Better Things Through Engineering

I don't know what the criteria is for the NYT to consider a six column tribute obit on your passing, other than you've become notable in some field of endeavor. 

Whatever the bar is, Henry Petroski clearly cleared it with an obit headline that introduces his life as: "Henry Petroski, Whose Books Decoded Engineering, Is dead at 81."

It seems when you are able to write a 448-page volume on the lowly pencil and have a publisher who is willing to take a chance on it and produce it for the general public, you gain the attention of the NYT obit editor on your passing.

But there's more. Mr. Petroski wrote about many prosaic things and again notably gave the world a volume on the toothpick, another object made of wood.

Like many accomplished people, Mr. Petroski's parents were not engineers, or even probably college graduates. His father was a rate clerk for trucking companies in Brooklyn, and his mother was  a homemaker.

But Henry's curiosity about how things were made grew out his father's penchant for examining a simple can of food and spinning a narrative on how that product came to be just by reading the label and probably the numbers stamped on the bottom, somewhat like Sherlock Holmes being able to tell you everything about a gentleman caller because of the mud on his shoes.

Henry, obviously of Polish descent, was reported to have grown up in Brooklyn, likely Greenpoint, because that was and still is a Polish stronghold. There is a tale about Greenpoint that so many of the city's window washers lived there that the area was said to have the cleanest windows in the city.  Might even still be true.

Henry took the NYC route to an engineering degree by getting one in mechanical engineering from Manhattan College, that despite its name, is in the Bronx, near Van Cortlandt Park. Manhattan has probably produced more engineering graduates than any other NYC school.  I like to think that the elevator inspector, P.J. O'Connor, whose name I saw on nearly every elevator certificate in any apartment house I ever delivered flowers to in the '60s, gained his mechanical engineering degree from Manhattan College. Nowadays, the elevator inspection placard is held in the building's office.

Henry went on to earn a master's degree in theoretical applied mechanics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as well as a Ph.D. from there.

Mr. Petroski took a great interest in trying to determine why projects failed. When a neighbor asked him to define engineering he came up with "engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure." Making it work. Better life through engineering. We've probably heard the laudatory phrase, "German engineering." or, "it's a well-engineered product."

His first doorstopper grew out of a paper he wrote about pencils. It became the 448-page tome "The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance." There is no mention if it landed anywhere on a bestseller list, but it gained Mr. Petroski the reputation of explaining engineering concepts for those who weren't engineers.

But here's the best part, and I like to think this might be a source for a future question on some Jeopardy category.

His book about the pencil apparently contained a full chapter on Henry David Thoreau, who famously wrote "Walden", who was a "self-taught pencil engineer who learned about the graphite and clay mixture that made European pencils superior, and who helped adapt them to his family's pencil manufacturing."

Who knew that the cradle of manufacturing in Massachusetts included that of making pencils, and Henry David Thoreau came from a line of pencil makers. Did he write "Walden" all in pencil?

Mr. Petroski became interested in pencils when he got to Duke University to teach and was unhappy with the quality of pencils they supplied the faculty and student body with. The points always broke.

Quite honestly, although I certainly remember using pencils in grammar school in the 50s, and always needing to sharpen them with that grinder pencil sharpener mounted on a wall near the teacher, I certainly can't imagine someone writing about them.

I would have thought that someone like Mr. Petroski, an engineer, would have long ago taken up with a mechanical pencil whose refills might break, but were always made useful again by just pushing out a little more of the stored lead.

But were pencils ever made with lead? There was, and still is the expression uttered by those whose relatives are expecting to have to call a nursing home or home service agency for a loved one who will tell you that eating oysters or clams will put "lead in your pencil," How can that be a good thing?

This is said to males who have crashed through puberty who might be eating shellfish, because the belief is that the consumption of raw shellfish will create virility and enhance their sex life.

I have to say this just might be a very old wives tale, or a fisherman's tale, because I've eaten raw shellfish for many years and have to say I've never experienced any increased libido. And have pencils ever had lead in them to begin with? To that there is an answer. No. "Lead pencils" are made with graphite, a form of carbon, and were never made with lead. They'd be heavy if they were.

Perhaps the "lead in your pencil" grew out of the opposite of "shooting blanks," having sperm that can't impregnate. Since bullets that work are usually from lead tips, then if your virility is enhanced by eating shellfish then you're not going to shoot blanks with more "lead in your pencil." Just a thought.

Mr. Petroski's book on pencils takes the reader through invention and evolution with brands like Faber-Castell, Dixon Ticonderoga and Koh-I-Noor. I was always using just a Ticonderoga pencil when I was growing up. There must have been a merger.

We were in Ticonderoga once. My oldest daughter's track couch came from that upstate New York town. The area is known for its paper mills, making pulp from wood. Thus, the wood in a Ticonderoga pencil is from the town of Ticonderoga. Parts of the town have a heavy odor from the manufacturing of pulp for paper. Just in case you were thinking of passing through.

How well the book on pencils sold I don't know, but 20 years later Mr. Petroski produced a book on

toothpicks that weighed in at more than 400 pages, "The Toothpick Technology and Culture (2007)." A glib book reviewer for the NYT, Joe Queenan, (now of the WSJ) feared Mr. Petroski was next going to turn his attention to grommets with another doorstopper. 

He didn't, but he did write many books and one on simple objects, "The Evolution of Useful Things: How Everyday Artifacts—From Forks and Pins to Paper Clips—Came to Be as They Are."

I almost feel I'm qualified to write about toothpicks, but not 400+ pages. Probably not even 400 words. I do remember they once had a blunt end that tapered down to a point. I remember they were flat, and as a kid I used them for either applying glue to plastic models, or using them in the construction of something for my train set. 

Then there were round toothpicks, with a point at either end. And now, I see my wide has brought home a supply of round toothpicks that are notched at one end, sort of eliminating any duplex use of the toothpick. I don't know what function the notch is meant to provide. A better grip? Easier to pull one out of the stack?

