Old Yankee Stadium

Behind us is the original Yankee stadium in The Bronx and home to the Yankees from '23 to 2008. It has / had a capacity of 57,545 and hosted 6,581 Yankees regular season home games during its 85-year history (wikipedia). It was also the home of the New York Giants, as well as the host of twenty of boxing's most famous fights and three Papal Masses. The stadium's nickname is "The House That Ruth Built" whose prime years coincided with the beginning of the Yankees' winning history.

This was the first three-tiered sports facility in the US and one of the first baseball parks to be given the lasting title of stadium as baseball teams usually played in a park or a field. The field was initially surrounded by a (misshapen) quarter-mile running track, which served as a warning track for outfielders, a feature now standard on all major league parks. The left and right field bleacher sections were laid out at right angles to each other, and to the third base stands, to be properly positioned for both track-and-field events and football. The large electronic scoreboard in right-center field, featuring both teams' lineups and scores of other baseball games, was the first of its kind.

Strangely enough, the stadium's design partially accommodated the left-handed Babe Ruth. Initially the fence was 295 feet from home plate down the right-field line, referred to as the "short porch", and 350 feet to near right field, compared with 490 feet to the deepest part of center field, nicknamed Death Valley. The right-field bleachers were nicknamed "Ruthville." Although the right field fences were eventually pushed back after the 1974-1975 renovations, they were still relatively close to home plate and retained the "short porch" moniker. Here are the stadium's changing dimensions (from Wikipedea):

Year	Left Field Line	Straightaway Left Field	Left Center	Straightaway Center Field	Right Center	Straightaway Right Field	Right Field Line	Backstop
1923	285 ft.	395 ft.	460 ft.	490 ft.	425 ft.	350 ft.	295 ft.	82 ft.
1937	301 ft.	402 ft/ 415 ft.	457 ft.	461 ft.	407 ft.	367 ft/ 344 ft.	296 ft.	82 ft.
1976	312 ft.	387 ft.	430 ft.	417 ft.	385 ft.	353 ft.	310 ft.	84 ft.
1985	312 ft.	379 ft.	411 ft.	410 ft.	385 ft.	353 ft.	310 ft.	84 ft.
1988	318 ft.	379 ft.	399 ft.	408 ft.	385 ft.	353 ft.	314 ft.	82 ft.

My first Yankee in '77 when Marcia got us tickets behind home plate. I remember quite clearly the green grass and the heavy smoke back when people puffed away. The action on the field barely above the chatter of the crowd, which was like another player somehow. It all seemed .. and in fact was .. bigger than life. That was the year of Reggie Jackson, Thurmon Munson, Bucky Dent, Lou Piniella and Mickey Klutts whose name I could not forget if I tried. We saw Ron Guidry pitch - the Yankee's won but I have no idea the score, and Reggie hit a home-run which is all I wanted, really. This was a magical year for the team, who finished 100-62 finishing first in the AL East and beating the LA Dodgers in the World Series four games to two. Reggie had his own candy bar and despite black-outs and race riots, it was all good. And the manager? Billy Martin, of course, who would bring his genius to Oakland in the early '80s right when I was transfixed by the game.

Paint Job

The kids help me paint the railing of Marcia and Larry's house in Bronxville. It is a secret so shhh. The last time I did this was in '94 and regained Larry's favor following many instances of irresponsible youth .. like taking the family car into Manhattan to go clubbing .. but this another story. Today we finish off the wire scraping and add some primer. The Shakespeares lay newspaper to stone to avoid drips and Madeleine washes everything down with TSP solution. They get bored by the prep work pretty quickly - but, as with most things, this is the part that counts. No paint coating will hide a weak foundation as we know so well from the Bush era. Eitan and Madeleine work for $5 each assuming, of course, that their tasks complete. It stands at 50-50. My favorite part so far the Tuckahoe paint store which has not changed in fifteen years. It returns me to Providence where the first stop of my summer day Glidden or Benjamen Moore (each had a different personality. Benji Moore upscale though not as haughty as Pratt & Lambert; Glidden strictly blue-collar and Sears or Cabot - forgetaboutit). Back then we credit gorged contractors milled about drinking free coffee anxious to get started on the job. My state "fearful" managing 30 guys and barely 20. In Tuckahoe today I chat with an old store hand who is well beyond retirement which reminds me of "Uncle" Ed in Providence. Uncle Ed was as senile as a bat but loved being in the paint store. All the guys gave him grief but he soaked it up and I used to think then what a nice way to keep it vital in one's sunset years. Maybe some day it will be me (though I doubt it).

