A Shirttail Relative

Any regular reader of these postings knows I admire the obituary writing of Robert D. McFadden, the dean of NYT obituary writers whose ledes are packed with information that tell you plenty about the deceased just before you run out of breath reading them back to yourself.

He's written so many advance obits that when the subjects invariably turn 90 the obits keep bobbing up in the river like poorly anchored mob rub outs. Just the other day two subjects, one a nonagenarian and the other a octogenarian hit the tribute obit pages, both bylined by Robert D. McFadden: Gaston Glock (an absolute piece of work who passed away at 94) and Herbert Kohl, a four-term U.S. Senator from Wisconsin who founded Kohl's department stores and was a long time suffering owner of the N.B.A. Milwaukee Bucks. who passed away at 88.

Mr. McFadden's plain language usually never leaves me reaching for a dictionary or a phrase book, until reading Mr. Kohl's obituary where his opponents in a senate election were described as "former Governor Anthony Earl and Wisconsin's secretary of state, Doug La Follette, a shirttail relative of Robert M. La Follette, the former governor, senator and presidential candidate." 

What is a shirttail relative? A relative who hangs out? Someone who looks like an unmade bed? A hanger-on?

Trying to be a little more logical I self-defined it as someone who is a distant relation, perhaps a third cousin (removed or otherwise) Eleanor Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt say.

Wanting to see what the accepted definition might be, I consulted the OED, but that let me down by not having an entry of "shirttail relative" under shirttail. (I didn't think I was going to find one there.)

Okay, off to Google land. A shirttail relative relative is  someone who is either a relative by marriage, is distantly related (like a third cousin or family friend who is an honorary "relative.") The term has been around since the 1920s  and probably originated in the American South.

I asked my wife if she ever heard the term "shirttail relative." I figured with her long ago track record of following all the relationships in soap operas that she would have heard the term. She could tell you who was born to who before the birth certificates were dug out by a P.I. or the DNA testing was in.

Until now hearing the phrase "shirttail relative" I realize "distant relative" might also apply. Charles Busch, the playwright and drag performer and I are "shirttail related" through some marriages via cousins in Syracuse. No direct blood relationship, and no free tickets to see any of his plays, which are a hoot by the way.

It is extremely doubtful even with that disclosure that any obituary writer will pick up on that, hold onto it until it's time to tell the readership that I was a "shirttail relative" of a drag performer and playwright. Shucks.

Fame is elusive.

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Nearly Done in by Gravity

I just read a book review of a collection of pieces by Calvin Trillin, a man whose wit is so dry it could be a martini. Shaken, or stirred.

The book is The Lede: Dispatches From A Life In The Press. Mr. Trillin is much in demand as a eulogist, someone who will say pithy things about your life at your funeral. I don't know if he supplements his writing income with eulogy appearances, or does the work pro bono, but apparently he's in demand, and popular enough that there could be listings in the New York Times on where he'll be speaking from in the coming week.

The book is described as being in sections, with one being called R.I.P. that contains remembrances of some of Trillin's favorite people. Amongst those listed is one of my favorite people, Russell Baker, a New York Times columnist who passed away at 93 in 2019, after being the longest-running columnist in the history of the paper. 

Mr. Trillin recalls the time Mr. Baker wrote of the time a raw potato "fell from a tall building, barely missing him." The potato didn't come loose from a roof top garden across the street from Mr. Baker's 58th Street apartment in Manhattan, but was likely chucked by a bored youngster who had yet gained access to firearms, but could be just as deadly with grocery store items. After the potato splattered on the ground missing Mr. Baker by inches, he looked around and saw a parked car nearby that be been splattered with an egg. Mom was going to have to add some items to her list.

Mr. Baker was just about to reenter his building when the grocery store hand grenade was let loose from about the 48th floor of the building across the street. At the time, Mr. Baker was musing about what to write about next. He now had the basis for his column that was appropriately given the headline "Groceries from Heaven" by the person who is paid to do these things.

He wrote, "what if the potato had scored a direct hit with fatal consequence? After a certain age most people probably speculate occasionally on the manner of their ultimate departure, but the possibility of becoming a potato victim was one that had not occurred to me, and I did not like it."

