Beachcombing

Unhappy New Year?

2009-12-31T15:58:00.011-05:00

If you've noticed people around here seem incurably grumpy/grouchy, now we have empirical proof: a recent study has named Connecticut as almost dead last in a state-by-state ranking of American happiness.
Two economics professors, Andrew J. Oswald of the University of Warwick in England and Stephen Wu of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. analyzed a load of data to come up with their findings. Factors included climate, taxes, cost of living, commuting time, crime rates and schools.
New York was at the very bottom of the list. Connecticut was first runner-up.
If you talk to anybody in this state about the cost of living, the climate, crime or commuting time, it's no wonder we were near the bottom of this survey. Our highways are a mess, the weather outside is frightful much of the year and people are feeling taxed to death.
Maybe it's because of my upbringing by a father who worked for Norman Vincent Peale (author of "The Power of Positive Thinking") that I often tend to tell the nay-sayers to lighten up a little. Hey Nutmeg State, look at what we've got: the shoreline, those hills and mountains, the parks, the theaters, those town and city greens...
I say the same thing to New Haveners when they start to whine and gripe. Dudes, take a walk on the New Haven Green! Visit Lighthouse Point and the beach (well, not right now). Go to one of our city's museums. Maybe the dinosaurs at the Peabody will lift your spirits a little...
You know who really needs to improve their outlooks? The people who respond to the New Haven Register's "Soundoff" questions, many of them from the suburbs, where I suppose life is delightful. I get especially annoyed when they answer anything pertaining to New Haven. On and on they vent about "the parking, the crime," etc. I'll bet they haven't set foot downtown in months or years; they're just too scared or paranoid or even prejudiced.
Would it be so tragic if they had to walk a couple of blocks after parking their cars? Would it kill them to get some exercise? Do they really think they'd be mugged during that short walk?
I have lived in this city for decades, have walked all over it and I have never been a victim of serious crime. Nor have my daughters, nor has my wife. We like this place.
We even like Connecticut.
OK, so you're wondering where people are happy. It's in the warm and sunnier places. The Top 10 are: Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida, Tennessee, Arizona, Mississippi, Montana, South Carolina, Alabama and Maine.
I know, Maine is not warm. I guess Mainiacs are just possessed of sunny dispositions. Or maybe it's because their highways aren't jammed, except when we all go up there in the summertime.
Anyway, let's all try to have a happy new year. I know it's cold, I know there's more snow on the ground.
But when I drove past the New Haven Green this morning, it looked beautiful.

Here, There and Everywhere with Charles Rosenay

2009-11-17T14:29:00.017-05:00

One of the Beatles tunes Charles Rosenay selected to get us in the mood for his "lecture" at the Derby Public Library last week (Nov. 10) was "When I'm 64."
This prompted me to reflect that we Beatlemaniacs are getting closer and closer to that figure. And so I asked Rosenay, "How old are you, Charles?"
He wouldn't tell me. He said he never answers that question.
But beyond that gap, Rosenay was very candid and confessional in his talk, which he entitled "In My Life: A Beatles Fan's Odyssey." (I wrote a column about this for the NH Register, which appeared Nov. 15; this blog contains some nuggets I didn't have room for in the column).
Among the 40 or so middle-aged Beatles fans in the audience was Joseph Zgola of Ansonia, who had come to the library clutching a photo he had asked Paul McCartney to autograph for him. Unlike Rosenay, Zgola had never before met a Beatle.
Zgola had waited patiently outside Yale's Sterling Library before the ceremony began for commencement day in that wondrous spring day of 2008. McCartney was being given an honorary degree by Yale and was standing in the line of dignataries, preparing to march in with them.
"I got sunburned standing outside that library," Zgola told me. "I didn't care."
He reported McCartney was very polite and gracious as he signed the photo.
Of course Rosenay, now living in Orange with a wife and three kids, had many stories to tell us about meeting the Beatles during the decades he has organized Beatles conventions, published a fan magazine and coordinated tours of Liverpool (home of the fab four).
Those of you who have missed Rosenay's hiatus from these events are undoubtedly pleased by the news that he is reviving the tradition Nov. 28-29 at the Downtown Stamford Holiday Inn. (See https://beatexpo.ticketleap.com/BEATexpo).
Perhaps Rosenay's biggest coup was luring the band's original drummer, Pete Best, to one or more of his conventions during the 1980s. Still, Rosenay stunned us with the revelation that Best is his favorite Beatle. He explained he got to be good friends with the guy during their convention experiences.
"Of the fab four, it's Paul," Rosenay told me later. "That's who I wanted to be. That's why I grew my hair like him."
The Beatle Rosenay never met was John Lennon. You have to believe that if Lennon hadn't been shot to death in 1980, Rosenay eventually would have found a way to meet him; he is that persistent.
Talking about Lennon's death still gets Rosenay choked up. He recalled hearing "Starting Over" come over his car radio shortly after the assassination. "I had to pull over; I couldn't see."
When he met McCartney, Rosenay recalled, it was backstage at a show in Birmingham, England in 1989.
"My mouth is doing crazy things and my fingers are numb," he told us, recalling that magic moment when McCartney walked into the room. "My heart is palpitating."
When promoter Sam Leach introduced Rosenay to McCartney, Rosenay told him, "You have no idea what you've meant to me and how you've affected my life."
That night, Rosenay said, marked "the second time I cried for a Beatle; it was when Paul sang 'Yesterday.'"
Eventually Rosenay got to meet Ringo Starr too; he was at a press conference and called out the first question. "I asked him how his grandchildren were."
Meeting George Harrison was tougher. Rosenay organized a tour of Japan to coincide with Harrison's Japanese tour. This was Harrison's final tour before his death.
Through serendipity, Rosenay and his tour group were at the airport in Japan when guess-who came strolling past them. "I saw this long-haired guy with his guitar and I shouted, 'People! There's George!' Everyone was freaking out."
Rosenay called out, "George! Can we take your picture?"
Harrison replied, "Yes, but I'm not going to stop." Yet Harrison started walking in place so they had plenty of time to take their pictures.
Harrison asked, "Will that do?" and Rosenay replied, breathlessly, "Yes! Thank you!"
Yes, you Beatles. Thank you, boys.

Butch and Billy

2009-10-25T12:12:00.007-04:00

Few New Haveners know or remember this, but when "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" hit the screen 40 years ago, it had its world premiere right here at the Roger Sherman Theater.
Our town had a local connection: the film's director, George Roy Hill, was a Yale graduate, class of 1943. When he unveiled his work at that downtown theater, he brought along the film's stars, Paul Newman (also a Yale grad) and Robert Redford.
Yale's Whitney Humanities Center commemorated the event this weekend (Oct. 23-25) by showing that movie, Hill's "Slaughterhouse-Five" and two documentaries, "The Making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Making of Slaughterhouse-Five."
"Slaughterhouse-Five," based on the great novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., is one of my favorite movies and who doesn't like watching Butch and Sundance? Who can forget Newman on that bicycle with Katharine Ross to the tune of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head"? But I was more interested in seeing the two behind-the-scenes documentaries, so I made it to the Humanities Center Saturday afternoon to check them out.
Here's a great thing about living in or near New Haven, even if you're not a Yalie or an alumnus: for many events such as this one, you can just walk in, no admission asked, sit down and take in some fine work as well as hear insightful discussion in follow-up question-and-answer sessions.
That's what I did on a rainy Saturday afternoon, although I was stunned to see only about 15 other people in the auditorium. Where is the Yale film community? Maybe more people showed up Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon to see the actual films; I hope so.
But for those select few who turned out Saturday afternoon, we got a rare chance to see those two documentaries, especially the one about the making of "Slaughterhouse-Five," as it isn't available to the public. Yale has it and is taking good care of it until, one hopes, legal issues can be resolved and it is released to the public.
On hand to talk about the documentaries was Robert Crawford, who directed "The Making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and co-directed "The Making of Slaughterhouse-Five." Nick Doob, the other co-director of "The Making of Slaughter-house Five," was there too.
Both guys were personable, candid and generous with their time. Crawford told us, as was evident from the documentaries, that making a movie is "organized chaos, like going to war. It's moving 200 people and tons of equipment. So it's a very anxious process."
But Crawford said Newman always wanted to have fun and was able to lighten up the atmosphere. Watching Hill at work, the viewer sees an intense, focused but kind man who appreciates input from his actors. (Hill died in 2002 but won fame and recognition for these two films as well as "The Sting"; he got an Oscar for that one.)
Vonnegut was interviewed for the "Slaughterhouse-Five" documentary and he avidly endorsed the film of his book. He was clearly amazed Hill had pulled it off; this was a novel that jumped back and forth from World War II and the bombing of Dresden, Germany (which Vonnegut witnessed as a prisoner of war) to present day and then the far future on the planet Trafalmadore.
Crawford told a great anecdote: Hill asked Vonnegut to do a cameo in the film, playing the crotchety author who is preparing a book on the Dresden bombing. The guy is in a hospital bed next to Billy Pilgrim, protagonist of "Slaughterhouse-Five" and the author keeps talking about his great book project. Pilgrim (played by Michael Sacks in his first screen role) turns and says softly, "I was there." The author gruffly replies, "The hell with him; let him write his own book." Well, Vonnegut delivered the lines and Hill, in the editing room, had to conclude it didn't work -- Vonnegut was too nice to convincingly play that part. And so Vonnegut's scene ended up on the cutting room floor (where it is now?) and another person was called it to play that part.
I suggest you go out and rent "Slaughter-House Five" (but first read the book, if you haven't already). This is a great humanitarian anti-war statement. It's fitting it was shown at a Humanities Center.

Leopards Eat Bulldogs

2009-10-13T15:52:00.013-04:00

My daughter didn't get it when she saw me putting on my Lafayette College sweatshirt.
"But Dad," she said, "you left Lafayette. You didn't even like it."
It's true; I had transferred out of the place in 1970, in the middle of my junior year, because I could no longer stand living in Easton, Penna. and I wanted to live in Boston. Hence: hello, Boston University! And that's where I obtained my degree.
But I maintain some sentiment for the old place, as I informed my daughter. And so I was heading over to Yale Bowl a couple of Saturdays ago to root for my "alma mater" against Yale.
It was a rare event. Lafayette rarely plays Yale and hadn't made it to New Haven since 1990, when they lost by one point. I saw that game too.
Lafayette had never beaten Yale in football. Maybe this would be the time.
Only a couple of thousand people were in the huge Yale Bowl Oct. 3. It was drizzling and a non-Ivy League contest. When I settled in on the visitors' side, it seemed there were almost as many of us as there were Yale fans across the way.
When I arrived at Lafayette in 1968, it was all-male. Don't ask me why I ever went there, but there I was. Well, it being the '60s, we held demonstrations: "What do we want? Women! When do we want them? Now!"
And we got them, at the beginning of my junior year. But the 13:1 ratio wasn't much of an improvement. And so for that reason and the smalltown factor, I split for Boston.
And this is why I spent so much of that recent football game staring at the Lafayette cheerleaders. They were female, you see.
The Lafayette Marching Band didn't show up, which was upsetting. I played drums in that band and we marched all over various fields at halftimes. Where were they?
But the game was the thing. Lafayette fell behind in the early going but then they got it into gear and the passing game clicked (thanks to QB Rob Curley) and the 'Pards started pushing the Bulldogs all over the field. It was hard to believe it was so easy.
We made a lot of noise on our side and survived the rain and saw history happen: Lafayette 31, Yale 14!
It was the sweatshirt that did it.

