Thoughts of a Common Man

That’s a question that was roundly asked yesterday as people talked about the Chiefs win over the Bengals. It’s a question that is asked in half the NFL cities every weekend. I’ve toyed with the idea a number of times. Examples: 1). Ray Lewis wins a super bowl as he goes off into retirement. What’s worse? During that game they were being hammered and then the lights went out and they came all the way back. 2).Seattle throws a pass - that gets picked off - a half yard away from scoring the go-ahead touchdown. There was zero reason to throw the ball. They did. Seemed insane. 3). Peyton Manning wins a super bowl in his last game. He couldn’t throw it 3 yards. Was completely washed up. What a wonderful script it seemed to be. 4). Atlanta 28 New England 3 - with about 12 minutes left. Patriots won in overtime. I remember seeing the Harlem Globetrotters as a kid. They were down big to the Washington Generals and I was pretty upset about it. “Don’t worry,” Dad said. “They’ll win. It’s all wor...

I spent part of Sunday morning going through my file cabinet looking for some old documentation. We have all stopped printing out things over the last five years or so, but I have a whole bunch of papers from years gone by. Things that I thought were really important. I don’t really need any of them! I have a lot of press from my books and it’s always fun to look at some of the reviews, but as I was sorting through it, I wondered: Will my kids even be interested? I have journals that have documented every day of my life since about 1974. Just books and books of my thoughts. I have only stacked them in a closet. I’m thinking of burning them! When I’m gone… …will anyone care? I wrote down my every day thoughts and I’ve kept this blog going every day for years. To what end? And the important papers? They aren’t all that important. I need a contractor’s garbage bag and a couple of hours with the shredder. I walked away thinking about all the days piling up behind us. All the ‘urgent’ thing...

There are a couple of videos making the rounds. The beat-down of Paul Pelosi - which is absolutely horrifying and of course, the latest murder of a black kid - at the hands of the police - in Memphis. I couldn’t watch that video. I saw a snippet and that was enough. Being a more than middle-aged white man in America is now a complicated issue because I’m embarrassed by these horrific events. I didn’t have to think too deeply to imagine what a police task force called Scorpion was like. They felt empowered to go out in the streets and kick some ass. There are police forces with enough tactical gear to start a war. Some who are placed in a position of authority believe that they are not only the law but that they are above it. That’s not new. All or a lot of the misconduct is now being documented via cameras. I don’t know enough about the inner workings of a police department to make sweeping generalizations about how the job on the streets should be done. Watching ‘Blue Bloods’ doesn’t ...

Maybe it’s the weather. Perhaps it’s the coming golf trip. But the 5 days that make up a week seems to take a month these days. I heard the rear brakes making noise on my car, and I had a decision. I’m a month away from paying off my car - first time that’s ever happened - I usually get a new one before the final payment is made. I got the brakes done. The noise went away. THAT noise went away! I gave my buddy Tim a ride when he came up from Syracuse to go to the Bills game. I wasn’t even out of the driveway before he announced: “You got a bad wheel bearing. I hope we make it.”  Tim is a mechanic by trade. “BAH!” Back to the shop! They replaced the wheel bearing and as I drove away, (car was nice and quiet), the dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree. “ABS!” “Traction!” “Hill steep” something or other. I needed the car and couldn’t leave it.  I called Tim. “They screwed up a sensor. Car will run fine but those lights won’t go off until they replace the sensor.” That doesn’t wo...

This is something that’s been said for a long, long time.  Are you ready? My favorite part of the bumper sticker is the part about the driver disappearing. Because he’s righteous. And I heard a pretty good line yesterday. Everything is a conspiracy if you don’t understand anything. The thing is, this driver most likely believes it. Which is fine. Maybe he’s even right and he will be one of the chosen ones. But what is the purpose of decorating his vehicle in such a way? Will someone stop him to thank him? Will he change the world into a more loving place by making us all think that we need to be saved? I just don’t get any of the bumper sticker stuff. I’m a Yankees fan. I don’t even advertise that because I know what I think about when I see a Red Sux sticker on someone else’s vehicle. Know what I thought about seeing the above photo? Yeah. Dude needs help. My luck, I’ll be behind him going 65 mph when he gets sucked out of the car on his way to Eternal paradise.  