I think there a book that summarizes unusual manners of death, what a British coroner might ultimately label, "death by misadventure." Luc (Lucy) Sante translated works form Félix Fénéon who compiled a book of unusual deaths, Novels in Three Lines.

There's one that will forever stick out in my mind that I read set in agate type from the front page of a 1912 New York Times about the fellow who in 1912 was taking a lunch break from blowing up tree stumps in Massachusetts with dynamite who sat down on a stump yet to be blown up with sticks of dynamite in his back pocket and was himself sent heavenward in many pieces. It was the ultimate butt dial.

We never really know what's going to do us in until perhaps a terminal disease descends. But even then something else might beat even that out as to the cause of our demise. Hospital power failure, flood, missile strike: start the list.  

I've been without something to write about since January 10th, an eon for me. But reading about Russell Baker and the potato that saved him from writer's block saved me from writer's block.

For now.

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MIGHTY Python

Most of us are aware that Australia is a land of snakes, insects—particularly spiders—kangaroos, (roos), koala bears, wallabies, and lizards. It's like living in a David Attenborough nature production. 

There is a bit of a running joke between my Australian X-pal @justkenking and myself over the wildlife she encounters no further than from her back door, or on occasion from behind her refrigerator. Yuck.

The above photo is of a recent sighting of a python that was slithering over her back fence. I don't know how long it is, but Jen tells me it probably lives between her place and her neighbor's. She further informs me she's not sure if it's the same one! she stepped on her in bare feet when she walked out onto the deck one morning. Jesus, give me strength.

Jen does not live in the Outback. She lives in a suburb of Brisbane, that bears all the trapping of our living in the suburbs—except for the wide variety of wildlife that intrudes.

Here on Long Island I've encountered possums, and the occasional racoon, but that's it. We keep garbage can lids closed tight with bungee cords and the racoons go elsewhere, and usually out of sight since they're nocturnal. 

We did have a baby possum make itself feel at home not long ago when it started to eat the cat's dry food that we leave for Socks inside the front storm door in the vestibule. Socks comes in, eats her food, and settles for the life outdoors. She's not too interested in further domestic living, 

Jen and her X posse like to tease me when there's a juicy sighting of a rather large snake or spider. They know my reaction will be one of wonderment as to how they stand it all.

Jen likes to get real mail, so every so often we exchange postcards that actually get to each of us after about a week. I've sent her typical NYC postcards and she has sent me a post card of the giant jumping crocodile statue, I think in Adelaide, South Australia. She's also sent me a koala bear greeting card, and another postcard of green frogs. Just how I like my wildlife: on paper.

The fact that pythons are not venomous doesn't make them anymore appealing to me. I asked if they call someone to retrieve the snake, and Jen basically seemed to answer they live and let live, unless it's behind the refrigerator, then animal control comes. Good to know. Speed dial. "Siri, there' a LARGE snake in the house."

Lately I've been watching Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) about the medical treatment that is provided to Australians in very remote areas—and they've got plenty of that. Not everything is coastal cities. There's the Outback, and what I'll call the Out Outback.

This flying air medical team gets called out for all sorts of reasons and uses a twin engine prop plane to get to airstrips that they have to chase the "roos" off first with a jeep. Runway lights? Not much in the way of them. Get there and back before the sun sets.

The plane is a bit of a flying hospital. Once on the ground the medical teams of a doctor and a flight nurse often have to reach the patients while riding an ATV. One call-out was for a snake bite that could have been venomous. Turns out is was from a venomous snake, but the bite was a "dry bite." Venom hadn't been discharged when the lovely creature's jaws and teeth and the guy's hand met. He still got a plane ride back to a hospital to be further checked out.

I have no idea of how many non-Australians ever moved to Australia and stayed there despite the snakes, spiders, "roos" and all the wildlife there is that challenges the inhabitants. I wonder why they don't just pack up and leave for the U.K. An Australian accent is just as good as a British accent.

But of course we know why. When you're born there, you know what to expect. And wouldn't trade it for anything.

