This is the second of three installments; click this link to read “Life in the Pit (Part I).”
We interrupt this story for ten lessons learned from my life in the pit of a musical orchestra:Continue Reading “Life in the Pit (Part II)”
Life in the Pit (Part II)
By on March 15, 2016
Rotary’s Casino Royale
By on March 8, 2016
Who doesn’t like James Bond? And, if you like James Bond, you just gotta love a casino! Not since ol’ Doc Smith brought the circus to “right here in Honeoye Falls” so many decades ago have I looked with such anticipation to a Rotary event. (Yes, that includes the year they delighted my son Peter – who polished and shined it back to life – by awarding my ‘83 Camaro a third place price at the Rotary Car Show in 2011.) When we found out about the casino, (which wasn’t hard given the poster was right there on John’s counter at the Mendon Pharmacy), Betsy and I decided we had to go.
OK, OK, I admit I was more excited about the “Casino” part. Betsy, on the other hand, she Continue Reading “Rotary’s Casino Royale”
Are You Busy Making Buggy Whips?
By on March 1, 2016
Perhaps you wake up every day and head to work, content with the thought you’re doing your part to keep the wheels of America’s industry humming along. Or maybe you’re retired, but you know someone dear to you who trots merrily each morning in the pleasant bliss of gainful employment. If only for a brief fleeting moment, consider the opposite.
Call this a modern buggy whip tale. You remember buggy whips, right? If you don’t, well, that’s part of the story. Buggy whips are those short sticks with loose leather strings on the end. They were used to prod horses to make your buggy go faster. They were all the rage at the end of the nineteenth century. Heck, they were still quite popular well into the twentieth century.
Then Henry Ford discovered a way to mass produce cars. More importantly, he figured out Continue Reading “Are You Busy Making Buggy Whips?”
Deeds, Not Words
By on February 23, 2016
If you think that title might sound heretical coming from a wordsmith, just wait ‘til you read the rest of this column.
Say what you will about former Buffalo Bills coach Doug Marrone (I never thought he was cut out for the job), but he did leave one indelible mark in my brain: “Don’t confuse effort with results.” This was one of the bromides that he posted on the walls of the Ralph Wilson Fieldhouse for all his players (and Bills fans) to stare at. In a nutshell, it’s what Yoda told Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back: “Do or do not, there is no try.”
We’re all told to try our best. That’s fine. But we need to accept that it’s not good enough. When you try something, the result is you either succeed or fail. That’s all there is to it. There is Continue Reading “Deeds, Not Words”
The Daddy-Daughter Talk… About Gravity Waves
By on February 16, 2016
Graphic Source: NASA.gov
On the morning of Thursday, February 11, 2016 at a press conference in Washington DC, an international team of scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced the discovery of Gravity Waves. Long sought after, this phenomenon was first postulated by Albert Einstein more than a century ago in his seminal 1915 paper on the General Theory of Relativity. While the major media jumped on this “universe changing” story, the reports were not adequate to fully explain the concept of Gravity Waves and the implications of their discovery. Leave it, then, to the innocent questions of a young daughter to her wise father to explain The Facts of Life and Gravity Waves. What follows is the transcript of the actual conversation that occurred through Facebook messaging on Friday, February 12, 2016:
Daughter: [Friday 3:20pm] “Gravitational Waves Detected, Confirming Einstein’s Theory” (New York Times, February 12, 2016) “Scientists say they heard the faint chirp of two black holes colliding a billion light-years away, fulfilling Einstein’s general theory of relativity.” (nytimes.com, accessed February 12, 2016)… did you see this? A lot of my friends liked this story, but they don’t know what it means.
Daddy: That’s because it’s not something tangible. We can’t really “see” a physical “wave.” What we’re doing is detecting radio waves – i.e., sounds. This branch of astronomy, called “Radio Astronomy” has been around for a while (it took off in the 1960s when a couple of Bell Labs engineers accidentally discovered it wasn’t pigeon poop, but Continue Reading “The Daddy-Daughter Talk… About Gravity Waves”
What is News? (and How to Become a Part of It)
By on February 9, 2016
Sometimes I feel as though I live this ethereal existence, floating (or seeping?) between the world of the news and the world of those who want to be in the news. That I feel this way offers testament to how much journalism has changed since the days of “Uncle Walter.” Actually, it reveals how flawed our vision of this “unbiased” news narrative has been.
Several items over the past week have prompted these thoughts. The first was a headline that came out in the waning days of January proclaiming The Drudge Report was about to surpass CNN in terms of on-line pageviews. According to an article published by MediaPost (“10 Publishers Account for All Online News,” January 28, 2016), last year The Drudge Report had 8.5 billion page views, barely behind CNN’s 8.8 billion (MSN and ESPN at 27 billion and 23 billion respectively topped the list). The data was collected by a firm called SimilarWeb and is available onContinue Reading “What is News? (and How to Become a Part of It)”
The Generation Connection
By 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”
Life in the Pit (Part I)
By 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)”
How to Create an Ideal Community in One Word
By 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”
Sometimes Second Best Turns Out To Be the Very Best
This picture was made for my dad, not for the contest.
The vision lay deep within my head for as long as I could remember. I don’t know where it came from. I only know it originated from a distant place – a distant past – and that it had an almost spiritual importance. I couldn’t explain the nature of that importance, but I knew I must follow it where ever it would take me.
So began my thoughts upon entering my first and only art class in sixth grade. This was only my second year at Florence Brasser Elementary School in Chili. By then, I had so divorced myself from caring what my peers thought of me that I had no fear of failing. So, with this picture in my head driving me, I gladly entered the contest, fully expecting to win.
Oh, did I tell you? I’m not the artist in my family. Never was. That would be my brother. Artists create something from nothing and see the wholeness of their creation. My brother was (and remains) very good at that. I, on the other hand, can never separate Continue Reading “Sometimes Second Best Turns Out To Be the Very Best”