Classic Rant #1,053 (October 1, 2013): Old Photos

They say that photos speak 1,000 words, and I think old photos--photos that were taken years ago--can speak even more.

Sure, the digital age has made picture taking into the easiest thing next to buttering bread, but seeing those old photographs again--those taken with old Kodak and Polaroid cameras--really is something else.

You see pictures of the moment, pictures that were taken to be preserved.

I mean, with digital cameras, you can take a picture, see it immediately, and if you don't like it, it is gone in an instant.

But with those old cameras, you were pretty much stuck with that you had, so the picture taker took extra care in taking photos, because the only way to get rid of them was to throw them in the garbage once they got developed.

And today, you can take those old photos and digitize them too, keep them for posterity on your computer or elsewhere simply by scanning them.

I have done that with dozens of photos from years gone by. It is a fun exercise, and really, the only way to go to preserve old photos, and preserve them for the next generation, kids like mine who don't know from actual paper photos.

And I think that that is important.

Preserving the past is extremely important. Kids need to know where they came from. Yes, they know their parents, but they need to know that their families did not start with their mom and dad. There are grandparents, uncles, aunts, and others who helped shape them, whether they know it or not.

And the photos of friends are very important too. Sure, you are not related to these people by blood, but it shows your personal growing up phases, and to your kids, it shows that you always weren't a mommy or daddy.

You were actually a kid too!

So I treasure those old photos, some of which I have put up in this Rant.

They mean the world to me, and it is just so easy to keep these photos today, that if you haven't done it yet, buy a cheap scanner--I have found the cheaper, the easier to use and the better--and get it done!

You will not regret it one bit.

Rant #2,407: V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

Yes, my segueway from yesterday's foray into my life with baseball is that my family and I are going on vacation--

And part of our travels will have us going to a baseball game.

We are traveling by car to two distinct points during our vacation, and mixed in with the sand and surf of going to both Florida and Georgia will be our attendance at a baseball game, and a very important one at that.

We are going to stay in Tampa/St. Petersburg in Florida for the first leg of our vacation, and you can look for us this Sunday at the Tampa Bay Rays/New York Yankees contest. We have seats pretty much all the way down at Tropicana Field, and it should be a great game.

Then we will be moving on to Senoia, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, for the next leg of our vacation.

My wife is into "The Walking Dead" TV show, and the popular program is shot right there, at least in part, in Senoia.

The show is so popular that a cottage industry of businesses have sprung up in Senoia geared to "The Walking Dead" and other shows and movies shot there, and there are numerous tours related to the popularity of this small town with Hollywood productions.

We will be taking a few tours, and based on the last time we did this, it should be fun.

And yes, we are going to Senoia in spite of hauty-tauty Hollywood's insistence that they will be pulling out of Georgia if the state's abortion law does not get changed to what they want it to be.

Tough fried green tomatoes! People will lose their jobs and their livelihoods if Hollywood pulls out of there in a burst of PC ridiculousness, and isn't it nice that once again, they completely ignore problems that they can have an real, positive impact on in their own home state--California has been rated one of the worst states to live in in a recent poll--yet want to dictate policy thousands of miles away.

Let them be damned, because we are going to Georgia and we really don't care about anything Hollyweird ... err Hollywood ... has to say about this nonsense. There are crazies on both sides of the ledger, but when we are on vacation, who really gives a 8dhjouq460o.,[s?

And after Tampa/St. Pete and Senoia, we will be coming home, and on the final day of our vacation, my son and I are going to a WWE event at the Nassau Coliseum.

Wow, that will be a busy time for us for sure!

Sand, surf, baseball, some zombies, and grapplers on the mat ... I mean, can you beat that for an All-American vacation?

Not even Colin Kapernick and Nike can spoil this vacation, even though their racist, anti-American posture is quite appalling.

But when we are on vacation, again, who gives a dhjouq460o.,[s?

When we are on vacation, we expect to see baseballs flying, bikinis bouncing, zombies pouncing and wrestlers ... well, doing whatever they do to make the fans yell and scream at them.

So the Ranting and Raving Blog will be shut down for vacation starting tomorrow--July 4, our nation's Independence Day--through July 15, the day of the WWE event.

Everyone, have a great holiday, and I will be back at this perch in a few days on July 16 to let you know how everything went as we drive up and down the East Coast of this wonderful country we live in.

Speak to you then. And hold the ketchup on the hot dogs. It really doesn't go.

Classic Rant #1,052 (September 30, 2013): My Cereal

I eat cereal every morning for breakfast.

