Demon and Me

It isn’t often you see yourself in a great novel but I did recently reading “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver. Spoiler alert: The title character, a high school football player, hurts his knee in a game and the injury changes his life. This happened to me.

I was running with the football. I tried to spin away from a tackler. I spun but my left foot didn’t; it was locked in mud. A few days later I had surgery for torn cartilage in my knee.

The post-op pain was constant, like someone had a vise on my shin and kept tightening it. I thought this was normal after knee surgery; I’d seen my dad fight through the agony of multiple knee operations.

A week after the surgery, I went to the surgeon for a checkup. He told me fluid had built up around my knee and he would have to drain it by sticking a needle in the joint. When he did, the syringe filled with reddish fluid that looked like ginger ale. The procedure was awful but it worked. In an instant, the pain was gone.

But the heinous fluid came back and so did the pain. Soon, I was back in the doctor’s office. A teenager I knew was also getting his knee drained. He fainted during the procedure and as he passed me in the waiting room, his face was the color of alabaster.

This freaked me out but I was willing to do anything to make the pain go away. I knew another “draining” would provide relief. Only this time, the needle scraped my kneecap. The pain was at a level I had never experienced. I sobbed. I was 17. Was the rest of my life going to be like this?

I got off the table, put my leg brace on and went back to school. In English class, we were reading “Flowers for Algernon,” about a mentally disabled man, Charlie, who temporarily becomes a genius after experimental surgery. A friend said to the class, “Hey, Shef is like Charlie. Shef, are you smart now after surgery?” The class laughed. I didn’t.

I was frustrated by my helplessness. One day I decided to walk home from school on my crutches instead of having my mom pick me up in her car. It was less than a mile. Halfway through my journey, it started pouring rain. I got drenched. This was the low point.

When the brace came off for good, my leg was a sorry sight, withered and ashen. But my spirits were lifted by the thought of playing baseball in the spring. I hoped for an athletic rebirth and feverishly worked out all winter in the high school weight room.

By the time baseball season came, the knee was no better. A catcher with a one good knee is as worthless as a stool with two legs. The coach stuck me in right field, unfamiliar real estate. When I limped and played badly, he rightfully put me on the bench.

The pain persisted until my sophomore year in college, when a different orthopedic surgeon told me that not only had I torn cartilage in the football game, I had also torn my anterior cruciate ligament, which holds the knee together. The doctor did reconstructive surgery, put me in a full-leg cast for two months and left me with a long S-shaped scar on the knee that to this day scares children at the beach.

But it worked. Side to side, I was still as wobbly as a cheap card table, but I could do “straight-ahead” activities such as running and cycling. Importantly, the pain disappeared. Since then, I have run marathons and cycled tens of thousands of miles.

Like Demon, something that happened in a flash – maybe five seconds – changed me for life. His injury trapped him; mine set me free. It forced me to explore the world beyond sports. I fell in love with learning and the humanities. In my story, a knee injury might have been one of the best things to ever happen to me.

The Benefits of Being Silly

This may surprise some of you, but I have been a silly person all my life. It has been a big advantage, including winning raves by blowing up balloons with my nose at our children’s birthday parties.

I thought of silliness when watching a Stephen Colbert monologue recently that focused solely on politics. Although I agree with their political perspectives, today’s late-night talk show hosts aren’t as silly as they used to be. Think of Johnny Carson’s characters such as Carnac the Magnificent.

When I say “silly,” I don’t mean a dullard – “he’s a silly person” – although some may rightly think that of me. I mean having fun with language, circumstances, peccadillos, and foibles. I love the Merriam-Webster definition, “playfully lighthearted and amusing.”

I got silliness from my mother and siblings. We were hardly ever serious. My mother loved silly humor (except during the sacred 30 minutes of “supper”). When I got older, my phone calls with her were silly – character voices, situational jokes, puns. No knock-knock jokes or “dad jokes;” we just didn’t take anything seriously unless it was really serious.

Carnac in 1981: “Sis, boom, bah. Describe the sound made when a sheep explodes.”

During these conversations, Mom would direct me to “tell me about your birthday.” I’d respond that she was there, but I’d be happy to describe it for her. In a documentary narrator’s voice, I’d say, “It all happened in a little hospital on a hill on an Easter Sunday in 1960…” (I was born on Easter.)

Our silliness was a salve when my mother got sick, even when she was in hospice. On her last day on earth, we joked like it was any other day. Our silliness was our language of love for one another.

Being silly also has been helpful in my professional life. I can write excellent “roast” jokes when allowed latitude to be edgy. However, you must know when and when not to be silly.  At a GE holiday party for the news media, I joked about NBC’s last-place prime-time TV lineup (GE owned NBC at the time). It was funny, but not to the NBC execs in the room. My phone rang early the next morning.

Nonetheless, I persisted with my silliness.

At a dinner at George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, the head of the historic site gave a speech lamenting Americans’ ignorance of history. As the emcee, I returned to the lectern when he finished. The room was quiet and serious. I somberly said I agreed with his commentary, adding, “Here we are at Mt. Vernon, the home of George Washington. Imagine how history would have changed had he not been assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.”

It got a big laugh. I hadn’t planned it. I was just in a silly mood.

One of my usual silly comments is when I am introduced at a speaking engagement, I say to the person who introduced me, “Thank you, John, that was a very, very…short introduction. There is so much more you could have said about me. I thought we had agreed on the word, ‘genius.’”

Childish? yes. Funny? I think so.

To demonstrate the vapidity of PowerPoint slides to GE executives, I used a silly slide that I said I was going to give to my wife for Valentine’s Day instead of a card. The slide ended with a cliche business takeaway: “Our Partnership Remains Strong.” I still have people tell me how much that slide helped them think about their style of communications.

These are grim times that require serious-minded reflection about who we are and what we aspire to be. Political acrimony saturates nearly every discussion. Perhaps being silly will help us get closer to one another – to laugh, to escape reality briefly, and to diminish the anger that pervades public discussions.

Silliness can be an icebreaker, a bridge, an olive branch, a connection. Here’s to being silly in the serious days ahead.

Stopping by a school on a winter's day

This column may appear at first to be about my hair, which would make for wonderful reading, but it really is about what a place and its people mean to a young person’s life. The place is the former Charles Williams School in Hudson, but I am going to start with my hair.

I was in first grade in 1966 and it was picture day. My mother dressed me nicely in a checked black and white sport coat, white shirt, red paisley tie and black pants. She carefully combed my hair using what seemed like a gallon of water and a green plastic comb, a tool she would use for years in a futile effort to give me a pompadour.

However, I was determined to spoil her styling that day and every day. As soon as I got out of Mom’s sight, I would run my hands through my hair to mess it up so it didn’t look so “mothered.”

On photo day, Mom was one step ahead of me. Her best friend, Fran Brady, was a secretary in the principal’s office at my school, Charles Williams, home to Hudson’s kindergartners and first graders. She asked Fran to make sure my hair was combed for the photo. I remember Fran re-combing my hair in her office just before the photo.

As you can see in the photo, Mom’s backup plan didn’t work. I look like I am in the world’s youngest punk rock band. I don’t remember if I sabotaged the pompa-doo for the second time that day or another student did.

When mom and Fran saw the photo, they laughed until their eyes watered. Fran, one of the funniest people I know, would send me notes throughout my life asking if I needed someone to do my hair for big events such as a graduation or my wedding.

This memory sprang to mind on a recent blustery day when I went running past the 98-year-old Charles Williams building, which now is home to the Second Ward Foundation, a non-profit arts organization. Despite the building’s faded glory, I felt I was back at my neighborhood school where I walked to school with my siblings, where I knew someone in the principal’s office, and where I would make friendships that lasted for many years.

