Classic Rant #1,229 )June 17, 2014): Moving Onto the Next Step

As I told you yesterday, my son graduated from BOCES yesterday.

I have been to several graduations--my own and my kids' graduations--but I never experienced anything like this.

We barely got there. I left work early, but traffic was horrendous, at best.

It took me 40 minutes to get home, for a usual 20-minute trip. Then we had to get to C.W. Post and its Tilles Center performing arts venue, where the graduation was held.

That was also a trek, although we went against traffic, so it really wasn't that bad.

We got there, and my son went off with his graduating class.

The class was large, probably about 800 kids, but the energy in the room was stirred by the speakers, from the principal to the guest speakers.

Their vim and vigor during this graduation made it more of a pep rally than your standard graduation, and I kind of liked the change of pace.

It put a lot of electricity into the room, and it made for a very interesting time for all.

Each and every graduate was called up to the podium to receive a holder for their graduation certificate, which they received later on from their teachers.

After a few hours, it was over, and my son was a graduate of BOCES, the precursor to his high school graduation, which takes place this Sunday.

We drove home, got back about 10 p.m., stayed up for a while, and went to sleep, where I consequently overslept by a half hour.

I guess you get a sense of satisfaction when you have a graduate in your midst, and I just conked out last night.

Now, my son moves onto the next step. He has a few more days of classes in regular high school, then he has his graduation party Saturday, and then he becomes a high school graduate on Sunday.

Yes, this is pooping out myself and my wife, but it is a good pooping out. We are as proud as punch about our son, and we can't wait for this weekend.

Even though he doesn't show it, I think he is a bit proud of himself, too.

Rant #2,379: Doctor Rhythm

As we continue to fight the dreaded coronavirus, we continue our lives for another day ...

And life goes on.

Yesterday, my wife and I did our shopping at the local supermarket. We found what we wanted and needed, and were in and out in a relatively short period of time.

However, this particular supermarket, which was well stocked in just about everything, was not in abundant supply of two items--

Milk and Coca-Cola.

Now, one is pretty much a necessity, while the other is a pleasure, but I found it kind of odd that you could get just about any item you wanted there, but you had a tough time with these two staples of my diet.

We bought what they had, and got out of there.

Also very interesting to note is that since the coronavirus struck, my weekly shopping bill has gone up about $50. I think that that is a mix of prices being higher--there IS price gouging going on during this period--and that my wife and I are shopping at non-discount supermarkets. We are staying relatively close to home, and there are no dollar stores or Walmarts by us, so we are shopping at stores that are normally higher priced anyway. Thus, our bill has gone up, which is hurting my pocketbook, in particular the money I am getting from unemployment, where I am receiving less than half per week to what I received when I was working.

So every dollar I am saving on using less gas is being eaten up by our supermarket shopping, and even more so since I am not driving very much. So yes, you mix that with my obscene doctors bills and the other bills I have to pay, and you can understand why my wallet is pretty thin nowadays.

Last night, as part of life going on, my wife and I had a routine doctors appointment with our GP. We got robocalls and emails about the appointment, each time saying that we were coming. Then yesterday, we actually got a live person from the office calling us, asking if we would be there, and once again, we reiterated that we would make the apppointment.

We get to the office, and there is a sign on the window that we had to call a number and follow the instructions. We did, and we got someone live on the other line, asking us one question or another about our health. Again, we were right outside the door of the office, one that we would normally open and walk right in, but this time, we got the third degree about our health, and we were even asked if we had traveled abroad in the last two weeks.

After our answers passed muster, the door was unlocked and was opened by the receptionist, dressed head to toe in garb protecting her from catching not on the coronavirus, but even a wisp of fresh air. She signed us in, and she told us in a very nervous tone that we were the first patients that they had had this day who actually kept their appointment. We later were followed by at least one other person, and the doctor had some video appointments to keep, but at that point, we were his first live patients.

Happily, the doctor--also dressed from head to toe in battle garb--had nothing but good things to say about both of us--we are both doing well physically, based on tests that were previously done--and he checked us out while we were there, too, and continued his praise of how well we were doing.

