Practicum of Nightmares

Oh, my, it’s 2023! Seems like only yesterday that it was 1983. Tom Seaver was reacquired by the New York Mets that year—returning to the town and the team where he belonged and should have played his entire career. Gearing up for the new baseball season that winter, it was exciting to imagine my boyhood hero on the mound at Shea Stadium again and finishing his illustrious career in a Mets’ uniform. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Seaver pitched for the 1983 Mets all right—and reasonably well for a thirty-eight-year-old coming off an injury-plagued year—and then was gone with the wind once more, courtesy of a front office faux pas of epic proportions. Wow, that was forty years ago and—may I just say—things ain’t what they used to be.

Tom Seaver has passed away. Shea Stadium is a memory. And baseball players are signing contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Aaron Judge put his John Hancock on a nine-year deal with the Yankees worth $360 million. When he broke Roger Maris’s single season home run record last year, a fan caught the ball. Some people opined that this man should have given the ball to Judge. He would, after all, be showered with largesse for this unselfish act: a couple of signed bats and balls and a fifty-dollar gift certificate to Ikea for starters. But the fan in question was not about to pass up an even greater windfall. Reports are that the guy turned down $3 million dollars for the record-breaking orb, putting it up for auction instead. It sold for half that figure! Just sayin’: I would have jumped at the $3 million figure—taken the money and run, as it were. But let’s face it, fans pay a premium now to watch sports, whether at the ballpark or via cable TV and such. Why couldn’t Judge—in this instance—offer to buy the ball for a fair sum? I realize that it might be something of a hardship to get by on $357 million over the next nine years, but we all make sacrifices at one time or another.

In 1983, I was attending college. Speaking of which, the University of Southern California has recently cast asunder the word “field,” because of—drum roll please— “racist connotations.” The word will be replaced by “practicum.” Yes, hearing the phrase “field trip” could very well trigger a student and turn him or her or zir into a blithering bowl of Jell-O in search of a safe space.

Anyway, this is the world of 2023. Joe Biden has even joined the fraternity of presidents with classified documents in places they shouldn’t be, including alongside his Corvette in his locked garage in Wilmington, Delaware. You can’t make this stuff up. Seems to me that this is further evidence that our last two presidents were unfit for their jobs. It would be nice to think that we will get past this perpetual insanity on too many fronts to count. I wonder what the country and world will be like in 2063? Looking on the bright side, I won’t be around to find out.

Winter Finds

(Originally published 1/30/19)

Recently unearthed: a super-rare photograph that I didn’t know existed and don’t ever remember seeing. It was of the man who inspired a previous essay of mine entitled, “Scent of a Postman.” This particular piece—among several hundred and counting—has the peculiar distinction of receiving the largest number of porno-site spam hits from Russia, Ukraine, and Indonesia. But the joke’s on them, I suppose, because both “Scent of a Postman” and the wing beneath its wings, Louie the mailman, are G-rated. "Scent of a Postman" is merely the story of a cigar-chomping mail carrier, who regularly entered my family's hallway—courtesy of an unlocked front door—and placed our mail on the bottom step leading to the upstairs apartment. On a recurring basis, the scent of his omnipresent cigar informed one and all that—in Addams Family parlance—“the mail’s in.”

My father must have taken this picture. Stationed at different post offices with vastly different job responsibilities, he and Louie were nonetheless USPS comrades in arms at the time. Of course, I would have loved to have snapped a shot or two of Louie making his appointed rounds, but my youthful courage reservoir wasn't up to the task. After all, the man with the cigar could be a bit intimidating and probably wouldn't have taken kindly to some stupid kid snapping his picture.

"Let there be light...and the Number 1 train!" said He, not Louie, the mailman.

Another winter find of mine: a street food vendor peddling buttured corn on the cob...

and bakes potatoes...

But it's the fresh pizza—spelled correctly—that concerns me the most. 

I just love steamy street scenes...

I might just pen a future essay and headline it: "Steamy Street Scenes." I suspect that would give "Scent of a Postman" a run for its money.

What's the significance of seeing a mysterious number one in the darkness outside a window? I don't know for sure, but Dr. Seuss said, "You have to be odd to be number one."

That's the signpost up ahead. Your next stop...the Distraction Zone...

Speaking of distractions, sometimes they come unexpectedly and in the strangest places. For example, this past Sunday I became distracted by an elderly couple preparing to exit the subway car. Internally, I kept pleading with them to kick it up a notch. For they were taking entirely too long in gathering up their various accoutrements before departure. Sure enough, the male half got caught in the closing doors. Happily for him, he was released by the portal vise and able to slither away...but, I'd say, in the nick of time.

At this time of year, I suspect the pickings are more easily secured in a Stop & Shop parking lot than in the cold salty seas.

In my opinion, these seagulls have the right idea. They hang around both the seashore and a never-ending stream of tourists.

Thus, the birds kill two birds with one stone, as it were. They are simultaneously in close proximity to marine life and the scraps of buttured corn on the cob, bakes potato, and fresh pizza, too. 

It was cold outside this morning when I snapped this picture. But not nearly as cold as it will be tomorrow at the same time. Unfortunately, it is also the season when uber-cold spells spell the suspension of sanity. The climate-change skeptics come out of their holes and see their shadows in the frosty air and frozen terra firma. Next week, I see, it's going to be in the upper-fifties around here. Personally, I would just assume believe the vast majority of scientists and the cold hard facts than an alternative reality.

Beware of ice melter. It takes no prisoners...

This past weekend, I encountered a children's daycare or some such thing on a Manhattan side street. Its motto was "Baby, it's warm inside."

Life is a one-way street and we are not coming back.

Yet another rare photographic winter find. Once upon a time, I attended a Halloween party dressed as Honest Abe and consorted with a drunkard in a Richard Nixon mask. Simpler times...

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)