the American League East might just have five winning teams this season, with the rejuvenated Baltimore Orioles looking to join the Toronto Blue Jays, the Tampa Bay Rays, and the resurgent Boston Red Sox as teams the Yankees will have to contend with.

So I am looking forward to the start of the season, but let’s see how much of the first game I will actually view live.

Since my semi-retirement, I am always so busy on this day—the day I do my family’s food shopping—and between that and work and other things, I have either missed the game entirely or seen a few minutes of it here and there.

I don’t expect today to be any different, but the great thing about baseball is that there are 162 games, so if I miss one, there will probably be another one to see tomorrow (although the Yankees and the San Francisco Giants have this Friday off).

It promises to be a great season, and just maybe, my family and I will actually go to see a game, like we did last year when, as part of our vacation, we visited Baltimore and Camden Yards and had a memorable time watching the Yankees beat the Orioles in more than 100-degree heat.

But we will see what we will see, whether we actually attend a game or not.

The dawn of the season to me means that summer is right around the corner, and with summer comes barbecues, swimming, vacations, and a lot of fun.

There is nothing more fun than baseball, the game I have loved since I took in my first baseball game at the age of eight years old at the old Yankee Stadium.

And hope springs eternal now, so all I can say is—

“PLAY BALL!"

Rant #3,101: A Day of Remembrance

My worlds are colliding once again.

It does not happen too often, but with this blog entry, it will now have happened twice in the past two weeks.

And when I say “my worlds are colliding,” what I mean is that my world as a blog writer, and my world as an editor/writer covering the world of military stores, are kind of crossing over in today’s Rant.

Today is National Vietnam War Veterans Day, a day where we remember those service members who served during the Vietnam War period.

That was one of this country’s most hated wars, a conflict that was taking place amidst a great upheaval in America and in the world at the time.

We, as a country, did not understand why we were in the middle of a war that we really shouldn’t have been in to begin with, and those men and women who served during this time were looked at as tools of our government.

When they came back to our country after their service—if they came back—there were no parades, no jubilant events to honor them; in fact, they were looked down upon, never getting the praise that they earned and deserved.

In recent years, the tide has turned.

National Vietnam War Veterans Day was first established by presidential proclamation in 2012 leading to the start of annual observance events in 2014.

The Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act of 2017 further established the events as a national observance to recognize Vietnam War-era veterans for their service.

The observance date recognizes March 29, 1973, the day the United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, ceased operations with the last U.S. combat troops leaving the country.

So today, decades after that war ended, those who served during that period of time will get the honors that they should have received 50 years ago.

Sure, these are small tokens of gratitude—many of the stores that I cover will be giving our commemorative pins to those who qualify, and there will be ceremonies honoring these veterans at many bases—but it is way more than they received when they originally came home from war.

I remember those times vividly.

I knew a couple of older guys who simply did not want to be drafted, did not want to serve in the war, and they did anything and everything they could to get a deferment.

Growing up in Queens, New York, there was one guy in my building who broke his arm purposely—if I remember correctly, not once but at least twice—because he wanted it to appear as if he was not fit for battle.

I remember that our government had the draft lottery, and if you think the NBA and NFL drafts are big events, then you obviously weren’t around way back when.

The government picked the draft dates, and if your birthdate was picked out of the top 50 or so dates, you would almost certainly get drafted. Those on the lower portion didn’t have to worry as much, as their chance of getting drafted was much slimmer than those dates chosen early on.

Even though I was too young to be drafted, myself and my schoolmates looked at the dates, and when they were picked, related them to when we, ourselves, were born.

It was a big thing, and I remember that one year, one of my classmates was born on the first date picked, and he paraded around our school room as if he had won a cash lottery.

I mean, he wasn’t old enough to serve, but just think of those born on that date whose hearts went into their stomachs when their birthdate wound up being #1.

And I also remember one guy who did do his duty, served in Vietnam, came back home, and was stabbed to death in the middle of the night literally right outside my family’s apartment in the parking lot of our building.

He called out for his mother, everyone — including myself—heard his cries, and the next morning, we found that he had made it across the street from the parking lot, and we circled the blood-splattered portion of the sidewalk that he finally lost his life on.

We could do that because in those days, they did not wrap crime scenes in that yellow tape that borders such scenes like they do today.

I was too young to be drafted back then, but old enough to know what was going on in our country and our world.

And so when I turned 18 years of age, now on Long Island, I went to the general office of my high school to register for the draft, because I thought that that was the right thing to do.

I remember getting there, and someone telling me that I did not have to register … that the draft had recently been abolished earlier in the 1974-1975 time frame, so unlike guys who were slightly older than me, I didn’t have to worry about such things.

And thus, I owe a debt of gratitude to those slightly older than me who did their duty by registering, and who fought in a war that may have been unpopular, but they did their duty anyway.

To them, I salute them on their special day, and I salute service members and veterans every day for their service to this country.

Rant #3,100: One Day At a Time

Today, the Ranting and Raving Blog hits a new milestone.

This is Rant #3,100, and it is almost hard to believe that what started out pretty much as an outlet for my writing, and my thoughts, has reached such a lofty number.

But it has, and I am very proud of that.

Why have I been able to do this weekday column since Monday, May 4, 2009?

It is because I am always full of ideas, always not intimidated by a blank page, and always ready to take on subjects that others simply won’t talk about.

Look at yesterday’s happenings … we had that school shooting in Nashville Tenn., where a “woman” supposedly shot up a religious school in an elaborate plan that was thought out to the letter.

I sampled four different news outlets, and only one prominently defined the shooter as transgender.

One outlet brought it up at the tail end of the report, almost as if they were saying that it had as much importance to this case as the variety of deodorant the person used.

Two didn’t even bring up this important facet of the shooting—continually calling the shooter either “a woman” or “female,” with one even speaking to some psychologist about the rarity of women participating in such acts.

Only one outlet said it the right way, stating that police had reported that this person was transgender, and they said it within the first couple of sentences of their report.

You see, you won’t get that type of insipid reporting here.

I tell you what is on my mind, and I have no trouble telling you that this individual was transgender, because I do believe it is a major part of this story.

The media does not want to insult the LGBTQ community by reporting that the person who did the shooting was transgender … but by doing this, they might be not insulting that community, but they are insulting the intelligence of a majority of their audience, which wants the facts, blemishes and all.

I won’t do that to my audience here, because I do believe that you are way smarter than that.

A while back, someone called me a “critical thinker,” and I do believe that that is what I am. I report what I see, again, with warts and all, and I do not hold back anything.

I can do this because I am not shackled by the current tenets of the media, which holds back critical information because it does not want to offend anyone, and thus, rarely gives you the full story about anything that they are covering.

Someone else called me “the most honest person on the Internet,” and yes, I do feel that I am just that.

I don’t hold back on anything, whether I am talking about a horrid situation like we had in Nashville yesterday or even when I am talking about a piece of fluff like the wildly untalented Elizabeth Hurley.

Sure, I probably missed my calling.

I should have been a newspaper writer, or a TV reporter, or something like that.

But way back when I was 22 and fresh out of college, I went for such positions, and one of those interviews stands out to me even all these years later.

I applied for a reporter’s job at I think it was the New York Daily News.

This was 1979 or 1980, the world was beginning to change even back then, and the interviewer flat out told me after a short interview, “If you were a black woman, I would hire you on the spot.”

He told me to go to the New York Post and try to get hired there.