Finally, our time there was over, we made appointments to see him again in three months, and that was that as we left and drove home.

We are happy that we were given a clean slate as far as our health, but the doctor said one thing to me during his examination that really hit home with me:

"When this is all said and done, about 80 percent of the population will have been infected, to various degrees, by this virus."

Some people have been made gravely ill from the coronavirus, and their lives hang on the edges. Some have died, including most recently Fountains of Wayne frontman Adam Schlesinger, who, among many other credits, was the producer of the Monkees' comeback album from 1996, "Good Times!" He was just 52 years old.

Some people have nothing but flu-like symptoms from getting the virus, others have virtually no symptoms at all.

I guess that is what makes the whole thing so scary, because it can go from relatively nothing up to being fatal. And it shows no age boundaries. On the evening news, there have been two recent stories of people 100 years of age and over who have gotten the disease and recovered. There have also been stories of younger people, like Schlesinger, who got the disease and never recovered.

And there are the others, some who have suffered to a certain degree and some who feel like they did a year ago, when this wasn't even in anyone's minds.

How can this be, where some people don't really suffer at all and others never recover?

I head a report the other day that the virus might have first spread during the Super Bowl period in February of this year, when so many people from so many places got together in Miami, Fla. When the game was over, people traveled back to wherever they came from, and this might have inadvertently spread the virus, as people were carrying something that they didn't even know they had back to their communities. With so many of the travelers coming from the New York area, these unwitting people might have been the "Typhoid Marys" of the entire pandemic.

And a month later, we got socked.

It is just a theory, but since we know so little about the coronavirus, you can't just dismiss it.

I am happy that my wife and I are healthy, but as the doctor said, eight of 10 people are going to get this virus to varying degrees, so since we were not tested for it during our examination, who knows if we have it or not, or in the future, will get it or not?

And that is what is so puzzling.

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

Classic Rant #1,228 (June 16, 2014): Shift In Focus

Yes, the spotlight was on dads this past weekend.

Father's Day went off without a hitch in my neck of the woods. The weekend was beautiful weather-wise, the company was good, and the food was too.

I have never eaten so much pizza in my entire life, but that is all right, there is nothing like pizza for real comfort food on Father's Day.

Now the focus, at least for my family, shifts dramatically. Where this weekend, the focus was on me, and the other dads in attendance, from today through this coming Sunday, the focus is on my son.

He has two graduations coming up, the first being today, the start of his final week in our local school system.

He is graduating BOCES, which stands for Board of Cooperative Education Services. He went there for the past two years in addition to going to regular high school, and he really enjoyed his experience at this school.

He was part of the retail branch, and he looked upon his time there as his college. He took it very, very seriously, and I think he learned a lot there.

That graduation is tonight. It is being held at the college that I received my master's degree from, C.W. Post College in Greenvale, Long Island, so it really closes the circle for us, or at least for me, having the graduation there.

He has a few more days of regular high school this week, and then the weekend comes, and it really IS all about him.

On Saturday afternoon, we have his graduation party. We are having a whole slew of people over, and it should be fun. They will get a chance to sign his yearbook, and a chance to wish him well as he moves onto the next level of his life.

That evening, we just happen to have WWE tickets for the Nassau Coliseum, so my son and I will go there, pretty much sending off that old lady into the sunset, as the place will be rebuilt next year. We wonder if this is the final WWE show we will be going to there, at least for now.

And then on Sunday evening, he graduates regular high school during a ceremony held at Hofstra University. He has a very large graduating class, so there will be plenty of people there to send these kids off, including, for my son, his parents and grandparents.

No, my son will not be going to college, but let me tell you, we are as proud of him as can be. He surmounted many, many odds and obstacles to reach the summit, so to speak, and he did it with a lot of drive, determination and aplomb.

He has at least a summer job lined up, at a day camp, and he will be tested in September to see what he can do and what he can't do as far as a regular, full-time job. He has applied for numerous jobs the past few weeks, and while he hasn't gotten any job offers, between the programs that he is in and his own determination, we feel it is just a matter of time before he gets something.

So this is going to be a busy week, leading into a busy summer. Work, at least for me, will basically take second fiddle to all of this, and it will be tiring, but it will be fun.

