My sister has two children, a girl and a boy. But to be honest, she had three. Zodiac was her third. Zodiac was a Field Spaniel. Well, to be more precise, that was his breed. Zodiac was her child, friend, confidante, and roommate. My sister is a photographer, and by extension, Zodiac was the most photographed furry friend ever.
Gentle didn’t begin to describe him. Like most dogs, he had one mission: to love you. As a Field Spaniel, he had the traditional long ears and feathering on his chest, ears, and the back of his legs. He was all black but had gained some whisps of white as he aged. Years ago, like many Field Spaniels, he had ocular issues and lost one eye. But if you asked him (and if he could tell you), he’d have said it never bothered him to lose it. He just kept moving forward – and loving. The hair on his head was long and wispy and could be combed in any direction. His combover was always a source of entertainment over the years! Oh, and he loved Twizzlers. I bought them for him whenever I could, and my sister always had some on hand. She kept them in an upper cabinet in her kitchen. She has a two-step, painted wooden stool beneath the cabinet. Say the word “Twizzler,” and Zodiac would run to the step stool and stand on the top, patiently awaiting his treat. He’d help guide you to the location of the hidden treasures by pointing his nose at the upper cabinet. The paint had worn away on that step from his many trips there.
They say only the good die young. Perhaps that’s the price of loving. And since dogs always love unconditionally, their lives are shorter than ours. We’ve all heard the saying that a dog year is seven human years. Another way of thinking is that maybe they love seven times as much as we do in any given year. Either way, the cost of their loving is paid in shorter lives. And we are left to carry the memories of their love with us through the remainder of our longer lives.
Zodiac crossed that mythical Rainbow Bridge tonight. And while I’m a skeptic, I’d like to believe in a place where our departed furry friends wait for us, their tails wagging out of control as we, at long last, approach. So, if you have a moment and are so inclined, have thought for my sister and her kids. If my theory’s correct, your compassion is a sign of sympathy, maybe empathy, and a form of love. It may cost you a moment of your life. And you may die a moment sooner because of it. But isn’t the love we give others, the love we give our furry friends, the love we have for nature, our garden, or our hobbies, isn’t that what makes our lives more than the total of our achievements, tasks, and obligations? If I must go sooner because I love, I will not fear the Reaper. And if I die at 99, I hope that means that without having loved, I would have died at 106. And when I go, please do me a favor, just in case. Stick a few Twizzlers in my pocket. Uncle Chris needs to be ready.
Everyone who ever knew you, Zodiac, is going to miss you. We’ll carry your memory.
My late wife had a best friend whose friendship rivaled any as the benchmark of friendships. From elementary school through her death eight years ago, Naomi and Lisa were connected at the proverbial hip.
In the years since her death, Na continues to call me every few weeks to catch up. I’m pretty sure it’s the last act of friendship requested by Lisa and carried out by Na. She checks up on me, asks about the kids, and fills me in on her husband, son, parents, brother, and sister. I appreciate her calling. It’s as if she’s maintaining a thread through the universe and time whose story has expired, but no one told the cloth.
Two days ago, Na called to tell me her dad had died. I did my best to ask the right questions, say the right things, and console Na. Inside, I broke down, and despite my best efforts, some of it snuck through. The last thing I wanted on that call was for Na to console me. I did okay. At least until I hung up. I knew I now had two more calls to make. One to each of my children. They have known Na and her family their entire lives, and Na checks up on them as Lisa’s emissary, too. Those calls hurt even more. I know I didn’t do okay.
Na’s dad liked to talk. And once he started, short of a natural disaster, there was no way of exhausting the discussion. One of my memories of him was that at every party I attended at Na’s house, I always talked to her dad for hours. Everyone else seemed to drift away, leaving me alone. They chuckled. I was the fresh meat. Except I never felt stuck. There was never one conversation I had with him that I regretted. And I know why.
As the newcomer in a relationship as long-lasting and deep as Lisa had with Na (and her family), I was obviously the outsider. To be taken in by Na’s dad felt like acceptance. As if he thought, “If Lisa thinks he’s okay, he must be okay.” I felt like I belonged. Now, he may have been just as comfortable talking to a lamppost for hours on end, but I don’t regret those times talking with him. I have no idea what he thought of me, but he was genuine enough that even my dimwitted perceptive skills probably would have gleaned insincerity in him.
He was a bull who owned his own machinist shop. If asked, to a person, I know one of the first traits people would mention about him was how he was the hardest working person they knew. He would also do what he thought was right. Some would argue that his demeanor may have hindered his medical treatment over the past year. More likely, his hardheadedness kept him going. Let me explain.
Have you ever seen a football game where the running back is handed the ball, gains a few yards, and is tied up but not tackled by a defender? Then another defender makes a hit, and they still can’t take down the running back together. Then, two more join in as the running back’s legs keep moving him forward. Finally, either the pile collapses or the whistle is blown, ending the play. For Na’s dad, the play only ended when circumstances and the universe conspired to overwhelm him with too many medical priorities. He was a force any running back would envy.
As a hardheaded bull (like Lisa and her enormous personality), I know it was hard watching this once-strong man wither and finally succumb. I saw every decrease in Lisa’s health through the end. I did not see his decline. However, I know how hard witnessing it is and what a toll it takes on caregivers. He is at peace now, like Lisa. If there’s a heaven, Lisa greeted him with a smile, a hug, and a cutting joke. I hear him laughing, a cigar in one hand and a popsicle in the other.