It just never worked … if this type of behavior was foisted on me today, I could sue for millions of dollars … back then you just brushed yourself off from such vermin and moved on.

I might sound like I am bitter, and perhaps I am.

I was always qualified for what I wanted to do, but I was always at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I never had it easy finding a job, never had any contacts, never had any doors opened for me … I often had to really embellish and elucidate on certain things in order for people to be interested in me, but even when they showed indifference, I never gave up.

And when I lost my last job due to the mishandling of the company I worked for for more than two decades, I continued to wipe away the vermin and push on, but I was older and it was simply more difficult to do.

So with nothing going on with me for more than a year, I, at the very least, had this Blog that I could go to each and every weekday, and treat it like a regular job that I got paid for.

And now, with just a remote job under my belt, I still open my weekdays after breakfast writing this Blog, and I owe at lot to its existence for keeping me sane during very insane times in my life.

And I thank you, my regular readers, for helping me to keep afloat, too.

Without you, I would simply be writing for myself, but I do feel that there is a silent majority out there who might not agree with everything that I say, but agrees with enough of what I say to make me your voice about certain subjects.

So thanks, and onward to Rant #3,200, which might come about in September or October of this year.

Onward and Upward!

Rant #3,099: Who's Zoomin' Who?

Vindication!

That is what I felt on Saturday evening, when I went out to get dinner for my family as I always do this night of the week.

But this time—

Vindication!

I asked my wife what she wanted, and she said, “Boston Market,” a request that I cringed at.

As you know, I am having a personal war against that casual dining establishment, brought on by their shoddy service and lies and ineptitude the last couple of times I have gone there to pick up dinner on the weekend.

You might remember that about a month ago, I went there, and they had no chicken—not even a drumstick—and customers were not alerted until they arrived at the counter and tried to place their order.

I went there two weeks ago, and not only did the manager—who was busy on her cell phone when I entered the empty restaurant--deny this ever happened, she refused to give me my senior citizen discount as she had done dozens of times in the past, because she said I could not use two discounts on one purchase, even though, as I said, I had done it many times before.

And each of these times I complained to corporate—once using an email address on the back of the receipt, the other through their website.

Well, the second time appeared to be the charm.

I hesitantly walked into the same Boston Market this past Saturday, and I was happy to see that the manager who was taking my order was a completely different woman than the one who botched things up the last couple of times I went there.

This new manager was very cordial to me, she gave me my order without any flack, and yes, she gave me my discount on top of another discount that I had.

Vindication!

I guess corporate does read what people say about how they are treated at their restaurants, and I was not treated well the last couple of times I had gone there.

And if you want to really go back, several years ago and for a few years, they had a server who had a rough time with English, and I seemingly always got her.

She never, ever got my order right, and a couple of times, out of sheer frustration, I did complain about her to the manager there (different manager than recent times), and I was told that there was nothing she could do about it.

Not speaking or understanding English and you work in an establishment where understanding the language is a critical part of the job?

So my ire for this restaurant actually goes back several years, and I think that the latest incidents—capped by the no-chicken situation—was the last straw.

I don’t know if the manager in question was transferred, or perhaps she still works there during a different day and time, but I did not see her there when I was there, so to me, at least, that is—

Vindication!

I felt so thoroughly satisfied that I could not wait to get home and tell my wife about it.

I even thanked her for wanting Boston Market that night for dinner.

I was a happy guy indeed!

The only moral to this story is that when something is obviously not right—even in this world where ineptitude appears to be applauded and has become the norm—you must open up your mouth and complain about it, let other people know about it, and see what happens.

These are different times since the pandemic hit us.

If you are a regular reader of this Blog, you know that I have hit on this subject throughout the past three years, that things are accepted that shouldn’t be in a normal world, but this is not a normal world anymore.

Well, if I have to be the only voice of reason or sanity, than I take that job very seriously, because there will be someone out there that will hopefully listen to you when you are thrown a curveball when there is a simple task at hand to accomplish and it is completely botched.

You have to let people know how unhappy you are, and it is not just blowing smoke … it is lighting a fire under people who should know better.

That is the clear moral of this story: never accept ineptitude, and let people know when you receive it.

Hopefully, I will never have to do this again, but if I were a betting man, I would say that this will happen again—not necessarily at Boston Market, but elsewhere—and I will have to open up my mouth again and complain.

I am not looking for it, but it will invariably find me, and if it does, I am ready for it.

Rant #3,098; Dreaming

Let me start off by saying that this Rant is not sports-related, although I am going to start it off with a sports reference.

Mickey Mantle played 18 seasons for the New York Yankees, and was undeniably one of the greatest pure athletes ever to play the game.

He retired during spring training in 1969, and he later related that throughout his retirement life, he would often dream that he was still playing ball, coming up to the plate in big situations, and at least during his dreams, he often struck out.

But even asleep, he regularly dreamed of “work,” his office being a ball field.

And yes, nearly four years into my own “semi”-retirement, I often dream of the last destination of my career, the office that I worked in for nearly a quarter century that went under nearly four years ago.

The actual office pops up in my dreams on a regular basis, as do some of the people that I worked with for all that time.

It is really a weird feeling to wake up in the morning and remember these dreams so vividly, but I do.

And a lot of times, they are kind of worrisome … like I missed a deadline (never happened in all the time I worked there), or that I didn’t do something I was supposed to do (again, never happened when I worked there).

The dreams are never happy; they are almost always featuring scenarios that are simply not good ones, not good ones for dreams or even for reality.

And they are starting to broaden their horizons, into my wife’s work world.

Although they don’t feature any of her co-workers—I didn’t really know any of them—they do feature my wife, and in some situation that finds her, like in my dreams of my old office, in impossible situations.

Earlier this week, I had a dream about her old workplace—a bank—and that the powers-that-be let her down in some way, and were making her feel like she was the villain in the whole thing.

They even had pictures up on the wall of the bank to demonstrate how “bad” a worker she was.

Yes, this is very strange, because she, like me, somehow survived more than two decades working for the same employer, and like me in my own situation she never let them down in any way.

Of course, her situation was quite different than mine, as she retired on her own free will, having had enough after spending more than three decades as a bank teller and a good chunk of that time as the head teller of whatever bank she worked at.

Me, myself and my fellow workers, were told of our company’s demise and had two hours to get our things together and leave.

So the situations were different, but I still dream of those work situations.

But dreaming of my wife’s work situations brings this thing to a whole new level, and I wonder what my dreams will encompass the next time around?

I mean, like I said, in October, it will be four years since I was thrown to the curb; why do I still dream of being at work?

I guess I still cannot fully grasp the fact that I was told I was done at the ripe old age of nearly 62 and a half.

I really think that that is the reason that I constantly dream of work, that all these years later, I still can’t get over what happened to me.

Happily, dreams are not reality, and I still work, still cover the same field, military stores, that I did when I was working full time, but anybody that works from home can tell you that it is way different from working in an office.

There was a recent poll of home-based workers, and the thing that these workers missed the most from working at home was the camaraderie they had with their fellow workers in the office.

Me, I guess I miss that, but I also miss the money … I figure that if I could have found another full-time job, I would probably be making about four times as much as I do now from my current home-based position.

But looking at my dreams, if I dream of people in my old office, then I think I miss that camaraderie that others feel is the most important thing they miss when they work from home.