Thanking Mary Travers

2009-09-24T18:46:00.006-04:00

Mary Travers, the passionate female voice of Peter, Paul and Mary, had been sick for a long time. But she had kept performing and somehow I thought she would always be around.
And so I was unprepared and shocked when the news broke laast week that Travers had died at Danbury Hospital.
Travers was 72, which is also unsettling. The cause of her death was complications from chemotherapy for a bone marrow transplant she had several years ago after developing leukemia.
Her lengthy obituary in the New York Times also revealed that she had stage fright. It took a lot of persuading to get her to join Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey in 1961.
Their manager, Albert Grossman, wanted Travers to "retain an air of mystery," so she didn't speak on stage between songs, at least in their early period.
Well, she got over her stage fright, found her voice and never stopped talking.
Shortly before Peter, Paul and Mary did a revival show at the New Haven Coliseum in October 1980, I interviewed all three of them. Travers spoke to me from her home in Rredding, CT.
I remember that she was warm and friendly, as I had expected.
"I'm optimistic," she said. "I assume we won't blow ourselves off the map...I'm optimistic that we'll figure out how to be civilized."
At that time she was supporting Jimmy Carter for re-election and was about to ask Yarrow and Stookey to join her in that effort.
"The world is in chaos," she said. "This is no time for a beginner. The Europeans are terrified of (Ronald) Reagan -- as they should be."
You know the rest of the story. Reagan was elected president, launching a conservative movement against many of the values embodied by Peter, Paul and Mary.
And the world is still in chaos. We're still trying to figure out how to be civilized. Peter, Paul and Mary made it a little more so.

Pilot Pen Tennis: People Come and Go so Quickly

2009-09-01T16:33:00.010-04:00

Yes, they're gone already, those tennis players; the circus has left town. (Alert film buffs will realize that in my headline I'm quoting Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz": "My! People come and go so quickly here!")
I got out there to the Pilot Pen Tennis Tournament just once last week, but it was a good show on that Monday night. My wife, daughters and I saw Svetlana Kuznetsova defeat Jie Zheng in three sets, then watched the rising young Yank, Sam Querrey, oust the pouty Frenchman, Marc Gicquel, also in three sets (except we had to leave early for that one).
Some people don't bother with Pilot Pen because they don't know the players. Listen, we didn't even know who was playing until we showed up that night. But we did kknow we were going to see some great tennis by players who might soon be big names.
Querrey, for instance, is already turning heads at the U.S. Open with his 130 mph serves. This kid is going to be a star.
Pilot Pen is also about the food. I think my kids look forward to the big Food Court more than they do the tennis. The only problem is the area is so popular, the tables and picnic benches fill up very quickly; we ate sitting on the ground.
My wife and I were coming to this New Haven tournament before our kids were born, back when it was called the Volvo Tournament. We've seen John McEnroe (who famously tipped a TV camera into a cameraman's lap), Ivan Lendl, Lindsay Davenport, James Blake and many others. It's a cool thing for this town to have.
And you know what else? In the middle of the action, there came the announcement inviting all of us up in the "cheap seats" to come on down to join the elite! Try doing that at Yankee Stadium; those ushers would eat you up like a Yankee frank.
Kudos also to the organizers of Pilot Pen for keeping the between-sets music at a less-than-ear-splitting volume. That's not true at most sporting events.
My kids don't like it that you're not supposed to yell during tennis matches; it's seen as discourteous. But I like it. I find it a nice change from other entertainment.
Why did we leave the Querrey match early? It was 11:15 p.m. by the time they finished the first set. We had gotten a taste of the future and we left happy.
I sure hope this event has its sponsorship renewed. Can you imagine driving past that tennis stadium and seeing it empty 52 weeks a year rather than the current 51? r

When the Music's Over

2009-08-12T16:00:00.002-04:00

I'm told that some people go to Paris to see the Louvre, a highly-regarded museum containing such works as the Mona Lisa. I'm told there are plenty of other world-renowned galleries, cathedrals and museums in that city.

Sure, I checked out a lot of those "must sees" when I was there recently with my wife and two daughters. But the real gotta-go item on my list was this: the grave of Jim Morrison.

If you know your cultural history, you're aware that Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, died in Paris in 1971. He was living there, trying to escape the music business and become a poet or something. He was allegedly found dead in his bathtub from a "heart attack." Come on, the dude was 27. Can you say: drugs?

I didn't idolize the guy but I liked the music. For more than 30 years I've been hearing about his grave and the pilgrims who hang out there. I wanted to see it.

You know what really shocked me? My wife and daughters didn't want to go. They preferred to go shopping along the Champs Elysees, the big-deal boulevard near the Arc de Triomphe. So be it. To each his own.

During the Metro ride to the Pere Lachais Cemetery, I had Doors music running through my head...

"Strange days have found us..."

You know what else shocked me? There were no huge crowds of tourists lining up at the cemetery, as I had seen at the Caehdral of Notre Dame and the Louvre. Where was everybody?

I just walked into the place, passing those big stone walls (after buying a map of the cemetery from a vendor, which gave me some idea of where to find J.M.)

Here's another shocking thing: there were no signs directing people to his grave. I had to keep studying the map, trying to figure out where I was in this massive lay-out of thousands of headstones. I was caught in a big maze and nobody seemed to speak English. How could that be?

"Tried to run, tried to hide--break on through to the other side..."

Truly: I must have been wandering around that place for a good half-hour when at last I saw a cluster of people and I knew: This is it!

"My eyes have seen you..."

I came upon a simple headstone: "James Douglas Morrison 1943-1971." There was a line below it that I couldn't decipher because it was faded and probably in another language. It didn't look like French.

There were fresh flowers on his stone and a basket with ribbon that read: "Fan Club Francois Doors." Also two framed poems, the lettering too small to be read from a distance. And yes, we were being kept about five feet away because this was the only grave in the place that had a metal police barricade surrounding it.

Why the security? Because idiotic vandals/worshippers had, early on, chipped away at it, taking souvenirs! I noticed the front stonework was slightly chiseled away.

I had expected to see some English-speaking tourists at this site, but it didn't happen. (The dollar is very weak now vs. the euro, so it costs big bucks to travel around Europe.) When I saw a middle-aged dude wearing an Aerosmith shirt and leather vest and shades, I thought: "Ah, yes! A Yank!" But then he started talking to his wife and young son in a foreign tongue. She was wearing a Disneyland hat, worn backward. The big dude had rings on every finger. The kid just started at the grave, looking very sad. He seemed to be about 10 years old. Finally his mom consoled him with hugs and kisses.

I wasn't as emotionally moved as that kid, even though the Doors were my contemporaries. No, I never saw them in concert, not even when they came to the New Haven Arena in 1967 and Morrison got into a fight with a cop and they stopped the show and arrested him.

"Blood on the streets in the town of New Haven..."

It was starting to get a little creepy around that grave, so I split. I took a long, last look and I thought: "You blew it, Jimmy. You could've written a lot more songs, even some more poems, done some more touring. But no, you just fed your head like a big dope addict and now here you are, lying in a cemetery where gawkers come and stare at your name. This is the closest I ever got to you, but it was no concert -- just an odd kind of freak show.

"This is The End..."

Crossing Paths on the Road and in Court

2009-06-22T17:07:00.002-04:00

It wasn't easy for Christopher Roslon's parents to go into New Haven Superior Court last week (June 17) and face James D. Jordan, the man who lost control of his car and crashed, killing their 18-year-old son.
But Elaine Oja-Roslon was there with her typewritten statement, even though she was too upset to read it. (She had her cousin, Lee Skalkos do the reading.) And Mark Roslon was there, bearing witness in silence. Later he would e-mail me a poem he wrote for his son.
As I reported in the Register, Jordan, 24, was sentenced to serve just eight months for second-degree manslaughter with a motor vehicle, and that's because Judge Earl Richards listened to the wishes of the victim's parents. Oja-Roslon thought 6-12 months was enough; Mark Roslon thought it was pointless to send Jordan to prison at all. Roslon thought some guidance program would be preferable. You don't hear this type of non-vengeful thought very often in court.
Oja-Roslon's statement was poignant and clearly had an effect on Richards. Part of it got cut out of my news story, a nice anecdote about Chris when he was 8 years old and the family was at their house in Maine. Here is the missing part:
"Chris and I were outside in our big field of grass, lying down, looking up at the brilliant stars in the sky...We stayed for hours because the stars were extraordinary that night, a crystal clear dark sky with a shower of bright lights. We talked about the sky, the Milky Way and the northern lights for what seems like eternity and I had one of the best nights of my life..."
Oja-Roslon said now she wonders if Chris is one of those brilliant stars in the sky and that she feels it is "an eternity without him."
Mark Roslon's poem, "My," said, in part: "You are and will always be with me.
"You are and will always be
My son,
My friend,
My Chris.
My oh my...
My Christopher."
After my story of the sentencing appeared in the Register, I heard from Laurence Brenner, who knew Chris very well. Brenner spoke of his intelligence, skill as a bass guitarist and great potential.
Brenner also noted Chris took the unusual precaution when he got into the car that night in Woodbridge of riding in the back seat with his seatbelt on. Unfortunately, tragically, when the car spun off the road, it turned over in mid-air and hit a tree through the window, which smashed into Chris' head.
Oja-Roslon later told me that Chris' friends rushed to the scene, unbuckled him and pulled him to the ground, where the police and ambulance workers found him.
Oja-Roslon also told me that Chris and Jordan were not friends, as Judge Richards thought. This was the first time they had met. Chris had gone there to see if he could get a job at a store where Jordan's girlfriend was a manager. Apparently Jordan had a fight with the woman and took off, too fast.
Blood tests showed Jordan had also been drinking, a lot.
Jordan was remorseful in court and he apologized. As I reported, his life hasn't been easy, marked by its own tragedies.
This was one of the saddest days I've seen in a courtroom.

