Rant #3,923: The Boxer

My personal health situation remains up in the air.

I have so many medical appointments coming up that it is truly head spinning.

I am absolutely not well right now, but I guess I could be worse.

When you are healthy, relatively, your entire life, and then you get hit by everything including the kitchen sink, it kind of makes you crazy.

Today, I have to go for a PT scan, or what they call a pet scan, and that should tell me something about my lungs.

Something turned up on a catscan where I have a spot on my left lung.

It doesn't necessarily mean cancer, and a lot of people have this, I have been told, and it often comes up as not much of anything.

But I know that some people who have not smoked have gotten lung cancer--

Barry Manilow is one of these people ... comic Andy Kauffman also, and he died of lung cancer having never smoked.

So it is just another mountain I have to scale, and I am obviously hoping it is nothing.

If it is something, let's get it taken care of, so I can move on to the next mountain.

Yes, all of this is quite depressing, and right now, I don't know which way is up, to be quite frank about it.

And as I have said a million times, and probably will say a million times more, this is not what I envisioned retirement to be.

I know that I am not fully retired to begin with, but I have had a very difficult retirement, and it just seems to be getting worse and worse and worse.

My family tries to keep me strong, and it is very difficult on them.

I have a good resolve to move on and surmount these challenges, but I keep on getting hit where it hurts, and it is tough to wake up with a smile each day.

And dealing with all the doctors and their staffs is another story altogether.

(As an example, on Wednesday, I made an appointment for another catscan, and the person I made it with got the date wrong--by a full month! 

Happily, I was able to see the mistake and change the date, but I mean, c'mon now, do I speak another language than the English you supposedly know?

Complete incompetency.)

It really puts you on edge ... everything is on my head right now, and I don't really think it should be that way.

Then there are the little things, things that somehow become big when nothing else is working out right.

On Tuesday, among other things, I had to deal with my computer's printer, which was not printing anything that I put through it.

It took about an hour for it to work correctly; I tried everything to get it going--

But out of desperation, I replaced the two ink cartridges I was using, and I got it going again.

Sounds simple, but when everything else is cratering, this just adds another brick to the load.

I find that I cannot relax, that I am always in motion ...

But my energy level is not what it normally is, which makes it that much harder.

I really pushed myself on Tuesday.

Way before the printer problem, I had to go to the pharmacy; I went to the supermarket and bought another box of matzohs, since what I had ran out; I decided to go to the record store for a little while, since it was a stone's throw away from my final destination, which was the dentist, as I had an appointment for a cleaning.

I did it all, but my stamina simply isn't there, and it was all I could do to not fall asleep when the technician was cleaning my teeth.

I got home, did some work, and tried to relax ...

But then I had the printer problem, so that was a no go.

On Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning, I know that I started to talk in my sleep again, so I moved myself to the living room, where I relaxed, somewhat, and from 3 a.m. to probably about 4:30 a.m., that is where I was, so I would not wake up my wife with my chatter.

I went back into the bedroom and fell asleep, but my wife told me that I did wake her up.

The bottom line is that my quality of life right now is not that great, but I am determined to beat whatever ails me, whether it is one thing or multiple things.

Wednesday was a better day than Tuesday was, as was Thursday.

I had much more energy and I was able to do things that I wouldn't have been able to do earlier in the week.

It has given me strength, and has enabled me to feel better about myself and my situation.

I promise you that I will beat this, beat it to a pulp, and move on with my life.

It might take awhile--I am not a patient person--but I am going to beat all of this as best that I can.

I expect to look at this Rant a few years down the line and say to myself, "Remember when?"--

And shake my head that I had to go through all of this stuff, but that I was able to get through it.

I am a fighter, and I am not down for the count just yet.

Not by a long shot.

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

Rant #3,922: The End of the Road

It is finally over.

The Gilgo Beach murderer has pled guilty to committing eight murders of prostitutes over a number of years, closing a chapter on one of the most grisly murder sprees in recent memory.