I need toothpicks especially when corn is in season. I was never fitted for braces, and some teeth are somewhat on top of each other, trapping food. Every time I use one of the notched toothpicks and reduce the number left by one, I wonder if I'm destined to outlive this supply of toothpicks, or will the unused portion be part of my estate?

At 74 I think like this often. Will the three-pack of Colgate toothpaste outlive me? Will the supply of staples I have be all I'll ever need, or will I outlive the supply left and have to order more? Does anyone ever live long enough to use all the staples they bought for use in the home?

Only time will tell.

http://www,onofframp.blogspot.com

The Nail Salon

There's one everywhere. There might be more nail salons than Starbucks. Women having their nails done, hands and feet, is an industry.

Only women? Well no. My wife tells me men have been seen by her in these emporiums having a pedicure, toenails clipped, but not painted. Jesus. You're kidding?

If anyone pays any attention to some details in these postings, then they'll know I recently had left shoulder rotator cuff repair. This was done in an ambulatory surgery setting on May 1 and required me to keep my left arm in a sling for six weeks.

When I checked in for the surgery I had already been fitted for the sling, and brought it with me. The nurse told me I'd wake up with it on. I did.

I'm left-handed to boot, so tying up my left arm and hand was especially inconvenient. But I managed to sleep on my right side, and I have to say I've made a good recovery, still going to physical therapy, and have now entered the second phase of it.

When I explained to the few people who asked what happened, I explained it was rotator cuff surgery and that I wasn't getting $10 million not to pitch for the rest of the season. Most people got what I was talking about.

How did you injure it? I didn't. At 74 with a long life behind me that included home maintenance of nearly every kind, painting, wallpapering gardening and wood working, I just wore my arm out. It happens.

My indentured servitude to my father started at an early age when I was called on to help him paint the two-family house in Flushing, a large two story wooden clapboard building built in 1923 that needed every inch of it painted periodically. And then there was the unattached two-car garage. I grew up with a paint brush in my hand. My left hand, which I surmise is where it all started.

And what kind of paint was applied to a wooden clapboard house in the 1950s? Why Dutch Boy paint made by the National Lead Company, an oil base paint that weighed a ton on a 3" brush. I can still remember my wrist sagging when I dipped the brush in for more paint. I don't remember how old I was when I was pressed into service.

Eventually, oil, lead paint gave way to water based latex paint, but still required the application by brush. As the years went by and my wife and I moved from the house in 1992 I had painted every corner of that place, several times over, inside and out.

The current house we're in didn't require as much maintenance, and by then I was paying someone to do any exterior painting. But not interior painting. So, add 30 more years of wear to the limb.

I noticed I was having a good deal of pain using the orbital sander for a woodworking project earlier this year. I assumed it was bursitis. But when it only seemed to get worse, and Tiger Balm was only giving me a rash, off I went to an orthopaedic group in Manhattan, one I've been to before for my knee.

A physical exam by the physician gave him the impression I had a rotator cuff tear. How torn would only be revealed by the MRI. My heart sank when he called to tell me the MRI results showed a tear that would only get worse and be harder to repair if left unattended. No amount of physical therapy was going to heal the tear without surgery. 

So May 1st was my first day of my arm in a sling. But I don't live alone, and my wife was able to help me get my shoes, socks and shirt on. However, my toenails had not been clipped just prior to the surgery, and were growing at whatever rate toenails grow. Getting the socks on was getting to be difficult for my wife. And there were six weeks of recovery to take place. So, what the hell am I supposed to do to get my toenails clipped?

I'm here to tell you that even with 48 years of marriage that doesn't mean your wife is willing to trim your toenails.  There isn't a pre-nuptial agreement, and even if there was, I seriously doubt any lawyer would insert a toenail clipping clause in there.

"You need to go a nail salon." 
"You're kidding. Guys go there?"
"Yes. I see guys there often enough."
"Okay, which one do I go to?"

I was told to go to Nissi Nails because my wife expected them to be cheaper since they were in a small storefront, within walking distance of the house. In fact, there must he four nail paces all within walking distance of the house.

I've had manicures when the barber shop that I used to go to had a manicurist. I know men get manicures, not so much pedicures. Having someone fuss over an extremity wasn't completely foreign to me. Perhaps even coincidental was that since they took Tucker Carlson off the air my wife has been hard put to find something to watch at 8:00 P.M. She's landed on ME-TV and repeats of The Andy Griffin show from the early '60s where he's the sheriff in Mayberry, lives with Aunt Bea, and his son Opie—which everyone by now knows is Ronnie Howard—and has Don Knotts as his deputy who keeps his sidearm fully loaded with one bullet.   

In an episode that was just on in our kitchen soon after dinner, I was treated to watching Barbara Eden (before I Dream of Jeannie) get off the bus when it reached Mayberry because the sign said it was full of friendly, decent people. Barbara's character is a manicurist who convinces the town's barber to let her set up and do manicures for a commission.

Of course she's attractive, but the men won't go for a manicure. Sheriff Taylor (Andy) is overheard by Barbara that she won't last in town. She should just get back on the bus. Well, she gets her feathers ruffled and tells the assembled men that she was wrong that the town is full of friendly, decent people.

Of course Andy is ashamed of himself and sets himself up as her first customer. Others follow. Happy ending in Mayberry.

 I've walked past enough nail salons to know there's a front portion where women seem to be getting their fingernails done, and a back, that I guessed is where you sit to present your feet.

What I didn't realize until I was deep into a place myself was that each of the elevated chairs you sat in—like getting your shoes shine—to present your feet is hooked into plumbing that delivers warm water to a basin where your feet are first soaked. There was a basin for what were 8 chairs in this place. I was impressed by what a setup like that had to cost.

And not just soaked in plain water; in something that looked like pink Jell-O. I was getting a spa treatment for my feet. I looked up at he prices and realized my wife was completely misinformed about what this was going to cost. $25. Plus of course tip.

