Days of Reckoning: Entry No. '51, Play Ball!

"Little Weasel" ca. July 1951

You see, my old man, "Big Monte", was a Giants fan. He grew up in Harlem in the 20's and 30's.

By the 50's he'd sit on worn-cushioned iron high stools in joints like the Crossroads Bar & Grill and proselytize for Willie Mays as the "Best Ever Ballplayer" to any Dodgers or Yankees fan that dared breathe or hint otherwise. Myself, not far flung from the family tree, was dubbed "Little Monte" or more often "Little Weasel" by red-nosed imbibers like Crazy Mike, Timmy the Mop, Big and Little Milkshakes, the McKenzie Brothers, the O'Connor Boys, the Refugee, and Frank Bastogne. This was because I likewise campaigned for the canonization of No. 24 while I perched on the steaming stoops of the South Bronx or pranced around the teeming schoolyards of my youth.

It took me a long stretch of time to figure out why nobody's opinion ever nudged over so much as a fraction of an iota after one of those thousands, millions maybe, of lengthy and impassioned arguments over who was the best ballplayer, no matter how abundant or overwhelming was your presentation; no matter how glaring were your selected truths. The fact was plainly that Baseball was your religion, your Team was your faith, your Ballyard was your church, and your Hero was your, well you know, your God. Be he Willie, Mickey, or the Duke.

Play Ball!

Wow, can you believe it?

The first spring training game of the 2011 baseball season was played yesterday.

What a delight to see folks sitting outside in their shirtsleeves smiling and happy in the grandstands.

So long, winter of our icy discontent! . . . Hello, sweet warm spring!

The Yankees and the Metsies down at their ballyards playing in the sun.

There is hope for us after all, for surely all is right in this the very best of all possible worlds.

From the playing fields to the fantasy farms, it’s okay again to kick back and relax.

Aren't they wonderful?

Rockland

The river that flows both ways stands at your side like a scepter,

          though majesty belies your humble beginnings.

Once pushed hard and left for dead by the shifting tides
          of an ancient and icy Earth,
Your tousled peaks and windswept valleys now mimic that fortune,

          and savory tears of dew nourish us.

Your ample woodlands cradle crystal lakes, shelter songbirds, deer--

          all creatures of innocence.

O stony fortress, shield your living, your dead--

          for each night the stars shower you

                    --as if in awe--

Heaven seeks to mirror you.

Herenow, your sylvan smile shouts from point to point to point,

These hills are your heart, your home.

          Your Rockland.

The (Not So) Great Compromise

Remember the one-time required (for college) critique, The Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point, which attempted to explain to the nation's non-hippies what had just happened in America? (1970)

Its author, Philip Slater noted then:

"One reason (there are many others, some quite practical) why compromising liberals are so despised and extreme conservatives sometimes respected is that the greater moral absolutism of the latter, no matter how antithetical in content, strikes a sympathetic chord."

If They Ruled the World...

While reading the essay, "Horace", written by the grand old master, Agnes Repplier, I came upon this perpetually sobering observation:

The clear-sighted do not rule the world, but they sustain and console it. It is not in human nature to be led by intelligence. An intelligent world would not be what it is today; it would never have been what it has been in every epoch of which we have any knowledge. Horace had no illusions on this score. He did not pass his life in ignorance of the ills about him. Men lived on their elemental instincts then as now. They wanted to keep what they had, or they wanted to get what their neighbors had, just as they do today. Horace knew this, and he invented no fancy phrases to decorate a bald fact. To understand life was, indeed, a classic form of consolation, a mental austerity...

Monkey Island

North, past caged jackal, eagle, camel, cat.

Empires settled in the dust.

Past wheeled-scholars tethered to their mothers hearts.

To the water's edge I come.

Offering.

In my eyes the clenched apple slowly burns.

(Such fire I bear only to unburden).

You clutch your chosen branch.

Watching.

The tiger's roar silences the sea-lion.

Cowers the wind.

Erases the shadows of once bright stars.

Locks upon the air your stare in mine.

Crushes the hopes of these least lonely souls.

2010: The Mid-Term Elections

There is so much to complain about and so much time.

Not even two years have passed since the Obama administration assumed power, but it seems like I've been hearing about its multifarious, if not nefarious, incompetence for a much longer time. Were I a less skeptical person I would probably be hard-pressed, by now, not to agree with much of the diatribe being hurled at The President, his advisers, and his fellow Democrats.

It is unfortunate that so many of our pundits, politicians and corporate leaders are acting so disingenuous and clueless about how America has fallen into such a pitiful economic and political state. (Pun intended?)

The widespread damage that the recklessly conceived and sold, unregulated "weapons of financial mass-destruction" has wrought had for decades been brewing in the shallowed halls of Congress and the even shallower halls of boardrooms during the corrupt, inept and short-sighted administrations of Democrats and Republicans alike.

Clearly, most Americans are either already suffering from the effects of the lousy economy, or fear the strong likelihood that they may soon join the bourgeoning ranks of those suffering. This astute majority of the sometimes working poor are as apt as they are correct to be angry, worried, and even downright depressed.

All of us, though, should take some comfort in the fact that the Democrats have by now proven that they are not even remotely cagey enough to have caused the amount of economic damage that their colleagues from across the aisle have been relentlessly blaming them for. Surely they had to have a lot of help from their very accusers and the well-heeled, too big to jail corporate sponsors of both major parties. Enter the Body-Politic Snatchers: The Herb People.

People, like politicians, are quite capable of voting with their wallets instead of their brains. So, on the first Tuesday of November I fully expect to be surprised with something far worse than we've already got. Something I can only imagine.