New Jersey

With the possible exception of Idaho, New Jersey has been maligned more than any other of these United States. Not fair. More than a garden state, New Jersey has managed to assemble an enviable array of scenic and cultural riches within its borders. Many outsiders simply do not appreciate it.

New Jersey has mountains, seashore and historic treasures by the handful.  It is certainly much more than the New Jersey Turnpike, the frame of reference for the unknowing. The current flap about its governor and unnecessary closings on the George Washington Bridge (“Bridgegate as it is now called) did a real disservice to the citizens of the state. But let's pause for the moment to focus on some positive things.

Visitors to New Jersey come from near and far.  In general they enjoy themselves mightily, returning home with rich memories. People from New York State, right next door, have easy access to the northern end of New Jersey with its extensive beaches, the Statue of Liberty Park and countless other attractions. Those of us from Philadelphia, just across the Delaware River bridge, have always considered “Jersey” our second home. Going “down the shore” was part of our vocabulary.  Beyond submarine sandwiches (“zeps”, “hoagies” or whatever you prefer to call this delicacy) we share an affinity for cinnamon buns, field grown tomatoes and sweet corn.  Those of us of a certain age remember our teenage years on the home front during World War II, when too young to serve in the military, we spent our days in Ocean City, Atlantic City and other towns along the southern part of the state. Those were times when members of the Coast Guard and their dogs patrolled the beaches on the lookout for German submarines that might be landing spies. (From time to time they did just that along our USA shores.) Adventurous boys and girls hid in the sand dunes evading these patrols. Days of innocence and insanity to be sure.  These are just a part of my personal memories. Others have their own fond reminiscences of that great state, New Jersey.

The point of all this is to say that even those who are not residents of the State of New Jersey feel offended. We decry the politically inspired mess and inconvenience Bridgegate caused to so many hard working people. Equally onerous, we simmer at the terrible cost to the reputation of the State of New Jersey. It is reprehensible. Those responsible for this disgrace simply must be held responsible. Starting at the top, which is usually a very good place to start.

Mrs. Claus and the New Year

Now that Santa has completed his 2013 Christmas run and is safely back home in the North Pole, he deserves some R&R.  How does Santa chill out?  Is he knocking back a few Heinekins as he sits in his big easy chair away from the manger and also away from the fireplace? (“ I don't want to even see another damn fireplace until next December,” he rumbled).  We assume that Mrs. Claus is happy to have him back, but having Santa and the flying reindeer away for a while did give her a mini-vacation of sorts.

Mrs. Claus has her own fans in Christmasland. One holiday shopping photo that showed Santa without his wedding ring brought a number of irate complaints on the Internet. Well, relax. Rest assured that the marriage is intact; their biggest domestic challenge right now is to make New Year resolutions. It's no easy task for them, nor for us.  Historically many a good intention dies by the wayside even before the end of January.  Did you ever wonder about those grassy hills that dot the land just to the sides of our turnpikes and major highways?  They are made up of garbage, trash, discarded furniture and broken New Year resolutions.

Where to start?  Many of us consider losing weight. I've made that resolution every year since forever. (Now I simply look at the percentage of gain as compared to other years.)  Barbara Szala our esteemed President here at In-Person Communications has made a very successful career out of helping clients. Her annual project of baking delicious Christmas cookies also falls into that category, but woe to waistlines. Count me in anyway. There are many desirable New Year resolutions  -  not losing your temper when caught in endless traffic around Fort Lee on the George Washington bridge or refraining from comments on the idiocy of Washington, D. C. among them.

But here's one we can all embrace: simply put, it's being grateful for the blessings we have already received.  If we but pause to think about them, 2014 will be off to a great start.

Happy New Year!

Hacking Around

Q: What do Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, Francois Hollande, president of France and Charles Reilly, Jr., your scribe, share in common?    

 A. We three have been subjected to invasions of privacy.  Our communications have been interrupted; we've been spied upon. “Hacking” is not good by anyone’s standards except for the Benedict Arnolds of our day who pose as heroes by opening up someone else's mail in the name of transparency.