I won't mention this person's name, but what he did was just beyond belief--

And he did it all supposedly under the noses of his family, and in particular, his wife.

This is truly hard to believe, but he supposedly did all of these horrid things while his family was away on vacation numerous times--

When the cat is away, the mice will play, and in this case, the rat played, acting as a normal suburban dad, but with a terrible secret--

Hiding in plain sight.

I have always thought that his wife had to have known that he was at least fooling around, and about the best you can say about her is that she simply didn't know to what extent her husband was doing what he did.

No, she evidently wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but even their daughter said she believed her father committed these heinous crimes.

The son is a special needs person, so it is difficult to say if he even comprehends any of this.

And yes, the crimes supposedly happened in a ramshackle home in Massapequa Park, my former stomping ground.

Massapequa Park has had funny and ever-changing lines over the years--it is all politics--but suffice it to say that the Massapequa Park I lived in for more than 50 years was on the clear other side of the part of town where this brute and his family lived.

But whatever the case, isn't he just so nice sparing the victims' families, and his own family, of a trial, where more grisly details would be sure to come out in the open?

Nice guy, isn't he?

Now that there will be no trial--just a sentencing for him in mid-July, certainly putting him in jail for the rest of his horrid life on the taxpayers' dime--what is next in this horrible story?

You just know that the victims' families are going to sue the murderer and his family for damages in a civil court--

I believe one has already done that.

The murderer's wife has already received $1 million for her story, and you just know that that type of money--and any further monies that she gets for her story--will be the subject of one lawsuit after another.

I think the family knows this, as they all have their own attorneys standing by if need be.

Further, I just hope that the home where all this stuff happened doesn't turn into the latest version of "The Amityville Horror" house, where the home became such a tourist attraction that it had to be torn down and streets renamed so no one could find it.

The neighbors of this family don't need that, and hopefully, people will be more civil and that won't happen like it did to the other house.

As it is, who would buy such a house to begin with?

You figure the murderer's family cannot possibly live in it anymore--

Does it have extra worth as a house of horrors?

Who knows.

But what happens next is anyone's guess.

The preponderance of evidence was against this guy from the get go, so a trial would have just put people through more pain, so I have to say that the murderer, as grisly as it seems, probably made the right decision--

For everyone.

Massapequa and Massapequa Park have such a horrid reputation as settings for some of the most notorious and infamous crimes of recent vintage--remember the "Long Island Lolita" and the Jessica Hahn travesties--that it could be a prime stop on any "true crime" road trip.

But don't blame my old neighborhood for these horrid crimes.

As usual, it is the people in these areas that do these horrid things, and who knows what spurred on the Gilgo Beach murderer to do these heinous atrocities?

And without a trial, we probably will never know--

Which is not such a bad thing.

Rant #3,921: Fly Me To the Moon

Amid the turmoil that the world is going through right now, we have a sense of wonder flying above us, as the Artemis II spacecraft navigates around the moon.

It, and its four-man crew, have ventured deeper into outer space than any human has up to this point in time.

They did exactly what they set out to do, and now they are coming home.

I was always enraptured by these space missions, from Gemini through Apollo and beyond.

My uncle was an engineer during the Gemini program, and he sent over materials to us--which are, unfortunately, long gone--about the project and its intent to lay the groundwork for the United States to eventually land on the moon.

After making incredible strides to fulfill President Kennedy's vow to land on the moon by the end of the 1960s, we did just that, but after the first one, these missions simply did not ignite too much interest, and for more than 50 years, the space program was pretty much inert or relatively inactive, although many interesting things were done in the ensuing decades, projects that have led up to the current one--

And subsequent ones that will find us landing on the moon again.

But that first moon landing ...

It was just something else.

Here is what I wrote in Rant #2,411, July 19, 2019, about that first moon landing.

"On July 20, sometime after 9 a.m. in the morning, Buzz Aldrin crawled through the command module Columbia to the lunar module Eagle, to power on the module, the capsule that would take him and Neil Armstrong to the moon's surface.

