Month: September 2016

50 – 12 – Air Horns

Standard

My family drove everywhere. We’d load up the car the night before, get up and pile in the car to leave at 4am, still in our pajamas. After about four hours of driving, we’d stop for breakfast and put on real clothes, then continue on our way. We went to Canada, Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia. There were three of us in the backseat, and going there was more room than coming back. Canada had the duty free shop and my parents smoked. Coming back from Florida, we were covered in cigarette cartons and oranges because the prices were so cheap down south.

We played car games, like keeping track of the states on the license plates, car colors, signs, some magnetic games, anything to keep us occupied and not touching each other or breathing on each other.

One thing that we always did when we were kids were to get the attention of the truck drivers. My Dad had a CB radio so we talked to them and when we got their attention in person, through the window, we’d pretend to pull the air-horn.

They copied us and returned the gesture only they blew their air-horns and the regular truck horn.

It was fantastic.

I don’t think they do that anymore. While we were driving to Niagara Falls a few weeks ago, we told our kids to do that. The one truck driver who saw them waved, which was pretty thrilling in itself.

We would also moo at any cows we passed by. I’m happy to saw our kids think we’re dorks, but it’s such a good memory, I wanted them to have it as well.

50 – 11 – Five Dollars

Standard

When I was a child, we traveled to Canada often; more often than most kids living in NYC and on Long Island. Our grandfather was born and raised there, so we would visit his sisters and their families as well as going on a summer vacation before returning to school in the fall. Not every year, but almost every other.

Every visit always included dinner at Old Ed’s Warehouse in Toronto. We’d all meet there – aunts, uncles, cousins. It was a fancy restaurant, and men had to wear jackets and ties. It was a steakhouse, and it was misery for my brother, sister, and I. Steaks. No hamburgers, even less chance of cheeseburgers, and absolutely no ketchup. I can still see my sister’s face when we found that out.

My husband and I continued that tradition when we visited Toronto before we got married. We visited my Aunt Goldie, and had dinner at Old Ed’s. It was different since I was ten – they had several sections of the restaurant – steaks, pasta, casual dining, etc. No jackets either. They are closed now, but they were a place that was part of my childhood traditions.

When I was a kid, everyone would gather on the street outside the restaurant in front of Ed’s. You needed reservations. We parked and waited for the rest of the family to arrive.

My aunts, Goldie and Janet were my grandfather’s sisters. He also had a brother, but we didn’t see him very often. I can only remember one time distinctly. Both of them had husbands named Joe. We found this funny. Two Uncle Joe’s. We also had two Aunt Shirleys, two cousin Sharons and more Davids than you could shake a stick at.
When Uncle Joe (Goldie’s husband) arrived he took each of us kids aside, gave us $5 in Canadian money for our own and told us not to tell our parents.

About five minutes later, Uncle Joe (Janet’s husband) took each of us aside, gave us $5 in Canadian money for our own and told us not to tell our parents.

The two of them shared a look and a wink, and the three of us each got $10 to spend on our vacation. I don’t know if my parents ever knew. We were Gerry’s kids, and he was there so often he was a favorite of the family and in addition to all the other ways, we reaped the reward of having a great Dad.

image

The current $5 bill. Front. 2016

image

The current $5. Back. 2016

50 – What Was I Thinking?!

Standard

At the beginning of the year, I had this great idea for a series of posts. To celebrate turning 50 at the end of the year, I would post one reflection every week talking about the past fifty years in my life. Mostly anecdotes, memories that are always floating around in my head. I’ve posted similar ones before that I’ve tagged as “I remember” especially when my kids do something that reminds me of my childhood, like eating McDonald’s fries in the car or visiting Grandma, and you know the types of stories. Some would be longer than others, but they would all be meaningful to me, and hopefully encourage others to post and share their own memorable moments from their lives.

One a week was do-able and I’d have fifty by my birthday in December.

Well, here it is the end of summer and the early beginnings of fall. The kids are back in school, the choir is back at my church, I’m wearing my new fall jacket, and we actually went on a short vacation to Niagara Falls, both new family fun and memories come alive.

image

Niagara Falls, as seen from the Canadian side, 2016 (c)

image

I have posted ten of those fifty. Ten. With my birthday in less than twelve weeks, I can still make my goal of fifty by my birthday. I would have to post about three to four each week, but it can be done.

This has been a mostly successful year for writing despite falling off the motivational hamster wheel this summer, but I’m confident I can get this done. And getting this done is something that I not only want to do, I need to do it; for myself.

Setting goals and deadlines have always been issues for me. The anxiety kicks in and if I never finish it, it feels as though I can’t fail.

I hope you enjoy reading the forty remaining in the next eleven and a half weeks. I know I will enjoy writing them.

Star Trek 50, Pop Culture, And Us

Standard
image

This is me, probably in 1991, celebrating the 25th anniversary of Star Trek at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC at their special Star Trek exhibit. I am sitting in Captain Kirk's actual captain's chair.

Thursday’s milestone birthday of the beginnings of Star Trek reminds me of the influence pop culture has on all our lives. Star Trek simultaneously showed us the future as well as holding a mirror up to ourselves and our society of the time. I’m not sure that was recognized as much at that time. Like many things, we don’t realize its value until it’s gone. Another lesson of Star Trek is to aim high and keep trying. The pilot was rejected as too cerebral, and they came back as cowboys in space while keeping its special-ness. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a not-very-good-movie, but they forged ahead and the second one is remembered by everyone, reuniting the original guest star Ricardo Montalban as Khan Noonian Singh. The original show was cancelled after seventy-nine episodes, but has been and continues to be well-loved on the convention circuit and in movies, spawning spin-offs, fan fiction, and is known for its very cerebral fans.