Well, the toenails needed to be clipped, the soaking felt good, and while the attention seemed almost ceremonial and religious, I will admit that half an hour later when the woman was putting my shoes and socks back on, my feet felt good.

Since I knew the price, there was no surprise when I paid at the register. The tip was appreciated, and out I went back into the morning air.

Was it easier to have someone clip my nails rather than fight with them myself? Yes, but I won't be back. I have a good scissor taken from my gardening tools meant to clip flower buds that has plenty of torque to do the job myself.

But, if someone wants to give me a gift certificate for a birthday, Father's Day, or Christmas present, I won't protest.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

The White House to the Big House

Anyone who is any kind of regular reader of these postings will know by now that I consider Maureen Dowd to be the laziest columnist in existence. They pay her way too much for the far too few words she writes once a week. Once a week! There are high school students who write more for their high school paper, and of course for a lot less. She must keep waving that Pulitzer she earned long ago in the their face. "Yeah A.G. (A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of the NYT), you got one of these?"

I will say she is one writer who can send you the dictionary more than anyone else. Like William F. Buckley Jr. she can be a sesquipedalian. An annoying one. In a recent column she uncorked a 28 letter word that hardly looked like a word but rather a set of spilled Scrabble tiles that were picked up and put on the bar. She must have been reminding us once again that she just got a Masters in English from Columbia University while in her 60s. The word? Floccinaucinihilipilifaction. Look it up. 

The word reminds me of the childhood riddle that asked, "what has fours I's and flows?" Mississippi.

I have to hand it her in her last column. She paints an absolutely delicious picture of Donald Trump running the country from the Big House rather than the White House.

The Justice Department's Special Counsel, Jack Smith, is a crackerjack prosecutor who has argued cases at the World Court in the Hague against warlords and war criminals. A conviction should not be unexpected. Even Alan M. Dershowitz in a WSJ Op-ed piece admits that the government has done their homework. He writes: "Mr. Smith has made a stronger case against Mr. Trump than many observers, including me, expected." Oh-oh. Ask Martha Stewart about pissing off the Feds.

The image is cinematic. Maureen has The Donald in the slammer like Paulie in the movie Goodfellas, being accorded all the jailhouse privileges you can have for the money. Paulie (Paul Sorvino) cuts the garlic just so for the sauce. Donald can cut the Big Mac cheeseburgers in half.

The orange jumpsuit might be a problem, what with the color of The Donald's hair. And how do you wear presidential cufflinks with that outfit? The red tie is definitely out. Suicide, and all. I wish Mad Magazine were still around. My guess is they'd be sketching the cartoon panels as we write.

Ms. Dowd has always been hard on The Donald ever since he was elected. You can't accuse her of suddenly not liking someone. Having Trump being granted conjugal visits, and not with Melania, might be a blow too low, but The Donald has had his share of women. There would no doubt be plenty of volunteers to take Melania's place, expecting to win a competition of some kind. If Melania were not to visit The Donald in a conjugal trailer parked near the exercise yard it shouldn't a surprise. It would not exactly be a suitable place for a former First Lady to have relations with her husband, even if the sheets are fresh from the prison laundry. It is hard to imagine Melania subjecting herself to being buzzed through a series of doors to reach The Donald waiting for her on a bed in a trailer in the exercise yard ringed in razor barbed wire. Meetings with world leaders should be no problem. That's what Zoom is for.

As for playing golf, well, the Federal prison system  was once nicknamed Club Fed for it easy going confinement comforts and amenities. That has supposedly changed. Regardless, there is probably no Federal prison that includes at least a nine hole curse adjacent to the property that prisoners might take advantage of. The Donald will have to play virtual golf on his iPhone, if he is allowed to have one.

Count on Ms. Dowd to give us an interesting piece of history. She tells us socialist Eugene Debs was put in prison for sedition and still ran for president, garnering 900,000 votes. The prospect of The Donald running for president from a cell block certainly would not make some people happy.

And Debs wasn't the only convicted felon to run for the highest office. Lyndon LaRouche, a convicted felon for attempting to defraud the IRS and defaulting on loans from campaign supporters, ran as a candidate for the United States Labor party in one his eight attempts at office. But these are fringe candidates and  fringe parties. It would be assumed that Donald Trump would be the Republican standard bearer, adding another unique chapter to American history.

But if Joe Biden basically didn't travel in 2020 and campaigned from his basement, then Donald Trump campaigning from a jail cell can't be all that different.

What if he wants a recount? And where do you hold the victory speech, the mess hall? Losing would prove no problem as far a speech is concerned. The Donald doesn't admit defeat or quit.

The above photo is credited to the United States Justice Department and shows storage boxes of what are purported to be classified government documents kept without any apparent security in a Mar-a-Largo bathroom. 

The sensitivity of the stored papers will certainly be brought in question. Can anything the government put out there years ago still be relevant? It is possible that the defense will argue that they hold nothing more exciting that yesterday's newspaper, and we know that goes underneath parakeets or wraps fish. The Donald just had a huge supply ready for that.

A place as big as Mar-a-Largo surely has umpteen bathrooms, so the storage of boxes in one of them shouldn't keep any household members from  relieving themselves. It is an incongruent scene. A chandelier in a bathroom that is stuffed with storage boxes in front of a shower curtain that looks as seedy at the one Janet Leigh was behind when she was written out of Psycho very early in the movie. That Hitchcock.

We always live interesting times. One news analyst with ABC's David Muir provided an escape scenario where Donald Trump gets elected and then has his Attorney General dismiss the case against him.  A criminal's heaven.

If a Florida jury doesn't convict Mr. Trump of the charges the government has brought against him, it wouldn't be the first time a Don will have been acquitted. Anyone from New York can easily remember the number of times organized crime's John Gotti was hauled into Eastern District Federal Court with a laundry list of transgressions who ultimately would get acquitted. This happened so often that New York newspapers nicknamed John Gotti the Teflon Don.