Sonnet gets a freebie in NYC where she meets several designers and visits the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition at the Guggenheim, which celebrates its 50th.

Madeleine and I drive to the market with radio blaring.
Me: "What do you think these songs are all about?"
Madeleine: "Love."
Me: "Why do you think I love your mother."
Madeleine: "Because she is pretty."

Me to Eitan: "Why do you think school is teaching you the differences between boys and girls?"
Eitan: "Stop it dad. I don't want to know."

Madeleine at the super-market: "Can I have a box of cookies? Can I have that pie? Can I have some sugar cereal? Can you get me those crisps? Can I have a pickle? Dad! It is so unfair! You never let me have anything I want but you get everything for you!"

"I'm a strong believer in it [water-boarding]. I thought it was well done."
-- Dick Cheney at today's National Press Club appearance

Here Comes The Sun

Madeleine describes herself: "It is me with a helio-thing."
Me: "Say some more."
Madeleine: "Only if you let me paint. With your brush."
Me: Ok
M: Well, let me think. It is colourful. Damp. No! take away 'damp.' It is big. It starts from small and goes to big. The first and second time I tried it on it got stuck in my hair. Well, this boy found it before I came into the room, and I was amazed. It stuck onto my head and I did not have to hold it.
Me: Anything else?
M: nah.

(Photo from Katie)

Tortoise

Jeremy introduces us to cool band Tortoise last night at some venue in Brooklyn (we dine at a new, old-school restaurant with tiled floor and excellent long-bar). Tortoise's almost entirely instrumental music defies categorization, and the band gained significant attention I learn from their early career when they came up in Chicago's music scene, playing in various indie rock punk groups. Tortoise was among the first American indie bands to include styles closer to Krautrock, dub, minimalism, electronica and various jazz styles, rather than the standard rock and roll and punk that had dominated indie rock for years.

Afterwards, driving home, I get totally lost again finding Bronxville. I swear this place impossible to find -- maybe it is a protective mechanism to keep wanderers from Yonkers or wherever away.

Today glorious and when such weather hits there is only one place to be -- Paris. New York is the runner-up and I take advantage of springtime to jog a couple loops around Central Park. This has to be one of the most entertaining runs on God's green planet. I pass a Jewish-Japanese Day Celebration on the East Side; on the other side of the road, baseball in full swing. A fire hydrant blasts water and kids squeel in their freedom. Mixed in are walkers and runners of every type and the freaks: wrongly dressed for the day or ghoulishly pale. Or obese. Then there is the flesh - everywhere, but especially Sheep's meadow which is like a college-campus only a few years on and, presumably, more sexually active (then, my comp is Brown). And naked - or at least g-strings and bikinis (men and women) and lycra tights (mostly men). The youth simply lounge, sometimes reading or more likely sunning themselves. London has no equivalent but the temps never so hot that a sensible gal would ditch her bra and go strapless. We Brits are much too sensible for that - it takes seven or eight tequilla slammers to get ours there. The day ends with a BBQ and, as I blog, everybody happy to be down for the night.

Saturday Night And The Blowtards

Katie on the Upper West near her flat on our way to Brooklyn to see the band Tortoise, which is new to me. The grandparents hosting the kids - I cannot remember that last time we had a free night out.