If you’re so inclined, have a thought for Na and her family today. They lost a giant.
“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.” – Carl Sagan, Cosmos
It may seem strange to begin an article about traveling with a quote about a book but hear me out. Books let us travel the world, even through time and to fantastic places, without leaving our homes. I am not alone in thinking this. John Lubbock wrote, “We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth.”
Books are to travel as dreams are to experience. “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page,” wrote St. Augustine. And for the past two weeks, I have experienced a world beyond my dreams. My wife, sister-in-law, and I traveled to Germany to visit my niece at Ramstein Air Force Base. What was originally a two-week visit to spend time with my sister-in-law’s daughter blossomed into a whirlwind jaunt across several European countries. We landed in Frankfurt, Germany, and traveled to my niece’s apartment in Heiligenmoschel, about thirty minutes from Ramstein. From there we drove to Paris for two days, then we drove to Luxembourg, and back to Heiligenmoschel. From there we took the train from Ramstein to Zurich, Switzerland, went into the Alps to Jungfraujoch, then a train to Munich, a bus to Neuschwanstein Castle, back to Munich, then back to Heiligenmoschel. Then, we drove from Heiligenmoschel to Strasbourg, France before returning to Heiligenmoschel and then Frankfurt for the flight home. Home to our little corner of the world, same as before but we were different.
My initial thoughts, driving through Germany and western France were of the stunning beauty of the landscape. We drove in late fall; however, the summer was longer than usual (climate change?) and the trees still exhibited their autumnal magnificence. Colors orange, red, green, and yellow danced on the trees as we whisked by them, bidding us stop to appreciate their performance. The rolling hills and bright green winter crops made me think I had jumped into my Windows start-up screen.
Paris is Paris. It’s a big city with big city swagger. History drips from every street corner. It is big, loud, frenetic, always moving, almost breathing, and teeming with people. Locals mix with tourists and every restaurant seems full. Cabbies are nuts and motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles swarm around cars like fruit flies around overripe bananas. And yet, somehow, it works for them. I love big cities and Paris is wonderful. The Louvre is closed on Tuesdays, so we did not get to see the world’s greatest museum. However, I checked off the Pantheon on my bucket list on this trip, revisited the Eifel Tower, Sainte-Chapelle, ate at a charming local restaurant so small we felt part of the conversation at the loud table next to us, and had dinner on a boat cruising the Seine. To see the transformation of a church (Sainte-Geneviève) into a revolutionary monument was incredible. Visiting evidence of the earth spinning while watching Foucault’s pendulum took my breath away. So, too, did visiting the mausoleum and visiting the graves of Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Rousseau, Marie Curie, Alexandre Dumas, Josephine Baker, Emile Zola, and other luminaries. Paris has so much to offer, one visit is not enough. This was my second visit; still, there is so much to see. I could go on and on about Paris, however, others have written about it better than I could ever attempt.
Sainte-Chapelle, there are no words to capture its beauty
From Paris, we drove to Luxembourg. Like New York, there is a Luxembourg City. We stayed in a magnificent Airbnb apartment just outside the city in Strassen. We took the free bus into the city and walked around most of the day, eyes turned upward as each corner revealed yet another postcard view. Luxembourg City is essentially built on and around a steep hill. Houses seem carved into the scenery. The Grund is the lowest point and the view up from there to the cathedral and bridges is awe-inspiring. When viewed from the top, the view down is equally spectacular.
The Grund, Lux City
Where Paris is potentially overwhelming, Lux City is approachable and digestible. The architecture alone is worth a visit. Appreciating the history there for your taking if you take the time to look and listen is everywhere in front of you. We also drove to Vienden Castle and were overwhelmed by the magnificence of the castle. Home to two families over about 33 million years (or so it seemed), the castle was the first of many we toured. Like many castles, it sits above the town, commanding an inspiring view. Here again, the photos I’ve seen that we took do not do what we saw justice.
Vienden Castle
Zurich, Switzerland was our next stop. Ostensibly just a spot we had to visit to catch the tour to the Alps, Zurich, too, found its way into our hearts with its architecture, friendliness, shopping, and food. Again, local friendliness helped transport us from tourists to travelers and we took advantage of it to eat the local cuisine. It is somehow off-putting to see a KFC, a McDonald’s, or a Starbucks when so many local eateries offer travelers a way to visit their city via senses other than visual.
Zurich, Switzerland
My wife, Stacey, and I visited Colorado a few years ago. The elevation almost wrecked me when we took a day trip to Vail. Outside tourist t-shirt shops were displays offering tiny oxygen tanks. They sold shirts with slogans such as “Oxygen is Overrated” and “Sea Level is for Wimps.” Against that backdrop, we took a bus from Zurich to Interlaken and Grindelwald on this trip before taking the Eiger Express gondola to Jungfraujoch. I read the Eiger Sanction in my late teens! Trevanian was one of my favorite authors (The Eiger Sanction, The Loo Sanction, Shibumi, The Summer of Katya), and here I was looking at the North Face, sheer, snow-covered, intimidating, and beautiful. Marketed as the Top of Europe, Jungfraujoch sits between two higher peaks and requires a cog train from the gondola to reach it. My chest tightened with the lack of oxygen at 11,300 feet and as dehydrated as I was, my head hurt so much it flipped my stomach. Matched with my broken foot, and I looked quite the mess. Still, it did not stop me (or any of us); we have the photographs and memories to prove it.
