The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Archives - Page 39 of 57

Old-Time Hockey Meets New Era Field

By Chris Carosa on January 9, 2018

In a stadium half filled with distinct Canadian accents, I overheard the following comment: “It doesn’t snow like this during football games.” Obviously, that visitor wasn’t present just a few weeks earlier for the Blizzard Game against the Colts (see “Live from the 2017 Buffalo Bills Snow Bowl,” Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, December 14, 2017).

This night, however, wasn’t a football game, it was a hockey game. And not just any regular hockey game, it was an outdoor Continue Reading “Old-Time Hockey Meets New Era Field”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries, Western New York State of Mind Tagged Buffalo, Canada, Dit Clapper, Eddie Shore, hockey, New Era Field, Orchard Park, snow, Snow Belt, Toe Blake, USA, World Juniors

2017 in Review: The (non) Story of the Year

By Chris Carosa on January 2, 2018

There’s a common adage among skeptics the world over: “Who watches the watchdog?”

Decades ago I had the honor of serving on the HFL School District’s newly formed “Technology Committee.” This group was tasked with the job of trying to determine the best way to integrate the then new technology of personal computers (and related software) into the learning environment. We quickly saw one of the greatest advantages as the enhanced ability to conduct research from direct sources. Librarians saw this as an opportunity to free up rare shelf space by replacing printed (and quickly outdated) encyclopedias with their digital (and instantly undated) equivalent.

For every upside, however, there’s a glaring downside. In this case, it was the credibility of Continue Reading “2017 in Review: The (non) Story of the Year”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged 2016 election, ABC, BuzzFeed, Encyclopedia Britannica, facebook, Fake News, Founding Fathers, Russian Collusion, Technology Committee, Woodward-Berstein Effect, YouTube

Live from the 2017 Buffalo Bills Snow Bowl

By Chris Carosa on December 12, 2017

Photo courtesy of Catarina Lena Carosa

Unless you grew up on the western shores of Lake Erie, it’s kinda hard to describe just exactly what “lake effect” conjures up in the brain. I was reminded of this last Friday, when I traveled once more to the land of my youth. I left merry old Mendon with nary a hint of the white stuff anywhere to be found. By the time I had arrive in Amherst ninety minutes later, the mushy roads were only then being plowed. In three hours – smack dab in the middle of the morning rush hour – a devilish lake effect band targeted the North Towns of Buffalo.

I was “lucky” enough to be there before the plows to witness first hand the blissful blessing of the new fallen snow. It was Christmas card perfect. Pristine and sparkly, with the look of a soft blanket, it almost took me back to those fuzzy days of yore, but then I Continue Reading “Live from the 2017 Buffalo Bills Snow Bowl”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries, Western New York State of Mind Tagged Abbott Road, Blasdell, Buffalo Bills, Christmas, hamburg, Ilio DiPaolo's, Indianapolis Colts, Jack Nicholson, Lackawanna, lake effect, Lake Erie, New Era Field, Orchard Park, Pepsi, The Shining, thundersnow

‘tis the Season

By Chris Carosa on December 5, 2017

If the forecast is correct, there may be snow on the ground by the time you read this. Still, even if the dullish green grass and crumpled brown leaves remain, there’s no denying we’ve entered that special time of the year – the Christmas Season.

There. I said it. I said “Christmas” instead of “Xmas,” instead of “Holiday,” instead of “Winter.” instead of “Xmas.” I don’t say “Christmas” to ignore practicing Jews, who celebrate Hanukkah beginning on the Hebrew calendar date of 25 Kislev (which falls on Tuesday, December 12^th this year) and lasts for 8 days (December 20^th this year). I say “Merry Christmas” because that’s what my family celebrates (and has celebrated for generations). If my family had celebrated Hanukkah instead, I would be wishing everyone a “Happy Hanukkah” rather than a “Merry Christmas.”

Well, maybe I’d still say “Merry Christmas.”

Why? Because, despite efforts by Christian groups to deny this and by anti-religious Continue Reading “‘tis the Season”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged A Christmas Carol, Charlie Brown Christmas, Christmas, Ellis Gimbel, Hanukkah, Lucy Van Pelt, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Pew Research, Shipper and Block Department Store, The Night Before Christmas

Why I’m Thankful for The Sandlot

By Chris Carosa on November 21, 2017

Take a step out into the fall air. There’s a faint rustle in the stillness. Falling leaves flutter to the Earth’s floor. Their slow decomposition releases an arousing aroma. It’s the smell of autumn. It’s the smell of coming things. It’s the smell of football.

There comes a time in the late school day afternoon, when the homework is finished, that the smell beckons. When this siren calls, the boys come out.

Or at least they used to. There was once an age, well before organized youth sports, when neighborhood boys would regularly convene. Together, they would decide the game, the boundaries, and the rules. Then they’d play. Sometimes deep into the darkness. The score never mattered. The camaraderie did.Continue Reading “Why I’m Thankful for The Sandlot”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Dortmund Circle, football, Thanksgiving

Are You an Instigator, a Skeptic, or Merely Somebody Else’s Tool?

By Chris Carosa on November 14, 2017

They say the world is made up of two types of people. They’re wrong. The world consists of three types of people, but two of those types get all the press.

Journalists like to frame issues in a binary fashion – one side against another. That’s simple. It’s black and white. It’s A versus B. Reporters don’t do this because they can’t handle the complexity of multiple opposing points of view. They structure their stories as a duel between competing interests because readers find those stories easiest to digest. The audience finds such pairings quite familiar. Literature is replete with examples: Ahab vs. Moby Dick, Sherlock Holmes vs. Professor Moriarty, and Bambi vs. Godzilla, to name a few.