The cold and grey of winter can do it for you. Jake stopped by yesterday to do his laundry so I made him tacos - which he loves. “What’s going on?” I asked, as he say with us following dinner. “Nothing. Bills lost. It’s cold. Work.” “That’s it?” “Yeah. It all sucks.” I laughed. I know the feeling. It’s hard to get fired up when it’s 28 degrees and it seems endless. We talked about the Sabres for a minute… …That’s the natural progression to it. Bills lost, too early for baseball… …how about those Sabres. He finished up his laundry. I thanked him for stopping by and was quick to tell him to be careful driving. “Hope things get more exciting soon,” I said. “I got three take-home tacos,” he said. “All good.” 

Besides coverage of all the mass shootings this week the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a long while - and there’s been a lot of dumb these past 7 years - is that Damar Hamlin actually died on the football field last month. And now… …get this… …the Bills, the NFL and the people making everyone get vaccines… …are covering it all up. Much of this conspiracy is based on the fact that people couldn’t see Hamlin’s face as he attended the Bills-Bengals game on Saturday. The Hamlin ‘clone’ was wearing a face mask, had his hoodie pulled down low, was behind glass that was covered by snow… …all so we couldn’t make out that it wasn’t really him. Here’s the thing. Prior to the in-game heart incident I had zero idea what Hamlin looked like. Even now, I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. The only time I’ve ever seen him with his helmet off was when he did the selfie in the hospital as he was recuperating and when he showed up at the Bills practice facility when he returned to Buffalo. So, when did he ...

Can’t even keep up with the mass shootings in the last few days. Monterey North Carolina  Half Moon Bay Those are three that I’ve heard about. I don’t even bother to check in on the motive or the gun being used or even the victims anymore. There was a blurb that said that there have been something like 25 mass shootings in 2023. There have only been 23 freaking days! And as Americans I believe that we are losing out on an entertainment source because we aren’t betting on them. There has to be a way to turn the shootings - which are going to happen anyway - into a fantasy league or something, right? Now, of course I’m being facetious because it’s downright sickening, but I seriously believe that there would be fans of the ‘sport’ of mass shooters. It’s insane. And the same old tired arguments are trotted out in favor of the shooter’s rights. Mental health? Going to have to fund such programs. People calling for mental health intervention don’t believe in putting money aside for such...

I seriously think that the most disappointed I ever was following the end of the season was when I was about 15 or 16. The Sabres had lost a home playoff game against the Islanders on a Bob Nystrom game in overtime. The Islanders went on to win the cup that year. Mom had taken me and John to the game - when we returned home, Dad was still awake. He called me in to see how I was doing. “The Sabres are better!” I said. “There’s always next year,” Dad said. “The Sabres will win the cup some day.” Hasn’t happened. Bills haven’t won either. Yankees have done it 5 times for me since then… …so I’m better off than a lot of Buffalo fans… …but “We’ll get them next year!” Is something I’ll hear a lot this week. I used to go to Bills games with my buddy Kim Patterson. He would say: “Watch the lines. Whoever wins the line battle wins the game.” The Bills were in trouble immediately. They got pushed all over town.  Both sides of the ball. A total beat down, really, and I bust my kids balls about...

I’m not sure there’s a worse job in the world than that of an NFL referee. No matter who is playing there are people bitching and moaning about how unfair the game was officiated. I have a buddy who is quick to point out that the umpires in baseball are also wildly inconsistent, but the batter can make certain adjustments as the game goes along and he can take a bad ump out of the game. It’s not quite that easy in football. A hold can be called on almost every play. Pass interference can be the difference in a game. There are certainly quarterbacks who definitely took advantage of pass interference by throwing a ball short and having their receiver run into the guy defending him. Brady made a living out of it. And of course, the playoffs magnify it all. Was it a catch? Watching on television we are treated to 5 different replays that let us know that the ball was still moving as the guy hit the ground. The ref can’t see that in real time. And there are certainly conspiracies: “The fix ...