View from the Eiger Express gondola
Eiger, North Face
View from Jungfraujoch
Munich, like Zurich, was meant simply as a weigh station to catch buses to other locations. And like Zurich, Munich melted our hearts with its charm, beauty, architecture, and food. Yes, I ate my way across Europe and always the local cuisine. On the day we were to catch the tour bus, it was my wife who didn’t feel well, and early in the morning, I found myself racing against a deadline to get her meds. I limped from hotel to hotel looking for gift shops, finding none, and then limping to a pharmacy and waiting outside until it opened. Limping quickly across Munich, I felt a little like Jason Bourne in The Bourne Supremacy. However, I knew who I was, knew my limitations, and knew I couldn’t drop a dachshund never mind elite assassins. Armed with her remedy, I limped back to the hotel to find my traveling partners waiting at the corner to proceed to our tour bus.
New Town Hall, Munich
Our destination that morning was Neuschwanstein Castle. You may know it as the basis for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty Castle in California and Cinderella Castle in Florida. Before Neuschwanstein Castle, our tour took us to Linderhof Castle. Both were built for King Ludwig II. He’s an interesting character whose life and untimely, early death at 40 are wrapped in mystery. If you get a chance, read up a bit on him. You will be as charmed and confused by him as me, I promise. Linderhof is a “small” castle where Ludwig II lived for eight years. It is in the high, European Rococo style, ornately decorated with organic swirls and gold leaf everywhere. It is overdone by today’s sensibilities and garish in its opulence.
Linderhof Castle
Neuschwanstein Castle is very different. It is a monument to Ludwig’s admiration of the operas of Richard Wagner, his increasing isolation, and his identification with medieval royalty. While beautiful and much larger than Linderhof, the tour allowed access to little of the castle. Armed with my Disney fandom, wrapped in memories of having breakfast with my small children and the Disney princesses inside Cinderella Castle, I left Neuschwanstein a little dejected. I couldn’t help but think the castle might have been the first version of Michal Jackson’s Neverland, itself built by someone removed from society with access to seemingly endless vision and money.
Neuschwanstein Castle
The last city we visited was Strasbourg, France. A national rail strike in Germany prevented us from taking the train, forcing us to drive from Ramstein’s train station. Strasbourg mesmerized us again with its charm, architecture, accessibility, and food. As mentioned above, there were several times when every turn seemed to reveal another postcard view of cities. Nowhere was that more evident than in Strasbourg. Literally, I would stop, photograph a wonderful view, and while still breathing in the sight before me, turn and see another, equally amazing sight. This was even though we only saw the sun on our two-week trip during our drive to Paris the first day and part of the next day. Every other day was raw and cold coupled with either overcast, drizzle, or outright pouring rain.
Charming La Petite France, Strasbourg
It was the trip of a lifetime. Paulo Coelho said, “One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.” I always think of the picture I once saw of the elderly couple asleep on the gondola in Venice. They say, “Carpe Diem!” Seize the day. I would adjust that to seize the day while you can still enjoy it (“carpe diem dum potes adhuc frui est,” if Google Translate is to be trusted.) My wife and I have worked hard and now enjoy a bit of disposable income. Better it be used on travel, expanding our understanding of the tiny planet we inhabit, than on other less expansive vices.
I thank my niece for her hospitality, my sister-in-law for her willingness to share her time with her daughter, and my wife for giving me the life I now enjoy.
I found many other wonderful book/travel quotes in researching this piece. I share my other favorites below:
“The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.”
– G.K. Chesterton
“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson
“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay home.”
– James A. Michener
“Travel brings wisdom only to the wise. It renders the ignorant more ignorant than ever.”
– Joe Abercrombie
“I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it.”
– Charles Bukowski
“In the meantime, there is not an hour to lose. I am about to visit the public library.”
– Jules Verne
“Travel improves the mind wonderfully and does away with all one’s prejudices.”
– Oscar Wilde
“To travel hopefully is better than to have arrived.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson
“Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life.”
– Michael Palin
“Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.”
– Thor Heyerdahl
“It’s temples and palaces did seem like fabrics of enchantment pil’d to heaven.”
– Percy Bysshe Shelley
“Nothing can. Be compared to the new life that the discovery of another country provides for a thoughtful person. Although I am still the same I believe to have been changed to the bones.”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Every Englishman abroad, until it is proven to the contrary, likes to consider himself a traveler and not a tourist.”
The youth of today, and for this discussion, this includes anyone who’s never held their favorite music in their hand (album, 8-track, cassette, CD), don’t understand how recorded music was appreciated in the time before the internet and streaming. I grew up in the age of mixtapes which involved recording songs from the radio (remember radio?) with the deft dexterity of a neurosurgeon. And…hit…..Play AND Record at the same moment! Who didn’t feel like Casey Casum when they nailed it?
My musical education is partly due to the Columbia House ten cassettes for a penny club we badgered our parents into joining. Research and hard decisions in my youth involved selecting my three-item allotment from Columbia House and being honest on my MLB All-Star selection ballot (and not voting for every Cincinnati Red nominated). I mention music because one of the few albums we had growing up was Hotel California by the Eagles. To be fair, my parents also had Rubber Soul and Led Zeppelin IV on vinyl and Sgt Pepper on 8-track. My sister was/is an Eagles fanatic (along with a certifiably insane Keith Richards fanboy). I can’t tell you how many times we listened to Hotel California. One of the songs I loved was The Last Resort. Being born and raised in Rhode Island, I was thrilled that music royalty was singing about my home, Rhode Island. And because I knew the immigrant stories of my family and those of most families I knew, the song’s opening verse touched me:
She came from Providence
One in Rhode Island
Where the old world shadows hang
Heavy in the air
The song, written by Glen Frey and Don Henley, describes man’s ugly takeover of nature’s pristine beauty. Specifically, California, and the migration of people searching for a new beginning in a “new” land.
