I HATE School Concerts !

I hate school concerts. To me they are sheer torture, hours of it. Yet, if I didn't attend those horrible concerts, I'd be branded a bad parent.

Take our Shelter Island School Concerts, please. Each and every concert is four hours of indescribable sounds and is always an experience one never forgets. I have indelible memories of those concerts. I frequently sat near another parent named James, our kids were in the same grade.
“Sally, I can see the earplugs. Take them out. That’s cheating. We all have to listen to every note that is played or sung.”
“Please, I need them. Just for the second grade portion, then I promise to take them out.”
“No. There’s a tolerance curve involved here. Getting through the first graders makes the second graders sound better and the effect is progressive. If you skip a grade, then, when you do take the earplugs out, your brain will explode.”
“Alright. But don’t leave me.”
“We’re all here, Sally. This whole auditorium is filled with parents and grandparents, whose devotion I think is exceptional.”
“Oh, don’t let those grandparents fool you. They’re all turning off their hearing aids. Watch. See how they discreetly reach up like they’re scratching their ears? They aren’t kidding me.”
“What song are the third graders singing, James?”
“I can’t make it out. Just smile, damn you.”
“What key are they in?”
“All of them, now smile!”
“How long do I have to hold this smile, my cheeks are starting to hurt.”
“When you have to rest from smiling, look down slightly, and dab an imaginary tear from your eye. That’s allowed. Your kid will think you were so moved you cried.”
“That works?”
“Oh yeah. Works great. My kids think I’m the greatest Dad in the world.”
“Do you think it has anything to do with giving them money and spoiling them?”
“Nah. It’s the tear thing. They think you really love them if you cry when you watch them.”
“Well, I’m always crying by the end of these concerts.”
“Yeah, but Sally, it’s not the same. You run for the exit screaming, “Let me out! Please God, I’ll do anything.” It took four parents to stop you the last time and frankly we’re tired of it. If we have to stay, you have to stay. We don’t want to cause any psychological damage and have these kids appear on Jerry Springer complaining about us.”
“I bet Perlman parents don’t have to go through this.”
“Sure they do, but with speeches added on the front end.”
“Oh no, not speeches!”
“Yep. Be glad for what you have. Besides, someday, these kids will grow up, have kids of their own and they’ll have to sit in these very seats and go through this too.”
“Poetic justice.”
“And we’ll be the grandparents sitting behind all the parents.”
“With our hearing aids off.”
“And iPods in.”
“Listening to the Moody Blues.....I love it.”

Heat and Homicide 101

If You Can’t Take the Heat, Move to Alaska

It happens to all of us at one time. The power fails, the air conditioner goes out and somewhere in the back of our minds, we think, “How did people survive without air conditioning? What did they do?” When I was kid, we went swimming while our mothers parked in front of fans, or we all went to the movies to sit in a cool for two hours. But what did they do a hundred years ago?

I pondered this for a while. And then it hit me. Guns. Gun ownership was common and everyone had basic firearms knowledge and skill. My own grandparents who left Los Angeles after the big earthquake of 1932, crossed the United States in a Model T Ford (top speed 40 mph), with my six month old mother in a laundry basket, a cat named Heiny Wertzschitzel, a rifle, and a Colt .45. They shot and ate game along the way. Grammie carried the Colt when she had to improvise a privvy behind a tree.

Gram had to use it once, when she and a bull startled each other behind some sagebrush. Makes you really appreciate the advantage of indoor plumbing; you worry about kids barging in, but rarely livestock. I never complained about my kids disturbing me in the bathroom in front of my grandmother. Any woman who has shot at a bull from a squatting position cannot be beat in the bathroom complaint department.