Well, not quite every morning.

On Sundays, I usually eat something else. I give myself a treat on that day, and on holidays when I don't have to go to work.

But normally, I eat cereal.

Cereal has traditionally been a cheap way to get a good start to the day.

It was easy, didn't have to be heated up, and mixed with milk, you really got everything you needed to get your day moving.

The same still holds true, but prices have gotten out of this world.

You can easily spend $5 on a box of cereal, which to me, is really ridiculous.

Why does cereal cost so much?

I truly believe that it costs so much because the cereal manufacturers know that it is a staple of our diet, and that people will spend whatever it is priced at to have their favorite cereal in the morning.

I used to have any cereal in the morning, but in recent years, I have some derivation of Cheerios. I was told by a doctor a few years back that having such a cereal would help my digestion, and he was right, it has, so that is what I have.

I prefer the "Honey Nut" variety, so that is what I have every morning.

But rather than buy the branded product, I usually go for the knockoff, unless the branded product is on sale.

I am not going to spend $5 on a box of cereal if I can help it, and I haven't in years.

Even my local dollar store stocks this type of cereal--the knockoff, of course--and for $1, I am very satisfied.

Cereal is a big business, and it always has been.

There are so many tie-ins to cereal, lots of movie and TV links, and everybody eats cereal, so you are kind of stuck.

But I guess in my own small little way, I am beating the system by eating the knockoffs, which I have found are generally every bit as good as the branded stuff is, at just 20 percent of the price.

How about you? What cereal do you eat for breakfast, and have you found that outlandish prices have changed your habits at all?

Goodbye Kellogg's and General Mills, and hello, Malt-O-Meal.

What more can I say ... or eat?

Snap, crackle and pop!

Rant #2,406: Love Is Like a Baseball Game

Yes, I am proud to be a baseball fan, and I am proud to be a fan of the New York Yankees.

(OK, non-sports fans, of which I evidently have many. This is your time to leave, because today's Rant is about baseball. I would love you to stay, to read on, to go with the flow, but if you have better things to do, then go ahead, I'm not stopping you.)

Now that we are approaching July 4, it is time to talk about our national pastime, baseball, which I feel is the greatest sport in the world because it is as all-American as apple pie (yes, I am sure that apple pie isn't all all-American, and neither is baseball, but I digress ... .)

Anyway, I have been infatuated by baseball since I was about seven or eight years old, but the love of baseball was really ingrained in me from the womb.

My father is a big baseball fan, a big Yankees fan, and I am sure at the time of creation, whatever atoms and neutrons for the love of baseball was transferred from him to me, and even from my mother to me, as she was a baseball fan growing up in Brooklyn during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s--I mean, what Brooklynite did not love the Dodgers during this period of time?

My grandparents were also big baseball fans, in particular, my paternal grandfather. He absolutely loved baseball. I think to him, baseball represented America, and he loved this country as if he were born here. When he came here through Ellis Island, and discovered all the kids playing this game with a wooden stick and a ball, he immediately fell in love with the game, and he was a fan, at first, of the New York Giants, because he claimed that the Giants had more Jewish players than the Yankees or Dodgers did.

Honestly, I don't think any of these three teams had any Jewish players in the 1920s and 1930s, but him being a Giants fan made my father into a Yankees fan--my father did not want to root for the same team as his father rooted for--so the seeds for me were planted decades before I was born--and that is not including the interest my maternal grandparents had for the Dodgers, so many years before I was born, those genes were there for me when my time came around.

I honestly did not have much interest in baseball when I was a little boy. My father had the Yankees games on on WPIX-TV Channel 11 all the time, and I can distinctly remember one time, when we lived in Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, when someone hit a home run for the Yankees, he called me in to see the batter rounding the bases (it might have been Roger Maris hitting one of his 61 in 1961, but that I don't remember), and me putting up a fuss for him forcing me to watch the batter trot around the bases.

So in 1961, I was four years old, way too young--at least for me--to get into the game.

I also know that my mother bought me baseball T-shirts, and one that I wore had all the homerun leaders on it from I guess 1961. For some reason, the only face that I remember on the T-shirt was slugger Jim Gentile, who was on the upper left of the shirt along with the other faces that I don't remember, including Maris, Mickey Mantle, and others.

Anyway, fast forward to 1965. We were now living in brand spanking new Rochdale Village in South Jamaica, a heaven on earth place which is where I really grew up, from a baby into a young man.