My wife and I are looking forward to all of this, and I can just imagine how my son is feeling. He hates to take center spotlight, but this week, he has no choice in the matter.

I will keep you updated on all of this, you can be sure of that.

Rant #2,378: Money Honey

The coronavirus has changed the way we do things, and even when this thing is over and done with, its ramifications will live on into the future.

Will we still shake hands when we greet people, we will still hug people, we will still buss people?

I simply do not know, but I think things that we did and didn't even think twice about will be thought about a bit more than before.

That leads me to the subject of this Rant, that of money.

We all love money, whether we admit to it or not.

Without money, we cannot survive.

Some people have lots of money, others have a little money, still others have nothing.

Since we live in a capitalistic world, not everyone has the same amount of money. Again, some have plenty, others have a little, and still others don't have much of anything.

And we learned this year that as the song says, money can't buy you love, it also can't buy you a presidential berth (no, Mike couldn't do it).

But whatever money the average Joe has, a good portion of it is in the bank.

My wife works in a bank as a teller. She is on the front lines of the bank, coronavirus or no coronavirus. Most people go to the bank to make deposits or take out money from their accounts, and when you do that, the person that you go to is the teller.

Due to the pandemic, every bank has had to change its work plan, and every bank in my area has gone to a plan where you can only drive up to do your business; you cannot go directly in the bank to do anything. Some have also pushed its ATM business outside, too, while others will allow you to used the ATM inside, or some allow it both ways.

My mother's bank, one of the most prominent in our area, has a drive through that only has one station for doing transactions; it has another, but it is an outdoor ATM. The station doing transactions is on the inside left, the ATM is on the outside right.

Since the bank is closed down except for drive through transactions, this has created a major problem for those needing to do banking, as most people need to do transactions, so there is a line that snakes around the bank building, with people waiting to do their business. Since the ATM is on the outside lane, it has forced people to wait on the one single line, then branch off to use the ATM if that is what they need.

But, of course, even during a pandemic, necessity is the mother of invention, so many people are skirting that protocol since they must have their money NOW. They are jumping over curbs and sidewalks with their cars, just so they can get to the ATM quicker and not have to wait like the other peons who are waiting to do transactions.

Yesterday, I took my mother to the drive through to do a transaction she needed to do, and lo and behold, most people were waiting on line patiently to do so. But, of course, some people were in a rush to get to the ATM, so they jumped the line, driving over the sidewalk and other bank landscaping to get to the machine. One driver in one of those huge cars that sone people think they need to own did just that, but he could not get past where my little Kia was, because my car was at the bend of the line where I was waiting for two people ahead of me to do their business.

The guy needing the ATM pulled up right next to me--I mean maybe a few inches away--and I looked at him in his eyes. Being the polite guy that I am, and with my mother in the car, I told him, "What do you think you are doing? Get to the back of the line like everyone else." I could have said more, and in a different way, but I had my 89 year old mother in the car. She even wanted me to open my window so she could say something to this guy in a rush, but I would not open the window for her.

Finally, the line moved, and this guy in a rush could do what he needed to do, so much in a rush to get his money.

We completed our transaction quickly and left, and when we pulled out to get to the street and get home, another car--again, a large one--evidently did not like the speed at which the car ahead of it was driving, and decided to pass it without realizing that I had just pulled out of the bank's drive through. He didn't see me, but happily, I saw him, and I just jumped on my brakes and he drove off into the sunset. I gave him a horn, happy that I saw this idiot in a rush and avoided a bad accident.

The other day, a few days before the latest episode, I also took my mother to this bank, and again waited on line, a line which was pretty long and which several cars in front of us and in back of us gave up on.

We finally got to the machine, and yes, it was a long wait. We were in the process of doing the transaction, and my mother included coins in the deal, which does, indeed, hold up doing the transaction. The bank would only take two rolls of coins at a time, and she had a few more, so it was taking us a bit longer to do what we needed to do, and the deal had to broken up into two parts.

Well, this did not sit well with the woman behind us, who started beeping and honking the horn of her car, a car which again resembled a tank in size (I have learned the the people most in a rush are those who drive big cars).

