Thoughts of a Common Man

Been a pretty busy month of July. I changed companies after just about 20 years - hit the ground running with the new place. Played some golf nearly every weekend. Did yard work. Did some work at Mom’s house. And hit a freaking wall of sorts! My legs were bothering me on Sunday night. By Tuesday at 1:00, I needed to take my socks off because their mere presence was hurting my feet. My legs feel like concrete stubs. It was almost as if someone had suddenly pulled the plug on me. Sixty isn’t the new thirty. I don’t care what they say. I scheduled a massage… …gotta get the legs back. And usually that works, but I was thinking, during the day yesterday… …what happens when the legs don’t bounce back? There will come a day, right? Ah, hell, I’m too young for that kind of talk. The legs will loosen up. (I hope).

My buddy Gag turned 60. Amazing. We met when I was 17 and we hung out every day of my freshman year in college. We had lunch together - he ate a peanut butter sandwich every day - and we played hundreds and hundreds of games of backgammon. Talked sports, and girls, and drank beer and laughed. Then Gag left Gannon and I spent the next 3 years going through college without my buddy. We picked up the friendship again in the 20’s and have been constant friends for decades. The Yankees were in Philly to help Gag celebrate his birthday and although his beautiful wife Suzanne invited me to the game… …I couldn’t make it because of the job change, but I texted Gag in the afternoon and mentioned that I had arranged for Aaron Judge to hit a homer for him. “Lol,” he texted back. “Not off of Wheeler.” Wheeler is a great pitcher and I figured my buddy was probably right, but I couldn’t back down. “Here comes you present,” I said, as Judge strolled to the plate. Only took 3 pitches - as soon as Judge...

Tee time was set for 7:40. I was excited to play. Pulled one way left.  Tee shot on 2 was worse, and then everything fell into place and it was a great round. It got a little warm on the back 9 and I enjoyed every second of it. I won’t ever bitch about the heat because I hate the cold so much… …but it was warm! Stopped by Mom’s and noticed that my brother had cut and piled branches from all the trees. That was code for: “You better pick those up.” My shirt could’ve been wrung out by the time I scrapped everything. I let my brother know I took care of it and he texted: “Are you nuts? It’s way too hot.” You know who else doesn’t mind the heat? Yeah. Ollie was waiting with his new Bills ball. We played until he couldn’t catch his breath. And we talked about Western New York’s summer weather - it’s the best. I spent a summer in Baltimore. The heat was way too stifling. It’s like 125 in Vegas, right? Arizona, Texas, California… …way too hot there. They’re talking about 90 degrees tomorr...

My son Sam hosted a lot of parties in that hot tub. Very often I would visit the garage and find: 1). He didn’t put the cover on. 2). He unplugged it and it got cold. 3). He had beer cans floating in there. The cover was demolished when two idiots wrestled on top of it and broke it. I tried to fix it. Bought a new cover. It worked for a little while and then the motor quit. I had nursed it through repairs once and I wasn’t going to throw good money after bad. So it sat in the garage for a long while…. …aggravating me. Then we had a refrigerator placed next to it.  Along with a broken basketball hoop. Kathy’s middle name should be ‘gonna’. “I’m gonna’ order a new drinking fountain for Ollie.” “I’m gonna’ sort the clothes in that back room and send them to the Salvation Army.” I am less of a ‘gonna’ guy. I made a call and those two guys stopped by around 2:00. By 3:00 I was sweeping up the dirt and throwing it all away. The hot tub is history. So is the ‘fridge and the hoop. Now abou...

There’s a man who lies on the street near the gas station/convenience store that sells cheap gas and tobacco. He has a sign that is just a piece of worn cardboard that reads: “Anything would help.” Last week, I handed him a couple of bucks and he thanked me profusely and mentioned that he’d pray for me. He looked tired. The kind of tired that can’t be slept off. I guessed his age at maybe 30. Depressed me. Thought of him throughout the week. On Friday, I passed by again, and he was asleep. He had a garbage bag full of clothes, I’d guess. Sleeping right beside him was a beautiful pit bull dog. Their heads were almost touching. That made me feel worse! The light was changing but I yelled to him, and wadded up a $5 bill. I wanted him to feed the dog! He scrambled and grabbed the bill and waved at me. I thought about this country. I know a lot of people who would scold me for giving him $5. We have learned to feel ashamed of having such people living around us. That’s depressing to me. I h...