I wanted to be part of everything, and the development had its own Little League, not at all affiliated with the real Little League, but that is what we had. I wanted to play with my new friends and the older boys so badly that I told my father that I needed a glove, I got one, and I ended up playing in that league until age 15.

But the real epiphany came to me in June of 1965. Like I said, I was just learning about baseball by being in the Rochdale Village Athletic League, was watching every game I could--including those played by the upstart team from my home borough, the Mets!--and getting into baseball cards. However, nothing could prepare me for the first Major League baseball game I ever attended.

I don't clearly remember the actual story, but I believe it was late June, right before school was being let out for the summer. My friend's father came upon tickets to a game at Yankee Stadium, and my friend and I played hooky that day from school, going with his father to the Stadium one weekday afternoon.

I had no idea what a major influence that one game would have on my life, and it had nothing to do with the outcome.

The Yankees were playing the old Kansas City Athletics that day, and we got to the Stadium in plenty of time to walk around. We entered the Stadium, and as we found out seats, we walked out into the seating area, and it all hit me like a brick.

The Stadium was so vast, the grass was so well cut, the environment was so perfect with the sun shining ... I fell for it hook, line a sinker, I fell in love with the game right then and there, and to this day, every time I go to a Major League baseball game, I get the same feeling, tempered by age, of course, but I can smell the peanuts and hot dogs just thinking about it.

The Yankees lost that game to the A's, but I was hooked. I have been going to baseball games for more than 50 years now, and my family and I will be going to another one in Tampa Bay when we vacation there later this month.

And from that first game at the big Stadium, the ball was set in motion, and I have gone to dozens of games since then. It was almost a rite of passage for me as I was growing up in Queens, and while I cannot go to as many games for a variety of reasons today, I still go, and I am still taken back by the vastness of what I am seeing in person.

I have seen in person some great games, topped by the 1976 American League Championship game where Chris Chambliss hit a walk-off homer against the Kansas City Royals to win the American League championship for the Yankees that year. I have been to a lone World Series game, and several other games where I either got a thrill or was severely let down.

That is baseball. There is always tomorrow.

I was a lousy baseball player, a lousy athlete in general, but I loved to play, whether it was in the RVAL or simply a pickup game of stickball or punchball or slapball or stoopball.

Baseball was firmly in my blood, and when I got married and my kids were born, it continued unabated.

My wife went from a Mets fan who grew up in the Rockaways to a Yankees fan when we got married, and my kids are surely not as intense as I am, but they are Yankees fans. Baseball is in their blood, too, but admittedly not like it is in mine.

Baseball to me is America, it is our national pastime, it is everything that is good about our country, and now our world, after the Yankees and Boston Red Sox completed that short, two-game series in England this weekend.

The Yankees are seven games in front of the Tampa Bay Rays in their division as we speak, and the Bronx Bombers--who have just set a record for the most consecutive games hitting at least one home run--are set to take on the Mets in Queens for the next two nights.

Then it is on to Tampa Bay, where I hope they can fully bury the Rays. We shall see.

I love baseball, plain and simple. It was my salvation as an unhappy teen living on Long Island--I could always turn to it for solace.

And now as an adult, it continues to give me the ultimate pleasure.

What's not to like?

Which is my segueway into ...

You will just have to wait until tomorrow to find out.

Classic Rant #1,051 (September 27, 2013): Old Friends

I am 56 years old, so I am approaching a milestone in just a few years.

When I was a kid, I thought that 60 was old.

Heck, I thought 40 was old, too, and even 30.

Anybody older than me was old, so friends who had older siblings, well those older sisters and brothers were old in my eyes.

But you see the world through different eyes when you are a kid, and as you mature, you also see things differently.

I have said many times, I am very happy that my parents had me when they did.

I am a true card-carrying Baby Boomer, a member of the transitional generation who was born when the old guard was in power, so to speak, but big changes were around the corner.

I was around when the Kennedys were assassinated, when Martin Luther King lost his life, and when we put a man on the moon.

I am part of the generation that not only wondered and dreamed, but was able to see those wonders and dreams carried out to the fullest.

A week and a day from today, I will be part of probably the last Reunion that my growing up group will ever have, or at least the last large scale one.

As you know, I grew up in Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, and I was involved in putting together what should be a pretty great evening.

And the reason that it will be a great evening is the seeing of old friends again, many who I have not seen in decades.

Sure, you may not have grown up in the same neighborhood as I did, but we all have old friends, friends that we grew up with back when we were kids.

There is just that special connection with these people, and even if you haven't seen them for years, it's like they never left.