It’s not just drama. Philosophy often has an attraction to complimentary combinations. We see this most markedly in the Taoist notion of “dualistic-monism” as expressed in the Continue Reading “Are You an Instigator, a Skeptic, or Merely Somebody Else’s Tool?”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Ahab, Anaximander, argumentum ad populum, Aristotle, Bambi, Civil War, complementarity, dualistic-monism, Einstein, Founding Fathers, Galileo, Godzilla, Heraclitus, Instigator, journalism, Loyalists, Moby Dick, Moriarty, Newton, Oneness, quantum physics, Relativity, Revolutionary War, Sherlock Holmes, Skeptic, Star Wars, Taoism, Tool, watchdog, yang, yin

If You’re Not Guilty, Don’t Act Like It

By Chris Carosa on November 7, 2017

Previous: A Bully Tactic: Give Them Something To Deny

In elementary school we walked a half mile each day to the bus stop at the top of the street. There were about twenty kids at that bus stop (this was during the peak baby boomer years, so it wasn’t unusual for one street to produce twenty elementary school kids). There were two sets of boys. The older boys and us (me, my brother Kenny, my best friend Angelo and his brother Markie). There was also this quite younger boy, Johnny, who desperately wanted to be like us (not the older boys, for even he realized that was too much a leap). We shunned him, as older kids are wont to do with younger kids, but we didn’t bully him like the older boys did to us (to see how I ultimately defeated these bullies – without any need for physical violence – see “Terror at the School Bus Stop – A True Life Story,” Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, January 11, 1990). As a result, Continue Reading “If You’re Not Guilty, Don’t Act Like It”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Abbott Parkway, Angelo, bully, Kenny, lessons learned, Markie, Nixon, The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense

A Bully Tactic: Give Them Something to Deny

By Chris Carosa on October 31, 2017

If you knew me in high school, you’d know I engaged in a never-ending battle against AP English. It’s ironic, then, that my most thoughtful memories of high school come from those very classes I disdained. This story begins with one of those memories.

I don’t remember the context, but I do remember the lesson. It may have been during our review and analysis of The Scarlett Letter, where guilt is a major theme. The teacher, Mr. Polito, wrote on the board the following phrase: “Give them something to deny.”

This bewildered most of the class. He then mentioned it as an allusion to a made-for-TV movie thinly disguised to mimic the events surrounding Watergate. With Washington DC as its political backdrop, the movie’s antagonist was asked repeatedly how to defeat an Continue Reading “A Bully Tactic: Give Them Something to Deny”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged AP English, Hamlet, Jonny Fontane, Mr. Polito, Psy-Ops, Shakespeare, The Godfather, The Manchurian Candidate, Vito Corleone, Watergate

Back in the Saddle Again!

By Chris Carosa on September 12, 2017

Ah, the joys of sitting atop the multiple horse equivalent of internal combustion, casually doing ovals around a track of flowing (and growing) green. Now that the boy is safely ensconced in university environs (if you can call doing a term project in Panama “safe”), I am now able to return to my weekly therapy. Others may call this a chore, but I look forward to mowing the lawn and the wonderful thoughts awaiting me as I go round and round from here and back again.

Besides, to paraphrase Robert Duvall’s Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, “I love the smell of freshly cut grass in the morning” (or afternoon, whatever the case may be). And while Francis Ford Coppola may have been calling his inner Joseph Conrad while making Apocalypse Now, I can’t help but call my own inner Gene Autry as I mount up and ride Continue Reading “Back in the Saddle Again!”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Apocalype Now, Colonel Bill Kilgore, Don Adams, Francis Ford Coppola, Gene Autry, Harry Callahan, Homily, John Deere, Joseph Conrad, Magnum Force, Maxwell Smart, Robert Duvall

The True Legacy of Ben Franklin’s Last Will and Testament

By Chris Carosa on September 5, 2017

The following represents a chapter excerpt from the forthcoming book From Cradle to Retirement – The Child IRA – How to start a newborn on the road to a comfortable retirement while still in a cozy cradle (Pandamensional Solutions, Inc., September 2017). If you know of millennials (or baby boomers) who are parents (or grandparents), especially if they own their business or are part of a closely-held/family business, you may want to encourage to pre-order the book through Kickstarter project: “Child IRA Book – Is Your Child’s Future Worth $1,000 a Year.” Professional might want to take a look at and back this project, too, because it offers several low-cost opportunities to brand their business in this large and growing market.

Ben Franklin may have been teased into starting twin 200-year trusts in Boston and Philadelphia, but he nonetheless realized a great idea when he saw one. He even recognized the potential obstacles that might present themselves to those tasked with executing his grand plan. More important, we now recognize that, all other things aside, Franklin should be applauded for his eternal optimism in the nation he helped found.

The history of his legacy trusts – The Franklin Trust of Philadelphia and the Franklin Foundation of Boston – instructs us on both the power of compound interest and the dangers of relying on public officials to manage money for the long-term. We might even Continue Reading “The True Legacy of Ben Franklin’s Last Will and Testament”

Posted in Slush Pile, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries, Western New York State of Mind Tagged Benjamin Franklin, Boston, Buffalo, David S. Rose, Jack Towarnicky, Jacob Friedrich Schoellkopf, Philadelphia, Schoellkopf Trust Fund for Buffalo