I finally pulled the trigger. Work has begun on the release of my next book: “Are You An Idiot?” Unfortunately, it’s autobiographical and takes aim at the number one clown in my life: Me. It’s funny, but I sat in a job trailer yesterday morning and I told two stories that I have included in the book and I got some serious laughs. That’s what I’m looking to get out of this one - I want to make people laugh. It’s been a weird stretch of time and through the years I’ve shared some of my most memorable and embarrassing moments. I decided to write them all down. From my very first day out in the real world until just a few days ago, I’ve done some goofy stuff. The real heroes of the stories are my friends and family and those who were there to point out how idiotic my antics were. My Dad was pretty good at pointing out some of my screw ups, as were all of my siblings. The nuns played a huge role… …my buddies witnessed plenty. We laughed a lot - I enjoyed being the brunt of the joke. Of cour...

The funny thing about history is that you don’t know you’re living it until some time passes by. I have certainly lived through some historic events. I distinctly recall Mom making us sit and watch the Moon landing - I was 4 years old - and I was pissed because Mom was MAKING us watch it! I wanted to play, or read! I know where I was when the Challenger exploded in 1986. A deli near my apartment at college. I’d never seen a shuttle blast off. “There’s an awful lot of smoke and fire,” I said. “It blew up, you dumb bastard,” the guy behind the counter said. There was Orenthal - those days, weeks and months are all memorable. Yet, think of the last two weeks. - a weird assassination attempt that will never be anything but murky. - The president drops out of the race. - a V.P. pick of a man who called the wanna’ be President ‘Hitler’ and the choice being made because ‘He likes me a lot so I chose him.’ Weird stuff. And I often wonder how history will treat all that has happened in the last...

I have never understood the people who say: “I love winter.” This is the perfect time of year and Western New York has the best summer weather. Not too hot, not too humid. Perfect. I also can’t imagine the people who leave their house and have to sit inside on days like yesterday. I was a little sore yet yesterday, but I got to the first site, knowing I’d be doing enough walking to work the kinks out. Listening to music on the way there, avoiding all politics. Ran into a guy I’ve known for a long while. “I can’t believe I’m voting for Kamala,” he said. I pretended I was singing as the guy beside him started an argument. “No Politics on the scaffold!” I yelled. “And if you fall I’m going to come back and kick you in the ribs while you roll around on the ground.” They laughed. Sun shining bright. I love summer.

In college, I studied journalism. As a kid, I really wanted to be a sportswriter like Oscar Madison. I did my senior thesis in front of five faculty members and it was a 3-hour session. I was the first person to ever do my thesis without notes. I had a personal gripe with the news media because of how they presented a case to my hometown. Now, back then, there was the possibility that the news was trying to be objective. Report the facts. Don’t interject personal feelings. Don’t be a part of the story. Back in 1986, towards the end of my thesis presentation I broke the news: “There is zero objectivity possible.” Biden dropping out hit me hard, not because I needed or wanted him to stay in the race. The man is 81 years old - I’m nearing 60 - and I know that in short order my number one goal of each day will be to grab a quick nap. I can now fall asleep while watching a show, or reading a book. At 81, I’m imagining my day will go something like this: Get up, watch television, eat somethi...

President Biden is out. And, who knows what condition he is in physically - perhaps it is the best choice for him as a man.  He is 81 years old, after all, and if he can’t handle the job than he made the right decision. However, no matter what anyone thinks about it the only candidate right now is a man who has been convicted of 34 felonies and is facing about 60 more charges. He can’t handle the job either. That man refused to concede the last election and tried to overthrow everything. He also packed a trailer filled with classified information and wouldn’t return it. He’s a man that’s been convicted of fraud a couple of times and of sexual assault twice. So, now what? Biden was chased because of his age.  What about the other candidate being chased for being a criminal or his age?  Shouldn’t that be disqualifying. I’m at a loss. I watched the guy pretend to do the job the first time… …he was horrific. The economy wasn’t humming.  He didn’t create jobs.  Women...