This week, I spoke to one on the phone, and again, it's like we have been seeing each other regularly for decades. I have only seen him once in the past 40-plus years, spoken to him on the phone maybe a few times, but that is it.

It is like we never went away.

The first thing he said was that he gave me condolences on the Yankees' season.

Yes, he remembered that I am a die-hard Yankees fan, win or lose.

Then we got into the gist of the conversation, and it was as smooth as silk.

Tomorrow, I am going to see another old friend for breakfast, another person I had completely lost touch with but who I have now seen a few times during the past couple of years.

Again, our lives went in different directions, but that shared growing up experience basically linked us for life.

Sure, we are adults now, but we truly aren't much different than when we were kids.

The photo above comes from my bar mitzvah, way back in May 1970, and yes, some of the kids you see in that photo will be coming to my Reunion.

It will be great to see them, and I am sure we will pick up where we left off more than 40 years ago.

And it will be fun, because again, our lives may have gone in different directions, but our childhoods were so strongly linked that it's like we never left each other.

I am lucky that I have the opportunity to see these people once again, I really am.

Reflecting back, I really, truly, had a great childhood. There have been some bumps along the road as an adult, but clearly, I really can't complain.

I am truly a very, very lucky guy.

Rant #2,405: Ain't Too Proud To Beg

As we exit the weekend and stomp into another summer week, I have a lot to be proud of.

Among the things I am proud of are the following:

First and foremost, I am extremely proud of my son.

After weeks of consternation, he finally went through dental surgery, and came out just fine. He handled it very well, took it like a man, and he is recuperating faster than anyone could ever have hoped for.

It is a long, complicated story, which I am not going to go into here, but right now, he is healthy and happy and down one tooth.

He will survive, as will my wife and I, who were as nervous as norvous when all of this was going on for the past few weeks and during the surgery.

I am proud of the New York Yankees, who demonstrated that no matter where they play their games, they are currently on a steamroll, and the tar that they put down was all over their hated rivals, the Boston Red Sox, all done across the pond in London, England.

It was MLB's first foray into Europe, and by all accounts, it was extremely successful. London Stadium was jammed with 60,000 people for each of the two games--made up of Americans on vacation and lots of Brits, including Prince Harry and Megan Markle--and it became a truly international event as bombs were exploded all over the place--not to harm anyone, but to score lots and lots of runs.

The Yankees won the two games, are ahead of the hated Red Sox by 11 games entering July 4--with a very good Tampa Bay Rays team in between the rivals--and things are looking good the aptly named Bronx Bombers.

One thing I am not proud of--and I have no idea why I should being showing pride in--are the recently concluded Pride celebrations around the world, celebrating LGBTQ lifestyles.

These celebrations, to me, come off as circus-like apologies to this community about supposed injustices committed in the past by the greater straight community, and while there is no doubt that the LGBTQ community has suffered persecution in the past, what the heck am I apologizing for, or more to the point, being forced by the PC Police to apologize for.

During this weekend, I put up a post which infuriated some, was agreed with by others, and still others mets halfway.

I am putting it up here because--and further delving into this debate--pretty much because my eyes are killing me today, I cannot see clearly at all, and cutting and pasting is such a nice thing when you need it like I do today. Othewise, I would have probably steered clear of this entire situation. Been there, done that.

Here is what I put up on Facebook that got some people's blood boiling:

"OK, here goes.

I have pride in myself, pride in my family, pride as an American, pride as a Yankees fan, and pride in my fellow human beings.

I am thoroughly sick of World Pride Month, completely, totally sick of this parade of PC nonsense being foisted on us by certain factions.

I believe in human beings. I believe in acting like a human being, and I have great faith in the human race.

A person's sexuality is none of anyone's business, and doesn't have anything to do with my personal beliefs on faith in my fellow man.

Quite frankly, if you do your job, that is what I love about you. If you don't do your job, get away from me. You are holding up the line.

And sexuality has nothing to do with it.

For whatever reason, some factions firmly believe that we are defined by our sexuality, and hit us over the head with it every time they can. That is what is happening right now.

Look, i have known gays, i have worked with them, and have them in my very extended family.

They have to live too ... but i don't parade my sexuality around, and there is no need for such displays.

But the PC community believes otherwise, the media jumps on this, and corporations buy into this too.

Heck, the Yankees even have some scholarship related to the Stonewall "uprising," which was nothing more than a riot at a mob run gay bar, and the NYPD, playingn into this PC nonsense, has apologized for their "actions" 50 years ago.

Enough already.