John Gotti was eventually hauled in and was convicted, sent to prison and died there in 2002. But if a Florida jury acquits we will have a new Teflon Don. Hollywood awaits.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Nostalgia

Amazingly, the NYT today has devoted two full pages to remembering Secretariat's record setting win in the Belmont Stakes 50 years ago. They've also added their two racing writers' picks with comments for the big race, Joe Drape's and Melissa Hoppert's. It's Brigadoon. Awareness of racing comes once a year to the New York area.

Joe Drape must be the new sports editor, or deputy editor of the sports page. There has been a tremendous amount of horse racing coverage lately, albeit about the drugs, suspensions, breakdowns and euthanasias of the effected horse who can't be made whole again. Not fun to read, but a vast part of what the game has become.

I'm writing this in the morning, before the Belmont activities have started. My oldest daughter got married on the day Smarty Jones lost in the shadow of the wire to Birdstone. We listened to the race on the car radio as we got to the catering hall in the Bronx—Snuff Mill in the Bronx Botanical Gardens. There was no TV inside.

I have many memories of Belmont Day. By second daughter got married on the Friday before Justify's Triple Crown in 2018. I was there for all the Triple Crown winners in the 70s. 

Secretariat's Belmont Day weather was a lot like today. A pleasant June Saturday. My friend Dave and I were die-hard racetrackers at the time, got to the track when the doors opened. Dave is the Dave in Fourstardave, nicknamed by his boss Richard Bomze at Winning Points for his number of stars awarded to his picks for college football games. Dave passed away in February 2021.

We got there by the first LIRR train to arrive at Belmont, raced to the last section of the third floor, and secured three seats by taping sections of the Morning Telegraph to our seats—the universal sign to others that the seat is taken. We were saving the third seat for our mentor Les, Mr. Pace, an older guy who was in love with Citation. who he saw decades ago.

In that era, NYRA  saw fit to keep at least one section open to non-reserved seat tickets holders. Now, they reserve out the whole place, and I suspect make people buy tickets for Friday's card as well, bundling the two dates into one exorbitant price.

No one goes to Friday's card, but NYRA is keen to tell you it's part of their "Festival." Earlier last month they put an ad out for 700 people to be hired for the three days to have various jobs around the stands, even being mutuel clerks, to handle their delusional expectations that there will be a crowd.

They missed this year of making it a three day festival because of cancelling racing on Thursday due to poor air quality due to the Canadian forest fires. Ironically, Wednesday was the worst day of the smoke and haze, and there was no racing scheduled for Wednesday. They could have run Thursday, but cancelled early in the day. Oh well.

My first day at the races was Belmont Day in 1968 with Dave and his brother Dennis. We tried to keep it a tradition, but Dennis soon developed other interests, and left it to Dave and I. Dave and I were going to be there on a Saturday anyway, so Belmont Day was just one more day with a lot more people.

I kept a length of masking tape wrapped around a stubby pencil to secure seats. We did this whenever we went to the races. Eventually NYRA saw fit to make the whole place a reserved seat and we stopped going on Belmont Day. The last Belmont Day I attended was in 1999 when Lemon Drop Kid won. I had ordered reserved seats that put Dave, myself, Johnny M. and Jose B. on the third floor of the grandstand. We had so much trouble leaving the track by car then that we didn't arrive back in Wantagh, less than 10 miles away, until 8:30 that night. They had no one directing traffic. NYRA's problems with crowds are part of their pattern. I never went to another Belmont after that.

In 2003 I went to Belmont on the Friday before Funny Cide was going to try for the Triple Crown. I wanted to get a feel for the place. When I got there, expecting to grab a seat because no one was there. I found NYRA had reserved every seat in the place as part of their two-day ticket package for the Belmont. I couldn't get a seat. Rows and rows of empty seats, ushers attending to empty aisles  and I wasn't allowed to sit down anywhere.

I threw a fit. Think George Brett storming out of the dugout when his home run was erased. I was pointed to customer service. I wasn't much calmer by then, but they did give me a reserved seat in the grandstand for the day. In those days you paid $5 for clubhouse, which I had, and $2 for the grandstand. 

So now I've got a seat, but in the $2 section. I don't remember if I eventually got a $3 refund. Such was NYRA. Soon after, whenever I went to Belmont I would see a sign that made the claim that admission didn't mean you had a seat. I like to think I was responsible for NYRA now covering their ass with their no seat guarantee policy. I don't think I've seen the sign lately, but then again, I barely go but maybe twice a year to Belmont, and only on a day when there are more horses stabled than there are people  in the stands, like last Saturday.

Fifty years is a long time ago. And I'm not going to say it seems like yesterday. A lot of water has gone under that bridge, and there are many people who I knew then, family included, who are no longer with us.

It's days like this I miss Fourstardave. I miss Les, who wouldn't even take the seat we saved for him because he felt Citation's Triple Crown achievement was going to eclipsed. Three magazine, Time, Sports Illustrated and Newsweek all had Secretariat on their covers a week before the race. Les left before Secretariat even went to the post. Citation was a great horse, and 16 wins in a row is a Joe DiMaggio-type record, like Woody Stevens winning five Belmonts in a row in the '80s. I was there for all those, and cashed some tickets on Woody's winner. Not all, but a few.

I keep a framed page from the Racing Form that shows the past performances of all five of Woody's winners as they stood before the Belmont.

But pride of place in this home office, above the desk with this computer on it, hangs Bob Coglianese 's photo of Ron Turcotte looking at the tote board as he cruises "like a tremendous machine" to the finish line. Ron's looking at what I saw him looking at: the fractions, 461/5, 1:094/5, 1:344/5, 1:59, the unbelievable fractions that gave him a 31 length victory, nearly a sixteenth of a mile margin, over the rest of the field. His final time of 2:24 set a track record and a record that no one has gotten close to. If it was a home run, it would have been the one that was never hit out of the old Yankee Stadium.

