Category Archives: Men

New Jersey Beach Looks Like a Million Bucks

13 Thursday Mar 2014

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BY BOB SMITH

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently began a beach replenishment project in Bradley Beach. The plan is to dump over a million cubic yards of sand onto the beach between Asbury Park and Avon-by-the-Sea, a few miles south. For scale purposes, a cubic yard takes up about the same amount of space as a normal-sized kitchen stove. What will it cost to gather up, and dump, a million stoves’ worth of sand onto our humble beach? A mere $18.3 million, or about 18 bucks per stove.

It’s a huge project, by any standard. The entire shoreline replenishment project may cost as much as $102 million, and is supposed to cover the beaches from Sea Bright to Manasquan. In fact, it’s the most extensive beach replenishment project the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has ever undertaken, and by volume of sand it’s the biggest beach-fill project in the world.

I can personally testify to the gargantuan nature of the effort: night after night, you can hear the monotonous backup beeps of the bulldozers as they push the new sand around on the beach, in the glare of banks of floodlights run by diesel-powered generators on wooden sledges.

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The process is fascinating. There are two tanker ships they use to suck up a slurry of sand from a designated site offshore. Once one of them is full, it moves into position approximately 100 yards off the beach, and hooks up to a floating pipe about three feet in diameter. That floating, flexible pipe connects to a series of rigid metal pipes of similar size connected end to end, and strung along the shoreline.

Affixed to the discharge end of the pipeline on the beach, there’s an open metal box with heavy-duty wire screen walls measuring probably 10 feet wide, by 12 or 15 feet high, by 10 feet deep. When the tanker is pumping, a gray slurry of watery sand gushes out of the metal pipe, and is forced through the wire mesh, which acts as a filter.

IMG_7562They need that because it seems the best offshore area for grabbing all that sand is located under an area where, years ago, the U.S. Navy blew up old ships, and other cool stuff for fun. Oops, I mean target practice. So periodically, they shut down the flow, and workers climb into the cage to clear out fish, clams, plastic bottles and bags, and any military shells that may have been sucked up by the tanker offshore. That’s a good thing, because rolling over on your blanket to find yourself staring at a hunk of large-caliber unexploded ordnance (i.e., a really big, live bullet) generally doesn’t make for a festive beach day.

Anyway, as the slurry is being pumped out, the jumbo bulldozers continually push it back and forth, away from the discharge end of the pipe, grading and smoothing it to a uniform level from the inland side of the beach down to the surf. Their goal is to restore the beaches to conditions better than they were before Superstorm Sandy, and based on what they’ve completed in Bradley Beach so far, they’ve done that. The beach appears to be just as wide as it was before that storm.

The only problem I have with the project is that they completed the last major beach replenishment project in 2001, and the one before that was some time in the ’90s. Clearly, no matter what we do, the ocean eventually claws the sand right back.

Now don’t get me wrong. As an owner of a home nearby, I’m thrilled that our government sees fit to throw good sand after bad, decade after decade. Maybe they’ll keep funding this kind of Sisyphean fun as long as I’m alive so I’ll always have an expansive swath of beach on which to lay my head.

But is this really a good long-term use of our tax money? I guess it keeps the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers busy. After all, what would they do if it they didn’t have beaches to replenish? Fix our rusted-out, rickety highway bridges? Replace aging water pipes and upgrade the electrical generation and transmission infrastructure so we don’t risk blackouts every summer?

Come on. That stuff’s too easy. And none of it’s half as much fun as pushing around a million stoves’ worth of slurry in the world’s biggest sandbox.

The Stuff of My Stuff

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

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BY ANTHONY BUCCINO

Whatever happened to George Carlin’s stuff?

Actually, I don’t care what happened to the entertainer’s stuff. His stuff was crap. My crap is stuff. He would say so himself, except he’s gone, and as an atheist, probably not far. But as for me I’ve been thinking about my stuff as I sit here in my man cave/bunker/warehouse with about 60 of those white storage boxes full of my stuff.

I’m not a pack rat. I’ve been writing for more than 40 years, and I don’t have any notes from before 1971, more or less. So, I’ve got a lot of notes about stuff I wrote about, and probably a lot more notes about stuff I wanted to write about but haven’t done so yet. And boxes of books that I used in my research. And more boxes of books I intend to read when I get some time. I can’t bear to part with any of them.