Spying is not news of course. Our own National Security Agency (NSA) has been looking over the shoulders of friends and foe alike since forever. So have the intelligence agencies of virtually every other nation in this world.  The difference is that here in the good old USA we are better at it because we have the dollars and the technology to stay ahead of the pack. That is until we are betrayed by one of our own. Then the whole thing is a pretty sad mess. 

It's one thing to be linked with Angela and Francois when it comes to being in good company, quite another to be victimized by having your privacy violated and having to pay tech people to clear up the damage. Yes, losing my address book was bad, almost as bad as the insensitivity of my carrier, AOL.com. They offered no help at all unless I would sign up for a monthly fee looking forward.  As my IT put it to AOL “you are holding his personal address book hostage; you are blackmailing him.”  Words fell on ears that did not hear.

There is general sadness these days about the loss of “ethics”, “integrity” and others words that once epitomized quality of life. They are pretty much gone with the wind. This particular hacking of my computer was a deeper wound because it came as we were announcing to the world the birth of our first great grandson, Charles Henry Williamson. As a consequence an exceptionally large number of people were inconvenienced. Again, I apologize to each of you. 

As for AOL.com., well, you can pretty much read my mind.

JFK

Just about everybody remembers where they were on November 22, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald squeezed a trigger and killed John Fitzgerald Kennedy 50 years ago. America lost more than our president, as traumatic as that was. What was now gone, and what we have never since regained, was a sense of beauty and promise beyond the ordinary. Call it “Camelot” or whatever you like.  We knew what it was then and we miss it today.

On that November day, I was at Warner Brothers in California. Standing in front of the studio where Al Jolson made the first “talkie”, I was talking with John “Johnny” Beradino, the former baseball player who was then starring in a television soap called “General Hospital”. A man ran through the main gate screaming and waving to us. He was too far away to hear what he was saying. We assumed he was just extending a long distance greeting to Beradino. John waved back, and not knowing what else to do, I waved as well. Some minutes later another man rushed by to say that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. Beradino and I immediately went into the studio reception area where a TV news bulletin was in the midst of telling the world that JFK had been assassinated. You probably felt then as I did – stunned, speechless. So was everyone else. Everything stopped.

Later that day en route to the airport for a return flight to New York the conversation in the car, what there was of it, had to do with the wounds the president had suffered. I remember telling another passenger that my medic training preached “you could survive any wound to the body except a direct hit in the heart.”  At the same time your chances of making it through without severe disability after taking a deep gunshot or shrapnel wound to the head were very slim because “there is so much sophisticated wiring up there in the skull.”

We lost John Kennedy that day but the mystique he created remains and grows even stronger with the passing years.  If you want to gain valuable insight into the hard-driving Kennedy clan, especially JFK the man, politician and president, I suggest you read “The Patriarch” by David Nasaw.

Yes, time does indeed march on for all of us.  Nevertheless, going to California since that fateful November 22 has always depressed me.

You Can't Go Back

A friend asked me if I ever plan to return to my old neighborhood, which in my case means either Darien, Connecticut, or the Main Line of Philadelphia.  My answer was “No, I can't go back because it isn't there anymore.”

 

It's true you know. Those happy memories I hold are mine alone.  I am happy to have them plus, and importantly, no one can take them away from me. But in reality those yesterdays are long gone along with many of the men and women who created the memories with me. The sites and the sounds are gone as well. “Enhancements” “improvements” and tall towers have replaced the cozy neighborhoods that made up so many yesteryears for our gang. Bigger is not necessarily better. 

Life goes on, dear reader.  Neither thee nor me can stop the treadmill to oblivion that is nature's way. Best to live in the present, cherish the past and hedge our bets hoping that Washington, D.C. won't make it any worse than they already have. 

All is not doom and gloom however. We just have to dig deeper to find our everyday gold. It's still there. Dig on. Stay with me for few more paragraphs while I try to make my case. When I was born back in the middle ages, Calvin Coolidge was President of these United States.  “Silent Cal” was more or less famous for not being famous.  He was followed by a lineup of men who were good, so-so or not very good at all. But we made it through the changes in Washington because we married, raised families and saw yet another generation dance down the very same yellow brick road. 