She packed her hopes and dreams
Like a refugee
Just as her father came across the sea
She heard about a place
People were smiling
They spoke about the red man’s way
And how they loved the land
They came from everywhere
To the Great Divide
Seeking a place to stand
Or a place to hide
Word spreads about such places, and the throngs of people descend on it like locusts eating everything in their path.
Down in the crowded bars
Out for a good time
Can’t wait to tell you all
What it’s like up there
They called it paradise
I don’t know why
Somebody laid the mountains low
While the town got high
And this migration, like wildfire, doesn’t stop until it hits the ocean.
Then the chilly winds blew down
Across the desert
Through the canyons of the coast
To the Malibu
Where the pretty people play
Hungry for power
To light their neon way
Give them things to do
Some rich men came and raped the land
Nobody caught ’em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes
And Jesus people bought ’em
And they called it paradise
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun
Sinking in the sea
And here’s where the story becomes painful. In the age before the internet and before you had lyrics to every song seconds away on your cell phone, we sang what we heard or misheard. The internet is filled with videos of people singing incorrect lyrics. Yes, it’s funny now! But before you could access the lyrics, you heard what you heard and belted it out as best you could. The next two verses always confused me. I should say I felt stupid not understanding what they were referencing. I assumed “La Hina” was a town in California. It wasn’t until years later that I learned Lahaina is a town on the island of Maui in Hawaii.
You can leave it all behind
Sail to Lahaina
Just like the missionaries did
So many years ago
They even brought a neon sign
“Jesus is coming”
Brought the white man’s burden down
Brought the white man’s reign
Before COVID-19 shut down society, and before masks and vaccines began to pull those who cared about their families and neighbors out of the pandemic abyss, my wife and I went on our honeymoon to Hawaii. We stayed in Oahu and Maui. We rented a Jeep Wrangler on Maui and, on our last day, drove across the island to Lahaina. I wanted a picture of a sign with Lahaina on it to send to my sister, an ode to our childhood listening to the Eagles. We walked Front Street, marveled at the city block-sized banyan tree, bought cookies at the Honolulu Cookie Company store, shopped at the Outlets of Maui, and ate dinner as the sun sank into the sea at the Waikiki Brewing Company. As we sat there waiting for dinner to be served, across the street, we saw the most incredible sunset I’ve ever seen.
I grew up in a tourist town, Newport, RI. And as much as I hated the traffic and the crowds of pretty people, I also knew their money was the economy’s lifeblood. When I heard about the wildfires whipping across Hawaii, and first heard Lahaina mentioned, I could only hope the town would be spared. The pandemic was savage to many industries, with tourism among the hardest hit. In addition to the catastrophic human toll the virus exacted, we all know of restaurants and stores that also did not survive. To have a wildfire threaten the fragile economy of Lahaina seemed as cruel as it was unfair. And then I saw the photos.
Nothing of what I remember exists any longer. It’s all gone. As of this writing, eighty people have lost their lives, with more expected as homes reduced to ash are searched. Front Street is a warzone of burned-out cars beside the mangled remains of homes and businesses. The banyan tree was scorched and may not survive. The Honolulu Cookie Company, the Outlets of Maui, and the Waikiki Brewing Company not only burned to the ground, but with the utter devastation and destroyed infrastructure, people do not yet know if their friends and coworkers survived. My heart breaks for everyone there. Hell came to Lahaina this week and took everything.
Climate change is real. Humans as a contributing factor is undeniable. Warnings of tipping points have been ignored. Water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico exceed 100 degrees in some areas. We have had the hottest weather ever recorded, worldwide. And yet, we continue to ignore the issue and marvel at the consequences with willful ignorance and feigned confusion.
The last four verses of the song, without mentioning it, describe climate change and our greedy abdication of responsibility. However, instead of a coastline, when you read these last verses below, consider they are singing about planet Earth.
Who will provide the grand design?
What is yours and what is mine?
‘Cause there is no more new frontier
We have got to make it here
We satisfy our endless needs
And justify our bloody deeds
In the name of destiny
And in the name of God
And you can see them there
On Sunday morning
Stand up and sing about
What it’s like up there
They call it paradise
I don’t know why
You call someplace paradise
Kiss it goodbye
There are no new frontiers. We have got to make it here.
All of us, over the course of our lives, develop various interests. As a child, I wanted to be a baseball player or an artist. In college, thanks to my roommate, I developed an interest in the guitar. As an adult, I took to woodworking. And I have always liked to write. My woodworking skills, like my guitar playing, place me right in the middle of “I know enough to muddle through most things, but not enough to be any good.” My college roommate was left-handed, like me. He had a couple of guitars, and he was very good! He was also one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. He taught me a few barre chords, and I could follow along (if the song was simple and slow enough). In the 300 million years since I graduated, I confess, my playing hasn’t improved much. I know more chords and simple pentatonic riffs, and thanks to the internet can dumb down most songs to feel like I’m part of any number of great bands. I enjoy it, but let me assuage your fears by telling you I have no plans to perform outside of my little office, ever. You’re welcome. My family would probably prefer I take up the air guitar. It’s quieter.