Some of these boxes I had taken down from the attic where there are just as many boxes as the beams will hold. I was looking for something, and I probably found it, but haven’t gotten around to bringing the boxes back up, yet.

While the boxes were handy, I went through them and discarded all the junk. That eliminated almost two boxes. I filled those two boxes with accumulated knick-knacks, opened playing cards, souvenirs and such, Mom’s swizzle stick collection and such, then labeled them so they are ready to go up to the attic.

I compare these sagging white boxes surrounding me to the various hard drives hooked up, and others standing by my computer. It’s probably a close comparison as to which hold more data. But that’s not what got me thinking about my stuff. A power surge or a burst water pipe would certainly have me moaning for all the lost treasures in my stuff. But, no, that’s not it either.

It’s all about what happens to my stuff when I’m not here anymore to take care of it, to sift through it – looking in just the right box for the right piece of paper, or photo, or book, that I need to somehow complete my thought. With the computer I can put in a word or phrase, and I get rows and rows of documents where that word or phrase appears. With these white boxes and the ones cooling in the attic, the sorting algorithm is in my ever-shrinking pack of grey matter.

When I’m gone, what will become of my stuff? Will my surviving relatives declare my stuff as crap, and send it off to the Happy Hill Recycling Farm? Already, I know someone in whom this collection cluttering the basement incites a near grand mal seizure at the mere thought of dumping all this stuff without my aging muscles to bag, lug and tote to the curb.

The books, in several trips, would go to the local library’s annual used book sale, and those not sold to be refreshed into new books some day. My notes and scraps of ideas? Oh, where will they go without me? I suppose the truth is that if there is no extant published version of what I may have produced from my stuff, online or in print somewhere, the thoughts and background stuff will be surely tossed.

I get it. I have to get rid of my stuff so the next guy has a place for his stuff. But first, he has to get rid of my crap so he’ll have a place for his stuff.

Hats are Off, and ‘Out’

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

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BY FRANK TERRANELLA

There’s a line in the Stephen Sondheim song “The Ladies Who Lunch,” from “Company,” in which the character played in the original production by Elaine Stritch asks, “Does anyone still wear a hat?” That was in 1970. Now, more than 40 years later, those of us who remember them can still ask, “Does anyone still wear a hat?”

The answer is almost no one, male or female, wears a hat for fashion. The only time I see hats on women is when I pass near an African American church on Sundays. There are no hats on fashion runways; no hats on the red carpet at the Oscars. There are no hats in most churches.

Those of us over 50 know full well that it wasn’t always like this. Men and women used to wear hats. Just watch any movie made before 1960. Men wore hats to work. Men wore hats to the ballgame. And I’m not talking about baseball caps. They wore real hats, like fedoras and derbys and homburgs. In summer, they wore straw hats. My grandfathers wouldn’t think of going “out” without their hats.

pat in hatWomen’s hats were an entire industry. Women wore a different one with every outfit. If you wore a coat, you wore a hat. And it wasn’t just for well-off women. Even working women in the movies and television wore hats. Even hard-boiled dames in Raymond Chandler stories wore hats. Lois Lane picked up her hat every time she was leaving the Daily Planet building.

Head coverings were actually required in many Christian churches until the 1960s. I remember there was a nun at the front door of my church who used to pass out handkerchiefs and tissues to girls who forgot their hats. And of course, Easter bonnets were a real thing back then. Women wore elaborate hats to Easter services. And the hat was the chief attraction at the Easter Parade.

The women’s hat industry was so big that they had a special name for a person who designed, made, trimmed, or sold women’s hats. He or she was called a milliner. It’s a word that has disappeared from our world like cobbler and blacksmith.

If I had to speculate at the one event that helped to killed men’s hats, I’d say it was the appearance of President Kennedy at his inaugural in 1961 standing in sub-freezing cold without a hat. Apparently, he wanted to have photographs showing him hatless next to President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon, both of whom were wearing hats. That was supposed to show that he was a young man of great vigor. It sounds to me like something Vladimir Putin might do today.