My friend and I were standing on our seats. I was pounding on his shoulders to "look at the time, look at the time." Secretariat's owner Penny Tweedy was frightfully concerned that Turcotte was going too fast. He couldn't last. He did of course.

Tom Durkin, the long-time NYRA track announcer who came along after Secretariat suggested a pole be installed along the stretch that is in the position of where the second place horse was when Secretariat hit the wire. It is nearly a 1/16th of a mile from the finish. It's called Secretariat's pole, trimmed in Meadow Stable's blue and white colors.

Bob Coglianese recently passed away at 88. His son Adam is now the official track photographer. Adam is quoted in today's NYT piece that it's "dumb luck" to get a phot as good as the one snapped by his father, or his assistants, shooting one frame at a time. That photo is still on sale, particularly when you go to Saratoga.

I don't think it's luck, I've watched the photographers set up prior to a big race, taping their cameras at ground level to posts on the rail; climbing up on portable stands like scaffolding to get an unobstructive view of the finish. Luck is the residue of design.

Adam tells Melissa Hoppert in the story that he might position 20 photographers on a big day like the Belmont. There is one photo I bought in Saratoga of Secretariat rounding the turn into the stretch, way ahead of the second place horse, with no crowd, or stands in the photo. He looks like he was captured at a workout. It's a picture like none other of that day.

I've met Adam in the bowels of Belmont where his photographer's office is located. You can buy winner's circle photos for $20, and I've bought a few over the years, usually when Bobby G's friend Richie lands in the winner's circle with of one his horses. I'm a horse owner, by living vicariously through Bob's friend.

I asked Adam about the unique photo of Secretariat photo rounding the turn into the stretch. He thinks one of his father's friends took the photo. Not dumb luck. Being in the right place to record what became horse racing history.

Johnny M. is coming over today to watch the Belmont. I don't even bother to get the past performances for a day I'm not going to the races. I'll make some small wagers on the Belmont, win and a variety of exacta combinations, but nothing totaling any kind of money. The thumbnail sketches that appear in the paper are good enough to make informed decisions.

So, who will I go on record for? A flyer on Arcangelo to win, based on a win over the track, always important. Some exacta combinations, boxes with some Pletcher runners, Tapit Trice or Tapit Shoes, along with something from Brad Cox Angel of Empire.

By the looks of things, there don't appear to be many backs in those seats when you can see the stands today. They might be headed for just about a crowd of 50,000; maybe not even that.

There is even another Secretariat statue in the backyard, a sculpture by Jocelyn Russell, this one with Turcotte on board. Photo ops galore. The Secretariat statue that's been in the paddock that always has a display of white carnations placed along the base on Belmont Day today has blue and white carnations. Carnations are the flower of the Belmont Stakes. (Photo at the top of this posting).

Since that photo was taken NYRA made a big deal of rebronzing the statue to make the coloring more like the chestnut that Secretariat was. To me, I think they failed. He looks more orange than chestnut, somewhat like the air on Wednesday. Oh well.

It was interesting to note that when they showed a replay of Secretariat's Belmont they said they went to the post at 5:38. Not so these days. A little after 7:00, but with plenty of daylight left as the gates popped open.

And what happened? Well, you can still make history even if the final time is 2:29 and change, more than 5 seconds slower than Secretariat's unworldly romp around Big Sandy. Arcangelo, a well-bred ridgeling won the race with Javier Castellano aboard. Castellano won the Derby with Mage, and now has checked off a victory in each of the Triple Crown races in his career..

Can a ridgeling still sire a horse? Yes, but like any horse, they need to be checked for testicular ability to impregnate. When Woody Stevens won a Belmont with Creme Fraiche in 1985 the sire news wasn't so good. Creme Fraiche was a gelding. No go in the breeding shed.

Race charts can be a dry read. They don't divulge the history behind the victory. Arcangelo's breeding screams distance. The sire is Arrogate, with a Tapit mare Modeling. He won by 1½ lengths. The chart tells us how Javier saved ground all the way around after tucking in from the three path on the backstretch.

After Forte and Tapit Trice, there was a dead heat for fourth with Hit Show and Angel of Empire. That produced two Superfectas. Something for everyone.

Trainers names are always listed in the chart. In this case Jena Antonucci, the first woman trainer to win a Triple Crown race. Ms. Antonucci runs a small stable with not many starters, but a decent winning percentage.

Arcangelo won a race over the track prior to the Belmont, the so-called Peter Pan stakes, a mile and an eighth around Belmont, which makes it a one-turn race.

The Peter Pan is not known to be a great prep for the Belmont, but handicappers always think more of a horse when they have a win over the track. The NYT racing writer Joe Drape thought enough of it to make Arcangelo his top pick. If you followed Joe, you cashed. As did Johnny D. and Johnny M. in Johnny D's living room. A nice payout with no overhead: no admission charges, no parking charges, no cost of the Racing Form. Absolutely pure profit. It should happen more often.

But the human story belongs to Ms. Antonucci, a Florida-based trainer who has been around horses since she was three, being plopped on top of one by her parents to ride show horses. People in this game are a bit like Jesus. They've been born in a stable.

Ms. Antonucci was a guest of Greg Wolfe earlier in he day on a FS1/2 broadcast. There was so much racing coverage that you missed nothing with network and cable Fox coverage. It was a prescient interview. Her chances before the race were good, and proved even better when Javier was saving all that ground.

Through the power of Twitter it was posted by @AcaciaClement, a Fox presenter, Ms. Antonucci's viewing of the race from the boxes. To me, it's rather amazing that a trainer would watch the race unfold by watching the earlier parts of it on the TV monitor in the boxes. No binoculars.

