Snowblower? Who needs a snowblower!

It’s snowing. No, I mean it’s really snowing. Like “blizzard warning” snowing. Like up to 20 inches snowing. And, of course, I have a snowblower. A dead snowblower. As in “there ain’t no way in hell that this thing is starting” snowblower.

Which is an inconvenience. And one that I could have avoided, had I let my mother have her way. She had been bugging me for months to let her buy me a snowblower. Over and over she asked. Sort of like when she wanted to buy me a new lawnmower. At that time, I put her off and put her off until one day she and my father showed up on my driveway with a new lawnmower in the back of their SUV. Of course, that was back before my dad’s stroke and now he won’t drive this far. Which probably precluded them from showing up with a snowblower in the back of said SUV.

So I told her I would go shopping. Which I did. And what I found out was that these damned things cost an ass and a half if they cost a penny. A decent snowblower is about $500 and there is just no way I’d feel comfortable with my mother spending $500 on an item that you are likely to use maybe a few times each year. At least the lawnmower gets used every week from April through October or beyond. But a snowblower??

Funny - but I felt pretty good about NOT buying the flipping thing and spending her money foolishly. That is until the snow started falling earlier tonight. And falling. And falling.

And now, I’m left with 50 pounds of salt, a driveway covered with cars and snow, and a trusty shovel. Oh well - it’s on with the boots, the overcoat, the scarf, the gloves and the hat. And stocking up on the Advil. It’s going to be a long weekend.

Requiem for a to-do list (or how I loved and abandoned my Franklin Planner)

I was sitting at my desk today creating yet another to-do list on a vertical index card, the kind you have a hard time finding at the Staples, when I realized that making to-do lists for me had changed significantly over the last 25 years or so.

I remember the day I was high enough on the Merrill Lynch totem pole to warrant my own Franklin Planner. For a time, all managers received some cursory training in how to use their Franklin Planner and left with their very own. The brown pleather binder a symbol of your status within the company. No one of any significance ever showed up at a meeting without their planner. To do so was thumbing your nose at the establishment.

For those unfamiliar with said planner, let me explain. In its classic form, it is an odd-sized six-ring binder filled with pages the color of the old financial ledgers. There are two pages for each day. On the left side, a daily scheduler, denoted in 30 minute increments, flanked by a to-do list with a legend of how to use it (check mark for completed, dot for carried over, prioritized by A, B, or C respectively). Just below the to-do list, a small expense box for recording your daily monetary outlays. The facing page was merely a lined page cleverly labeled “Notes”, which as the title implied, was where you took notes.

Each day, to mirror the virtues of Benjamin Franklin, you were to create a unique to-do list, classifying everything accordingly, and review your time schedule and your notes. At the end of each month, you were to create an index of where everything was and retire the month to the storage binder, to be replaced by the month 30 days hence. Thus you carried two months with you at all time - the current month and the next. And you re-created the to-do list every day. And you manually tracked your appointments. And you took notes on a page that was, truth be told, to narrowly lined to be of any use at all.

And then came the electronic day planner and there went the cache of the Franklin Planner. At least at Merrill Lynch. Blackberries became the new status symbol, and only those of us on the slower track still carried a day planner. I eventually ditched the ledger-green for a more fancy package (Monticello, with blue trim) and then tried the compact version, but eventually I was won over by electronics and now my calendar is maintained on Google and available on my laptop, my desktop, my phone and who the hell knows where else.

And I am on time for my appointments and I have a slew of phone numbers with me at all times - most of which I’d never call anyway. And I have yet to find a good way to create a to-do list. Because for all the inefficiencies of the Franklin Planner, the idea of a to-do list, written by your own hand, and recreated each day was, by far, the most valuable part of the planner. Because it reminded you, daily, of all the things you kept putting off. And putting off. And, you had the inherent pleasure of drawing a line through the menial tasks you completed each day.

Since the abandonment of my beloved planner, I have tried everything. Legal pads. Little legal pads. Pads inside little vinyl folders. Index cards. Vertical index cards. Pads labeled “To Do.” The “tasks” app on Google Calendar. Evernote. Something else electronic that I can’t remember now. And with all of these, I find that nothing - and I mean nothing - is ever going to be as efficient as my Franklin Planner To-Do list.

It’s not as though I forget about doing things now. I do a pretty good job, given the hodge-podge of reminders I carry with me. It’s just that now, for me at least, maintaining a decent to-do list is work, where before it was habit. And given that I’m trying my damndest to establish good habits, I lament the fact that no matter what I’ve tried, the habit of maintaining a to-do list has been lost for me.

But undaunted, I keep trying. Or looking for the next big (or small) thing. I’m open to suggestions.