I waived my arms and told the woman to shut her trap, but I was pretty polite because my mother was in the car. If it was just me, you can only imagine what I would have said. It sure would have been a lot more "colorful" if I said what I wanted to say, but hey, like I said, I am a gentleman, even to women who are in a rush.

So after I told the woman to close her mouth and stop honking, we finally finished our transaction and left the bank. Little did I know that we would be visiting that same bank a few days later and would have to bear the brunt of other peoples' scorn who were in a rush to get to their money.

My wife's bank--known as "the country's friendliest bank"--has three rows of drive throughs, so the main problem that she has is that there is customer buildup, and cars keep coming at her every minute of the working day. Her bank's ATM is open inside the branch, and I had to use it yesterday, as her bank's branches closer to me--two of them--were closed because a worker who evidently worked at both branches came down as positive for the virus, so each of those branches is completely closed.

So I went to my wife's branch. I knew I would not see her, because she was busy handling customers coming at her from all sides. But I needed to use the ATM.

So I walked into the branch where the ATM is, in the front of the branch, the only part of the facility that is open to the public right now. A woman was at the machine before me, and once she was done with what she was doing--I waited maybe five minutes tops--I had my chance at the ATM. Two fellows behind me couldn't wait to get their money, so they left, so when I did my business, I was the only one in this area. I quickly did what I had to do and left.

When my wife came home, I asked her how the people at her bank who were waiting on lines had behaved during the past three days that she worked--she is now off for a few days, due to company coronavirus policy--and she told me that people were pretty nice, and that nobody was blowing their horns or getting crazy with impatience.

I guess it helps to have three rows of drive throughs that people can use, as opposed to the one at my mother's bank.

Yes, even during a pandemic like we are going through now. money isn't just everything, it is the only thing. Some people are really suffering through this thing, but others ...

Gimme my cash!

And nothing else matters.

Ask them what famous statesmen were on the bills that they were so eager to get their hands onto, and they probably wouldn't know.

I think those statesmen are turning in the graves at the site of a huge car jumping over a curb to get their hands on some paper with their likenesses stamped on them.

Got some Washingtons for some Hamiltons or Jacksons?

Classic Rant #1,227 (June 13, 2014): Dad

This particular Rant will be short and sweet, because I have an eye exam today, and I really want to rest my eyes as much as I can before I take this thing.

It is a wasted day for me, as the solution they put in my eyes hampers my vision basically for the entire day. I can't go to work because, quite frankly, I can't see.

Anyway, Father's Day, the holiest day of the year--I got that from my father, by the way--is on Sunday.

I want to salute the dads that were so important in my life, including my two grandfathers and my dad.

All of them were strong men with strong values. Yes, my grandfathers are gone, but my father is still here, still works, and still is a vital member of our society.

My grandfathers were as different as night and day. My father's father was from the old country in Europe, had old ways, but was a smart man. He had many faults, but if you wanted old world thinking, he was the guy to go to.

My mother's father was modern all the way. Again, he was an absolutely brilliant man, would have been an engineer or an architect in another life, but if you wanted modern advice, he was the go-to guy.

My own father is a mix of old and new. He has the old values, but he is firmly steeped in the new, I guess because of the influence my mother has had on him.

And yes, he is as brilliant as the other two, probably would have been a lawyer in another life, and his influence on me has been immeasurable.

The three of them have filtered down to me, and I guess I am an amalgam of the three. I have one foot in the old, one foot in the new, and I must say that I think I may not be brilliant, but I am pretty good in the brain area.

But you know what? I think the three of them really were/are much brighter than I will ever be, because they each had many more obstacles than I ever had to overcome to be successful.

In plain words, they made it easier for me to survive and make my own way in life.

My next generation potential future dad is in the wings. He graduates high school in a few days, and again, he has obstacles in front of him that I will never have to face.

He is a good kid, and I hope the world is nice to him as he tries to move up the ladder to success.

I would imagine I have been an influence on him, as has been his two grandfathers, my dad and my wife's dad. My son is smart in his own way, and he tries hard to succeed.

I think over time, he will do just fine.