I pulled a muscle in my thigh - probably climbing a scaffold on Friday - so I was kind of hobbled all day yesterday. Sat around all day - but at least I had the Yankees at 1:00 - they promptly fell behind 6 to zip… …so I flipped around and caught way too much social media about the upcoming election. I’m not going to make it. I’m so sick of all the speculation about whether or not Joe is going to drop out. There was also way too much of the dope with the tampon on his ear pretending that he took a bullet, as he spewed nonsensical on everything from Hannibal Lector to his combover. He’s going to deport millions. He’s going to bring jobs back and build a wall and on and on and on and on. He had the job. He passed one bill… …same one he will try again… …tax cuts for billionaires. Anyway, where does one go to get away from everything political whilst using a heating pad and an ice pack? I went through a few stalker movies… …one about a woman who hooked up with a guy who was married and had...

We stumbled onto a true crime show that is a little like ‘Cops’. The show ‘Late Night Lock Up’ was funny at first, as cop cameras caught a few rather entertaining interviews with drunken idiots. “How many drinks have you had tonight?” “A thousand,” one big woman answered. “Wasn’t enough.” There was another incident involving a young man whose car started on fire. The cops were cordial to the kid, who came across as polite and simply caught in a bad situation. “I’m going to run up to that gas station and get a drink and some food for my dog,” the kid said. Well, the gas station was closed.  The kid broke in, took what he needed and left his bank card on the counter to pay for what he took when the store reopened. “What made you think you could break into a store?” The cop asked. “I don’t know, I took a couple of hits of acid,” the kid said. “Wasn’t thinking clearly.” So, good for some laughs… …but as moved through a few episodes, I started to get sad. There are so many mentally ill,...

We watched the first Bob Newhart Show as a family. Bob was a psychiatrist and the show was funny every week. Back in those days, the entire family sat together in one room and we all watched the same shows each week. I learned to really love Bob Newhart’s comedy timing, his laid-back personality and Suzanne Pleshette, his beautiful wife. Newhart was also a great standup comic and I watched a number of his specials. Then he was an inn owner in Vermont and played the same sort of character as he did in the first show… …hitting the crazy characters around him with his dry wit. That show ended with him in bed with Suzanne Pleshette saying that he had a dream about being an inn owner. Perfect ending to a show. Newhart later appeared on “The Big Bang Theory” and those were the only episodes I liked. Of course, Newhart had a great long life.  94 years is a great run. Yet, when I heard about his death, I was instantly back in the living room at Mom & Dad’s house, laughing at that first...

1). The rooftop was a mere 130 yards from the stage. There were secret service agents everywhere. Why didn’t they clear that building? 2). Witnesses at the event reported seeing the shooter climbing to the roof with a rifle on his back. They reported it to police and the secret service. Why was he allowed to set up a shot? 3). The gun was an AR-15. It’s a gun that obliterates its targets.  Bullets don’t graze when they hit, do they? Where are the medical reports? Was it glass shards? Hit with a bullet from an AR-15 and you’re golfing with a simple scratch? 4). I’ve watched the moment when the gunshots can be heard on the video feed. Why did the crowd not react? The people directly behind the target did not duck down, or even react at all. There were people still smiling. 5). The secret service is famous for taking a bullet for the person they’re protecting. Why would they allow him to pop his head up and pump his fist and yell ‘fight’? Isn’t that against all they stand for in regar...

Taking a break from the insanity of the world - how does a political candidate say, ‘he is noxious’ or ‘like Hitler’ and then accept the nomination to be the next vice president for the guy? Why do they all line up behind the biggest fraud this country has ever seen? Whatever.  This is about baseball. I usually cherish the time at the all-star break to take my own break from baseball and this year is no different, but true to my ‘break’ rules, I watched the first round of the home run derby and checked in on the Yankee AB’s in the game. As for the derby - Judge would win it every year if he so desired. He would’ve destroyed the field on Monday. As for the game - Soto had a 2-run double. Man can play the game. Some of my fondest all-star game memories include Reggie hitting the light board in Detroit way back in 1971 - a mythical blast that turned into the inspiration for the end of ‘The Natural’. Reggie was a true superstar. I was a youngster - just 6 years old. “He demolished the ...

