Month: June 2017

Turn That D### Thing Off

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Alright, folks, look…

This is just getting really ridiculous.

I sit in my shuttle van five days a week, watching in the morning as employees walk into their office building, their heads down and their eyes firmly fixed on…wait for it…their smartphones.

So many of them walk right into my path, I could run them right over and they would never know what hit ’em; they are that oblivious to anything other than what is on their smartphone screens. Or they could walk right into a brick wall, totally unaware of its existence until impact.

And they certainly don’t acknowledge the presence of other people, let alone actually speak to any of them.

And it always leaves me wondering the same thing: What the devil is so crucial that you can’t even afford to not take your eyes off that phone for the two to four minutes you spend walking from your car into the office? Do you really have to look at it every bloody second?

I submit, ladies and gentlemen, if you do, you have a serious problem.

Full disclosure: Apparently, so do I, only with my tablet. My wife accuses me of being addicted to it, and she may very well be right.

I know we all like to keep up with the latest news, weather, sports, friends’ Facebook posts, emails, Trump tweets (good lord, why?), etc. And modern technology is a wonderful thing…

…except for sucking the life out of us all.

Where this is leading, folks, is: I’m gonna unplug for awhile, and try to reconnect with family, friends, nature, books, and move the smartphone and tablet to a lower priority in my life. So, this will be my last post for the near future. I recommend you try to do the same, and rediscover life, and the world around you, and try to remember back to those primitive, pre-computer-in-your-hands days.

We’ll meet again down the road, I promise. Hopefully, I’ll be a little healthier when we do.

‘Til then, I wish you all well. Much love to you. ❤️

 

So Long, Caped Crusader

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You can keep your Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer and George Clooney and Christian Bale and Ben Affleck.

Give me the late, great Adam West as Batman every time.

West passed away recently, at the age of 88, from leukemia. Batman, based on the comic book series of the same name, was a television series that aired in the late 1960’s. And, I don’t mean, in the afternoon, when the kids got home from school. This was a primetime TV series, two nights a week!

It was basically the same every time. Some nefarious criminal would show up in Gotham City, be it the Joker, the Riddler, the Penguin, Catwoman (mmm-mmmm, Julie Newmar…), or any number of oddball baddies. Commissioner Gordon and Chief O’Hara, knowing they were inadequate for the task at hand, would call Batman on his Batphone, discreetly located in plain sight in millionaire Bruce Wayne’s study.

Bruce would take the call, upon being notified surreptitiously by his faithful butler, Alfred, “It’s the Batphone, sir.” And Bruce and his youthful ward, Dick Grayson (who was never referred to any other way) would head down to the underground Bat Cave upon Bruce’s exhortation, “To the Bat Poles!”

(I was always amazed at how these guys could change from their street clothes to their crimefighting uniforms on the way down the poles! Maybe, those things could be used as wife poles; it could cut way down on the time it takes for wives to get ready to go out. Just sayin’…)

Anyway, off they would go, Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder, to the commisioner’s office, in their superbad Batmobile. Once Commissioner Gordon brought them up to speed, and Chief O’Hara applied some appropriate curses, begorrah, then began the cat-and-mouse (or bat-and-mouse, if you prefer) game between the good guys and bad guys, culminating in a climatic fight scene.

(The fight scenes were great, because the sound effects were depicted graphically onscreen. POW! BAM! BIFF! SOCK! OOOOF! YEOWWW! That was cool.)

And then there was the dialogue. You had to grow a little older to fully appreciate just how tongue-in-cheek it was. But, it was delivered in all earnestness by the cast, which makes it so freakin’ funny when you go back and watch those shows later.

Have you figured out by now just how unashamedly corny this show was? You could almost taste the butter and salt when you watched it. But we kids loved it. Batman and Robin were our heroes. It really was a comic book come to life.