In the reboot/non-reboot, Kelvin timeline, the first thing that fans said were how well the new cast held up visually and in temperament to the original cast. I recently saw Star Trek Beyond without knowing it was co-written by Simon Pegg and I loved the references to original moments of Star Trek from McCoy’s claims to be a doctor to the subtle looks between him and Mr. Spock and the underlying respect each has for the other despite McCoy reaching past his unconscious bias of the green-blooded, unemotional Vulcan, something prevalent [racial bias] in the world of the 1960s, sadly as much as it is today. Star Trek speaks a universal language that we understand regardless of our native spoken language.

Continue reading

Fireboat

Standard

image

This is a photo of the John J. Harvey as its passengers disembark onto the deck of the USS Slater. This photo was taken on August 20th, 2001.

It was a greyish day, a little cooler than we thought it should have been so late in the summer and as my husband and our son, all of four years old and a dedicated junior fireman took a stroll along the Troy riverfront, the John J. Harvey was getting ready to sail down the Hudson to NYC to its new home as a museum and historic landmark.

They had been giving free rides between Troy and Albany. The crew offered them a ride, but the voyage was one way only. Could someone pick them up in Albany?

Mom, of course. Please…

The hoses went to work, drawing water up through the pumps from the river and out again, demonstrating how the fireboat worked before its retirement in 1995. Sprays of water arched against the grey clouds. The passengers got a little damp. I could see a tiny sample from the adjacent highway as I was driving to get to the drop off area before they arrived.

The gangplank was laid between the ships, the Harvey and the Slater. Both crews had done this several times before that summer. As they went from one former working boat turned floating museum/historic landmark to another, they were given a quick tour of the Slater as well.

From crew to passenger, their days were made!

No one knew that day was a mere three weeks from the bright blue September sky that turned black with the rising smoke from four hijacked airplanes.

We know the story of September 11th. We were there or we watched it unfold in real time on our television sets. We frantically called family and friends. We watched in horror as one tower fell and then the second, the incessant sound of beeping of firemen down.

Along the waterfront of Lower Manhattan, however were boats. Big boats, little boats, sailboats, fishing boats, trawlers, ferries, the Coast Guard. If it could get in the water and do runs from Manhattan to Staten Island and Brooklyn or wherever they needed to go, they went, and they continued to go until everyone who wanted to leave had left.

This was the largest water rescue since Dunkirk.

The John J. Harvey came out of retirement and went back into the fire service that day. They ran hoses and they ferried passengers. Other firefighters came out of retirement simply because they knew they were needed. They searched. They rescued. They recovered. They and the John J. Harvey exemplified that day what it meant to be a public servant, a fire fighter; what it meant to be an American.

September 11th isn’t mattress sales and rolled back prices. It’s the day they thought we could be torn apart but instead brought us together.

Read about the heroes of that day.

Read about the John J. Harvey. Visit her at her home at Pier 66.

That four year old of mine is now 19. He is a fireman and an EMT, and he is in his second year of college studying the fire protection service.

Support your local fire departments.

Support the 9/11 First Responders.

Stories of September 11th should be told, and will be told even when the witnesses have gone.

Stardate: 1-9-6-6-2-0-1-6.9.8

Standard

Space…
The final frontier.
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise;
It’s five year mission:
To explore strange new worlds,
To seek out new life and new civilizations,
To boldly go…
Where no man has gone before.

These iconic words from Gene Roddenberry, brought to life by William Shatner have withstood the test of time.

Fifty years ago today, Star Trek began what would be its fifty-year and ongoing mission. Roddenberry’s vision for the future is still some way off, but I just saw a video on the realities of transparent aluminum, most of us use communicators in some fashion or another, and having a Black woman superior to us in the workplace is more common than 1966, although we could do better.

In 1966, it was somewhat controversial to have such a mixed race crew, let alone the actors who played them. While Jim Kirk was born in Iowa, Williams Shatner hails from Canada. He is still a Canadian citizen, and not a naturalized American. He, Leonard Nimoy, and Walter Koenig are all Jewish. Sulu and George Takei are Japanese. Nichelle Nichols was a Black woman. She and Shatner hold the first for an interracial kiss on television. Pavel Checkov’s character was a breakthrough especially during the space race of the 50s and the 60s. The idea of working with the Russians was nearly impossible to imagine then. And of course, Jimmy Doohan’s Scotty gave homage to the many Scotsmen and women who led the industrial revolution and got the engines running.

Even in today’s Kelvin timeline, not reboot (according to Mike and Denise Okuda), there is an homage given to the original cast as well as bringing the story into the 21st century for us moviegoers.

I’ve watched every iteration of Star Trek including reading the comic books, every new series (Deep Space Nine is my favorite after the original series), every movie, every animation. Wasn’t there a Star Trek meets Scooby Doo or am I imagining that? Somewhere in the depths of my basement boxes is a photojournal of Trouble with Tribbles that I had once memorized. I learned Klingon as a young adult, and went to conventions so long ago that there were no charges for photos or autographs.

Reflecting on 50 years of science fiction, watching it intersect with science fact, sitting in the captain’s chair at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and forging our own new worlds through our own inspiration to write and world-build.

Star Trek is many things to many people. I have been a fan my whole life, and will continue to be into the next half century and beyond.

Happy Birthday, Star Trek!
And many more to come.
The stories yet to be told are out there, and I for one, can’t wait.

image

US Postal Stamps, issued 2016