Blog

How to pitch horseshoes

Back in the days of the Roman Empire, the horseshoe — the one we think of now with the U shape — hadn’t been invented yet. So instead, they used round iron rings that were nailed to the horse’s hoofs to protect them. Now, when the soldiers had some down time — you know, when they weren’t busy sacking and pillaging — they were always on the lookout for ways to keep busy, so they would pitch these round iron rings towards stakes in the ground. And from this the game of quoits — which would later evolve to the game of horseshoes — was born.

The game grew and continued to be played for thousands of years, but not always by full-time soldiers or farmers or other “hardworking” laborers of the time — they would never have had the free time needed to play such a game. It was truly more of a volunteer soldier’s sport because the trained soldiers would have tasks to complete during every minute of the day. In fact, after the Revolutionary War, a beaten and bitter Duke of Wellington could not believe that his great English army was brought down by “pitchers of horse hardware.”

After the wars came peace, and as soldiers returned home they brought the game of quoits with them. Soon it was not uncommon for every village and farming community to have their own pitching court.

In 1869, eager to organize the game, England set up rules to govern it. It was determined that the distance between stakes would be 19 yards. The player would pitch his quoit with one step, the ground around the stake would be filled with sand, etc. Even with these rules in place, it wasn’t until 1910 in the city of Bronson, Kansas, that the first World Horseshoe Pitching tournament was held.

Today, the game of horseshoes remains the ultimate backyard game. It’s a perfect blend of skill, risk, and tactics. And although Corn Hole is a portable game that works well while tailgating and waiting in line for concert tickets, the game of horseshoes will always remain as the ultimate gentlemen’s recreational activity.

HOW TO PLAY HORSESHOES

The game of horseshoes includes four shoes — two of each color — and two stakes. Regulation horseshoes require that the two stakes be 40 feet apart, with each stake in the center of a sand-filled pit.

If you have some space in your yard, the horseshoe pit is very easy to be made permanent by framing the two stakes with some scrap lumber and filling with playground sand. If you’re going to do this, toss a little cement in the hole with the stake so that it doesn’t move when the horseshoe hits it. Or, you can keep your game portable and bring them with you to every picnic and family reunion.

Horseshoes can be played by two individuals or two teams of two players. The most common version of the game involves “innings.” During each inning, each player pitches two shoes. The goal is to get the horseshoe around the stake. This is a “ringer” and it is determined by the ends of the horseshoe being hooked on the stake and both ends of the shoe clearing the stake. When pitching, you must stay behind the foul line, which is 3 feet in front of each stake.

Scoring:

1. A ringer — the stake is completely encircled by the shoe — 3 points.

2. A leaner — the horseshoe is leaning against the stake — 1 point.

3. Closest — if there are no ringers or leaners, the person with the shoe closest to the stake gets 1 point. In addition, if your two shoes are closer than both of your opponent’s shoes, you get 2 points. If you get a ringer, and you have the closest shoe, it’s 4 points.

4. Cover — if a shoe is thrown on top of your shoe as a ringer, your ringer is cancelled.

The goal is to be the first to score 15. In another version of the game, you can determine that you’ll both have a set number of pitches, and whoever has the most points at the end wins.

Remember the goal is to not only get more points, but to stop your opponent from scoring. Sometimes the best tactic is not to pitch for the point but to cover or knock over the opponent’s leaning shoe.

A backyard set of horseshoes will run you about twenty bucks. If you look around, I bet you’ll find some public horseshoe pits near you and probably a league looking for members.

July 23, 2016
The Sitting Disease

In the late 1980’s there was an incredible innovation that came into the business mainstream — like a bull — and it was called voicemail and — it— changed — everything. I mean everything. Oh there had been some other recent technological advances before this; yeah, fax machines were pretty cool — you could send a document from New York to California in seconds, what’s not to love about that? But voicemail altered the very fabric of our everyday jobs. It changed how we moved around, how we reacted to new information. It meant freedom.

But in order to appreciate voicemail you need to understand what work-life was like before this amazing breakthrough.

For example, the challenge with being an outside salesperson back then was that it was very difficult to actually get outside. At all. You had a desk and you had customers — that called you at your desk. They called with issues, corrections, questions, change orders, to input new orders, expedite and sometimes just to talk. It was necessary to take these calls, to react to these needs, but it was also necessary to meet with customers as well as cultivate new business. But this meant leaving your desk. And your phone.

Now we had answering machines at this time — they had been around for ten years or so and yeah, that changed things a bit. They were these big clunky tape recorders that sat on a secretary’s desk and recorded any general phone messages that came in after hours. So even if you called in late — even at midnight — you could leave a message. But voicemail was so much better.

Because the thing with voicemail was that you didn’t have to be physically at the tape recorder to get your message. You could be — anywhere.

If a customer called the office and you weren’t there, or if they called your voicemail directly, they left a message. Then at any payphone, at any phone at all — anywhere in the world — you could call the voicemail number, push a code and get all your messages. You could be down the street or across the country and still get your messages.

Just — like — that!

And as if a lock had been picked, as if a door was swung open, we were no longer chained to our desks. We could be on the road all the time. If we had a phone nearby we could gather our messages and take care of them from anywhere.

We had become —- mobile.

And that was just the beginning. After that came mobile phones and emails and smart phones and Bluetooth and a bunch of other things that followed. All mobile. All giving us freedom. Freedom to move — in fact a new smart phone commercial shows a a surfer sending an email — inside of a wave.

And the mobile revolution had begun.

And now —. Thirty years into this mobile movement. After we are free to be as mobile as we want to — we are the most sedentary that we have ever been. Ever. In history.

Since the beginning of time, today, at this point in our history — Americans spend more of the day sitting then ever before. Ever.

Thirty years after all of this mobility started, we now sit for most of the day. Sometimes for fifteen hours a day.

In fact, we’re mobile, we’re on the go, but we’re still sitting. We sit in the car, we sit on the plane, we sit in the airport waiting to get on the plane. We sit in the waiting room, we sit at home and of course — we sit at work.

So why is this a big deal?

Well, we were not built to sit. We were built to move. And with sitting we increase our risk of heart disease to 65% — which means that we have just given away seven years of our life by sitting. Add to that the risks of certain types of cancer.

Immediately after you sit down, the electrical activity in your muscles slows down dramatically along with your ability to burn calories. If you sit for a full 24-hour period, you experience a 40 percent reduction in glucose uptake in insulin. All of which has caused many health experts to call sitting; the new smoking.

To break that down, The American Cancer Society recently published an article stating that men who sit 6 hours a day are 48% more likely to die before their standing counterparts and women that sit this long are 94% more likely to die.

http://www.juststand.org/tabid/674/language/en-us/default.aspx

The only good news about this is that the effects are reversible.

– Stand up once an hour.

– If your driving, pull over every hour or so and stretch for a few minutes

– Walk during breaks.

