The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Archives - Page 46 of 56

The Generation Connection

By Chris Carosa on February 2, 2016

There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t think of my grandparents. Don’t get me wrong, I think of my parents, too. But, for whatever the reasons – poof! – there they are, materializing from some obscure nook or cranny in the wrinkles of my cranium. It’s like I’m reliving some life lesson they must have passed on to me. It might be their clear vision of family (and their support thereof), their acumen for business and finance (yes, despite their immigrant status and lack of high school education, they possessed something that allowed them to become successful entrepreneurs), or even their common sense put downs.

Regarding this last thing, you know what I mean. I’m not talking about nasty insults. No, they played a more vital role, like the slaves who accompanied those Roman generals on the chariot leading an Imperial Era Triumph parade. It is said the slave would whisper into Continue Reading “The Generation Connection”

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Butera, grandma, grandparent, Imperial Era, Roman Triumph

Life in the Pit (Part I)

By Chris Carosa on January 26, 2016

The young mother worried as she made her way to the teacher conference. Her third grade son’s violin instructor had asked her “if she had time to talk.” As a teacher herself, the boy’s mom knew what this meant. She had already begun to imagine various excuses she could offer. “I try everything to get him to practice, but he’s more interested in listening to football with his father.” “His first choice was to play the trumpet, but the school’s music people said he didn’t have the right lips.” “Actually, he really wanted to play the drums, but we thought it would be too loud.”

Most of all she worried about her son. It was her first. With another son following only 15 months behind and now a baby daughter, she realized what every parent realizes at this point – she and her husband were outnumbered. Was she spending too much time with her youngest at the expense of her oldest? She had witnessed such downward spirals first hand in the students she taught. Was she becoming the mother she, in her own role as teacher, once haughtily disdained?

She was about to find out.Continue Reading “Life in the Pit (Part I)”

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Buffalo Philharmonic, Herman Dilmore, Miss Avalon, orchestra, Pop Goes the Weasel, Three Stooges, violin

How to Create an Ideal Community in One Word

By Chris Carosa on January 19, 2016

Many of you have seen me in my many community incarnations throughout the years. I’ve been a lector, a director, a Committee Chair, a trustee, a Cubmaster, an Assistant Scoutmaster, a Board Member, a coach, a mentor, a community representative, and who knows what else in the various community organizations I have been so blessed to have been allowed to participate in. My favorite role, however, was simply that of “member.” In serving at that capacity – and much to the chagrin of group organizers everywhere (are you reading this Renee?) – I often delighted in playing the role of gadfly. It was so much fun. I got to be a free thinker, pulling together lessons learned from all the activities I’ve been a part of to come up with challenging and, hopefully, insightful suggestions. The best part about it: I never demanded people do what I suggested. It was a costless exchange of ideas. (Some might call it “brainstorming.”)

But those tales are for a future commentary. This week explores another favorite topic of our readers (whether they know it or not) – The Andy Griffith Show. OK, so it’s not really Continue Reading “How to Create an Ideal Community in One Word”

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Andy Griffith Show, Cheers, Mayberry

Don’t Get Stuck in Today

By Chris Carosa on January 12, 2016

I often tell people I was either born 50 years too late or 50 years too early. In the first case, there’s my interest in classic railroads, old-fashioned Americana, and classical liberal arts (OK, that last one might mean I was born 500 years too late). In the latter case, you have my enthusiasm for astronomy and space exploration/travel, (and the requisite zeal for Star Trek), my absolute passion for computers and technology, and my extreme pursuit of “the coming thing.” From the way that sounds, you would be tempted to assume I never think of today, too consumed by the dichotomy between yearning for a past I never experienced and dreaming of a future that may or may not be.

While I’m not one to rest on any laurels, I do take the time to stop and smell the roses (in my own eccentric way). If there’s any way to accurately describe my state of being, the best universally understood example I can give is Kurt Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of Slaughterhouse-Five who becomes “unstuck in time.” For Pilgrim, there is no Continue Reading “Don’t Get Stuck in Today”

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Billy Pilgrim, Dean Kamen, Don't Stop, FIRST, Fleetwood Mac, Kilgore Trout, Kurt Vonnegut, Segway, Slaughterhouse-Five, Star Trek

What a Difference 27 Years Make

By Chris Carosa on January 5, 2016

We’ve seen pressure on all traditional media – print and television – for some time now. However, we might want to look at the recent history of radio as a harbinger for what to expect in these other media markets. I began working in the radio industry as an AM disc jockey in the late 1970s, just as, given its superior audio quality, FM was becoming the “go to” frequency band for music fans. Radio personalities had to find a way to attract and keep listeners. While still playing music, we began relying more on talk – mostly of the (innocent) humorous kind. It wasn’t much of a leap from there to Howard Stern and then to Rush Limbaugh.