It's a one-minute clip that builds in intensity as Ms. Antonucci and the owner and a few others are realizing there is a chance Javier and Arcangelo are going to succeed. As the horses are in the stretch and Arcangelo looks to be clearly in the lead, Ms. Antonucci peels away from the TV and watches directly.

I can only say her reaction to the race might remind some of Med Ryan in a deli with Billy Crystal. Ms. Antonucci fairly collapses with joy as Arcangelo crosses the wire first. She wasn't the only one so excited.

Hopefully, the announced crowd of a little over 48,000 left as happy as Jena Antonucci the trainer, Jon Ebbert, the owner, and Javier Castellano the jockey. Also hopefully, the crowd got out of the place before midnight. The first 10,000 admitted got a reprint of the 1973 Belmont Day program. I still can't find mine, although I've got lots of other programs. I would always buy one, even if I knew the numbers for the entries. But, in a NYRA move they made the program $4 because they contain a few lines of a past performance for each horse. It's worthless to any serious handicapper. I no longer buy a program that once upon a time was 25¢. I stopped when it was $3.

By the looks of the crowd, there were still a significant number of empty reserved seats. The apron was crowded, telling me the crowd was a general admission crowd that decided to come out when the weather was so inviting. No seats for general admission.

The card was a typical stakes filled one with six Grade 1 races and three other stake races, 9 in all. Back when the Christopher Kay was running the show it was decided to cluster as many stake races as they could on certain days. The effect of this pulled stake races away from their traditional dates, notably the Metropolitan Mile that was always on Memorial Day. No more. This of course strips stake races from days that would ordinarily hold them, leaving a surfeit of maiden races for the rest of us who actually play more than once a year. Thanks Chris.

Christopher Kay was ousted when it was revealed be was having NYRA staff rake his leaves when he was in Saratoga. Sometimes the right things happen to bad people.

I wonder how many people realized the story behind the Met Mile winner Cody's Wish, a horse for the ages. He must have heard race caller Tom Durkin say he was "languishing" in the back just before he unleaded a kick that rocketed him to the lead to finish the mile in 1:34 2/5 as the 3/5 favorite, winning by 3¼ lengths. It was his fourth straight victory for last year's Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile winner.

Cody's Wish is named for a severely handicapped young man who picked the horse out as part of Kenneland's Make-A-Wish program. Cody has been in the winner's circle before with the horse, but he didn't make the trip this time. His father was there, filled with emotion as he was interviewed by Acacia Clement. You couldn't know all this and still have a dry eye.

So, will any of the 48,000 be back? I'm sure some already make it at least a tradition to attend Belmont Days. Will they become horseplayers? Not too sure about that. People were holding more cell phone than Racing Forms yesterday, but at least they came.

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The Racetrack Makes Cents

Any regular horseplayer knows that for years and years the only coinage a mutuel clerk needed to cash tickets were quarters and dimes. This was due to what was then known as "dime breakage" in which calculated payouts were rounded down to the nearest cents amount evenly divisible by ten. It was another calculation that removed money from the bettor's overall return. The breakage, which could total 1.2% of the handle went to the track. Pennies add up.

Then, some tracks went to "nickel break" that rounded down to the nearest amount evenly divisible by five. This calculation returned slightly more money to a winning payout and therefore was viewed as a positive for the bettor. Mutuel clerks were thus given nickels to make cash payouts.

Churchill Downs recently went to "penny breakage" resulting in rounding down to the nearest penny. This has produced some odd looking payouts, like $12.32, etc. but is the one calculation that returns all the money to the bettor they're due. Churchill clerks thus needed pennies added to their till to complete these odd payout amounts. Pennies count, and now go to the bettor.

A typical race payout at Churchill goes:

$4.68     $3.50      $2.82
              $3.88      $2.74
                             $9.42

NYRA has stuck with nickel break, but can still have payouts using cents due to 50¢ and 10¢ Trifecta and Superfecta bets. On Saturday there was a 50¢ payout for the Trifecta of $13.87. The 10¢ Superfecta for the same race paid $7.92.

The Assembled made a late-in-calendar appearance at Belmont this year. Attendance was delayed due to rotator cuff surgery for Johnny D.  Even with that, there initially was no quorum on Saturday with only Bobby G. and Johnny D. at the start of the races. Johnny M. was home with a cold, and Jose B. forgot the date, at least until a 10:30 A.M. text asking him about his plans for the day when he realized he did say he would be there. He recovered and arrived after the first two races, and in typical fashion immediately hit the $1 Exacta for $11.50.

Saturdays at Belmont are hardly what they used to be. The card was full of maiden races, state bred and otherwise and incredibly a $12,500 claiming race. At least the field size didn't dip below six.

But straight claiming races can be fun to handicap since generally there are horses in there that have been around for a number of years and usually show a good number of starts and double digit wins.  There are the war horses.

One such horse was No More Talk in the 5th Race with 83 starts and 13 firsts, now running for $25,000. The horse showed 5 ownership/trainer changes in the 10-race past performances and was morning line favorite at 5/2. And deservedly so.

Favorites, low returns, have been dominating. There was only one horse on the 10-race card that paid over $10 when it paid $13.40.

Bobby G. pulled back from $20 bets, but will still bet up to $10 to win. He plays win and exactas, like Johnny D. Jose can be counted on to of course play that, plus trifectas, a bet generally avoided by Johnny D. and Bobby G.

There is a lot of late betting to goes through the tote board. So even win bets played near post time often finding the odds dropping drastically by the time the bell goes off. Or even after the bell, it still seems.

As such, some decent priced favorites plummeted to odds-on, 4/5, or barely even money. Bobby G. hit a few of these, and the joke was that if it wasn't 4/5 he wasn't going to win. It's a tough game. In the end, when the dust settled on the 9 races he played he announced he came out around $25 ahead, which of course barely covers, parking admissions and the $11.00 newsstand copy of the DRF. Oh, he had a hot chocolate as well.