I've been thinking about the absurdity of the recent Obama-Cheney "debate"on terrorism that took place last week, and how irresponsible the Republican party today. Cheney suggests that Obama's efforts making the country "less safe" while the Senate craters to closing Guantanamo. The reality, of course, far more sinister in my opinion: the Retards have no counter for the economy, health-care and the financial crisis and so they use their trump card: 9-11, which Cheney mentions 22 times in his speech. Of course Cheney also lied, as reported by Jon Landay and Warren Strobel, who also held the media to task in 2002 by reporting the run-up to Iraq based on faulty information (all this and more in today's Frank Rich column). What Bush & Co. don't want us to remember or know is that they took their eye off the prize post 9-11 which was Al Queda and Bin Laden. Iraq a distraction (or worse) from Afghanistan and Pakistan, which may turn out to be the real villain thanks to A. Q. Kahn's nuclear network. India not the only ones to fear the melt-down on its border. Iraq has delievered nothing meanwhile. So here we are, new President and government, yet allowing Cheney to redraw the battledground for posterity (Dale and I have a dinner bet on the Bush legacy to be paid up in 25 years when history has passed its judgement - Dale believes it will be kind to el Presidente). It is one thing to argue a position and Lord knows we need intelligent input. It is altogether another when a failed party led by a bunch of fat blowtards, like Newt and Rush, pedal fear via an acquiescent media, to a public unwilling or unable to change its story arc. Obama, meanwhile, appreciates we are not secure while loathed by others enflamed by torture, Gitmo, Israel, drone-bombings, occupation and Al Quada. This effects me. This effects my kids. These unpatriotic fuckers should be swept aside, ignored and forgotten. Until we need them again and their party lanced of its stale leadership and disproven platform.

"The compulsion to listen to the news is to be joined to a community of anxiety."
-- Ian McEwan

Central Park

Moe on 102nd Street.

We head for Central Park on a gorgeous Saturday and seat ourselves next to The Pool: W101 which otherwise has no name. This a remarkably pristine part of an unusually natural environment given what surrounds it: concrete, for miles and miles. Our seclusion includes drooping willows, algae green waters formed in a grotto from stacked boulders. It is also a favorite haunt of the Great Egret and bird watchers nestle here to spot the many migratory species. Kind of like the Barnes Wetland Centre which also attracts its share of eccentric nutzos. 

I remember here from autumn when the red maples, Osage Orange, Moccernut hickory and American sycamore burst into colour like nobodies business. In the winter, the water freezes and impossible not to consider the stupidity of those who ice skate or walk on the ice. 

For many, this area remembered for the brutal rape of an investment banker by five youths and New York's social breakdown - ushered in the Giuliani era. The attack shortly before I arrived and when the city's killing on a murderous, upward rate. The case also introduced us to the term "wilding" and fueled fear for the after hours. So today all that 20 years ago and our grassy knoll shared with a middle-aged couple enchanted by their new-born; a large Black man who snores while his daughter and Madeleine build a tee pee from leaves and branches; a group of young people who sit on a flat rock and flirt and feel each other. 

All this while joggers and bikers stream by in a liquid flow. As Sonnet notes, the park an extension of every New Yorker's living room.

Seamus

Seamus I visit yesterday in Midtwon as he considers buying a pharma company following a career at Elan and GE at strategic consulting firm the Mac Group who I interviewed with while at First Boston for their London office. Seamus an old college friend who I have not been with since his wedding which seems like yesterday but somehow five years ago. The bachelor party fun too BTW - golfing on a resort in Galway with his friends and brothers, one of whom works for distribution of Guinness. A handy ingredient. Also on hand is Suresh, who had sold his security software company to Microsoft and abuzz about Bill Gates several months before. Suresh advised by his new VP "not to engage Bill." Apparently Gates does not to look new relationships in the eye on account that he scares the crap out of them. In true fashion, relays Suresh, Gates had his company power-point presentation before him and threw it across his office at Steve Ballmer and Suresh's new business unit executives: "This is the biggest piece of shit I've ever seen" and "why the fuck did we buy this company?" If not for an accelerated earn-out, it would have been an even more terrifying event. Gates calmed down and eventually focused on the task, which I suppose how to integrate Suresh's software into the Death Star. They got along fine. Since, Seamus tells me, Suresh left MS and founded another start-up which sold to Symantic. Budda-bing.

Seamus transferred to Brown from Dublin and a stand-out runner though not on par with Greg Whiteley, who he sees at Brown's 20th reunion last week end while I am in CT with Mary and her gang. Seamus formed a contingent of elite athletes who together ranked in the NCAA Top-10 for cross country when I joined my Junior year after ditching my life-long passion and the unpleasant dudes on the Bruins swim team. Seamus leads a successful life and I was fortunate enough to see him on a Friday afternoon, which he informs me with a chuckle is when he plays golf. He joins me to Lincoln Center where we pick up my parents, Sonnet and the kids so he can meet Eitan and Madeleine and reunion with Moe and Grace - the last time being, I believe, on College Hill for graduation. Life moves on. Life is good.