Mike Johnson was interviewed at the Republican National Terrorist Conference and he went on record saying that God intervened and saved the big orange dude. He’s not the only one saying such things. God spared the dumpster fire so that he can save America. Good Lord. What does the family of the retired firefighter think? That God didn’t like him? I’m trying my best here to not downplay the violence. It’s a sad place to live now and has been since Columbine. God wasn’t available to spare the children at Sandy Hook? God didn’t care for the people at the country concert in Las Vegas? Color me skeptical, but I have a feeling that if God were going to protect people from harm he’d have criteria for making such decisions wouldn’t he? I have an idea that God might go out of his way to save a child who is stricken with cancer. Or a 50-year old man who is in the process of raising his children. I lost a friend a little while back. A really good guy, who worked hard, helped people, was always ki...

I remember when Reagan was shot. I was mortified by it. How could that happen in America? Of course, over the last 20 years or so we have grown numb to gun violence. There has been horrific violence in almost ever possible setting. Gun violence at an outdoor political rally. Not a shocker. One dead, shooter dead and a politician injured. My first instinct was to turn off all media. I went to Amazon Prime and put on a repeat of ‘The Middle’. Axel, Sue and Brick broke the living room window and tried to hide it from Frankie & Mike. I couldn’t listen to the ‘Thoughts & Prayers’ and all the ‘we’re better than this as Americans’ or ‘we need to unite.’ I don’t know much about being a member of the secret service but one witness was saying that he and a few others were watching the guy, with a rifle on his back, climb his way to the roof. The cops evidently ignored the guy. Also, after the politician was helped to his feet, the secret service allowed him to stand up and pump his fist ...

Back before every human in the world can put the crack of their ass on the internet for everyone to see there used to be social media or television personalities. Dr. Ruth was one such creation, and for a little while there  she was on every single show talking about sex. She was funny, and she propelled her sexual therapy talk into a huge career, writing books and talking with Letterman. Richard Simmons was another such person - he was an exercise guru who seemed to be gay. Back then it wasn’t a big deal one way or another and people seemed to enjoy his act. He disappeared for a long while and there was great concern. I doubt my kids know who either Dr. Ruth or Richard Simmons are. There is a media star every few weeks now… …including the Hawk-tu girl - and if you haven’t seen that one - well - look it up - it’s worth a laugh. Seems like part of my youth died yesterday. Was a more innocent time for sure. May they rest in peace.

Sometimes it seems like Friday takes a month to arrive. I even skipped a blog this morning! Was a crazy, intense, busy week as I had to get all the clients from my old place of employment to my new one. While that sounds easy enough there was a bit of trepidation as I am getting older and perhaps some would go elsewhere or take the time to reconsider what they were doing with the plan for the safety of their employees. I sent the paperwork out and it came flying back in. A couple of days was all it took, but it was all a validation of my years of work. I mentioned to one guy - a client I’ve had for about 20 years - that I was concerned about everyone signing back up. “Dude, you’re a rock star,” he said. Well, if I’m a rock star I’m like Jagger at 81. ‘Cause I’m worn out! I doubt Mick even feels this bad after one of his long shows. Friday night was a night for a large T-bone with sweet corn and fried potatoes. A game of catch with Ollie and then we settled in. Saturday will be a day of...

I can’t take much more of the election talk and we have 4 months to go. I don’t understand it much, by the way. All I’ve heard is talk of Biden being too old. He stumbled over a couple of sentences in the debate, and while 81 is a tad up there, the criminal running against him isn’t exactly an intellectual giant, or in such sharp mental health. The story that should be discussed at length is the one about the Epstein papers where it was disclosed that one of the presidential candidates was accused of raping a 13-year old. Read the account of that - it might be hard to find though because it’s being well-hidden. The story was buried a long time ago, but, it has resurfaced and it’s being wildly ignored. Not to mention the pesky felony convictions that everyone is seemingly okay with. Throw in the project 2025 garbage that speaks of millions of Americans being placed into camps. Here’s the thing: America went to the great world war in an effort to stop a man trying to install a world of h...