– Look into standing-desks and working more while standing.

– Walk a message to a co-worker instead of sending an email.

– Park as far away as possible and walk to where you’re going.

– Exercise three times a week.

And get moving.

July 22, 2016
How to make homemade chili

In March of 1519, when Cortes landed in what is now Veracruz, Mexico, to conquer the Aztec Empire, he arrived with only 500 men, 15 cannon and 20 horses. With this he would face the 12 million strong Aztec Nation.

Shortly after Cortes reached Mexico — just so there would be no confusion on intent — he ordered the sinking of ten of their eleven ships so retreat was never an option for his men — they would go home when Mexico was part of Spain, or they would not go home.

As they moved towards the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, Cortes recruited troops by conquering villages and making alliances with various enemies of the Aztec’s. In fact, when a rival Spanish contingent landed, Cortes quickly defeated them and the remaining soldiers were absorbed into his army.

In November of that year, after conquering numerous Aztec cities, Cortes and his new army — numbering now in the thousands — arrived in Tenochtitlán. Clad in their Spanish armor and riding horseback — which the Aztecs believed were deer — Cortes and his men were perceived as gods —- which made it easier for the Emperor Montezuma to be taken prisoner and for the Spanish to begin removing the gold from the city.

Once the capital was taken, the army continued, city by city, until August of 1521 — only two years later — when the last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtémoc, surrendered to Cortes. The Aztec Nation was no more.

Now, the reason these details survived over the last 500 years is largely due to one man. A conquistador named Castillo, who fought with Cortes, had a first hand account of the events, but more importantly kept an extremely accurate journal — in fact, it is from Costillo, that the first documented chili recipe exists.

[amazon asin=0761147616&template=iframe image][amazon asin=091484606X&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B003IKMSFE&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B0030T1KR0&template=iframe image]

In one of the very early battles with the Cholulan Indians, in 1519, Castillo wrote that the Cholulan’s were so confident of their defeat over Cortes that they boiled chilies, tomatoes and spices, as a meal to celebrate.

What was missing in the pot? Meat — which the conquistadors would provide because the Cholulan’s planned on eating them.

The day — and the meal — did not go as planned but what did occur was that the first meatless chili recipe was documented.

From there, chili migrated from Mexico through Texas and into the American Frontier where wagon cooks created brick chili; where they would cook chili and then compress the liquid out and form it into bricks so they could transport and cook on the trail by warming it up and adding water.

But it wasn’t until 1893, at The Chicago Worlds Fair, that The San Antonio Chili Stand exposed 27 million people to the wonders of chili. And from there chili became a part of our American — and worldwide — culture.

For something so simple in nature — tomatoes, peppers and meat — it’s amazing how many types of chili there are.

For example, Chili con Carne is the traditional chili with meat.

Texas Chili, contains no beans; it’s simply meat, peppers and tomatoes — and a true Texas Chili purist will say that the stew should have no other vegetables but peppers.

Chili Verde is a spicy green chili that is made with pork that has been slow-cooked in chicken broth, peppers, and chili — with no tomatoes.

And there are many more. And within these and other categories there are a myriad of styles. In fact, the great thing about chili is that there are no two alike.

Having our own signature chili recipe is important for us modern men for several reasons. First of all it’s an inexpensive but hearty meal. Being able to whip up a quick pot of chili means we will never go hungry. Also, chili is the quintessential guy meal that is so versatile and allows us so much creativity in preparing, so we get to expend some creative energy in perfecting our chili. And a quick pot of homemade chili is the perfect and simple dish to bring to an event or when you have people over.

HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE CHILI

If you follow just one rule, just one, then you’re chili will be in the top twenty percent of all the homemade chili’s out there.

The rule is this.

Use dried beans.

Canned beans are fine to use for chili — and I’ve made gallons of great chili using canned beans — but by cooking the beans yourself the beans will be firmer and the chili will be heartier. Also, instead of sitting in a salt water solution in the can, your beans will be soaking up all that great flavor of your chili.

Follow the directions on the bag for your beans but the method that seems to work best is the quick soak method — where you bring to a boil for one minute then let it set for an hour.

Now here are the basics, but the one thing to remember is this:

This is not is a chili recipe. You don’t want a chili recipe but you want the basics. You’re going to develop your own.

Cook your dried beans.

In a pan, fry your onions, peppers, garlic, — whatever vegetables you want — until they begin to caramelize and soften.

Brown your meat. Now ground beef or ground turkey is commonly used but you can be creative here and use anything you want; sausage, chicken, pork or cut up a steak or a roast. Also game meats work real well such as venison or goose. If you want to make a meatless chili you can cut up potato or use garbanzo beans or tofu — in fact, rutabaga works great in a meatless chili.

Combine your meat and vegetables in a pot with a few cans of stewed tomatoes, tomato chunks and/or tomato paste or fresh tomatoes if you have them. Whatever you want. You may need to add a little water here but you can also use beer or apple juice for taste.

Add your spices in. This is completely up to you and the only advice is to avoid the chili spice packets you buy in the store — because you can control it better by doing it yourself. The basic spices are cumin, cayenne pepper, chili powder and salt and pepper, tobacco. But there are no spices you can’t use —- I know a man who adds peanut butter and nutmeg in his chili and it tastes great.

Simmer and taste. Let the chili simmer down and let all those flavors meld together and keep tasting it and tweaking it.

And that’s it. Experiment and develop your own recipe. If there is something you don’t like change it next time.

Also, make a big pot. Chili freezes pretty well and you can save it.

Have fun.

July 22, 2016
The 10 greatest guy inventions of all time

There are inventions and then there are guy-inventions — these are the gadgets, tools and innovations that are so deeply embedded in our man-lives that the idea of going without them is completely unthinkable.

Here are the top 10 guy inventions of all time.

10. Ramen Noodles

Whether you buy them now or not, at some point of your life you have consumed many bowls of Ramen noodles, cup o soups, or similar products. Why? Because it’s completely a guy thing; cheap, simple and portable. We lived on this stuff in college and we still buy them when no one is looking.

9. Dish sponge and soap dispenser

If you are not familiar with this one yet, stop what you are doing and run to the store right now. I’m not sure who to thank for this dish washing miracle but it is a clear handle filled with dish soap and a sponge at the end. That’s it. But now you don’t need to fill a sink with water — which men hate — instead you can wash a cup, a bowl, a dish with just the dispenser. Run some water, soap up the dish with it and rinse. Done.

[amazon asin=B00HWL9AR4&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B005BFZ5N6&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B00J7KM5X4&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B00ET5VMTU&template=iframe image]

8. Digital Video Recorder.

This innovation still amazes me. The ability to pause and rewind live TV should be a candidate for The Nobel Prize. Now, we can pause anything we’re watching, get a drink, take a call and come back and not miss anything — as well as skip through the commercials. Also it’s great for those ‘what did he say?’ moments when you can rewind and settle a TV bet.