There is definitely something to all of that … not that we were all best friends at work, but we could always go into one’s office and speak to them during the workday, often about not much of anything, if we and they had the time to hobnob a bit.

Sometimes we spoke about work, but other times, we schmoozed about sports, our families, the weather, or whatever was on our minds at the time.

I guess I do miss that, but I wonder when all this work-related dreaming is going to finally stop …

Will it ever?

Have a nice weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Rant #3,097: The Name Game

My worlds are intersecting today.

My work as a remote worker, and the storyline for this very blog, will be one and the same today, to a certain extent, a rarity that does not happen very often.

The reason that I am doing this is that I feel that the story I am about to cover here, and will later for work, is an important story as well as an interesting story, but one that is getting scant coverage in the mass media.

So here is the story … and it relates to a number of name changes that the Department of Defense is making to ensure that base names honor the right people.

Nine Army installations named for Confederate figures will soon be renamed after people who better exemplify U.S. military and national values.

The changes will have a significant effect on the affected installations, as these name changes not only impact what these bases will now be called, but can impact everything from stationery to web addresses as these new names are implemented.

The changes begin with Fort Pickett, Va., which will officially become Fort Barfoot tomorrow. The eight other name changes to Army installations will soon follow.

In addition to Fort Pickett, other name changes scheduled to occur through October — with dates subject to change —include the following bases:

April 10: Fort Rucker, Ala., to become Fort Novosel; April 27: Fort Lee, Va., to become Fort Gregg-Adams; May 9: Fort Hood, Texas, to become Fort Cavazos; May 11: Fort Benning, Ga., to become Fort Moore; June 2: Fort Bragg, N.C., to become Fort Liberty; June 13: Fort Polk to become Fort Johnson; Aug. 25: Fort A.P. Hill, Va., to become Fort Walker; and Oct. 15: Fort Gordon, Ga., to become Fort Eisenhower.

While Army bases are the most conspicuous examples of name changes that will be made, many installations have street names or buildings named after Confederates, and these will eventually need to be changed.

In addition, the Navy will rename the cruiser USS Chancellorsville — whose name commemorates a Confederate victory during the Civil War — and the USNS Maury — named after a U.S. Navy officer who resigned his commission to fight for the Confederate Navy during that conflict.

And at this point in time, there might be many other names that commemorate the Confederates that will need to be changed.

According to the Department of Defense, some Army bases, “established in the build-up and during World War I,” were named for Confederate officers “in an effort to court support from local populations in the South.”

Some of these base names existed during the height of the Jim Crow Laws in the South, “so there was no consideration for the feelings of African Americans who had to serve at bases named after men who fought to defend slavery.”

After a long period of study of the base naming subject, in early January, the government’s Naming Commission recommended that at least nine Army bases change their names from those commemorating Confederate Army names to those more inviting to all Americans.

I don’t know about you, but I find this all pretty interesting.

And it gets even more interesting when you take into account that the former Fort Lee base, now named Fort Gregg-Adams, has its operations in the city of Fort Lee, Va., a name which is not set to be changed any time soon.

So the base itself is now copacetic, but the city it exists on is not.

And how long will it take for these affected base populations to endear themselves to the new names?

These names have been in place seemingly forever … how quickly will those service members and their families say they live and/or work on Fort Liberty rather than on Fort Bragg?

It is a true “name game,” but this is the world we live in.

My thought is that these specific name changes are warranted, but we have to be very careful with the changing of names, and the eradication of history.

Some of our citizens would like to purge us of the names of Washington, Lincoln, Jackson and Columbus because they simply don’t like things that they supposedly did during their lifetimes.

These people have toppled statues, spray-painted away their names, and tried to rewrite history by doing so.

Even if a Way-Back machine existed, you cannot change history.

If we are going to change names, let’s do it for the right reasons, not because the opinion of some want things to be a certain way, and if these changes are not made, then these people will be distressed enough to take the law into their own hands.

That is not the way to enact change, and it will never work.

Admittedly, this is a very touchy subject … why are these name changes I spoke about valid but others aren’t?

You can’t change history, but you can make the future better for all of us.

Rant #3,096: Thank You

The Captain has left the building.

Willis Reed, the once and forever Captain of those great New York Knicks teams of the early 1970s, passed away yesterday at age 80, and the news hit me hard—and I mean really hard.

Growing up in Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, New York when I did—the mid-1960s to the early 1970s—basketball was more than a game to me, it was a passion.

Baseball was and is my favorite sport, but growing up in such an urban area, basketball was the go-to game of that area.

And the Knicks weren’t very good when I first became enamored with the game.

My father took me to my first professional basketball game when I was about eight years old, and it was at one of those old NBA doubleheaders they used to have.

We got to the old Madison Square Garden a little late, and the first game was still being played. I don’t quite remember who played in the first game, but in the second game, the Knicks played the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Lakers won the game, and I remember my father asking me if I had a good time. Even though the Knicks lost, I shouted out an emphatic “YES!”

I was hooked for life, and that game was the first of many that I have been in person for at the Garden, both the old one and the newer one.

And my favorite player was Willis Reed.

He simply had a sense of presence that was right there on display with those horrid teams, and continued when the Knicks got Walt Frazier, Coach Red Holzman and some other great players and matured into the best basketball team in the world.

I have told this story many times, but with Reed now gone, it pays to tell the story again,

I owe The Captain a lot, and I wish during his lifetime that I could have met him and told him this story about the most pivotal time of my life, and how he helped me get through it.

This is not necessarily a sports story, but a story about will, grit and determination, all attributes that Willis Reed possessed and were put on great display on the night of May 8, 1970.

So without further ado, here is what I wrote in Rant #1,405, March 26, 2015:

“I remember the whole thing like it was yesterday, and both May 8 and May 9 stand out to me as two of the most important days of my life.

Leading up to my bar mitzvah on May 9, when I had my ceremony--due to some quirk in the schedule, I had to have my actual party on May 23--I had had a really tough time. I was sick for about a week to 10 days prior to my bar mitzvah day, all from a case of nerves.

Look, I was the first grandchild, the first child, the first of the next generation in my family to reach this point in my life, and I guess I felt that the world was coming down on me.

Anyway, I had burst a blood vessel in my throat a few days prior to my bar mitzvah, and even closer to the date, I had anywhere from a mild fever to a high fever near 104-105. Yes, 105 degrees. In today's medicine, I would have been placed right in the hospital without hesitation, but back then, my doctor, old Dr. Geller, knew exactly what I was suffering from--nerves--and he kept me home.

Anyway, I watched every minute of the NBA championship series that I could. It was difficult because in those days, games were blacked out in the home city, so our local ABC outlet didn't carry a lot of the games live, but on tape delay.

But I had a secret weapon--my TV picked up Channel 8 very well, the ABC affiliate in Connecticut, and they carried the games live, so I was able to watch the games on that channel.

On May 8, I was really sick as a dog. I probably teetered to near 105 degrees in fever that day, and the pressure was on.

My Orthodox grandfather slept over because he would not drive on the Sabbath. At about 7 p.m. that evening, he came into my room and told me, "You will have to do your haphtarah in your bed" if I was still sick enough the next day, so there was no way out of this.

I knew my haphtarah--my speech in Hebrew that I would have to say at my bar mitzvah--inside and out, but I let my nerves get the best of me.

Anyway, after my grandfather made this proclamation, I decided to watch the Knicks game, the biggest NBA game that the team ever played up to that point.

I turned on Channel 8, and the game changed my life.