Jose B. finished in the red, as did Johnny D. to the tune of an $18 loss. Johnny D. did have some short prices, but only for a deuce, generally only betting $4 a race; $2 to win and a $1 boxed exacta. 

The breakout bet was the feature race exacta hit for a $2 ticket that returned $16.20. Johnny D's numbers were good, and yielded the mentioned exacta with commanding numbers over the third ranked horse, thus the $2 exacta box bet.

There was a split exacta, 2-3 where it was looking very good, very good until the 85¢ favorite Shadow Dragon ranged up late and took my exacta away.

On paper, Shadow Dragon looked like the proverbial "bad" favorite. The horse pretty much showed nothing in its last two stars, racing significantly over its head in the Wood Memorial and Holy Bull. The third back showed some promise in a week field Fountain of Youth in Florida at 34-1 finishing second. The one before that was a bad effort in a New York State bred stakes race, The Sleepy Hollow. They did win their first start, a NY State Bred Maiden Special Weight. The Peachtree Stable colt was Triple Crown nominated. I still thought it was a bad play, despite the angle that "class relief" was going to get it over the finish line first.

But Jose Ortiz was on the Bill Mott trainee, so there were expectations that were met with a ¾ length life and death triumph.

Irad Ortiz won 4 on the card; his brother won 2. Thus, the Ortiz family accounted for 6 of the 10 winners, with only 4 other jockeys winning a race.

In addition to the 2-3 exacta finish, Johnny D. had a split Exacta 1-3 and a winner coupled with an out-of-the money finisher. The handicapping numbers were good. The day turned on a dime.

As is my custom I start the day with a $60 voucher and bet against it and credit it throughout. If there's anything left, or better yet a surplus, I cash out.

I closely follow the credits and debits to the voucher, but I must say I was stunned when my final value was $41.91. Ninety-one cents! Where the hell did that come from? I made no bets that returned odd cents. I was surprised when the cashier handed me the $41 and change (90¢) and then punched out a voucher for a penny—1¢. The picture that leads this posting off is the 1¢ voucher. I intend to keep it uncashed.

Where did this odd amount come from? The only theory I have it that when I punched out for the balance after the 10th race bet, I didn't notice the odd cent I must have picked up from someone who left their payout in the machine. It had to be small, because the $41 was correct. If you don't close out with RETURN BALANCE and walk away with your bets and not your voucher, you lose the amount left in the machine. Johnny M. once got a gift of over $100 from abandoned money added to his voucher. There are many expected ways to lose at the races, and a few more unexpected ways to lose.

The weather was solid overcast and cool. Not that you could say that held the crowd down. There is no crowd at downstate races, on other than a few special days. For Belmont, that will be this Saturday when they proudly run the Belmont Stakes, the only time there is any crowd to speak of at Belmont.

With NYRA's push to sell tickets in advance of knowing whether there will be Triple Crown, NYRA can count on a decent crowd from those that shelled out beaucoup bucks for their one day at the races.

Anytime I'm at Belmont, perhaps twice a year, I see ghosts. I've ben going since Stage Door Johnny won the Belmont in 1968. Those photos are in black and white outside the Trustees room. The crowds that were once there are no longer there. The people I used to be with have passed on. The concession stands that were once open where you could even get clams on the half shell—which I did often— are no longer there at all. But why have food available when there's no one to eat it? Would make no sense. The silverware in Woody's Corner needs polishing.

The third floor is not open. It's better viewing because you can look out over the boxes and get closer to the finish line. The second floor is truncated due to construction of something. There is no Grandstand/Clubhouse dichotomy. It's just $5 admission for everyone.

The dining room is priced so over the top that I have to wonder who can afford to take part in a simple buffet? We used to, but at $65-$85 a head, it's a no go. They've got to be kidding. There is no Fourstardave-type sports bar to get a table at and order drinks and a snack. The place thoroughly lacks in any basic amenities. But then again, we're not at Saratoga. The Saratoga people are not Downstate people. There are no Downstate people, and a $45 million loan is not going to create them.

NYRA has secured a $45 million loan from New York State to make improvements. They are actively building a tunnel from the infield to the backstretch that will allow fans to be admitted to the infield. It will also allow maintenance trucks to access the inner portion of the track easier. Even on a Saturday the earth movers were busy until 4:00 P.M. If they make the dirt track an all-weather track they are playing with tradition. Secretariat did not set his record on an artificial track.

Belmont is a nice place to look at. But nobody goes there anymore.

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Grand Central Station. Grand Central Terminal. Yeah, So?

Refer to a place where the trains come in and out of on 42nd Street and Park Avenue as Grand Central Station often enough and it shouldn't be long before a wise-ass New Yorker smugly tells you; "Grand Central Station is the Post Office on Lexington Avenue. The train place is Grand Central Terminal."

"Yeah, why should I care what you call the place where the trains are?"

"And I'm telling you that's Grand Central Terminal.  Go to Grand Central Station and all you'll find is mail."

"You mean, if I'm somewhere in Manhattan and I ask the cabbie to take me to Grand Central Station they're going to take me to the post office?"

"Get in a cab in Manhattan and you'll never know where you might wind up."

"That's crazy."

"Just last week on Jeopardy a woman provided the answer as Grand Central Station, then quickly amended it to Grand Central Terminal. It didn't matter, since neither one was the right answer. But it shows you how once corrected people become about what to call the train place, they remember that it's correctly called Grand Central Terminal."

"Okay, oh Great One, what's the difference? Why isn't the train place called Grand Central Station like Penn Station is called Station? No one calls Penn Station Penn Terminal and find themselves corrected to call it Penn Station?"

"I'm glad you asked. Do you know who Sam Roberts is.?"

"A wise-ass New Yorker like you?"

"I'm not sure about the wise-ass part, but he's a senior reporter for the New York Times who writes about the city. He's written lots of books. He also write obituaries."

"Yeah, all those reporters write books."