7. Energy drinks

Sure women buy energy drinks — in fact the largest demographic of energy drink consumers are young mothers trying to get through the day with as much steam as possible. But the idea of energy drinks is completely a guy thing. It’s fast, cold, comes in a can and gets the motor going.

6. Microwave Oven

Microwaves are everywhere men are; construction sites, break rooms, garages. They are these inexpensive little boxes that you plug in, press a buton and within a minute or so your food is hot. What’s not to love?

5. Global Positioning System

The GPS system was the freedom rally-cry for all men. Never again, do we need to hear the words, just stop and ask someone for directions — which in the guy world is equivalent of wearing a dress. And if we keep the volume down and just look at the pretty directions, we actually feel like we’re getting there by ourselves.

4. Safety razor

When is the last time you walked into work and saw a fellow co-worker with those little pieces of toilet paper stuck to his face to stop the bleeding from shaving? For some of you, probably never. That’s because it rarely happens anymore but it used to happen all the time. New razors are so well developed that it’s almost impossible to cut yourself shaving any longer and the shave is close and fast.

3. Cordless drill

When the cordless drills first came on the scene in the 1980’s they were very expensive and the only group that could afford them were professional contractors — while the rest of us looked on with lust. Now, the technology has been so well developed and the price point has dropped so much, that everyone has one. And the new 20 volt models keep their charge forever — months without a recharge.

2. Duct tape

Duct tape is a pressure sensitive tape coated with polyethylene. It was first developed in World War II to seal ammunition cases and make small repairs because of its water resistance. Now, we use duct tape for everything because it’s fast, easy and it works.

1. Television Remote Control

Yes, it’s a cliché, but the truth is the remote control is the greatest guy-invention of all time. It puts the world in our hands, caters to our short attention span and lets us bounce all around the TV universe increasing our programming productivity. In fact, for most of us, if we can’t find the remote — what’s the point of turning the TV on?

July 22, 2016
REVIEW: Film: Snowpiercer.

One of the simplest questions we all get asked is one that I have difficulty answering. It’s one of those in the icebreaker category — you know, not a; where are you from? what do you do? where did you go to school? but the personal tastes and interest question of — what’s your favorite film?

That’s tough. And is absolutely impossible to answer.

See, when I find a film that I like — one that is so good that I just can’t get it out of my head — I will watch it about — well, ten gazillion times. I’ll just keep watching and watching it, over and over; experiencing each scene from the beginning in one continuous loop. I’ll look up deleted scenes. I’ll delve into the life of the actors. I’ll download the actual script and look at how it was first written compared to how it was shot. And when I have reached the ten gazillion mark — when every last bit of emotion and beauty has been wrung out of it and all that’s left is the husk — I’ll discard it. I’ll never watch it again. Ever.

When it comes on TV, I’ll flip past it. When it becomes a topic of conversation, I’ll wait for it to pass. Because I’ve taken too much of it I’ve overdosed. It’s over.

This is the first reason why we’ve not done a film review on 543skills so far. The second reason is that I can be kind of a jerk when it comes to movies — I admit this. But hey, when you give someone 100 million dollars to do something — which is the average price tag right now to make a feature film — you expect a quality product. A better than quality product. With 100 million dollars you should be able to make something unforgettable, that changes lives. Every time.

But there are very, very few absolutely amazing films made. And the even worse part is that we seem to be okay with that.

Which brings us to Snowpiercer.

Now, I first heard of the film when Tim Ferriss recommended it (and I am allowing a few seconds to build up so you think that Tim and I discussed the movie during a racquetball game; that this is the type of movers and shakers I associate with, but actually I read it in his newsletter.) In fact, Tim Ferriss raved about the film. So did a lot of people and Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 95%. So, I watched it.

Now the premise of Snowpiercer is this. The world tries to stop Global Warming by introducing this super chemical into the environment. This chemical is a really bad idea and the entire planet freezes over but not before a genius named Wilford builds a mega train where the last of humanity can be saved and travel around the world at breakneck speeds while the frozen planet lies around them.

There are two classes in this train. There is the first class who spread out among the majority of cars and live a life of luxury and extravagance. And then there are the lower class who in the back and are kept in a crowded windowless car and fed only protein blocks that look like black Jello. But one brave soul from the back named Curtis, has finally had enough of this poor treatment and organizes a rebellion to get his lower class brethren further up in the train where all the food and good stuff is kept.

Now besides the ridiculous plot holes of Snowpiercer — instead of building a train that travels at 90 around the world with no stops and no real purpose to travel, why not take that technology and build a bigger structure that’s stationary — it’s is not a bad film. Not really.

It’s not a good film. But it’s not a bad one. Actually, I’m not really sure what it is.

The end of the film doesn’t leave you with any more answers than you had in the beginning. In fact, the answers that you are given are disappointing at best. You don’t really care about the characters or what happens to them and the few, oh my gosh you’ve got to be kidding, plot twists, don’t work.

What you do have is some visually appealing scenes and some fairly good acting — but with a flat script it really doesn’t matter.

Snowpiercer is worth seeing for the imagery. I guess. But that would be it. There are too many plot speed bumps to count and the end of the ride is — well, just plain silly.

But hey, Tim Ferris said it’s good.

July 21, 2016
The 10 best animated male characters of all time

In the 1960’s, television executives from ABC were looking for a creative way to diversify their advertising customer base and sell the American consumers more stuff. Oh sure, they were getting their fare share of cigarette, car and dish soap ads — yup, got that covered — but the lucrative toy market was slipping by.

Now, at this time Saturday mornings were a soft slot in TV programming and were filled with 1950’s filler — The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Tarzan and some animated shorts used in feature films such as Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry. So, since kids were already watching at this time it became the ideal time to create some original animated content — something that had never been tried before.

What came to be known as Saturday Morning Cartoons was such a huge success and such a big deal in the kid world, that the idea of being sick on a Saturday morning or just plain oversleeping and waking up near noon — when the shows were over —- was the weekly equivalent of missing Christmas. And add to that, now being a social pariah because you would be the only one in fifth grade who didn’t know what mischief Speed Buggy got into — it was enough to ruin your whole week.

As cable television grew the 24 hour cartoon networks grew with it and The Saturday Morning Line Up faded away, replaced by the round-the-clock access to cartoons. But this did not change the impact of cartoons on our lives, in fact it actually expanded it.

THE TEN BEST ANIMATED MALE CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME.

10. UNDERDOG

1964

Yes, he’s a dog, but he’s also a man dog and that counts.

Underdog is that perfect combination of strength and sensitivity. His ability to fight crime, have an active dating life with Sweet Polly Purebred and balance his stressful career as a shoe shine boy — makes him a character to admire.

9. PATRICK STAR

1999

No, SpongeBob didn’t make the list — a little over-performing tipped the scale a bit — but his buddy Patrick definitely did.