On my run, I circled around the back of the school by running down Robinson Street to North 2nd Street and then to Mill Street, where Charles Williams’ athletic field is located. My father played City League softball there for the Hudson Elks. There were lights for night games, gangs of marauding mosquitos, and merciless needling of teammates. For me those games were heaven. For Dad too. If he stayed out late with the boys after the game, he would fib to my mom that he had played a double-header.

Charles Williams in its heyday.

This was the same field where I played flag football as a young teenager. My teams were terrible except for one day when we upset the best team in the league. Rather than euphoria, our win produced epic fear as the losers promised they were going to kick our asses after the game. When the game ended, we sprinted out of there on the Dugway, a path leading up to Harry Howard Avenue (today it’s part of the Empire State Trail). I am not sure the losers were in pursuit because I never looked back.

Built as a grade school for Hudson’s Second Ward, and named for a superintendent of Hudson schools, Charles Williams closed in 1970 and later was home to offices for alternative education programs and Columbia County, including the sheriff’s office. These sturdy pre-WWII structures seem to keep delivering whatever we ask of them.

Even though I only walked its halls for two years, I remember Charles Williams as an extension of my home and the students and staff as family. Granted, I may be completely captive to nostalgia as I get older. At the same time, I know there’s something true and unshakable in the sense of neighborhood and belonging that I get nowhere else except for places like that old school in my hometown.

October Guy

A heartwarming memory wells up when I see cirrus clouds stretched by winds across the October sky like a thin skein of cotton. They remind me of a time when baseball was played during the day, seemingly always under a feathery white sky, and it was the most important thing in my life.

When I saw these clouds recently, I remembered that it’s been a year since the passing of my childhood hero, Bob Gibson, a fierce and formidable pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1960s and ‘70s. Gibson is one of the best ever, but for me, it wasn’t only his blistering desire to win that set him apart. It was also his reeling and balletic delivery that I first saw on Oct. 2, 1968, that made Gibson my player and the Cardinals my team.

Gibson that day struck out 17 Detroit Tigers in the first game of the World Series. I was eight years old, and I was learning to love baseball. I was in school when the games started and, if we were lucky, we’d might hear a teacher mention a score. But this was a Detroit-St. Louis matchup, a geographic mismatch for upstate New York and I heard nothing about the game as the school day ended (the next year teachers rolled TVs on carts into the classroom so we could watch every game of the New York Mets miracle World Series win).

I ran home from the bus stop and into my house, and then waited impatiently as our television warmed up. The picture was black-and-white and fuzzy but the central character in this show — Gibson — was the epitome of focus. His curveballs mimicked the St. Louis’s Gateway Arch in their head-to-belt flight, mesmerizing helpless Tiger batters.

Gibson wasted no time on the mound. Catch, throw, catch, throw, catch throw. It was methodical, clinical, and hypnotic. Watch baseball on TV today. Between pitches, the pitchers step off the mound and scan the stadium’s upper decks, as if the answer for what pitch to throw next can be found there.

As the game went on, I couldn’t understand why the announcers were so animated about each Tiger strikeout. It wasn’t until I read the next day’s afternoon newspaper – 24 hours later -- that I learned that Gibson had set a record for most strikeouts in a World Series game, 17 (Gibson recounted the game in a great baseball book, Pitch by Pitch). The record still stands.

Gibson pitched a shutout that day and won Game 3 of the series. The Tigers, however, beat him in the decisive seventh game, inciting me to curse Tim McCarver, who sealed the Cardinals fate by fouling out to the catcher for the last out. I punched the TV’s “off” button.

In 1970, the Cardinals plummeted in the standings and stayed there for many years despite Gibson’s excellence. Because they were also-rans, the Cardinals were rarely on baseball’s national game of the week. I became a die-hard Yankee fan, a relationship cemented by Friday night games on WPIX, Channel 11, in the early days of cable television.

But boyhood heroes often refuse to fade away, and that is the case for me with Gibson. His brief time with the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team and his enigmatic personality -- he was brusque and intimidating with opponents, teammates, and the media -- also inspired my reverence. Roger Angell, the best baseball writer ever, captured Gibson well in a classic 1980 New Yorker piece, Bob Gibson Keeps His Distance.

Nostalgia can be used “perniciously,” particularly in politics. But my feeling of nostalgia for Gibson and 1960s baseball is not a longing for things to be like they were in the past or dissatisfaction with the present (except the length of games!). These memories simply delight, moving through me like restorative medicine.

I see Gibson’s wildly lurching pitch delivery; it’s as if the field suddenly tilts 45 degrees toward first base after he releases the ball. I see the paranormal path of his pitches. I see cirrus clouds in the atmosphere, icy and cool like Gibson in the center of the diamond.

What's a 'Good, Bad Song'?

I love songs that are so bad, they are good. Having grown up in the golden age of Good Bad Songs, the 1960s and 70s, I have heard many. But I want more. That is where you come in.

I’d like to hear your nominations for my Good Bad Song (GBS) playlist. When I mention this musical concept, people always have suggestions but many miss the mark. For example, the song “Muskrat Love” by The Captain and Tennille always comes up with its screeching synthesizer sounds of muskrat love-making. That unquestionably is a “Bad, Bad Song.’” There is nothing good about it.

Or someone will suggest a song they don’t like. “I Shot the Sheriff,” by Eric Clapton is an example. No. This is not a GBS. You may not like it, but it’s a song that has artistic merit. By contrast, GBSs are over-the-top schlock, with a good beat and singable lyrics, particularly after a few beers. However, GBSs have no redeeming artistic quality.

Let me repeat this: Good Bad Songs fail every test of musical excellence, but they can get in your head and are fun to sing along with. Many times, GBSs are “story songs” — someone’s done somebody wrong or Joe Six Pack is fightin’ the man. However, please take note that not all story songs are bad; “Wichita Lineman” and “A Boy Named Sue” are great story songs.

Here’s another GBS misconception. Good Bad Songs are not “guilty pleasures” like Britney Spears, boy bands, or Hallmark Christmas movies. I consider guilty pleasures to be when the artist knows they are not making art and the audience is in on it. On the other hand, artists who make Good Bad Songs think the music they are making is good.

For example, I am sure that Wayne Newton thinks that “Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast” should have won a Grammy. It should not; it is a GBS. R. Dean Taylor was probably convinced that adding police sirens to “Indiana Wants Me” put the song in a different league — yes, the GBS league.

GBSs can be popular. Starship’s horrible “We Built This City” made it to #1 and is a GBS because when I hear it, I am awe struck that rock legend Grace Slick thought it was worth recording. It’s like being the producer of “The Emoji Movie” — “hey, we know it’s aggressively and offensively bad but let’s put it out there and see what happens. “

Others have their own misguided views on what makes a Good Bad Song but mine is definitive. Let me explain further by showing you my favorites GBSs:

“One Tin Solider” (theme from the movie Billy Jack), by the Original Caste. Judgment Day has come for this song, and the verdict is Good Bad. By the way, this movie has one of the best good/bad movie scenes ever when Billy Jack confronts the bad guy:

Billy Jack: You know what I think I'm gonna do then? Just for the hell of it?

Posner: Tell me.

Billy Jack: I’m gonna take this right foot, and I’m gonna whop you on that side of your face…[points to Posner’s right cheek]

Billy Jack: …and you wanna know something? There’s not a damn thing you’re gonna be able to do about it. [kicks Posner in the right cheek, knocking him out.]

“Convoy” by C.W. McCall. Yeah, Rubber Ducks got a “Jimmy haulin’ hogs” but this is 18 wheels of awful.

“Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks about a dying man. This song should have been euthanized in the recording studio.

“Run Joey Run” by David Geddes is about a crazed gun-toting father. The yelling of “watch out!” near the end may be the single worst good/bad moment in GBS history.

“Wildfire” by Michael Martin Murphy seems to be about a ghost horse. Let me declare here and now that every song about a ghost horse makes my GBS list.

