Memories of Sargent Drive

The copy editors would disappear for a few minutes, perhaps to get a cup of coffee – though the rumor was they were having sex in some back room – before returning to their desks. Sometimes one of them would remember to bring their prop, a mug full of java, though it mattered little to me, so I can’t confirm that detail.

I couldn’t care less that they had significant others. My only concern? That they would finish whatever they were doing in time to edit my copy, because they were easier to work with than some of the other copy jockeys. They usually did.

Random stories make life interesting and I try to hold on to them for moments like this weekend, when I drove by the Register building for the first time in at least a year, on my way to a family get-together in Essex. The building itself looks no different than it did a lifetime ago.

I spent the better part of two years at the New Haven Register, writing whatever the editors needed. If no one was available to cover that Lyman Hall girl’s basketball game, I’d be ready and willing. If the Hartford Whalers beat reporter needed someone to carry the Tandy computer, I’d be at the Civic Center, watching the Whalers play in front of their standard audience, a half-empty arena. Long Islanders, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The truth is even as a sophomore in college, I was being told by professors and “experts” that making a living in media was impossible. At a Society of Professional Journalists convention in Tennessee, a columnist from the Miami Herald told the students in the audience “do something else if you want to be successful.” My quiet response? “Fuck you, don’t tell me what to do. I’ll do just fine.”

But to do “just fine,” I’d had to deliver whatever the Register editors wanted. That included more high school sporting events than I’d care to remember. It also meant going to work the night I graduated college. All hands were on deck that month, as both the Rangers and Knicks were making championship runs. The Rangers would later deliver for their faithful.

The Register is still there, though, like most newspapers, the staff isn’t what it used to be. The good news? If two copy editors have time to kill, hey, there’s plenty of unused space to share a quiet cup of coffee.

 

Whistling towards my destiny

Barry Beck wouldn’t shoot the puck, Don Maloney didn’t always get back on defense and when Doug Soetaert was in net, well, I don’t remember a damn thing about Doug Soetaert.

These are names I haven’t thought of in 25 years. Back then, however, they were Gods. I’d have hockey cards littered throughout my grandmother’s New York apartment, ripping open pack after pack, looking for that elusive Phil Esposito or Mark Howe card to complete a random team set.

At night, if I was lucky, my older cousin would come over and watch the game with me. I’d chronicle the game on a yellow sheet of paper, trying to impress him with my ability to write down names based on jersey numbers. Laidlaw was No. 2. Beck was No. 5. There were two Maloneys, so I can’t remember which was which, but I think one was No. 26, the other No. 12. If I’m wrong, a Rangers fan will let me know. Here’s hoping Eric – that’s my cousin – reads this. He’ll weigh in. Trust me.

If Eric came over, the winter night was complete. Me, him, my brother – who was playing with Matchbox cars and couldn’t care less about the game – with Jim Gordon and Bill “The Big Whistle’ Chadwick on Channel 9. My grandmother’s old television could barely handle the stress, and no matter how often we moved the rabbit ears, the picture would flicker so wildly that only a punch to its side would fix it. There was no science to it, but smacking the clunker worked.

It was during those early days of my life that I first hoped to be a journalist, a chronicler of life. It was those broadcasts, when it was too cold to go outside, that I would take game notes and wait to see if Gordon and Chadwick had some of the same observations I had, all of which was scribbled on the yellow paper.

Last night, those memories flooded back after Chadwick died at 94. I haven’t watched hockey in years, and the sport is lost on me. I can’t name 5 players on the Rangers and Islanders combined.

But those WOR broadcasts helped shape my future. I still use a yellow legal pad whenever possible.

Had I known Chadwick lived on Long Island before his death, I would have found a way to thank him. May this post be my posthumous thank you. I hope his family reads this.

And in heaven, I hope for The Big Whistle’s sake that Beck shoots the puck. But I wouldn’t count on it.

The pumpkin king (and queen)

I can’t draw. Actually, I can’t draw a straight line. I can’t paint. I can’t draw a circle, they usually turn out looking like eggs.

So when friends and family pick out pumpkins for Halloween, I usually look for a nice, round, mid-sized one that I don’t have to do much to. No point embarrassing myself.