Patrick is that perfect combination of a best friend that we all want; strong, funny, willing to do anything we ask and not too bright. Patrick is the guy we all want around and miss when he’s not there.

8. POPEYE

1932

Popeye the comic strip existed long before the animation did — along with Olive Oyl, Sweet Pee and Wimpy — but the very first Popeye animation sets the stage. Here, he and Brutus come across a bevy of bathing beauties near a pool. We see them scanning all the voluptuous women – a little bored — until they came across the skinny, clumsy, Olive Oyle in her clod hoppers and 1920’s bathing dress. They are smitten and the rivalry begins.

[amazon asin=B00NF1IQ9S&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B00D7JNAP8&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B00JZCH3RM&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B002F06Q3I&template=iframe image]

7. SPIDERMAN

1967

The Spiderman animated series began in the late sixties and is responsible for that classic Spiderman theme: Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can …

Although Spiderman was well known before the animated series it was here that the American public got their first inside look at the character of Peter Parker and was able to relate to his vulnerability and strength — plus you just cannot get that stinkin’ song out of your head.

6. BENDER

1999

Bender is a cigar smoking, beer drinking robot with kleptomaniacal tendencies. What’s not to love? He is the best friend of Phillip Fry and an employee of Planet Express in the animated series Futurama. Bender became so popular and made the transition from rogue to hero so many times, that his anti-social activities became largely unnoticed. And out of the six Futurama episodes that were determined to be the most heartwarming, four revolved around Bender.

5. HANK HILL

1997

It’s difficult to think of Hank Hill as a great animated character because we don’t really think of him as animated at all. He is so real that he comes across as more of a painted reality-series character — or that uncle we all have. King of the Hill was so different than any animated series before it, we responded to it as a live action show and found Hank so incredibly straight-laced that he actually became cool.

4. PINKY AND THE BRAIN

1993

You can’t think of Pinky without The Brain so you need to consider them together. Pinky and The Brain are two lab rats that each night, as the lab is closed, begin to launch their master plan to take over the world — well, The Brain’s plan and Pinky just comes along to mess everything up. It’s funny, creative and one of the best animated buddy teams ever.

3. BULLWINKLE

1959

Bullwinkle J. Moose is the big, dim witted, half of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. He lives with his friend Rocky The Flying Squirrel in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota. Each week he and Rocky are thrown in an adventure that usually involves defeating the evil Boris and Natasha. But it’s the subtle innuendos and creative puns of Bullwinkle that make him one of the great animated characters of all time.

2. BUGS BUNNY

1940

Bugs Bunny has been around so long and is so deeply entrenched in our culture that he is all things to all people. His flippant and relaxed attitude — along with that New York accent — makes him strong, curious and cocky. Plus, since he was developed for World War II fundraising and training films, he’s as American as they come.

1. HOMER SIMPSON

1987

Homer is a fat, lazy, simple minded father that at the same time is caring, thoughtful and brave. After over twenty five years of Homer he still amazes us with his diversity and depth. Homer is the guy we don’t mind loaning money to even though we know we’ll never get it back.

July 21, 2016
Eric

Eric tossed the bag in the wheelbarrow as if it was just a second thought, a whim, instead of what it really was — a sixty-pound bag of cement — and it hit the metal wheelbarrow with a thud. Even the wheelbarrow shuttered from the impact but Eric didn’t seem to be affected by the task. He picked up his shovel and pierced the sharp end into the bag — which was disappointing because that was becoming my favorite part — then we pulled out the pieces of bag and I added in water from the hose.

“You two are a mess.” We were caked with mud and sweat when Debbie’s phone made that shutter sound as she snapped a picture.

“The word you’re looking for,“ I corrected her, through heavy breaths. “Is macho.”

“That’s right.” Eric agreed, stirring the cement with his shovel.

“Macho,” I repeated. “And Eric.”

“Hey!”

[amazon asin=B000WEKCFM&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B0026RGNJ2&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B001FBG9WG&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B007CZZS3A&template=iframe image]

Debbie placed the phone back in her pocket because Debbie only takes one picture of anything. Just one. In a world of digital photography, when you could take dozens of shots, increasing the odds of capturing a few treasures, she makes just one single pass at it.

Debbie could stumble across Elvis coming out of a spaceship shaking hands with Jimmy Hoffa and Bigfoot, and she would excitedly pull out her phone and take one single photograph. Click. Then, hours later when she was trying to post that picture— of the spaceship stairs because that’s all she caught — she would actually have the nerve to be disappointed. And this is the reason that the one and only photograph of Eric and I pouring the footers for our new deck, are of both of our backs.

“They’ll be more,” she said.

And there would be. Once the footers were dry, Eric and I would start on the frame and there would be additional pictures — of our eyes closed, our feet and a few of the dog — there is always need for new pictures of the dog. And since pictures of Eric are no longer at a premium — since he’s not dead — there would be time for these new pictures. And since it looks like Eric will remain not-dead for a long time, there would be additional time for other photographs.

Because Eric is not supposed to be just dead, he’s supposed to be long dead. By almost a year. In fact, that’s why he came here and that’s why he ended up living two houses from us. He came here to die.

The details of Eric’s life before we met him, aren’t important — and I don’t know all that much anyway. Only that when he arrived he had made some bad decisions and he was diagnosed as terminal. When the doctors said there was no hope he called his family to say goodbye and this was when his sister Dianne, moved him up from Florida to spend his last few weeks with her and her family.

“I didn’t want my brother to die alone”, Dianne would smile, through tired eyes.

But Eric in those early days is not the Eric of today. He was a skeleton in a red bathrobe that would walk in his front yard to smoke a cigarette and would nod if cornered, but nothing else. He was gaunt, beaten, broken and sleeping in a borrowed bed while the life he was lent was about to come due.

When the doctors said it was time, hospice came. They made him comfortable. They said Eric would be gone in a week. The next week they said it would be the following week. Then they said a month. Then they stopped coming and told Dianne to call them as soon as Eric was dead.

She said she would.

More months went by and Eric’s travels from the house became longer. He took short walks. Then he took longer ones. Then he bought a used bicycle and could be seen peddling through back streets. Even his conversations became longer — on his front lawn, always in that red bathrobe — and any topic was fascinating and new.

I didn’t know Eric before he came here, so I don’t know if that childlike excitement he has now is the real him or the reaction of a man who has been given a second chance and doesn’t want to waste a single moment of it. But the him, now, is easy going and inquisitive and if you just moved into our neighborhood, you would swear that Eric had lived with Dianne and Dan for decades — or even that it was the family home and it was Dan that had moved in with them after he and Dianne got married. He just — belongs here.

“Looks like rain,” Eric covered the two footers with a tarp and we tipped the wheelbarrows over them for additional protection. Then we walked the tools to his truck.

“This is a great truck,” I shut the tailgate.