Still Crazy After All These Years?

2009-06-09T17:41:00.002-04:00

Longevity at this ol' paper enables me to sometimes reconnect with the fascinating folks I have profiled in decades past.
This happened recently when Joe Barna called me. I had met him 30 years ago when he first called to report he and his Keeshond dog, Zonker, liked to ride the Wildcat roller coaster at Lake Compounce Amusement Park in Bristol.
Naturally I took him up on his offer to go for a ride. We spent a pleasant day out there; I had never before seen a dog ride a coaster. And he loved it, or at least so it seemed by his buoyant expression and body language.
Well, Zonker is gone. I also wrote his obituary, in 1987. He was 14 and the heat just got to him on a summer's day.
Barna has a new Keeshond now named Inu (which means dog in Japanese). This one doesn't ride coasters, but that's OK.
You already know this if you read my column last Sunday. Barna called me to let me know he is writing a book about Zonker. He also surprised me when we got together for our recent interview by telling me he believes he was the first person in the U.S. to see Sputnik, the Russian satellite, in October 1957 in his backyard in Vermont.
Who knows? Maybe it's true. Barna did insist he has made a lifelong habit of never lying just so that now, when he finally has started to talk about this in public, people might believe him.
Anyway, the purpose of this blog is to note that the many people I have profiled through the years should feel free to reconnect with me, especially if they have a follow-up idea. It was a kick to see the Barna of age 60, after first seeing him when he was 30. Guess what, I'm 30 years older too. It happens.
I also wanted to include one of the funny and interesting things Barna told me last week, which I couldn't find room for in the column. He said he has tried to live his life by keeping in mind a book he saw long ago: "Damn Everything but the Circus." He said the point of the book is this: "Damn everything that's dull, gray and lifeless!"
I agree: that's a pretty good way to approach life.

The Return of John Prine

2009-05-12T18:53:00.002-04:00

We've waited a long, lonely time for John Prine to come back to New Haven. The last time I heard him sing in this town was in the late '70s or early '80s -- I pulled my clipping of that great event out of the 'ol peach box of yellowing Register music reviews, but I hadn't written down the date on the thing. Still, it told me this much: I had a nice time talking with the man in his room at the Holiday Inn, a few hours before he hit the stage at Toad's Place. (He got excited about eating at Louis' Lunch when I told him about the place, but it was closed that night.)
He told me about being a mail man back in Chicago as he was trying to break into the singing business. Shortly after he got the nerve to tell the U.S. Postal Service he was retiring from their employ, he landed a recording contract (because somebody realized the guy could write fabulous lyrics as well as sing them beautifully) and in 1971 he released that first album, "John Prine." Still a classic.
Yeah, but when I went to the Holiday Inn that day, the clerk downstairs had never heard of John Prine. And if you'd walked around downtown last Friday night, just before he so moved the crowd at the Shubert Theater, I'm sure plenty of people would have replied, "John who?" if you had asked them about that name.
No, he didn't sell out the place, but that's OK. He got up there with his fellow guitarists, Jason Wilber and Dave "Daddy" Jacques and he shared a wonderful evening with us.
Maybe you know his "Angel From Montgomery," because Bonnie Raitt had a hit with it. Well, he sang that beautiful song for us and at least a dozen more, and he told us stories between them. For instance, he talked about singing in a Chicago club on Thursday nights after he'd gotten done delivering the mail.
My favorite moment was when he sang "Hello in There," the most moving song about old people you ever will hear. Jacques' mourning deep bass was a wonderful accompaniment.
The encore, after a rousing standing ovation, was "Paradise," his ode to Muhlenburg County and the Green River "where paradise lay." And he wants his daddy to take him back there, but no: "I'm sorry, my son...Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away."
Prine reveres the country, the traditions, the struggling people.
If you ever get another chance, go and listen.
Thanks, John Prine. I hope this time you made it to Louis' Lunch.

Save The Globe

2009-05-04T19:02:00.002-04:00

Dear God: Boston without The Globe?
It could happen, and very soon.
For the past 137 years, the Boston Globe has been a key part of the fabric of Beantown. The people of that city and its suburbs and way beyond that, including many in Connecticut, have long relied on its news reporters, columnists, sportswriters, editorial writers, photographers and many others to bring them the full story and plenty of analysis.
But in the 1990s the Globe's owners made a big mistake: they allowed the paper to be sold to the New York Times. And now, with newspapers everywhere reeling in a bad economy (even The Times), the Times' management ordered the Globe's unions to make $20 millions in givebacks and contract concessions -- or the paper will be shut down.
Union leaders say they have managed to find those $20 millions in painful cutbacks but still Times' managers are saying it's not enough.
As a student at Boston University in the early 1970s, I learned to love and appreciate the Globe. When I moved back to Boston for a year in the 1980s, I freelanced there. Once I had the great experience of going into the newsroom. I wonder what's left of it now.
I can only hope that the civic leaders of Boston, who are known for their backing of institutions such as newspapers, will ride to the rescue, coming in like Paul Revere himself.
If not, Boston will be left with -- the Herald. A tabloid. It now has 10 reporters. Count 'em, 10.
Who's going to cover City Hall? Who will tell local fans about the Red Sox, the Celtics, the Bruins?
Say it ain't so, Beantown.

Two Smooth Characters

2009-04-20T21:12:00.002-04:00

When I left Hartford Sunday after covering the UConn Women Huskies victory parade and rally, I was thinking what great "presence" Coach Gino Auriemma and Gov. M. Jodi Rell possess. They know how to turn on a crowd; they're naturals at it.
People usually hate to hear from politicians at sports events. Often the politicos are booed. But the crowd Sunday loved their governor. This is bad news for any Democrat who wants to unseat her.
Rell was down-to-earth and almost folksy as she confessed that watching the Huskies play ball in her home over the past few months was great therapy for the state's budget troubles. (We can all relate.) She talked about having to leave the room when a game got close (I know, it didn't happen often). She would be saying to herself, "Oh, please! Oh, please!" Then, she noted with a smile, she would return to her TV room and find the Huskies up by 10 points.
Rell praised the team for representing the state so well, for being poised and prepared. She noted they showed respect for the game and respect for their opponents.
The final speaker at the rally was Auriemma and he scored a slam dunk. First he just stood at the podium and laughed at a sign in the crowd which said "Geno Is God." Then he said playfully, "Come on, put that sign down!"
He reminded us the Huskies aren't perfect, despite their 39-0 record and winning the national championship. But he said the people at the parade and rally had made the day perfect "for these kids."
"Whether you're 5 or 75," he said, "these players represent something you all can appreciate. They're the kids next door, the kids you saw in the playground."
He also reminded us how hard these players have to work, day after day, to make a championship possible.
And he finished with a beautiful sentiment, that it is so meaningful for these young women "to have this in their memory banks, to be able to (some day) tell their kids that on a sunny afternoon in April in Connecticut, they felt what it really means to be a Connecticut basketball player."
Geez, this guy could run for office too, and he could waltz in -- as long as he didn't try to be governor.

The Juggling Season

2009-04-09T17:54:00.002-04:00

Here now, finally, is our reward for suffering through winter: baseball is back, mixed with the college finales of basketball and hockey. This is the best time of the year for sports fans.
No, I didn't go to Opening Day for the Yanks. I used to do so, back when you could phone a live person and just buy a ticket and you could afford a ticket and I was foolish enough to imagine that I wouldn't need my winter coat. I even froze through a couple of Opening Days at Fenway in the early 1970s, when I was a student at Boston University (more on that in a moment).
Have you noticed the weather since the new season began? Fun times, yes? I got caught in a sudden snow squall this week in Hamden. Thus, it is best to watch baseball on TV this time of the year.
Meanwhile, yes, we had the Huskies. The men gave us hope for a few weeks but were awful last Saturday when they needed to do the job. I was at the Playwright in Hamden with my wife and some of our pals, watching the disaster. In the early going, when the teams were trading baskets, a friend of mine said with his great air of authority that the Huskies would win easily, that Michigan State couldn't possibly keep up. Beware people with airs of authority.
So yes, the women. It's not their fault they were so much better than anybody else. It's not their fault the games were blow-outs. Even though the outcomes were never in doubt, it was good to see them win a national championship. I watched that happen with my teenage daughters, at home.
So what's "wrong" with the Yankees? Everybody was asking me that question after they lost two games. Well, as J. Damon said last night after the second loss, "Tomorrow is another day." Brilliant cliche, but true. And today, which is that "tomorrow," the Bombers woke up and bombed the Birds, 11-2.
Now everybody can relax. I even had a judge come up to me today in the courtroom in New Haven, before the Yanks won their first game of the season, to ask me what was "wrong" with the Yankees. He's a fan of the team, too. I tried to hose him down. It's only the third game of the season!
Oh yes, B.U. My alma mater's hockey team plays tonight in the semi-final for the national championship, vs. Vermont. (B.U. can avenge Vermont beating Yale in the lead-up tournament in Bridgeport).
I saw the Terriers win national titles when I was a student, and I want to re-live that experience. And it's on ESPN. Perfect. So what if nobody in my family cares? I'm there.
Best time of the year for sports fans.

Appreciating Ingalls

2009-03-17T17:25:00.002-04:00

It isn't often that the Yale Hockey Team makes it to the ECAC tournament and it's not often that I make it to their home "field," Ingalls Rink, which is too bad. It's a great place to see hockey: compact, intimate, intense.
I did make it over there last weekend, walking over from my house to see the Bulldogs beat up on Brown: 4-2 Friday night and 2-0 Saturday, to advance to the next round, up in Albany.
"The Yale Whale" (the building is really shaped like one) seats only 3,486 fans, which is a problem of late, given the excellence and popularity of this year's team. Hey, why don't they just move the games across town to the New Haven Coliseum? Oh wait, never mind...
It's true they are doing some extensive renovations of the old place, but I don't see much room for a lot of extra seats. Between periods the other night I was reading the big board outside, listing the improvements upcoming. Here's one I couldn't help but notice: "new vomitory entrance to visiting team bench."
I guess I shouldn't have been taken aback. Hockey is a violent sport. Vomit is part of the game.
But still: a vomitory? And no vomitory for the home team? What kind of business is that?
So I asked Steve Conn, the always helpful Yale Associate Athletics Director, what was up with this vomitory. He did a little research and informed me that this vomitory is not a place for hockey teams to vomit.
He sent me the three definitions of vomitory:
1) something that induces vomiting.
2) an aperture through which matter is discharged.
3) one of the tunnel-like passages of an amphitheater or stadium between the seats and the outside wall or passageway.
Conn said the third definition is what applies for Ingalls. "It's not what you're thinking," he told me. "It just means the visiting team can go from the lockers to their bench."
Oh. You see what you can learn when you go to Ingalls and start nosing around?
Anyway, I had a fun time at the games. The Yale and Brown bands entertained during all of the time stoppages, interspersed with some hits from the overly-loud recorded sound system. I could've done without the latter noise, except I did enjoy the Doors' "Peace Frog," with its immortal line: "blood in the streets in the town of New Haven." Jim Morrison wrote that after he got beat up by the cops at the old New Haven Arena, the town's original hockey joint.
It all adds up. doesn't it?