"Well, Mr. Robert has recently published a book called: The New Yorkers: 31 Remarkable People, 400 Years and the Untold Biography of the World's Greatest City."

"Typical New Yorker. Always telling whomever the place is the greatest city. How many have they ever visited?"

"I sense hostility. Anyway, one of the 31 Remarkable People Mr. Roberts give us a short bio sketch of is William J. Wilgus: The Making of Midtown."

"I'm supposed to know this guy? Did you ever hear about the guy?"

"No, but that's not the point. Lots of the people in Mr. Roberts's book are hardly household names, but they span the period of time from when the city was founded to the near present day. They generally are not people you ever heard of, but what they did shaped the city in many permanent ways."

"Okay, so what did William J. Wilgus do that has anything to do with Grand Central Terminal."

"I'm glad you asked. Mr. Wilgus in 1901 was instrumental in getting the train depot built so that the trains could come in and out of the city on underground tracks—electrified trains—and not belch stream and smoke at street level. Did you know Grand Central is serviced by 52 tracks on two levels, Upper and Lower?"

"No."

"And until I read Mr. Roberts book I never knew the distinction between Terminal and Station." A long time ago I was likewise corrected that it's called Grand Central Terminal, but I never knew why the word Terminal made such a difference over calling it a station."

"Something you didn't know?"

"Yes, Mr. Roberts almost parenthetically tells us it's Grand Central Terminal because the tracks only start and end there. Terminal. You can't go any further. The end, or the beginning of the line, depending on the direction you're going; north leaving the station; south coming into the station.

"Whereas Penn Station you can go in any direction from there, north, south, east or west depending on the line you take. Therefore, it's a station."

"This has been enlightening."

"Do you think you'll now correctly call the place where the trains are Grand Central Terminal?"

"You're a first-rate pain-in-the-ass."

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May Is the Longest Month

No, it doesn't have the most number of days. It's tied at 31 with a few others. Which ones? Go ahead, recite the rhyme you may have been taught in school..."thirty days hath September..." Do they still teach that? Or, do they just tell kids to check their phones?

Today is May 31 and I swear it seems like May has been around for at least 40 days. Why is that? I attribute it to my memory of when Memorial Day/ Decoration Day in my childhood was always May 30, no matter what day of the week it feel on. Thus, once you got to Memorial Day, there was one more until June 1. Simple.

No longer. When it was decided to shove some holidays around and create automatic three day weekends, Memorial Day became the last Monday in May. No less of an observance, just not traditional.

So this year Memorial Day was on May 29. Two more days until June 1. See what I mean? And depending on the calendar, that last Monday in May doesn't have to be the 29th. It can be an even earlier date. More days until June 1. 

As kids in the '50s we threaded red, white and blue crepe paper through our bicycle spokes, making us very patriotic. We also attached baseball cards with clothes pins (remember those?) to the frame holding the wheels so that the spokes made the baseball cards flutter and sound like motorcycles (at least to us) as we pedaled.

I remember waiting to hear the parade come up Northern Boulevard to Corporal Leonard Square, a triangular piece of land at the intersection of Roosevelt and Northern Boulevard where the veteran's from the American Legion marching up from Main Street place a wreath. It was a very small parade, but there were some marching bands, the sound of which we heard from two blocks away.

The name George Sheu Square was later added to Corporal Leonard Square to honor an off-duty NYPD cop who was killed on his way to a Naval Reserve meeting early one morning when he interrupted an auto theft in progress outside his home on Murray Street. One of the assailants turned and fired from a small pistol and killed the officer. It was the same day my father died: July 11, 1987. 

You can't live this long and not remember how you used to spend a few of those Decoration/Memorial Days. Trip to D.C. to see my father who worked there; Staten Island Advance road race to where my daughter, myself and friend Andy competed annually for several consecutive years, and where my daughter Nancy at 8 or 9 might still hold the record for her 5 mile effort. She would later win the Region 1 (7 Northeast states) Bantam Division, Junior Olympic Cross Country Championship at Bryant College in Rhode Island one November. 

The annual trips to New Jersey to see our friends for a cookout in Belford, New Jersey, the "season opener" in their carport. These generally followed the day after the Staten Island runs. We saw a lot of the Verazzano Bridge those days.

There was a trip with my friend Dave to go back to his military school, Carson Long in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania. Lots of drinking that weekend.

And of course the Metropolitan Mile At Belmont, which used to be held on Memorial Day, but has now been moved in the racing calendar.

Memorial Day at he track was when my Uncle Vernon got a heart attack and I got to see the small hospital under the stands where he was rested before we took the ambulance ride to Franklin General Hospital. He got all the symptoms of a heart attack, and the Pinkerton got him and me downstairs to the full medical facility. My uncle gave me a $5 ticket to hold that he had on a Eddie Belmonte horse that had just won.

There was the Memorial Day at Belmont I was so sure Forego was going to win the Met Mile that I talked about his chances all week. I boldly told anyone who would listen I was betting $50 to win on him, my biggest bet to date, and the size of which I've never made since.

Heliodoro Gustines who rode Forego that day cooked him with insane early fractions, and the extreme long shot Arbees Boy won; Forego was second, paying a decent price to place since Arbees Boy paid something like near $100 to win. I was sick. Unsophisticated me, with no place back up, lost the $50 I was so sure I was going to win and convert to a $70 profit.

It can't be said I didn't learn a lesson that day. I've never stepped out of my betting zone since. If I won, I probably would have thought I could beat the game.

Memorial Day at Belmont was when I became aware that the flag stays at half-staff till noon, when it is raised when the anthem is played.

I also learned from the last manager I worked for, who I think was from Virginia at an Atlanta, Georgia company, that there was a Confederate Soldier Memorial Day or Veterans Day and that the Civil War to Southerners was known as the "War of Northern Aggression.". Never mind they fired first on Fort Sumpter.

With retirement, Memorial Day on a Monday is just another day off amongst all the days off. It makes May last forever.

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