On Saturday the tradition continues, as I’ll take my two little ones to Brightwaters Farms to choose a few pumpkins, gourds, and, if it’s up to me, whatever else they want. I’d buy them everything. Perhaps if no one is looking – namely my wife – I’ll sneak extra decorative corn into a bag. The only problem is my little boy would turn me in. My daughter’s my partner in crime. She’d be game. She is my little rebel.

We’ll also take a hayride or two. I’m betting Amelia would be willing to drive. By the way, she’s 20-months old.

And when we get home, the process of turning the pumpkins into works of art can begin. Just keep the magic markers away from me. Let the real masters do their work.

At the end, light

I don’t like to talk about Sept. 11, 2001, and this is the first time, and perhaps the last time, I’ll write about that day.

I’ve tried to shove all of it to the far corner of my mind, hoping that as the years roll by, the memories of the low-flying plane over the Hudson River, the crash that shook my downtown building, or the ash that covered scattered workers, would fade away.

But for those of us who worked in the financial district in 2001, there is no escape. Eight years after the fact, I accept that.

I ran my first 5K today, the Tunnel to Towers event in honor of fallen firefighter Stephen Siller. It took me 35 minutes to complete the race, which included a nearly two-mile run through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. About two-thirds of the way through the tunnel, I turned to someone on my right and said “the end has to be near, right?” He laughed – or was that a cry? – and responded “God I hope so.”

I wanted to stop and walk, but another runner to my left put his hand on my back and said “come on man, you’ve got it in you.” He was wearing a fire department shirt from an upstate New York town. I regret not remembering which town he represented. A few minutes later, as I slowed again, a firefighter from Worcester, Mass. came up from behind and said “no, no no, let’s go kid.” I couldn’t let them down. Not firefighters. Not on this day.

Then, as we came out of the tunnel, hundreds of firefighters lined up to cheer us on and say “thank you.” That’s when I understood … Sept. 11 won’t go away, and there’s no use hiding from it. It was time to embrace it. It may have added a minute to my score – yeah, that’s right, I’m already making excuses – but I high-fived every single firefighter standing to the right of our path. To each one of them, I repeated their words. I said “thank you.”

The rest of the race, including a run through the Battery Park Esplanade, was a breeze. The hard part, understanding why it was so important for me to participate, was over.

None of this means I’ll open up about my Sept. 11 experience. Chances are, I won’t.

But today was an awakening. My year has been filled with frustrations, as I’ve watched friends suffer tragedies and hardships, both large and small. I try to be supportive, but what else can I do? I wish someone had an answer to that question. Meanwhile, my industry, journalism, continues to struggle mightily, and there’s little relief in sight. For some families, the long-running recession has kept food off the table.

So Sept. 27 was a blessing, a needed reprieve. It was the best day of 2009.

I’ll sleep in peace.

Here’s hoping you do too.

Good night.

On the run

On Sunday I’ll be in downtown New York, participating in the Tunnel to Towers run in memory of firefighter Stephen Stiller, who died on Sept. 11, 2001.

The goal isn’t to finish the 3.25-mile race in 34 minutes, or even in a substandard 45 minutes. The goal is to survive, to not be brought back to my Long Island home in a box. That would be bad. It’s also not out of the realm of possibility.

It’s a far cry from 1989, when, as a high school senior, I was scouted by the Winnipeg Jets ahead of the entry draft. The organization broke my heart when it passed on me, arguing that a 6-foot-5 defenseman better suited their needs. OK, I’m making up the Winnipeg Jets part. The “far cry” from 1989 part, yeah, damn it, that’s true.

How did I get myself in this mess? My brother in law asked me in May if I wanted to join him in a 5K race for charity. I said yes. Blame it on the 1/2 bottle of Yuengling.

It took a month before I reintroduced myself to the treadmill in the basement. In August I turned the treadmill on. It’s procrastination. Journalists don’t function without deadlines. By last week I was able to make it through 3.25 miles, with Conor Oberst and Green Day carrying me, barely, to the finish line.

But experts tell me running on pavement isn’t the same, it’s harder on the knees, and it’s tougher on the back. Perhaps they’re right. Perhaps two miles in I’ll sit down on the curb, or jump on a subway back to Penn Station, where the Babylon line runs hourly on weekends.

So if this blog isn’t updated for months, or if twitter.com/drhli is suddenly inactive, Sunday probably went horribly wrong.

Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen.

Passing the torch

I don’t remember the hit, nor do I recall which one of my teammates hovered over me first. But I do recall the pain, as my knee hyper-extended for the third time in a year.