Where guitar playing involves notes, chords, riffs, melody, and timing, woodworking involves something entirely different. Because I am not a pro, I am confronted on every project with the challenge of having to envision how to accomplish each successive step. And once I envision it, I invariably must adjust that plan to account for unforeseen problems, a lack of the “right” tool, and the added time required to visit Home Depot or Lowes for the 23rd time in a weekend.
I always feel like an imposter when I visit Home Depot, as if everyone is quietly judging me, eager to expose me as a hack and a fraud. Every time I’m in there, it seems three guys in the lumber department wearing work clothes that have obviously been on 300 or 400 jobs catch me out of the corner of their eyes just as a box of 100 #8 x 1 5/8” drywall screws I dropped scatter down aisle 17.
We all have those we look up to. As a kid, Pete Rose was the baseball player I wanted to be, and Leonardo Da Vinci was the artist. As a guitarist, I wanted to be David Gilmour from Pink Floyd. I always found his solos the most the most emotional and evocative solos. He speaks through his guitar. These are the people who drove me to be better. Not professional, but better. They sparked an interest in me to learn. In woodworking, it was Norm Abram. Like me, Norm is from Rhode Island. Like millions of others, I grew up on This Old House, and through several hosts, Norm was always the steady hand on the tiller. He was a teacher. Tom Silva always taught, too. His expertise in construction always showed an easier way to do something that amused the host. I learned what cripple studs were and why they were important. But Norm was the “Master Carpenter.” Maybe it was the title; however, when he spoke, it seemed to carry more gravitas. His New Yankee Workshop opened my eyes to furniture building and what a shop should look like, what tools should be in it (and what they do). And because of him, I wanted to make things out of wood. Furniture? Maybe
What Norm did on the New Yankee Workshop every week was always perfect. “I can do that!” I said to myself. What I quickly learned was that they never showed you the half hour it took the production assistants to set up the tool to make that 3-second cut. Mortise and tenon joints always fit perfectly. It took me an hour of trial and error (sometimes on my finished workpiece) to get close. Norm was always the vision of patience and safety. I can still hear his safety warning at the beginning of every episode in my head, “Before we get started, I’d like to take a moment to talk about shop safety. Be sure to read, understand, and follow all the safety rules that come with your power tools. Knowing how to use your power tools properly will greatly reduce the risk of personal injury. And remember this, there is no more important safety rule than to wear these, safety glasses.”
His experience, skill, and attention to detail, combined with meaningful explanations (and great camera work), hooked me every time. There were episodes where he made something that I didn’t particularly care about, however, despite my initial disappointment, I always found myself enthralled and eager to understand the next step of the project. I got to the point where I could anticipate the next step and the tool to be used. I loved it. Even if I didn’t have the tools to replicate the project.
And it sparked a new creative channel in me. I tried with my screwdriver, hammer, and lack of training to build things. It forced me to be patient (mostly because I had no idea what I was doing). Over the years, I’ve gotten a bit better and gained a few more tools, but still must go slow because I still have very little idea of what I’m doing. And if I’m working on a project and don’t show up to Home Depot for two days, they send out a search party. An army of orange-vested associates searching in a grid pattern across the parking lot and then my house.
I have a home office in which to perform my real job during the week. My wife had my old desk in her office but had a vision of what she really wanted. Lower cabinets, a butcher block countertop and desk surface, and uppers to the ceiling with crown molding. We researched cabinets and dove in. The cabinets were ready to assemble, and we tried to think out every other piece of prepainted wood I’d need to complete the job. We painted the walls, and then I took over the room. I put the cabinets together and ordered the butcherblock slab for the countertop and desk. I was very nervous about cutting it to fit. It was expensive, and I knew if I didn’t measure twice, I’d be cutting more than once or ordering a new slab. I could hear Norm in my head. “Measure twice, cut once.”
Each step of the process was laid out in my head, and with each step, there were questions about how to accomplish it. I sometimes took a couple of days playing it out in my head, envisioning the steps necessary and any impediments I might encounter. It was frustrating, necessary, and ultimately worth the time. I told my wife, “I can get you 98% of the way there. To get to 100%, you need to hire a professional. So, you’ll have to accept 2% being undercut, overcut, 2 degrees out of plumb, almost level, and sort of right.” I knew I was on the right track when it was only me who could see the tiny mistakes. She never saw them, no one did. I liked the challenge of thinking out the next steps and then overcoming the obvious missteps I’d take.
She also showed me a decorative shelving system she wanted in the corner opposite her wall of cabinets and desk. Again, there were challenges I would ruminate over for days before jumping in and getting it done. With one step left (putting up the shelves), I was anxious to see the finished product. I had sanded the wood, rounded over the edges, and polyurethaned the wood. All I had to do was cut the long piece into the actual shelves. I cut them and walked into the office, ready to nail and screw them into place. My wife started laughing. In my haste, I cut the shelves ½ inch too short. Without skipping a beat, my wife channeled Norm Abram. She said, “Measure twice, cut once.” Ouch. Back to Home Depot, back to sanding, rounding over, and polyurethaning. Then I measured three times, cut the shelves, and installed them.
Tony Bennett died recently, and Twitter (X?) was filled with kind words from those who knew him, thanking him for his body of work, kindness, artwork, and friendship. This happens every time a celebrity dies. I couldn’t help but notice how nice it would have been if folks thanked others while they could appreciate the sentiment.