Being oriented with a new company has changed quite a bit since 2004 when I last joined a different company. For instance, I had to go to a security company to verify my identity. Yesterday, I had a meeting with a Human Resources manager and of course it was on the computer where we looked at each other. Those are weird to me. I keep looking at my own face, wondering if I should smile, or nod, or look serious. I also look old when I’m on a zoom call with a young professional. Then the computer updates and the sign-in procedures. You pick a password, put it in twice more, get a text, enter your last four from your social, answer key questions about the street you grew up on and your mother’s mothers maiden name. I must have yelled - to my computer - “come on, man, I just wanna visit construction sites!” But, it’s working out. The guys I’ve talked to are golfers so I’m thinking there will be some bonding on a course or two. But, things are truly different in the working world nowadays. N...

The new job - which is supposed to just be the old job - with a new company - isn’t quite as easy as it sounds because there is change and I know my mind. I struggle when there is work to do and no way to get it done before the end of the day. Yet, meeting new people and trying to communicate who the hell I am is also a chore. I received an email that asked me 25 questions. Some were easy - favorite sports team or favorite family tradition. In any regard, I zipped through them and I mentioned the exercise to Kathy. “Give me the questions,” she said. “I bet I know what you answered.” She didn’t get a single one wrong. She answered my questions exactly as I did, including the 4 people, living or dead I’d have dinner with. “Bruce, your Mom, Dad and Jeff.” I laughed. “And you’d be eating linguine and clams.” “That’s about it,” I said. I worked hard yesterday trying to get the contracts in order, so hard in fact that the new department head asked me if I had a team of people helping me. “We...

I played 72 holes of golf in 7 days. I made a number of good dinners, cleaned the house, arranged a number of drawers, did laundry, worked on the next book, played a lot of catch with big O, and hung around with Miller. I never slept past 6:30, but I suppose that might come if I was off for a longer stretch, but around 5:00 on Sunday afternoon I had a huge thought: “Let’s go!” I need to visit a few construction sites! Yet I don’t know if that will be possible today because all the paperwork isn’t quite set, and evidently new jobs require a background check which takes a while even though I’ve never had more than a speeding ticket and I can’t even remember the last time I got one of those - has to be about ten years! So, I’m chomping at the bit a little about now. When we played 18 yesterday morning, I missed a drive on 14. Pulled up on it. A little fatigued! Hit another crappy drive on 15. “I gotta go back to work.” And the funny thing is that one of my clients sent me an invite to gol...

My Lord, when the Yankees struggle every person I know comes out of the woodwork to take a shot at me. Meanwhile, bad stretches happen to every team…every year. I have a great memory. I recall how I felt when they were down 14.5 games in July of 1978. There wasn’t a way to back into a wild card spot in those days. If they wanted to win the World Series they had to run down the Red Sux. They did, of course, but I recall how hopeless I felt that summer. 20 years later they went off. They had won the series in ‘96 but got beat in the playoffs in ‘97.  They had something to prove in ‘98 and just ran away and hid. They were on pace to win 125 games and then September started and they went into an epic tailspin. I recall a long losing streak and winning like 2 of 15 or some such nonsense. They only lost 2 playoff games and swept the World Series that year. Everything was going swimmingly this year until a couple of weeks ago. Injuries, bad starting pitching and cold bats have made it a r...

I’m not a fan of fireworks. I never really cared about them even as a kid. As an adult I hate them because they make my pets uncomfortable. Ollie jumped out of his skin because one of my moron neighbors tossed a couple of M-80’s into the air. Yet there is a family in South Carolina that probably hates fireworks more than me because the father of the family put a firework on his head. Then lit it. The man died an hour later of massive head wounds. His wife explained that the incident happened around 11 p.m. and the man had been drinking heavily since the block party started around six. “I told him to stop fooling around,” the wife said. I’m sure he wasn’t the only guy who lost his life. Even more people lost digits. Senseless? I’m not quite sure when it became legal for every person in the country to put on a fireworks show. When I was a kid the firework celebration was confined to the big event at the town park. I wasn’t sure who was responsible for putting on the show, but they did it...