Team Captain Willis Reed, who was injured earlier in the series, decided that nothing was going to stop him from taking the court in deciding Game 7.

The rest of the Knicks had come out for their shoot around, as had the Lakers, but when Reed came out of the locker room apart and after his teammates, the Lakers were so stunned that they all stopped whatever they were doing and watched what was unfolding as the crowd cheered their hero, and they never really recovered.

Reed limped along on a bad leg, made his first two shots of the game, Walt Frazier had one of the greatest clutch games ever played by a Knick or any NBA player, and the Knicks won 113-99.

When I saw Reed limp out, I got Goosebumps myself.

I thought to myself, if this guy can do what he is supposed to do on one leg, then what am I doing in the bed here as sick as I was--I can do it too!

I swear to you, when that game was over, I felt like a burden had been taken off my back. I felt maybe not 100 percent well, but I felt so much better. I know that that night, I went to bed with a smile on my face and a new determination to do my bar mitzvah the way it was intended to be done.

I woke up on May 9, all ready to go. Sure, I still had temperature--probably 100 or 101--but I felt like I could take on the world.

All told, I barely made it through the ceremony in our synagogue, and I nearly passed out toward the end. But I did it. And later in the day, I felt fine--100 percent fine, no fever, no nothing.

If I met up with Willis Reed and Walt Frazier today, I would literally tell them this story, and thank them for pushing me to do what needed to be done, under any circumstances.

Those two days--May 8 and May 9--were certainly the most important days of my young life, and all these years later, still stand out as two of the most important days of my existence, along with getting married the second time and the births of my two kids.”

There really is nothing more to say.

Willis Reed, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, showed the courage it took to get the job done, and his appearance in that game basically pushed me to do what I had to do on the most important day of my life.

If he could do it, I could too.

The Captain, may you R.I.P.

Rant #3,095: You're Fooling You

March 21, 2023 is the 80th day of the year, which makes us roughly 22 percent done with this year.

Hurrah!

But it also means that we have more than three-quarters of the year left to go.

Hiss!

The year is still pretty early, but I don’t know what to make of it at this point.

It doesn’t appear that, at least personally, this is going to be a memorable year for me, but with so many days left in the year, you just never know.

If you are a member of Facebook, you know that they will, on almost a daily basis, put things up that you posted a year ago, two years ago … I even was reminded of something I put up 11 years ago the other day.

You can either pass it by or share it again, and most of the time, I will just pass it by.

But on occasion—I guess to make a point or to see how far I/we have come from this original post—I will post it again, and a couple of people will usually acknowledge it.

I guess that I can do the same thing right here at the Blog—put up what I was talking about years ago, and see the resultant action, and I actually have done that in the past, rather sparingly, usually to get home a point that I have made that still stands.

I have also had a few entries that literally took the very day we were on during the year, and looked back at what I wrote for that very day in the past.

But today, I am going to look back at what I said about the resurgent Stormy Daniels, the woman former President Donald Trump allegedly had an affair with and allegedly was paid off for her peccadilloes with him, embroiling the former President in further shenanigans that could lead to him “being arrested” today, in his own words.

If that actually happens, New York City is trying to prevent another January 6 in its environs, so they have stepped up security at hot spots in Manhattan … and all because Trump probably couldn’t keep his pants on when he somehow got involved in this alleged extramarital affair.

Here is what I first said about Daniels in Rant #2,101, just slightly more than five years to the day on March 18, 2018:

“And as you know, Stormy Daniels is simply a stage name for Stephanie Gregory Clifford, a Southern Belle from Louisiana who began her career as a stripper in Louisiana at the ripe old age of 17.

She supposedly chose her stage name due to her adoration of rock band Motley Cure, and specifically of Nikki Six (another stage name), who named his daughter Stormy.

Her last name was "borrowed" from her beverage of choice, Jack Daniels.

And after numerous porn films, you get an actress at the top of her profession (I will leave you to determine what that means in this particular case).

So in Stormy Daniels, you have someone who named herself after someone's kid, but that someone himself uses a stage name, and after a beverage that when abused, has gotten a lot of people into a lot of trouble.

And she is a porn star to boot.

Oh yeah, all of this proves her credibility, for sure!

But again, if she looked like Olive Oyl, nobody would care.

Yes, she has had a good amount of plastic surgery, but she is a beautiful woman, and say what you want about the current landscape, but people tend to believe those that possess the level of beauty that Daniels possesses.

That is, for better or worse, the way the world has worked for centuries, and it isn't going to change anytime soon.”

Then, I had the audacity to mention her again in Rant #2,139, May 8, 2018, when I was doing a “Bits and Pieces” entry and Daniels was at the height of her news fame:

“And no, I don't want to talk about the beyond-and-way past-15-minutes-of-fame Stormy Daniels at all, but since she simply cannot get out of the news, I figure a nice picture of this individual might be some good eye candy for the morning. So yes, I am being a hypocrite for putting her photo up and keeping her on the blog's radar, but here she is, in almost all her glory.”

I put up a very nice photo of her, not quite in all her glory but as close as I can do that in this column without making this an X-rated blog.

I will give her one thing … plastic surgery or not, she was a beautiful woman, but all that work has to sag, and it has, mirroring her newsworthiness over the past few years.

As Daniels faded in and out of the news pretty much as quickly as her plastic surgery began to implode on her, here is what I said about her on October 26, 2022, in Rant #3,001, where I looked at stories in my Yahoo News page for the day:

“And talk about exploitation, we now have the return of porn starlet/supposed Trump bed buddy Stormy Daniels in the breaking news story “Stormy Daniels Sets the Record Straight On Trump, Plastic Surgery and Misinformation: ‘There’s Just So Much That People Didn’t Know.’"

In this fascinating story, Daniels, among other things, describes her life beyond the bed, telling us that she is not just an actress but a director and writer evidently of high renown, and she also tells the world that she has names for her breast implants just as any lady would: “Thunder” and “Lightening” [sic}.”

I mentioned Daniels in passing a few times since, usually pairing her name with the word “nonsense,” as in “Stormy Daniels nonsense,” but I think I mentioned Elizabeth Hurley a lot more than Daniels over the past few years, another entry with absolutely no talent beyond her good looks who somehow frequently gets on my Yahoo News feed.

So the less said about Stormy Daniels—and yes, the less said about Donald Trump—the better … although I just broke that goal by talking about both of them in today’s column.

But at least I had my (new) pants on when I did so.

Rant #3,094: Like I Do

Welcome to a new week, and welcome to spring.

Yes, the season of winter is supposedly over, although it never really happened in my neck of the woods … but it still can happen over the next three weeks or so.

If you get my drift, here where I am, we got maybe a wisp of snow this winter, and not much else, while other places suffered from “The Winter From Hell” this past season.

But as history has it, it really isn’t until the second week of April that we can breathe a full sigh of relief from the possibility of snow, so even though I am happy about the weather, I still think we should try to continue to be on Mother Nature’s good side for the next two to three weeks or so, just to be on the safe side.

Happily for me, nothing much was doing this past weekend, other than finally buying myself a new pair of pants—I hadn’t done that in quite a while—and going over to the local VFW hall for another record show.

Let me handle the pants first.

I am one of those people who just absolutely hates to buy clothes.

I have no patience, and no interest, especially when I have to try them on to make sure I buy the right-fitted clothes.

But it has gotten to the point that I need a new pair of pants.