"There once was a cheerful old bear,
who suddenly lost all his hair.
And though he was sad,
he knew it was bad ...
to cry and completely despair."
-- Eitan

Fish And Fear

Here is one from the pet store, which earns a thumb's up for weirdness from Madeleine and Eitan.

We catch the North White Plains line from the 125 Street Harlem station, which is yet again an entirely different world. NYC has cleaned up considerably since my first arrival in '89 when the city seemed dangerous above 95th ... this imaginary boundery gone, enforced by Columbia Business School expanding up to 140 Street. Sure, there are dilapidated pockets but these mostly isolated to Harlem and the Bronx though I admit my window from a taxi. I read that certain New Yorkers nostalgic for '70s urban grittiness - like having black-outs and a heroin problem a good thing - you know, Pop-Eye Doyle or Travis Bickle and all that. There probably was a creative and artistic environment, sex and drugs and rock and roll - but the city was bankrupt and pity those poor middle class honkies cowering in their flats. Or fleeing to the suburbs. And what about Times Square which is now owned by Disney and nary a porno theatre nor prostitute to be seen? Can the under-belly of Gotham really be one giant, police controlled pedestrian walk? But to Harlem: there is no longer racial tension that once made this place simmer and a no-go zone for the post-college, professional types I hung with .. nor is there a hint of drugs or violence which was on offer 20 years ago - 1990 being the year New York set its record for annual murders at over 2,000. We, the people, were bombarded by this news every day and though Greenwich Village and the Upper West Side, where I lived, perfectly safe it did not feel so. Humans have a great ability to misjudge a risk based on repetition or scale of threat - death by murder being an extreme worry, I might suggest. How simple a time, then, when the only thing to fear a mugger or graffitti covered subway after-hours. At least the bogeyman was tangible, unlike what we have been sold since 9-11.

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
-- H.P. Lovecraft.

Bryant Park

Bryant Park a magnificent oasis which really should not exist. Surrounded by sky-scrapers - in this case, the MetLife and BankAmerica Towers facing east - it offers a blip of calm in an otherwise frantic part of New York rubbing up against Time's Square. Eitan asks if the BankAmerica tower bigger than the Empire State Building but actually it is about half the size or 54 floors. Holy mackerel. On the other side is the library and we are encased by 5th and 6th Avenues and 40th and 42nd Streets for about 9.6 acres. The place has a rich history not surprisingly, and here is what an Internet rake brings forward:

"In 1686 when the area was still a wilderness, New York's colonial governor Thomas Dongan designated this spot a public space. George Washington crossed it while retreating from the Battle of Long Island in 1776. Bryant Park was a potter's feild (a graveyard for the poor) from 1823 to 1840, when thousands of bodies were moved to Ward's Island.

Later on, the square was used for military drills during the Civil War, and was the site of some of the New York Draft Riots in 1863, when the Colored Orphan Asylum at Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street was burned down.

In 1884, Reservoir Square was renamed Bryant Park, to honor the New York Evening Post editor and abolitionist William Cullen Bryant. In 1899, the Reservoir building was removed and construction of the New York Public Library building began.

The construction of the Sixth Avenued Elevated railway in 1878 had cast a literal and metaphorical shadow over the park, and by the 1930s the park had suffered neglect and was considered disreputable. The park was re-designed in 1933-1934 as a Great Depression public works project under Robert Moses. The new park featured the great lawn.

By the 1970s, Bryant Park had been taken over by drug dealers, prostitutes and the homeless. It was nicknamed "Needle Park" by some, due to its brisk heroin trade, and was considered a "no-go zone" by ordinary citizens and visitors. From 1979 to 1983, a coordinated program of amenities, including a bookmarket, a flower market, cafes, landscape improvements, and entertainment activities, was initiated by a parks advocacy group called the Parks Council and immediately brought new life to the park -- an effort continued over the succeeding years by The Bryant Park Restoration Corporation, which had been founded in 1980 by a group of prominent New Yorkers, including members of the Rockefeller family, to improve conditions in the park. In 1988, a privately funded re-design and restoration was begun by the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation and here we are today.