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The Brits and WW II

WW II was a long time ago, existing outside most living people's memories. So when a veteran of WW II passes away it's guaranteed they are going to be of a very advanced age, and their New York Times tribute obituary will likely be written by Robert McFadden. Another one of McFadden's advance obits leaves the morgue.

WW II is just as long ago for the Brits as it is for us, but the Brits seem to hold onto it more. They still produce a miniseries like "World at War," a story of the civilian and military population who were affected by the war.

Both my parents were in the Army in WW II. My father was an engineer Tech Sergeant stationed on Guam, making maps from reconnaissance photos. My mother was a Lieutenant R.N. nurse who was never sent overseas, but was assigned to General Thayer Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. My parents met during the war and married before it was over. As a kid I always remember hearing the adult conversations dividing time—before the war and after.

The Brits love to create any historical entertainment that shows off their trains. How many times are we treated to a train whistle from a steam engine pulling into a remote station somewhere in the countryside?

I love reading about the departed veterans and their exploits, be it building a glider to get out of Colditz prison in Germany, or a Jew whose family left Germany before it was too late, but joined the U.S. Army and acted as interpreters when they went back overseas.

Ben MacIntyre writes tirelessly about spies and military exploits, and I read most of what he's written.  I read Rogue Heroes, with a freight train length subtitle: The History of the SAS, Britain's Special Forces Unit that Sabotaged the Nazi's and Changed the Nature of War. a few years ago. 

If you like reading about military commandos who don't do things purely by the book, it's a good read. The multi-part streaming  miniseries that just came out is equally as good.

When I read the book one of  the members of the unit stood out. He was a very young lad who grew up on a farm and was very adept at finding his way around the desert using the stars as a navigational guide. He could get his unit anywhere, and get them back through the Sahara Desert, no mean feat since there is nothing there but thousands of miles of sand and no roads. He was a human GPS.

We learn from a just published NYT obit by Robert McFadden that Mike Sadler, Intrepid Desert Navigator in World War II has passed away at 103.

His contribution to his unit's success was legendary, allowing a special forces group of commandos attack the German and Italian presence in Northern Africa, destroying planes, blowing up supply depots and killing pilots on the ground.

The effectiveness of their missions are described in the obit and depicted with dramatic action sequences in the miniseries. The full-on drive by of jeeps just barreling down the runway in Libya and shooting at parked planes, disabling a slew of aircraft is stunning. Just as dramatic is when the commandos burst into a recreation hall filled with unarmed German and Italian pilots caught off guard and mowed down with machine gun fire. War is more than hell. 

Until reading Rogue Heroes I never really understood what was the big deal about tanks and the Sahara Desert? Well, After WW I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Libya was an Italian colony. Control Libya and you have access to the Mediterranean. You also have a direct route to British-controlled Egypt.

The Axis powers of Germany and Italy were thus very interested in preserving the territorial advantage of holding Libya. Thus, the German General Erwin Rommel, The Desert Fox, saw the importance of keeping that control. And General George Patton was just as intent as smashing the Aix powers and taking Italy from the south, which he did.

The life of Michael Sadler already was a story in a book, Tales From the Special Forces Club: Mike Sadler's Story (2013). The obituary mentions his capture by the Germans, and that is that last episode in the miniseries, sure to have a second season.

The commander, Lt Colonel David Stirling (pictured on the right) was also captured and taken to the notorious German P.O.W. prison Colditz deep in Central German.

Ben MacIntyre has also written about Colditz prison: "Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison." David Stirling passed away in 1990. He had been captured, escaped, and then recaptured and spent the rest of the war at Colditz prison. The Germans nicknamed him the" Phantom Major" because for 14 months they couldn't capture him.

After the war Mike Sadler remained quite busy. He is thought to be the last member of the S.A.S. fighting unit. He went on an expedition to Antarctica and later worked for the British Foreign Office doing classified work.

I like to think that whenever David's exploits were revealed to someone he never paid for another drink in his life.

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The Gap Year

It's been a little over a year since my daughter Susan I have lifted cue sticks at RAXX pool hall in West Hempstead. Last year was a bit of a gap year for us.

First there was my shoulder rotator cuff repair, and then there was Susan's pregnancy and birth of her first, our third grandchild and first grandson, Matthew. But back to what now can be considered a family tradition: playing pool and wishing eternally that we were both better at it. Both my daughter and Matthew are doing fine. It's the pool game that is suffering.