See Jane Blog

2009-03-09T17:03:00.002-04:00

I have a thing about Jane Fonda. I've enjoyed her movies for many years, even "Barbarella." I agree with most of her political stances, especially opposing the Vietnam War.
However, it's obvious she was foolish to pose next to a damaged American aircraft, smiling, alongside some North Vietnamese about 35 years ago. She admitted this long ago. That was just a little too much.
But as Fonda was preparing for her return to Broadway after being away for decades, to star in "33 Variations," some of those Vietnam veterans who can never forgive her were back at it, picketing the theater. They have every right to do it; I just think it's time to move on.
Anyway, I recently read in the New York Times that Fonda now has a blog. You can see it if you go to janefonda.com.
And so I splashed around in her blog for awhile. Her first posting, from Jan. 5, revealed her former husband, Ted Turner, is a Luddite who hates computers and never uses a cell phone.
She also talked about "Tulea, my little 8-pound soulmate." Tulea is her dog. I know about Tulea, having seen Fonda carry the critter into the room when she made an appearance at the Yale Bookstore a couple of years ago.
Fonda at age 71 --71! -- is still interesting. Sure, she's self-obsessed, but still fun to look at and fun to listen to.
Her blog is a bit much. Here's her lead from Feb. 17: "OMG! I kid you not and I twittered about it earlier, but no kidding, during curtain call Tulea escaped from her dog sitter and came out on stage."
Jane Fonda, you are not 14.
As a blogger myself, I try not to be too self-indulgent. I think Fonda has fallen into that trap. I wish she would go back to the tone of her first blog, which was insightful and interesting.
As for Fonda the woman and Fonda the actress, she will always be interesting, and fun to follow.

I Wish He'd Just Go Away

2009-02-16T14:38:00.002-05:00

I never liked the guy in the first place. For starters, I don't even like his nickname: A-Rod.
I don't like the look of him. Those calculated macho, aggressive facial expressions. The way he trots in that strutting way.
Now comes the steroids revelation. We can't be surprised.
People who know I am a Yankees fan expect me to defend the guy. Right.
His "my bad" interview with ESPN was classic. He said he was "stupid," and he got that right. But then he threw in all sorts of rationalizations: "Back then it was a very different culture. It was very loose. I was young..."
Oh, so "everybody else was doing it." Not true.
He even had the nerve to blame the Sports Illustrated reporter who broke the story, to claim she "stalked" him and tried to break into his house. Now he admits those were lies.
How low can you go? Is this the limbo-rod-rock?
This guy clearly sees himself as some sort of misunderstood victim of everything. Three years ago, amid spring training, he said, "My whole life is about getting crushed."
Poor baby.
We Yankee fans might be a tad more forgiving of him if he had ever done anything in October. But he hasn't. In those big clutch situations, he grips the bat so hard that he forgets how to hit. He chokes.
This A-Rod steroids scandal is just one more obstacle for fans trying to enjoy spring training and look forward to a new season of baseball. We've already got the unnecessary expensive new stadium and its expensive new seats and all the high contracts for new pitchers.
We just want them to play ball. We want to try to forget about all of this other stuff. But how can we?

This Wasn't Woodstock, But It Was Pretty Cool

2009-01-23T18:34:00.002-05:00

After my family and I got back from the inauguration of Barack Obama, with visions of that amazing day still dancing in our heads, I read a column by Gail Collins in the New York Times which called the event "a cold weather Woodstock."
"Hey, now you don't have to worry anymore about missing Woodstock!" my wife told me.
There's no denying Tuesday was a great day. But it wasn't "three days of fun and music."
First of all, it was cold. Really cold. The temperature was no more than 30 degrees and it was windy.
And I was working. I had to get up by 6:30 a.m. at my brother's place in Bethesda, Md. and squeeze my way onto the Metro train, to make sure I was on the Mall in time to make my first deadline, which was before 11 a.m. (We at the New Haven Register were putting out an old-fashioned Tuesday afternoon "Extra!")
I had to interview interesting people I came across, including anybody I spotted from Connecticut ("local angle"). And I did meet some nice folks. But then I had to write out my story long-hand in my notebook -- with cold, cold fingers -- and hope my cell phone worked from the Mall so that I could dictate my write-up to an editor back in New Haven.
Well, hallelujah, it did. It was that kind of day.
After the swearing-in, which more than a million of us watched on big screens, we walked back downtown with the hordes and then used my brother's connection: a friend of his works at a public relations office that's about 200 yards from the parade route. We were invited to a rooftop luncheon and a 5th-floor party.
Warmth! Food! Bathrooms!
It was all great but after about 45 minutes I realized I needed more material for my next story for Wednesday's paper and I wasn't getting much from the P.R. crowd. They were just too well-off. I needed to be in the streets, with "the people."
So I split. I went back out there and interviewed incredibly strong people who had come from Texas and Georgia and elsewhere to take in this moment. They were black and they were proud.
Everybody was happy in Washington on that Tuesday. Everybody was smiling and helping each other out.
In that sense, it was like Woodstock.

You Can't Keep Me Away

2009-01-06T18:09:00.003-05:00

Virtually every day there is another scare story out of Washington, quoting city officials about the hellish conditions people will encounter if they dare to come there for Barack Obama's inauguration.
Trains will be hopelessly jammed. If you make it there, you won't be able to move. You won't be able to bring anything, such as a backpack or a stoller (if you're criminally negligent and want to subject your child to such danger). You won't even be able to find a pot to pee in.
I don't care. I'm going.
My wife is going too, and so are our teenage daughters, 15 and 17. We're ready. We're psyched.
We won't have to pay thousands of dollars per night in rent, as some poor blighters are. My brother and sister-in-law live in Bethesda, Md., within walking distance of a Metro station. Yee-ha!
This much is true: if I were elderly, I would not venture into this madness: more than a million people pressed together on the Mall. If my kids were 10 or younger, I wouldn't bring them there. But they're premier soccer players; they know how to throw their bodies around.
I'm not saying we will be comfortable. I'm not saying we are going to "see Obama" in the flesh. We will be looking at the giant screens, along with just about everybody else.
But we'll be part of history.
And perhaps best of all: we'll be able to wave bye-bye to Bushie! Our worst president ever will look out onto a sea of citizens waving and saying, "See ya! Heckuva job, Bushie!"

Those Bumper Stickers: Behind the Scenes

2008-12-14T17:25:00.002-05:00

Those who follow my column in the Register know that for the better part of a decade I have been writing an annual column about the most opinionated and funniest bumper stickers I (or my readers) spot during that calendar year. It's one of the most popular columns I do.
The main thing people like about it: it's funny. I take no credit for the humor (those who come up with the stickers messages deserve that) but I do work mighty hard throughout the year to spot new stickers.
I'm probably lucky not to have been involved in a car accident doing this. I try not to get carried away; sometimes one of my kids will say, "Daddy, speed up! We've gotta see that sticker!"
Do I speed up? Usually, no -- unless the car is very close by. I'm not going to endanger anybody or risk a speeding ticket to read a bumper sticker, not even if it's a good one, not even for the cause of journalism/amusing the public.
But often I will be driving down a street and will see a sticker but won't be able to read it before I pass the car. What I'll do is back up (if no car is approaching) and read it or park and walk over to see the bumper. It's worth it, sometimes.
What amazes me is that every year I have plenty of new sticker messages to choose from in my annual write-up. People are witty and inventive and very opinionated, especially in the Bush years, especially in presidential election years.
An editor asked me how I'm able to memorize all of these stickers while driving. What I do is keep a reporter's notebook on my front seat or in my glove compartment at all times. When I see "a good one," I write it down, carefully, when I'm able to do so without driving off the road.
What are my boundaries or guidelines for including a sticker in my column? I can't use "cuss words," because I write for a family newspaper. I also avoid ethnic humor because I think it's tacky and probably even cruel and would cause letters and e-mails and phone calls of protest.
That's why when a reader reported seeing a sticker that made fun of Polish people, I didn't include it.
But you know what? My blog readers can probably handle this one, which I didn't use in my column for the "best of 2008" -- so here goes: "The only Bush I trust is my own."
If you see a good sticker, feel free to let me know.

A Thing About the Leather Man

2008-11-28T21:32:00.002-05:00

When my wife walked into Best Video the other day to rent a movie, one of the guys behind the counter asked her, "So, what's your huband's latest obsession?"
"The Leather Man," she quickly answered. "Actually, I think he would like to BE the Leather Man."
Obsessed? Not really. Very, very interested? Oh yes.
It is true I have visited his grave, but it wasn't really out of my way. Through serendipity he happened to be buried a literal stone's throw from my father's condominiun when he lived for a few years in Ossining, N.Y.
If you want to talk obsessed, you should spend some time with Dan W. DeLuca of Meriden. He has devoted the last 20 years of his life to finding out about this genuine eccentric who roamed from Westchester County to many of the towns in Connecticut from 1856 until 1889, when he was found dead in a cave in Mt. Pleasant, N.Y.
As I wrote in my Nov. 23 Register column, DeLuca has a book out about our favorite character. The title is "The Old Leather Man; Historical Accounts of a Connecticut and New York Legend." It's a compilation of newspaper articles about the fellow, with many maps and photos.
I didn't have space in my column to include an anecdote, mentioned in a 1984 Connecticut Humanities Council documentary on the Leather Man. Its title: "The Road Between Heaven and Hell: The Last Circuit of the Leather Man." It's very hard to find this film, but of course DeLuca has it, and he showed it at the Southington Public Library to a standing-room-only crowd of Leather Man enthusiasts. (Are they, too, obsessives?)
Anway, the anecdote, not yet confirmed by DeLuca's research, reports that our man in leather one day wandered into my town, New Haven, and, I am saddened to say, was treated shabbily. According to the documentary, "local toughs swarmed out of a tavern...liquor was forced down his throat." Apparently, the "toughs" thought that would be a swell way to get the Leather Man to finally loosen his tongue and spill the beans about who he was and why he was walking this precise circuit.
Well, it didn't work. It only frightened him and made him steer clear of the Elm City after that.
He didn't deserve such treatment. As DeLuca said, "He was never known to have stolen anything, or hurt or molested anyone."
That's why most people around here liked the Leather Man and treated him well. They fed him every 34 days when he appeared in their villages and at their doors. That's the way he should have been treated.
Man, don't I wish I'd been able to meet that guy! He would've been a difficult interview subject. But just think of all the high school French I could have employed!
All I have is that gravestone (with the name Jules Bourglay, which DeLuca says is the result of a phony story told to the Waterbury Daily American in 1884) and now, that fascinating book.
Who's obsessed?

