Thoughts of a Common Man

Sunday was the final mass at Holy Spirit Church in North Collins, NY. Man, I spent a lot of time in that church, from about 1966 on. I was an altar boy for a lot of years. I did readings, sang songs, laughed with friends, and knelt for stations of the cross. My first confession was there. My first communion and confirmation as well. As a family we sat on the right side of the church, and there were a lot of laughs in the Fazzolari row. I recall a Mass when all eight of us were packed in and the  elderly woman in front of us went into a coughing fit, and in the middle of it, she farted audibly, I was seated next to my Dad and he and I laughed to tears, as Mom gave us dirty looks. I knew every corner of that church. Cried there plenty too at funerals of people that I loved. Yet, I thought I’d be a hell of a lot sadder. I really lost faith in the Catholic Church. That has nothing to do with what I believe, but organized religion has truly lost its luster… …yet it all comes flooding ba...

Saddened to hear about Jimmy Carter passing away at 100 years old. I wrote a blog on kindness yesterday. There’s the face of kindness. He was brilliant, soulful, Christian and he worked hard to help others. Now, there will be garbage spewed on his great name by the incoming mess. Ignore that. Read a book that Jimmy wrote. It’ll make your life better.

It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. A woman who is a tremendous baker brought a tin of cookies to my Mom. When I walked in on Saturday afternoon my Mom immediately greeted me with the tin and said, “My friend brought these for me. They’re so good. She’s such a great lady.” I put the coffee on and Mom made sure that I had a couple of the cookies. We marveled at the beauty of her lifelong friendship. “She never forgets me,” Mom said. And I could mention her friend’s name, but that would embarrass her… …she’s just kind and that’s why she does it. Kindness. So simple. And yet, as the older, ‘Get off my lawn’ guy that I’ve become, I argue that kindness is lost. I try and be that way… …doesn’t always happen… …yet, I remember being a kid and it seemed that Saturday was the day reserved for kindness. We had a huge yard. I recall an uncle and a couple of cousins coming by to help Dad mow it. My Grandfather was always swinging by with vegetables. That same kind woman was dropping off cookies....

The buzz is that there is going to be a huge tax cut for the wealthy in an effort to… …I don’t even know! It ain’t trickling down, that’s for sure. But I saw three straight stories on Friday evening: 1). Homelessness has increased by 18% because people can’t afford to buy a home or even rent a place. 2). Teoscar Hernandez signed a 3-year, $66 million dollar contract to play baseball for the Dodgers. 3). 56% of people between 55-60 years old have less than $50,000 in their 401K because people have had to tap into it to get money to live. One of those stories doesn’t fit. I was sickened by a fact I heard the other day: Bezos makes $7.8 million an hour… …every hour of the year… …no 40-hour work week. Musk makes more and he is supposedly up in arms about people collecting their social security before they turn 70 years old because he wants a cut of that. Something has to give. The healthcare CEO who was gunned down… …that was wildly cheered. Eventually the income inequality equation will m...

I’m an all or nothing at all sort of person. I know there’s a balance, I see it when I swing past. And here we are in that limbo week between Christmas and New Year’s. A weird week every year.  There are way less emails and phone calls. The jobs are going, but the attendance is down and the people who are there seem to be going at half-speed. Even the Bills Stadium project seemed a little light yesterday and that place is an absolute zoo. I haven’t hustled out of bed lately, knowing that it’s dark later, and that I can go to less places, or even take a day or two. I was up and out yesterday morning. I got a couple of calls early on, and that got the blood flowing a little… …but it’s weird slowing down. I tried the heated jacket, and found that I liked it. I won’t need it when it’s a balmy 34 but it will be very welcome when it’s less than 20 degrees. What’s really weird is that it’s freaking Friday morning… …two more days coming up already. I’ll get through it, I’d imagine, and in ...

Caught a 3-episode documentary on Netflix about the ricin that was mailed to politicians back in 2013 by characters who were Wayne Newton and Elvis impersonators as well as karate instructors. It’s a wild story and one that owes its origin to conspiracy theories about body parts being sold. Whenever there’s talk about how weird the world has b become I say something along the lines of, “Good thing I only have 50 years left.” But our lives are already strange because of AI and computer generated stories that seem to catch the imagination of people who are a tad unstable. A morsel of truth sends an imagination running wild and next thing you know you have a portion of the population that believes a famous actor drinks the blood of children. Pure craziness. And it’s easy for those of us living in reality to dismiss it as the rantings of a loon… …but lines are being blurred. It’s not difficult for someone to make a clip that is absolutely fake to show their most hated politician saying som...

It’s amazing to me that the world pauses for a day to celebrate Christmas. Also annoys me that there is a false flag movement by a group who pretends that there was ever a war on Christmas. “We can’t say Merry Christmas anymore!” Garbage. We all have said it, year in and year out and on a day when there is cheer and good will. And there’s just a different feel to Christmas. Seems to be a huge day. We celebrated last night with my father in law. Made me smile when I realized that his most favorite gift was a box of Hostess Cupcakes that Sam gifted him. We make one long, large circle back to our very first Christmas gifts. He’s an 87-year old man. Still right there in every conversation, still driving and watching baseball and arguing politics, and still enjoying his family… …but his eyes lit up over a box of cupcakes. We talked about his golf game, and he admitted: “I can’t hit the damn thing anymore.” Wasn’t any regret. “I did play a long, long time. Loved every minute of it.” And I’m ...