At about 1:30 p.m., the astronauts were in the Eagle module when it separated from the mother ship on its trek to the moon.

After several computer glitches, at 4:18 p.m., the phrase "The Eagle has landed" came into the lexicon, as the capsule holding Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon.

Much had to be done before either man could actually walk on the lunar surface, and more than six and a half hours later, the time had come.

The hatch opened. Armstrong exited, backing out of the module with Aldrin watching for any glitches. Armstrong turned on the module's TV camera, so mankind could join him in his endeavor.

At 10:56 p.m., Armstrong's feet met the moon's surface, and he uttered the immortal lines, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

For the next two and a half hours or so, Armstrong--joined by Aldrin on the moon at 11:11 p.m.-- collected moon rock samples, planted the American flag and a plaque commemorating this accomplishment, and simply cavorted with the majesty of where they were and what they were doing. They also took a phone call from President Richard Nixon.

By 1:11 a.m.on July 21, it was over."

Here on earth, I was fully engaged in this project.

It was as if my comic books had come alive.

I could not take my eyes away from the screen, watching Armstrong and Aldrin doing their thing on the moon.

But after a few more moon landings, it was over, and it seemed our love affair with space travel was over too.

Here is what I lamented in Rant #2,413, July 23, 2019, about the future of space travel.

"I hope that we have a chance, during the next 20 years or so, to go back to the moon in a manned expedition.

I don't think that people will galvanize around visiting that orb as we did as a civilization back in 1969, but I do believe that it will be a simply stupendous thing if we can visit the moon once again.

Perhaps it can be, literally, the jumping off point for a manned expedition to Mars, but even taken without that caveat, wouldn't it be great to have our astronauts back on the surface, doing experiments, surveying earth from that perch, and just having fun on the moon's surface ... while we all watched with utter glee?

I think it would be a great idea, something to bring all of us together as one once again.

And who would be this generation's Neil Armstrong? Would NASA stay with the status quo, or would a minority be the first one to walk on the moon, or maybe even a woman?

Who knows, and really, it doesn't matter at all."

Incredibly, we are now one step closer to visiting the moon once again.

I don't know about you, but I can't wait for that dream to become a reality.

I have heard that this will happen in two years, in 2028.

I will be 71 then, and while I was just 12 years of age in 1969 when we first did it, that sense of wonder has never left me--

And I know that when it happens, I will be just like I was back in 1969--

I will be watching it all play out on TV, every moment, every step, every nuance.

I just can't wait--

Can you?

Rant #3,920: Simply the Best

One test down, many more to go.

And this test went well, so perhaps that is a good omen.

There are many more to go, but this one is out of the way.

Onto other things...

How many people have Catchy Comedy?

It is basically a classic sitcom rerun channel, showing "The Dick Van Dyke Show" to "The Brady Bunch," and everything in between.

On Sunday nights at 7 p.m., they are doing something outside the box, but in line with the Catchy Comedy theme.

They are devoting just about an entire Sunday evening to Lucille Ball, and her vast TV legacy.

"Catchy Loves Lucy," hosted by her daughter, Lucie Arnaz, features an all-Lucy block of programming, which includes not only her sitcom legacy--"I Love Lucy," "The Lucy Show" "Here's Lucy" and even "Life With Lucy"--but also commercials, radio spots, home movies and TV specials starring the comedienne.

Each week has a different theme, often highlighting her co-stars, including Vivian Vance and Gale Gordon.

All of it is tied together by short anecdotes by her daughter.

There is really a treasure trove of stuff here, from the classic sitcom episodes to long forgotten TV specials.

Lucy continues to be the "grand dame" of American television even years after her passing, and from the 1950s to the early 1990s, she was probably the most ubiquitous person on TV, appearing in every TV format possible.

Sure, some of it is cringe-worthy, some of it is dated, but let me tell you, a lot of it is really funny even decades after the fact.

Today's comedy simply cannot hold a candle to what Lucy and her writers brought to the airwaves, and this series demonstrates that loud and clear, in black and white and in color.