“I know,” Eric beamed. “Did I tell you I got it for fifteen hundred?”

“No,” I lied.

And I got to hear the story again.

July 21, 2016
The lost art of pickled eggs
There are several symbols of life that have pretty much vanished from the American landscape. These include payphones — you still see a few once in a great while, but they are becoming increasingly scarce — Western Union Telegrams, video rental stores, and gone are the days when you would go to the hardware store to use the machine to test your television tubes; in order to determine which ones needed replacing — eliminating those expensive TV repairmen that charge and arm and a leg.

Yup. Those days are pretty much gone.

And another casualty of modern living is now missing from the neighborhood bar. At one time, there, back by the cash register, near the packs of cigarettes and the book where they kept track of your weekly sign-in — you would always see — it. That gallon jar of pickled eggs. Beautiful, inviting and glimmering in its vinegar glow.

The bar pickled egg had been a staple for decades and often provided the only solid food a working man would have before heading home after a hard day. Originally the bar egg was simply a hardboiled egg; offered free to patrons like pretzels are today — in order to make the customer more thirsty and also to keep them from getting sloppily drunk. But health concerns grew and this practice migrated to selling just the pickled version; which could last longer and removed the need to clean up all those egg shells.

The pickled egg first showed up on the American scene in the 1700’s and although many believe this to be a British transplant, it was actually the German colonists that brought it with them. It was popular with Hessian mercenaries and then migrated over to the Pennsylvania Dutch. It was a very simple practice, where the egg — or the cucumber or the beet — were placed in a jar of spiced vinegar and left there.

If pickling hasn’t become a lost art, it has definitely become a niche one and is often lumped in with canning. Which is not accurate.

Canning is the act of preserving food for storage. Pickling is when the vinegar and spices infuse it and alter the structure.

Can a tomato and you still have a tomato. But pickle and egg and you get something completely different.

Pickling is pretty easy and does not require canning pots and jars and can be done with just a few leftover glass jars and a pot — I mean you can use all that fancy stuff if you have it, but it’s not required. Because you can easily pickle eggs — or sausage or anything — with items that are just lying around the house. . It’s easy. It’s fun and it’s one of those cooking areas that everyone believes is a lot more difficult than it really is. And you can be very creative with pickling because the flavor is changed with not only the spices, but also with what else is pickled with it — hot peppers or fruit you whatever else you add in.

Plus there is this unique effect when you bring homemade pickled eggs to a barbecue or an event that moves you up the unique-ladder — it’s possible that depending on how narrow minded and culinary-retentive your friends are, that no one may eat them, but I guarantee there won’t be three other jars of pickled eggs at the tailgate.

Now the one down side to pickled eggs, is that they do not preserve the food long term like canning does — commercial pickled eggs can be kept on a shelf for years, but homemade ones need to be refrigerated, even before opening.

And the very first — and really the only rule — of any pickling endeavor is, don’t use the prepackaged pickling spices. I have used these before and they are basically salt with some salt added in for flavor. You can create a much, much better brine on your own.

Now, the most difficult aspect of pickling eggs has nothing to do with the cooking part, but has everything to do with getting those eggs out of their shells. Unpeeling hardboiled eggs is tedious and yields completely inconsistent results, so here are a few tricks that work pretty well.

HOW TO PEEL HARDBOILED EGGS
1. The Baking Soda Method
If you increase the pH of the water you are cooking the egg in, the shell will actually break down. So add in 1/2 teaspoon baking soda for every quart water you use. Boil the eggs. Let cool and peel.
1. The Lung Power Method
Here’s how it’s supposed to work: First, crack the shell at the very top and bottom of the egg, then peel off about a dime sized hole on each end. Then, place your mouth over the hole on the top of the egg, and blow. According to some very cool Youtube videos, this should work — but I have only made it work if I use the baking soda method first.
1. The crack all over method
If you take the egg and crack both top and bottom, then, on a paper towel, roll the egg around and crack the entire surface — you’ll know you’ve done this when you stop hearing the cracking sound. Then, if done right, the shell should come off in large pieces. I’ve had this work many times — and not work many times, and the key seems to be that older eggs peel better. Newer ones — especially the ones my wife gets directly from her friends who have chickens — are a pain to peel.
1. The Swirl Method
So the philosophy here is, you cook the eggs, remove them and place in a pot with a few inches of cold water. Then in the pot, swirl they eggs in a circle, letting the eggs bump and crack and slam all over each other. Then when you take the eggs out they should be partially unpeeled and easy to finish. I have tried this method and it works sometimes, but it does make a mess — but you get a great forearm workout.
1. The Glass of Water Method
This is my go-to method for unpeeling hardboiled eggs and I use it all the time. You place the egg in a glass with an inch or so of water in it. Cover the top with your hand and shake it and swirl it. The eggshell will take on small cracks over the surface and the water will get in between the shell and help it slip right off.

HOW TO MAKE PICKLED EGGS

So step one is to find a jar that can be sealed tightly — leftover pickled jars or anything with a wide mouth and a lid that seals. A quart-size canning jar will hold about one dozen medium sized eggs. Clean the jar thoroughly.

Add inside the jar the eggs and the extras — extras can include cut up onion, sweet peppers, hot peppers, garlic cloves, whatever you want.

In a large pan add in ¾ cup of water, 1 ½ cup of apple cider vinegar, 3 tsp salt, 2 tsp sugar, 1 clove garlic, some dill, mustard seed or any other spices you want — remember; there are no rules.

Bring the pot to a boil and then let it simmer for 5 minutes.

Right before you are ready to pour everything in the jar, run hot water over the outside surface of the jars you are using to warm them up.

Pour the mixture into the jar and cover with the lid.

That’s it.
July 20, 2016
Fame

Since the beginning of time, man has been coming up with wise things to say to each other. Pearls of wisdom. Proverbs and sage advice. The best of these insightful phrases are remembered and passed on.

     Two wrongs don’t make a right.

     Necessity is the mother of invention.

     Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

King Solomon — often touted as the wisest man in the world and the author of The Book of Proverbs, in The Bible, penned over a thousand ‘songs’ or wise sayings about God and life. Great stuff such as: A soft answer turns away wrath. Don’t run too far from your problems, you’ll only have that same distance to return. And; A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.

Accurate statements. All of King Solomon’s writings are sound and solid but there is big difference in The Bible between the word of God — I will never leave you or forsake you — and the words of wise men like Solomon — train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will return to it.

Because King Solomon’s words are only wise guidelines and God’s words are where the pure truth of The Bible lies.

We often forget this and therefore the phrases themselves — those motivational words of encouragement that dot our Facebook walls — become our perceived truth. But these phrases can only contain the refection of the truth, not the truth itself.

An example is the phrase is: Do what you love and the money will come.

Cute. But wrong.