July 12, 1876

In a courtroom, somewhere on the American Frontier

“Mrs. O’Malley, will you please tell the court why you shot your husband in the leg?”
“Yes, yer Lordship. Well, sir, it was Tuesday, me candle and soap makin’ day. Hot enough to make Hell seem cool, it was. There I was yer Honor, bent over the tub dipping candles, halfway done I was, when Himself comes up behind me and tries to exercise his due, if you take my meanin’”
“Yes, Mrs. O’Malley, the court understands. But why was it necessary to shoot him?”
“Well, he’s a very insistent man, he is.”
“Wouldn’t a simple “no” suffice, Madame?”
“I gave him a simple “no” yer Lordship and he stopped.”
“Well then WHY did you shoot the man?”
“He doesn’t like the “no” yer Honor, sir. And to spite me, he brought down a whole line of washin’. Down into the dirt. Half days work, lying in the dirt and sun. I was already half crazy from the heat. Then he looked over at the rope where me finished candles hung... I knew what he was thinkin’ so I thought I’d better give him somethin’ else to consider. And that’s when I shot him.”
“Mrs. O’Malley, this is the third summer you’ve shot your husband. Don’t you ever worry that you’ll miss him?”
“Never, yer Honor. I’m a good shot. I take care to aim low and I haven’t missed him once.”
“We are frustrated with you, Madame. Every summer you shoot your husband and every summer we send you to jail. Your sentence will be three weeks this time since your husband wants to drop the charges and is begging for any early release, something about not wanting to be alone with your eight children.”
“Couldn’t you sentence me to a full month, yer Lordship? 30 days is a nice round number. I’m sure I deserve it.”
“Now, why would you want to be in jail another whole week?”
“Well, yer Honor, Maureen Murphy started her sentence last week for winging her Joe, and tomorrow you’ll be trying Kathleen O’Doud. She’s hoping to get at least three weeks in jail, but I told her not to get her hopes up, it’s only her first shot at her man and you can’t get much for a grazin’. Anyway, we’d all like to have some time together to finish a wedding quilt for Moira Kinney, she’s to wed Henry McGill in the fall. So you see, yer Honor, you’d be doing something lovely for them.”
“I suppose she’ll be before me next summer for shooting at her husband.”
“No, Sir, we’re not giving Moira a gun for her shower, or as a wedding gift.”
“Oh, pray tell, why not Mrs. O’Malley?”
“She’s not like the rest of us, yer Honor. She’s a got bad temper. We’re all worried about how she’ll be in the heat when she’s got a husband and young ones tuggin’ at her.”
“SHE has a bad temper? Thank you, Mrs. O’Malley. Thank you for helping me decide to accept a position in Maine.”
“Not a’tall, yer Honor, not a’tall.”

God Bless America!

What a Difference a Date Makes..

Many of the Fourth of July fireworks and celebrations have been scheduled for the weekend of the 7th and 8th of July, just like many St. Patrick’s Days parades were held the following weekend. This is annoying the hell out of me.

Here’s my beef. I can allow the observation of holidays like Washington or Lincoln’s birthdays to be attached to a weekend because there’s no specific activity linked to these holidays. But holidays that have activities attached to them are date specific, not time released and it is not okay with me to push their celebration to the closest weekend to insure that retailers make maximum sales.

For instance, the FOURTH of July should be observed on the FOURTH of July. Call me old fashioned, but whenever I think of the Fourth of July, I think of a day in July occurring between the 3rd and the 5th. I looked at my calendar closely and I see that there is not a second 4th in July, there’s just the one. Say what you will, St. Patrick’s Day parades do not feel the same on the 20th and Fourth of July fireworks do not feel the same on the 7th. I know these observances are moved to extend weekends and increase retail sales, but honestly, it detaches us from the soul of the day.

“When are you getting Joe from the airport, Betty?”
“On Tuesday.”
“Isn’t that Christmas Day? The airport will be hell.”
“Well, it is the 25th, but we’re observing it on Friday the 28th. Kwanzaa celebration starts the next day and goes through till New Years Day which will fall on the 4th of January the following Monday. It’s really smart and just easier to have the holidays line up to start on a Friday and go straight through till the whole week and end on a Monday.”
“But why not celebrate Christmas on the 25th?”
“Because you can’t tell where the 25th is going to fall from one year to the next and you don’t want your holidays starting in the middle of a week. This way, we all know the holidays will start on the last Friday of the year regardless of the calendar date. Besides, it’s the spirit of the thing that counts.”
“It’s the spirit of the thing I’m talking about. Christmas won’t feel the same on the 28th.”
“Sure it will. A day is just a day. It’s just numbers on the Gregorian calendar. You know that the years and months were adjusted by Pope Gregory and Pope Leo centuries before him. No one know what day Jesus was born. Experts say it was probably in October.”
“But the 25th is traditional.”
“Traditions change. There is a first time for all things. Like the Fourth of July, it gets celebrated on the first Saturday following the 4th now, with the following Monday off and everybody likes it. You’ll get used to the new tradition. The super sales start the weekend before, perfect for shopping.”
“I don’t like it. It’s just not right. I want “the night before Christmas when all through the house” to be on the 24th. I want Christmas morning on Christmas morning and I want fireworks for the Fourth of July to occur on the day of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which we can prove was on the Fourth of July because they all signed and dated the document.”
“That’s what the signers claim, but was it notarized? Don’t you think a document important enough to start a country should have been notarized?”
“No. I don’t even think they had notaries then.”
“See? No legal validation for the Fourth of July at all. No reason we can’t move it where we want on the calendar.”
“This whole thing feels like a pine cone in my pants. No matter how I shift, I just can’t get comfortable.”
“Here drink this eggnog. The liquor store had a great Christmas sale on rum and this is delicious.”
“I’m not sure if inebriation will solve this dilemma, Betty.”
“Nonsense! Inebriation will definitely solve this. Just stay plastered until New Year’s Day and you won’t feel a thing.”
“Maybe I should just stay drunk till Valentine’s Day on the 14th of February?”
“Actually, we’re observing that on Friday the 16th.”