"

My Pet

We sit in Bryant Park on a muggy early afternoon and Madeleine sneaks up on me to put leaves down the back of my shirt: "did you notice me there, dad?" as I take her photograph. HSBC sponsors a little book corner for kids and Sonnet reads happily to them while I mess around taking photographs. Too much to see and take in. There is also a carousel which the Shakespears beg for and win, over my preliminary early miserly objections. Me the Grinch - but it is $2 a go and that seems like real money, oh boy. Initially our aim to take the kids into the NY Public Library (I have never been myself) but too warm a day+the we need to burn off some steam having sat around this morning while I made work calls. A 30 minute promise always comes in around two hours. I think they are used to it - but hey, they get to gorge on TV which is (usually) a rarity - only after homework, though, which seems to be a bit slack for now Sonnet and I agree.

Madeleine beside herself when she finds her penguin buddy's legs broken off. She to Sonnet: "who could have done this mum? Why oh why?" and to me: "I am very sad right now." I tell he she will just have to love the penguin regardless of its legs. Love it more so, in fact. She remains hopeful: "I know crazy glue can fix her."

After dinner, we stroll to Katie's pet store on 102nd and Broadway. Madeleine pleads for a pet and I tell her a cat, as long as we kill and stuff it for the plane ride home. I add helpfully: "I will get a large mallot .." Madeleine glares at me.

Me to Sonnet, Madeleine listening: "Let's get a goat. That should travel well."

In the pet store Madeleine bonds with the mice: "Dad we have to buy them so they are not fed to the snake!"

Eitan unsure when I tell him the squirrels in New York City talk, just like in the movie Madagascar. I prove my point by chirping at one who seems to pay attention before darting up a tree. Eitan: "Mom! Is that true?"

New Yawk

Another image I like - this one from the playground on 81st and Central Park West. Eitan has carried a soccer ball all day and now rewarded with some playtime - the other kids look on suspiciously at his ball skills and accent. Eventually we hustle out when the mist becomes a dull wet+time for dinner. Without hesitation this is the best city I know for photography. Every angle weird and wonderful - modern, old or crumbling. I don't have the courage to take frontal shots of people but that is where the best action is. For instance I stroll pass an enormous black man who advances with an awkward shuffle as though one leg longer than the other (it probably is) and dressed in black suit, narrow black tie and black fedora and black thick glasses. Next to him a much shorter Hasidic Jew and they talk rapidly about who knows what? Or the model who passes us, elegantly, wearing a scarf, Izod and sweat pants - his hair perfectly Elvis. The thing I really enjoy is the people welcoming - especially the Joe's on the street who always seem to have a smile and a wisecrack, though maybe these the guys I naturally chose for directions or whatever. Very different from London which somehow less inviting nor bubbling with enthusiasm about their city. New Yorkers love it here and why not? Anything humanly possible and all it takes is an imagination and hard-work. Mostly. At the very least, NYC the only city I know where such a gratuitous comment just might hold true.

Taxi, Teddy & Echoing Green

Eitan in a yellow taxi (he resists for a dollar). The Natural History Museum greets us with four quotes from Theodore Roosevelt, each uniquely appropriate for the setting. Here is one at the westward front entrance:

"I want to see you game boys. I want to see you brave and manly. and I also want to see you gentle and tender.
Be practical as well as generous. In your ideals, keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.
Courage, hard work, self-mastery and intelligent effort are all essential to a successful life.
Character in the long run is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike."
-- Teddy Roosevelt

Grace buys me Roosevelt's biography which I probably won't read since I only do fiction since post MBA. I ask Eitan and Madeleine their favorite part of the NHM and, expectedly, get: "gift store." And: "shopping." In fairness, Gracie buys Eitan a battery powered flying Space Shuttle and Madeleine and collection of rocks she thinks diamonds. Hard for anything stuffed to top that. Katie, meanwhile, gives a presentation to her Echoing Green foundation, who chose her with four others to demonstrate what social ideas and capital may accomplish. She is then off to see Jeremy plan in his band somewhere in lower Manhattan. We gently decline the invitation as the Shakespeares wiped out.

From the Echoing Green website: "Since 1987, Echoing Green has provided seed funding and support to more than 450 social entrepreneurs with bold ideas for social change in order to launch groundbreaking organizations around the world." Katie tells me the foundation supports less than 1% of applications. Here are several examples:

Adarsh Kumar - building an (rural India) venture capital fund to serve businesses owned by or employing low-income producers, enabling them to scale up their businesses to become commercially successful companies.