I clicked on a report about Lisa Marie who, despite being left the Elvis fortune, died broke. The report said that she had about $14 grand in real money and owed about $500,000 on credit cards. I’m sure that it’s more complicated than that as she owned Graceland and was getting about a hundred grand a month from Elvis - who still earns a lot of money some 45 years after he died. Yet, after that there were plenty of other celebrities talking about their fortunes and their plans to give their kids… …absolutely nothing! Sting is worth $300 million. He’s told his kids: “We plan on spending it and won’t be leaving a trust fund.” Kirk Douglas left all his money to charity. Marie Osmond is outspoken about not giving her kids a dime. She wants them to make their own way. Then there is Warren Buffet who is worth more than a hundred billion. His relatives? Yeah. Nothing. Nada. Zip! Don’t you think that’s a little crazy? I’d love to be able to leave my kids a little bit of money. I plan on doing ...

I’ve held out long enough as far as George Santos is concerned. Is that even his real name? Most people have heard the story by now, but the guy won an election based on a resume that had more fiction in it than most of my books. He lied about his schooling, his work history and everything else, including his sexuality, and his athletic accomplishments. I saw an interview on one of the social media sites that spoke of his sterling career as a college volleyball star. He was complaining about the fact that spiking the ball led to double knee replacement. Those who commented were certain that: 1). He was never on the team. 2). He definitely never had his knees replaced - he’s not even close to the age where that might be required. Then, last night there were photos of him as a drag queen in Africa. Evidently, he is of the sort who screams loudest about drag queens being degenerates. When his story first broke I thought: “They’ll force him to resign. No way he gets sworn in.” That didn’t ...

Was a crazy Sunday here. I dropped off Jake and Maggie at 9:30 - getting as close to the stadium as I could and not get caught in traffic. Sam & Matt were already tailgating by then. At 11:00, I drove a buddy from Syracuse to the same spot near the stadium as he headed in with his wife and daughter. Place was becoming more of a zoo on that trip, but I made the delivery without running over any of the 10,000 people wearing their Allen or Hamlin jerseys. It was cold! I thought about how much someone would have to pay me to sit out there and watch. A whole lot of money! I headed home, played ball in the backyard with Ollie and grabbed a few meatballs and a little pork out of the sauce and we caught an episode of ‘Your Honor’. It ended right at 1:00 and we clicked on the game. More than anything else, I wanted a nap, and when the Bills rolled out to a 17-0 lead, I settled in. Then stupid shit started to happen and it dawned on me that the game was 2 hours old and they hadn’t even made ...

So, I was up and out of bed by 6 a.m. this morning and I headed to the first job - a little groggy from making trips back and forth to the stadium yesterday to drop off kids and friends who went to the game. I hit the first site by 7:00 and held a meeting with a couple of people and then received a text from the head of my department: “Hey, Mr. Work Every Day, you do know this is a company holiday, right?” “Huh?” “No work today,” he said. “Already on-site,” I answered. “I only work 8.” He laughed. Yet, I did cut it off early and passed by Sam who was getting ready to start a 11-hour day.  He had gone to the game and plenty of post-game victory celebrations. HE looked groggy. “Are you sorry you stayed out so late?” I chided. “What do you mean?” He asked. “You’re going to have a shitty day,” I said. “Nah, I’m good. I know the price to pay. Nothing I can do today about yesterday’s choices.” His words stopped me in my tracks! Pretty profound coming from Sam!! “Well, have fun,” I said. ...

Stumbled on a question on social media. Why aren’t there long marriages like back in our grandparents day? The interesting aspect of it was the certainty of the commenters. They all know the secret! “God needs to be the third member of the marriage,” one woman wrote. “We’ve lost God in our society so we don’t have long marriages anymore.” A whole bunch of people jumped on that poor woman and destroyed her regarding her belief that a shared love of God was required. “Social media has ruined relationships!” One young man proclaimed. “Women are slutting it up by finding their old boyfriends.” Sounded like that dude had a very specific problem. Then. “This is a me-me-me society now. People aren’t willing to commit to one another.” Others blamed it on the fact that women now have more control over some of the financial aspects. “Back then, women HAD to stay married. They didn’t work so they couldn’t build up credit and they had to stay with their husbands who controlled them.” I have been m...