And not to forget my daughter, but I guess even often at a distance, I have had some type of influence on her, too.

I am sure every family has their own stories of male perseverance and strength. In a nutshell, you just read about mine.

So happy Father's Day to all the men out there, and cook up a nice hot dog for me, OK?

See you on Monday.

Rant #2,377: Gone, Movin' On

Yes, the coronavirus is gone, movin' on ...

April Fools!

It isn't even funny anymore, and this is the first of April.

Experts claim that April will probably be the worst month of all for the virus, as it will spread to many more people this month, leading to uneasiness, sickness and fatalities.

It figures, my favorite month of the year is going to go down as the most infectious month of our generation.

Whatever happens, by April 28, I will gain a year on my early retirement, moving one rung up the ladder in a matter of a couple of weeks.

Bully for me!

Anyway, yesterday was moving day at my house. I have wanted to clean up the room where I have all my 45s, LPs and many of my CDs for ages. It is also the room where I am typing up this Rant, and at one time, it was my daughter's room, when she would stay over the weekend when she was a child. We still have a sofa/bed in here, and the room has many good memories during a very difficult time in my life, when I was going through a divorce and my daughter would stay with me every other weekend.

It is the room where we would play with her toys, where we had lots of fun, and where I would put her to sleep when the time came. It was also the room where, one day when I was playing with her, that I decided that I needed to become a human being again, and look for female companionship. It was really an epiphany that I had, that I was having so much fun being my daughter's dad, even through the craziness that I was going through, but I also needed to take care of myself.

That led me to meeting my wife on a blind date, and, well, the rest is history.

Since my daughter pretty much outgrew the room and outgrew me to a certain respect, the room has turned into sort of a catchall room for my family. Whatever we have that we don't know where to put is in here, mostly my stuff but also things like the vacuum cleaner.

The room is a mess, quite frankly, and needs to be cleaned up, and now that I have some time to do just that, I needed to move out the biggest obstacle to making the room better, which was the dresser that was in the room.

That dresser was actually my son's old changing table, a unique piece of furniture which changed into simply a dresser when you flipped over its top. It is difficult to see in the photo I took of it here, but the top flips over for a changing table, and flips back when you just need it for a dresser.

I assume that when my son was growing and couldn't fit on the changing table anymore, we simply moved the furniture into my daughter's room, and she used it for her clothes when she would come over to stay the weekend.

When that stopped happening, the dresser turned into a record and clothes holder, housing some of my 45s and also some clothing. It stayed that way for probably more than a decade or maybe near a decade and a half at least, but if the room needs to be cleaned up, this piece--which took up quite a bit of room--would have to go.

Yesterday, I moved out everything in its way of being moved out, clearing a path for the dresser to be moved out of the room. That was a chore in itself, but I did it by myself. I was able to get the dresser out of the room, but I had forgotten what a sturdy piece of furniture this thing actually was. I mean, its original function was as a changing table, so it had to be super-sturdy to hold a baby, and through the years, its sturdiness continued as a dresser and then, for whatever I was using it for. The draws wouldn't close all the way, but otherwise, the thing was in really good shape.

So once I got it out of the room myself, I had to get it down the stairs and outside to the curb for pickup. That was a major problem, one that I could not handle alone, so my son--the very person this piece of furniture was purchased for 25 years ago before he was even born--helped me maneuver it down the stairs and outside. That itself was kind of bittersweet for me, a piece of his childhood being put out to the curb by him, but it had to be done.

The piece was so heavy that at times on the stairs, both him and I thought that we were losing hold of the dresser, but somehow, we twisted and turned it in just the right way, and brought it through my parents' portion of the house, down a shorter flight of stairs, and into the driveway.

I sent my son up for the drawers--yes, I took out two of the three, but the top one was bolted in as it was part of the changing table mechanism--and I moved the dresser to the curb, which is where the photo was taken.

My son brought down the two drawers that we had taken out, and as if by some type of serendipity, I was able to put the two drawers fully into the furniture for the first time in eons. It was as if the move out of the house fixed what ailed the dresser, and it appears to be completely fixed now, sitting on the curb and waiting to be taken away.