Anne Tamar-Mattis - protecting the civil rights of children born with variations of sex anatomy.

Ben Schmoltz - improving the nation's disaster management systems through public accountability, citizen oversight and empowerment, whistle-blower engagement, and policy research.

Elizabeth Scharpf - Amplifying girls' and women's economic potential by launching female-run franchises that manufacture and distribute low priced, high-quality, environmentally-friendly sanitary pads.

Inspiring.

Manhattan

It takes us a while to get rolling this morning, though Sonnet up early to meet a rep from Helmut Lang to choose several pieces for her V&A collection. Us, we drive into the city which seems like a great idea until I can't find parking nor parking garage. Duh. We meet Moe and Grace and off to the American Natural History Museum where we see the fantastic Cosmic Collision:

"Viewers will witness the violent face of our Sun, imaged by NASA satellites, that produces enormous ejections of material from our star towards our planet. The resulting subatomic clashes, as streams of charged particles from the Sun strike the Earth's magnetic field, produce the eerie glow of the aurora borealis and the aurora australis that fill the Hayden dome. Cosmic Collisions will also show the creation of our Moon some five billion years ago when a wandering planetoid struck Earth; the violent meeting of two stars at the edge of the galaxy; and the future collision of our Milky Way galaxy with our closest neighbor, the Andromeda spiral galaxy, a cosmic crash that will produce a new giant elliptical galaxy billions of years from now.

Audiences will feel the ground shake beneath them as they experience a thrilling recreation of the meteorite impact that hastened the end of the Age of Dinosaurs 65 million years ago and cleared the way for mammals like us to thrive. Another dramatic sequence highlights a frightening future scenario where humanity desperately attempts to divert the path of an oncoming "doomsday" asteroid headed on a collision course with Earth."

All this and narrated by Robert Redford. Wow.

My photograph from the fourth floor of the museum in the eastward facing sitting area of the Koch Dinosaur gallery.

"Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims."
-- H.G. Wells

Fungus Amongus

Another fascinating fungi found during our Pine Nob hike - pictured. It is a mushroom of some sort and seems to be embedded into the tree by tree-sap. Strangely, I find this formation only once over six miles.

From CT we drive to Bronxville and for the first time I can remember - we find the village on the first shot. Bronxville is one square mile and tucked inside Tuckahoe, Yonkers and Scarsdale and the highways don't mark the town, much to my grief. Most famously in 1985, Danny and I got lost returning from the Palladium and ended up God Knows Where in upstate New York. Worse, we flagged a guy for directions who instructed us to follow him, only to led further astray. We pulled into Marcia's at 6AM, relieved beyond belief. Of course, Larry had forecasted this likely scenario and instructed us firmly to take the train.. In my defense, I was 18. It took me quite a long time to earn back his good graces. Maybe twenty years, in fact. So Bronxville.. a totally charming town with pop. 6,500, a top-notch public school+Sarah Laurance (where Kelley Collard, the hottest girl ever to graduate from BHS, attended), lovely library, brick firehouse and imposing Roman Catholic church all inside a green central area. It is 15 miles or so from Midtown and a perfect 30 minute commute. Not surprisingly, then, the median income per household $144,940, and for a family was $200,000 last year. Proudly, my Aunt Marcia was Bronxville's first mayor from 1977.

We catch a train into GCS then to the Upper West Side to have dinner with Katie and Moe and Grace on Katie's deck around sunset. Mom and dad arrived today for the week and Diane's wedding. Before we sit down, I take Eitan to the school-park across the street to burn some energy and what begins as a simple game of tag-your-it becomes half the playground after me. I learn from the black girls that "1-2-3 get outta my father's apple tree" is the equivalent of "Homie" which absolves being "it'ed." These kids very sweet and urban - I think Eitan fascinated by their difference - and me, I just enjoy being on their level goofing around.

A Rare Blume and Sotomayor

This wild orchid surprises me in the middle of the trail. I usually think of them as a tropical flower and my recollection of their beauty from Kew Gardens where they flower for several weeks protected by the Princes Diana green-house.