If taken literally, this means that if you do only the things that you love and enjoy, you will become wealthy doing it — or at least be able to support yourself doing it. That by going after those areas that we have done before and know that we love, we will be successful and content — so all you need to do is to focus on those things you get pleasure out of and leave the things that you don’t, alone.

I love eating Oreo’s but not only would it be difficult to find someone to pay me to eat them, I guarantee that after a few weeks I would stop loving them.

So the phrase is limited. It doesn’t allow for growth and hard work. A more accurate edit might be: Love what you do and the money will come. Yeah, that’s closer. But, if you drill down deeper into what is around the proverb, what supports it, you will see additional flaws.

So what do we enjoy? — and not only what do we get pleasure out of but why do we get pleasure out of. Because the world is divided between pleasure and pain — we either turn towards something or run from it — yes, that’s true. But there is also the gap factor.

Pleasure is great, but sometimes pleasure can be pulled from one area into another when needed, which is where gaps occur. The obese woman with immaculate hair and makeup has gaps. The short man in the Hummer has them too; pleasure in one area being syphoned to decrease pain in another.

This occurs a lot in The Performing Arts where people become hooked on the adoration, the attention, the notoriety, and not the work.

Here is an example. Think of how many people you know whose dream it is to become one of these three things: a writer, an actor or a musician. Start counting in your head of all the people you know, or have ever known, who have dreamed of becoming well known in one of those categories — to catch their big break, land that perfect roll or simply be discovered.

Got a rough number?

Good. Now, do the same thing and think of people you know whose dreams, who’s very passion, is to break into three completely different career paths. A puppeteer, a juggler or a camera operator.

Got that second number?

Okay, so why is the first number so much higher than the second? According to logic it shouldn’t be. If artistic talent and passion is the true driver, then those numbers should be the same because it takes just as much creativity in making a marionette come to life as it does to pretend to be someone on stage. It requires as much skill to work a TV camera as it does to sing. So why do we not know a single kid who wants to be a juggler when he grows up? Why don’t we have a few dozen friends who after a few too many Budweiser longnecks, pine over the life they should have had with puppets?

Tom Hanks was interviewed once and was asked when he first knew that he was a success. He laughed at this and said that he was a success when he first got out of college and was performing Shakespeare in the Park. He was doing what he loved to do, was happy and probably would have been content performing in that way for the remainder of his career. It wasn’t the fame that drew him, it was the craft.

Kevin Spacy has turned down several film rolls because he doesn’t really like making films. But he loves the theatre and spends as much time performing in theatrical productions as he can.

If your dream is in one that fits in that first category, then here’s the question. How will you know if you are successful?

If the answer is — if the true answer, the one you only tell yourself — is when I’m famous, or when I’m rich, then you are heading towards the shadow of this dream rather than the dream itself. It’s a lie, a trick and a gap.

The Ancient Greeks had a phrase called The Golden Meen. Nothing to excess. Finding the balance. A life with balance is great life. It is strong and solid and cannot be tumbled. But a pursuit where there are only two levels; fame and failure, can never be aligned.

Breaking in. Catching a break. Being discovered. What does that even mean?

If you want to write, to perform or to make music, then do it. Get good at it. Hone your craft. Write plays for your church Christmas play, make music at a retirement home and do standup for Veterans. Use your gift and your passion and give it away. Get good at it.

And find the balance.

July 20, 2016
Clara

About nine years ago — this would have been when my son Alex was about ten years old — we saw Clara for the first time. We were in the car, we had just turned off of Fiddlers Green and onto Governors Avenue and there she was, over to the left side of the road coming towards us.

It was cold outside and Clara was pushing her grocery cart against traffic, the way that bicyclists do, and the wheels of the cart were biting into the grey slush of the road. Alex saw her and he stopped talking. We drove another hundred yards or so before he spoke again.

“We’ve got to go back,” he said.

Now, I know I saw Clara — not really acknowledging her but seeing her the same way I saw the Burger King sign and I saw the Michelin store behind her. But Alex had locked in on her. He really saw her.

“We’ve got to go back,” he repeated.

“Why?”

Alex told me what he’d seen. That there was an old woman in the street. Everything she owned was in one grocery cart and it was cold outside. We had to go back. To help.

“Great idea,” I said magnanimously, as I mentally scanned what cash I had on me — hoping that I had something smaller than a twenty.

“No,” he corrected me. “We need to take her — home. To our house. To live.”

We kept driving and I told Alex how proud I was of him. I praised the great heart he had and told him of what a great kid he was. And then I gently explained how we could help. With a little bit of money.

“No. We need to take her home with us.”

And I explained all the reasons why we couldn’t do that. That the lady was a stranger. We couldn’t bring a stranger into our house, it wasn’t safe. We could help, sure, a little, but we —.

But Alex looked at me with focused eyes. “But Dad, she’s old. And it’s cold and we have that big guest room that no one is using and she can —. “

He kept talking and we kept driving. When we got to Walmart he was still talking — well, I was still talking. Alex was anxiously trying to hurry us up. To get us back in the car and get rolling towards Governors Avenue.

“How about we get her some food while we’re here, huh? How about that?’

“No,” he said.

But I did it anyway. I picked out a few prepackaged sub sandwiches, some chips and some bottled water and I listened to Alex plead. And as I did, I understood that he didn’t want to bring this woman home the way you do a kitten, or a lost dog. She needed to come home with us to be part of us. To be a member of our family.

Why? It was simple. We had the space. We had a house that was warm and dry and there was plenty of food there. There was no reason to discuss it any further. We had resources that someone else didn’t. It was only fair.

We drove back to Governors. To the place we had seen her and she was gone. We drove further down, through the side streets. Nothing. We looked inside of Burger King and the bus stop and then circled the entire loop again but could not find her.

“Okay,” I said. “I have an idea.”

Alex looked up at me as if there was nothing I could have done to disappoint him more. We pulled into the homeless shelter that was on Governors Avenue and I parked the car. We walked inside and told the lady at the desk who we were and who we had had seen and that we wanted to get this food to her.

The woman knew exactly who I was referring to and told us her name was Clara. Clara had been in and out of the shelter many times. She had been offered job opportunities and even an apartment but something always happened. The woman at the desk told Alex how proud she was of him wanting to take Clara home. But that we had to be safe and that there were other ways to help.

And Alex, silent, looked up at the both of us with frustrated eyes. We could show him statistics, photographs, evidence, all day long and it didn’t matter. Here were the only facts that did. There was a woman that needed help. We can help. Done.

We left the food at the shelter — she didn’t know if Clara would be in but she would see it went to good use — and we walked back out to the car.

“Feel better?”

“No.” And he didn’t.

We saw Clara a few more times after that. And then we didn’t see her again.

That was nine years ago. And Alex? Well, he’s nineteen now. And he still has a gentle heart and is a sensitive, caring kid. But he has that filter now about things such as this. The ones we all have.