Some of my pants don’t fit anymore, some fit but have holes in them, and others fit just right without any blemishes, so really, all I needed was one pair of pants.

So yesterday, I went with my wife to buy one, and with her help, I was able to locate two possible purchases.

One fit me perfectly, the other … leave it to me to choose a pair of pants that had its size mismarked, as by my estimation after trying to get it on, it was probably two sizes mismarked, as it was marked as the same exact size as the other pants, but was clearly not even near that size.

So I finally bought a pair of pants, and knowing me, I will wear these pants down to the nub over the next number of years, and then I will once again need a new pair of pants.

As for the record show, this is the same one I have spoken about in prior Rants.

It is held locally at the VFW Hall, and they hold it about once every three months during the year.

When I get there, the place is jammed, it is very warm in the hall, and generally, the prices on certain records are astronomical, way more than I would ever pay for an addition to my collection.

So I walk around and shop like I do at the supermarket—checking prices really seriously—and I usually can come away with a couple of good buys.

When I first walked in, I was very happy to see the Japanese dealers again, and they brought with them a good amount of stuff that I would buy if I had all the money I would need to cover the purchases.

But being on a strict budget, I bought three Japanese singles from them, although I could have bought five times that amount if I had the cash.

As it was, they were fairly priced, and I do think I got a few really nice new additions to my collection from them.

I bought my usual Monkees single from them, a little bit of an oddity because the single has a picture sleeve that replicates the original U.S. “Daydream Believer” picture sleeve, but the single that comes with it is clearly not for that song, it is for “Star Collector.”

I also bought “Goldfinger” by Shirley Bassey, whose Japanese release has a cool cover of Sean Connery and the girl painted in gold from the film of the same name.

I also purchased from them a Nancy Sinatra single that was released before she became an international star, which you can see above.

Being that her father Frank was a prime executive at Reprise Records, he gave his daughter enough leverage to find a song that fit her and could become a hit, and stateside and abroad, numerous Nancy singles were released without any action early on in her career, and this was one of them.

It took until 1965 or so for her to record and release “These Boots Are Made For Walking,” and the rest is history, but it is also interesting to find these early 45s, and seeing her without her blond tresses—the look was as important as the music, even back then.

From another dealer, I purchased a Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass 45 and a Paul McCartney 45 that somehow has eluded me—for $1 apiece with picture sleeves!—and I was done.

Looking ahead at the week, I will have plenty of work to do, but for the first time since the end of last year, I don’t have any doctors’ appointments on the slate for this week, either for myself, my son or my mother.

My wife has one appointment this week, but otherwise, I have a clean slate … and remember, this is the first Monday in about a month that I was able to put up a new entry, because between doctors’ appointments and car appointments, I have been booked solid since the end of last year.

Hopefully, this will be a calm and peaceful week … but you never know with the life I lead now.

But at least I will be able to experience the ups and downs of the week by the seat of my new pants.

That is the real bottom line.

Rant #3,093: No

I have written many Rants about baseball, because it is my favorite sport, and it remains our National Pastime no matter what anyone says … not an obsession, like football is, but a game where one can take it all in and not worry about point spreads and the like—even with legal betting in many areas in the country.

And I have spoken little about the World Baseball Classic, a tournament that was set up about 20 years ago to promote interest in the sport in countries beyond baseball strongholds like the United States, Japan, South Korea and the Dominican Republic.

I have spoken little about it because trying to make baseball like soccer—where local and national fervor has often led to death and destruction--really isn’t what baseball is about.

And the period that this tournament is held—every three-to-four years right in the middle of spring training—makes it even more ridiculous, because so few of the participants are ready for the type of fervor that this tournament brings, and they are not ready in their minds, and, perhaps most importantly, in their bodies.

That is why you have spring training, to prepare players for the grueling 162 games in 180 days mentality that baseball brings to the table.

The worst nightmare of Major League Baseball teams is that they will have players go to play in the WBC, and that during the tournament, these players will become injured and not ready for the coming baseball season.

It has happened many times before this year’s tournament. New York Yankees first baseman Mark Texeira injured his thumb during the tournament while simply swinging a bat, and he lost pretty much a season from that.

And there have been many other players who have not come back whole after playing in these games.

The latest one—and now a poster boy for why this tournament must be moved to another time of year, if it even continues to exist at all—is New York Mets’ closer Edwin Diaz, who is lost to the Mets for the entire season—a team he just signed a record-setting multi-million-dollar contract with—due to an injury that was easily avoidable.

He played for the team from Puerto Rico—I still want to know why the island, which is part of the United States, has its own team in both the WBC and the Olympics—and after a win which he saved by striking out three batters, a celebration on the mound took place, and he was pummeled in the joyous celebration to the point that he couldn’t stand up or walk afterwards.

Due to this unnecessary celebration, he is done for at least eight months, which means the entire baseball season … and the Mets won’t know until spring training 2024 whether Diaz is whole again.

Look, I know that he could have hurt himself at regular spring training, he could have hurt himself brushing his teeth, tying his shoelaces, or eating breakfast, but that didn’t happen; he hurt himself during a celebration—not even during the game—and this player, who the Mets just gave a very generous contract to, is done, at least for this season.

And this sets a domino effect in place for the team, which must now find a pitcher who can finish out games for them, moving players up in the pecking order and putting questions into everyone’s mind whether this guy can do the job with Diaz gone.

The whole thing is ridiculous, but of course, the Mets and everyone else in baseball is almost forced to say the “right” thing while describing how hellacious this situation really is.

During the early days of the talk about setting up a tournament like the this, the Yankees—and owner George Steinbrenner in particular—forbid his players to participate in what became the WBC because of the risk of injury, and with the Diaz injury now in the books, I will bet that many teams will now have the documentation written right into the players’ contracts that they cannot play in this tournament.

Why would a player object to this wording? Do they want to win a World Series or a WBC championship?

Funny, a recent poll of major league players found that a majority of them would rather win a WBC championship, which is absolutely absurd when you take into account that the players are being paid millions by their teams to perform at the height of their capabilities, yet the WBC is more of a prestige thing than anything else.

Without the auspices of MLB, these players wouldn’t even be in this tournament, and the tournament would not exist … and like any other profession, your main work allegiance must be with your employer, the one who pays you enough money so you can put food on the table.

I also understand the intricacies of the WBC, which is national pride, much like the Olympics are supposed to be about, but political agendas do take hold here too.

If you must have a WBC tournament, then shift it to November, after the regular season is all played out, or even into December.

Players will really be at the top of their games right after the season, and their minds and bodies will be ready for such an experience—certainly better than having it during spring training, where they are just getting back into the swing of things.

Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Rant #3,092: Tradition

Yes, in my Rant about recent celebrity deaths, I did forget about Topol, the most famous Israeli movie star of his generation, who will forever be remembered for his portrayal of “Tevye” in the screen version of “Fiddler On the Roof.”

I think I forgot about him because his career did not mesh with that of the two others I spoke about in that Rant, Robert Blake and Joe Pepitone.

Blake and Pepitone were two guys who reached the heights of their chosen professions—acting and baseball, respectively—but made really bad choices in life that kept them from reaching the top rung of those areas.

Chaim Topol, on the other hand, seemed to do everything right, and was Israel’s first international film star, for which he won just about all the honors due him, and continued to be a popular actor into his early 80s.

He started acting while in the Israeli Army, and continued to act when he got out of the service.