Anyway, apparently hat sales plummeted after that as America bought the idea that hats were old-fashioned. And when soon afterward the Catholic Church dropped the requirement that women wear hats to church, the writing was on the wall for milliners.

Of course, hats have never gone away completely. Every so often some celebrity appears wearing a porkpie, a pillbox or a Panama hat. But the days of regular men and women wearing hats for fashion are probably over.

Today, hats are worn for utilitarian purposes — to keep our heads warm in winter and protect them from the sun in the summer. But although I hated as a boy when I had to wear a hat when I got dressed up for a special occasion, I did like looking at other people wearing them and I still do.

Does anyone still wear a hat? Well, now that I’m a grandfather, maybe I’ll start wearing a hat to look the part. I’ll bet I could rock a fedora.

Much Like Deer in the Woods, Tomorrow Will Take Care of Itself

06 Thursday Mar 2014

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BY FRANK TERRANELLA

When you’re young, it’s easy to put things off to some unspecified future time. After all, when you’re younger than 40, you probably have more future ahead of you than you have past or present. It seems like there’s a lot of room in that attic for storage of dreams. But as we age into the right side of 50, the amount of future time left to us begins to shrink to a point where the idea that putting off things (such as pleasure) to a future time is no longer a viable plan. Those of us in the 50+ club have to live in the present.

I was reminded of this in church, of all places, as I attended services this week. While there’s some silly stuff in the Bible, there’s also a lot of wisdom. In fact, there’s a whole book in the Bible called “Wisdom.” And there’s also a book of Proverbs. It seems to me that a lot of the purpose of the Bible was to write down the collected wisdom of the herd. Unfortunately, some of the thoughts of the lunatic fringe made it in as well.

Anyway, the Bible reading was from the Gospel of Matthew. The evangelist quotes Jesus as saying to his followers: “Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.” (Matthew 6:34.)

And if I was in a more evangelical kind of church, I would have shouted, “Amen.” But Catholics aren’t into public displays of emotion and so I remained silent. But it seems to me that these are words to live by for us over-50 folks. We need to be present. We need to not put off anything we can enjoy now to the future, because the future is growing short, and what there is, is not guaranteed.

Now, I know that Fleetwood Mac urged us to “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.” But the message of that song was not to dwell on the past because “Yesterday’s gone …” It’s the same sentiment that Little Orphan Annie expresses in her “Tomorrow,” where the sum will come out. It’s okay to look to tomorrow optimistically; it’s wrong to worry about it.

Recently, I was looking out at the backyard of my mother’s house in suburban New Jersey. Suddenly about 10 deer appeared, all foraging for food in the snow. Sadly, this has become an all-too-common sight, as human developments have encroached on traditional deer habitats.

But these deer live day to day. They don’t worry about tomorrow. Finding food today, and staying warm is their focus in these winter months. And it occurs to me that our cave-dwelling ancestors did likewise. They may not have lived as long as we do now, but I’ll bet they enjoyed every minute they had when they weren’t working to feed and clothe themselves.

I know that some people can’t help worrying about tomorrow and everything else. Will the 401(k) be enough to live on? Will Medicare allow me to see the doctors I want to see? Will I be able to stay in my house? But even those people can resolve to enjoy today, and be present enough to notice the details like the beautiful scene the snow has created in the trees, or the rosy cheeks on a three-year-old playing in a park on a cold winter’s day. Being present means enjoying what is before you, and not thinking about what’s next. Because tomorrow will take care of itself.

A Day of Rejoicing, and then Mourning, for the Terranellas

27 Thursday Feb 2014

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Frank and Karin.

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

As regular readers of this blog know, a few weeks ago my first grandchild was born. Bryce David is doing fine – gaining weight on mother’s milk. Life is new for him, and the long and winding road of life stretches out before him. I’m sure he will enjoy the ride. But as some sort of cosmic balance, on the very day that we gained a Terranella, we lost one.

You may recall last year that I visited by cousin in Copenhagen who shares the same name with me. While we were there, we got to spend some time with my cousin’s wife, Karin. Karin is the reason my American-born cousin has lived in Denmark for the past 40-odd years. Frank was seduced by the charms of a free-spirited Danish girl, and gave up a life in America to enjoy a long and happy marriage with her.