If you have a chance, I would highly recommend tuning into this series.

It shows Lucille Ball at her best, at her worst, and somewhere in between ...

And demonstrates that there has never been anyone like Lucy, and there will never be another Lucy in our lifetimes or anyone's lifetime.

"I Love Lucy" ... forever.

Rant #3,919: Hope Springs Eternal

A new week unfolds ...

And it is the same old, same old for me.

More visits to doctors related to my health problems ...

And more work to do.

It is only Monday, and I hope that i get through it all.

I hope your holidays were good ones.

Me, I continue to eat my Passover matzoh, and the other day, I had a piece of that chocolate matzoh I finally was able to find.

It was actually dark chocolate matzoh, and I put it in the freezer for the day before I had a little bit of it--

And it was just so good ...

So good, in fact, that i fell asleep after eating it.

I will hold off eating it again until near the end of Passover, but I have to tell you, it was just so good, maybe the best I ever had.

Otherwise, I watched some baseball, and the Yankees are doing well. They lost yesterday, but they are generally playing good baseball.

For the first time in their history, they have three Jewish players on the active roster--Max Fried, Paul Goldschmidt and Jake Bird--

So i don't know if that is the reason they are playing well, but it is nice to think that.

I got back to digitizing some of my records, a fun thing that I haven't been doing too much of lately.

I also finally had a chance to sit on our terrace and take in some of the spring air.

It was the first time that I had a chance to do this, and it was pretty nice.

I still cannot believe that we are the only people in this development that have a terrace, but it is true, so why not use it when the weather is right?

Otherwise, this past weekend wasn't much of anything, just another spring weekend leading up to another busy week.

Every day puts me one step closer to my next visit to the doctor, my next procedure, and my next worry.

But I can't look at it like that. 

I have to think that every day puts me one step closer to me being healthy.

That is my top priority now.

If I have my health, everything else will fall into place, so it is an imperative that I get better.

Like they say,

"Hope springs eternal."

And I do have a lot of hope.

Rant #3,918: The Jewish Cowboy (?)

As regular readers of this Blog know, I have great memories of my childhood.

Since we are in the Passover/Easter season, lots of memories cross my mind, and lots of things I remember have to do with my childhood in Rochdale Village, Queens, New York.

It was a wondrous place in those early days of the development--1964 to 1971--and I went from a little kid to a teenager while my family and I lived there.

And among the fondest memories I have about my old community is that we lived in a two-bedroom apartment, and that I had to share my bedroom with my sister.

We had a schizophrenic bedroom, to say the least.

On my side of the room, I had all my comic books, and pictures of all of my sports heroes were plastered on the walls around my room.

My sister had her David Cassidy pictures all over her room, amidst her Barbie dolls and all things else related to being a young girl in the late 1960s to early 1970s.

The room was divided by our own "Berlin Wall"--a set of blinds smack dab in the middle of the room--and we managed in that arrangement until July 1971, when we moved to Long Island.

How does that tie in to Passover?

Read on, in an edited blog entry originally published in #2,518 on February 4, 2020:

"But sometimes, my sister would come over to my side of the room, and we would listen to records together, mainly the 45s either my mother or I, or later my sister, would buy from the local Mays department store, or perhaps the Kress store in the local mall.

But this one particular record that we used to listen to, well, we got it from our local supermarket.

In 1966 I think it was, Manischewitz Wine--one of the biggest kosher wine and food producers in the United States--put out a promotional record for Passover called "Manischewitz Presents The Jewish Cowboy, Harold Stern from Centerville, Texas." It was a one-sided promotional record that you received when you purchased your Manischewitz matzohs for Passover.

Being a good mother, our mom got her Manischewitz matzohs, and the record became part of our collection, and a record we regularly listened to when we got together to listen to our singles.

Talk about "Twilight Zone" ... this record was it! It featured Harold Stern, a young Jewish Texan, talking about his life as a Jew in Texas. There is plenty of music on the disk, but not produced by Stern, who only introduces his friend, Avram, to us.