Print media has been suffering a slow and agonizing death since before we originally started The Sentinel in 1989. I remember, at the time, telling one of my college classmates – whose family owns a well-known west coast newspaper publishing company – that I was starting a newspaper. He told me I was crazy. He had seen, first-hand, the erosion of the traditional newspaper business model. I told him, while the decline in the newspaper Continue Reading “What a Difference 27 Years Make”

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Brighton-Pittsford Post, Canandaiqua Messenger, Comedy Central, Democrat & Chronicle, Gatehouse Media, Howard Stern, media, network news, newspaper, Newsweek, pay-wall, publishing, radio, Rush Limbaugh, social media, The Daily Show, US News & World Report

Ruling the World My Way

By Chris Carosa on June 13, 2012

As I write this, alone, past midnight on June 12/13, 2012, I listen to an endless replay of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, a tear welling in my eye, as I see my life passing before me.

For a long time, the song that most defined me was Sinatra’s My Way. Not Paul Anka’s My Way, but Frank Sinatra’s. I know it’s a cliché, and I’ve asked my family never to play that song as an homage to life at my wake. I’ve asked that primarily because it’s a cliché, not because it’s not appropriate, or, at least, wasn’t appropriate.

There was something about Sinatra’s defiance that makes his interpretation of Anka’s lyrics so alluring. Even as a high school teenager, I found myself attracted to the song and, in particular, Sinatra’s stiff chinned version. Sure, I liked the eternal optimism of The Impossible Dream, but that tune, without a definitive version, had only the poetry of its Continue Reading “Ruling the World My Way”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Frank Sinatra, My Way, Paul Anka, The Impossible Dream, Viva La Vida

Size Doesn’t Matter

By Chris Carosa on April 12, 2012

It may have been my father’s greatest embarrassment, but it was my greatest loss, a loss erased only by 25 years and a chance plumbing mishap.

How my family sees my long lost 1970 trophy.

It all started on a day which lives in “famy” (as opposed to“infamy”). No, I’m not exaggerating. It really was a famous day.

On Saturday, March 7, 1970, I found myself bowling three games at Leisure Lanes in Hamburg, New York, among several dozen participants in the first Bowling Tournament my Cub Scout Pack ever had. The rest of the Northern Hemisphere spent the bulk of that sunny midday experiencing the greatest total eclipse of the sun our corner of the Earth will have until April 8, 2024. (For my own account of that day, see “Solar Eclipse, 1970 – A True Story,” Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, August 17, 2017.)

I had won the Big Tree Cub Scout Pack 489 Bowling Tournament that day. My father, the Pack’s Cubmaster, bought a nice bowling trophy and a brass plate to etch the name of the winner. He didn’t expect his son to take the trophy home.

That’s what embarrassed him.

So struck by the genuine joy I showed in winning it, he couldn’t bear telling me of his Continue Reading “Size Doesn’t Matter”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged 1970 Total Eclipse of the Sun, Big Tree Cub Scout Pack 489, Blasdell, Blasdell Bowling Academy, bowling, Brongo Bowl, Buffalo, Chili, Cub Scout, Dynamo, erie county fair, Estes rockets, hamburg, Honeoye Falls, Leisure Lanes, March 7 1970, Mendon, Rochester, Solar Eclipse

Name Removed From Masthead

By Chris Carosa on February 16, 2012

[This Commentary originally did not appear in the February 14, 1991 issue of The Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel.]

Beginning with this issue, my name no longer appears on the masthead of the paper.

Next Week #97: Will Bush Use the No-Huddle? (originally published on February 7, 1990)
A New Beginning: It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again (published on November 11, 2009)

[What is this and why is here? See Interested in Discovering My Time Machine? for more details.]

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries

Will Bush Use the No-Huddle?

By Chris Carosa on February 9, 2012

[This Commentary originally appeared in the February 7, 1991 issue of The Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel.]

The following might have been more apparent if the Buffalo Bills would have won the Superbowl, but the concept holds nonetheless.

In the week prior to each of the three playoff games in which the Buffalo Bills participated, sports reporters from across the nation asked Head Coach Marv Levy if he intended to use his quick scoring no-huddle offense from the outset. With a poker face, Levy regularly answered, Continue Reading “Will Bush Use the No-Huddle?”

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Buffalo Bills, fiduciary, George H. W. Bush, Iraq War, Kodak, Marv Levy, politics

No Submission #2

By Chris Carosa on February 2, 2012

[This Commentary originally did not appear in the January 31, 1991 issue of The Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel.]

No Submission

Next Week #95: No Submission #1 (originally not published on January 24, 1990)
Next Week #97: Will Bush Use the No-Huddle? (originally published on February 7, 1990)