“Ben” by Michael Jackson. Imagine the conversation between a record company executive and Jackson’s father/manager: “We want Michael to perform the title song for a movie about a killer rat.” Then imagine being Jackson’s father and saying “yeah, we’ll do it.” But the song is good, well, because it’s Michael Jackson.

“One Bad Apple” by The Osmonds. This video is 100 proof visual and audio badness.

You’re Having My Baby, by Paul Anka. This song is bad in so many ways — sexist and syrupy — including Anka’s oversized bell bottoms. Its badness was confirmed when it was voted the worst song of all time in a 2008 CNN poll.

“Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice. By the way, did you read this that Vanilla is advising President Trump on the location of the Trump presidential library? Enough said.

That’s my partial GBS list. Please send me your suggestions and I will tell you if you understand this important concept.

Fifty years ago on July 20, the Yankees won!

Fifty years ago, one of the great accomplishments in human history occurred. In the late afternoon of July 20, 1969, after several orbits around the bases, the New York Yankees defeated the Washington Senators at Yankee Stadium

Gene “Stick” Michaels propelled the Yanks to victory with a few small steps to first base, after singling in the winning run in the 11th inning. When teammate Roy White’s foot landed on home plate, Yankee Stadium exploded with pride.

I was there with my father and brother to witness this historic event. The Yankees were terrible that year as they were for most of the 1960s. As others focused on America’s “race in space,” I was more concerned about the “race for last place” in the American League. The Yankees and Senators usually occupied that low orbit.

So this win was one giant leap for the Bronx Bombers. I was a lunatic for the Yanks. I reveled in their accomplishment that day and felt a universal closeness with the 32,000 or so other fans in attendance on “Bat Day.”

But get this, they actually stopped a tie game in the eighth inning for four full minutes when the great PA announcer Bob Sheppard – the “CAPCOM” for Yankee games -- informed us in his stentorian tones: “A Special Announcement. You will be happy to know that the astronauts have landed safely on the moon.” Then Yankee Mission Control flashed this on the scoreboard: “Theyre on the moon”.

 The lunar intrusion in baseball continued. Both teams lined up on their respective base lines – the Yankees on the first-base side and the Senators on the third-base line -- for a moment of silence to pray for the safe return of the astronauts. This was followed by a playing of “America the Beautiful.”

I wanted desperately to resume the mission to show the red-and grey-uniformed Senators which team was better at bad baseball. Thankfully, the game soon was declared a “go.”

After the game, we traveled with the crew from another family. We loaded into our command module – a station wagon – for the long journey home. This earth rover had a backward-facing bench seat in the rear that fit three young men. It was cramped quarters but given the historic nature of our journey, we did not mind.

On our trip, we stopped to refuel at the home base of our fellow travelers in Red Hook, N.Y. This consisted mainly of beer for senior members of our crew and possibly Tang for the junior travelers. Then we watched the day’s other historic event on TV as men walked on the moon.

When night fell, the senior male members of our crew ordered us to ascend to the roof of the home to give us a better view of the moon. It was a dangerous journey but we were successful because of meticulous planning by these “brilliant” mission leaders.

The view from our perch atop the world gave us a new perspective on the humanity below, which consisted mainly of the senior female members of our crew who had now joined our party. They were greatly concerned about gravity’s potential effects should we veer off course while on the roof. They issued several crisp commands to end our mission. We descended quickly and safely.

We soon returned to our home in Hudson where my brother and I quarantined ourselves in our bedroom for the night. I dreamed of what I had witnessed that day on a tranquil sea of green in the Bronx.

The Change Jar Capers

The key to success was getting the kitchen cabinet door open without making a sound. Not a single decibel. It had a magnetic latch that make a reverberating “dumpf” sound if you pulled too hard, too fast. You had to silently wedge your index and middle fingers under the edge of the door and gently pop it open.

Inside were Washingtons, Lincolns, FDRs, and Jeffersons — even one Kennedy. It was the Sheffer family spare change jar. It was filled with the remnants of my father’s work lunches or my mother’s trips to Shop-Rite and the post office.

We needed this loot for bubble-gum, baseball cards, and ice cream. We never raided wallets or purses for paper currency. We were small-time embezzlers, taking just enough so that it wouldn’t be noticed.

The best time to crack into the jar was when my parents were at the store or the Elks Club. We could access the jar with impunity but discipline. The coins and the jar itself had to be left in the exact positions you found them.

When our parents were home, we planned the Change Jar Capers with Ocean’s Eleven precision. Where exactly in the house were Mom and Dad? Should we turn the TV volume up so they can’t hear us (but then, we couldn’t hear them)? Who is the lookout? What is the signal for danger?

We had to move with dexterity that we honed playing “Operation,” the surgery board game. We imagined ourselves as bomb squad experts, sweat pouring from our forehead, moving every coin slowly and without contacting other surfaces.

The riskiest thefts occurred when my father was sleeping in his recliner, about 10 feet from the jar. You had to make sure he was fully out. If his head was turned to the side, away from you, this meant “go;” if not, the operation was scrubbed.

Sometimes, he would wake up in the middle of a theft and, through sleepy eyes, look over to see what you were doing. We had planned for this: we would pretend we were getting a drinking glass out of an adjacent cabinet. To complete the ruse, we would enjoy a refreshing glass of water from the faucet and then look at him and say, “man, it’s hot out” or “boy, was I thirsty” (dammit, that sounded fake — must practice this for next time).”

My father’s proximity to the treasure created the only dissension on the team. My brother and friends would be waiting for me in the driveway and ask “did you get it?” I’d say “no, Dad is sleeping in his chair and I think he is watching me.” They would call me chicken and I would respond, “well, then you do it!”

The unspoken truth, of course, was that our parents knew all along what was going on. How?

If successful, we’d drive our getaway bikes to Kenneally’s store. We’d spent our loot like drunken bank robbers. Necco wafers, hot balls, Pixie Sticks, and potato chips. We left the wrappers all over our house — clear evidence of our guilt since we had no other sources of income.

I discovered the jar cleaning out our barn this week. It’s a cheap piece of glass, not worth much outside the family. To us, it remains a font of valuable memories.

Libraries are (snow) treasures

In the third grade at John L. Edwards Elementary School we were assigned to find a book to read for a book report. I loved reading and was very picky about choosing a new book. It had to be just right, so I took my time.

Near the end of our library period, I selected Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan. Its cover of Norwegian kids sledding down a snowy hill watched by a menacing World War II German soldier was cat-nip for an eight-year-old boy. It looked cool enough to support my tough-guy image.

Little did I know my selection would set off a ruckus.

When I tried to check it out, the librarian told me the book was too advanced for me. Surprised and a little embarrassed, I became angry. I said it was Snow Treasure or nothing and I left the library without a book. When we got back to our classroom, I told my teacher, Mrs. White, what had happened and she called my mother. This was not the first conversation they had about me. I was a bit of discipline problem.

Mom read constantly. My siblings and I inherited our book addictions from her. When her phone call with Mrs. White ended, she told me to go to the library the next day and check out Snow Treasure.

I was shocked. Mom had stuck up for me on the phone with Mrs. White – a miracle! But get this: Mrs. White also was my ally in the book war. I was elated but my sense of victory evaporated when Mom squared me up, looked me in the eye and said: “After all this, you better read that book.”

Fearing her and with Dad the Enforcer looming -- I consumed the book quickly and wrote a decent book report. However, I was motivated by more than fear. Mom had shown confidence in me, maybe for the first time. I did not want to disappoint her.

Mom was not an outwardly emotional person. After I showed her my good grade, she didn’t say much. But I know in my heart she was proud of me.  

I had not remembered this story from more than 50 years ago until a recent Saturday night, when, during the Hudson Area Library’s “Party in the Stacks” fundraiser, the story came back to me. There, among hundreds of books, we celebrated the value that libraries bring to people and communities. Libraries can entertain, educate, and engage. They also can bring a troublesome son closer to his mother.