Stern does this in his heavy Texas drawl, and Avram goes on to sing not just Jewish songs, but Italian ones too.

It is a laugh a minute riot, between the drawl and the music, and my sister and I used to listen to this record all the time, and laugh and laugh and laugh some more. It became our own personal classic, amid all the other 45s we played by acts like Bobby Sherman, the Partridge Family, the Beatles and the Monkees.

Anyway, we must have literally played that record to death, as when we moved to Long Island in 1971, it was lost, and it pretty much faded from our memory Heck, on Long Island, we had our own separate bedrooms, and growing up now pretty quickly, Harold Stern and Avram simply did not fit in.

[Note: To cut a long story short, the record did not survive the move, it was lost, but I have since added it to my collection, and I even bought my sister her own copy.]

Memories are really made of this, and "Manischewitz Presents The Jewish Cowboy, Harold Stern from Centerville, Texas," is one of those things that do not leave you once you have heard it. It stays with you forever.

If you want to hear this record in its "Twilight Zone" mentality, it is on YouTube at https://youtu.be/cWNSOCrrtvg.

"Heck, there's nothing that unusual about being a Jewish cowboy," Harold Stern says on the record, and you know what?

With more than 60 years of hindsight to back him up, he's right."

Happy Passover, Happy Easter, have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

This "Jewish Cowboy" who grew up in Queens can guarantee that!

Rant #3,917: Celebration

Last night was the first night of Passover, a holiday that represents freedom for the Jews from the Egyptians eons ago.

I love this holiday.

It is my favorite holiday of the year, right up there with Thanksgiving, because it is a holiday that celebrates the family.

It is not a holiday to give gifts, other than giving the gift of yourself at the Passover seder.

It is a time to reflect, and to celebrate the joys of our Jewish family.

The holiday has changed for me personally over the years.

The most drastic change is that my parents are not around to celebrate the holiday, but I know that they are present in spirit.

And with my recent health woes, the holiday represents a time when I can just forget about everything--even for just a few hours--as we celebrate this holiday.

One thing that hasn't changed for me--and I dare say, will never change--is the importance of food during this eight-day celebration.

I simply love all the foods, especially matzoh, the unleavened bread that Jews had to settle for as they hurriedly escaped Egypt and made their way to freedom.

I can eat a whole box of matzoh myself, and it just tastes so good with tuna fish, TempTee cream cheese, butter, gefilte fish, even hot dogs.

It goes with everything, as I will, once again, try to stay on the menu of Kosher For Passover foods, as I always do.

And that means Kosher For Passover Coca-Cola--using real sugar--and Kosher For Passover UBet Syrup--also using the real thing, and not corn syrup, which is not kosher.

Sure, the foods are heavy during this celebration, but let me tell you, it is worth it.

During Passover, we as Jews celebrate our freedom from oppressors, and we can sit on pillows and be kings--and queens--during this celebration.

I love the seders, I love getting together with our family, I just love the whole kit and kaboodle having to do with Passover.

I am a huge bread eater, but it isn't really that difficult to give it all up for a few days.

It's matzoh, matzoh, matzoh during this holiday, and I really don't mind it.

And yes, I finally found chocolate matzoh, so that is another delicacy that I am looking forward to eating during this great holiday.

To get serious about the whole thing, the rising tide of anti-Semitism is appalling.

The coming of Passover signifies that we, as Jews, remain strong in the face of any adversity, including against those that seek to demean our religion.

When we recite the Four Questions during this holiday--"Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights"--we are not only seeking the answers to these questions, we are seeking truth, and strength, derived from our beliefs and our religion.

We just have to look around our seder gatherings, and we see that strength generated by succeeding generations of our family.

They will carry on that strength, and hopefully, they will become the patriarchs and matriarchs of our Jewish families when my generation is long gone, just like we carried the torch from my own parents and grandparents.

I wish everyone a joyous Passover--

And if you get "matzoh stomach," it soon will pass.