So yes, it pains me to see supposedly grown up men and women seemingly incapable of working out sensible solutions for our beloved (and their beloved) country. I have written to my representatives expressing my dismay. I will express my chagrin at the ballot box.  And in the meantime, my check will not be in the mail. On the other hand my lovely granddaughter, Brooke, is marrying Noah, a very nice gentleman next week.   

The gold of love, laughter and sunshine is still there to be found. And when we gather it up, let's appreciate our blessings in the here and now.

Golf

Everyone agrees, even we non-golfers, that the 2013 U.S. Open Golf Tournament was superb.

For me watching it unfold on television way down here in Florida there was an added attraction. This year's Open was played at the Merion Golf Club which sits right in the middle of my old neighborhood on Philadelphia's Main Line.

Which by the way is not so much what it used to be, as portrayed most famously in the motion picture The Philadelphia Story starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, as for what it is today. These little communities that tie together what William Penn fondly called his Greene Countrie Townes are populated nowadays by mostly ordinary folk who are scrambling 24/7 to make a living knowing full well that Wall Street or Washington can take it all away in a heartbeat. Yes snobbery and using terms like “old sport” or speaking with an under-bite still exists but mostly they are gone with the wind. After all how long can you sit by a swimming pool reviewing your portfolio and talking exclusively to your cousins?

Starting with the Overbrook station at the border of the City of Philadelphia the primary (main) line of railroad tracks wend their way northwest into leafy suburbia and stations like Merion, Ardmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Villanova. Many of the communities surrounding these stations include colleges and universities of national renown. All in all the Main Line is an area of rich cultural blessing. And, if military history happens to be your thing, you just can't have it any better than visiting the grounds of conflict where our country won its freedom.

Play at the 2013 U.S Open Golf tournament was more than a nostalgia trip down Memory Lane and Revolutionary War battle sites for me as well as the countless others who followed Open play on the tube.  It was an exceptional outing on a truly exceptional golf course.

But right now it's Happy Hour here in The Land of Eternal Sunshine. Time for me to ask my golfer spouse to explain the meaning of Birdie, Bogey, Eagle, let alone Triple Bogey and Shank.

10 S N E 1

Early in his Broadway stage career Humphrey Bogart was cast in drawing room comedies, usually as second juvenile. In one of these he spoke the immortal line “Tennis, anyone?”  Generations of bon vivants and lesser souls have echoed that line on and off the court ever since. One blonde in Connecticut had “10 S N E 1” as her license plate. 

Which brings us round to the French Open in Paris, one of the truly great settings for this much admired sport. 2013 play on that infamous red clay was extraordinary by anyone's standards. Yet a very real danger hangs over the head of this masterpiece. It has nothing to do with the red clay and the generally unfavorable weather sans roof. Certainly no blame can be laid on the shoulders of the players. It has everything to do with the chattering American television commentators. And part of this has to do with our national tendency to talk a lot more and listen a lot less. European broadcasters tend to let play speak for itself, not so for those of us on this side of the pond. 

This time out John McEnroe, Mary Carillo and Ted Robinson were at it again.  McEnroe truly knows the game and the nuances of same.  Yes, he would be better off by putting the lid on his “bad boy” days. Realistically the best we can hope for is that he minimizes recalling his own mischievous antics. Mary Carillo becomes less likeable with every outing. She is constitutionally incapable of shutting up. Ted Robinson, playing the role of Ed McMahon to McEnroe as Johnny Carson, spends most of his time feeding John opportunities to talk about what he did in the long ago. This year Ted got so gushy it was a better deal to turn down the sound. 

And it was certainly a better deal to turn the sound OFF when Maria Saharipova and Victoira Azarenka shrieked with every shot. They set a decibel high that will remain unmatched for the ages. They are both gifted athletes and selective commentary would help television viewers enjoy their play. But who can handle the headaches? 

The next French Open will probably be 10 S N E minus this 1.