My morning begins at the gym and I listen to Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Beforehand, FOX News sites "un-named sources" who question her character, judgement and intelligence. What idiots. I mean, this chick went from the Bronx to Princeton where she won the Pyne Prize for academic distinction then Yale Law School where she was editor of the Yale Law Review. Who cares if she is Hispanic or female or from mars. She's qualified - hallelujah. Remember when Bush put forth that turd Harriet Miers? The conservatives are going to bitch and moan, as they should, but at least we will debate her interpretations of the Constitution rather than her smarts, merits or use of a race card (Clarence Thomas, anybody? Now he's hateful). All that will come in to play but it shouldn't matter. Obama has found a rare, true-life American story that he knows so well - since it is his story too, afterall.

Pine Nob

We revisit the Pine Nob trail two years on, and I am happy to report exactly the same. The trailhead about 30 minutes from Mary and Amado's house and across the Housatonic River, which is famous for its fly fishing. The river itself 150 miles from Western MA to CT and flows southeast draining about 2,000 square miles of southwestern New England into the Long Island Sound. The most popular area for fishing between the Falls Village Dam and the town of Cornwall Bridge in Litchfield County, where we are today. Up river are five dams producing hydroelectricity and further still, a GE plant pumped PCBs from 1932-'77 - disturbingly, there are warnings about poisons and pregnant women encouraged not to eat the fish. During our hike, and to pass the time, Eitan begs me to ask him football questions and so I quiz him: he has no problem listing all the players for England, the names of the 20 Premier league stadiums; the top-five goalies and so on and so forth. Madeleine, for her part, finds a millipede which she wants to bring to New York to show Auntie Katie. She won't take 'no' for an answer and finally I grow tired of her incessant pleas. Enough! Sonnet stays out of the discussion and I don't blame her - millipedes are gross looking. And big, too, filling up most of Madeleine's hand (she having no fear).

Madeleine argues her case for keeping a millipede: "It's for Auntie Katie. Auntie Katie loves bugs and things plus she can feed it on her deck."

Me to Eitan or Madeleine: "Do you remember what the Romans used the hot spring water for at Bath?"
Madeleine: "Baths?"
Me: "Bravo!"
Eitan (snickering): "She did not even know she got it right."

Here We Are

Here we are at the end of a long, sunny week end feeling pretty good about life and middle-age (Mary and I discuss when this actually begins; we both agree 41 a great age to be alive). Missing are Rob, Sloan and their children who were unable to join as Rob returning from Brazil and work but we speak to them on the telephone as they drive home from Mendocino. Cool. These friends, who I am proud of, the most important thing I take forward from Columbia. Sure, I took classes and learned some business in business school but what I cherish not the career nor the bucks but rather a few people who make the experience worth its while.

Doggie And The Banks

Madeleine and Doggie, who has been with us for as long as I can remember. Madeleine too.

Tonight Sonnet and I prepare dinner, which the kids reject. In fairness, it is mostly for adults: my tabouli (sans bulgar), flava beans, mozerella and tomatoes and avocado+olive oil. Wine. It is nice not to work tomorrow, and especially in New York which was always a hard Monday when I was here. Sometimes in those early days I awoke at 3AM concerned about some client or unpleasant Managing Director .. or worse, anal freaked out Associate .. ah, those horrors of the first job with little training yet deals appearing in the Wall Street Journal. No shit - I modelled the merger of C&S Sovran and NCNB creating NationsBank (now BankAmerica) the largest US banking deal of the time. I had no idea what I was doing. Today I look at the banking sector and wonder how it all went wrong. 


 From '89-93 when I covered the sector there were over 10,000 banks consolidating to about 7,000; we had to watch deposit-concentration which prevented certain mergers - nobody wished to see a dominant player in a city or region+regulators aware of product lines and overlapping sales, concerned about conflicts, all monitored closely it seemed by the state. The bankers I worked for intense, motivated and professional. They were also honest. 


 The taste of the S&L meltdown still with us and lessons learned, though perhaps not by Republicans who begged for more deregulation (thank you, Phil Gramm, you fuck) supported by Clinton and voila - a repeat of the Garn-St Germain Depository Act which cost us, the tax-payer, some $200 billion in the late '80s. This now seems like peanuts. By the mid-1990s the temptation for packaged mortgages, off-balance sheet transactions, securitisation and FDIC insurance (all buzzy words, I admit) led to temptations beyond belief. And today beggers belief. These guys from back then laughing on the golf course. Retired, of course, every one of them.

Sonnet reminds me that cousin Kelley originally gave Doggie to Eitan, who did not take to the, er, personality. This was 2000. Madeleine eventually discovered the unloved stuffed animal and the rest, as they say, is history.

Group Photo

The kids line up for their last responsibility. Sure, there is some grumbling but mostly they are cooperative. Devon earns a note of interest for his self-made mask and weapon of galactic destruction. Blast shield too. The kid is ready to rock and roll.

Today is Memorial Day observed on the last Monday of May. It was formerly Decoration Day and commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in military service - something Sonnet and I debate since she felt it honors all military personnel. First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the Civil War (it is celebrated near the day of reunification after the civil war), it was expanded after World War I to include American casualties of any war or military action. I have never been to a Memorial Day celebration - parade, service or remembrance. It makes me wonder if anybody, other than those families touched, considers this anything other than a long week end and nice lie-in. In the last ten or twenty years, we the people have failed to prevent unnecessary conflicts and of course Bush disastrous. Our job, whether via Congress, protest or otherwise, is to ensure that our fighting men and women kept from harm's way unless there is no alternative. Obama pledged this at Annapolis several weeks ago but then every President, excluding el Presidente, has spoken the same words. So how can you and I make a difference? Well - vote, for one. And write letters. Support newspapers and blog your opinions. It might not work, nor reduce military spending by one cent, but something has to change and how else if not via communication and scale?

And while we are at it - why are Obama-Binden being such pussies regarding Guantanamo and its closure? The 200 odd prisoners should be brought to the United States and tried. If not convicted, set free (and forget deportation). This is the law, and what sets our country apart. As for America's safety - come on. There are certain things more important than our comfort and security.. like freedom, which is what we are honoring with this three-day week end given that tens of thousands of us have died defending this ideal ("give me liberty, or give me death" said Henry in 1775). Americans remain traumatised by 9-11 nearly eight years on and this fear has inflicted grievous harm on our constitution. Bush and Cheney, unlike Obama, may have been too righteous or arrogant or stupid to understand their actions.. but today's Senate no excuse for their lameness - 92-4 against shutting Gitmo. What the fuck? Rather than protect our lazy, obese, asses with airport security and Star Wars, the Government should be guarding our civil liberties and maintaining our moral compass. This is what I and most of us voted for in November.


Is't death to fall for Freedom's right?
He's dead alone who lacks her light!
-- Thomas Campbell

Simon

I love this kid, here looking into the backyard at a thunder-storm afternoon and thinking: "no s'mores." Everybody in the same boat and sometimes the rain just comes when least wanted. Madeleine asks if we can use the oven but somehow not quite the same. We promise tomorrow, sunshine allowing, and ice cream tonight at Nellie's in Goshen, CT which we have been to before and is a perfect hole in the wall with all kinds of Nestle's Ice cream. It has suitably cheesey decor and friendly hospitality. Madeleine asks if they have s'more ice cream and we shall see. We shall see. When not yelling at the kids about something (a memorable moment has me removing my glasses so I am not responsible for everybody jumping on Simon smooshed between two couch pillows) we enjoy BBQ spare ribs, which takes me back to Kansas City in '97 and Arthur Bryant's. Bryant's a rib joint founded in the 1920s not too far from the Chiefs football stadium and a simple, enormous grill worked by several enormous black men in dirty, white T-shirts. I think Clinton went there once during a tour of the Midwest (or wherever Kansas is). Sonnet and I passed by on our cross-country post MBA and I still have fond memories, ah yes. So Simon - terrific kid, similar to Madeleine a unique character and always something interesting going on in his head. He, too, has a successful older brother who monopolizes attention which must be countered somehow. Simon often gets away with murder but always brought back to earth by Amado, who is not adverse to yelling or fixing a chore or two. Builds character and keeps the boys out of trouble - something we could do ourselves with a bit more discipline - I think this as Eitan ignores me generally when I ask him to do something. I threaten to withhold ManU vs. Barcelona Wednesday and this usually gets it done.

Madeleine enters with Capucino Crunch ice cream.