The Reimagined Belmont

There is no better feeling than walking into a racetrack, betting first race—and hitting. It's even better when the racetrack is the "newly reimagined Belmont" and you're there for its maiden weeks, sailing into history.

I was at Belmont yesterday for a nine race card. I got a seat, with a back, that was closer to the finish than I imagined it would be. In fact, I was in front of the "Secretariat Pole," the skinny, blue and white marker just inside the 16th pole that indicates where the second place horse was in the 1973 Belmont Stakes when Bid Red was crossing the finish line with a 31 length lead and record setting time. (I was there, standing on a seat in the last 3rd floor section, section screaming at my friend, "look at the time, look at the time." Ron Turcotte was caught looking at it too.)

I will say the new Belmont has vastly improved sightlines; a longer stretch, (the old Belmont stretch was shorter than Aqueduct's. It's true.) and from the second floor, a closeness to the track that you didn't have before.

Sitting at the Secretariat Pole and looking to the right at the finish line, I have to say it doesn't look like a great distance; but it is for a margin of victory. It is very nearly the length of a football playing field.

Not sure if I like the single, huge tote/replay screen dominating the center viewpoint. No possible exacta combinations are displayed, only the flashing of latest odds and the center video screen. Exacta, and double possibles are visible on any of the many televisions.

The place is not finished. The infield is a mess of ongoing construction, no doubt putting a lake in, and making what will be spectator accommodations for Belmont Day, and possibly the Breeders' Cup.

The upper floors are not open yet. I'm hoping there will be a 3th floor, and maybe even a 4th floor that will allow spectator viewing that looks over the many, many boxes below.

The paddock landscaping, outside of th ancient Japanese white pine, is in place to grow, but is hardy there yet. The place looks sparse for now.

The turf courses look lush, and the Tapeta looks ready to be put to use again when races come off the turf. Off-the-turf-days will no longer default to the main track, generating a slew of scratches, creating unwelcome small fields. Even though Tapeta is the closest thing there is to turf, handicapping adjustments will have to be made.

                                          

Only two of the Assembled made the outing; Bobby G. and Johnny D., a newly minted nonagenarian and a teetering, septuagenarian, who were somewhat pooped by the amount of walking there was to do, making the way from the Elmont-UBS arena LIRR station  (despite a welcome, and unexpected shuttle service) and the trek from one of the parking lots. 

Hopefully, the remaining third member of the Assembled will be available to come when the next outing is planned; as yet to be determined.

So, how did the rest of day go for Bobby G—who also hit the first race—and Johnny D?

Bobby G. netted a profit that added a Ulysses S. Grant to his wallet. Johnny D. continued his history of winning the last race—an uncanny ability that stretches back over 50 years—resulting in a net loss that represented the cost of two pepperoni slices. No major financial setback there.

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The Straight Poop from the New York Times

I never know what I'm going to be writing about next. Obituaries can always be counted on for some of the inspiration, and in the case of the passing of Edward Lehner, Who Got New Yorkers to Pick Up After Dogs, Dies at 93 I was touched again by a muse.

The "pooper-scooper" law went into effect in 1978, so long ago that there is at least a full generation of city dwellers who have no idea what it might have been like to walk the streets, sidewalks, and areas of parks, with either skirting around do-do, or, if personal poop radar failed, to actually stepping it in. It was messy.

Sarah Lyall, a senior writer-at-large for the New York Times, who most recently has been on the book beat, was either thrown in the dog house to write the poop obit, or is accepting a new assignment like a pro and turning in a gem no matter what desk she's assigned to. Either way, the "pooper-scooper" gets a detailed narrative of its origins set off by the passing of the law's major sponsor, Edward Lehnar.

Mr. Lehner, center

We learn Mr. Lehnar was a lawyer, judge, and state assemblyman who grew tired of skirting city poop, or even finding he had stepped in it. There has to be a better way. There was. Legislation.   

The pooper-scooper bill was introduced in 1977 by Mr. Lehner in the state Assembly, and co-sponsored in the Senate by Frank S. Leichter. Ms. Lyall tells us "before the passage of Public Health Law 1310, as it was officially known, New York city was a minefield of dog dirt."

I remember the outcry from dog owners who were then going to henceforth have to pick up after their dogs when they crouched down to do their do-do—no matter on what surface they found themselves on. 

New Yorkers don't like to be told to do anything that they don't want to do. Ms Lyall doesn't tell us how often tickets were generated for the offence of not picking up after the pooch. My guess is there were certainly tickets, but an honor system slowly took hold over the dog owners who acceded to doing the pickups, and the sidewalks, streets and parks were eventually much, much cleaner. And they still are. 

In the mid-70s Mario Cuomo was not yet governor, he was a lawyer in Queens and eventually the state's Secretary of State. His oratorical powers wee not yet widely evident, but they were brewing. 

Ms. Lyall has unearthed an example of Mario's flourishes, when she tells us the story behind a memo he composed.

"The purpose of he bill is laudable, i.e. to require each pet owner to take care of their own," the future Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, then New York's secretary of state, wrote in a memo outlining his department's view of the bill. "But not only would an officer have to catch a dog and his owner in flagrante delicto to enforce the law," he added, "there would be the sticky problem of proving that a particular piece of evidence emanated from a particular aperture."

Well said, from a man who became a three-term governor of the state, who made a stirring speech with the lights out at a Democratic presidential nominating convention, and for whom the Tappan Zee bridge was renamed.

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September 11 2001 and September 16, 2002

For the first time in many years, I missed posting this on the anniversary date of the shootings at Empire BlueCross and BlueShield. 

I didn't mean to forget what cannot be forgotten. I got distracted with something else on 9/16. 

But here it is on 9/21, not too many days after.

-------------------------------------

The following memorializes the terrorist events of 9/11/2001 at New York's World Trade Center and those of the executions at Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield on the morning of 9/16/2002 at 1440 Broadway, our temporary office space after losing our offices on 9/11.

The dates on the stones let you measure the time
Of the lives that lived in between.
The bracketed years reveal to the current
The joys and the troubles they've seen.

On any given day a person is born
You can record the date of their birth.
And on any given day a person can die
And you can record that they've left this earth.

And the morning we made our dusty descent,
An accomplishment undiminished,
We learned of the others and their bracketed date,
And our own, that remained unfinished.

So it is incredible to believe the end can be met
At the hands of someone we knew.
He put an end to life, he put an end to himself,
But he didn't put an end to you.
______________________________________________

September 16, 2002

Twenty-four years is not a so-called milestone anniversary, but no less memorable.

No one ever dies
Who lives in hearts
Left behind.

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The Travers 2026

I'm not being paid to add 'Draft Kings' before Travers, so I won't refer to its sponsor.

Like a Super Bowl that's hyped, hyped, hyped, the actual running of the race was flat. But there's one thing about horse racing, no matter the outcome, there is always someone who is happy about the results. The winner.

In this case, it's the connections of Leading Change, a lightly raced colt who was making his 3rd start!, undefeated, with a maiden score and a win in the Indiana Derby, trained by Brad Cox and ridden by the resurgent Manny Franco who absolutely can do no wrong lately at Saratoga, actually closing in on the leading jockey title, who rewarded his backers with a $22.76 win bet, who let the air of all those who were going to crown Golden Tempo as the Eclipse award winning 3-year-old, who was going to have another showdown with Mike Repole's Renegade. 

The Travers, pre-race, screamed "race-of-..." you fill in the blank. Year, decade, 21st century, whatever you like. The talking heads could not stop talking about the "can't-wait-for race."

With so many people prognosticating how the race would be run and who would win, there were still a few who nailed it: Todd Schrupp, who gets to come to the NYRA/Fox shows on big race days, picked Leading Change. As did the regular anchor, Greg Wolfe.

Todd is a great addition to the desk whose voice has the sonority and speed of an of an auctioneer's, but who is understandable. It's a shame he's not always there.

A race like the Travers that attracts so much attention, like the Kentucky Derby, has to have a "now" horse, touted by all the wise guys who profess to know everything. That horse was Sea Strike, another lightly race colt trained by Chad Brown who won the Curlin Stakes at Saratoga in nice fashion..

Sea Strike could not be mentioned pre-care without effusive comments about their workouts. "Best I've ever seen," by talking head former jockey Richard Migliore. To get excited over a horse because of their workouts is just  plain silly.

Workouts are the exhibition season. Sure they can look good, even great, but they are a contrived, controlled gallop with or without company, with a rider, who might be the intended jockey for the race,  or a lightweight exercise rider, on top of a horse without the full tack. A workout is not a race. When I'm handicapping I look for them to see a sign of activity and planned readiness for the race, but I hardly care if it's a bullet work, (fastest recorded that day amongst all those working out at the track at that distance) or just a pedestrian 492/5 breezing for 4-furlongs.

There were others who were so effusive about the horse's chances coming off the impressive Curlin Stakes at Saratoga that the odds dropped to $3.55 to $1. The horse has "value." Value should be a four-letter word.

What went unmentioned was that the Curlin Stakes was a restrictive race whose conditions were designed for horses who have never won a sweepstakes. In other works, non-winners of a graded stakes race. A bunch much lower in success rates than the assembled for the Travers. So no one was asking the question of who did Strike beat in the Curlin? Sort of like a boxer coming up matched against tomato cans to build their ring record before getting a shot at the title. Not truly a sign of being tested. 

Sea Strike finished 6th after dueling for he lead with Napoleon Solo, who finished 2nd. Sea Strike burned enough money going off at $3.55 to $1. Wise guys not so wise. 

But certainly don't cry for Sea Strike's trainer Chad Brown, who had 4 winners on the card, three of them in stakes races. Win the Travers or not, a card at Saratoga is made for Chad's World.

And although Cherie Deveaux's Golden Tempo didn't win, her Englishman did, in almost scary fashion, taking the H. Allen Jerkens Memorial race at 7-furlongs in the near track record time of 1:20.71

I have to praise whoever designated the drone shot of the start of the race as the opening shot once the gates opened. Englishman got out so fast that he was three lengths ahead of anyone else before the assistant starters were back on the ground. It almost looked like a false start in track and field and you were waiting for the recall gun. Think Usain Bolt running away from a fire.

Deep Flame tried to run with Englishman, but Englishman was having nothing to do with that. He recorded a somewhat slow opening quarter of :23 seconds, followed by a quickened half in 452/5, rocketing to 6-furlongs in 1:082/5, finishing a tick off the track record in 1:203/5.

Englishman reminded me of Dr. Fager's 1968 Vosburgh, but without Fager's 139 pound weight assignment. Englishman looked Deep Flame in the eye like Fager looked at Kissin' George, and said goodbye, easing up on the way to the finish line. When the day was done, it was the best performance on the card. He earned a 117 Beyer, which is in the stratosphere.

The Travers hardly lived up to the hype. Of course, if you were on Leading Change you were not only happy, but you outwitted nearly all the pundits. Or the redundits, as I call them.