Its absence freed up a lot of space in the room, and for now, I put three of my 45s cabinets in its place. Somewhere down the line, those will have to move, too, but for now, that takes over the space that the dresser inhabited, and the indentation in the carpet signifies that the dresser left its mar, figuratively and literally.

Personally, I would love for someone who was into woodworking--or a person who simply needed a nice dresser--to pick it up, and use it for what it is. I would hate for the sanitation people to cart it away, because its destiny will be as trash.

There are a lot of memories attached to that changing table/dresser, but we closed the book on it yesterday.

And that's no April Fool.

Classic Rant #1,226 (June 12, 2014): Air Conditioning

I hate to wear a tie, but I just love air conditioning.

Always have, always will.

I have become a devotee to air conditioning during my 57 years on this earth, and the recent attack on the Miami Heat's Lebron James for nearly passing out and cramping up when there wasn't any air conditioning during an NBA Finals game in San Antonio, Texas, really roiled me.

My family never had air conditioning in our apartments until I was seven years old, and we moved to Rochdale Village, Queens, New York.

So as a young child, it was very, very hot during the summer in our home.

The only relief we would get is when we went to the movies. Once inside, you could feel that cold air, and it made you feel so good.

When we moved to Rochdale, we had something that was new at the time called central air conditioning, meaning that your entire apartment was air conditioned--and the room that I shared with my sister was air conditioned, too.

What a pleasure to come in from a hot day and feel the cold air! I loved it.

Alas, it did not stop my allergies from emerging, but at least I suffered in relative comfort, in a way.

Then we moved to Long Island, and no, initially, we had no air conditioning.

I got sick a few weeks into living there--we moved in in July, at the height of the summer heat--and the doctor told my mother, "If you have just one air conditioner in the house, it has to be in Larry's room."

So after several weeks in our new home, I had an air conditioner in my room, which is still there, by the way.

My body became so used to the air conditioning that any time without it became excruciating, especially when I was doing something physical.

I remember in junior high school back in Rochdale, I passed out when, in gym, we were told to run around the track. I did not conserve my energy, dashed out quickly, and the heat eventually got to me.

A worse time was a few years later, on Long Island, when I was crossing Sunrise Highway--a major road, not a real highway, where I live--and I was riding my bicycle to a friend's house.

It was deathly hot that day, if not 100 then quite near it.

I got to the intersection at the light, and got off my bike to walk it across the street.

I remember nothing else about what happened. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground on the island in the middle of the street.

I think I passed out while crossing the street, and a guardian angel who was driving actually stopped his or her car and dragged me across to the island, and then drove off.

I came to, basically shrugged if off, and was on my way, but to this day, I have no idea what happened.

Some years later at Yankee Stadium, on a day when the temperature hit 97 degrees, I literally hyperventilated while in the bathroom. My son called for help, and Yankee Stadium security got me back to health pretty quickly.

But for a few minutes, I had no idea where I was.

My doctor once told my mother that I have something called heat prostration, which pretty much means that my body is reliant and used to the air conditioning so much that when it isn't on, I feel it more than others.

My wife will tell you that I always complain of being warm, even when she is comfortable or even chilled.

Last night, it wasn't overly warm in our bedroom, but after several minutes of tossing and turning, I had to have the air conditioning on, and so I turned it on.

I fell asleep immediately.

The people ranting against Lebron James--saying he should have "toughed it out" when the air conditioning system malfunctioned during a playoff game--don't understand what he went through.

James later said he has been battling this "malady" since he was a kid, and he probably has what I have, an over-reliance on air conditioning to cool down one's body.

He talked about leg cramps, but I saw his face, and yes, like what probably happened to me when I was crossing Sunrise Highway all those years ago, he was a step away from completely hyperventilating, which, I am sure those making fun of him don't realize, can be deadly.

This really is no laughing matter, and with the proper medical care, he got back to health pretty quickly.

So yes, I love the air conditioning, and yes, even right now, without it on in the room where my computer is, I feel a bit warm, but nothing that bad.

But during the day, in an office where air conditioning is used sparingly, I will feel the heat, I can promise you that.