However, on the evening of the day (our time) that Bryce was born, Karin lost her battle with cancer. She was barely into her 60s. She was diagnosed just a few weeks before, and the end came rapidly. Perhaps that is a blessing. Frank was spared having to watch his mate for the better part of five decades suffer for months. She went quickly.

Frank and Karin’s story is full of memorable years together. And so it was more than appropriate that a memorable recording was played at her funeral. A Danish singer called Kira recorded a soulful version of “I’ll Be Seeing You,” in the style of Billie Holiday. That recording was played at Karin’s funeral. If you have never heard this recording I recommend that you download it immediately, particularly if you are a fan of jazz.

The words of the song are so poignant that I will never be able to listen to it again without thinking of Karin. And it seems to me that this song expresses universally the longing for a lost mate that is so much a part of life for many of us over 50.
The song by Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal begins:

I’ll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day and through

In that small cafe
The park across the way
The children’s carousel
The chestnut trees, the wishing well

While the song became popular during World War II as GIs went off to war in Europe and the Pacific, what widow or widower cannot embrace these words? The lives of married folk are filled with little moments like this – a cappuccino at a small café, a picnic in the park. How could we not see our loved one after they are gone in all those old familiar places? The song continues:

I’ll be seeing you
In every lovely summer’s day
In everything that’s light and gay
I’ll always think of you that way

I’ll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you

Morning, noon and night we constantly remember a lost loved one, and live with the pain of separation. But the beautiful memories of a life together can bring us through. So, farewell Karin. You were taken from us much too early. But we’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places, and we’ll smile.

Old, Retiree Pool-Talk Sank My Young Heart

21 Friday Feb 2014

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Bob pool

BY BOB SMITH

We recently visited Sarasota, Florida to shop for a condominium near the Gulf of Mexico. Now that both of us are retired, there seems little point to hunkering down all winter in frigid New Jersey when we could just as easily be spending those ugly eight weeks called January and February on a powdery beach drinking Coronas at sunset. Given the particular nastiness of winter in the Northeast this year, that seems like an ideal plan.

Still, I’m a bit reluctant, at the relatively early age of 59, to take on the role of full-fledged “snowbird.” What’s next – hitching my pants up to my nipples and shuffling into deserted restaurants for early bird dinners? Wearing loafers and black socks with baggy golf shorts? Surreptitiously shoveling sugar packets, fruit, and rolls from the all-you-can-eat buffet into my voluminous old geezer pants pockets?

Maybe someday, I suppose. But for now, we’ll be the “cool” and “younger” retirees enjoying the “Florida lifestyle.” We’ll boldly stride into the early bird dinner without walkers, and “go commando” That’s right – no incontinence underwear at all. Woo-hoo!

We stayed at a friend’s condominium, located in Bradenton. The complex is tucked into a lush green enclave hidden in a tract of land between two nondescript Florida four-lane roads. The bordering streets are lined with drugstores, strip malls, movie theaters and, of course, a Publix and a Wal-Mart. Inside the complex, however, you’re in a mini tropical forest dotted with exotic colorful flowers, vines, and broad-leafed plants and trees. Oh yeah, and nine million tiny lizards. Walk anywhere, and three or four of these two-inch critters will scurry across your path, scrambling frantically to get out of the way. They’ll stop, look around, then dart away again, peripatetic refugees from a Geico commercial.

We went to the pool, and my heart sank as I overheard the conversations around me. One slim, older, gentleman in the hot tub was explaining to two women on the patio nearby the difference between wet and dry macular degeneration (Apparently, in addition to the obvious moisture-related distinction, one is far more threatening to the eyesight and harder to treat.) While he droned on about the potential total loss of central vision, and the relatively benign need to treat it by taking a prophylactic needle to the eyeball every couple of weeks, one of the women (a spry mid-60’s type) noted that the other woman was now using a cane – which she had carefully set aside before starting her gingerly descent into the bubbling whirlpool.

“Yeah, I don’t really need it, but it makes me feel better,” Ms. Cane sighed as she slowly settled into the swirling bubbles. “That feels good – not too hot.”

