We All Wrote Bad Poetry in High School

The Baby Boomers wrote terrible poetry in the wobbling delusion we were Paul Simon. 
We wrote deep, semi-insightful soliloquies, content and confirmed in the knowledge that we understood a world we hadn't yet observed, let alone touched. 
Most of us gave up poetry when we realized we weren't even Donovan, let alone Paul Simon. 
And our generation spawned another great poet of the American idiom, sprung from the Jersey Shore and Highway 9: Bruce Springsteen. 
The jury is still out on the poet laureate of the post-Boomers, but another Jersey boy has dusted the Warren County dirt from his shoes and tossed a sports jacket over his jeans and published his fourth book. 
BJ Ward teaches in the AFA program in creative writing at Warren  County Community College, in itself proof that this bastion of rural Jersey produces more than farmers. A founder of the AFA program, the only one of it's kind in New Jersey and one of only three in the country, Ward has amassed a fan base somewhat smaller than Jon Bon Jovi, but substantial for this tiny corner of the Garden State.
His collegue

 at WCCC, Brian Bradford, calls Ward the love child of Springsteen and Emily Dickinson, but, of the New England poets, I hear Frost in his words:

           And I want to be as precise with my joy today
          As allthe poets are with their suffering
          I want to tell you how on August 13th, I was happy
          even as the world surrounded my breakfast.
Yeah, that ain't Emily.
Perhaps a touch of Auden in My Mother's Last Cigarette, the poem he wrote for Pope John Paul II:
          I said give me back my mother's eyes
          when your priests, all of them, told her she was married
          before God and God was watching
          and she must pray harder. And we did.
         We did.
I even hear a rhythm of Eliot on occasion, such as the title poem from Gravedigger's Birthday:
         I did it all quietly with a sudden solemnity
         not for the cat -- I barely knew it --
         but for the motion, the first ancestral thing
         I had done in years, aware this was traffic
         with old gods.
I could be exaggerating, since BJ is a dear friend, but I don't think so. 
Bradford says he will win a Pulitzer before too long.
If he doesn't, there is some flaw. Somewhere.
The new book is Jackleg Opera.
Buy it. 

I Am Not Snookie

Ok, I had big hair in high school.
And then, again, in the 80s.
And, I love The Shore. The photos above are Ocean Grove. 
But, they could well be Asbury Park -- which is where the party pix was taken. 
The Shore is an essential part of summer. Every summer.
It is The Shore. Not The Beach. Some states may have beaches. I don't care about they.
And, it's Down the Shore. Not Down TO the Shore. Other states may need prepositions. We don't need no lousy prepositions.
Same with Up the Lake, which is the subject of the other 2 photos: Brady Cove on Lake Hopatcong and the dam at the Hopatcong State Park where the lake enters the Musconetcong River.
Ok, ok, I love having a tan and I don't think much about melanoma. I mean, seriously, this is a state where Ford Motor Company poured paint waste into a mine, where Ciba-Geigy snuck a pipe into the Delaware Bay in the middle of the night, where the mob deposited any number of bodies and who knows what else. We're gonna worry about the SUN? Be serious. 
I may have, in my younger days, worn tight jeans and low cut tops. But, normal Jersey Girls know when it becomes too late to wear a Raceway Park halter top -- except maybe to weed the garden. It's been a long time since I sat on Big John Cassidy's lap in a dive bar in Keyport. 
I have been known to wear oversize hoop earrings. Even now.
But, for the post part, I grew up. Mostly. 
I probably didn't grow up as early as most people. That's why they call us Jersey Girls.
And, by the way, don't mess with us.
And don't call us Snookie.

Sherlockian

Sherlock Holmes is an ico.
For most of us of my generation, Sherlock IS Basil Rathbone and Dr. Watson IS Nigel Bruce.
There are too few of those movies because of Bruce's early death. Rathbone knew Holmes and Watson are more than a team. They are a unit. To be the perfect Holmes, he must have his perfect Watson. 
Perhaps the most perfect Holmes/Watson duo was Jeremy Brett/Edward Hardwicke.Also cut short by an early death, that partnership ended far too soon.
Some people are Sherlock purists. Good for them.
I figure Conan Doyle would be ok with a little license. 
It's arguable Guy Ritchie's version is not Sherlock Holmes at all. They are action-adverture movies set in the 1890s. 
I happen to like the two Guy Ritchie moves. Not as Sherlock Homes movies, but as fun movies. Robert Downey Jr.. is a fine actor in any role. He and Jude Law play off each other very well. 
Sherlock Holmes has always been a buddy story. The play of the two characters against each other is an integral part of each Sherlock Holmes story. In that respect Downey/Law pulls it off. 
And Jared Harris is the best Moriarity EVER.As bright as Holmes and subtle in his evil. 
I was skeptical of a modern day Sherlock when my friend Cece pointed it out to me. 
"You'll like it," she said.
When lots of people say than, you know you'll hate it, but Cece and I have known each other since 9th grade. We bonded over being the offspring of teachers in our high school. Math teachers. Lot of bonding there. So she knows me. Really KNOWS me. 
I love it. Benedict Cumberbatch (don't you love British names?) is Sherlock for the modern era. A new version couldn't be done without a few modification. Watson has a blog. Sherlock has a cigarette habit, not cocaine, although he makes 7% references occasionally. 
But Sherlock is still ignorant of things like basic astronomy. He's still awkward with women. And in love with Irene Adler. 
It can be said there was already a modern Holmes in the American TV show, House, but that was just an homage, a reference. Holmes is ignorant of social graces. House was mean. Watson was married and far less neurotic than Wilson (although I'd watch Robert Sean Leonard read the phone book -- remember him in Dead Poet's Society? I mean he was a CHILD and was incredible.) 
As for the present American show, Elementary, I can't watch it. Bringing Holmes/Watson to America is just too far. Even my son who adores Lucy Liu says it's too ridiculous to be watchable. 
But, there will always be a Holmes. And, there will be successful and disastrous versions. Perhaps the originals would be a great choice for summer reading. 