I would never have attempted anything like that had it not been for Norm Abram and the This Old House/New Yankee Workshop. I don’t know Mr. Abram personally, but if I ever met him, I would thank him for being such a great teacher. And I think my wife would thank him, too!
On an unseasonably warm night in February 2018, as the rain fell gently outside the beautiful Providence Performing Arts Center, I saw thousands of people travel back in time.
I was sitting in the back of the theater next to my mother. The audience was mainly older people, some with canes and wheelchairs. They were all there to see a legend. Tony Bennett took the stage, and the crowd roared. He was 91 at the time. His voice was thinner, but the emotion with which he always sang was still there. He knew what he wanted to do with his voice even if the vocal cords could no longer deliver. He gave prominent time to his band to shine and for him to rest. His daughter was there and sang her own songs and duets with him. None of us knew it at the time, but he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease two years earlier. Several times during the concert, he sang the same song during medleys of hits, but no one minded. He was 91 years old on stage in front of an audience of fans – and a magician.
Because I was seated in the very back of the theater, I had the benefit of being able to watch the audience. I can’t tell you how many watery eyes I saw, how many elderly couples held hands, and how many smiles I saw as each one traveled back to when each song was first released. In their minds, every man with a cane became a youthful stud, and every woman in a wheelchair became a beautiful young dancer. Sitting beside my mother, I could feel the void she felt, missing my father. Couples rocked back and forth, smiling and reliving their youth. It was indeed magical to watch.
Tony Bennett died today at 96. I have no idea how many in the audience that night preceded him. The wonder of memory is recalling events long past with others who were there. The curse is being the last and having no one to share it with. I will remember that night as long as I draw breath. If I’m the last, the bittersweet recollections will soothe me with memories of a beautiful evening with a magician who enabled an audience to time travel.
My kids grew up in the golden age of reading. They started reading chapter books just when the Harry Potter books took over the world. I grew up in the golden age of baseball. And by that, I mean the 1970’s. I grew up in Rhode Island that weigh station stop between Boston and New York. Many older baseball fans, stung by the Boston Braves leaving town, counted themselves as New York Yankee fans. Most of the kids I grew up with were Boston Red Sox fans. I was a Cincinnati Reds fan. Why? It’s a convoluted story of my father liking them as a kid because he followed Corky Valentine, a short-time pitcher for the Reds in the mid-1950s. Anyway, I grew up during the Big Red Machine of the mid-1970s.
I had most of the team in baseball cards. I meticulously considered my All-Star Game ballot long before dangling chads migrated to politics. And Pete Rose was my hero. He was me. He was not gifted athletically or physically. He was not a pitcher. He was aggressive “between the white lines.” And he was on one of the most dominant teams in baseball history. Tony Perez at first base, Joe Morgan at second base. Dave Concepcion at shortstop, Rose at third base, George Foster in left field, Cesar Cedeno in center field, Ken Griffey in right field, and Johnny Bench behind the plate. Believe me when I tell you, I wrote that from memory, as fresh today as it was when I was ten.
As the Fates planned, “my” Reds met my friends’ Red Sox in the 1975 World Series. Before each game, I would lay my baseball cards in their defensive positions on the rug. And while Game 6 almost caused me to drop out of school or seriously consider either homeschooling or the Peace Corps (rather than face my friends), the Reds won Game 7 and the World Series. Rose batted .370 and was named the World Series Most Valuable Player.
The thing about Rose as a player was that he was granted limited physical ability but an insatiable need to win, essentially at any cost. He was Charlie Hustle. Was he a showboat? Maybe, but he backed it up. I wanted to be a better player than I was. But I did love the game. My brother was a much better player than me, and I base that on the fact that he was a pitcher and played in college. I could barely break a window with my “fastball.” My brother once aimed at a kid’s head in Little League because he taunted him. Wrong? Maybe, but the kid didn’t do it again. Being competitive was equated with toughness. We were constantly reminded that we were not tough because we were not city-born. It was (and still is) a driving force to be overcome.
My father coached me and then my brother for many years. I can’t tell you the number of former players on those teams impressed by my father’s post-victory speech. He may have been disappointed in me (usually) or the team’s performance, but he always summarized his talk with, “The most important thing was we won, and they didn’t.” It never failed to bring goosebumps to the team. He was competitive, and so were we. Unfortunately, as my skills waned and were eclipsed by others, his pushing and my anger caused too many rifts. They ended in me withdrawing from baseball and fracturing our relationship for too long. I missed my brother’s college career because of it, and it is a regret I will live with always.
Pete Rose also made mistakes, permanently fracturing his relationship with Major League Baseball. Whether he, in the wake of the steroid era and Draft Kings advertising on MLB.com, deserves to be in the Hall of Fame cannot be settled here in 1,000 words (he does belong). He’s still a baseball fanatic and can tell you he batted .261 against Nolan Ryan for his career, but that one summer day in 1978, he went 4-4 with two doubles on an unseasonably cool July day in Cincinnati. He could tell you it was 71 degrees at game time. Ryan wasn’t supposed to pitch but came back on three days’ rest because… and he could do that with every pitcher and every game over every year of his long career.
Last weekend, my brother had the opportunity to meet Pete Rose at a baseball card show in Boston. In many ways, it culminated a baseball pilgrimage for the Fucile’s.