“They were talking about raising the temperature in the hot tubs at the board meeting the other night,” wet/dry Mack pointed out, with only his chin jutting above the surface. “I’m glad they didn’t. This is just right.”

“Not too hot, not too cold,” Ms. Cane agreed, her bathing suit skirt coyly rippling above semi-submerged tree-trunk thighs. “Come on in, Grace, the water’s fine.”

“I don’t think you’re using that cane right, though,” said Grace, picking it up and twirling it a-la-Charlie Chaplin before setting the black rubberized end down on the concrete.

She proceeded to explain that a cane is intended to support the weak side, but only temporarily, and only lightly, and that you can develop a rhythm and really walk at quite a smart pace with your aluminum third leg. She demonstrated by taking a couple of relatively nimble, aided circuits around the hot tub, with wet/dry Mack and Ms. Cane expressing approval amidst the bubbles.

Blah, blah, blah.

My eyes glazed over as I dozed on the lounge chair eight feet away. I had intended to soak in the hot tub, but demurred for fear of getting drawn into the gang-of-three’s scintillating discussion of degradation and decay. I thought about taking a swim instead. At the low end of the pool a straw-thin guy with a floppy hat, wraparound visor sunglasses, and a zinc-white nose, was doing ultra-slow laps – walking, not swimming – while three bulbous older women, their backs supported by buoyant neon noodles, kicked their way down the length of the pool, chatting chummily. That didn’t seem like the place for me either.

I read my newspaper, and dozed in the warm sun, imagining myself on a beach with people who didn’t appear to be on the verge of death. Young, supple, energetic folks with muscular bodies, firm butts, high-proud breasts, and vibrant manes of non-blue hair. The only problem with that fantasy is that, to those fictional nymphs and Greek gods, I’m as decrepit as Ms. Cane and wet/dry Mack.

I read my newspaper by the pool. I dozed. I daydreamed. I exchanged innocuous pleasantries with the hard-core retirees around me, hoping perhaps that if I refused to participate in their conversations, or acknowledged our shared concerns, I could delay the inevitable.

Who am I kidding? I have met the enemy, and he is me.

From E-Mail to Facebook: Making Contact

18 Tuesday Feb 2014

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Screenshot Ken
BY KENNETH KUNZ

Years ago, after Al Gore ” … took the initiative in creating the Internet,” and we all wondered, having newly acquired our first PC, how we’d ever master that mouse-thingie in trying to navigate the ever-disappearing arrow it supposedly controlled, I became wrapped up in e-mailing folks.

And the “You’ve Got Mail” ping was ALMOST as nice as getting a snail mail letter in simpler times. A negative side effect of the new phenomenon, however, was that there were too many users who kind of hid behind an e-mail, rather than actually speak to a friend, vendor, or client one-to-one via phone. Some of those folks still do.

Nevertheless, I started using e-mail as a viable business tool, slowly replacing my use of the fax machine (hated that irritating sound anyway), but, more importantly, I e-mailed friends and relatives to keep in touch like I had not done previously. I had, indeed, kept close contact with many people over the years, but e-mail let me expand that realm.

I remember e-mailing a cousin, and apologizing for not having stayed in touch as much as I probably should have in the past. Like all of us, life got in the way, and time restraints kept my overall correspondence to a relative minimum. At least that’s my company line
rationalization for the void. My cousin’s response to my apology was that it didn’t matter what we did, or didn’t do, in the past, we ARE keeping in touch now. How sweet of her to say so!

And it was proof positive that no matter what doors we avoided, or went through over the years, we ended up where we are for whatever reason and that, succinctly, is the way it is. “Live each day,” and all those other clichés that all so often become inescapable truisms.

Nowadays, social media has exploded, and I keep in touch with so many people that I heretofore hadn’t on a regular basis. It is a wonderful experience! There are, of course, those inane Facebook posts, tweets, and such. I am surely not a fan of knowing how many reps you did in the gym today (unless you’re recovering from an injury or dealing with an illness), some lame info about a celebrity, a barb aimed at an athlete, or an inappropriate, unsubstantiated, misguided political rant. But those posts that include inspirational thoughts, humorous insights, musical rarities, PSAs, or family photos are priceless. And welcomed.