His gritty look—and his being multilingual—endeared him to international audiences, and he acted in films starring the likes of Kirk Douglas and even Roger Moore’s James Bond, but it was for “Fiddler” that he will forever be remembered.

Having played Tevye in numerous stage productions of the play, he was just about a natural to play the character on screen, and while he did not win the Academy Award for his portrayal in the 1971 film—Gene Hackman won for his own signature role as “Popeye Doyle” in “The French Connection”—Topol embraced the role that actors from Zero Mostel to Herschel Bernardi to Harvey Fierstein have also made their own …

But Topol stood out as the film Tevye, and I saw one estimate that between the film and other stagings of the play, he had played the role of Tevye for more than 3,500 performances.

As I mentioned in a reply to yesterday’s Rant, I knew “Fiddler” pretty well as a child.

My parents saw the original Broadway production with Mostel as Tevye, and in those days, when my parents saw a musical play that they enjoyed, my mother would go out and buy the play’s soundtrack.

She did just that for “Riddle,” and in our apartment, one could often hear the soundtrack being played, from “Tradition” to “If I Were a Rich Man,” tunes which almost became part of my family’s DNA the more the record was played on our HiFi.

When the film came out in 1971, my family and I were among those who saw the movie before it made its way to local theaters, as the film was premiered in a Manhattan movie theater as a benefit for ORT—a global educational network driven by Jewish values that has been around since the late 1800s—which my maternal grandmother was very involved with.

I am sure that Topol was at the film’s premiere, but I honestly can’t remember for sure.

But what I can tell you is that when we saw the movie—the only movie I can ever remember having to get dressed up for in a suit and tie—my memories of Mostel’s performance of the Tevye role on record gave way to Topol’s portrayal, and Topol is the Tevye that I, personally, will most remember.

Unfortunately, for most younger people, the first and only Israeli actor that they know is probably Gal Gadot of “Wonder Woman” fame, and they know nothing about Topol.

And that is sad piece of reality in today’s world.

There is no clear segue way into what I am going to talk about now, other than the person I am going to talk about is Jewish, and the character that he plays milks his Jewishness for all it is worth.

I have told you about Maxwell Jacob Friedman—known as MJF--the professional wrestler from Plainview, Long Island, who as the world’s champion from All Elite Wrestling, has become one of the most popular—and hated—wrestlers of recent times.

He does not hide his Jewishness—in fact, he wears it on his sleeve—and his character on the weekly wrestling broadcasts often uses his Jewishness as a catalyst for storylines on the show.

On yesterday’s AEW broadcast, he celebrated his “Re-Bar Mitzvah,” as he had just turned 26 years old and thus, was 13 years removed form his actual bar mitzvah date from when he was 13 years old.

He entered the ring amidst music befitting the occasion, wearing his yarmulke and talis, and several others followed him, eventually elevating him in a chair like what happens at a regular bar mitzvah or a Jewish wedding.

A cake was also wheeled out, and when a cake is wheeled out during a wrestling show, you just know what will eventually happen to that cake.

Anyway, this whole thing elicited lots of hoots and hollers, and a lot of cheers, too. Whenever MJF milks his Jewishness on the show, there doesn’t appear to be any nastiness shown him by the crowd—they boo and jeer him because he is AEW's’ biggest heel, and there has not been one reported incident of anti-Semitism shown by the crowd that I can remember.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, while he was parading around the ring, three other wrestlers “crashed” his “re-bar mitzvah,” all wanting a shot at MJF’s championship belt, an award that he was not willing to give up to them.

And yes, through skirmishes in the ring between MJF and the other wrestlers, you know who ended up head-first into the cake … the “re-bar mitzvah” boy, naturally.

MJF really plays this to a hilt, and he does it so well that it is almost impossible to separate MJF the wrestler from MTF—his real initials—the 26-year-old guy who is proud of his Jewishness.

It is all played to accentuate his role as a heel, and evidently, wrestling fans take it for what it is, and nothing else.

There have been other Jewish wrestlers who have reached fame in the squared circle, including Edge, Kane and of course, Goldberg, but no other wrestler has ever ridden his religion into the sunset like MJF does on a weekly basis.

Maybe the link between Topol and MJF is a thin one, but in past times, when many Jewish celebrities pretty much hid their religion, here are two who broke the mold, and have shown pride in their religion by pretty much wearing it on their sleeves.

Topol and MJF … almost like oil and vinegar, but of the Kosher kind

Rant #3,091: Keep Your Eye On the Sparrow

We lost two people during the past few days, two more celebrities who made a great impression on me in my childhood that left their mark but are now gone, hopefully to a better place.

One was an actor, one was an athlete, but they do share one attribute during their lives: they were the top stars in franchises where the best years of that franchise were in the rear-view mirror when they had their glory days.

One rebounded from that, before falling once again, and the other kind of fell and didn’t get up.

Let’s look at Mickey Gubitosi first.

That name doesn’t ring a bell?

How about the name Robert Blake?

One and the same person.

Blake was best known for his role on the TV show “Baretta,” where he played a detective who worked outside of the system to solve his cases, all with a parrot perched on his shoulder.

Blake wasn’t even the first choice for the role.

Tony Musante, another veteran actor, played the same character in the first iteration of this show, then called “Toma,” but it bombed.

Producers still believed in this lone-wolf, quirky character, and Blake—off a couple of fine movie roles, such as “In Cold Blood” and “Electra Glide in Blue” was tapped for the role, and the rest is history.

He became one of TV biggest stars from the early 1970s through the mid 1980s, and subsequently starred in a number of other shows, but none with the impact or popularity of “Baretta.”

He gained the reputation as being impossible to work with, and often appeared on Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show” looking to further stir controversy, once wearing a belt with a buckle showing a man and a woman copulating, which had to be blurred out so as not to offend people.

And then he impregnated a younger woman, had a child who gave him direction in his life, but ended up getting entangled—and then exonerated—for his ten divorced wife’s murder—Blake married her after their one night stand led to the woman getting pregnant, and the woman made it difficult for him to see his young daughter--and he was never able to regain his popularity in a case where the public had deemed him guilty even though he was found innocent.

But before all that, he was simply Mickey Gubitosi, the cute little kid who pretty much became the focus of the last few years of the “Our Gang” shorts after Spanky, Alfalfa and Darla became too big, literally, for their britches.

Gubitosi was the primary star during the later MGM years of the series, when the major studio took over these shorts and made some of the most horrible 15-minute films that could ever be made.

And all through them they had the character of Mickey, who whined himself away in these shorts … even Blake said they were hard to watch.

The once vaunted kids series had gone into the garbage pail, and leading the Gang into this abyss was Blake, who kind of became the heir apparent to Spanky, but could never fill his boots.

Blake, or Gubitosi, did not want to be there—he said he was forced into acting by his parents—and you could tell by his performance.

But he was able to rebound as an adult actor, only to fall into another abyss later on, even though he was acquitted of the murder of his wife.

Then we had Joe Peotone, again, a vaunted prospect as a teen--this time with baseball—who almost lost it all when he was with some scurrilous characters and got shot within an inch of losing his life.

He survived, and when he came to the New York Yankees as a big prospect, people began saying that he was the next Joe DiMaggio and that the Yankees had the next Italian star—and he was a native New Yorker too!

Pepitone came to the Yankees and was a major player for them during their latter dynasty years, and he stayed with them through the end of those years into seasons where the Yankees barely competed.