Now, there was no way that Clara could have come home with us. Absolutely not. I wouldn’t jeopardize the safety of my family, I know that. Everyone knows that. It would never have happened.

But still —. There’s something so —. So absolutely pure about putting what we should do — ahead of what we can do. And instead of finding a way to nurture that better in Alex, I somewhat yanked it out of him.

And I feel bad about that.

July 20, 2016
How to simplify your digital life
On June 5^th of 1883, at the house that stood on 6 Harvey Road in Cambridge, England, John and Florence Keynes gave birth to their very first child. A son they would name John, after his father. Young John, was bright and happy and had the advantage of being raised by a prominent English family that highly valued formal education.

A few years passed and shortly after John’s brother Geoffrey was born, John was enrolled in the Perse School Kindergarten — but was absent a great deal due to illness and was almost held back. And by the time his sister Margaret was born, Keynes was a student at Saint Faith’s Preparatory School, where he excelled in mathematics and algebra and was recognized for the breadth of his vocabulary.

In 1894, at the age of eleven, John Maynard Keynes rose to the top of his class. It was a place that he would stay for the remainder of his education.

1897 came and Keynes won a scholarship to Eton College where he continued to excel in mathematics, and in 1902 he left Eton for King’s College, Cambridge, where he was given another scholarship as well as began to specialize in economics.

Now, if you’ve studied economics, you know the basics of Keynes. He would end up changing the standard economic views of the time; as well alter the way we look at governmental roles. He created in depth theories of business cycles — all of which would be later called Keynesian Economics — and in the 1930’s, he began to seriously challenge world economic concepts. He disagreed that free markets would always provide full employment, as well as the idea of demand leading to periods of high unemployment and argued that governmental regulation would need to closely monitor boom and bust cycles.

Then came World War II and Keynes’s ideas began to be adopted by the leading Western economies, which lead to the creation of The World Bank. And even though Keynes died in 1946, he actually became more influential after his death — as the governments and economic systems that had adopted Keynesian practiced were now booming — which created real life success to support his theories. Time Magazine listed John Maynard Keynes as one of the top 100 most influential people of the 20^th century.

Now there is no doubt of the intelligence and vision of John Maynard Keynes. It’s clear that he was absolutely correct in many of his theories of economics and financial projection, and his understanding of business and world market trends is probably better than anyone’s ever. But — there was one area that Keynes was incorrect about.

In fact — he was dead wrong.

Keynes began to map the growth of technology in the 1930’s. He saw that with the rate of the development of useful tools and innovations being created, that this would eventually affect society as a whole. He factored in the advances he was seeing in communications, manufacturing, transportation, all areas, across all industries, and in an essay entitled Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren, Keynes made a statement that would be tied to his name from that moment on.

“By the time my grandchildren are adults,” Keynes had said. “They would be working a 15 hour work week.”

Technology would free us. New machinery and modernization would be the tools to take on most of the burden of our average work week.

Keynes stated that over time, with the help of machines, technology and new concepts, people would become more productive. Machinery and the modernization of the work place would be able to take on the burden of most of our work week and an hour of labor would produce more and more stuff as time moved on. So we would be able to work less and less. Technology would free us.

And Keynes was —- so wrong.

Well — that’s not true. He was right about the development of technology.

Since his death in 1946, mechanical and computer innovation has changed every aspect of our lives. We can now send information around the globe, in seconds. We can communicate with anyone we want to in a written, video or text format. We have access to information on any possible subject instantaneously and can bounce signals off satellites to track our location and get us where we need to go faster and more efficiently. We can sort, organize or trend data. And we have successfully made the world a much smaller place by opening access to every part of it.

But Keynes was wrong about how this would affect us. It didn’t free us. Not at all. It only lead to the bar being raised.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, an average individual needs to work 51 hours per week today, in order to produce as much as someone who was working 40 hours a week in 1950 — so a team with email, spreadsheets and cell phones, needs to work more than the team with typewriters, carbon paper and messenger services. And in 1990, MIT completed a study that predicting that with the current rate of technology growth, mixed in with the productivity rates; we will need to increase our work by 120% more in the next 50 years to capture the same current production rate. So we will need to work 15 hours more each week in fifty years, in order to be as productive as we are today.

The technology that is available now is not creating less work. It’s creating more, by constantly raising the competitive need. So we end up doing more because we need to do more.

And not only has technology simply raised the minimum standard of work production, it is completely altered how we think and react. We need to be wired, to be connected — all the time. If we hear that ding or buzz of our phone, we have the Pavlovian need to see what it is — no matter what we are doing or where we are.

Here are some interesting facts.

84% of people use their cellphones as alarm clocks, so their phones are right there with them, even when they sleep.

A Health Club chain recently had to post signs asking members not to use cell phones — in the shower.

Lifeline and Link-Up provides free smart phones to those on state welfare programs, as texting capabilities and wireless internet access is now seen as a basic human need.

We are 34% more likely to misplace our car keys, than we are our cell phones, because we are on average away from the less.

Municipalities are now adding signs on rural roads that have limited cell phone coverage to prepare drivers for the fact that their phones will not work for several miles.

Phones, tablets, smart watches and whatever is next in the technology line, are deeply embedded into our lives. So how do we use these tools — as tools and not leashes? How do we take back our lives and unhook the electronic collars?

Well, there are a few ways.
1. When is it ego and when is it priority? Yes, there are times when that phone needs to be glued to your hand — if you’re on call, working out a customer emergency, someone in your family is ill. Yes. You need to work the phone. But those are rare. Most of the times that we respond to an email during dinner, is so we can be the first one on the email chain to do it. To save our place. To let our customers, or co-workers, or the guys on The Little League Committee know that we are on this. And this is just ego. If you are not getting further information or adding information to the conversation, then you are just electronically thumping your chest to show others that you soon will.
2. Respond with data — anytime you send a work email, text, voicemail without new information, you are wasting time. Especially on long email chains where the world is being copied. Determine what the goal is and work towards that.
3. Batch tasks. The most productive people out there, batch there electronic chores. The answer emails in the morning or late afternoon. They respond to texts at lunch and return voicemails only in the car. They get more done in a shorter period of time and actually get real work done, offline, with real people, face to face.
4. Turn off notifications. Just because your aunt posted a video on Facebook or your neighbor put her goulash recipe on Pintrist, this doesn’t make it news. Those notifications are only distractions. So turn them off and look at them later.
5. Leave it in the car. If you look at an organization’s highest ranking individuals, thye almost always never arrive at a meeting, presentation, lunch or discussion, with their cell phone. They almost always leave it in the car. These are the people that want to be focused and want you to know that they are. The reverse side of that is, when you are meeting with high ranking people from other companies, they won’t have their’s either. And they will respect those that give them the same respect.
The simple rule is you want walk around all day with your hammer or a spatula. You use these things when needed then put them back. The same thing is true for your phone, tablet watch or whatever other magical electronic gadget you have. Use the tool and master it. Then put it away.