Time Passages

My wife and I went to see the new movie “Creed” the other night. Which for most people would be no big deal. But to us, it was something of an event. And not because we almost never go to the movies anymore (which we don’t). But rather, because of our strange relationship with Rocky Balboa.

Rocky, it seems, has woven his way into our relationship over the years. In fact, you could say that the character has been intertwined in our relationship since the beginning. Because the very first date we ever went on was to a Rocky movie - Rocky II to be specific.

I remember it so vividly - the date was June 28, 1979. The Plainview Theater. And how do I remember this? Because, in my pack rat ways, I never throw out anything - including the actual ticket stubs from that day (what are today’s kids going to keep as mementoes - printed pages from some website??).

And, amazingly, there we were - she and I  - in another theater in another state some 36 years later, watching the same character on the screen. And I’ll bet I was the only one who had tears in his eyes at the end - and it had nothing to do with the actual movie.

Which, by the way, is very good. Go see it. And if you do, I think you’ll see why Sylvester Stallone is getting some buzz for a Golden Globe and, dare I say it, an Oscar. Because he’s actually that good. And the reason he’s so good is because he plays his character for what he is now - an older man who can no longer fight the fight. At least in the ring. Essentially, Rocky has become Mickey (for those who know every movie as I do).

Which leads me to the tears. Because, you see, pretty much every day I don’t see myself as what I am. I wake up next to the same girl I went to high school with. I drive a ridiculously old car every day to work. I still enjoy the same music and food and drink I’ve always enjoyed. I still play hockey with the guys every week. Essentially, when I think of myself, I think of myself as 25.

So seeing Rocky on the screen as what he is now - an older man - led me to look in the mirror and realize what I have been trying to, in essence, deny lately. That I’m not a 25 year old kid anymore. I’ve gotten older and, just maybe, a bit wiser. But the reality is that I’m well into the throes of middle age, having passed 50 a couple of years ago.

And it got to me. Right there, in a theater full of younger movie goers who were there more for Michael B. Jordan than for an aging Sylvester Stallone. A room full of teen and twenty-somethings, and me and my girl - just like we were in 1979, when WE were the teens amidst the “older folk.”

And, as I looked around, I realized that the passage of time is inevitable. You can’t fight it, so like Rocky (finally, in this film), you embrace it. You look back with fondness and wonder, and you look forward to all that is still to come.

And then you take the hand of the girl that has been there all the time. And you move forward, together. Into the great unknown. And suddenly, it’s 1979 all over again.

My Patriot's Day realization

Today is September 11, or I guess, Patriot's Day. Every year, I seem to find myself more and more concerned with how we remember the events of September 11, 2001. But today seemed particularly difficult, since, as a fifth grade teacher, I had to deliver some sort of lesson the the importance of "Patriot's Day" to a group that wasn't even born on September 11, 2001. And I realized, as I spoke to the children during my daily "Today in History" segment, that what is shaping these childrens' perception of historical events such as September 11 is the internet. Specifically what they are seeing on sites like YouTube.

And this scares me because there's an awful lot of crap out there about September 11. Conspiracy theories abound and the largely unregulated environment of sites such as YouTube provide a vast canvas on which to spread these theories. And, while I support free speech, I don't for one minute put any validity into these various myths surrounding the events in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on that day. I had too much real interaction with the aftermath to believe anyone who wasn't actually there.

So today, I came to the realization that my role as a teacher and communicator is going to change.  While I still live with the fresh memory of those who perished, both known to me and unknown to me, I can no longer just live with these memories and keep them to myself. But rather, as an educator, my role now is to act as a living history book, sharing the experience and making sure that this next generation of students, those born long after this stopped being "current events" and started being a chapter in their textbook, do not forget what happened on that day, or the lives that were lost, or the heroes that we celebrate.

In some way, I am going to have to become like one of the many that I met this summer who participated in the civil rights events in Alabama in 1963. My travels took me to Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery where I not only got to visit the sites of these great events, but to also meet many of those who were there. Their stories and recollections took what was to me a "textbook entry" and made it alive. I read about it - but they lived and breathed it. I could not have been more thankful for the time they were able to spend with me, sharing their own personal histories.

And now, it is up to me, to continue to share my personal history and those that I am familiar with, with my own students. I hope they find it as enriching as I have.

Today is September 11, or Patriot's Day. Take a moment to pause and remember.

I did.

Preserved in vinyl

Yesterday was Record Store Day, a day designed to celebrate those independent merchants who still peddle recorded music the way it was meant to be peddled – in physical form, preferably pressed into 12-inch disks of vinyl.