Although he was a fine ballplayer and had an excellent career—he won multiple Gold Gloves as a first basemen and made several All-Star teams--there was always an eye on him, because he still hung out with the wrong people even into adulthood and his playing days.

He actually became most famous to the general public for being one of the first athletes to use a blow dryer in the clubhouse, to try to sustain his rapidly balding hairline, and the idea was so popular that clubhouses with extra outlets for hair care products became the norm.

Finally, the Yankees tired of his antics on and off the field, shipped him to the Houston Astros, and later, he was one of the first American ballplayers to play in Japan.

In Japan, his antics continued. Even with a huge salary at the time, “Pepi” and the Japanese culture never meshed, he feigned injury, and the word “Pepitone” actually was absorbed into the Japanese language, meaning someone who was lazy.

He came back to the states, but still hung out with disreputable characters, and was jailed in the 1980s when his car was pulled over for running a red light and cocaine was found in the back seat.

Incredibly, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner had a big heart for him—as opposed to previous Yankees owners who wore thin of his antics both on and off the field--and hired him right out of prison to be a Yankees instructor.

In later years, he and the Yankees pretty much came to forgive and forget, and he became a fixture at Oldtimers Day games and as a coach in spring training.

Peptone also lived in my community, and I would see him at times being human and doing what we all do, including buying groceries and going to the post office.

He drove a beat-up car that he must have purchased during his glory years of the early to midi 1960s, and he always had a bleached blond at his side.

I believe he relocated to Florida a few years back, but he was certainly one of the most colorful Yankees of his generation … but you had to wonder if he had just conducted himself a little better, what he really might have been.

Blake and Pepitone … two celebrities from my Baby Boomer youth who just left us, who reached high water marks during their careers, but if circumstances were just a little different, could have really scaled the heights of their professions and not suffered such dramatic falls as they did …

R.I.P., to both of them.

Rant #3,090: The Waiting

My mother had a nice birthday celebration.

As you already know, she turned 92 years young on Saturday, and my family and I—including my daughter—took her out to the Outback for dinner.

She had a good time, but ask her today where we went for her birthday—or even if we did anything at all—and she won’t remember it.

So goes dementia.

My sister and her family took her out on Sunday, and after speaking with my mom, it is pretty much the same thing.

I also took her for a doctor’s visit yesterday, and while she has some small things to watch—like her sugar intake and iron deficiency—she is generally in fine physical condition … except for her thinking process, which isn’t ever going to get better.

We do what we can to make her feel happy and confident, but this weekend, while talking about birthdays, my mother could not remember mine, did not know how old I was, and did not know the year I was born in … the very first time I can remember her not knowing this information like it was part of her DNA.

That quakes you in your boots no matter how strong you are.

After the birthday celebrations, I will briefly skip over Sunday, and talk about yesterday, when I had to go to the Kia dealer on a car recall related to the security of certain Kia cars, some models of which several major car insurance companies will not accept into their insurance plans because they are thought to be easily stolen.

So I had the reboot of the car’s computer done, which I found out is related to the automatic start that the car has.

You might remember that my car did not originally come with the automatic start, but I got is as one of the prizes I won in 2016, when I won a trip to South Korea.

Anyway, with the reboot, the automatic start does not work anymore … I rarely used it, and when I did, it didn’t work correctly, shutting off after about five minutes, so it is no big loss for me.

But a recall that wouldn’t cost me anything led to a time at the shop which ended up costing me, as they found in nail in my tire, so it cost about $50 for a patch job.

So after waiting three hours for the car to be rebooted, I also had to pay this extra charge, which I wasn’t anticipating, but I am glad they saw it.

Couple that with the hour and a half I had to wait to see the doctor with my mother—these offices have a new rule that they proudly hit you with that you must not only be there on your appointment time, but you must be there 15 minutes early or they will not see you that day, which I guess only applies to patients and not to them—and I did a lot of sitting yesterday.

On to Sunday … I kept this at the tail end of today’s Rant, because although the other two instances I just mentioned to you are nothing but annoying—I nearly fell asleep at least three times at the Kia dealer during my long wait there—this last instance is completely outrageous.

On Sunday, I went out to get my family and I food for dinner.

My wife wanted Boston Market, and if you remember the last escapade I went through there—where they had no chicken and I received the lamest reply possible from corporate which I didn’t buy at all—I hesitated going back … but if my wife wants it, I just have to get it for her.

And yes, after the latest escaped there this past Sunday, I sent another email out to corporate, which I sincerely doubt they will reply to, but I will reprint it here, because it pretty mush sums up what happened there this past Sunday, when I gave Boston Market another try.

Here is the email I sent to them after visiting them on Sunday:

“To Whom It May Concern:
Two weeks ago, on February 25, I contacted you through your Guest Satisfaction Survey related to an incident at this restaurant, where the store was open in spite of the fact that it did not have any chicken at all during an early Saturday evening.

I received a reply back stating that it had to do with supply chain issues and other factors, and you hoped that I would try Boston Market again.

I knew that this reply was kind of flimsy.

I am a writer/editor in the food industry--covering military stores--and your explanation was not a very good one.

However, I did give the same exact store another try early this evening, and let me tell you what happened.

I walked into the restaurant, and I was not acknowledged by either the server or the manager. The manager, in fact, was on her cell phone.

When the server finally acknowledged me, I gave her the first part of my order, which she took and filled, but then she went to the back of the serving area by the spits, without asking me if I wanted anything else.

And I then said, "I haven't finished my order."

The manager, off her phone and serving another customer, waved the worker back to the front, and I then placed my order, which she did fill.

My two individual meals were ready to be rung up, and the manager went to the front to take my money from me.

I gave her the receipt from the previous order that I made on February 25, where I was supposed to receive a 15-percent-off of my order, and then I also asked for a senior citizen discount.

The manager told me that she could not give me both discounts at once, which not only isn't true--I have used other discounts with the senior citizen discount countless times at this restaurant--but I told her, "There was no sign up stating this ... much like there were no signs up on February 25 stating that there was no chicken available that day."

(Note: There was a small sign on the drink machine that day stating that there was no Coca-Cola available, but nothing about your signature offering, which is chicken. Also, I took the 15-percent discount on the receipt.)

When I said that the store had no chicken two weeks ago, the manager flat out told me, "That is not true, and that never happened."

I told her it did--she was working that day--and I have proof, because I still have your limp reply on my cellphone, which I tried to show her, but she shrugged me off.

"Look, do you think I would open my store without chicken?" she said to me. "I have to pay my workers their daily wage, and if I don't have chicken, how can I pay them?

Well, evidently she found a way, because the restaurant was open on the evening of Saturday, February 25, and the store had no chicken.

(I have attached your reply to me as part of this email about that situation on that evening.).

So tonight, I walked out of the restaurant, and I know that I had been had, so to speak.

My wife was, at one time, in food service as a restaurant manager, and she told me that it is generally the manager's responsibility to make sure that the restaurant has everything they need to stay open and cater to their customers.

Thus, I do believe that the manager was covering up for what happened on February 25, and honestly, I do know what I am talking about, it did happen, and you know it did happen because I contacted you about it.

So while my family and I do enjoy Boston Market, it might be a long time before I go there again to pick up some food, because I don't like it even inferred that I don't know what I am talking about and that I am making this all up.

And do you really think that your reply to me was a good one?

Like I said, Boston Market without chicken is like McDonald's without hamburgers and Arby's without roast beef.