Studs, Ya Shoulda Stuck Around

2008-11-10T20:59:00.002-05:00

Oh, the injustice of it! Studs Terkel, the ultimate liberal humanist, a Chicagoan, died on Halloween, less than one week before another liberal guy from Chicago, Barack Obama, was elected president.
Terkel was 96. He got the most out of every day, every year.
When my wife and I heard the sad news, we tried to tell our teenage daughters about Terkel. We told them, "He was the real deal."
Radio figure, writer, interviewer, story-teller, he did it all.
But he never drove a car. He got around on buses, chatting up everybody and listening to their conversations.
I feel so fortunate to have spent some time in the same room with him, nine years ago at Long Wharf Theater, where he attended a "symposium" tied to an adaptation of his book "Working." For that book he sat down with workers across the country and let them talk about their jobs.
When he got on stage that Sunday afternoon, he was wearing red socks and a red sweater. He always wore red.
He said he wrote the book to let people know "what it's like to be that waitress, that steelworker, that housewife."
Funny thing, ironic: he hated that famous scene in "Five Easy Pieces" which I always loved, when Jack Nicholson gets mad at a waitress who won't make substitutions in his order, so he sweeps the dishes off the table and stomps out of the diner.
"The kids in the theater cheered, and I was furious," Terkel told us. "I said, 'Do you know who that waitress is? Do you know how many Bufferins she had to take that day?'"
I had never thought of it that way.
He had a million stories. He told a few of them at Long Wharf. Listen: "I don't drive a car, so I wait for the bus with this couple. She's got her Vanity Fair, he's got his Wall Street Journal. I'm trying to make contact, so I say, 'Labor Day's coming up! I remember marching down (Chicago's) State Street, singing 'Solidarity Forever.'"
"The guy says, 'We loathe unions.' I ask him how many hours a day he works and he says, 'Eight.' I tell him, 'Guys got hanged or their heads busted so you could work an eight-hour day!'"
Terkel said this country suffers from "National Alzheimer's Disease." He lamented, "Nobody remembers what happened in the past."
He used a tape recorder for his interviews but he was always railing against machinery, especially computers and automated phone menus, the stuff that keeps people from talking to each other face-to-face.
And he told us the way to conquer apathy is through "a thoughtful citizenry."
That's just what was in action on Election Day. He didn't get to see it happen. I just hope he voted by absentee ballot.

Long Ago in Philadelphia

2008-10-30T16:19:00.003-04:00

My luck was so great on that fabled night 28 years ago, the last time the Philadelphia Phillies won a World Series. But my luck and timing was so rotten this time, when the Phillies managed to win their second world championship, last night.
For the first event, I managed to get into Veterans Stadiuim and witness history. For the second, I was sitting in a high school bleachers seat, watching a soccer game that began, and thus ended, much later than I had anticipated.
Yes, my lifestyle has changed somewhat in the past 28 years. I love my kids and their soccer games. I wouldn't miss it for anything. But couldn't I have been in two places at once, somehow?
This was an odd one for many of us, this World Series. You had two teams -- the Philadelphia Phillies, the Tampa Bay Rays -- who were traditional underdogs, and so you had no bad guys. There was nobody to root against.
But I chose the Phillies, because I like ballparks that don't have roofs (Tropicana "Field" in Florida is a ridiculous structure) and I prefer the old town teams to the Sunbelters.
I'm a night owl, but even I was unable to hang in for Saturday night's game, which the Phillies won at about 1:45 a.m. Sunday. Then, after a boring 10-2 Phillies win Sunday night, the rains came. Game five got as far as the 6th inning Monday night (a 2-2 tie) before the storm forced it to be suspended. They couldn't play Tuesday night, as the monsoon continued.
That brought us to Wednesday night, when my two daughters had an important soccer game, playing for the Southern Connecticut Conference high school championship. Their team, Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, had never made it that far.
I figured I could see their game, which was to start at 7:30 p.m. at Shelton High School, then get back home in time for the climax of the World Series. But the boys' championship went into double overtime -- nobody could score -- then a penalty kicks shoot-out. (For those keeping score at home, Amity 1, Guilford 0). This pushed back the start of our game to 8:15 p.m.
Making the night even more unpleasant was the outcome of the Cross game vs. Daniel Hand High School of Madison. They beat us, 2-0.
While consoling my daughters afterward, I was also thinking about that Series game. Could I possibly make it back in time? It was 10:00; they had started playing in Philadelphia at about 8:30. It was a long shot.
When I ran into my house, the game wasn't on and I knew it was over. I had to go to my computer and check on-line to get the news that the Phillies were world champs. What a way to find out...
I cast my mind back to 1980, when I was a young reporter (I was 30) for the New Haven Register, unmarried and always up for an adventure. Realizing the Phillies could win their first world championship in their long history that night, I spontaneously decided to hop an Amtrak train out of New Haven and take it to Philly. Maybe I could buy a scalper's ticket, I fantasized.
I wish I remember more about that crazy day. I don't keep diaries but I do keep calendars with details of every day. And because, as Casey Stengel said, "You could look it up," I did look up my calendar from 1980, the night of Oct. 21, and I read: "Philly! A $40 scalper. Phillies 4, K.C. 1! World Champs! STREET PARTY!"
The entry for the following day: "I love a parade!"
I do remember staying over that night with my buddy, Dick Wood, then a student at Wharton Business School in that old city. I do remember great exuberance and celebration in the streets. I do remember sitting in the bleachers and seeing Tug McGraw toss his glove into the air and start jumping around as he recorded the final out.
But the scalper? I have no memory of him.
Life was simpler then, eh? Imagine trying to buy a World Series face value ticket today for 40 bucks, let alone a scalper's ticket. Imagine just walking up to somebody outside a ballpark on the night the hometown team is on the verge of winning a world championship that has never happened before, and obtaining a seat for 40 smackers.
No matter what else happens to me, I'll always have Philadelphia and that unbelieavable night.

What Lula White Did

2008-10-15T15:18:00.002-04:00

It was good to see Lula White again, on a recent morning at the New Haven Free Public Library.
I first met her at her home in Hamden in 2004 after somebody alerted me that a "Freedom Rider" was living in our area.
Picture this: at age 22 she got on a bus with a small group of other brave, idealistic and determined people and rode into the deep South to protest segregation laws.
She didn't tell her father she was going because she knew that "like most parents, he would not want me to risk my life. Later he told me, 'You should let boys do things like that.' I asked him, 'What if there aren't enough boys to do it?'"
White rode down into Mississippi in the summer of 1961, when "Freedom Riders" were being beaten by angry white mobs for speaking up on behalf of oppressed black people. Before they even got to Jackson, Miss., White's group had their bus surrounded by a large crowd of white men, who shouted at them and rocked the vehicle.
"We didn't know what would happen if the bus got turned over," she told me. Imagine that. Imagine being on that bus.
But the mob did not succeed in toppling the bus and the group continued to Jackson, where another mob awaited them. White and the eight others walked off that bus and walked past that mob and strode into the bus station, into a room that said "white only." (Despite her name, White is black.) And the police took them away and to jail, for "breach of peace."
She was behind bars for two months, having food slid into her cell. She was allowed out of that cell only to take a shower, which was carefully timed. Imagine that.
White was at our library on a recent Monday to promote a new book called "Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders." It was written by Eric Etheridge, who had never heard of Lula White until after he finished the book.
But Etheridge will be in New Haven Oct. 29 for a luncheon fund-raiser to benefit the library. That night, at 6 p.m., he and White will be among the panelists at the library for a "civic engagement conversation" which is free and open to the public.
The idea is to encourage other people, including youths, to take a stand the way Lula White did in 1961. Find a cause and make a difference.
During her remarks at the library Oct. 6, White said that recounting her "Freedom Rider" days "reminds me of a time when I was more hopeful. I thought things would change drastically and quickly. But that's not the way things work."
She does not mean to discourage anybody, however. She wants people to get out there and do something.

Herb's Story

2008-09-29T22:35:00.002-04:00

What if you go to a memorial service and there are so many great stories told about a person that you can't find room for them all? Sometimes you've got to go to a take two.
In my Sunday column (Sept. 28) I was able to include many of the moving tributes to Herbert Cahoon Jr., the long-time mentor of students at Dwight Hall at Yale, who died Aug. 18 at 91.
But there was one anecdote, related by the Rev. Samuel Slie, which had to wait for this space.
Slie recalled the day a homeless person wrapped himself around a gate at Yale, near downtown, and refused to (or was unable to) budge. A group of Yale students were responsible enough to stop and ask if he needed help.
"Find Sam Slie," he told them.
The students located Cahoon at Dwight Hall and told them what was going on. Cahoon immediately called Slie.
But Slie told Cahoon, "I don't want to bother with that guy. I've given up on him. He's a lost cause."
Well, Cahoon told Slie that was unacceptable. "He's asked for you," Cahoon said. "You're the only person who can help him. You should go to help him."
Slie realized Cahoon was right. And he did go to that man, and he was able to help him.
"Eventually, there were some improvements in that man's life," Slie told the many friends of Herb Cahoon who had gathered in the chapel at Dwight Hall on the rainy afternoon of Sept. 26.
"Herb worked with soldiers, prisoners, the homeless, the hungry -- forgotten people," Slie noted. Herb knew how they needed him and that the rest of us needed to have our eyes opened."
For Herb Cahoon, there was no such thing as a "lost cause."