It was but one of a series of injuries to my right knee, my 140-pound frame balking at the abuse I put it through in high school. In the stands, my grandmother looked on as her favorite left-winger dropped to the ice, flopping around like a beaten ragdoll.

“Why can’t he play chess,” she asked my mother in Hungarian, while the rest of the crowd at the high school hockey game wondered if No. 24 was having a seizure.

The physical beatings would continue. There were plenty of back spasms. Then there was the night the knee popped on a muddy Fairfield University baseball field – a late night pickup game gone bad. That time, the doctors operated.

Years later, in college, I dove for a ball and slammed into a rock, suffering what I think was the only concussion of my life. I don’t remember. Anyway, I caught the ball, so it was worth it. Fellow wannabes know exactly what I’m talking about.

These days I do little more than swing my golf club, taking solace in the fact that I’m the best lefty in the foursome. Hey, it’s all I have, especially as I’m putting around the green like a child on a miniature golf course.

The glue factory may soon be calling.

So it sounds like the perfect time to step aside and let my little boy take center stage. On Sunday, he plays in his first athletic event, a soccer match consisting of four-year-old kids. He hardly knows how to kick a ball and, today, when I brought home his jersey, he asked, “Daddy do you score touchdowns in soccer?”

He then saw the number and said “That’s like David Wright.” For non-Mets fans, that’s No. 5.

Baseball, football, soccer, what’s the difference?

The kicker (pun completely intended) is I’ll be the team’s head coach. That means for many of the children, I’ll be the first coach they’ll ever have.

That’s an honor. And it beats playing chess.

On forgiveness

Sitting at the breakfast table this morning, my little boy listened as I talked to my wife – and mainly to the Sesame Street coffee mug  – about Michael Vick’s return to professional football.

The night before, as I finished a sluggish treadmill session, a text message popped up on the Blackberry that simply read “Michael Vick to the Eagles.”

For the next couple hours, followers – you don’t have friends on Twitter – traded messages about the newest member of the Eagles. A few took shots at me, perhaps, because I had the great timing of tweeting no more than an hour before the Vick news broke that I hoped “the Eagles kill the Patriots dead tonight.” Then again, I could name one co-worker who sits next to me who has spent the past four years accusing me of being a closet Eagles fan.

But I digress.

This morning, Donovan – I swear I didn’t name him after Donovan McNabb – asked, simply, “Who are you talking about Daddy?”

I told him “Michael Vick. He’s a new player on the Eagles.”

He asked me if I liked Vick and I answered, quickly, “sure buddy.”

I don’t regret my response for a number of reasons. First, it would be impossible to explain to a four year old the grizzly details of a dogfighting ring that landed Vick in a federal jail for 2 years. Puppies were murdered and forced to fight, and kill, each other. It all took place on property Vick owned.

But it’s more than that. I’ve been a vegetarian for 17 months, almost entirely because I reject the notion that it’s alright to kill animals. I’ve never held a gun and have no desire to ever, ever go hunting. Killing is not a sport.

So I’m clearly with the majority who know that what Vick did was reprehensible.  It was savage and, in fact, when news first broke that an NFL team has signed him, I felt sick.

But I also believe in second acts. I want my children to understand forgiveness and to avoid passing judgment when possible. If Vick trips up, he will pay the price. The National Football League will throw him out and he will have much bigger problems than whether my little boy liked watching him play. But if Vick helps the Humane Society, works with other animal rights groups, uses his star power to help local and national charities and handles himself properly on the football field, my little boy will learn that redemption is possible.

No matter the scenario, I answered the question correctly. Daddy got this one right.

Darkness in North Babylon

It certainly won’t ruin the most wonderful time of the year, but news that the Kime Avenue house in North Babylon won’t be lit with its traditional 40-foot train, reindeers, snowmen and assorted holiday goodies put a damper on this perfect July day.

We moved to the Town of Babylon in late 2002 and started a family tradition of visiting the famed Kime Avenue house in 2004. Our little boy was born a year later and we’ve been to the Spadafora’s home to see the lights – and to donate to the Schneider Children’s Hospital – every year since.

When we drive down Deer Park Avenue during winter, Donovan points to the house, even in daylight, and says “that’s the light house.”