Jeff Beck was most certainly a great guitarist. He was also 78 years old, and he died of bacterial meningitis. His death is being blamed on the Covid vaccine. This all started a long time ago. Henry Aaron died at the age of 86. He was just a few weeks out of being vaccinated. There’s no evidence that showed getting the jab had anything to do with his death, but who needs evidence, right? We put a whole lot of stock in alternative facts these days. Hell, even the Damar Hamlin football-related collision between a helmet and his heart is being blamed on, what? Yeah. The vaccine! We all saw what happened! He was hit, in the chest at the exact wrong moment. As freakish as it was, it does happen. No one even knows if the kid was vaccinated. He most likely was as the league mandated it… …and millions of others also received the shot as well. I did! I’ve been boosted a couple of times too. When will I drop? Will it all happen if I contract bacterial meningitis? Will it take being drilled in th...

If grey is your favorite color, you’re in luck. I’ve been trying to figure out when was the last time I’ve seen the sun. Before Christmas, which we basically missed because… …the weather sucked! And while we sit here in the cold, grey of every day, there’s been a massive storm out west. Cars floating away. Scary stuff. Put on Bruce: “Hello sunshine, won’t you stay?” Great song. I’m going to play it on a loop the next time I see the damn sun! And going through my normal day, a coworker that I play golf with in the summer sent me a photo of the damn sun, and his ball on the tee out in Vegas. He’s supposed to be out there working. He’s not a pro golfer though, so I imagine he was skipping everything and hitting the ball. “ I hope you shoot 100,” I texted back. “And put 4 in the water.” He answered an hour later. “42 on front 9. Sun is in my eyes.” I ended our exchange with: “I hate you.” There’s going to be 80 or more days of blah. I don’t ever want to wish time away… …but hello sunshine…...

I see a lot of young kids on the jobs. They all know me. I don’t know any of them by name, but I know their faces. I saw a young kid cutting concrete without a dust mask. He was filling his lungs with the dust. “Dude. Where’s your mask?” “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “What are the rules?” “You don’t need to know the rules,” I said.  “It’s common sense. You’re breathing that shit in, and 40 years later you’re gonna’ wish you hadn’t.” There was zero chance he was going to think ahead 40 years. “How long you been doing this?” He asked. “I was on my first construction site in 1982. I was your age.” He whistled. “Damn! You were alive in the 70’s?” I laughed. “How old are you?” I asked. “Well, I wasn’t born in the 1900’s,” he said. That brought another laugh. “Well, if you wanna’ see 2060 you probably shouldn’t breathe that crap in every day.” He nodded. I hoped he took it seriously. I turned to walk away. “Hey,” he called out. “How old will you be in 2060?” I gave him the finger without tu...

There’s plenty to hate about sports these days. The greed, the betting, the near-death of some of the combatants, and the constant back and forth between fans of teams - which is a lot more ugly on social media. But every once in awhile there are magical moments. Of course the Bills are big news around here, and while I get bored with football and all that’s wrong with it, I do pretend to care. Damar Hamlin nearly died on the field last week. It was all anyone spoke about, and everyone was happy about how it all played out as he is on the road to a full recovery, but there was some angst. How would the Bills respond? I did happen to see the opening kickoff, which is odd. I most certainly don’t watch every play, and I said: “He’s gone.” He’d hit the wedge perfectly, and as Himes made his way down the sideline… …I felt Bruce bumps on my arms. A moment in sports… …like Reggie’s 3rd homer in ‘78 …’Nova winning the title as Sam danced around. …Jeter’s 3,000th hit. …Bucky F***ing Dent. …Aaro...

One of my favorite written scenes ever was in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. Tom Joad has just been accused of murder and has to go on the run and leave his family. His father and mother are crushed as parents would be, and Tom’s father says: “What do we do now?” Tom’s mother says: “We go on.” That was a powerful thing for me to read as a young man, and it’s carried me through life as an adult. “We go on.” The other part of the story that also makes my heart flutter is before that when Tom tells his heartbroken Mom that he has to leave. She asks: “How do I know that you’re all right?” He says: (paraphrasing) “You’ll feel me in the wind. You’ll hear me in the laughter of the children. And anywhere where there is an injustice you’ll know that I’m there fighting for whatever is right. Wherever there’s a cop beating a guy. Wherever a newborn baby cries. You’ll see me.” Now, why do I bring it all up? The Bills are playing ball again today. They have to go on. And of course, they will dedicate their...