The Dandelion Thieves

On a bicycle ride recently on a country road I saw a man stealing someone’s lilac blooms. He stopped his red pickup, clipped a few blooms, and drove off.

This wasn’t the first roadside larceny I have witnessed. When I lived in Connecticut, I saw men pull their trucks into wooded areas and steal field stones from historic stone walls. I once yelled “not yours” to the stone thief but wasn’t brave enough to stop.

When I saw Red  Pickup Guy making off with his lilac loot, I thought about standing up for private property. One reason I didn’t — besides that the guy was pretty big — is that I am a hypocrite on this issue. My brother and I had carried out similar capers when I was about 10 years old. My Grandfather Borrelle was the brains of the gang and we were the muscle. Grandpa’s target was dandelions.

We would drive along rural roads and stop the car where he saw a cache. Sometimes it was someone’s lawn. Other times it was just a rural roadside, a highway shoulder, or even a cemetery.

He directed Ken and me to the trunk of the car where we would find a cardboard box and forked weeding tool. Our instructions were to harvest the juiciest dandelions we could find. His only admonition was not to take any that had bloomed into a yellow flower.

We had no idea what we were doing; we just wanted to fill the darn box with something green before one of our friends saw us. When we were finished, Ken and I would put the box of “weeds” in the trunk. Then we quickly hopped in the back seat and slid down low so no one could see us from outside. Grandpa drove the slowest get-away car in history; he always went 10 or 20 miles per hour below the speed limit. It was excruciating.

Dandelions were not the only target for our gang. We would drive to a local gravel business and use a dust pan and a cardboard box (Grandpa had an unending supply for some reason), to take small stones for grandpa’s yard. We’d also head to Keeler’s dairy farm on Spook Rock Road and, with the same dust pan and box, collect dried cow manure for his garden.

It was dandelions he prized most. Grandpa would clean them and season them with oil and vinegar.  He would serve them at lunch or dinner to my parents, who devoured this spring treat. Ken and I turned up our noses at them, largely because we knew where they came from.

An immigrant who ran a billiard shop, Grandpa worked hard for every nickel. He was shrewd and knew how to play the angles, and he seemed to consider anything that was in public view to be his for the taking.

We were always successful – no one ever chased us away from their homes or business. To this day, the Dandelion Thieves have a clean record.

Hudson's Flying Socks Girl

My wife has been asking me what I want for Christmas. I don’t really need anything but when I walked past the Hudson Post Office recently, I thought of a few things.

My sister, brother and I grew up almost next door to the post office, which sits on the corner of South Fourth and Union streets. For young kids in the “go-out-and play” era, the post office and the Columbia County Courthouse across the street were our playgrounds.

The Post Office looks exactly the same as it did in the mid-1960s. Its interior still smells of paper and glue. Your footsteps reverberate across the terrazzo and marble floor and your voice echos up to the high ceiling. Outside, the Classic Revival architecture with columns (the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998) gives a stately look.

In other words, it was a perfect place to run through to see if you’d get caught, which we usually did. When we were escorted out, we’d sit on the cool granite steps on the Union Street entrance and watch people come and go. It was there that we learned of great scientific advances from a neighborhood girl.

I won’t name this person because I don’t know if she still lives in the area. She was several years older than my siblings and I (we were five, six and eight). She had a reputation as being tough — and she was. When she saw us on the steps she'd join us, which made us nervous until she began telling amazing lies.

We didn’t know she was lying. To us, she was an oracle opening our eyes to wonders unknown. She declared that there were socks that could make you fly, sneakers that had rockets to make you super fast, and underwear that would make you invisible. She had many more stories of mind-blowing space-age technologies. Every time we asked where her flying socks were, she said she had just checked, and they would arrive at the post office next week.

I can’t remember the face of the person telling these tales but man, I remember those flying socks. In my five-year-old mind, I imagined them as having little wings on the ankles, like Mercury. I never questioned our truth teller why someone would make flying socks instead of, say, a flying shirt, which seemed easier to control in flight. I just knew it was going to be very cool to get a pair and fly over Hudson.

We asked our parents to buy us these futuristic devices. I can’t remember their response but it was probably something like “stay away from her.”

What motivated Flying Sock Girl to tell us these stories rather than speaking to us with her fists, as she did with others? Maybe it was the new U.S. space program or that the Jetsons were on prime time TV. Still, this wasn’t your typical neighborhood bully script.

Today, whenever I see those post office steps, I recall her fanciful tales. So I am asking my wife for a pair of flying socks for Christmas. More than 50 years after I first heard of them, they have to be a real thing, right? My size is large. Red would be nice but I'll take them in whatever color they have. 

Guest Blog: My heroes from Parkland want you to vote

Editor’s Note: This is the first guest blog for Spokesman. It is about the brilliant work of the teenagers from Stoneman Douglas High School. It was written by Jeff DeMarrais, a former colleague and a fellow member of the Arthur W. Page Society. It first appeared on the Page website.

By Jeff DeMarrais

Yesterday, I met my heroes. For those of you who have known me throughout my life and career, it might surprise you that it took 47 years to say that.

I’ve been privileged enough to meet Hollywood celebrities, work alongside corporate titans, meet and learn from three Nobel Prize winners and reach fanboy status with my favorite pro athletes.

But until yesterday, I didn’t realize I’d missed the real heroes; and the impact of their words are indelibly imprinted on my consciousness and soul.

Yesterday I met Delaney Tarr, Sofie Whitney, Casey Sherman, Sari Kaufman and Brendan Duff, a handful of teenagers who, I hope, will change the world.

These five leaders are among the voices who rose up in the aftermath of the Parkland, FL, shootings on Valentine’s Day, 2018. They are or were students at Stoneman Douglas High School.

And today, of all days, they deserve to be heard.

This group of teenagers, given all they have gone through – the initial act of violence, the threats upon their lives for speaking out, the disruption of the “normal” American high school experience, the simple act of having to grow up in the harsh spotlight of instant fame – had a single message.

Vote.

They shied away from rhetoric, cynicism, vitriol, partisan attacks or even the quintessential teen reaction to most any topic, “Do I have to do this NOW?” and wanted a room full of adults to help them carry a simple message forward. Since today is National Voter Registration Day there is no better time to share their message.

In a world where they have absolutely every right to feel outraged, hopeless, denied their final years of their childhood, this group and others in the March For Our Lives movement have made an extremely mature choice. And it is a choice that does not exempt them from feeling, after watching their classmates and friends gunned down in cold blood, all the emotions to which they they are entitled.

Today’s politically charged environment – both online and in the real world – does not lend a positive, credible platform to anyone interested in advancing the argument to “take away” American citizens rights (or, in other words, questioning the constitutionality of the Second Amendment). That battle has been argued among U.S. citizens and legislators for decades with no real progress made.

But Delaney, Sofie, Casey, Sari, Brendan and many of their other colleagues have sparked a movement to empower Americans to use one of our most sacred, yet underused, rights. They want you to vote.  

Register now. Be heard. Take part in the conversation. Abandon the echo chamber of online rage and talk to real humans who should represent your interests at the local, state and federal levels.

Is this a politically charged wish? Shouldn’t every 18+ year old U.S. citizen freely flex this right to support our democracy? How can there possibly be resistance to this idea?

Since the drafting of the United States Constitution, our government has had to pass five(!) Amendments to enfranchise all of our adult citizens with the right to have their voices heard at the voting booth (those are Amendments XV, XVII, XIX, XXIII, XXIV and XXVI for our political science fans). 

For the last 148 years, we have been refining the guidelines that permit voting in U.S. elections. So why is it so hard? And why do these five Parkland residents face such agitated assault against their simple message, “go vote”?

Delving just one layer below that question can lead to a politicized morass which, frankly, I could debate with gusto but will add very little value to the discourse and not achieve the goal which these survivors have set before us. So many people are engaging in social media – Twitter in particular – to vent, opine and muddy the waters of a really simple act of patriotism.