A Family Affair

Years ago, when I covered Roxbury Township in Morris County, the municipal building was a sprawling structure on Horseshoe Lake.
Recently,  I covered a meeting at the "new" Roxbury Township Municipal Building. Which, to me, was the old telephone company building. You know, when it was THE TELEPHONE COMPANY. When AT&T ruled the world. What was that movie from the 60s, "In Like Flint?" Where the phone company did rule the world? Somewhere is the phone I got from that building when I moved into an apartment in Hackettstown. There was a phone there and I asked them to turn it on. They said they couldn't. They said I had to get a phone. When I got to THE TELEPHONE COMPANY, they said I had to take a phone and plug it in. I said the building was built in about 1880 and you couldn't plug it it. The gal said, "It's an apartment?" "Right." "So you plug it in." 
Ok. So, I went home and called the service people and made an appointment for someone to hard wire the phone. Except he didn't show up. Then he called. I told him the situation and he had the phone company turn on the phone. Did I return the phone they gave me? No. It was a gift.
But, I digress.
I went back to Horseshoe Lake with my friend Sheila last week. The municipal building now has a gym and, more significantly, a little theater.
We were there because a friend, Wayne Thorp, wrote a play and invited us, well, Sheila really, to see it. 
It was a one-act play, featuring four women.
Sheila and I discussed how difficult it must be for a man to write dialogue for four women. Especially four women of a different generation. But Wayne pulled it off. These were educated women and he didn't make the mistake of making them sound less so the more they drank.
The plot of The Price of Illusion revolves around relationships.
In the beginning, I kept thinking the gals sounded amazingly like my cousins and I last fall discussing the dynamics of our lives and our moms over quite a bit of wine on the anniversary of their father's death. 
Then things turned.
The friend of on sister, Helen, reveals a secret that changes the girls' idea of "family."
Helen, you see, who is from the other side of the tracks, is the illegitimate daughter of the girls' father. They don't believe her when she tells them, but another friend in on the action, Nicole, tells them their father routinely hit on their friends. 
Ok, the plot was a bit contrived. What are the chances Helen would find out who her father was, would get a job at the same place as her half-sister, Cassie, and befriend her? But, if you could suspend your disbelief on that and just listen to the women, you see a more universal story underneath. A story about illusions shattered. How many of us have discovered a secret we had trouble believing about someone in our family. Maybe not a secret so terrible, but still.
There is also a class-warfare dynamic int he story since the sisters, Cassie and Tina, grew up affluent and Helen grew up in the projects. To a New Jersey audience, all Wayne needed was the word "Camden," and that said it all. 
Common wisdom says you need two things to travel to Camden, Rosary beads and a Smith & Wesson.
Helen is also Latina, bringing a racial note to the story.
While most of us don't have family secrets that devolve into class and race stories, we can related to many of the issues discussed.
The production was Cabaret-style and wine and soft drinks and goodies provided by the Roxbury Arts Alliance, a venerable group that has done many events in the sprawling township for many years.
I believe that is the best setting for this play because the comfortable tables and chairs ambiance brought home the domesticity of the story.
Matt McCarthy directed. He kept Helen standing for the entire hour and a half -- or most of it. Sheila noted her shoes look uncomfortable, but I've worn shoes like that for hours, it's possible. The trick of making her sort of off-balance was well played. 
The acting was superb. 
Claire Bochenek as the prodigal sister, Cassie, expertly dissolved into drunkenness. Gianna Esposito as the "perfect" sister, Tina, deftly allowed her facade to crumble. Janine Lee Papio as Helen was tough and vulnerable. Jillian Petrie as Nicole, carried off a character that could be peripheral but was really pivotal. 
I really hope The Price of Illusion gets another shot, especially in dinner-theater (or munchie-theater) format.

Getting Older with a Sense of Humor

My daughter was astonished when I received an invitation to a women leaders meeting. To daughters, mom is the one who drove the carpool, French-braided hair, decorated dinosaur-shaped cakes. Mom was never a leader. 

But, to her amazement, the female partners at Riker, Danzig, a law firm with many female partners, have a list of women in leadership positions around the state and mom is on it.