I have supreme respect for all communities, all human beings, all Americans, but do not hit me over the head with your bedroom lifestyle. Which i have no interest in.

I know that i have put a target on my back now, but i am not a homophobe because i disagree and have no use for this 100 percent PC political parade being dumped on us right now.

I do not care if you disagree with what i said. But i am willing to bet that plenty of people agree 100 percent with me, but are scared to say so.

I get it. I understand their hesitancy in agreeing with me.

But this is what i feel. I have my own brain, and do not allow myself to be led around by s ring in my nose.

I believe in humanity, and that is more important than anything else."

And that is just how I feel, and quite frankly, if people are honest about it, I believe I am not alone. but people are afraid to say anything today, because there is backlash in the PC world we live in, so people keep their views but stay silent.

I am sick and tired, and have had it up to my gills, for having to apologize for past indiscretions by a society that had different mores and standards than today's society has (although today's mores and standards are quite questionable themselves).

I believe in people first. I don't go up to you, and say, "What is your sexuality?" when interviewing people or talking to them.

Is that going to be the next question when one looks for a job? Has who you are attracted to become the new standard of living.

I really don't care.

And going back to baseball, here is my analogy, which I think clearly demonstrates my thinking, which, by the way, no one has to agree with:

A player comes up to the plate with the bases loaded. If he gets a hit, my team wins.

Two outs, bottom of the ninth.

The pitcher throws his pitch, the batter swings. Foul ball.

The pitcher throws another pitch, the batter swings. Strike two.

The pitcher throws a third pitch. The batter swings, misses, strike three, the game is over.

"What a bum. How could he miss those pitches?" I think to myself.

And if he got the winning hit, I would think to myself, "Wow, he did it! We won! Great job!"

Notice, the player's sexuality never entered into any discussion of what went on.

It doesn't matter--if he misses, he is a bum for the day and moment, if he connects, he is the hero of the day.

And that is how it should be.

If you define yourself by your sexuality, you are never going to be fully accepted by anyone.

Be a good person, be the best you can be, and you will be fully accepted by everyone.

And that is the last I am going to say on this topic, because some people get hysterical over what I said, but hey, I said it, it is my opinion, you have yours, and it is great that we live in a society that we both can voice our opinions and beliefs without retribution.

Case closed. Speak to you again tomorrow, and hopefully, my eyes will be better tomorrow.

Classic Rant #1,050 (September 26, 2013): Hair Today. Gone Tomorrow

I am not much for haircuts.

Evidently, this has always been the case, or so I have been told.

My mother has told me time and time again that when I was born, I had not only a full head of hair, but way too much hair.

This was 1957. I had to get a haircut almost immediately, or people would have thought I was a girl.

As a little kid, I could not sit still in a barber's chair, so my mother has told me that she had to take me to a special barber on Main Street in Flushing, New York, one that specialized in "problem" kids.

I vaguely remember being put in something that resembled a horse and being strapped down into it.

As I got older, I didn't need a special barber, but I still hated to go to get my hair cut.

When we lived in Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, I had something of a weird hairline at the time, and I remember one time, one barber called another barber over to see it, and soon the whole place stopped what it was doing to look at my hairline.

As I got older, my hairline kind of caught up with my regular growing pattern, and this was the 1970s, so I let my hair grow a bit longer. Never long long, but you could get away with more on your head back then.

And that was good, because I didn't have to go to the barber that much, and this pretty much lasted through high school and college, when we had moved from Queens to Long Island.

My hair was good until about 1981, when it started to come out.

I kind of knew it would. My father is bald, all my uncles are bald ... although my grandfathers both had hair, I kind of knew that mine wouldn't last, and it didn't.

And now, well, I don't have too much on top.

So what do I do when I need a haircut, like right now, where I need a barber to take off whatever I have on top?

I found a cheap barber. It is only $5 a haircut, and it is some operation.

They have about 15 barbers going all at once, and you can get in and out of there in less than 10 minutes most of the time.

I bring my son there too.

They do a good job. I mean, I don't really need anything that great, do I? I have nothing on top, just trim what I have and make the back straight.

My son, who happily has a full head of hair, needs something more, and they seem to do a fine job on his hair.

So right now, I am satisfied with where I go.

In and out quickly.

But for some reason, the spectre of the olden days is still there, and let me tell you, I still hate to get a haircut.

It's just me, I know, but I really haven't changed that much from the kid with the weird hairline from way back when.

It's just that that hairline has now moved up my head, and yes, down my back.

Hair today, gone tomorrow.