I’m going to go home today and see my kids and share your stories and wisdom with them. Those are two people to whom I can explain how – as neighbors of Sandy Hook in Newtown, CT – we can do something that matters, something that extends beyond rhetoric, slogans and clever posters and t-shirts.

Today, I’m going to explain to my teenage boys why voting matters. They’re a few years away from being able to do so, but I want them to vote as badly as they want to have a car or go to college.

Sofie, Casey, Sari, Brendan, Delaney: You guys are my heroes.  

And I’m going to tell my sons all about you too.

Thank you for what you’re doing for this country, and you may always feel empowered to use your voices to drive positive change.

Register to vote. Here’s the national campaign to register. Share this, shout it from the rooftops, whisper it to your friends. By any means, make this a necessary stop in your network’s day today:

Activate your vote on National Voter Registration Day

Engines & Elvis: The best media pro I ever met

A debate has broken out recently that sounds like lovers who have broken up and tearfully proclaim they don’t need the other anymore. Only in this case it's corporate communicators and business journalists.

This lover’s quarrel was brought to life recently with a column in the Washington Post by Steve Pearlstein, “The Death of Business Reporting.” A long-time business journalist, Steve laments the demise of informed and experienced corporate media relations professionals. If you are in PR give it a read; it’s an important piece.

I talked recently to several people on the state of this relationship. A very good journalist told me: “I don’t really need them (communicators), do I? There are other ways to get what I need.” And a senior corporate media relations person told me: “I don’t trust them (journalists) and I don’t need them.”

Both sides have a point. Communication pros have numerous social media platforms through which to tell their organization’s story. Journalists, in an age of “transparency,” have easier and more widespread access to data and sources than ever before.

Regardless of your point of view, a great media relations professional can make a material difference to an enterprise in its reputation and its commercial success. I know this is true because I worked with Rick Kennedy of GE Aviation, the best media person I ever met.

Rick retired recently after 30 years at GE’s jet engine business. He is smart, funny, and, at times,  iconoclastic. He loves jazz, blues, baseball, Elvis, and his hometown of Cincinnati, where GE’s jet engine business is headquartered. He’s a former journalist and a bit of a character, which I will get to below. Above all, he is an honest and effective information broker in a high-risk, high-profile business.

Why was Rick so good and so good for his business? First, he knows engines – how they work, how the government regulates them, and how the media covers them.

He didn’t have to check with someone on technical specs, production history, or business numbers. He was the expert. I remember a master class he gave me in why some of GE’s engines were having icing problems at higher altitudes. This had become an investor concern for GE. Rick’s calm, matter-of-fact explanations to reporters was a huge reason why the issue didn't mushroom.

Second, he is naturally, purposefully and sometimes painfully honest. He’d fight like hell with reporters who he thought were being unfair, but with those he trusted, he’d give them the facts, even if they weren’t great for GE. He was building relationships and trust for the long haul. 

More than once, Rick pulled me back from the precipice. “Don’t say that, Gary. That’s bullshit,” he’d advise me about a suggested strategy that might win a short-term battle but could cause us to lose the war.  

For example, a few years ago when GE was in a very public and heated debate in Washington over funding for a military jet engine, I wanted to go for the jugular with the Pentagon. Rick talked me down like a calm air traffic controller. I think Rick knew we were going to lose this fight and he wanted to protect GE Aviation’s relationships in the Department of Defense for the next one.

Third, Rick is a great – no, a master -- storyteller. He loves the technology of aviation but also has a real affection for the history and lore surrounding it. Watch this video Rick did about the opening of GE’s new advanced composites plant in Batesville, Mississippi, or this one on the history of GE’s engines and you'll see what I mean. Charles Kuralt had nothing on Rick.

Finally, he may be the best crisis communications leader around. As his terrific successor Perry Bradley told me, “Crisis is inevitable when you have an installed base of 37,000 commercial engines holding aloft some 300,000 people at any given time.” Rick’s deep domain knowledge, understanding of what the media wants in the high-intensity moments after an incident, and the trust he earned kept many situations from getting out of hand. No self-inflected wounds from Rick.

Rick’s value to his business was recognized a few years ago by leadership -- "Rick takes big, visible swings" they said in presenting him with the Overall Performance Award. They knew he was more than just the “PR guy;” he was a strategic counselor who, by protecting the Aviation's reputation, made it possible for the engineers, commercial teams, and executives to do their jobs. Rick also recently won the Lyman Award from the Aerospace Industries Association, which honors distinguished career-long achievements in aviation journalism or public relations.

At air shows, engine launches or analyst meetings -- and after business hours -- Rick never tired of talking aviation, playing a few songs on the piano or giving reporters local history lessons. Once, on the eve GE’s annual meeting of share owners in Cincinnati, Rick took a few reporters to a local cemetery to show them graves of local music greats.

When I saw him the next morning, Rick looked a little rough around the edges. Being a corporate guy, I asked him how the discussion about GE went with the reporters. He replied, “I have no idea, but they now know a hell of a lot about that graveyard.”

Let's put the sand back in sandwiches at Oakdale Lake

There has been a lot of attention paid to Oakdale Lake in Hudson, NY, recently but nobody has mentioned cream cheese and grape jelly sandwiches with sand. I will do that here.

Oakdale is a beautiful five-acre, spring-fed lake with a small sand beach and an old-time beach house. Nearly 100 years old, this public park has been neglected in recent years and hence gained the nickname “Croakdale" (at least in our house). Nonetheless, it is a diamond in the rough, complete with surrounding trails and a small playground.

My mother would take us to Oakdale for swimming lessons starting when we were about six years old. You started in beginners. If you passed that two-week class, you went on to advanced beginners. I never made it that far. I am the world’s worst swimmer.

Here are my excuses. The green waters of Oakdale at 8 a.m. were frigid, even in July. Getting in beyond your knees caused full-body shivering while you waited for other victims to practice “blow bubbles, listen to the fish” breathing exercises. Also, “bobbing” up in down in the water to practice breathing seemed more like practicing drowning. I refused to release my grip on the dock. Finally, I was preoccupied about how brilliantly white my skin was. It was a distraction for everyone, including me.

Recognizing that I was an aquatic failure, the instructors would take me to the shallows and try to teach me to doggy paddle. I got pretty good at it and I decided it was the only skill I needed for water survival. When the instructors tried to teach me the crawl, I would pretend I was doing it by putting my hands on the bottom of the lake and pulling myself along. No one was fooled.

A postcard of Oakdale from the 1960s.

At the end of the two weeks, it was suggested that I repeat beginners, while my brother Ken was promoted to advanced beginners. This verdict on my swimming abilities was delivered several more times and, over the years, I became perhaps the oldest student ever in the beginners class at Oakdale.

My ineptitude was all the more humiliating because my sister Valerie was a great swimmer and loved Oakdale. She became a volunteer instructor at age 12 and later, a lifeguard. She was following in the footsteps of our Aunt Bitsy (Elizabeth) Sheffer, who was a lifeguard and waterfront director for many years and part of a staff of many of the coolest kids in town – my cousin Susan Borrelle, Famous Tillman, Tim Carr, Susan Nero, Giffy Whitbeck, Paula Cook, Jimmy Warfield, Harvey McWhorter and many others.

Not all my memories of Oakdale were bad. After the day’s lessons were over, my mother would return to the beach with lunch for the Sheffer kids. We were sometimes joined by her best friend, Fran Brady, and daughter, Sue. The main course was cream cheese and grape jelly sandwiches with an emphasis on “sand.” They were wrapped individually in aluminum foil and by the time we unwrapped them with our wet fingers the sandwiches included a sprinkling of beach sand, which provided a nice crunchy quality. Not exactly Michael Phelps’ diet but it energized us for the afternoon.

My Aunt Bitsy, right, getting ready to dive under. 

We’d stay at the beach for a few hours. My hydrophobia would vanish after lessons were over and, while I didn’t go in the water above my chest, I had a great time with my family and friends.