And whether the manager wants to remember or not, her restaurant was open on the evening of February 25, the restaurant had no chicken, and there were no signs up alerting patrons about this situation.

This is a situation that really should be looked into a bit further than you gave me the impression that you did.

The public really isn't as stupid as you think we are.”

Yes, I must be living in some bizarro world, where ineptitude is valued and good performance is not.

But at least I didn’t have to sit and wait for hours there like in the other places I just described … maybe I should just be thankful for that.

Rant #3,089: Mother, Mother

Finally, I have some good news to report to everyone.

Tomorrow afternoon, my family and I are taking my mother out to dinner to celebrate her birthday …

Her 92nd birthday.

Yes, she has dementia, and yes, she is not as spry as she used to be … but she is doing about as well as one can do at this age with her brain not as sharp as it once was.

It has forced an adjustment for all of us, but considering everything, my mother is doing quite well.

After taking a number of tests, my mom’s neurologist has told us that her dementia is age related, and while it can be mitigated by taking the proper medicine each and every day, there really isn’t much more we, she—or anyone—can do about it.

At this point in her life, she has her moments, she has times where she appears to be living in another galaxy … but there are just as many times that she is right where she should be, and she talks as if she was maybe 29, and not 92.

Anyone dealing with someone with dementia knows exactly what I am talking about.

My mom has her good days and bad days, and sometimes, the up-and-down nature of this thing can be very perplexing.

One day you feel like you are in a “Who’s On First” world when you talk to her, and then the very next day, you know that you are in 2023 and she is as sharp as she was when she was half her current age.

Happily, my mother has her family around her, and she also has two aides who help her for a couple of hours a day.

She seems to be happy, although there are days she has admitted to me that she does not know what is happening to her.

Her short term memory is almost non-existent, but she does remember a lot of stuff in the distant past, like from decades ago.

Ask her what day of the week it is, and she has no clue.

Ask her about an incident that happened 80 years ago, and she tells you about it like it happened yesterday.

But even with the dementia, her vital signs are still very good, and she still has that vigor for life.

And my family and I are going to celebrate that life on Saturday.

She said she wanted to go to the Outback restaurant—an eatery that she and my father always enjoyed going to—and that is where we will be taking her and celebrating her big day.

It should be a lot of fun, and we are all looking forward to it.

My mother was born in 1931 in Manhattan, grew up in Brooklyn, and she met my father on a blind date.

They were married in early 1956, and I came around more than a year later in 1957.

With their growing family, they moved to Queens, had another kid—my sister, who was born in 1959--and we were a Queens family until the summer of 1971, when we moved to Long Island.

My parents made life easier for my sister and I, and they were with us through all of our ups, and all of our downs.

My father died a few years ago, and my mother still helps us with our ups and downs, and even though she is frail in both body and mind, when we need her, she is there to help us navigate through whatever is ailing us.

She is a mother, a grandmother to four boys and one girl, and maybe one day, she will be a great grandmother.

But whatever the case, this Brooklyn girl has lived a full life, and even at age 92m, there is still plenty more life, and still more good things for her to experience.

I, personally, could not be happier or prouder of my mom, and I hope that she knows that … I am sure that she does.

So happy 92nd birthday to my mother, and many, many more!

As I mentioned the other day, I have to bring my car into the Kia dealer early Monday morning for a recall upgrade, so I will not be speaking to you on that day.

So have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Tuesday …

With all the details of my mom’s birthday celebration!

Rant #3,088: Follow Me

Well, at least right now, I don’t have any further threats to my mental or financial well-being to report.

Funny, lately I am getting the biggest bang, as far as the Blog is concerned, when I talk about these nuisances as opposed to other stuff.

Statistics demonstrate that when I talk about these things, more people check into my Blog at its site than when I talk about other topics.

I don’t know why that is so, and I am certainly happy that people are reading what I have to say, but if that is the only thing that I wrote about, I personally might go crazy, so I try to write about other things … but honestly, the past few days have been one thing after another after another … so it these things haven’t been too pleasing to me, at least many of you readers are getting a kick out of it.

I guess we all go through these ups and downs, and perhaps these Blog entries hit a nerve with many of you.

So thanks for reading, keep on visiting the site, keep on reading these entries on Facebook, and maybe we will all be the better for it.

It is Thursday, leading up to a big weekend for my family--which I will tell you about tomorrow--and today is food shopping day for me, which brings me my weekly agita test.

Prices are going up, up, up at the supermarket, something that I really don’t have to tell you about, but I, for one, do look at the prices of things, and when I see how high they are on everything, there are things I just pass on because I don’t want my weekly shopping bill to skyrocket.

I also use the local Dollar Store—now really the local Dollar-and-a Quarter Store—to supplement what I buy at the supermarket, and it does help a little bit.

Even with prices at the Dollar Store a quarter more than they used to be, I figure that I save probably anywhere from about $5 to $15 a week shopping at these stores, where my main purchases are things like napkins, cups, snacks, soda and perhaps some food.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but the price of snacks in the regular supermarket has gotten out of hand.

The $5 threshold for a bag of chips has been smashed, and the price of snacks has gotten almost as bad as the price of cereal has in the regular supermarket.

My family eats a lot of snacks, both the healthy kind and the not-so-healthy kind, so snacks are an imperative when I do my shopping.

I try to buy as many snacks as possible in the Dollar Store, because while you are getting a smaller size there, you are also paying about a quarter of what a larger bag of the same thing costs in the regular supermarket, where they do not offer smaller sizes.

So a bag of Wise Potato Chips costs me $1.25 in the Dollar Store, as opposed to the larger offering at the supermarket, which is up to nearly $5 a pop.

Yes, the larger bag would last longer, but perhaps it wouldn’t stay as fresh either, so the smaller bag is perfect for my family’s needs, and you cannot beat the price.

Nonetheless, even with all the price watching I am doing, I continue to spend anywhere from $120 to $150 a week on groceries between the Dollar Store and the regular supermarket.

What is even more distressing is that I go to what is believed to be a discount supermarket—Wal-Mart, which has a stand-alone supermarket that I do my shopping in—so you can only imagine what I would spend each week if I went to King Kullen, Stop and Shop, Shoprite or the like.

I know that shopping at Wal-Mart, I save between $20 and $30 a week, so I would be spending probably upwards of $170 a week if I went to those other supermarkets.

I have to save some money somewhere … and yes, I do feel bad for those SNAP recipients who lost their COVID-19 expenditures this week.

My son was once on the SNAP program—formerly food stamps—so I know how it works. He makes too much money now, which is a joke for examination at another time, so he doesn’t get it now.

But for those people who really rely on the SNAP program to purchase a large part of what they buy in the supermarket each week, that extra SNAP money was a godsend.

That is over now, and they will just have to manage with what they are getting, which based on what my son was getting when he was on the program, isn’t very much.

Yes, people do abuse this program, but now, that period is over, and it is time to do whatever they need to do to feed their families—even the audacity of finding at least a part-time job is on the table right now.

So yes, I do feel for these people, but like when Unemployment was basically over-paying people to not find a job during the height of the pandemic—my son and I were part of that, but unlike many people, even some I know personally, we never gave up looking for something during that horrid period in our lives, but no one would hire us--that day was over long ago, and now, SNAP people have to make a decision about what they are going to do to put food on the table.

And being that as it is, the choice for many of them is an easy one.