I think I've written about this encounter before, but it's always stayed with me. When I was a young and callow fellow, and the Piermont brothers were as well, we took our legal eligibility to order a drink at a NYC to a place on Eighth Avenue, somewhere in the 50s called the Horse's Tail.

The corner establishment had a blinking neon sign that went on and off simulating a swishing horse's tail. Get it? Inside was a horseshoe shaped bar attended by a single, burly bartender wearing a white apron. When Dennis, the more talkative of us, pointed to the bowling trophies behind the bartender if he bowled, he scowled. He was going to have to talk to us. He sucked his teeth, and replied, "I bowl like old people fuck. Not well, and not often." We got the message.

Little would I know that over 50 years later I could say the same thing about my pool game. I don't care. I persist. In my mind I'm the greatest, even if my longest run yesterday was three balls in a game of straight pool going for 25 points.

My daughter Susan is a willing partner, and she will admit to being terrible at the game, but enjoys the company, as do I. But I'm here to say it's not cheap to play the game at today's rates. I don't remember what dent the rates put in our pockets when we descended on Broadway Billiards around 52nd Street in Manhattan, but that's over 50 years ago now. Prices certainly change, like neighborhoods. Now, a 1½ hour session for two costs $32.50. Ouch. Well, we don't get to do this often, which of course does nothing to help improve our game.

I don't think I ever had a bad time playing pool, despite not being very good at it measured against even a moderately good player. When I play now it's always with Dennis and Dave in my mind, and the various places we found to play: Broadway Billiards at 52nd Street and Broadway below the penny arcade; Our home turf. Julien's on 14th Street next to the Academy of Music; McGirr's on Eighth Avenue, where they filmed part of 1961 movie the Hustler with Paul, Newman, Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott, Piper Laurie, and Willie Mosconi, all people that have now passed away, with Piper Laurie just passing away recently.

It is interesting that Walter Tevis wrote the story The Hustler, and also wrote The Queen's Gambit, two books made into a very popular movie and a 2020 Netflix miniseries decades apart about games played at the highest level. Walter Tevis passed away in 1984, so he never got to see the adaption of the Queen's Gambit. The books were written decades apart, 1959 and 1983. The miniseries The Queen's Gambit provided a breakout role for the leading actress, Anya Taylor Joy.

We played at Jaycee's and King and Queen in Flushing. We played at the Friar's Club on Sunday mornings courtesy of Dennis and Dave's Uncle Benny, who was a member. We didn't go to Ames because once you can play in Manhattan, there is no need to travel to Brooklyn.

But Ames is probably where Jackie Gleason learned to "shoot a good stick" growing up in Brooklyn. Paul Newman wasn't a natural player, and someone I once met told me they saw him playing pool after making The Hustler and they were surprised at how bad he was. Hollywood.

Willie Masconi, the champion professional pool player had a small part in The Hustler, and was of course a technical consultant. If the director wanted a massé shot to be part of the action, you can be sure Mosconi was the hidden pair of hands holding the stick.

I'm sure there's a scene in the Hustler where you can read a sign that says: No Massé Shots. I doubt the sign had the accent over the e but the message was clear: Don't be a knucklehead and think you can pull off a massé shot, probably the most difficult shot in pool, something equaling the 7/10 split in bowling.

The OED defines massé as: a stroke made with the cue stick more or less vertical, so as to impact extra swerve to the cue ball.

The operative word is "swerve," not "spin." Because you need a lot of pressure on the cue stick to impart this swerve there is a great chance you'll miscue (miss) and make the cue tip hit the table cloth and cause a tear. Not looked upon favorably by pool hall management.

And why would you want the cue ball to swerve? Well, the Christmas card is a great illustration of Santa making a successful massé shot and sinking the 8-ball, therefore winning the game with what could be equated to a walk-off grand slam homer. What witnesses there might be, they go wild.

My daughter Susan, ever the one to tie things in, got me a Christmas card that says: HAPPY CHRIST 'MASSE'. It shows Santa atop a table taking a massé shot to get the cue ball to swerve around the stripes that his opponent hasn't sunk yet so the cue ball can make contact with the 8-ball, sink it, and win the game. The Elves go wild.