Despite the painful memory of my failures there, I am glad to see Oakdale has new friends. I hope they will have ice skating again on the lake. I was much better at this sport and was thrilled when the city put out a green flag near the beach house door to indicate  the ice was safe for skating. One night after skating for a while, Val, Ken and I decided to walk home – about a mile – in our skates. This did not impress our mother.

Oakdale is a little thread-bare and deserves some love. Maybe my contribution will be a food truck that I’ll bring to Oakdale. I’ll call it The Sand Man, featuring cream cheese and jelly on white bread. After all, I’m probably 20 percent sand after those gritty summer lunches at our fabulous little beach.

Hot summers for Pants Man

I figure a heat wave like the one we are having in Hudson is a good time to tell you why I refused to wear shorts in the summer when I was in my early teens. 

I have told you in the past that my legs are the color of young polar bears. They were shockingly white when I was young. For gym in elementary school, we wore yellow John L. Edwards Elementary School uniform shorts and tops.  This was not a good color combination for me -- I looked like a fried egg.

I decided not to endure this embarrassing exposure when I didn’t have to. When summer vacation came around when I was 10 or 11, I made a decision that shorts weren’t cool in a fashion sense. Hey, active guys like me, just can't wear them.

I made up what I thought were completely rational reasons for my decision. After all, what if you had to slide in a game of “Run the Bases?” You’d leave a foot of skin on the ground. Or what if you were playing touch football in the street, can you imagine the road rash you’d suffer if you had to slide for a catch?

Looking back, I admire my creativity in covering up my vanity. I was so persuasive, in fact, that my cousin Mike also adopted a no-shorts policy.

My long pants, therefore, showed up in the most unusual places. I played the youth tennis tournament in Hudson in long pants. I played in the Columbia County tennis tournament for adults in long pants (that asphalt was dangerously rough!). Or in 90-degree-plus weather at picnics, parties, and at Oakdale playground. Sure your pants would get caught in your bicycle chain occasionally, but the grease stains on them made them -- and you -- look even cooler.

Shorts are cool.

My secret was, of course, that I was very uncomfortable because of my fashion manifesto. Combine murderously hot weather with a new pair of stiff jeans, and you have a serious chafing problem. But I would not admit this to anyone, let alone my brother, Ken, or my sisters, or my mother, who would roll her eyes at my no shorts declaration.

I even wore long pants to “field day” in the eighth grade, where I ran the 600-yard race on a very hot day. The entire eighth grade would be watching and there was no way I was going to be a pale horse galloping around the track.

There were exceptions. Like when we went to a party at Pete Leggieri’s backyard pool and I had to wear a bathing suit. My entrances and exits of the pool were lightning quick, particularly if there were girls my age around.

My summertime coverup only made things worse when I went back to school in the fall and had to reveal my still pale limbs in co-ed gym sessions for square dancing or archery. I would hide behind the guys so the girls couldn’t see me.

I guess I finally gave in around the time I went to high school and my legs got a little tan from football and baseball practice. Fashion changes all the time and, again, I was being practical about it. Hey, what if I fell out of a boat and I have to swim to safety? Long pants would only drag me down.

A fantastic baseball year of body and mind

I was eight years old and one day when I got home from school, my mother told me I did not make Little League after a disastrous tryout. I crawled under my bed and cried.

I stayed there until my father came home from work. The man who was one of the best baseball players our hometown of Hudson ever produced. The man who was still feared in the city softball league when he came to the plate. The man who played catch with me and taught me how to hold a bat.

My father coaxed me out from under the bed. I was sobbing at this point and gulping for air. It was the second worst day of my young life. The worst was that following day when I got off the bus at John L. Edwards Elementary School and I heard classmates talking about what team they were on. “Elks." "Moose." "Stags." "Antlers." "Fawns” The words felt punches to my solar plexus.

I worshipped baseball and I was good enough to play in Little League, which at the time was for boys aged 8-12. But I froze during the tryouts. When one of my early throws from shortstop didn’t reach first base, I became self-conscious and nervous. A grounder went under my mitt. I whiffed on every pitch thrown to me, even when it was lobbed softly by a coach trying to help me out.

As a result, that year I played in “Park League," which pitted Hudson's playgrounds – Oakdale, Franklin Park, Academy Hill, Charles Williams, St. Mary’s – against each other. We were the same age as the Little Leaguers, but we played in the morning and we weren’t as good.

Few people came to watch and that lowered the pressure I placed on myself. My coach told me I was good enough for Little League and that he couldn’t understand why I hadn’t been picked. I knew but didn’t say.

When I was nine, I got a break. The Hudson Elks Little League added a team, the Bucks. My father would be the manager. That meant I would be picked by him no matter how terrible I did in tryouts.

I was a Little Leaguer but my nervousness continued to plague me. Plus, it didn’t help my confidence when the best and fastest Little League pitcher I ever saw, 12-year-old Danny Chidester, hit me on the thumb with a pitch. I cried. My thumbnail turned bright purple and fell off a few weeks later.

At home I had no problem catching the grounders my father or cousin Mike threw to me. But in a game, they went right through my legs. I was a human wicket. At the plate, I batted last and either struck out or got a walk.

Then my Dad did something he never explained to me: he switched me from an infielder to catcher. I loved it. I was involved in every pitch. I loved being the guy with the mask, caked in sweat and dirt. It made me focus so intently that I forgot my nervousness. I still couldn’t hit but I was sure-handed behind the plate.

By the time I was 12, my team had the fastest pitcher in the league, Rich Deters. My confidence improved and I began to hit. I made the all-star team and we nearly won the league.

When we lost a tie-breaking game to the other top team, the season was over. Walking up the steep hill to the Elks Club after the game with my father and my teammate Jay Qualtieri, I began sobbing. But this time it was not because I was sad and embarrassed or even that we lost. It was because I’d worked hard to overcome my fears. Now, the games were over before I wanted them to be.

My baseball jitters would return in Babe Ruth, high school and American Legion play. My mind wouldn’t let my body win. But during that one amazing year in Little League, I was whole.

A Community of Worth

I am not a historian but I gave a history talk recently at my local library about a hotel that was torn down nearly 50 years ago. Sounds like a fun evening, right?

It was for me. I like to tell stories, particularly about people and places that have stuck to my soul. The General Worth Hotel in Hudson, NY, was one of those places.

I called my talk “A Community of Worth” because of the remarkable communities that surrounded the hotel, that lived nearby or worked there, and, ultimately, the broader Hudson community that fractured over its fate, resulting in its demise.

My story was not about the heated debate in 1969 on whether to save the hotel, although that is part of it. It is about how this place intersected with the lives of people on and around the 300 block of Warren Street. This included my mother's family and their life-long friends.

It was a neighborhood of working-class people, many descendants of Italian immigrants, who celebrated, gossiped, laughed, and mourned together. Many shared the same church, played the same numbers every day, and visited the same bars. The got by by running small shops, bartending and waitressing, or taking in work, such as sewing. The Worth was smack in the middle of their block and their lives, and they watched the world come and go through its doors.

My interest in the hotel's story started with the photo above of my parents outside the Worth on their wedding day, May 26, 1956. It always looked like a Hollywood movie set to me. That’s my mom, Rachel Borrelle Sheffer, in the wedding gown, with her arm over the shoulders of her mother, Anna Borrelle. My dad, Kenneth “Red” Sheffer, is trying to behave in front of his new mother-in-law. My parents had just been married around the corner at Mt. Carmel Church and were headed to their reception at the hotel.

My mother grew up two doors from the Worth in an apartment above a pool hall and soda fountain run by my grandfather, Frank Borrelle. My parents met in the Paramount Grill, which was three doors from the Worth.

There were other family connections to the Worth. My grandfather, Elmer Sheffer, was president of the Common Council and a mayoral candidate during the debate about the future of the vacant hotel. He expressed hope that some deep-pocketed savior would appear, but ultimately sided with those who feared a fire or wanted the site redeveloped.