I like David Duchovny as an artist, and that’s a bit of a weird, random thing, but he wrote a book years back called, ‘Bucky F*cking Dent’ from the viewpoint of a Boston fan. It was a well-rounded novel that was filled with good characters and compassion. I used the father-son relationship in the book as a springboard for the son and stepfather that I wrote about in ‘The Big D’. Last night I watched a movie with Duchovny and Meg Ryan - less for the romantic slant between the two - and more for the fact that I knew it would be a well-rounded effort with compassion and good characters. It was about two people who run into one another after 25 or 30 years and they talk about their lives as how they played out. Meg Ryan asks the question. “Are you disappointed with how life worked out?” It was just a general question that I think sometimes people my age consider. In our 20’s we have a lot to plan and look forward to, we map it out, and then we spend a whole lot of time trying to make all t...

I completed my 5th straight day off of work. Well, kind of. There have been tasks involved in the upcoming new job - it’s called onboarding - been a long, long time since I started a new job - life has changed. Every day, I’ve received packages at the door and email instructions to sign up. Yesterday morning, I had to find a place where I could drop off my I.D.’s to verify it’s me. The appointment was for 9:10 and it was the only thing on the agenda. I handled it like an old, retired guy, arriving 15 minutes early, worried about getting stuck in a line. And the thing about it, is that I have received a few work calls, but my clients know the deal. I can’t visit this week. There was no urgency involved in picking up the call. The best part? On Sunday I played golf and said: “I haven’t looked at my phone once.” I dug in the cart and it wasn’t even there! I’d left it in the car!! Might be the longest I’ve gone without looking at a screen in about 15 years. It gave me an idea. I have left ...

Greystone is a tremendous golf course in the Rochester area. Just a beautiful place, and every hole is a challenge. I’d played it before a few years back, but taking advantage of a week off, I called my Syracuse buddy and we arranged the outing. Best part was my buddy, Al was also free to play… …and the fact that the constitution is being trampled only came up once. As my son, Sam has said: “The best thing about golf is that nothing else matters when I have a golf club in my hand.” I agree, and I had a tremendous round a few weeks back so I’m not even worried all that much about how I’m scoring - I scored decently and had a great 6 or 7 hole stretch - but there were a half dozen times when I looked around. At one point, I turned and checked out the scenery from the green and I just nodded to Al. “It’s beautiful,” he said, knowing exactly what my head nod meant. The sun was shining. Not a cloud in the sky. Great conversation among all of us, and a few laughs. Towards the end of the roun...

It all started with Lyndsy Wagner when she was on ‘The Bionic Woman’. I was just a kid, but man, I was head over heels in love with her. I used to hate the scenes with Lee Majors where they talked about their love. (I also realized that if it came down to either me or Lee Majors I was gonna’ lose - dude was married to Farrah Fawcett for crying out loud - I was 6’ tall, 110 pounds with zits). Around that time I was also wildly attracted to Winnie Cooper on ‘The Wonder Years’. I’m pretty sure that the show was so well-written that I was in love with Winnie because the stories were so heartwarming. I had to move on. My next love was Angie Harmon when she first hit ‘Law & Order’. To this day, I will watch the dated episodes of that show and not follow the plot at all.  I only look up when I hear Angie’s voice. As a matter of fact, Rizzoli & Isles still makes my watch list as I’m writing reports - Angie is a classic beauty (and my cousin Gail had her as a student years and years...

It’s always strange for me when someone I know tells me that they read my books and it’s weird for them because they think of me as they’re reading the story. I didn’t quite grasp what they meant, and hoped that they’d get caught up in the story and not me. I kind of get what they’re saying now because I just finished reading my sister Carrie Lynn’s excellent first book, ‘Eyes on the Horizon’. Now, I had read the story a long while ago, but a whole lot of work went into the end product. As a writer, I always try and guess along with the author because I can see the plot lines, and I’m often critical of plot lines that come out of nowhere as the author tries to unpaint the corner he’s stuck in. There was none of that in ‘Eyes on the Horizon’! I didn’t have any moments of, ‘Come on, now, that doesn’t work!’ I caught all the subtle lines that we shared in conversations and I was proud that Carrie defined her characters clearly and used them to propel the story forward. I’ve also coached h...