We’re not alone. The home means a lot to many area residents, which is why the Spadafora’s phone has not stopped ringing since Newsday reported this morning that the high cost of keeping the lights on would keep the home dark for the 2009 holiday season. The owner said that he is holding out hope for 2010.

Homes like this matter, and most towns have them, because they turn into unofficial gathering places for people of all economic classes, races, religions and ages. No one is too young, too old, too rich, or too poor to appreciate a home decorated in holiday cheer.

We’ll find a different place to take Donovan and Amelia this winter. I’m told there’s a light show in Bayport and homes in Deer Park, as well as nearby Dix Hills and Huntington also go all out in December.

For one year, at least, we’ll make do without the Kime Avenue house. One year, that’s it.

We’re going in 2010.

The ghost of Mrs. Turner

I hardly knew Mrs. Turner, though I remember a few inconsequential details about her life. She had gray hair, a white house and she had a mustard yellow radio in her kitchen. On muggy Pennsville, N.J. nights, the radio would be tuned in to WCAU, a now defunct AM radio station that carried Philadelphia Phillies games.

The late Harry Kalas’ dulcet tones was the background noise of summer, drowned out every few seconds if you were in the adjacent living room, whenever the metal fan, which swung left to right, left to right, blew air directly at you.

Mrs. Turner was nice to me, a stranger from far-away Connecticut, down to visit family. She was the family’s next-door neighbor, always willing to let me in to talk about baseball or feed me Turkey Hill ice cream, or, on occasion, a TastyKake. She was a Phillies fan, I am not, so she would enjoy showing me a clipped-out Philadelphia Inquirer copy of the baseball standings, which usually had the Phillies ahead of my beloved, and generally awful, Mets.

I think she tried to win me over once by giving me a sticker of the team mascot, the Phanatic. I didn’t change allegiances. But this weekend, when I was down at Citizen’s Bank Park, for a brief moment I thought of Mrs. Turner as the Phanatic fired shirts into the crowd from his scooter.

In the middle innings, with the Phillies ahead 2-0, Mrs. Turner was also at that game.

I hope she enjoyed it.

A different view

I used to watch the snow collect on the pool cover of my childhood home in Trumbull, Conn. The dark green would slowly turn white, and if the snow was heavy enough, the cover’s middle would sag slightly, though not enough for me to worry about whether or not it would rip. Plus, it was 20 degrees out, so if it tore, whatever, my parents would pay for it.

I remember, for no good reason, talking to a friend in Paris while a storm that produced two inches of snow per hour dropped a few branches, two of which landed on top of the cover, right along the shallow end of the pool.

The bush right outside the back living room window would barely bend, but those along the front walkway sagged enough to make it hard to get to the front door from the street.

I’m writing about this memory because it symbolizes what I was far better at doing when I was younger, even if I didn’t notice it then: Slowing down and remembering what seems like a nothing moment.

So today I decided to do something about it. I turned off the Blackberry, put on the iPod and after a two-mile jog through Argyle Lake, looked out and watched as baby ducks followed behind their mother. A couple held hands, she was wearing tan shorts and a blue shirt. He wore a shirt that made some sort of fishing reference. Funny, later I received a Facebook message from someone with a cute tale about a little boy on the East End who was already prepared to give up on that recreation. I never understood how that relaxes people, but, I digress.

A blond teenage girl with a blue soccer jersey jogged and walked, jogged and walked, jogged and walked, all the way around the lake. And two guys, one in a red tank top, the other in a white Ralph Lauren polo shirt discussed the economy. I couldn’t tell who they were blaming.

At exactly that moment a song written by Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes called “Waste of Paint,” played.

I stopped to listen to these lyrics:

So I have been hanging out down by the train’s depot. No, I don’t ride.

I just sit and watch the people there and they remind me of wind up cars in motion, the way they spin and turn and jockey for positions.

And I want to scream out that it all is nonsense. All your lives one track. Can’t you see it’s pointless.

But then my knees give under me. My head feels weak and suddenly it is clear to see that it is not them but me who has lost my self-identity.

I should visit Argyle Lake in Babylon Village once a week. I’ll take that run and then watch, do nothing and watch some more. This weekend, when I’m in the upper deck at Citizen’s Bank Park in Philadelphia, I’ll take a few moments to stare out at the grass and the Harry the K sign. I won’t let thoughts consume me.

There’s a lot to learn from doing nothing.