I wrote a story about the Worth for the local newspaper in 1985 but my first experience with it came when I was 7 or 8. My brother and sister and I would walk back from Mass at Mt. Carmel on Sundays. Sometimes we stopped to run through the empty hallways. That was until my grandmother found out what we were doing and told us to stay away. We did because we were afraid of her.

Gore Vidal, center, and Eleanor Roosevelt to his left at a political dinner at the Worth in 1959

I told you I am not a historian but some history is in order for you to understand this story.

The hotel, built in 1837, was a shining and rare example of Greek Revival architecture. It endured many owners and renovations but retained it majestic presence to its dying days (it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places just before being torn down). It had 100 rooms and a ballroom that seated 300 people. Every civic group of every kind held its events there and its comfortable lobby was filled with salesmen, brides, celebrities, transients, and party-goers.

Waitresses in the 1950s

Its financial health rose and fell with advances in transportation and the economy of Hudson. In its early days, stage coaches stopped there on the trip from New York City to Albany. This held true for early automobile era, but when cars became more reliable, their passengers no longer needed a room and a meal at the Worth.

The best part of the story was learning about the people who worked there or lived nearby. For example, one waitress said that when Eleanor Roosevelt visited for a political event in the 1950s, the waitresses stole and kept the silverware Mrs. Roosevelt used at dinner.

Business tapered off in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. The building deteriorated. In 1965, after 128 years of hoteling, the Worth closed and four years later it was demolished by the city.

I am still drawn to the hotel's story and hope to learn more about it. At this point in my life, I know a good story when I see or hear it. This one is worth telling.

Summer starts at Fatso's

When I was young and Memorial Day was approaching, I would constantly dial 828-1111 -- WHUC's local weather phone -- to see if the holiday would be warm and sunny. Hot and dry weather meant we could swim and play softball during our picnic at glorious Fatso's.

Yes, Fasto's. A small grassy grove that hugged the Claverack Creek about 10 miles from our house in Hudson. Not that we had any idea back then where it was; we just knew it was a picnicking paradise. Fatso's was where summer started for my family and friends.  

It was the first real outdoor event of the year in which we got to run around in shorts, drink unreasonable amounts of ice-cold soda, and inhale the sweet smells of burning charcoal, hot dogs and hamburgers. 

About 10 families descended on Fatso's for the picnic, and for a similar party on July 4th. As I remember, the men would arrive early to mow the grass and set up the picnic tables. They also put the beer kegs into barrels filled with ice so it wasn't foamy when the party started. The only way they could tell was to taste a few. Same with the raw clams they cleaned and iced. Yes, these men were selfless party preppers.

My father would return home after these "chores" to pick us up and seemingly load enough supplies for the Allied landing at Normandy into the car: lawn chairs, bug spray, sun tan lotion, water jugs, baseball gloves and bats, sweatshirts, sparklers, charcoal, lighter fluid, as well as cardboard boxes and squeaky styrofoam coolers filled with potato chips, potato salad, watermelons, mustard, ketchup, napkins, plastic cutlery, soda cans, paper cups, and everything else needed for 10 hours outdoors.

All of this had to be unloaded and moved to your family's table, which we covered with a paper tablecloth. On windy days, soda cans, jars of pickles, and other items had to be placed strategically on the table to keep the tablecloth from blowing into the creek.

When that work was done, the kids were free to roam the grove and return only when lunch was ready. We quickly raided the Shop Rite sodas -- grape was great -- then tossed the empty cans in the creek and threw rocks at them as the current carried them away. It's okay, this was before the first Earth Day.

Then we headed to the bridge that carried State Route 9H/23 over the creek. The fun there usually consisted of throwing rocks at the underside of the bridge. It made a great sonar-like ping sound. Then there were games of "run the bases," Jarts (before they were outlawed), and swimming.

The biggest game was bocce, the perfect game for the grove. The men roamed the grounds as they played. There were shouts of "red's in, red's in" "that's two for the good guys." and, from my father, "hey, Gary, get me a beer." If it was hard to tell by eye whose ball was closer to the pallino, Lee Brady would say "let's get a meas" -- meaning measurement -- and someone would produce a tape measure to resolve the dispute. I have vivid memories of Nucci Pierro with a big cigar in his mouth tossing a bocce ball -- he was a high arc guy and the heavy bocce balls landed like incoming artillery.

As much fun as the kids had, I think the adults had more. These were life-long friends and a day at Fatso's was care-free fun. It was the American dream in many ways, to enjoy a beautiful place, a cookout, clams, beer, and lots of laughter. When they were together, these people knew how to have a good time.

The grove today is overgrown. This photo was taken from bridge over 9H/23. The picnic area was at the top right of this photo.

Dinner, as I remember, was less of an event than lunch. My mom would say to my father, "Red, put some hot dogs on the grill" if one of us kids expressed any hunger. I never knew how the day was planned -- who knew who was bringing what food or drinks. It just seemed to happen.

In reality, it was the women who put it all together. They took care of the kids and the food, and spent their free time chatting and laughing, sometimes at the men. 

Near dusk, we played softball, with the men batting left-handed. Sweatshirts came on, bug spray was applied, and, when it got dark, there were a few fireworks over the creek and many sparklers (with someone usually ending up with a burned finger). Marshmallows were browned and blackened over a fire.

Tired and sun-reddened, we were sad when we had to pack the car and head home. But we had the whole summer ahead of us and another trip to Fatso's in just over a month. 

Before I end, a request about Fatso, the man. His tavern -- Fatso's -- sat just south of the grove and creek. Today, it is the Coyote Flaco restaurant.  He was was a mysterious and somewhat scary figure to me because I never met him.

Being at Fatso’s was something both kids and parents enjoyed together and agreed it was a good thing. That kind of harmony is rare. So thank you Fatso, and perhaps someone reading this can tell me who you were.

Communicators: 'bWAR' metrics myopia

Baseball's return every spring has been a source of joy for me since I was a boy. But lately, I feel more disengaged from the game because I no longer understand baseball statistics.

Half the fun of baseball was the ability to compare today’s players with those of decades ago based on stats like home runs, runs batted in, batting average, wins, losses, earned run average. In shorthand: HRs, RBIs, BA, W, L, and ERA. Not anymore.

Now we have bWARs, WHIP, TTO, OPS and numbers after players’ names like .432/.519/.727. I have no idea what these mean (help me Joe Sheehan!). They are being used by managers, general managers and fantasy players to drive personnel and in-game decisions.

Data analytics in baseball have led to highly effective defensive innovations but as they have risen, human judgment has receded; watch a game and you’ll see a team manager paging through a binder of stats rather than looking at the field.

The same is true of public relations, where metrics are changing and, in some cases, supplanting the “art” of our work. I remember sitting in meetings on PR/marketing campaigns listening to reports of impressions, web site visitors, reach, email open rates, and other metrics and wondering if we had made a meaningful connection – or any connection -- with anyone.

“...we should use these tools to make adjustments, do a better job, and help us to set benchmarks for our goals and objectives.”

In marketing, data provides insights into customer preferences and practices. For example, if 60 percent of your online customers end up seeking follow-up help from your call center, you know that something is wrong. 

In public relations, however, many metrics still ladder up to the old reliables of favorability, trust and message receptivity/audience preferences that can be tested quantitatively and qualitatively. At their worst, these metrics drive a strategy to the exclusion of other factors.

Here's what I mean. Say you're a company responding to the loss of customers' personal data. What determines your plan? The number of customers who close accounts? Favorability and key words in social media? Employee feedback?

Any smart company is sure to be looking at these and other metrics. Yet, in many instances, the responses seem to be lacking. 

Perhaps it is first and foremost a clear expression of the values that guided the enterprise in its decision-making. Metrics should inform your strategy but not determine it. Don’t let them get in the way of values-based actions, common sense and good judgment. Get your nose out of the binder and look at the field.