I spent some time in my local record shop yesterday with my 22 year old son, browsing through bins of timeworn albums, looking for that one elusive piece that would complete my otherwise never-ending collection of vintage wax.  Among the gems I spotted was an original pressing of the James Taylor album on Apple (a steal at $8, which I readily grabbed), more than two dozen copies of Ian Hunter's “Your Never Alone with a Schizophrenic”, most at $4 (never owned it and still don’t) and a near-mint copy of the underrated “Red Rose Speedway” by Wings (truly completing the only hole in the collection for a mere $20).

Along the way, I had a chance to spend some quality time with my son and, perhaps, give him a glimpse into the way it used to be for me – a Saturday spent browsing through the record bins, trying to maximize the money in my pocket and admiring what is now, in many ways, a lost art form – the 12” record jacket.

But I was so happy to see so many young people in the store, not only looking at the vinyl records, but also browsing their shinier CD cousins and even perusing, dare I say it, the 45s! I was also pleasantly surprised to see how much “new stuff” there is out now on vinyl – although at prices that made me balk (in much the way that the original CD prices made me delay my ultimate purchase). Out of curiousity, I did a little checking and discovered that vinyl sales were up 19% last year, with turntable sales expected to rise 40%. Is this 1975??

I was so nice to see so many “old friends” in those bins – records I’d longed for and then forgotten about, artists who seemed to come and go, and the artwork that was the visual landscape of my youth. Did I spend a little more than I wanted to? Yes, as a matter of fact. But it was so nice to come home with that bag full of those black platters, wondering just what sound was going to emerge once I dropped the stylus of my ancient turntable on my precious stack of vintage vinyl.

And, later, as I listened to one of my vintage purchases, I finally paid attention to the lyrics of one of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs. I think I finally get it now. So, to close, I share those lyrics here:

Bookends Theme

By Paul Simon

Time it was,

And what a time it was,

It was. . .

A time of innocence

A time of confidences

Long ago. . .it must be.

I have a photograph.

Preserve your memories.

They’re all that’s left you.

If you know me, you get this. . .too

Sometimes a lyric is more than a lyric. This one has been hitting home of late.

The Fool on the Hill (J. Lennon/P. McCartney)

Day after day,
Alone on a hill,
The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still
But nobody wants to know him,
They can see that he's just a fool,
And he never gives an answer,

But the fool on the hill,
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning 'round.

Well on the way,
Head in a cloud,
The man of a thousand voices talking perfectly loud
But nobody ever hears him,
or the sound he appears to make,
and he never seems to notice,

But the fool on the hill,
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning 'round.

And nobody seems to like him,
they can tell what he wants to do,
and he never shows his feelings,

But the fool on the hill,
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning 'round.

Ooh, ooh,
Round and round and round.

And he never listens to them,
He knows that they're the fools
They don't like him,

The fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning 'round.

Ooh,
Round and round and round

It's Little Christmas!!

 

   Today was my favorite holiday of the year. Or maybe my second favorite holiday, as I really like Easter for some reason. But anyway, as for today, today we celebrated “Little Christmas”, more commonly known among those of the Roman Catholic persuasion as the Feast of the Epiphany.  I know from my own research, that Little Christmas is commonly celebrated in Latin American countries but in my house it is celebrated not because we are of Latin American descent (we’re not) but because I decided I wanted a holiday all to myself.

   Now I didn’t set out to do this in the way that George Costanza’s father created Festivus, but rather because in my house, as in most homes I’d guess, the celebration of the holidays fell to the women. In my home, for instance, it is my wife who has always taken the lead on the holidays and thank goodness for that because, left to me, the holidays would be a dead bush in the corner and bologna sandwiches in front of the television.

   But while I don’t want to take over the holidays, I did want to create something that was Daddy’s day. Not a day where I am celebrated, by the way, but rather a day when I celebrate all of those in my family. For you see, Little Christmas in my home is a day when I give gifts to those in my family with explicit rules that there is to be NO reciprocation. None. I wanted one day when I get to play Santa Claus.

   No discussing of gift ideas with anyone, no shopping with anyone. I have to do it all by myself. The thinking, the buying, the wrapping. And, as a rule, it’s not to be anything big, but rather something small and, in many ways, insignificant compared to the gifts just received on Christmas. Because the idea behind the day is that it isn’t the value of the gift, but rather the fact that I want to show my kids and my wife how much I love them.

   I guess, now that I look back at it on paper, I am doing what God did in sending us Jesus. He gave a gift (albeit a bit more significant than my trinkets) just from him to everyone else. I never thought of it that way and I didn’t intend for this to become religious, but I do see a connection there.

    Anyway, today was my holiday. Tomorrow the lights and the tree come down and we’re back to normal for another three hundred and thirty days or so.  Merry (Little) Christmas.