And at the center of it all was the square-jawed, supremely moral presence of Adam West. He fit the part perfectly, which turned out to be a liability for him after the Batman series ended. West found himself getting typecast in several roles following that, to his aggravation. Eventually, though, he made his peace with it. From all accounts, he was a very nice man, which should surprise no one.

To a younger generation, he’s known as the voice of the town mayor on the animated series Family Guy, but I know nothing of that. To me, Adam West was, is, and shall forever be the Caped Crusader.

Rest In Peace, Adam. The citizens of Gotham City are safe, thanks to you. 

 

 

The Weekend I Was Cool

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I spent this weekend celebrating my high school class’ 40-year anniversary.

You heard me. Forty years.

(I know some of you geezers out there got that beat, but forget you. This is my story.)

I have to say, it was a lot of fun. The celebration lasted over the course of two nights. The first night featured an informal gathering at a bar with an outdoor courtyard, where a band played and we all tried to hear each other over the band, with mixed results. I SAID, WITH MIXED RESULTS!

And, obviously, seeing these folks for the first time since graduation was a bit of a shock to the system. Granted, some of them hadn’t changed much, if at all, but many of them had changed significantly. We were all walking up to each other, hesitantly, and saying something like, “I may have known you back then. Who are you?”

The second night was the official reunion, which featured (thank goodness) name tags! (Of course, many of us had to put on our glasses to read them.)  There was a buffet of hors’d’ouvres, a cash bar (which appeared to be doing very good business), another band and a dance floor, which many of us, yours truly included, made good use of throughout the evening.

And we all spent the time talking, laughing, eating, drinking, dancing, taking pictures and reminiscing. And I had a GREAT time!

Which, if I’m being honest, surprised me somewhat. Maybe I should explain:

 

High school, for me, was not always a pleasant experience. (Admittedly, I know it wasn’t for many other people.) I actually think it goes back to junior high, when cliques began forming among the students. You know how there’s always a certain group that you would just kill to be a part of, but you were pretty certain there was no way that was happening? A group that was just popular with everybody at school. The cool group.

I mean, yeah, there were some people I liked who liked me, and we hung out a lot together, but I still wanted to be part of that group. You know how it is. The desire for acceptance in your teen years is very strong.

So, I felt like I didn’t belong with those cool kids.

Well, as I found out this weekend, time is a great equalizer.

 

I had only been to one class reunion previously. My 10-year one. It was awful. Ten years after graduation, and people still gravitated to their old cliques, and I felt those old feelings of alienation. I swore I would never go to another reunion.

Then I got an email from my best friend from back then, saying he was flying into town for our 40-year reunion, and asking if I was going to be there.

Well, truthfully, I didn’t even know about it until I got his email. I knew, of course, that this was our 40-year anniversary, so I figured there was going to be a reunion sometime; I just didn’t know it would be this weekend!

So I thought about it, and I figured, well, maybe now, we’re all far enough away from the experience that I wouldn’t feel like that, again.

And, even though a little voice asked,  “But what if you do?”, I decided to go anyway.

And, amazingly, I found myself talking and laughing with people I wouldn’t have dared approach in school. We weren’t kids in cliques anymore; we were grownups, with families and bills and jobs and prescription medications. We were equals.

And I loved every minute of it. I’ll never, ever forget it.

Lawrence D. Bell High School, Class of 1977 Blue Raiders, it was an absolute blast! Thanks to everyone who contributed their time and effort to making these events as special as they were. The rest of us appreciate it more than you could know.

I wish you all continued happiness and blessings. And love.

Space Invader

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Once upon a time, Izzy, my spoiled rotten cat, was content simply to lie up on the back of our couch, like so:

 

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Lately, however, that no longer seems to be good enough. If my or my wife’s spot on the couch is vacant, she has no problem with taking up residence there:

 

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Notice, she has the remote handy, in case she feels like binge-watching.

All this, of course, is just to drive home the point that this is her and Lizzy’s house, and we are merely the caretakers.

But, we’re good with that.