Another Auld Lang Syne

Whether your reaction to 2019 having reached its final day is one of thanks, of regret, or of something else altogether, this year's final act is upon us.  2019 was the first year since 2016 in which Nana and Pop Pop did not experience the joy of a new grandchild being born.  In 2020, we are expected to put an end to this one-year drought.  My wish?  Same as it has been the first three times, which is that mother and baby both come through the experience healthy and happy, appreciating that from the mother's perspective "happy" is a relative term inexorably linked to the labor.  

However and wherever you shall mark the transition from this year to the next, may you be in the company of at least one person you love very much and who feels that very same way about you. May you in 2020 attain the peace each of us longs for and that, at our core, each of us needs.  

Be careful out there. 

-AK

Satisfaction by Subtraction

In the wee small hours of the early days of this year (January 2nd to be exact), I deleted my Facebook account and my Twitter account.  2019 proved to be a very peaceful year.  

It also proved to be one in which I remained as well-informed (take that for whatever it is worth) as I had been prior to my conscious uncoupling from Mr. Zuckerberg's and Mr. Dorsey's creations.  Information remained accessible - as it always had been.  I simply turned off the tap on the two streams of gossip and, more and more, vitriol, which I had permitted into my day-to-day.  

Mr. Zuckerberg still has his claws in me, of course, through my maintenance of an Instagram account, which I presently have no intention of giving up.  I love looking at photographs (principally those of my grandchildren, but also of sunrises, sunsets, beaches, mountains, and pretty much everything my fellow Buff, Allison Pease of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, chooses to shoot).  

I also enjoy the daily proclamations of whoever runs the "Fuckology" page.  If you have an Instragram account and do not follow Fuckology, I heartily recommend that you consider doing so.  It will make you laugh. It will also make you think. At least that is its effect on me.  If I had $1.00 for every time that either Margaret or Wilma or I come across something on it that we immediately share with one another via text message (although all three of us follow the page), I would be able to ignore my alarm at least one morning a month.

Peace is often hard to attain.  Once you do so, it requires work and perseverance to maintain.  Sometimes, the required maintenance includes the performance of seemingly small tasks that prove to not be so small after all.  

Hitting "DELETE" for example.  Twice. 

-AK 

The Final Chapter of the Book of Eli

Eli Manning shall wear the uniform of the New York Giants for the final time this afternoon, when the Men of Mara Tech complete their latest forgettable season in a meaningless (for them) game against the Philadelphia Eagles.  Barring a lopsided score one way or the other or an injury to starting quarterback Daniel Jones, it is reasonable to anticipate that Mr. Manning shall not play any meaningful minutes today.  In fact, he may not take even a single snap from center. 

While he has not asked for my input, and I do not expect that he shall, I hope that since today marks the end of his career as a player for the Giants, it also marks the end of his NFL career.  He is an individual who has represented himself, his family, his team, the community in which he plays, and his profession with dignity since entering the NFL out of Ole Miss in the 2004 draft.  I would prefer not to turn on my television set at some point next fall and see him wearing the uniform of a team other than the Giants.  As a New York Yankees fan, it made me happy that certain of my favorite Bombers, including Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, and Derek Jeter, played their entire MLB career in pinstripes.  As a New York Giants fan, I was happy that players for whom I cheered, such as LT, Phil Simms, and the great Harry Carson, never played for a team other than Big Blue.   

Regardless of whether the Giants win or lose today and regardless of whether #10 sees the field at Met Life Stadium one final time, I believe that he shall be long-remembered and well-remembered by the Giants and by the fans.  I do not pretend to know whether the Hall of Fame awaits him.  I do know that he has always been an impossibly easy player for whom to cheer, even when his performance and his team's performance has not been.  

ESPN.com has a beautiful piece of writing by Ian O'Connor, which I commend to your attention, in which O'Connor examines the relationship between Eli Manning and his teammates and, also, between Eli Manning and New York City.  

I suspect that both the men with whom he has played and the city in which he has played will miss him a great deal.  I also suspect that he shall miss them every bit as much. 

-AK     

Heartbreak and Homecomings

This year, due to work and other scheduling issues, the Colorado branch of the family tree could not jet east from Colorado to the ancestral home here in the State of Concrete Gardens until Christmas morning.  Santa having completed his air travel before they commenced theirs, they found the skies to be not only relatively friendly but relatively free of traffic.  Their arrival, although at a time later than those of us here might have hoped, was a joyous occasion.  It was treated as such. 

Not every New Jersey family was as lucky as ours this Christmas.  We did not all get to celebrate a loved one's happy return to the ancestral home.  For some of us, the return was something significantly less than happy.  It was heartbreaking. 

Westwood, New Jersey is a town of approximately 10,000 people located in Bergen County.  In the past decade, it has lost two of its sons in the service of this nation.  Both were killed in action in Afghanistan.  An IED killed twenty-five-year-old Sgt. Christopher Hrbek, U.S.M.C., died on January 14, 2010, while Sgt. Hrbek was on patrol.  

Then, on December 23, 2019, Sgt. First Class Michael Goble, a fifteen-year-veteran of the United States Army and a member of its Green Berets since 2007, was killed in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan's Kunduz province.  Sgt. Goble was thirty-three.  He was less than a month away from completing his fourth and final combat tour in Afghanistan at the time he was killed.  Sgt. Goble and his girlfriend, Jen, have a six-year-old daughter, Zoey. 

Christmas is a day when the wreaths we hang should be green and not black.  It is a day when we hope to spend at least a bit of time with a person or persons we love most of all and who feels similarly about us.  It is a day when we do our level best to gather around us as many of those who we love.  Home is, after all, wherever our heart is.  

This Christmas, the family of Sgt. First Class Michael Goble endured a singularly heartbreaking homecoming.  On Christmas Day, