Always Wanted to Play a Good Game of Pool

I didn't expect to read it in Paul Sorvino's obituary, and of course it's not there, but Paulie, like George M. Cohan and others (myself included), always wanted to play a good game of pool. And how would I know such a thing?

When I went to put songs on my iPod years ago with music from the movie 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' there was an outtake of a speech George M. Cohan made at a Catholic actors' dinner. George recounts how he's improvised the speech, how he and his partner Sam Harris got started in show business, and how he always wanted to play a good game of pool. "Shoot a good stick" as the expression goes.

Today's NYT carries an appraisal to Paul's work as an actor. For me, 'Goodfellas' was his watershed role,. There are several memorable scenes in that movie, but Paulie Cicero's role of cooking an Italian meal, getting the sauce just right and cutting the garlic just so while in a Federal penitentiary is priceless.

And lest you think that scene is pure Hollywood, consider the accommodations given Joe Valachi, the first made member who broke the code of silence—the Omerta— and started talking. Reading Selwyn Raab's seminal doorstopper work, "Five Families; The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America's Most powerful Mafia Empires" there is part where it is described that singing Joe was housed in a "two-room air-cooled prison suite with couches and a kitchenette," that was built for him at the La Tuna Penitentiary near El Paso Texas. When Ray Liotta's Henry Hill brings the wine and scotch into Big Paulie's cell, the meal begins.

Thinking about that scene, I wonder if Chef Ramsey, Bobby Flay, or Emeril has considered making a show about meals created in prisons by inmates. Hmm. Probably not.

The passing of Paul Sorvino brought back the memory I wrote about in a blog posting when I mentioned how a friend of mine, Dennis, gave Paulie lessons in playing pool at Broadway Billiards, a long ago pool emporium underneath the penny arcade at 52nd Street and Broadway in Manhattan where Dennis, his brother Dave and I could be found most Friday and Saturday nights.

It was a clean, well-lit place that didn't have any "characters" hanging out. The owner, Mr. Monaco ,wouldn't have it. He even installed one or two billiard tables, and would stage professional matches there on occasion. There were lockers for players' cues, and Dennis, being the best player amongst us,—and in the place, really— had his own fairly expensive Balabushka cue stored there, for free. Dave and I always played with house cues, never allowed to use Dennis's.

Dennis's game was straight pool, and basically that's all we played. No 8-Ball or 9-Ball quick gambling games. Dennis didn't gamble, and didn't play in any tournaments, but did once enter a three-cushion  billiard tournament at McGirr's and was pitted against Bill Maloney, someone who became a world champion three-cushion player. Dennis had a three ball spot in a game of 15 points, but lost gracefully. It was only when Bill passed away did I read in his obit that he went to the same high school as Dennis and I, Stuyvesant.

At some point, Dennis was teaching Paul Sorvino how to play better pool. How the arrangement got started I don't know. Dennis's brother reminded me of it years ago. Dennis didn't advertise himself as an instructor, but the relationship took hold for a while. I have no idea if Paulie's game improved a lot or not. I don't think Dennis made any kind of real money giving lessons. He might have even done it for free.

As I wrote in that prior posting, I've taken to playing an occasional round of pool with my daughter Susan on mid-week afternoons for about 1½ hours at a nice pool hall, RAXX, in West Hempstead. The place reminds me of Broadway, spacious, clean, with tables individually lit and abacus beads overhead. They even have a kitchen for light meals. They have leagues and tournaments there.

To me it was quite a coincidence that yesterday, the day of Paul Sorvino's NYT obit, that Susan and I were headed to RAXX for what for us is a bit of ball banging playing 8-Ball.

It takes us 1½ hours to play three games of 8-Ball. So far, neither of us has run more than three balls. Yesterday I took her 2 games out of 3. All being close games. Interesting, that Sue and I are also avid backgammon players. Bill Maloney, like a lot of hustlers, also played backgammon for money. Sue and I don't.

When I play pool, it is impossible not to think of Dennis and Broadway Billiards and his brother Dave. Dave passed away in February 2021 and I had the police inform Dennis after I went to the police because I hasn't heard from Dave. Dave was found in his apartment in Bellmore.

Dennis lives in Dublin, Ohio and I haven't seen him for 35 years now. We were only in touch via emails when Dave passed away. Dennis didn't come to New York. He and his brother were often estranged for long periods when they didn't talk to each other. Their sibling rivalry was often fierce. Dave hadn't been married for some time, and had no kids. The Piermont family had no family plot, so Dennis arranged for Dave to be cremated.

Since Dave was a lifelong horseplayer and went to school in Kentucky, frequenting Ellis, Miles, Churchill and Keeneland tracks in college, Dennis and his Presbyterian pastor wife Julia took Dave's ashes and spread them on Kenneland's backstretch.  Dublin, Ohio and Lexington, Kentucky are not far apart. Dennis used to come to the races with Dave and I, but drifted away from it early on. After scattering the ashes, he then spent the day at the races, catching up on how the past performances had changed.

It is impossible to play pool and not think of those guys. If our Levitt home had a cellar, there's be a pool table in it. I've always wanted to play a good game of  pool.

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Pillow Talk

As usual, the WSJ has scored again with an off-beat, entertaining A-Hed piece, this one on the size of pillows in Germany, and basically, pillows in general.

The headline and sub-headline proclaim:

German Pillows Are Oddly Huge,
Many Say. Reasons Are Squishy.

Giant cushions that puzzle visitors trace
to Roman times, according to one theory

Apparently, German pillows are 80 centimeters square, translating to 31 x 31 inches. (That's very nearly a square yard. And it's beveled!). American pillows are 20" x 26." That's quite a difference. Do Germans sleep with helmets on? Not really.

I always knew we had a standard size pillow; one for queen, full size and twin beds, another larger one for king size beds. My wife, for some reasons will tell you she loves her pillow from Mike Lindell's Mypillow.com company.

Since my wife has no trouble falling asleep, I don't understand why she thinks Mike's pillow is a so great. Whenever there's a reason for me to make the bed (she always remakes it) I plump up her pillow and put one of those bed spread pillows covers over it, as I do to my regular, quite enjoyable pillow.

Mike's pillow always feels like a pillow case stuffed with rags. How anyone can claim they get a good might's sleep on it is beyond me. Unless of course you're my wife who is asleep before she hits the pillow. So how would she know anyway?

The A-Hed piece tells us visitors to Germany are puzzled by their size. "Giant marshmallows" goes one opinion, claiming they offer little support for the head and neck, no matter how much they're fluffed.

It's a lively piece, tracing pillow origins and size to a 1792 guide to what to have in a proper dowry, to claiming that German tribes adopted the preference for the pillow size from the Romans throughout the age of the Holy Roman Empire, the Medieval Age and the Renaissance.  Who knew the pillow had such a history?

But it was the close to the story that grabbed my attention. Not all that long ago when I checked into my hotel room while attending a conference, I found myself amused that there were like eight pillows of different sizes on the bed.  Sue, it looked nice, but hardly practical. There was only one of me.

When I got to the cocktail hour I asked anyone who could hear me if anyone needed an extra pillow for their bed, since I had seven too many. I then commented that there are probably kids in South American sleeping on soccer balls since we've cornered the market on pillow excess.

One of our sofas at home is decorated with pillows of three sizes, and colors, arranged in a symmetrical pattern that always requires anyone who wants to sit down to have to stack the pillows elsewhere. 

When my wife is finished making our bed (she does do a superior job to my efforts, but so what?) there are several pillows stacked next to the duvet covered sleeping pillows, and an array of stuffed animals, and a doll. I will say, the bed does look good. I blame Martha Stewart and all those style mavens that show up on morning talk shows that appeal to women. 

As we might he shaking our heads at the size of German pillows, Germans are shaking their heads at how many we put on a bed. The A-Hed piece closes with:

"It's pillow preferences that baffle Germans." Torsten Lapp, a Berlin-based cameraman comments about the U.S., where he spends a lot of time, "They have something like 30 pillows on a bed. Why do they force you to remove 29 each night before you can go to sleep."

Torsten, I'm with you.

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The Cat Came Back

If you're as old as I am, and listened to a wide variety of music starting in the '50s, then you'll recognize the above title as the title to a New Christy Minstrels song dating back to sometime in the '60s.

The cat came back,
Meow kitty,
Meow so pretty... 
The cat came back.

The New Christy Minstrels were a group of seven or so musicians and singers headed by Randy Sparks who sang lively folk songs during the '60s. They were very clean-cut looking and recorded several albums. I have several of those albums, a few of which were combined into CDs. I've put some of the music on my iPod (Yikes! You still use an iPod?) and every so often on random play "The Cat Came Back" pops up. I know all the words.

(Trivia: Barry McGuire, who made a hit single of the dystopian 60s song, "Eve of Destruction" came from The New Christy Minstrels.)

We have always had cats. In my nearly 50 years of marriage, my wife and daughters have had up to three cats. We currently have one "inside" cat, Cosmo, and one "outside" cat, Socks, who was a stray that we took to feeding thinking the cat matched Reuben, whose picture was plastered on lamp posts in the area as missing in 2017.

A phone call to the number on the poster revealed that no, we didn't have Reuben. But we now did have a new friend. And we've been feeding her in the vestibule ever since, a neutered female, tuxedo tabby, who has packed on the pounds and loves us now, rather than hissing at us. Socks will not be roaming anymore. She's got it way too good.

Cosmo, is a neutered, butterscotch male tabby picked up from the shelter by my daughter Susan in 2006. His shelter name was Noel, but somehow the dry cleaner's name from Flushing, Cosmo, because his name. He was somewhat skinny, but filled out into a nice size cat that stays with us indoors. His fur is exceedingly soft, and he likes to be petted. By all accounts he is a handsome cat, with none of the "chowder head" features usually associated with male cats. I've said he's as good looking as Cary Grant. He has no idea what I'm telling him.

For years and years my daughter wouldn't let Cosmo out. He got out once, and came back busted up from chasing something up a tree.  We were constantly telling him, "Cosmo, you can't handle the outdoors." He has his claws, and not just because it's now illegal to remove them in New York. We would never do that to him, despite some slightly shredded living room furniture over the years.

Eventually, my daughter Susan moved out, got married and my wife and I took care of Cosmo. No custody battle ever ensued. At some point a few years ago, we said to ourselves, "why can't he go out?" And now he does. He never leaves the property, and always comes to either the front or back door and lets you know when he's had enough fresh air. He doesn't chase anything up a tree anymore. He's now about 17 years old.

And because we've had cats for so long, we recognize when they may not be feeling well. We've had to put a few down as they ran out of nine lives. By my daughter's accounting, Cosmo has now worked his way through six lives, shedding the most recent one when we were getting convinced he was not going to make to Labor Day—maybe even the weekend—and took him to the vet this past Tuesday..

Luckily, my daughter made friends with the sister of a lifeguard she once worked with who is a vet, and who gives us a bit of discount on the medical portion of the visit. 

In 2019 Cosmo exhibited all the signs of being on the way out, and began acting crazy. Turns out his thyroid levels were screwy, and with the administration of thyroid medicine that I wind up giving him orally through a syringe twice a day, he's been fine. Until Tuesday.

It's been exceedingly hot, even in an air conditioned house. Cosmo was throwing up in several places, missed the litter box and soiled the bathroom floor, and kept hiding in the closet or under the bed. He was listless, and surely not himself. His appetite was off by a lot.

A 7:30 P.M. trip to the vet in Sayville was made. Susan and I were prepared for bad news. Cosmo was examined, pronounced to have a good heart rate, had his temperature taken, weighed (he's lost some weight since March 2022; a little less than a pound) and commented on that he was a little dehydrated. Oh, and that he was good looking.

He was taken in the back for his blood to be drawn. We were informed that a phone call tomorrow with the blood work results would tell us where to go next. The bill, even with the discount, was $195, mostly due to the anti-diarrhea medicine and blood work, which alone was $108.

The call came early on Wednesday to my daughter. Was this going to be the end of Cosmo? No. Not even close.

The $195 cat had perfect blood work for his age, and is basically a poster cat for one who is somewhere near 17 years old.  Like Mark Twain, news of his demise was premature.

He spent Tuesday night being a little more active, moving from  his usual spots for his "naps." He was eating a bit and drinking water early Wednesday morning. He even went out for a few hours, perhaps to tell whoever would listen that he's still around.

Once again, this cat fooled everyone. Well, at least us. We're still glad we took him to the vet. He now gets something in addition to his thyroid medicine for 10 days or so. He's still a bit listless, but the heat isn't doing anyone any favors.

A while ago, my oldest daughter Nancy had a Maine Coon cat that she needed to take to the vet. He was not looking good, despite not really being an "old" cat. She didn't get to bring him home, as he needed to be euthanatized right then.

Unlike Cannonball, Cosmo made a round trip, and so far doesn't need another one. The cat came back. He wouldn't stay away.

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The Pang of Time

Gerald Shargel, Bruce Cutler, John Gotti

I don't know what it means when I realize I know something about the people I'm reading about who've passed away. Even having met them, although indirectly.

I checked the NYT obits online yesterday and was surprised to learn that Gerald Shargel, a New York criminal defense attorney described in the obit headline as being a "Lawyer for the Mob" because of his many defenses of John Gotti and other family members, had passed away at 77. I'm 73 now, and realized that we're not that much different in age. And paying attention to the obit, we learn that Gerry's mother survives him!

Mr. Shargel didn't always defend mobsters. I came to interact with him when I testified for the prosecution in 2001 as he was defending an ob-gyn, Dr. Niels H. Lauersen for deceiving health insurance companies into paying for in-vitro-fertilization procedures—usually not covered under most policies—by reporting his work as something that was covered, thereby securing payments that would have otherwise been rejected.

Dr. Lauersen did this for years, securing reimbursements that totaled over $1 million. I worked for one of those insurance companies, and my contribution was to present evidence as to the frequency of this for the company I worked for.

I wound up being one of the many witnesses the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District government presented in what amounted to be two trials. Dr. Lauersen's first trial ended in a hung jury, and the government sought a second trial.

Dr. L's first attorney, Ted Wells, was no less a light than Gerald Shargel, when he later defended "Scooter Libby" in 2005, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, "for five felony counts of making false statements to federal investigators, perjury for lying to a grand jury and obstruction of justice for impeding the course of a federal grand jury investigation concerned with the possible leaking by government officials of the classified identity of a covert agent for the CIA, Valerie Plame Wilson." Scooter was convicted and later pardoned by President Trump.

In the 1990s and early 2000s Gerry Shargel was famous for defending John Gotti and other members of his family, as well other high profile miscreants. As Sam Roberts reports in the NYT obituary, Geraldo Rivera, a long-time New York television journalist and a classmate of Gerry's at Brooklyn Law School, is quoted as saying of Gerry, "Suffice it to say, he put the Teflon in the Don." John Gotti was acquitted so many times that the tabloids took to calling him the "Teflon Don." Nothing stuck.

When it was apparent that the U.S. Attorney was still interested in pursuing a trial against Dr. Lauersen after the hung jury, I remember commenting to anyone who would listen to me at the office that Niels needs a "mob lawyer" now. It was no surprise to me that he retained Gerry Shargel.

What I did learn from these experiences is that the government has vast resources to prosecute you, especially the Federal government. When Martha Stewart decided to go to trial I knew then that she was making a mistake by not settling, a mistake later admitted by her defense attorney. (Who got paid,  nonetheless, I'm sure.) She was found guilty of lying to the F.B.I. and was made to wear orange for a while, vowing she was going to help other prisoners. How that turned out for her I have no idea. But she has to live with whatever limitations a felony conviction imposes on her.

The obit gives an example of Gerry's sardonic cross-examination comments about teasing a mobster about applying alcohol to the wound incurred when the blood oath of "Omerta" is taken on the way to being a "made man." "In other words, you were going to get into the Mafia, but you didn't want to infect your finger?" I experienced none of that during my appearance. In fact, Gerry's co-counsel did my cross-exam without any sarcasm or rancor. I wasn't worth trying to embarrass.

All of this is over 20 years ago. The defendant, Dr. Lauersen served seven years, and has passed away. The Judge at the two trials, William H. Pauley III has passed away. And now the lead counsel for the defendant, Gerry Shargel has passed away.

I'm reminded of a New York Ranger team picture that was nestled against the back row of bottles in the Blarney Rock saloon in the '70s. The Rangers of that era were good. Very good. I was a Ranger season ticket holder, and I was a frequent customer of that 33rd Street watering hole so near Madison Square Garden. 

As the years went by, the bartenders kept putting Xs over the faces of the team members who were no longer with the club. Eventually, all the faces had Xs over them; and then eventually the photo disappeared. And then the Blarney Rock disappeared into another name.

We're all mortal. And it's annoying.

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In Memoriam

In addition to reading the tribute obituaries in the NYT, I also generally scan down on the obit page to the In Memoriam notices. These don't appear everyday, but because I've placed notices there myself to acknowledge milestone anniversaries of my murdered co-workers in 2002, I feel perhaps a special connection to these placings. I also know what they cost, and it's substantial.

Yesterday there was one placed to acknowledge someone born on July 6, 1931 who passed away on May 18, 2004. Easy to figure why: July 6th would have been their 91st birthday.

The sentiment goes:

Beloved father, grandfather and husband. Sad that you're gone. Glad that you're not around to see the mess the world is in.

It's a common emotion. Someone who has  passed away is shielded from the day's events, whatever horror they might be. Maybe it's an epidemic, mass shooting, war, economic downturn, someone else passing away, disease; could be anything. 

I'll admit to having a similar feeling when my father was in the hospital with terminal cancer in 1987 and I went to see him. He wasn't aware of my presence that I could tell. The TV was on, and it was news of how the Iran-Contra hearings were going, involving Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, secretary Fawn Hall, (big Farrah Faucet hair), shredded documents, and who knew what, when, etc. The current mess the United States was in.

I remember thinking that at least my father didn't have to absorb the news of this mess. It's only now that I'm a year older than he was when he passed away at 72 do I realize that he likely wouldn't have minded being given the opportunity to absorb news of the mess the world was in. At least he wouldn't be in a hospital bed dying. Born in 1915, he certainly witnessed a lot. What would some congressional hearings mean compared to all that?

At some point in the '60s I was very much into reading poetry, and I always remember W.H. Auden's September 1, 1939 poem and how he felt when it was obvious Herr Hitler was bent on an attempt at world domination by invading Poland that day.

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:

...

May I composed like them
Of Eros and dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Basically, as shitty as the world was about to become, Auden wants to be around to show an "affirming flame."

We only get the years and time frame we're born into and live through, and with that, we get to learn of all that is good and bad. But given a choice. I'd rather be around for as long as I can to "show an affirming flame" to whatever mess the world is in.

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The Gesture

Going through my recent small stack of clippings meant for trimming, and eventually putting on top of the pile, I came across the obit I saved for Kenny Moore, 78, Athlete With 'Real Literary Bent.'

I immediately knew who this was, and was taken back by what I perceived to be a young age, 78, myself being not far behind at 73. They're calling our class.

One of the photos in the obit threw me. I didn't realize how much Moore looked like Frank Shorter, the winner of that 1972 Olympic marathon. I remember watching the race live and remembered Moore finishing fourth. For a bit, I thought they printed the wrong picture. But Frank was wearing bib number 1014, and Moore was wearing 1001, so they didn't mix up the photos.

It was the early '70s and I had really gotten back into running after having run track and cross-country in high school. My goal was to run a sub-5 minute mile. I only had myself for a trainer, and not a very good pair of shoes. I ran maybe 25 miles a week, with some speed training on a quarter mile cinder track at Bayside High School.

I self-timed myself for the mile, but the best I could do was 5:36. I was never going to break five minutes. I just concentrated on races in Central Park, where we were an oddity running in the Six Mile Winter Series races.  

I think it was 1972 and my father an I were at a track meet at the Garden. It might have been an A.A.U. meet, or an I.C.4-A meet. In that era, there were as many as six track meets at the Garden in a season. I distinctly remember watching the 10,000 meter race and seeing this guy with a ponytail wearing a University of Florida top.

It was Frank Shorter. He didn't win, or even come close, but it was the ponytail that made him stand out. I think Frank at that time had won six A.A.U. National Cross-Country titles. Later that year Frank of course won the Olympic Marathon at Munich, and Kenny Moore finished fourth. The running boom had arrived.

Also in the 1972 Olympics was the American champion Steve Prefontaine, the running phenom from the University of Oregon. Watching the Olympics I wanted to be Pre. I even grew a mustache that I still have because he had one. Turns out Frank and Kenny sported a mustache as well.

I distinctly remember whoever the pre-race commentator was telling us that he didn't think Pre was going to get the gold medal. He tried valiantly, but tired in the end and finished fourth. Lasse Virén of Finland took the 5,000 meter race, as well as the 10,000 meter race. It is a fantastic race to watch on YouTube.

I also remember that after the race there were revelations that Virén used a "blood-doping" technique of receiving highly-oxygenated blood via transfusions just before the race. There was no disqualification because it was either allowed, or was just a rumor. I remember seeing Virén striding near the front in a New York City Marathon as they ran through Long Island City, the first or second year the NYC Marathon went borough-wide.

I don't think it was long after the 1972 Olympics that Kenny Moore started writing for Sports Illustrated, a magazine I read avidly at the time, especially anything by Moore.

There was one article he wrote that I will never forget. It was about Emil Zátopek and Ron Clarke, pre-eminent long-distance and middle-distance runners. Emil Zátopek, from Czechoslovakia, famously won the 5,000 and  10,000 meter races, and the marathon, his first, as a last-minute entry at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Norway.  He is the only man to ever pull off that  triple.

Ron Clarke was also a pre-eminent middle-distance runner from Australia who held 17 world records at all kinds of distance, even an event to see how far one could go in an hour. At the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, Clarke was an obvious favorite for the 10,000 meter race.

At that point, distance winners were not Americans. They competed, but couldn't hold a candle to the European and Australian and New Zealand runners. Billy Mills, a native American whose Oglala Lakota Sioux tribal name was Tamackoce Te'Hila (loves his country) was a complete unknown—before the race.

Up till then, Clarke, even with all this various records, didn't have an Olympic medal. Kenny Moore describes the race, and tells us that Billy Mills sees Clarke up ahead, close to finish, but looks like he's binding up, the lactic acid is slowing him down and he's struggling. Again, a YouTube replay of the race shows how exciting it was.

Mills figures, what the hell, he just plain goes for it and wins, denying Clarke the expected gold medal,  who gets the bronze. Mills then, and now, is one of the great upset winners in Olympic history.

Kenny Moore writes of the meeting of Zátopek and Clarke many years after each of them is out of competition. I don't have the article, and don't know where the visit took place, but at the end of the visit Moore tells us as the two men are set to say good-bye at the airport, Zátopek presses one of his gold medals into Clarke's hand as he's leaving, insisting he keep it.

I've always remembered the story, and the thought of a world class gesture between two world class runners.

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The Connection

It is no secret that I take great delight in reading the tribute obituaries in the NYT. Sometimes there can be so many that the obit pages exceed what is now the very shrunken sport pages. When this happens, I find myself skimming the piece so that I might make it through the paper before the next one is delivered.

I also take great delight in imagining what the subject's life might have been like for the years they lived in. The longer the life, the more events they passed through.

The other day, when Harry Gesner's obit reached the pages, Architect Who Made Houses Soar in California, dies at 97, we learned of a man who was alive most recently whose father, at 16, rode with Teddy Roosevelt as part of the volunteer cavalry corps known as the Rough Riders in the Spanish- American War. Think of that. Dad at some point could tell stories of being in Teddy Roosevelt's presence in Cuba in 1898. That is some handshake back in history.

I think in Joseph Mitchell's short story on McSorley's Ale House he writes of encountering veteran's of that war huddled around McSorley's pot-belly stove. There are no more veterans of that war alive these days. 

When I was a lad in the '50s, I distinctly remember there being a big deal made of when the last Civil War veteran had passed away. I remember a documentary about the premiere of Gone With the Wind in 1939 in Atlanta when present were some veterans from the Confederate side who gave a loud demonstration of what was known as the "Rebel Yell," an attempt at the blood-curding cry as they charged the Union troops in the hopes of scaring them into retreat.

Of course, unless Harry Gesner left some written or recorded memorabilia behind, we don't know what Dad might have told him. Parents are well-known to not tell their offspring tales of their young lives, and we as children have probably not likely made the effort to get them to do so. A shame, but it's true.

I've always felt a certain connection to Teddy Roosevelt. My father's name was Ted, my theory named in 1915 after a man who had been president. My middle name is Theodore, and I hold a distinct memory of visiting T.R.'s home on 20th Street with my mother and father, probably sometime in the '50s. I've never gone back, but always plan to.

My own daughter Susan is a HUGE fan of Teddy Roosevelt, and lived for a while in Oyster Bay, daily going by the town's statue of T.R. on horseback. We've visited Sagamore Hill on a few occasions. I've gifted her Clay Risen's book on T.R., titled My Crowded Hour, a title I learned from a History Channel documentary was what Roosevelt called his experience of leading a charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba against Spanish troops.

My own father served in the Corps of Engineers during WW II, on Guam, making maps from reconnaissance photos. By the time he was drafted, or enlisted, (one of many details I don't know, and it's way too late to ask) he already had an engineering degree from Syracuse University. The Army became an early employer.

In a safe deposit box I have his Tech-Sergeant's patch, some Corps of Engineer collar insignia, and his discharge papers. When I went to YMCA camp in the '50s I took his dented canteen with me, and his garrison belt, items I can no longer find.

So I'm sure Mr. Gesner's and his family hold in some place similar memorabilia from the father's youthful life on horseback with Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba. 

It's a great connection.

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