My Old (Brave) Pal

2008-09-23T15:44:00.002-04:00

Anybody who pays attention to the pages of the New Haven Register is aware that my colleague and long-time pal, Ann DeMatteo, is amidst a gallant struggle with breast cancer.
I'll never forget the night at our office several months ago when Ann calmly told me about her diagnosis. I had no idea she was dealing with this. I tried to comfort her but Ann is a no-nonsense what-me-worry? type who didn't seem to need consoling. Her attitude was: I'm gonna beat this.
And she has maintained this spirit ever since then, even while undergoing chemotherapy and losing her hair. She laughs about her appearance. She keeps working. She seems undaunted.
Last week my wife and I took Ann and her boyfriend, Bob, out to dinner. We had been meaning to do this for years, but you know how that goes; it's the hurly-burly of modern life. Ann's cancer motivated us to seize the time and make it happen.
And the four of us had a great time. Sure, we talked a lot about the old days, when my wife, Ann and I worked together at the Register in the late 1970s and early '80s. We were wild and nutty and hit the bars and parties many nights after work (quite unlike today).
But beyond reminiscing, we talked about how she's coping and the treatments she faces down the road.
We were very impressed by her strength and courage. Not only has she not let this affect her work, but she told us, "I think I'm really on my game."
If you want some inspiration, take a look at this kid.
Go get 'em, Anno!

Connecticut Folk Festival: ya shuolda been there

2008-09-17T18:23:00.002-04:00

It's been with us for 16 years now, this folk festival. My T-shirt collection tells the tale of its shifting names: the Eli Whitney Folk Festival, the New Haven Folk Festival and now the Connecticut Folk Festival.
Call it what you want, it's a hoot.
I'm still thinking about last weekend's fest (Sept. 12-14) and looking forward to next year.
The best thing about it: they do it at Edgerton Park, the fabulous green space on the New Haven-Hamden line, off Whitney Avenue. Other events of the festival now are held at Southern Connecticut State University and the First Presbyterian Church, but I just want to go to the park, which is in my neighborhood.
The organizers always set up two stages: a small one beyond the top of the hill, past the big fountain; and a big one in the "bowl" of the park, near where kids go sledding in another season.
The small stage is for the Saturday afternoon free show; the big one is for Saturday night, with bigger name acts, paid admission.
The main performers during the afternoon: the Ronny Cox Band. You might remember Cox as the guitarist in the movie "Deliverance" (1972) who did an amazing duet with a banjoist kid, the song "Dueling Banjos." It was all downhill and down river for Cox' character and his pals after that, but let's not go there...
At Edgerton, Cox told a lot of funny stories between songs and kept apologizing because his luggage had been lost and he was using a guitar he'd never seen before. That meant it had to be tuned before every song. It was still a fine, relaxing, intimate show, played for about 45 people on a warm afternoon.
Oh, there were clouds and that worried me. I didn't want the evening show moved indoors. But an organizer told me they had already committed to staying outside. Yee-hah!
I came back that night for the headliner, Steve Earle. Folk purists will be horrified to hear that I missed seeing everybody ahead of him: Ruthie Foster, Harry Manx, Allison Moorer, the Holmes Brothers and the Professors of Bluegrass (Yale guys). But I had other stuff I was doing and Earle was the guy I wanted to catch. He's got political passion.
When I arrived at about 9 p.m., I was dismayed that still there were no booths with political buttons and bumperstickers. Do you think maybe they could have sold a few Obama items to this crowd? The only such booth-holder was New Haven's Stephen Kobasa, who was surrounded by stickers and buttons protesting the death penalty. He said Earle had made sure he got in and got set up.
Earle began his set with "Come Back, Woody Guthrie," which set the spirit. He tossed in a few songs about drinking and women and carousing but he mixed these with fare such as "The Revolution Starts Now" and made comments such as "Whenever I come to this town, I wonder: how the hell did George W. Bush ever get into Yale and graduate? He's the original no child left behind!"
When it was time for his encore, the crowd called out for his radio hit, "Copperhead Road," but he wanted to concentrate on singing about redemption. He's a recovered drug addict and he told us it was a "miracle" he was there on stage. He said he doesn't believe in "hopeless situations."
After he finished, he charged off that stage and strode in a big hurry to his tour bus, nodding as people along the way thanked him for his show. He seemed to have given his all and needed to retreat into solitude.
That's another great thing about this folk festival: you get these intimate glimpses.
As the organizers said, the "weather gods" let it all happen.

A Late-Summer Night in the Park

2008-08-27T16:30:00.002-04:00

I could've stayed home Tuesday night and watched the early-evening speeches (pre-Hillary) at the Democratic Party Convention. I could've watched the Yankees play the Red Sox, a masochistic exercise this season for any Yankee fan. (Yep, they lost again.)
But instead I joined my wife at Edgerton Park for outdoor theater: The Elm Shakespeare Company's presentation of "The Matchmaker." It was written more than 50 years ago by Thornton Wilder, who lived in Hamden and was a regular in downtown New Haven at the Anchor bar-restaurant.
We love Edgerton. It's a 10-minute walk from our house and we regularly exercise our energetic Springer spaniel, Olive, in its spacious expanse. The park is a perfect setting for live theater.
You bring a blanket or a lawn chair, wine or whatever, munchies or sandwiches. At the end of the evening, you make a donation to keep the thing going. And this must be kept going, so don't be cheap about it.
My wife and I were on our blanket and our teenage daughters were somewhere else in the crowd, because they wanted to be with their friends, and be cool. But they weren't too cool to go see "The Matchmaker," which is a good thing.
I hadn't expected to like it very much. I'm not big on romantic farce. Indeed, in the early going I told my bride, "This is very broad," and I didn't mean it in a good way.
But it quickly grew on me. The performers, directed by James Andreassi, were so good, especially Lisa Bostnar as Dolly (this play at one point was the popular "Hello Dolly!"), Michael Peter Smith as the stiff tightwad Horace Vandergelder and Raphael Massie as Cornelius Hack. And the writing was fine, because, look, it's Thornton Wilder.
As you watch this play, you can hear the night creatures buzzing and chirping around you, and the occasional Amtrak train off in the distance. Sit back, relax, take it all in...
Even our kids liked this show! We got them away from their computers and TV sets for a few hours and exposed them to live theater.
We still had time to get back to hear Hillary, and it was good for my mental health not to be watching or listening to the Yanks-Sox game.
You oughta go out to the park. You've got the rest of this week, through Sunday (Aug. 31), for these 7:30 shows. "Matchmaker" will be performed again Thursday and Saturday. "Hamlet" will be put on by this same group of players, tonight (Wednesday) as well as Friday and Sunday. We plan to head back there to get our shot of Shakespeare.

Wiffling for a Cause

2008-05-28T19:26:00.002-04:00

When I think about the Broatch family, I imagine a lit candle in their backyard in Milford and a kid playing Wiffle ball.
The kid was their son, Britton John Broatch, who seemed to be in great health until one day, at age 25, he suddenly collapsed from a brain aneurysm.
His parents and siblings were so devastated that all they could think to do was take his ashes to his favorite place on earth, Fenway Park, and scatter them there.
I wrote about this in my column May 18. I described how the Red Sox management authorized the Broatches to have their ceremony at home plate, how the grounds crew stopped and placed their hats over their hearts.
This was in 2003. If you are a baseball fan, or a student of history, you will know that the following year the Red Sox won their first World Series since 1918. You might even make a connection between that historic feat and Britton John Broatch's ashes.
Since the Broatches did their ceremony, as more and more people have wanted to scatter their relatives' ashes at Fenway, the Sox owners have stopped honoring such requests. You have to do it in a secretive way, perhaps leaning over a railing while no authority figures are looking.
The Broatches think this is too bad. "It should be decided on a case-by-case basis," Jim Broatch told me. "The Cubs do it that way."
Broatch think the Yankees' owners should also let it be done, "especially this year." He alluded to this being the final year of the original Yankee Stadium. (As a fan of that ballclub, I can think of few better places for my remains.)
Britton's mom, Cydney Broatch, said those ashes at Fenway are "a representation of Britton being there forever."
When they look around that backyard, which has the bench donated by friends inscribed with their son's name and the adjacent light fixture with the candle they light every night in Britton's memory, they also see him there as a kid, playing Wiffle ball for hour upon hour in the fading light.
In his memory they stage the annual Britton John Broatch Wiffle Tournament. To find out more, go to http://thebjbtournament.com.
It's a charity event, to raise scholarship money in Britton's name. This year it'll be held at Foran High School in Milford, on July 12. You oughta go. You oughta sign up.
Knowing this family, it'll be fun. And as Cydney Broatch said when asked to describe her boy, she simply said, "He was fun. Just fun."

Coming Closer to Home

2008-05-01T18:34:00.002-04:00

The house is three blocks away from mine.
While my family and I were in bed, peacefully amidst our dreams late Tuesday night, three blocks away a 55-year-old woman was being tied up and struck repeatedly in the head with a baseball bat.
The three intruders also broke both of her hands.
This latest home invasion, in the East Rock neighborhood of New Haven, comes even before we brace for the first anniversary of the horrendous triple murder in Cheshire.
This could be an awful summer. The economy is going down the tubes, kids can't get jobs or find anything meaningful to do with themselves, so they hang out, get bored, get bad ideas.
But what kind of a sick mind finds sport in wielding a baseball bat against a 55-year-old woman?
Everybody's talking about it in our neighborhood, of course, and a meeting is being planned next Monday to air all of the concerns. There is talk of a neighborhood security patrol, perhaps to be funded by residents. Would I contribute? You bet.
Now my wife and I are talking to our kids again about the need to be careful, to lock those doors, especially the back one. You don't want to scare them, but you have to warn them.
We're glad we have a dog.
Meanwhile, a 17-year-old kid was arrested and he was in court today. I wasn't there for that event, but soon I will be in a courtroom observing him, as that's my job, especially when defendants get transferred to the "Part A" docket in the Superior Court building at Church and Wall streets.
I'll probably be tracking that kid and two co-defendants through the legal process in the months and years to come. One day many months from now, if they plead guilty or are convicted, I'll probably see that strong-seeming 55-year-old woman walk into one of those courtrooms and tell her story.
And I, along with everybody else with any sense and humanity, will wonder again what would possess somebody to do such a thing.
And we lock our doors.