So, she and I went to a cocktail party and presentation by Tina Sloan, author of Changing Shoes,  a book about growing older with style. Sloan was a star of Guiding Light, a long-running soap opera. She is a "woman of a certain age" who knows how to look good, stay in shape and handle all the things we have to handle as we get older -- the fact that food becomes an enemy, parents become needy, children grow up and move out. . .things we all face, but Sloan faces with humor.

I can't relate to everything she writes about, but I do get it. She uses shoes as a metaphor for feeling like you can take on the world. Yep. That works. I have slutty shoes for those kind of parties. I have hiking boots for those kind of dates. Sneakers for every day. Practical shoes for work. 

What I don't have are flip-flops. I worry sometimes about the generation of women who live in flip-flops. If you always wear casual (to say the least) sandals, how can you feel you can take on the world in various different circumstances? Flip-flops convey no power at all. You're better off barefoot. 

I think the whole generation of flip-flop wearers should read Changing Shoes.  They need to understand the ultimate symbols of power. 

The PTA Ladies

They called them the PTA ladies.

They weren't actually in the PTA. There wasn't, actually, a PTA to belong to. It was a PTC or something like that in their kids' school. But, they were 40-ish and had deadlines to meet to pick up kids, so to the firemen to whom they brought baked good and lunches for a year after 9-11, they were PTA ladies.

The firehouse on Duane Street in Tribeca was the closest to the site still open. Engine 7, the Magnificent 7, Lucky 7.

Its big bays lead into a spacious kitchen and behind that are two rooms with tattered couches, a big table and a television near one wall. Up metal stairs, the firefighters sleep between shifts.

Proximity and size of the old Engine House made Engine 7 a gathering place in the sad days after.


Two female cops selling t-shirts for a fundraiser stand near one of the dusty memorials that appeared sporadically on the gritty sidewalks. Fire marshals walked over at lunchtime from the impromptu morgue set up at City Hall. Out-of-town firemen would stop in looking for a meal and a shower and some sleep after driving all night to see if they could help. Or to attend a funeral.


A Japanese TV crew, led by a slender girl carrying a mic asked awkward questions through a nervous interpreter.


And, the "PTA ladies" brought lasagna and good bread and homemade brownies and motherly smiles.


The leader of the group was Dawn Nordstrom who jumped in her Ford truck a few days after the planes hit with her daughter Kim and drove to Lower Manhattan because there had to be something they could do. They found their mission on Duane Street.


Country people bring food when someone dies. 


Dawn made phone calls and her friends made phone calls and announcements in church and soccer coaches and costume designers and hair dressers jumped in their station wagons and vans and compact cars with someone riding shotgun to make sure nothing spilled and often with babies in the car seat in back.


Fueled by Dunkin Donuts's coffee -- these were not Starbucks suburbanites -- they drove down Route 80 and cut over to whichever tunnel was moving less slowly on the particular day, entertaining toddlers with Sesame Street tapes as state troopers pulled boxes our of panel trucks and German Shepherds smiffed the shoes of unhappy drivers.


Once in The City, it wasn't ever clear which avenue to take into the gridless labyrinth that is un-numbered Manhattan. Streets were closed haphazardly to accommodate the search, and , later, the clean-up. Cops from precincts in The Bronx or Queens pointed randomly down one-way streets and shrugged, accepting brownies and smiling sheepishly.


Squeezing around delivery vans and edging past bicycle messengers, the PTA ladies navigated the blocks below Canal, still smoking and choked with a smell of charred sheetrock and concrete. The smell of death. A smell they would never forget.


The firemen sneaked them into semi-legal parking psaces and greeted their new favorite aunts with hugs and smiles. With not much to smile about, they cheered as Dawn's 1-year-old, Tucker, climbed onto the engines. Tucker would celebrate his 2nd birthday, Sept. 10, 2002, at the firehouse.


In the kitchen, the "ladies" turned the big ovens to warm, spread out plates and tossed salads. One day, a  serious fire marshal remembered he and his colleagues were supposed to be at the heliport to greet the Vice President. But, there were two Italian ladies in the kitchen with vegetarian lasagna. Dick Cheney or veggie lasagna? No contest.

Leaving in the afternoon, the PTA ladies noticed an eerie streak of sunlight streaming unfettered up Chambers Street. 


Finally, as things moved back to something resembling normal, the trips to the city waned and the firemen began working out harder to burn off the pounds provided by pasta and baked goods.  


But they wouldn't forget their benefactors who would never forget their boys at the firehouse on Duane Street.

 

Four Dead in Ohio

No matter what the context is, when I hear the name "Ohio," my first thought is Kent State.

I have a friend who went to Kent State many years after May 4, 1970 and part of me can't figure out why. Maybe by the 1980s the impact was different, but to me Kent State will always be, well, Kent State.

It was the defining "where were you" moment of my generation.

So, the name of a state with two perfectly respectable baseball teams, the hometown of Corporal Klinger from M.A.S.H., the setting of Glee and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is never just "Ohio." It's always "four dead in Ohio."

It was the moment the war, which was never far away, came home.