José Ortiz's ride was probably criticized in many quarters, but all through the race Golden Tempo didn't look like he wanted to be there.

And certainly the rail wasn't where he needed to be. Kendrick Carmouche after winning a race on Sunday and being interviewed by Maggie Wolfendale commented that the rail has been deep for 5 days now. That's why he took his horse out to the three or four path coming home. He said he could feel through the horse's feet that the rail was deep. Amazing. To us it looks like dirt.

Golden Tempo hadn't had a race over the track, but of course was being reported as training well, after missing some training due to a cold. He missed being entered in the Jim Dandy, a major prep race for the Travers.

He was far back with a slow pace, down on the rail, looking like he was going to be boxed in. At about the sixteenth pole Ortiz found a seam and tried to shoot through it. He did shoot through it. If Golden Tempo accelerated at that point, he would have created a more memorable finish for himself by probably outrunning the surging Leading Change coming down the middle of the track. Golden Tempo just hit the seam, but then didn't surge. It was over for Golden Tempo and he finished 3rd, a length over The Puma.

On the way through the pack that Golden Tempo found themselves behind, and was winding their way through, the chart caller tells us: "...off the inside down the backstretch before tucking to the two path into the far turn, came under urging with seven-sixteenths [just under a half mile to go, 4f] to go, angled in and cut the corner nearly scraping the paint on the fence, closed in through to the finish angling out late to the wire." You are definitely inside if you're scraping the rail.

Looking for Renegade

There were those who were billing the race as a continued showdown between Renegade and Golden Tempo. What happened to Renegade, who finished a dismal 8th?

Renegade's start was a problem. He didn't get out cleanly, was bounced around by others, and was never in the race. The chart caller tells us: "Renegade lunged at the break and then got pinched back at the start by Ocelli and The Puma..." It looked like bumper cars.

Maiden Special Weight races at Saratoga are auditions for those expensive horses that were bid on at those hoity-doity yearling sales. Some of the winners are so talented, fillies and colts, that they will appear in stakes races a week or two later. They are why when you're looking at the pps. for those Juvenile races, you might only see their maiden win—sometimes their first start—winning impressively. 

Such was the winner of Saturday's first race when unraced Club Reign embarrassed the field and won a 6f Maiden Special by 6 lengths in impressive fashion.

I don't know what they paid for Club Reign, but we do know who owns it, first time owner making their first start as an owner, Seattle Sea Hawk Super Bowl champion quarterback Russell Wilson. There is such a thing as beginner's luck.

Wilson and his wife Ciara and two girls were ESTATIC in their box and in the winner's circle. They were poster people for owning a horse. 

Russell follows Jason Werth as a retired professional athlete who has gotten into the game. Club Reign was so impressive to his trainer Beckham Whitworth that he will be entered in the Hopeful Stakes on closing day. Maiden score straight to a stake race. If he's any good, this is where it will be seen.

So as night follows day, the 14th! race went off at 7:19, just squeezing in before sundown. It's been a long day starting at 11:07 when the first race went off. 

The buzz in the picnic area is drained, as well as all the beverages. Some have won money; probably most haven't. The handle topped $60 million, second highest for a Travers day. No doubt those anonymous CAW (Computer Assisted Wagering) people have boosted the handle by an untold number. 

They are not in the picnic area holding beer cans and looking up at the monitors. They are somewhere in darkened rooms lit only by the glow of monitors, where the "smart" money hides. No matter.

There were those who handicapped Leading Change and put their money on him, the bettors who are now called "retail bettors,"—it's almost comical to be called that—and they went home happy.

And there is no happier person than Katie Davis, win or lose, on a mount. The perky, ebullient jockey brought the winner home in the 14th, on maybe the appropriately named People Watching, for trainer Tom Proctor paying $37.48. The house lights are coming on. 

More happy people.

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Dolly

No one didn't like Dolly Parton. She was Sara Lee cakes. "No one doesn't like Sara Lee." She was one person whose music I didn't have to download because they passed away. It was already on my iPod. (Yes, I still have one. Several in fact.)

The name Dolly automatically makes everyone like you. Dolly Madison, President James Madison's ebullient wife, who was so popular throwing White House parties that they eventually named an ice cream after her: Dolly Madison ice cream. No one doesn't like ice cream.

Frank Sinatra's mother was Dolly Sinatra, the queen of Hoboken, leading in all the town's parades. She was the go-to person in Hoboken to go to when you needed help. She wasn't an elected official. She was better than that.

And then there's Dolly the sheep. Dolly was of course a cloned birth of a sheep born to a surrogate mother sheep. This particular Dolly had a face only a mother could love, but of course it was a mother sheep.

Chap GPT tells us:
How they made Dolly.

 Scientists took DNA-containing material from three sheep.

An adult Finn Dorset ewe — they took a cell from her mammary gland. This provided the DNA that Dolly would inherit.

A Scottish Blackface ewe — they took an unfertilized egg cell and removed its nucleus, getting rid of that sheep's DNA.

Another Scottish Blackface ewe— served as the surrogate mother.

The researchers then:

—Fused the adult mammary cell with the enucleated egg.
—Used an electrical pulse to make the resulting cell begin dividing as an embryo.
—Implanted the embryo into the surrogate mother.

The remarkable part was that Dolly was genetically almost identical to the adult Finn Dorset sheep that supplied the mammary-gland cell. It demonstrated that the nucleus of a mature, specialized cell still contains the complete genetic instructions needed to create an entire animal.

And the name?

The scientists jokingly named her Dolly after Dolly Parton because the DNA-containing cell came from a mammary gland. Dolly lived for about 6½ years, had six lambs, and died in 2003. She was preserved and is now displayed at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. 

The Dolly experiment was enormously important because it showed that an adult cell's nucleus could be “reprogrammed” back into an embryonic state—a fundamental idea behind later stem-cell and cellular-reprogramming research.

Dolly gave her name to science.

---------------------------------------------------

I remember Dolly on the Johnny Carson show one night when she was discussing how long it took her to put her face and wig on: "I need a good hour. It costs a lot of money look this cheap." Carson of course fell down.

I don't know if that was already a Dollyism, but at that point, on national television, it certainly became one.

Dolly in front of a Dollywood Replica of her Birthplace

At about the time the movie '9 to 5' was in the theaters, Jane Fonda, who co-starred with Dolly in the movie, was on another Carson show and said that when they were filming the movie Dolly took her on a tour of rural Tennessee where Dolly was from. At every turn in those hills and hollows of the Smokey Mountains, Dolly knew everyone, and everyone knew her.

When I saw the movie 'Best Little Whorehouse in Texas' I knew her song 'I Will Always Love' You was a mega hit song.  It's played at the part in the movie when she's got to part from her boyfriend sheriff, Ed Earl Dodd, and move; the do-gooders are putting the brothel, and Miss Mona, Dolly, out of business.

I didn't know then that was written to Porter Wagoner whose show she was leaving to go off on her own. Whitney Houston of course made a huge recording of it. I remember that Dolly was in Carnegie Hall and she commented on Whitney's version, and said she loved it. 

Of course I knew she wrote songs, but 3,000, 1,000 of which have been recorded? Insane. She said she writes all the time, even in the bath. One day wrote 10 songs.

I once caught part of a country music awards show on TV, and there was Dolly, introducing the latest country heartthrob, Randy Travis. Dolly started flirting ever so slightly with him on stage and Randy just forgot everything he was going to say or do; he was smitten and blushing. His composure did return.

'I Will Always Love You' is a great song, and became the massive headline in yesterday's New York Post: We Will Always Love You. American Icon Dead at 80.

I didn't get the Daily News, but Dolly's death certainly hit the trifecta of New York papers as her image appeared above the fold in the Wall Street Journal AND The New York Times.

When the news broke on Tuesday of Dolly's passing, I wondered how the NYT was going to acknowledge her passing. Front page for sure, maybe part of the obit above the fold is what I was expecting.

I was as pleased as I was astonished to see her obit front and center, above the fold, with a huge picture of her early in her career: Rhinestone Studded Superstar Who Lit Up Millions of Hearts. Wow!

President Trump ordered flags to be at half-staff for a week. The only other entertainer to get a half-staff honor was Bob Hope in 2003, and he got a day. (He was, after all, born in England.) 

Saratoga was playing her music before the first race yesterday. The Empire State Building went pink at 9:25 P.M. Get it? 9-two-5, like the movie.

The cupolas at Churchill Downs were lit in her colors.

Someone cleverly altered the FULTON STREET sign in the NYC subway station to PARTON STREET. 

An airport will be renamed.

I always liked Dolly Parton. 

I just never knew so many other people did as well.

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Beavers Are...What?

Every so often the print edition of The New York Times is well worth whatever discounted price I'm paying for home delivery. The newsstand price is $4.00, but no one in New York pays retail.

My wife continuously makes fun of me (and we're married over 50 years) for reading that "pinko Commie rag." She gets that opinion of the paper from her father growing up in the 50s and 60s who, like many adults of  that era, considered the paper to be connected to the Communist Party.

This stems from their notorious reporter, Walter Duranty, who in the 1930s filed glowing reports about life under Stalin. It became a big deal in journalism, and resulted in efforts to yank the Pulitzer that was awarded to Mr. Duranty. That never happened, however.

But enough about that, other than to establish that I've been reading the paper for many years, and don't care about my wife's opinion, or believe I'm reading propaganda from the Kremlin. If it's there, I dance around it.

Where else but in a Saturday edition can one read about Canadian beavers? And not just tucked away deep inside. Page 1. Saturdays are slow news days, especially during the summer when the movers and shakers have either not reported in on Friday, or have left early for the weekend.

I've noticed this Saturday trend for many years. Mondays, too. You can usually count on a story that is of human interest, or in this case, of animal interest.

You might expect a story about beavers to actually carry a picture of one. No. There is some sort of Page 1 aerial view of what is described as beaver built dams blocking water flow, and inside pictures of scientists who are tracking the little fellas with what else, drones. But no picture of a beaver. Were that they hard to find? The aerial shot looks like a very bad case of foot fungus.

And here is one for a future Jeopardy clue. What are people called who study beavers? Castorologists. Turn it into a typo, and you've got the study of a deceased Cuban dictator.

When I was a lad in short pants in the 1950s, there was a toothpaste called ipana. The commercials were cartoonish, led by "Bucky Beaver", whose prominent two front teeth glowed after brushing with ipana. The jingle went: "brusha, brusha, brusha, with the new ipana."

It's only now I'm wondering, how did they come up with the name ipana? Was it an acronym? According to my new-found buddy, ChatGPT, there is no evidence that ipana was an acronym. Bristol-Myers had been making ipana since 1901. There is no one alive now who can tell us anything about the origin of the name.

(Unrelated, I once knew there was a maître d' at New York Racing Association, NYRA tracks, Manny Pana, who ran the dining rooms and who was always willing to accept a $20 gratuity for a good table on the glass near the finish line. The NYRA execs hated him because he was making more than them. Eventually, Manny was replaced by an uncorruptible staff trained in Walt Disney hospitality.)

ipana. Madison Avenue at its best. So who wouldn't want teeth as bright as a beaver's? This, despite the fact that beavers have reddish/yellow front teeth due to a high iron content beneath the enamel. Like steel-toe  reinforced work shoes, a beaver's teeth are reinforced. Perfect for gnawing those tree trunks and making dams.

It wouldn't do ipana toothpaste sales any good if Bristol-Meyers admitted Bucky Beaver was a rodent. Bad publicity. Couldn't show iron stained, plaque teeth as what the toothpaste was good at removing. Today that would be called "bad optics."

ChatGPT:

No—not literally. Beavers do not have metal teeth, but their front teeth are extraordinarily well adapted for gnawing wood.

Their incisors contain a high concentration of iron compounds in the outer enamel, which gives the teeth their characteristic orange-red color and makes the enamel exceptionally hard and wear-resistant. The softer dentin behind the enamel wears away faster, keeping the incisors self-sharpening.

So, in a sense, beavers have iron-reinforced teeth, not metal teeth. 🦫

And their incisors never stop growing, which is why they need to keep gnawing.

-----------------------------------------------------------

And its those damn dam builders that have the good folks in Umiujaq, Quebec, a seaside community 700 miles south of the Arctic Circle, hard by Hudson Bay, scratching their heads. The Arctic char, a fish that is a staple of the Inuit's diet, cannot leap over the beaver dams like a salmon can. Therefore, the char do not reach this tiny enclave, and the residents are experiencing "food insecurity." Yes, even Inuits can have "food insecurity."

Despite the size of a char being nothing close to being a tadpole, it is not a pole vaulter. And those damn damming busy beavers have built dams as big as school buses that prevent the fish of getting to where the Inuits can fish for it. 

Of course, Global Warming is behind the trend of the beavers seeking colder waters and swimming further north than they used to. Up to now, there is nothing that I found remarkable about the story. However, there on Page 1, leading off the 6th paragraph are the words I never expected to read: "The Furry Pyriform rodents..." A showstopper sentence.

Capybara

What? A beaver is a rodent? You mean like a rat or a mouse? Apparently so. The genus of the beaver puts then in the rodent family, and they are second in size to the largest rodent, the capybara, that resembles the beaver. Nice to know. 

Beaver pelts were once all the rage to make coats out of. John Jacob Astor made a fortune providing beaver pelts to the swells of the late 18th and early 19th-centuries in the Gilded Age.

I wonder how popular the pelts and fur pieces might have been if it were widely known that the beaver was a rodent. "That's a nice rodent you've got on today."

When the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) subway system was burrowing under 4th Avenue in Manhattan (Yes Virginia, there still is a 4th Avenue, below 14th Street.) into what is now the 4, 5, and 6 lines and it passed through Astor Place, there were mosaic designs placed along the station's wall to identify to the immigrant population that perhaps couldn't yet read, that they were going through Astor Place because of the beavers portrayed on the walls. Astor equaled beavers. Simple. If you know, you know.

The mosaics are still there, as are the ones showing a locomotive for the 42nd Street Grand Central stop. There are others along the line. Subway lore.

I'd be remiss if I didn't include two stories about beavers from the 50s. The first is the obvious one: the 'Leave It to Beaver' 1950s TV-family of dad Walt; pearl-wearing mom, June; oldest son Wally with a varsity high school sweater, and of course the younger brother who the show is named after, Beaver.

All lessons in life come from this family. Dad is a briefcase toting office worker; Mom runs the house. Wally is always trying to explain things to Beaver, and Beaver is sometimes confused, but he's cute.

Beaver's birth name is Theodore, but when he was born, Wally was but a tyke himself, and he couldn't pronounce 'Theodore.' It came out 'Beaver.' Well, that's what they say.

The next beaver association is when I was in the back seat with Billy Gabler, in a car driven by his father, with my dad in the front passenger seat. (We didn't have a car.) For some reason, the game was to see who could be the first to see and call out on seeing a station wagon on the road and yell "beaver." I swear. I don't remember keeping score, which was almost as unusual as calling out "beaver."

We weren't the only car-trip tykes passing the time this way. This was a recognized game known to others. It is now after writing this that I'm wondering how did the word 'beaver' come to be associated with a station wagon sighting?

Say what you will about AI, but ChatGPT offers a cogent explanation: station wagons of the 50s were often 'Woodies.' wood paneled cars. Since a beaver chomps wood, seeing a station wagon required acknowledging it with a yell of "beaver."  We were not selective. Any station wagon counted as a beaver sighting to us. Our rules.

So, at 77, with the help of AI, there's a possible explanation for why "beaver" got called out when seeing a station wagon. I'd love to share this with Billy Gabler, but I can't find him.

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Death By...?

As the song 'American Pie' starts off...

"...long, long, time ago, I can still remember, when..."

It might have been 2002, and I was at an NHCAA conference in San Diego in June, perhaps. NHCAA stands for Nation Health Care Anti-fraud Association, I was there with another co-worker.

This is the annual convention and draws people from all types of fraud departments: State Insurance, Federal Law Enforcement, Commercial insurers, and from companies like mine Blue Cross Blue Shield plans across the nation. I think it runs 4 days.

Birds of a feather flock together, and after one day or so of presentations, a group of us from us went to one of the malls, Fashion Mall, I think.

It was accessible by the trolley, which is part of San Diego's mass transit system. There was trolley stop right behind the hotel,

San Diego the, and maybe still, uses an honor system fro paying the fare. You buy a ticket and show it, if asked to an enforcement individual, who might be on the trolley, or asking you for the ticket as you get off. But there not always there.

There are no turnstiles like the N.Y.C. subway. The trolley runs at ground level, powered by pantograph wires overhead. The ride is as smooth as a baby's bottom, because I think the trolley's wheels are rubber.

The station stops are almost sidewalks. You can walk across the tracks to the other side with no chance of any danger.

Being the New Yorker, I am I marveled at the system, especially the honor system for fare collection. I felt proud of myself when I was confronted at a bus stop for my ticket by uniformed fare enforcers. They almost seemed surprised I had one. I wasn't playing the wise guy, conniving New Yorker to beat the fare.

So, here we are at the Fashion Mall, and I can't get over the trolley and the ability to walk across, or along the tracks. 

Being who I am, I envisioned getting killed by a trolley. Further, I wondered how they would code the accident using the ICD-10 manual, International Classification of Diseases: Death by trolley? Death by trolley going uptown? Downtown? Electric trolley? Diesel powered?

I kept this patter up as we went to and from the Fashion Mall. "Death by trolley." A woman from the Louisiana Blue Cross Blue Shield thought this was quite funny. They don't come across many New Yorkers whose accent make then sound like a gangster, thinking out loud on how to code an unusual death. We can he a handful. We stayed in touch. Somewhat. 

Don't laugh, the ICD-10 manual is thick with codes to uses for all kinds of diseases. Toward the back are a series of alphanumeric codes that attempt to assign a code to an event causing death that is not a medical death. Maybe something like a car accident.

But the codes can be quite granular, and an event might need several codes to capture the cause of death, as we will see. 

The world runs on statistics, and having a uniform coding system for cause of death allows for research into causes. Medical reasons are understandable. Other types of events that might cause death are varied as well: violence, suicide, accidents by all sorts of conveyances, crime, there is quite a list.

There was quite a bit of teeth gnashing on how to code the deaths from the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Hijacked 767s not using a runway to land causing death was a coding challenge. Did NYC have a sudden surge in homicides? Oh boy.

I immediately thought of the investigator from Louisiana (who is now a manager of the unit) when I was putting the posting together about the assistant night club manager who was crushed to death by a piano that was accidently hydraulically lifting itself to the ceiling while he was on top of a stripper making whoopee. The assistant manger was crushed to death, and the screaming stripper was found the next morning with bruises, but otherwise not physically hurt. A janitor discovered the scene the following morning when he came in to start cleaning.

Being stuck for hours under a corpse on top of you while you're on a piano pressed against he ceiling, had to leave some mental damage. Eventually, more coding.

The woman from Louisiana was still working for the Blue Cross Blue Shield plan, which made me wonder how young was she when I was going on about "death by trolley?" No matter.

We connected via LinkedIn. I linked her to the blog posting about the assistant night club manager killed in a very unusual manner, and asked her if she'd use the ICD-10 book and code the event for me. The book is expensive and I have no need to have one.

She admitted she was not a coder (there are certified coders as a profession) but took a stab with T14.8, crushed, severe, unspecified site. Certainly fits.

I also asked her if she could also code the Central Park carriage accident where a young man fell out of the carriage attempting to help his mother when the carriage was tipped over because the horse felt a charge of stray electricity in its hoof from the pavement, and ran off. The young man hit his head on the pavement and died. Lots of news there. Louisiana passed on that one, but was a bit astonished that I still brought up "death by trolley" after all thee years. 

The coding of unusual deaths still niggled in my brain. It got me thinking. How would they code that? Why not ask AI? Well, ChatGPT reveals how much can go into capturing all the elements of a death precipitated by a horse feeling a stray electrical charge in its hoof and running off while tipping the carriage over, causing a passenger to fall out and fatally crack their skull on the pavement. You got to admit, a lot went into having a very bad day.

ChatGPT:

"If you mean the scenario you describe is unusually specific, but it actually fits the transport-accident classification quite well. The key external-cause code

"The best fit is:

"V80.02XA — Occupant of animal-drawn vehicle injured by fall from or being thrown from animal-drawn vehicle in non-collision accident, initial encounter.

"That category specifically includes an overturning animal-drawn vehicle without a collision, which is essentially what happened when the horse bolted and tipped the carriage.

"For a death certificate/mortality coding, however, the coding works somewhat differently. The CDC says that transportation accidents are classified primarily according to the victim's mode of transportation, and the underlying-cause code is generally selected at the three-character level rather than using the full clinical 7-character injury code.

"So the mortality coding would likely center on:

V80 — Animal-rider or occupant of animal-drawn vehicle injured in transport accident

with the circumstances further described in the record.

"But there is another important part

The actual cause of death would be the fatal head injury—not the horse's electrical sensation. For example, if the medical examiner determined that the passenger died from a traumatic skull fracture and brain injury, the medical cause would be something along the lines of:

Fatal traumatic brain injury due to skull fracture from fall onto pavement

and the V80 code supplies the external circumstances.

"The electrical charge that startled the horse is an additional causal circumstance. ICD-10 mortality coding is designed to capture the chain of events, and the CDC specifically notes that when transportation is involved, the transportation accident is coded as an external cause.

"So, in plain English, your hypothetical could be represented as:

Horse receives stray electrical shock → horse bolts → carriage overturns → passenger is thrown/falls from carriage → strikes head on pavement → fatal skull/brain injury.

"ICD-10-CM external cause: V80.02XA (for the injury encounter)
Underlying mortality classification: V80 (animal-drawn vehicle transport accident)

"One wrinkle: because you specifically said “death precipitated by a horse feeling a stray electrical charge in its hoof,” there may be an argument for separately coding the electrical event. If you're asking this because you're trying to reconstruct how an actual historical death would have been coded, I can dig into the ICD-10 Index and show exactly how the electrical shock → runaway horse → overturned carriage → skull fracture chain would be coded on a death certificate.

"Factoring in the electrical charge causing the bolting:

"Yes — the electrical shock is a separate part of the causal chain, and I would distinguish it from the carriage accident.

"If the horse itself received an accidental electrical shock from, say, a live wire or electrified rail, the ICD-10-CM external-cause category for the human victim is not simply “electrocution.” The passenger was not electrically shocked; the electricity caused the horse to bolt, which caused the transport accident.

"So I would code the chain approximately as:

"Electrical current → horse startled/bolts → animal-drawn carriage overturns → passenger thrown out → fatal head injury.

"The passenger's principal external-cause code would remain in V80, for an occupant of an animal-drawn vehicle injured in a non-collision accident. The ICD-10-CM classification specifically has V80.0 for someone injured by falling from or being thrown from an animal-drawn vehicle in a non-collision accident.

"But if you're asking what code describes the electrical event itself, that's where it gets interesting. The appropriate electrical-current code depends on what supplied the current—for example, a power transmission line, electrical wiring, railway equipment, etc. ICD-10-CM has separate external-cause categories for those circumstances.

"And there's an important distinction:

• Person receives electric shock: an electrical-injury code such as W85–W87 may apply, depending on the source.
• Horse receives shock and a person is subsequently killed: the electrical event is an antecedent circumstance, while the person's injury is the consequence of the animal-drawn-vehicle accident.

"The CDC's mortality guidance emphasizes that the external-cause classification follows the circumstances that produced the fatal injury, and transportation accidents are separately classified.

"If this is for the historical death you have in mind, I can go one step further and find the exact ICD-10 code for “horse struck by electric current” and then construct the complete death-certificate causal sequence.

"Horse struck by electrical current makes it:

"Ah — if you mean the horse itself was struck by an electrical current, rather than the passenger, then I would not use an ICD-10-CM “electric shock” code as though the horse were the patient. ICD-10-CM is a classification for human morbidity/mortality.

"For the human death, however, the electrical event can be described as an antecedent circumstance. The ICD-10-CM Index identifies “Exposure — electric current” as W86.8, with the more specific W86.8XXA being “Exposure to other electric current, initial encounter.”

"But in your exact scenario:

Horse's hoof contacts stray electrical current → horse bolts → carriage overturns → passenger is thrown → passenger sustains fatal skull fracture

"I would not make W86.8 the principal external-cause code for the passenger, because the passenger wasn't exposed to the electricity.

"The most natural coding description would be:

V80 — occupant of animal-drawn vehicle injured in transport accident

with the electrical current recorded as the precipitating circumstance.

"And I think this is what you were getting at originally: “death precipitated by a horse receiving an electrical shock”, rather than “death by electrocution.” That's an important distinction."

WOW! You can see there are a lot of events, and sequence of events, to consider. I watch some of those British detective shows and there's one called 'The Coroner' where a verdict comes in: "Death by misadventure."  How boring. 

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Okay, perhaps the most unusual death ever is the woman in NYC who opened her car door and fell into a manhole because the cover had been dislodged. She fell to the bottom of the manhole and was scalded to death.

ChatGPT

"On May 19, 2026, a 56-year-old woman died after stepping out of her Mercedes-Benz SUV and falling 10 feet into an uncovered manhole on East 52nd Street near Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. 

"Incident Details: Dislodged Cover: Surveillance video reviewed by Con Edison and the NYPD showed that a multi-axle truck turned onto the street and drove over the manhole cover roughly 12 minutes prior to the incident, unseating and dislodging it.

"Legal and Official Response: City agencies and Con Edison opened joint safety investigations, and the victim's family subsequently filed a lawsuit regarding the hazardous, uncovered condition of the street.

"If you mean how I would code this event in ICD-10-CM I would treat the fatal thermal/steam injury as the principal injury with the fall into the manhole as an external-cause code. The exact burn code cannot be finalized from the narrative alone because the anatomic burn sites and degree of burn are not specified. For 2026 ICD-10-CM, the CDC guidelines say burn codes should identify the site and degree, and that separate codes should be assigned for separate burn sites. Likely coding structure: Coding element ICD-10-CM approach Primary injury coded to the documented body site(s) and burn degree. Add T31 if the percentage of total body surface area burned is documented/needed Steam exposure— exposure to ignition of highly flammable materials / hot vapors/steam category should be verified against the final 2026 tabular listing. 

"An appropriate W17/W18.- fall code depending on the documented mechanics of the fall Cardiac arrestI46.9 may describe cardiac arrest, but it generally would not be the underlying cause of death when the arrest resulted from the fatal thermal injury assuming the medical examiner determined this was an accident. The CDC's ICD-10-CM index specifically recognizes burn from steam as a thermal burn and directs coding according to the burn site.

"If this is for a death certificate that's slightly different from hospital ICD-10-CM coding. Based on the facts you supplied, the causal chain would conceptually be: 

"Underlying cause: Accidental fall into an uncovered utility manhole → exposure to extremely hot steam → severe thermal/scald burns → cardiac arrest → death,. not code “cardiac arrest” as the underlying cause simply because she went into cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest is the terminal mechanism; the fatal injury that precipitated it is what matters for the causal sequence. Also, I would not assign a specific T20/T21/T22/T23/T24/T25/T26/T27/T28 code from this narrative alone, because doing so would require knowing where she was burned and the documented degree. The CDC specifically cautions that T30 (unspecified body region) should rarely be used when the burn site can be determined. 

"If you want, I can also turn this into a complete ICD-10-CM code set (principal diagnosis + secondary diagnosis + external-cause codes) and identify the most likely specific codes for the steam exposure and 10-foot fall using the 2026 code set."

That's okay. I don't blame Louisiana for taking a hard pass on that one. They did however come up with a code for the next one.

Yes Virginia, there is one more.

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Now, for the cherry on top. The pièce de resistance: How would ChatGPT ICD-10 code the horny assistant manager who climbed on top of a piano while having sex with a stripper underneath him, who accidently (we think it was his foot) tripped the "on" switch with his foot, and was oblivious to the piano rising to the top, crushing and killing him against the ceiling, and leaving the stripper in hysterics until the morning?

The description of the circumstances of the death were described to ChatGPT as stated above. Initially, the little AI guy thought I was pulling their leg—thought it was fiction. On no, mon ami, this actually happened. ChatGPT thought I was writing a screenplay:

ChatGPT:

"If this is for a fictional story, the cause-of-death certificate version could get considerably more darkly funny while still sounding authentically medical."

No, this happened. Not fiction Thus, I got:

"Ah—understood. If this was a real death, then I should treat it as an actual medical-coding question rather than a fictional scenario.

"For the circumstances you describe, ICD-10-CM would not code him as “horny,” nor would the fact that he was having sex be the principal diagnosis. The coding would center on the fatal traumatic injury and its accidental mechanism.

"The exact code depends on the injuries documented by the medical examiner/autopsy. For the external cause, the scenario sounds particularly consistent with caught/crushed between a moving and stationary object. ICD-10-CM specifically has the W23 category for being caught, crushed, jammed, or pinched between objects; the classification distinguishes moving/stationary-object circumstances.

"So, in plain English, the death certificate/coding narrative might be along the lines of:

Cause of death:

Multiple traumatic injuries due to crushing/entrapment between a mechanically elevated piano and the ceiling.

Manner of death:

Accident (assuming the medical examiner concluded that the activation was unintentional).

"The piano rising while he was on it is an unusually important detail because the external-cause code should describe what actually produced the injury, rather than simply calling it an unspecified accident. CDC describes ICD-10-CM external-cause codes as a framework for classifying both the mechanism and intent of injuries.

"And I wouldn't assign a psychiatric diagnosis from the word “hysterics” describing the stripper's reaction. Nor would I infer intoxication, sexual disorder, or anything else unless the actual medical/legal record establishes it.

"If you give me the actual injuries listed in the autopsy or death certificate (you can redact names and identifying information), I can tell you much more precisely how I'd map the case to the current FY2026 ICD-10-CM codes. The CDC has the FY2026 code set and official coding guidelines available."

-----------------------------------------------------------

I followed up with stating the cause of death was getting crushed by the piano against the ceiling. I offered that my Blue Cross Blue Shield contact suggested: "T14.8, crushed, severe, unspecified cite." Would this fit?

ChatGPT:

"Yes— T14.8 is a defensible description of the injury if all you know is “crush injury, unspecified body region.” The ICD-10-CM inclusion terms for T14.8 explicitly include “crush injury NOS.”

"But there are two important qualifications:

1. “T14.8” by itself isn't a billable ICD-10-CM code. For a clinical encounter, it expands to something such as T14.8XXA (initial encounter), T14.8XXD, or T14.8XXS, depending on the circumstances.
2. It isn't the best description of the mechanism of this particular death. ICD-10-CM has W23.2 — “caught, crushed, jammed or pinched between a moving and stationary object.” A person crushed between a rising piano and a stationary ceiling is remarkably close to that wording.

"So I'd distinguish them this way:

What you're trying to code	Likely approach
The injury itself	T14.8 can encompass an unspecified crush injury
How the injury happened	W23.2 is much more specific
Underlying fatal injuries	Specific S-codes would be preferable if the autopsy identifies the injuries (e.g., skull, chest, abdominal, etc.)

"And there's a subtle issue with your contact's wording: “T14.8, crushed, severe, unspecified cite” isn't the official long description. The official-style description is “Other injury of unspecified body region,” with crush injury NOS as an inclusion term.

"So if you're asking, “Was the Blue Cross contact completely off base?” — no. T14.8 does encompass an unspecified crush injury. But if you're asking, “Is T14.8 the most informative ICD-10-CM coding for a man who was specifically crushed between a rising piano and a ceiling?” — probably not. The mechanism and the specific injuries would ordinarily allow substantially more precise coding.

"One other distinction: if you're dealing with an actual death certificate, rather than an insurance claim/clinical diagnosis, the medical examiner's cause and manner of death are a separate matter from selecting an ICD-10-CM diagnosis code for billing."

---------------------------------------------

ChatGPT has done an admirable job of dissecting the events that lead to the death. They are a talkative little guy. They accorded my Louisiana contact an "E" for effort, but basically tell them to keep their day job. Which is fine. A manager of Fraud Investigations is an important role in society.

Paul Simon has sung, "there are 50 ways to leave your lover." There are waaaay more ways to code your demise.

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