Thoughts of a Common Man

I think one of my most favorite things to do is to listen to talented people speak about their craft, or even better to watch them work. What brings this about is that I once more heard Billy Joel speak to Howard Stern. As usual, Billy was brutally honest in the assessment of his work and his talents. He was listening to ‘Honesty’ being played for him as Howard said how much he loved the song, and Billy was making fun of how he sounded. “I hate it!” He said. I also love hearing about the inspiration behind the songs. For ‘Big Shot’ he said that he imagined a dialogue between Mick and Bianca Jagger being hungover and Mick yelling her down. Good stuff, and I’m also fascinated by how a guy like that handles sudden wealth and fame. Billy Joel like Townsend and Springsteen and so many other truly creative people suffers with major depression issues. At the start of his successful run, he tried to kill himself by drinking furniture polish. Crazy. A little later on, we watched a Springsteen i...

Ollie is now mostly mine now. Which isn’t great because I now have bite marks all over my right thumb and left hand. Some of the other changes: 1). He’s ripped up some of the rug in his basement pen. 2). He can’t stop himself from pinning Miller to the hallway floor every time he sees him. 3). The thing he loves more than pinning Miller is biting Paris in the ass no matter what he is threatened with. 4). There are toys everywhere now. That’s a problem because I’m OCD and I absolutely hate clutter. The basement pen is filled with toys. There are six or seven balls here just waiting to be tossed. 5). He’s whip smart. Sit is not a problem. He shakes hands. He’s definitely mostly trained to take care of his business outside, but that’s not always great, because… 6). He digs holes. I don’t want holes.  7). He has one true redeeming value: I returned home on Friday evening. Sam was playing with him in his pen area. He ran away from Sam and jumped up. I saw it in his excitement. He would’...

It seems to take a month for Friday to arrive. I had a really early start on Thursday and after doing my Ace Ventura morning dance with two dogs who hate one another and a cat who insists on going outside, I started the car and couldn’t believe that there was a sheet of ice on the windshield. Then the guy who sets our tee time each week sent a text that said: “I can’t believe that I didn’t set a time for this weekend.” I wrote back: “That’s bullshit!” But… …back to Friday. The five-day work week can be eternal some weeks. I had a couple of long training sessions and a few big jobs that spent more time than usual. “Monday when the foreman calls time, I already got Friday on my mind.” And it’s a better than an ordinary Friday because it’s pay day. “The eagle shits today,” an old laborer partner used to say about pay days. Through my 20’s and 30’s I would run off the job and head to happy hour. “You stopping for one?” That often turned into way more than one. Now? “Hopefully it’s a quiet ...

Spoke in front of a company and had to mention Covid-19 because in just a short while OSHA is going to put out a regulation. The men seated before me were asking me to speculate what might be in the rule. “Hand-wash facilities, hand sanitizers, PPE.” “Will they mandate vaccinations?” One man asked. I shrugged. I can only guess. “If they do the whole company will quit. It’s a real illness, but they can’t tell us what to do.” I wasn’t going to get into a pissing match about it, but such a mindset amazes me. “I’ve known men who’ve lost their lives to it,” I said. “I got vaccinated because of that.” That was when they told me that a member of their company - in his early 60’s - got sick and died inside of two weeks. “And you guys don’t want to be vaccinated?” I simply could not understand.  A lot of information that they shouted at me over the next half-hour was steeped in horrific misinformation. “Where do YOU get your information on it?” One guy asked. “Go to the Mayo Clinic webpage ...

Jorge Soler became the first person ever to hit a first inning home run as the first batter in the first game of the World Series. As a kid I was all in on checking stats in World Series games. The Yankees lost to the Pirates in the 1960 World Series on a homer and I wasn’t alive for that but man, I felt the pain of that loss. As a kid, the Orioles were good, the A’s were great and so were the Reds. Gun to my head and I can name 90% of the players on all those teams and could give you the batting order. Then came the ‘77 and ‘78 Yankees. Reggie hit those 3 homers in game 6 to end the series on my 13th birthday - game 6 was played on October 18th that year. Game 1 was last night on the 26th.  November baseball. Too late! And same gun to my head and I can probably give you all the World Series winners from 1969 through 2020. I didn’t always watch each game. I certainly didn’t catch a single pitch of the Red Sux wins. Didn’t miss a pitch of any of the Yankees wins - and there were 7 w...

I know an old mason. Bob is a good man. His hands are beat up from building masonry walls. Strong guy, Bob is someone I met about twenty years ago. We became friends and there were a couple of times when I had to bail him out with OSHA because Bob wasn’t a stickler for the rules. He hated his hard hat because he had a full head of dark hair. He got busted smoking on school jobs about twenty times. Bob was about 50 when I met him. By the time he turned 63 he started talking to me about his retirement. He would tell me how many days he had left. “241 more days…208 more days…175 more days…90 more days.” Every time he told me I would tell him: “You’re a lifer. You’ll never quit.” But Bob did. About two years ago, he shook my hand. “I’m all done. I’m going to Arizona to be near my daughter and my grandkids.” I gave Bob a hug that day. A good, hardworking man. Cut to yesterday afternoon. I came around the corner on a job and Bob was there. We both started laughing. Not even a word passed bet...

The last swing of the golf club yesterday was true, but for some reason (because it’s golf) the ball stopped an inch short of dropping in the cup. I ended with a bogey instead of a par. It was cold when we hit our first tee shots. My hands were ice cold and I need my hands to be comfortable to play well. I also had cuts all over the thumb on my right hand because I played fetch with Ollie, and he kept nipping me as I tried to get the ball from him. So plenty of excuses. But there aren’t any excuses that truly fly when you’re playing with the same guys week in and week out, and I enjoy the course we play on each week, and I truly enjoy the company each Sunday morning. We lined up on hole 7 - a short par 3 and I led off with a ball to the center of the green. Pops and JC also put it on the green and Scotty was just short. The sun was rising and the nip in the air was letting go of the morning. I watched Scott line it up and he hit a perfect chip shot. As I watched the ball hit the green ...