Metrics must be simple, predictive, well-defined and, to borrow a golf phrase -- “dead solid perfect” – meaning they must be as carefully scrutinized as financial numbers. They must be defendable under withering cross-examination in the C-suite.

Our profession is determined to get there. The Institute for Public Relations and its Measurement Commission have done amazing work advancing the definition, validity and value of measurement through research and collaboration. As IPR President Tina McCorkindale smartly says: “Our purpose should not be to try to prove the value of our profession or worth compared to other organizational departments…rather we should use these tools to make adjustments, do a better job, and help us to set benchmarks for our goals and objectives.”

IPR is sponsoring a free webinar on May 22 by two terrific communications leaders, Mark Klein of Dignity Health, and Rob Clark of Medtronic, Inc., From Complex to Concise: Using Data, Research and Measurement to Simplify Healthcare Communications.

Now if IPR can explain to me what is going on with baseball stats. Go Yankees!

The winter of our content

A December snow.

An eastern bluebird flitted from tree to tree behind our house this week. Then a red fox scampered across a field. They were the first flashes of natural color I had seen in about five months.  

This was the first full winter we had spent in Hudson in more than 30 years. My wife Barb and I decided not to do a warm-weather trip to help get through the winter, mainly because I am still recovering from a bike crash in the fall.

We also wanted to see what winter was like at our home in Livingston, just outside Hudson, New York. It wasn’t like we had lived on the equator previously; southern Connecticut has basically the same climate. But we were curious if our 232-year-old home would protect us from an upstate winter.

The house sits on the Taghkanic Creek and was a caretaker’s cottage for the grist mill on the estate of Robert Livingston. It isn’t exactly a hermetically sealed environment. The perimeter of the house is about 10 degrees colder than the interior, even with new windows and doors. One thing I discovered in this first winter was that it takes a lot of courage to get out of bed early on a sub-zero morning.

It was a long and cold winter. The bone-chilling temperatures of late December and early January receded slightly in February but cold persisted right through March. The conga line of March nor’easters was disheartening. The monochrome grayness of everything – sky, roads, landscapes – was the toughest thing to take.

A frozen swirl in the creek.

We discovered that our dog, Charlie, likes the warmth of a fire more than food. On frosty mornings, he wouldn’t leave the hearth even when we put his breakfast out for him.  He’s a 10-pound dachshund and he shortened our walks because of the cold even when he was wearing his WWII aviator-style jacket. He would just look up at us like he was the only one with common sense, turn, and head back to the house.

We went through more than a face cord of wood and lots of propane to keep the little place warm. Sleep came early, much earlier than when we lived elsewhere. We churned books – me “Jack Reacher” novels and Barb bios of Katherine Graham and "Wild Bill" Donovan. We depleted the supply of watchable movies on Apple TV and Netflix. We binged “Fixer Upper" on HGTV.

So, what was the outcome of our first hibernation here? Well, I put on about 20 pounds because of my own inertia and the need for comfort food. The snow plow cracked our mail box post. We had a frozen pipe that plagued us for most of January. The heavy March snows snapped a few big tree limbs.

The best result was that we now know this is the place we want to be for many more winters. It was harsh and discouraging at times, a bit like the movie “Groundhog Day” as one chilly morning looked like the one before it. I sometimes sang Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” when I got out of bed – Bill Murray's wakeup song in the movie.

But we felt an internal warmth from being in a home that we finally won’t have to pack up and leave. There were new and old friends. Good music at Helsinki. Excellent food. Comfortable bars and breweries. And with technology, the ability to work with clients all over the world without leaving home.

Ice ornaments on branches of a willow tree.  

Every morning, I looked forward to watching two merganser ducks -- a couple apparently -- land in our creek even when it was nearly covered with ice. They’d dive for food, staying under for what seemed like minutes. When their meal was over, they floated together downstream on the current, energized for the day.

Having said all this, I am happy the sun is higher in the sky and the bluebirds are back.

My boring reading list blog

Most blogs about “what I am reading” are as boring as Justin Timberlake's Super Bowl halftime performance and usually self-indulgent attempts to demonstrate your smarts. I obviously will do that in this blog but along the way I am also going to jazz things up with hilarious cultural and personal references while still making my point.

My point is you have to have a reading list. I am looking at you, communicators. We are in a business that requires eternal learning vs. let’s say, my dog Charlie who dashes to the front door barking every damn time a doorbell rings on TV. No learning.

No.

A reading list should be broad and deep, literally. Mine is stacked a foot high in my office awaiting my next long plane ride or surgery – lately, the latter being more likely. It should address the issues that continue to perplex you and others  – what the hell are blockchain and cryptocurrency, and can I buy artificial intelligence for my personal use, such as figuring out the ending of the movie Interstellar?

Understanding emerging topics – even at a basic level – will make you a better communicator and leader in your organization. When I was at GE, I tried to get a basic grasp of China and India’s increasing importance in the global economy, or how additive manufacturing might disrupt industrial companies, or how changing social values could influence employee attitudes and company policies.

Part of my motivation was fear of being embarrassed. Sometimes I was. In 2008, I presented to the GE Board on the reputation risks associated with GE’s sponsorship of the Olympic Games in Beijing. There were protests against Olympic sponsors by actress Mia Farrow and others related to China’s failure to act on genocide and human rights abuses in Darfur. One protest bumper sticker said, “You Can’t Spell GEnocide Without GE.”

Yes. 

This wasn’t my first Olympic reputation rodeo and I could articulate how best to handle the China issue. But then the board started asking very specific questions about the situation on the ground in Sudan. I was like a stumped spelling bee contestant: “Uhhh….could you use it in a sentence?” Luckily, the GE Foundation leader bailed me out. I was half prepared.

No one in GE was going to give me a course on Darfur. I had to educate myself on the issue and many others that confront a global company. It can be exhausting and sometimes not fun. Instead of watching GE-funded “Must Watch TV” comedy classics such as “Joey” on airplanes, I would try to get through my reading pile.

Reading lists should be diverse in their topics and source and force you out of your comfort bubble.  The usual suspects such as the Wall Street Journal are important but so are Scientific American, Harvard Business Review, The Economist and Foreign Policy.

Sounds like fun, right? Well get a gander at some of the things on my list:

·      “Effects of corporate online communications on attitude and trust: Experimental analysis of Twitter messages,” from the Institute for Public Relations

·      “Report From the Buy Side: The Power of Intangible Factors on Investment Decisions,” by Weber Shandwick

·      “The Leader’s Guide to Corporate Culture,” from the Harvard Business Review

·      “Five Ways to Spot Fake Research,” by the amazing Sarab Kochhar, Ph.D.

·      “How to Read a Financial Report,” by Merrill Lynch

·      “Why Facts Don’t Change our Minds,” by Elizabeth Kolbert of the New Yorker

·      “Brain. Behavior. Story. Why Public Relations Needs to Return to its Scientific Roots,” by Christopher Graves of Ogilvy Public Relations

·      “Hello, My Name is Jeff,” a New York Times profile of Jeff Bezos

·      “Selective Exposure to Misinformation: Evidence from the consumption of fake news during the 2016 presidential campaign,” by three really smart professors from really smart schools

·      “Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble,” by Steven Johnson of the New York Times Magazine

·      “How to Get The Most Out of A Mentoring Relationship,” by The Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations

You’re saying, “Sheffer is a gas bag. He’s not going to read all those things.” You’re right.  Sometimes the topic gets moldy by the time I get to it and I move on, constantly curating the pile to try to stay current.

Nope.

Okay, sorry, you’ve had enough of this haughty and pedantic harangue but you haven’t endured anywhere near the hectoring others have suffered. At GE, I often droned on about the necessity of reading and being the most informed person in the room.   

I know, that's not as fun as watching the GE/NBCUniversal comedy classic, “The Land of the Lost?” But hey, what is?