My dad is gone, and Rose is frail at 82, but he was my baseball hero, the tough hometown boy from Cincinnati. The Reds always were my dad’s favorite team and still are for my brother and me. My hero could fly.
“All art conspires toward the condition of music.” Walter Pater
I agree with Mr. Pater, one of Oscar Wilde’s influences and a proponent of Aestheticism (Art for art’s sake, i.e., neither social nor political).
Artists must create. It is in their blood and must be birthed onto the canvas. I use the word “birthed” purposely. I have seen the great effort artists willingly undertake to create art from nothing. As the blank page stares back at the writer, so does the white canvas mock the artist. The effort required to transform nothingness into art is akin to birth.
I once needed help with where to rank photography in the order of the arts. Artists must labor (pun intended) over their work to bring their vision onto the canvas, but the photographer “simply” captures the world before them. Now, I do not dismiss the intimate understanding the photographer has over their instrument nor the “eye” they must exercise when capturing the scene before them. However, historically at least, once the shutter is activated, most of the artistic influence of the photographer is exhausted. True, in days of old, efforts could be taken by the photographer with the development process (more additive here, more time there) to bump up the contrast or wash out a double exposure. And today, image editing software can transform any photo into a masterpiece with masking, editing, filters, and many other tools. But is that just window-dressing of an existing property? When I was younger, I would have agreed. However, I now believe photography blends perfectly well into the prism of art without hesitation or equivocation.
Allow me to diverge into another art form, music. Here, Mr. Pater is spot on. I have always said musical genres speak to the individual emotions of humans. Whatever mood I am in, there is music that matches it. A sad song can spark creativity in me. Black Sabbath can assuage my anger. Jazz can even out my temperament. Classical can elevate my senses. Smart, clever lyrics can drive me to my keyboard. A David Gilmour solo can transcend words altogether. Unlike other art forms, music elicits emotion from the audience via the ears rather than the eyes. Certain composers can tell a story with their music without the employment of any other sense.
I once attended a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat major, where a fully-fledged story presented itself in my mind. As it began, the piano sounded very playful, almost childlike, not in its complexity but in how it meandered in and out of the string instruments behind it. At some point, I imagined the piano as a child and the stringed instruments as the parents and extended family. The strings would play a piece first, and the piano would respond, often playful but still in keeping with the string direction. It was always strings first and then piano. Sometimes the piano would go off into a new direction without accompaniment as if a child was wandering around in the safety of the family’s embrace.
The second piece introduced the wind instruments (who’d been there all along but had yet to stand out). Because of the increased complexity of the music, I envisioned the piano as a teen beginning to interact with the wind instruments, which I saw as friends/schoolmates/lovers/colleagues. The piano would sometimes lead, and the wind instruments would follow. And then the strings would return with the refrain, telling the piano to come back into the fold and remember its responsibilities.
The third piece saw the ascension of the piano to a full-grown man (I say man because Emanuel Ax was the pianist, it could have been a fully-grown woman). The piano-led, and the strings followed. The piano assumed the refrain to which the strings (and sometimes the winds) would follow, but always with a sense of individuality and playfulness in the piano. It was as if the piano was now the patriarch/matriarch of the family and responsible for it, but it had never given up its individualistic flair. Perhaps I heard what I wanted to hear to make the story fit, but after the first piece, I anxiously awaited the next piece to see if my storyline fit- and it did every time.
By the end, I was in tears, weeping for the story Mozart had told me that day, written 234 years before. I had listened to the concerto over the previous few months, anticipating the performance. Still, there was something about seeing the piano up front, the strings extending as wings behind it, and the wind instruments centered in the back that made the story explode before my eyes. If this all sounds incredibly corny and uncultured, or if I’m missing the true intent of the concerto, I apologize. But as I sat there applauding, tears running down my face, I knew I had seen the storytelling power of music.
Painters can do the same thing with their medium. Stand before a Bierstadt landscape, and I swear you can hear far-off thunder or birds chirping. Stand before a Monet, and I promise you’ll see the wind interact with the haystacks. Stand before a Michelangelo, and I swear you’ll see muscles tense before your eyes.
Ultimately, the difference between painters, sculptors, composers, and photographers is one of perspective. Painters and sculptors offer you their vision. Impressionists do not provide you with a photorealistic version of the scene before them. Instead, they offer you their interpretation of that scene. You, the viewer, can choose what to see in the offering. Stand up close, and you’ll see the artist’s effort, brush strokes, and palette knife sweeps. Stand back, and you see sunlight where a smudge was, passion where disparate colors touched up close. Same with the sculptor. Go to a museum and listen as a docent regales a group with seemingly pretentious interpretations of the work before them. But do listen! Because while you may disagree with things being said or not “get” specific points, they offer you a vision into the artist, a glimpse into their intent.
The difference between viewing a painter’s or sculptor’s interpretation of the world before them and the photographer’s is a shift in perspective. As a viewer of paintings and sculptures, we are a passive audience of another’s life. As a viewer of photography, perhaps because it is easier for our 3D brains to insert us into a realistic 2D scene, we are the center of the world, active rather than passive. We see a photo of the shore and envision ourselves in that place. We see a picture of the mountains and ourselves on the plains before them. We may recollect a memory from a photograph of a familiar subject that fills us with the accompanying emotions. Alternatively, we may inject ourselves into an unknown scene, envisioning ourselves in that space and projecting matching feelings.