It is nice to have smiles provided on a daily basis. It is also so cool to just reconnect with people with whom we were close in the past. With contact now rekindled, we share our views and emotions that remain similar, just like they were years ago, despite our separate life journeys. Comforting, I think, to remember why we liked each other in the first place, and that we still possess those same traits, likes and dislikes.

Rather neat, as well, to have actually made new friends in the past few years and be able to converse with them in shared experiences. Always amazes me that we can get close to new people in our respective “advanced ages.” Point is, we really are all in this together.

Our world has become quite small indeed, and we are all now most assuredly citizens of a global village. Constant contact keeps us close, keeps our optimism positive, and our faith strong. It allows us to, vent, kibitz, philosophize, laugh, cry … and share it all with all true friends.

It makes it lovely to be here on the good Earth.

Keep in touch, y’all!

PEACE.

It’s Never Too Late for Activism

17 Monday Feb 2014

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BY FRANK TERRANELLA

I was reading and listening to obituaries of Pete Seeger recently, and noticed something peculiar. In many obituaries, Seeger, who made his living as a musician, was identified as an “activist.”  I wondered what exactly the 94-year-old composer of “Turn, Turn, Turn,” had done to earn him the title “activist.” And is that title meant as praise or damnation?

So I first consulted the dictionary, and found that activist is defined as, “an especially active, vigorous advocate of a cause, especially a political cause.” Since every public cause is a political one, I think that the definition would encompass anyone who is a vigorous advocate of any cause that affects more than a person’s immediate family and friends. So advocating for proper care for your father, who has multiple sclerosis, would not make you an activist. But advocating on behalf of everyone who has the disease would. It’s a lot like the job of “community organizer” that was sneered at an election or two ago.

Seeger’s obituary in The New York Times noted that, “He sang for the labor movement in the 1940s and 1950s, for civil rights marches and anti-Vietnam War rallies in the 1960s, and for environmental and antiwar causes in the 1970s and beyond.”

Clearly, for his active involvement in these causes, Seeger earned the title “activist.”  Seeger cared about others. His motivation was the polar opposite of greed.

But what about the rest of us? Shouldn’t we all be activists? Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young told us, “We can change the world, rearrange the world.”

It was the “Age of Aquarius.” Well, sadly we all know how that turned out. Self-interest trumped community involvement.

In the ‘80s, many embraced George Bush’s “A Thousand Points of Light” – a sort of “separate but equal” approach to community activism that stressed individual action. It was sold as an alternative to group action, particularly group action using community tax money. And what happened? Income inequality, crumbling cities, and two optional wars.

But some people like Pete Seeger, Tom Hayden, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, Al Gore, and even Bob Barker recognized the importance and power of organizing community action. They saw that people working together supercharged their efforts. They didn’t fear government action. They saw that the ultimate community tool was government action. They worked hard to pass civil rights, labor and environmental laws that express the desire of the community for a better world. They all earned the title “activist.”

But is “activist” an honor or an epithet?  I think that depends on which side of the particular cause promoted by the activist you favor. There are certainly activists for both conservative and liberal causes. Frankly, I respect them all because even if I don’t agree with the cause they are promoting, I can respect the fact that they took the time to try to help the community.

As we move toward our “senior” years, we have one last chance to be activists. If we don’t, we face the prospect of an obituary of someone who was shamefully a “passivist.”  And that’s not someone who advocates against war.

A (Hopeful) Thumbs-Up for Voltaren

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

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bob thumb

BY BOB SMITH

We’ve had a number of “physical decay” entries in this blog during the past couple of weeks. Not to pile on, but here’s my story:

For the past week, at least three times every day, I’ve taken a couple of grams of a white drug that you lay down in a line on a card. Yeah, you guessed it: I’m doing VOLTAREN.voltaren Although it sounds like the name of a Star Trek villain from the planet Org, it’s innocuous, perfectly legal, and no fun at all. It’s a topical gel whose active ingredient is diclofenac sodium, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug used to treat sore or inflamed joints and muscles. You rub it into the affected area (the tendons that attach my left thumb to my hand), and it’s supposed to seep in there, and relieve the pain.

