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...