Confidence is found when you can distance yourself until needed.
July 16, 2016
The bar

On Sunday February 4^th of 2007 — the day of Superbowl 41 — our house in Vestal, New York, was empty.

The wooden floors — that had been protected by rugs and furniture for over a decade — were now shiny and bare. The walls — including the ones that Debbie had made me paint twice when she changed her mind on the color — were now only decorated with outlines of where picture frames had blocked the sun. And rooms that we once knew every noise and bump of, now bounced strange sounds through empty spaces.

The new job I had accepted, came with a complete relocation package, which included a team of packers and movers that marched in and took our entire life — beds, bicycles, furniture, the kids toys, clothes and ten years of living — and squeezed it all into one single truck; into 208 square feet of moving space. Or 52 square feet per person. Or 19 square feet, for every year we had lived there. And all that life, all that stuff, was now parked in a storage lot for a week, until we could close on our new house, two states away.

But we would need to move out now, in order for the new owners to move in. So we would leave the town where Debbie and I had first met — at Energetics Health Club, just three blocks from our house — and where our wedding reception was — The Vestal Steak House on The Vestal Parkway — and we would leave the area that we had known for years, leave the neighborhood, the family, and the familiar.

But first, we would go to the Superbowl and going-away-party at Jennifer and Dave’s next door. The entire neighborhood would be there and we would say our goodbyes and then we would come home for one last time. We would climb into our sleeping bags that were spread out on top of air mattresses and we would sleep. And then in the morning, we would leave.

And the house at 317 Frey Avenue in Vestal — the place that had been home for eleven years — would belong to someone else.

Now, when we first bought the house — this was back in 1996 — that move was so much simpler than this one. Going from our small apartment to that big house was incredibly easy and only took my cousin Brad and I a few hours. Plus, we were only a family of three then — Nick was a toddler and Alex hadn’t been born yet and we actually wondered how we would ever fill that big house.

That first night that we spent in our new Vestal home, back in 1996, Debbie and I had sat in the living room together. We had put Nick to bed and were watching Aladdin — the cable wouldn’t get turned on until the following week and we only owned kid’s video tapes — and it was then that Debbie made the announcement.

“Go get us wings.”

Now in Endicott, where our old apartment was — clear across the river — there were plenty of places to get chicken wings and Debbie and I had become complete Endicott wing snobs over the years. But we were in Vestal now.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Go find a place.”

Now finding a place for good chicken wings in upstate New York is not as difficult as you think. It’s like trying to find a good show in Vegas, or a great fishing spot in Maine. The corner bar-and-grill always had the best food and there were hundreds of them around. So I got in the car and drove.

And that’s when I found The Terrace.

It was packed inside when I walked in but I made my way up to the bartender.

“You look lost,” Lynn spoke over the noise of the jukebox and the crowd, but she was smiling.

“Yeah, I might be. How are your wings?”

She gave me a look that was a combination of — what, are you stupid? Mixed with — don’t insult me by asking. So I ordered two dozen wings to go, and sat at the bar and nursed a beer.

I would stay there for the next eleven years.

At least once a week we got wings, or sandwiches or some other food from The Terrace — and of course you have to go there to order it. And I became a regular. The Terrace became my bar and I became a part of it. Now I never stayed late, I was always home by six o-clock, plenty of time for dinner with Debbie and the kids, or I brought dinner with me from there — and I was rarely there on weekends. Just once or twice a week for a few hours; the minimum amount of time required to hold my place in the pack. Just enough to keep the bar a part of me and me a part of it.

Now, everyone has a roll to play at a bar. You have your experts on everything — Mike. You have your big shots — Chris the lawyer and Jimmy the broker. You have the pack leaders — big Frank and Remmy. You had borderline criminals — Newt and the haircut guy, and you had a potpourri of assorted bar characters.

And at The Terrace, I got to play the part of the writer; a fun roll that required very little work and absolutely no writing. You just needed to talk about writing once in a while and as long as there wasn’t another writer that was already accepted as part of the group — which happens a lot — then you get to be it.

And then you can cool phrases used about you, like — you should tell Everett that story, he’s the writer.

I cried at The Terrace. But I laughed there too. And I always left before I really wanted to. And I did this for eleven years; from 1996 to 2007, and during that time I belonged to The Terrace and it belonged to me.

And then 2007 came and we moved away.

And although I thought about the bar — a lot — I had never been back. Not even when I’d be passing through that area — I guess I was afraid of not wanting to see something spoiled or ruined. So I never went back.

Until last month.

I was in town heading to Syracuse for a meeting and didn’t want to drive any further, so I checked into The Hampton Inn in The Vestal Parkway and then headed for The Terrace for wings.

It’s humbling to go back to places that were once important to you. Just because you left, you expect them to wind down and stop but they continue. And there are all new faces. With all new groups, that come with a different pecking order and a new gauge of respect and esteem. And you want to grab these people and tell them that you were part of this once too. That you sat where they sat and you passed the same tests they did. And that there was a time when your group — not there’s — were important to this place.

It’s sad when time moves on without you.

But it’s even sadder when it doesn’t.

I had just walked through the door of The Terrace and was working my way towards one of the many empty barstools, when I heard my name. Then I heard it again. Then again.

After nine years — they were all still there. Mike. Sam. Big Frank. Remmy. Lynn. All of them.

They were all still there.

And I sat at the bar and ordered my wings. And the back-slaps and the handshakes started. And then those little blue plastic chips began to build up around my beer glass — this one is from Mike. This is from big Frank. And I took my position back.

The great crowds are now gone from The Terrace. The once strong blue collar area has dwindled, with most of the coveted high paying factory and manufacturing jobs all but vanished. And many buildings are empty, some with broken windows and grass growing through employee parking lots that once held hundreds of cars and trucks. So the large crowds had moved on, but the people at The Terrace who held court over them, have remained at their post.

Since I moved, I found the time to finally finish that book I was always talking about and it had been out for a year. And although they all knew about it, they teased and congratulated me, those accolades didn’t give back the emotional dividend I always dreamed it would.

Because it wasn’t that I moved on from The Terrace. I didn’t. I just — moved. I cheated. I didn’t graduate or wake up one day and no longer need it. I just took the bar out of the equation. And if we hadn’t moved, if I hadn’t evaded that decision, would I still be there too?

I never found a bar in Dover — where we live now. I remember looking for one when we first arrived, but I didn’t look very hard. And I don’t regret my time at The Terrace, but I don’t yearn for it either. That might be maturity, but I doubt it.

It’s just that — over time you begin to see the beauty in the unassuming parts; work, writing, the house. Because older men crave all of those things — we thrive on it. We hunt it. Older men need results.

Younger men don’t.

They need bars. Where all you need to do is dream it. Brag about it. And promise to one day — claim it.

And if your do that — then it’s real.

May 16, 2016