To Blog or not to Blog

2008-01-07T17:48:00.000-05:00

I've never been one for New Year's resolutions. They seem kind of desperate, forced and artificial. So I will not make any resolutions for 2008.
For instance, I will not resolve to write on my blog more often. I have my reasons.
Here's one: family values. Reporters and columnists (I am both) are kept mighty busy in the 21st century, as cutbacks require those of us who remain to work ever harder. That means I need to really budget my time in order to get out of here on time for a dinner with my wife and kids, which I think is an endangered American institution. If I take extra time to do a blog entry, that cuts into family time.
Here's another reason: standards. When I put something out there in writing, be it a news story, a column or a blog posting, I want it to be done well and to have some meaning. I don't want to do a "toss-off." And so I won't write a blog entry unless I have something substantial to say that I can't find room for in my twice-weekly column.
All of you out there know that we are more squeezed for time all the time. Five years ago I didn't have dozens of e-mail messages to wade through on my work computer and at night on my home computer. But now I do, and it squeezes me, as it does you. I make it a point to respond to every personal e-mail message I receive, unless it's hate mail or clearly something from a total jerk. (Yeah, I get a few of those.) But responding to all of those e-mails means I have still less time to write for this blog.
This is a somewhat long explanation for any of you who may be wondering why I don't "blog" more often. I will do so when the time is there, when the opportunity arises, when there is something I really want to say, and it doesn't "fit" in my columns.
If you want to make resolutions, go for it. I'm not judging anybody. It's just not my style.
P.S. My elder daughter just called. She is sick and needs me to pick up some ginger ale and ice cream. See what I mean? I'm out of here...

Norman Mailer went down fighting

2007-11-14T15:01:00.000-05:00

The world is now a quieter, less interesting and less entertaining place. Norman Mailer has left the building.
When I learned last weekend that the larger-than-life novelist had died, at age 84, I thought back to the last time I saw him. It was at a Yale lecture hall in September of 2004, two months before George W. Bush completed his "Swift Boating" of Sen. John Kerry and somehow won re-election.
Mailer had to get around with the aid of a cane (his knees were shot) and he had trouble hearing the questions posed to him by Yale students. But he was as feisty and politically outspoken as in the tumultuous decades of the past, when he was alongside much younger students storming the Pentagon during the height of the Vietnam War protests.
God knows Mailer was not a modest man. But that day at Yale, he told a self-effacing story about his student days at Harvard. He recalled being humiliated during a writing class when other students laughed at his prose. (Maybe he was ahead of his time.)
It was good to see that in 2004, Yale students knew all about Mailer and had read his books. Many of them were carrying copies of "The Naked and the Dead," "The Armies of the Night" (that Pentagon saga) and "The Executioner's Song."
The turn-out was impressive: about 300 Yalies, spilling out into the aisles.
One of the first questions from the students was: "What do you think about the election?"
Mailer sighed, then called it "mysterious" and "hard to fathom."
He noted that Bush (Yale Class of '68) "makes more mistakes and engages in more disasters."
But then he noted in bewildermment, "And yet it looks at this moment as if he's going to win. What is going on?"
With great foresight, Mailer predicted: "We will stay in Iraq, no matter how bad it gets. We have to get all of the oil out of the Middle East. That's their (the Bushies') real thinking."
Mailer also posed a series of questions: "How much is our wealth worth to us? Do we have to continue to be a rich nation if it's going to involve doing this to other countries? Why don't we vote on THAT?"
Not many people talk that way these days. They're afraid of being called "unpatriotic" But Mailer was never afraid of anything.

On to Spring Training

2007-10-29T17:49:00.000-04:00

I made a public vow to watch the American League Championship Series games and the World Series games, even though the Yankees were not on the field, because I am a baseball fan. I also made it clear that I could not in good conscience root for that team from Boston.
Yes, I watched all of those games, which seemed to average about four hours or more, and started at about 8:30 p.m. (Why are they scheduled to start at precisely 8:29, anyway?)
I could also rant for a while about the late starting times preventing kids from seeing these games, but I've already done so, as have many other columnists. It does no good. It will never change. It's about the money.
Putting in all those hours watching those long and tedious at-bats gave me a chance to catch up on my newspaper reading and clean out my office files. It was a very productive period for me.
Last night (and into this morning) my 13-year-old daughter, Charlotte, defied the schedule makers and stayed up with me until the bitter end. Maybe this makes me an irresponsible father; I know it was a school night. Look, the kid is a passionate baseball fan; she got that from somebody (certainly not from her mother, who has been catching up on her sleep lately).
So there we were, my daughter and I, pulling for the Rockies, until something like 12:07 a.m. Charlotte baked cookies. We sat there and ate them, while waiting for the Rockies to wake up and win at least one game.
I also drank some red wine (Charlotte did not), to dull the pain of what was happening.
Today we have more bad news: Joe Girardi, not Donnie "Baseball" Mattingly, will be the Yankees manager, according to good sources. That means Mattingly will leave the Yankees organization. I thought he deserved a shot at managing.
And late last night, amid the depression of that last game, we were told A-Rod wants to "opt out" of his contract, which means the Yankees won't negotiate with him, which means he's gone too. The guy hasn't been a hero in post-season, granted, but who's going to hit all of those regular season RBIs next year to get the team to October?
I'm trying mighty hard to visualize spring, and sunshine in Florida. Meanwhile, Boston fans are calling me to gloat; that's true class. "How 'bout those Red Sox?" chimes Dan from Hamden. There have been others, but I won't bother to mention them.
I also took note of a Connecticut Public Radio report this morning from some Boston-backing correspondent, who did his research in a loud bar in or near Amherst, Mass. last night. You could hear the Boston fans shouting "Yankees (blip)!" Even while winning the World Series, they take time to shout obscenities about the Yankees? When we Yankee fans were winning world championships, it never occurred to us to shout, "Red Sox (blip)!"
I guess we're different.

OH, NO! Back to school!

2007-08-30T20:56:00.000-04:00

School bells ring, and children sing...
That's how those insipid ads began, many moons ago, for the Robert Hall's clothing stores in suburban New York. (They're out of business now, a merciful development.)
I hated those ads. They reminded me that summertime would not last forever. They reminded me of teachers' faces and textbooks and long rows of desks and long days in classrooms.
And those infernal ads always began in JULY. They didn't even have the decency to wait until mid-August.
Who does "back-to-school shopping" in July?
Girls do. My own girls love it. They love the shopping and they love the start of the school year.
I know that's a good thing. I could sense my younger daughter's excitement today when I went with her to her orientation at her New Haven school, where she is about to begin 8th grade. My other daughter is equally excited as she contemplates entering 10th grade.
I think it's a "girl thing" vs. a "boy thing."
Yes, I think it's different for boys. For one thing, boys don't like to shop very much, and certainly not for school supplies or school clothing.
And maybe boys are more attuned to the free-swinging lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, and so are more resistant to those days ending.
I don't have any boys, so I can't do an in-depth comparison study. I can only remember my boyhood, and how my brothers and I felt about it, as well as our male buddies.
We hated these days.
Yes, we even tore down some of those "School's Open" posters that were put up all over our town, a warning to drivers and a taunting reminder for school kids. It was our little way of rebelling against the clock ticking down our summer freedom.
I know it wasn't mature to do that. But maybe we weren't very mature kids. I'll admit it.
My kids are lucky (in my opinion) that, unlike students in many other school systems, they don't have to start school until after Labor Day. I think that's a very civilized way to do things, even if it means staying in classes until late June.
No kid should have to sit in school before Labor Day.
Yeah, but I can hear those school bells ringing and those kids singing, and I can't get that damn jingle-jangle out of my head. 'Tis the season.

A Toast on Memorial Day 2007

2007-05-29T16:05:00.000-04:00

When it came time for a Memorial Day toast yesterday at our neighborhood gathering, I noted that 980 American soldiers had died since the last Memorial Day, and God only knows how many Iraqis.
So I proposed a toast to peace and hope: that on Memorial Day 2008, we would not be mourning another casualty list of that magnitude.
But I am not feeling very hopeful, and I don't know anybody who is. The Democrats in Congress have failed to stop the war; they recently gave up against Bush's vetoes and voted to keep funding this mess.
Bush won't listen to anybody, won't listen to reason.
I stayed away from his visit to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduation last week. I knew the protests were very worthwhile, but that the demonstrators would be kept far away. I knew he would keep on trying to scare everybody with talk of 9-11 (even though everybody now realizes Iraq had nothing to do with it) and keeping the terrorists away from "our shores." The War in Iraq keeps harvesting new terrorists, but that wasn't part of his speech.
I was busy that morning interviewing Daniel Smith in New Haven. He's getting ready to go back to Iraq for the sixth time, to photograph the casualties of the war. He focuses on Iraqi children.
And last week I heard a radio interview with a father, a professor at Boston University, whose son had been killed in this endless war. The grief-stricken father asked what has happened to us and our democracy. Last November's congressional elections and all recent polls have made it clear the majority of Americans now oppose this war and want us to get moving on getting our troops out of there. Bush just keeps sending more. And our monthly soldiers' death toll for May is the worst in a long time.
How many more? What for?
I don't want to have to ask those questions again next Memorial Day.

Kurt Vonnegut has come unstuck in time

2007-04-12T16:42:00.000-04:00

I awaken to the news that Kurt Vonnegut is dead.
I groan. And I utter, "Oh, no."
We need him now. It seems we will always need him.
But Vonnegut, 84, took a bad fall in his New York City apartment a couple of weeks ago and on Wednesday he let go, and came "unstuck in time," joining his character Billy Pilgrim of "Slaughterhouse-Five."
Floating around in time, I remember first picking up "Slaughterhouse-Five" as a college student and having my budding anti-war viewpoint shaped, molded, reinforced.
Back then, it was Vietnam.
Now it's Iraq.
But Vonnegut was funny! Yes, he was sad and saddled with melancholy, but man, he was savagely humorous, even while writing his memoir of being a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany during World War II when our armed forces carpet-bombed the city. Vonnegut and the other POWs were ordered out of the bunker to stack up the bodies. So it goes.
We need his sense of humor, now more than ever. I know, I'm paraphrasing a Richard Nixon campaign slogan, but that's OK. Vonnegut would understand, he would laugh.
I met my favorite writer, finally, on a May afternoon in 2003, on the porch of my second favorite writer, Mark Twain, in Hartford, Conn. At that point you could have just ended my life on the spot and I would've died quite fulfilled.
The war was on. It was two months old. Naturally I asked him about it and he shook his head sadly. He said it was "undertaken so casually."
"We hate war," he said, meaning his generation, which had seen World War II up close.
Ever since this new war began, he spoke out against it. He wrote about it, he gave lectures about it.
He said about "shock and awe" that it "can be compressed into one word: murder."
In his last book, "A Man Without a Country," he wrote that we had surrendered to "a pitiless war machine."
And he asked: "What can be said to our young people now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations, and made it all their own?"
The second time I met Vonnegut, in February 2006, with the war still on, I asked him what young Americans could do to oppose the actions of their government.
"We have to get (elected) people who represent the working-class stiffs," he replied.
And so in November 2006 there was an electoral revolt of sorts, and Democrats re-took control of Congress, but still the war goes on and on.
Later that night in Hartford, he told his audience he didn't believe in Heaven, but he then said this: "I want them to put on my tombstone: 'The only proof you need of the existence of God is music.'"
Play on.