The vapor trail depicted in on the card shows the path of the cue ball making contact with the 8-ball and sinking it in the corner pocket.

My daughter knew it was a great card to get, but didn't know what a massé was. She had to look it up. After explaining it to her I refrained from demonstrating it. I was miscuing enough yesterday. No need to add a potentially destructive massé shot to the mix. I told my daughter to look at one on YouTube.

In variably when we go to RAXX one of the solo playing guys will spot a female and say something light-hearted. This time, a fellow we hadn't seen before, but one who was clearly trying to sharpen his game, almost immediately passed by and told me to be careful, "she's a hustler."

The guy looked like Danny DeVito, and coincidently a Danny DeVito subway sandwich commercial appeared on one of the many TVs (no sound) hanging from the ceiling. We both laughed that Susan was being seen as a "hustler." I told him I was trying to win back the money my wife and I paid on her college education.

So, how did I do? I miscued often, and had a high run of three balls in the straight game we played. We're both so lousy that even a game of 8-ball can take a while to finish. Generally, because of the cost, we usually play for 1½ hours. I always pay. Susan had bought lunch.

No matter what, I will always wish I was better at pool.

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Like A Bridge Over Troubled Water

My wife, like myself, is a child of the late '40s and all of the '50s, will tell you—and tell you often—that the New York Times is "Commie, pinko rag." 

Like many opinions my wife has, they are not her own. Her father told her the NYT was a "Commie, pinko rag." Obviously the paper never entered her household, and just as obvious my wife's opinion of the paper has never changed. She can be intransigent. She's not uninformed, she's just not a newspaper  person.

Similarly I had a friend who grew up on West 55th Street whose father was a producer for TV shows at CBS. My friend always told me the story that his father was incensed when the public school grammar teacher sent him home with an assignment to read an article in the New York Times and talk about it in Current Events the next day.

It didn't matter that my friend's father was Jewish, he hated the New York Times. He was a Herald Tribune, New York Post kind of guy, and how dare they send his son home to read what he pretty much thought was Commie propaganda. He might have even visited the public school which was just up the street from the apartment.

My own view of The New York Times has been way more neutral. I'm aware it can skew left, but I read it for news and stories and the once upon a time sports section which has now been outsourced to The Athletic that has a tough time knowing where Madison Square Garden is. I don't read editorials, and I don't absorb opinions. I've probably been a reader since the paper was 10¢ in the '60s.

I am a newspaper guy. I could always fold one on a crowded train when I commuted. I have a good laugh at the NYT because I don't readily think their reporters were born and educated in New York City. Probably not many public school kids from New York City get into Ivy League J-Schools, and therefore are never hired by The Times. No matter. The paper is written and edited well, but it  does sit inside a cocoon of unreality of everyday life. 

Take what would be someone's idea of a New York City bridge. If you were to ask a native born and educated New Yorker (even if they went to private, or Catholic school) and told them there are 789 bridges in the city they might say, "you're fucking nuts," or something close to that, but definitely using the word fuck.

Such was my reaction when I read in Wednesday's paper the story of now forbidding vendors from selling their NYC souvenir goods from the walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge, and therefore from any of the other 788 bridges. Huh?

I asked my Bronx born, Catholic school dedicated wife at dinner, did she think there were 789 bridges in New York City. She said "what, who said that?" (I didn't have the nerve to tell her.) as she went back to watching weatherman Lonnie Quinn with his sleeves not rolled up telling us there would be "some snow" somewhere soon. Ever since Lonnie effectively shut the city down several years ago with a devastating prediction of so much snow that we would disappear under it like Quebec City in February, and did not see anywhere near it, Lonnie's been a good deal more circumspect in telling New Yorkers about that other four letter word: snow.

A Tweet to the reporter, Sarah Maslin Nir, went unanswered when I asked if they could provide a map of the 789 locations of these bridges and what was the source of that number. Expecting a reply Tweet from a NYT reporter is like waiting for Godot.