This sounds suspiciously like ASPERCREME, or BEN GAY, or any of a dozen other old-fashioned liniments and ointments our grandparents used to use. I distinctly recall, years ago, seeing Maria’s grandmother diligently rubbing ASPERCREME into her gnarled, arthritis-ridden fingers, day after day, and thinking it was a total waste of her time and money. Well, the laugh – and the goopy gel of dubious therapeutic value – is now on me.

The weird thing is, I have no idea how I got tendonitis in the first place. My doctor says it’s common among gamers and others, like compulsive smart-phone users, who constantly repeat, for hours every day, sweeping, scrolling, and clicking motions with that thumb. That’s not me. Somehow, I got the pain without the hours of pleasure of putting Angry Birds through their paces or rapid-firing virtual automatic weapons at endless hordes of baddies.

Worse yet, I don’t even think the gel is working. It takes quite a bit of rubbing and massaging to get it to soak in, and when I’m done I imagine for a few brief moments that the pain seems to fade. But wouldn’t I get that effect from six minutes of massage with regular old hand lotion?

Let’s consider my options if this goop doesn’t do it: There’s acupuncture if I want to go the age-old-but-pooh-pooh’ed-by-modern-medicine approach, or the reportedly instant gratification awaiting me if I let them inject cortisone into the joint. They say the only thing that hurts after a cortisone shot is the spot where they poked you with the needle (and your bank account if it’s not covered), but there’s also the rumor that once you go down the cortisone road, there’s no turning back.

Let’s hope the mighty VOLTAREN does the job. Because if that glorified ASPERCREME doesn’t cut it, my choices are a bunch of little needles that might or might not work, or one bigger needle that almost surely will work but may doom me to a life of ever-less-effective injections. Do I want to be a human pincushion, or just another cortisone junkie?

And they say getting old isn’t any fun. Gotta go now – time to do another two-gram line.

My Letter to You, My Grandson, On the Day You Were Born

11 Tuesday Feb 2014

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frank closeup baby

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

You are just a few hours old as I write this. You surprised us by arriving three weeks early, but that’s just like your father. He came early too. I guess you were anxious to explore the world that you could only hear for months from the dark place where you were.

Well, as you will see, it’s a mixed bag of a world. On the one hand, you have been born into a nation full of guns, drugs and greed. But on the other hand, your nation is full of very good people, who fight every day to solve its problems. Perhaps by the time you reach my age, in 2075, the good people will have succeeded in righting some of the wrongs.Frank Pat Baby

You will grow up in a world very different from the one I grew up in. I was in college before I touched a computer keyboard. You will be using a computer before you can walk. I grew up in a world where television consisted of seven channels. You will grow up in a world with hundreds of television choices, and the ability to watch what you want, when you want. I grew up with news coming primarily from newspapers. Your generation will see news on paper as archaic as papyrus scrolls.

Frank SonBut some things will probably not change. For all of its history, mankind has had an affinity for war. I think it’s inbred in the species. I just hope that your generation can avoid the nuclear war that has been the world’s greatest fear since I was your age. I also fear that prejudice will remain with us. I know that your parents will teach you to treat everyone with respect, no matter what they look like. So I know you will never hate anyone just because they are different from you.

I hope that you live long enough to see grandchildren and great grandchildren. The joy of new life is so invigorating. I hope that just before you turn 87, you remember me as you raise a glass to toast the year 2100. I can’t imagine what the world will be like then, but I’m fairly sure that everything I write now will still exist in some database then. It’s a tiny bit of immortality for all writers like me.Frank Grandson

I hope that we will have solved the global warming problem by then. Perhaps we will have abandoned fossil fuels, and harnessed solar or wind power, and made it practical.

Perhaps you will have computers implanted into your brains. I hope that cancer will be extinct as you enter the 22nd century.

But more than anything else, I hope that you will have had a life you can be proud of. I hope that you will always remember that the greatest joy comes from what you do for others. I hope that you will be a man for others – what our Jewish friends call a “mensch.” I hope that you will not be afraid to love, and to express it freely and often. And most of all, I wish you joy every day of your life. God bless you, Bryce David. Have a great life!

With lots of love (and tears in my eyes),

Your grandfather, Frank