Listen: A Soldier's Voice

2007-03-12T21:26:00.000-04:00

When I walked into Iraq veteran Eric Trinidad's West Haven apartment, I knew the best way to tell his story in my New Haven Register column (see the March 11 Sunday Register), was to just let him talk about what it's really like "over there" (Iraq). Because the rest of us don't have a clue.
And he opened up, to his credit, knowing this is something we need to hear. I'm repeating some of his earlier quotes I used, or adding some of his words, since there wasn't enough space in my column to include it all.
When he told me he thinks we've been in Iraq too long and it's time to start withdrawing our troops, he quickly said, "Most of the people who think I'm wrong have never been there. People say, 'What about honor?' What is honor when your best friend, 18 years old, loses his life?"
And why does he have those horrible flashbacks and nightmares? Listen: "Stuff you did over there you'll think about always. But you had to do it; it's split-second decisions. War changes a man. It does."
When I asked why he thinks it's time to start withdrawing, he replied, "You go to the VA now, all you see is kids. I see more and more kids. A lot of people forget about the war. But people are still over there, dying every day.
"I know Marines have been doing four or five tours of duty. I don't think that's fair. It gets to the point where enough is enough."
Then I asked him what he would say to President Bush if he could talk with him face to face. "I think I would start crying. I would say, just, 'Why? Why did my friends die? What's the purpose? Why is it taking so long to find Osama? We're the most effective nation in the world, we're the best. It's so embarrassing that we can't find one guy.'"
But then he said, "I'm just a number for him (Bush). I think sometimes they forget about us. I can't wait for this war to be over. It's just not making any sense. At the beginning, it did. We got Saddam out. But now, too many people are dying. Is it worth it? Is it worth raising the number of troops?"
The most searing, memorable thing he said was this: "A lot of wounds are not visible. People say that you have no scars on you. There are a lot of scars in my heart. There are a lot of scars in my soul."

Everybody's got a Coliseum story

2007-01-15T17:38:00.000-05:00

While we tick down the final days of what's left of the New Haven Coliseum, everyone in the Greater New Haven area, and well beyond, seems to have a story to tell about the old place. My column yesterday on my top 10 shows and the news article today about promoter Jimmy Koplik's favorite performances elicited many phone calls and e-mail messages.
Sandy Popp of Northford, a devoted fan of singer Barry Manilow, was shocked! shocked! that I didn't include him in my top 10. I do have a whimsical memory of Barry M. doing his "Copacabana" schtick and covering his arrival at Tweed-New Haven Airport, but I simply could not in good conscience include him in the top 10. Who was I going to take out? Springsteen? The Who? Dylan?
Popp recalled camping out to get a ticket -- or at least going early in the morning. This reminded me of other mornings when I would go down to the Coliseum and see hundreds of determined bedraggled rock 'n' rollers with their sleeping bags on the sidewalk for the rock band of their choice. This was before people bought all their tickets via computer. There was something honest and fair about the camp-out system: you put in your time, you got your ticket.
Another anecdote was called in by Michael Smith of East Haven, who participated in two baseball card dealer shows at the Coliseum, in 1987 and 1988 -- if his memory serves him well. In 1988 he got Micky Mantle's autograph after standing in line to meet the great Yankee. Smith said the Coliseum was packed with collectors and dealers.
And John Licciardi, a former composing room worker at the New Haven Register told me that when Sinatra came to town in the late '70s, Licciardi was offered two free tickets -- albeit it in the upper level of the Coliseum. His wife and daughter didn't want to go, so he took his son Andrew, who was about 8. After they got to their helicopter seats, the kid said he didn't want to stay there -- and they got a break when a police officer let them go to the second or third row from the stage, an area Sinatra reserved for firemen and cops. Nobody else was using those particular seats, so Licciardi & son had a fine old time. Today his son is a huge Sinatra fan.
People will be holding onto their own sweet memories as the demolition topples the old joint this coming Saturday morning.

Quotation Man

2006-10-05T18:07:00.000-04:00

Fred Shapiro didn't blink when I asked him if he has an obesessive personality.
It was a fair question. The man had spent six years, often working late at night or early in the morning, putting together a monster volume of the greatest quotations of all time. The result is the newly-released "The Yale Book of Quotations."
"You need to be obsessed to do any very ambitious project," he said. "You have to be driven."
As I noted in one of my recent New Haven Register columns, Shapiro has a day job. He is associate librarian and lecturer in legal research at the Yale Law School. And so he had to work on the book after he got home from work, or before he went in.
He loved it. He told me he "misses" tracking down quotations. But he might get another chance, if Yale University Press decides to do a second edition.
Shapiro likes a quotation with some critical thought to it. One of his favorites is by Anatole France, which Shapiro recited: "The majestic equality of the law, which forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
Shapiro has also included many modern quotes from rock stars, movie stars and ever-quotable writers such as Mark Twain.
You'll find plenty of movie lines, including this one from "The Wizard of Oz" often quoted at my house: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"
What is your favorite quotation? Send it to me here, and I will relay it to Shapiro. Who knows, you might see it in a second edition.

Uma. Give the Kid a Break!

2006-09-19T20:37:00.000-04:00

Sean Moore, 14, devoted a lot of time in his effort to catch at glimpse of actress Uma Thurman when she came to downtown New Haven Monday (Sept. 18) to shoot scenes for the movie "In Bloom."
First he rode his bike downtown from the Fair Haven neighborhood (a distance of several miles), arriving on the New Haven Green by about 7 a.m. His companion was Joe Fargeorge, a self-employed carpenter who is Sean's friend from the neighborhood.
In case you think Sean was skipping out on school to see Thurman, you should know that the city's schools were not in session because of teacher training. Sean spent his day off getting an education into how films are made -- and how aloof movie stars can be.
After spending about four hours sitting on a sidewalk perch, watching technicians set up lighting and scenery (even planting fake ivy), Sean did get to see Thurman do her scene. But it consisted merely of briefly arguing with the kid who plays her daughter (portrayed by Gabrielle Brennan) as they came out of an alley onto Chapel Street.
Then, during a break, Thurman walked down Chapel Street to her trailer. Fargeorge saw an opportunity for his buddy; he said now was the time for Sean to get her autograph. Sean asked me for a piece of paper and a pen, and he started to psych himself up to approach the star. But she walked by too quickly for him and vanished into her trailer.
When she emerged back onto the street, Fargeorge told Sean, "Go! What are you afraid of? She's just another person, like your mother." Sean got up and made his move, but as he got close to her, one of the three guys escorting her (he was dressed in sunglasses, a safari hat and camouflage pants) waved Sean off.
Of course Uma Thurman is not "just another person," and probably doesn't particularly resemble Sean's mom. But I'm convinced she saw Sean approaching; would it have killed her to tell her henchmen to step aside and take five seconds to give the kid a break? Or is she one of those hotshots who only sells an autograph?
In spite of this setback, I hope Sean had a great day downtown, realizing again how cool this cultural city can be.

9-11: The challenges of being a reporter and a father

2006-09-11T15:38:00.000-04:00

"Everything has changed."
That's the quote I will always remember from that horrible day. That's what one of the Yale University professors said to me that morning as I raced to get comment for the New Haven Register's special afternoon "Extra" on 9-11.
While I feverishly worked on this extra-special deadline, I kept thinking about my kids in school (Natalie was 9, Charlotte was 7) and about my wife, Jennifer Kaylin, who was then a TV producer for WTNH Channel 8.
She was in New York City, or at least trying to get there. She had jumped in a news van with a reporter and cameraman when the second plane hit the World Trade Center. She got on the road before all routes to the city were blocked by police.
After I filed by story, I left the office to seek out my kids. I hadn't felt compelled to pull them out of school, as some parents had done, but I did need to see them, to try to reassure them that "Everything will be all right." That's what parents always say, even when the world seems to be spinning off its axis.
I knocked on the door of my kids' after-school sitter and greeted them with extra-strong hugs. We talked about what had happened; I tried to remain calm and matter-of-fact while discussing those extraordinary events.
Natalie had an 8-ball and she pulled it out. She asked the ball, "Will it happen in Connecticut?"
The answer was something like, "You can count on it." But I told them not to worry, it won't happen here. They seemed OK. I kissed them and went back to work.
That afternoon my wife called me and said she was five blocks from Ground Zero. She would be staying overnight and perhaps several more nights beyond.
"I love you. Be careful," I said.
"I love you too," she said.
She was gone the rest of the week. I watched over the kids, aided by friends. One night a few days later, as I was lying in bed with my daughters, trying to get them to go to sleep, I was jolted by a noise outside. Charlotte asked, "Is it the guy from New York?" (She meant Osama bin Laden.)
I also remember going to their school on 9-12 and hearing the kids sing, "Let there be peace on earth -- and let it begin with me."
This is the message we have lost in the ensuing five years. So many of our soldiers dead, so many Iraqi civilians dead, so much money wasted -- more than $400 billion.
As I see the daily toll, including young soldiers from the New Haven area, I ask: How many more? What for?
Another aspect of this day that has been largely unnoticed, except by New Yorkers for a Department of Peace: this is the 100th anniversary of the day Mohandas Gandhi launched the non-violence movement for social justice. He was living in South Africa then, a young Indian lawyer seeking to oppose stifling regulations against Indians and "coloreds." In the years that followed, the movement spread to India and beyond. Later this philosophy and tactic would be used by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Non-violence? Really? It works?
Let's think about it. As our kids try to tell us: Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with us.

2006-09-06T11:19:00.000-04:00

The Beachcombing blog is open and ready to roam...Yesterday, while bouncing around town I beheld the Angel of Peace sculpture which usually sits atop the East Rock Soldiers and Sailors Monument, but is now being restored -- on the New Haven Green.
Why do this on the Green? As was reported in today's New Haven Register, the idea is to let people eating lunch there or just passing through see the process in action.
I've had some issues with the Parks Department, but I applaud their move to restore this historic city gem.
There's something about this angel that has always gotten to me. Maybe it's the history, or my fondness for East Rock, or my approval of the peace message on a war statue. Years ago, whenever I glimpsed the angel from the highway or wherever, I began the habit of giving her the thumbs up sign. I miss having her up there.
And because I have this special affinity for this lady, I took advantage of the city's offer yesterday to stand in front of her for a free photo. When would I ever get another chance to pose with my lady?