It hit me an hour or so later that this figure might be derived from including overpasses, not necessarily structures that convey people or vehicles over water that the city would love to put tolls on. The OED tells us the definition for bridge is broad enough that overpasses could be included in the tally. And I am convinced they are.

Bridge: A structure carrying a road, path, railway, etc. across a stream, river, ravine, road, railway, etc.

Yes, but why would you lump overpasses with bridges over waterways like the Brooklyn Bridge? It makes no sense.

Good old Google does confirm that the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) says they are responsible for maintaining all 789 bridges in the city. And apparently proud of it no matter what their condition is.

The story is about one bridge in New York City, the Brooklyn Bridge, instead of being offered for sale to some rube, that has instead become 34th Street or 125th Street filled with vendors clogging up the sidewalk or walkway. I didn't know this about the bridge, but it's not surprising.

I've never seen vendors hugging the sidelines on either the Whitestone or Throggs Neck bridges, but then again they don't have walkways. 

The sub-heading to the  story is emphatic: All 789 spans are closed to souvenir sellers, leaving many of them with nowhere to go. It is now the city's fault that thousands of people will now not be able to sell you I Love New York sweatshirts, or operate a 3-D photo booths as you cross any of the 789 spans.

Are they nuts? Typical New York Times. By counting overpasses the city has been deemed to be cruel to all these people who are using 789 spans! When I lived in Flushing around the corner from the house there was a Murray Street overpass that went over the railroad tracks for the Port Washington line. This was between 41st Avenue and Barclay Street, in front of the NYFD Engine Company 274 firehouse.

In all my years in Flushing I never saw anyone selling T-shirts on this overpass, or any other overpass in the city. You might get approached in your car while you wait for a light in the Bronx or Brooklyn on an exit ramp on Mother's Day by someone selling hydrangea plants, but nothing approaching the open air bazaar of what the city is trying to close down on the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Brooklyn Bridge is a tourist attraction, and the walkway helps give it foot traffic, and with foot traffic come enterprising vendors.

Build it, keep it open, and they will come back.

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Fun With Years

It was quite a few years ago when my wife and I were in a Tech-HiFi in the West 40s buying a cassette player. That sentence alone should tell you how long ago this was.

I distinctly remember the FM voice on the store radio informing us that it was a rare day. The digital time and the date and year lined up to be: 12345678. 12:34 for the  time; May 6, 1978 for the date. I always thought that was helpful because after watching so many Perry Mason episodes as a kid I was always afraid some courtroom attorney was going to question me where I was on the "day in question" and I wouldn't be able to tell anyone and I'd be convicted. But, 12345678 gave me an alibi on my whereabouts and when.

One night on Jeopardy one of the categories was palindromic years: same year forward and backwards. The clue was an event in that year; you guess the year. I 'm not sure what the clues were, but the years I remember are: 1001, 1661, 1881, 1991, 2002.

All this brought me back to my days of buying MAD magazine at Siegal's corner candy store in Flushing by the Murray Hill LIRR station when I was a kid. I never forgot the issue that shows Alfred E. Neuman, beside pointing to the IND pointing out that 1961viewed upside down is still 1961. It's not a palindrome. I don't know what you'd call it, but 1001, and 1881 are similar upside down years.

And ever since that 12345678 revelation at Tech-HiFi, I've looked at digital clocks a bit differently. I love to see 11:11; 12:12; 10;10; and of course the best one, 12:34

Of course numbers aren't the only source of palindromes. Words and their letters can be too. The one I remember most is FRED DERF from a long ago 'I Love Lucy' episode. There are many others, and I'm sure those who are great at Scrabble can easily supply more.

But why wonder what other words or phrases are palindromes? Let's just ask the latest software expert for help: ChatGPT.

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ChatGPT

Palindrome phrases are sequences of characters that read the same forward and backward. Here are some examples:

1. A man, a plan, a canal, Panama

2. Madam, in Eden, I'm Adam

3.  Able was I ere I saw Elba

4. A Santa lived as a devil at NASA

These phrases remain the same when you read them from left to right, right to left, ignoring punctuation and capitalization.

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Will IBM's Watson and ChatGPT ever square off in the Tournament of Champions on Jeopardy?

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