We watched the documentary about the lead up to January 06, 2020. It’s a quick watch that is often funny - by accident - as the rage and insane reasoning of the conspiracy theorists are documented. It is absolutely insane what some people believe. Evidently there is a globalist effort to turn the nation into a pedophilia country where babies are eaten and blood is devoured to do something or other. The crazy part of it all is that there was supposed to be a savior. The video shows groups of people chanting Jesus name to spread absolute rage and hatred. And all along there are clips of fringe media ‘stars’ inciting that rise up. What I have never understood is that people who broke the windows of the Capitol and destroyed property were wrapped in flags and screaming about being patriots. Didn’t they see the hypocrisy? Don’t they see it now? We laughed at the man who proclaimed himself to be the voice of reason in exposing pedophiles. He’s a convicted sex offender! He explained that way ...

It hasn’t snowed in awhile. The Bills got some good news as Hamlin appears to be on the mend. It was over 40 degrees all week. Somehow it feels like we are in the eye of the storm. And I don’t know about other people’s jobs but it seems to me that 4-day work weeks are worse than 5-day ones. Everyone appears to be trying to jam all the work of the week into the shorter window and as a safety guy for a lot of companies… …damn, my phone almost started on fire at one point. One call, text, email after another until I finally held the phone aloft and announced: “I’m going to throw this thing off the f****ng wall!” There were three other guys standing around at the meeting and they all laughed. Which helped me center a bit and laugh too. In all the happiness over the health of the Bills safety, I was reminded of the greed and pure evil of the NFL. I listened to former players discuss the non-existent disability insurance or pensions of the former players. I considered that they lied through ...

There was a mass shooting in a downtown supermarket midway through last year. A number of black Americans gunned down as they walked through the produce section. Buffalo had to dig deep to band together enough to get through it. In the last couple of months there have been crippling and deadly snowstorms and blizzards. Just horrendous, damaging, soul-sucking storms that robbed us of Christmas in a lot of cases. And then, the Bills, on a 6-game winning streak, and with the entire county cheering their every movement, took the field on Monday night. And 8 minutes in, their young safety laid on the field, fighting for his life. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget what it felt like at that moment. As the Bills players wept on the sidelines, Kathy asked a question that just hung in the air. “Did he die?” Time was really moving slowly. I wasn’t sure that the NFL was going to cancel the game, but I was all done. I went to bed. Slept the sleep of a teething baby. I kept rolling over and grabbing the...

  Prayers for Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin. There’s nothing else that needs to be said.  I don’t have any hot takes about it or the NFL or any of what happened. Other than to say, I pray that kid is okay.

New Year’s Day used to be a bit of a mess when we went out and drank a little. Or a lot. That’s been in the rear-view for quite awhile, and I woke up feeling pretty good on the first day of 2023. There was football (didn’t watch a down) and pasta on the menu. I started my sit up regiment for the year by doing one. I’ll add one every day until I finish the year (ideally) by doing 365 on New Year’s Eve. Think I can do it? I put the phone down for extended periods during the day, and hope to do that more every day. There should be a time limit on these things. And I had a thought about life being easy if you can just relax your mind. That’s easy to do on a day off and watching movies or a series. Gets harder when things get busier. Kind of like the sit-up exercise. One sit-up yesterday, two tomorrow, three on Tuesday all seem manageable to me. We may have to check in on that little exercise a couple of weeks from now when I’m sick of climbing ladders in the freezing cold and there’s sickn...

Happy New Year!  🎊🎈🎆  I have always enjoyed the ‘reset’ feeling of a brand new year. I’m not into resolutions or any of that ‘I’m going to be a brand new guy’ sort of thinking because I’ve been around long enough to know that “I’m the same old jerk you’ve been having for years,” as Mellencamp so eloquently put it. Too set in my ways, and buried deep in an established set of routines. But I always truly feel like things can improve simply via the turning of the calendar page. Goals? 1). Healthy - all of us. That’s always goal one. It seems as if there has been a lot of death, knocking on doors all around all of us. The celebrity deaths in 2022 were astounding. Covid and early death rates have seemed to be out of control. So, stay healthy! 2). Yankees - 28 - it’s been too damn long! We need a championship this year. Judge is signed. The pitching is great on paper. Let’s go! 3). Break 80 - it’s been 40 years since I golfed a 79 at Golden Gate golf course in Mill Valley, Califo...