Mr. Pater is correct in that all art aspires to the purity of music in that music exists beyond our eyes. But in the end, whether it is photography, painting, music, sculpture, poetry, or prose, they all live on the spectrum of art. Ultimately, the spectrum of art is another analogy for the full scope of human emotion.
When I was young, my sister and I were charged with going to the Newport Creamery each night to get my father a pint of Maple Walnut and Walnut Fudge mixed. The bottom half of the pint was Maple Walnut ice cream, and the top half was Walnut Fudge ice cream. We did this most nights. It’s a memory my feeble brain still recalls. My sister is a year younger than me. We lived on the west side of West Main Road in Middletown, Rhode Island. The Newport Creamery was about half a mile away on the east side of West Main Road. Getting there required us to cross West Main Road at dusk or early evening when we were 10 or 12. And we thought nothing of it.
Seeing that road now, both with the volume of traffic and speed at which cars travel, it’s a wonder we saw our teens. And that’s one of the problems with viewing yesterday’s events through today’s lens. When we were younger, speed limits meant something. And while Aquidneck Island was always a tourist spot and Navy town, traffic back then was a fraction of what it is today.
The Newport Creamery holds a special place in my heart. Many an evening, after a Little League, Babe Ruth, American Legion, or High School baseball game, or just on a warm summer evening, “The Creamery” was a welcoming place to celebrate a win or lament a loss. I thought they had the best chocolate chip (and coffee) ice cream. And their Junior Hamburger was my favorite. Two, with a side of fries, please! And then a Turtle Sundae my way (chocolate chip ice cream, hot fudge sauce, caramel sauce, marshmallow topping, whipped cream, and a cherry).
They also have a milkshake made with iced milk instead of ice cream called an Awful Awful. Despite its off-putting name, it is so called because it is “Awful Big and Awful Good.” The challenge on the menu said if you could drink three, you’d get the fourth free. How could a teenage boy not accept that challenge? And at least once, I got my fourth free Awful Awful. Always vanilla flavored (for me), the marginal return on enjoyment waned dramatically on the second and third, only to rally for the free one. And then I’d walk home feeling the liquid slosh around inside me like my stomach was at high tide during a named storm.
The Creamery also sells half gallons of their ice cream in plastic buckets. Every home in Rhode Island has a few buckets holding various items (buttons or ribbons in the craft area, multiple nails and screws in the garage, marbles and toys in the kid’s room). And if I had access to the photographs in every home, I could find a photo of every child with the bucket on their head. I know I have them of my kids.
The Newport Creamery has had financial troubles in the past decade or so, and while I don’t know what the future holds for any of us, despite heavier and faster traffic than when I was a kid, I hope The Creamery exists for a long time into the future. There are many Awful Awfuls to drink and plastic buckets for kids to wear. And while my sister will argue that Frosty Freez is the iconic summer ice cream stand on “the island,” especially given that she worked there many a summer (and I concede to making a pilgrimage there a few times each summer), The Creamery holds many more memories for me.
No one has a perfect childhood or flawless life. But there are idyllic memories of youth and raising children, and The Creamery holds both for me.
As I write this, I can watch the gel ink dry behind each subsequent word. Dried into the paper, permanently a part of the wood fiber. Immortal, eternal as long as the paper exists. Put the paper in a vault, and the words live forever. There they will remain preserved, filed, recorded, and likely unread.
The same can be said of humans. As the ink dries, we move on. The relentless marching on of time. Relentless. Never ending, never pausing, never caring. Once the ink dries, it is done. It is the past. It is our past. Our memories. We are the vault. And our vault, memories, and existence exist only as long as anyone who experienced something with us or heard a story about us exists. Once we are gone and those who recall us are gone, so are our memories, the ink, the paper, and the vault. That’s life. Our life. Everyone’s life.
There will come a day when the very thought of us as individuals will be lost. There will be a day when the last person who remembers you or recalls a story about you recalls it for the last time. You will be lost to eternal oblivion. Sure, there are individuals whose memory transcends time. Shakespeare, Caesar, Keith Richards, but for most of us, we will be lost to time, just a number in the ever-expanding pile of humans that once existed.
Is there a way to combat this eternal oblivion? Or is this simply an exercise of someone who just celebrated a birthday and is reminded that the road before him is shorter than the view in the rearview mirror? And, let me add that the road before him is neither clear nor guaranteed.
Clifton Fadiman said, “A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull, it may be naïve, it may be over-sophisticated. Yet it remains cheese, milk’s leap toward immortality.” Creativity (the arts) is our antidote, our cheese. Write a book, and it remains available forever. The internet is the newer, better Library of Alexandria. Paint something, sculpt something, and it exists long after you perish.
In episode eleven of Cosmos, Carl Sagan said something I’ll never forget, “What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”
Another favorite of mine, again, capable of stringing together words far better than I’ll ever dream of, Oscar Wilde said, “All art is immortal. For emotion for the sake of emotion is the aim of art, and emotion for the sake of action is the aim of life.”
So, create! Rabindranath Tagore said, “The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.” So, plant a tree! Paint a picture! Write a story! Write your story! Eternal oblivion awaits us. Leave something behind that outlives you, outlives the memory of the last person to recall you. Will you be remembered for it? Maybe. Maybe not. However, your creation will endure.
As the ink dries on that last word, I wonder if anyone will ever read this. I wonder if anyone will ever remember it if they did read it. Create, people! Our ink is drying!
Thoughts at Large 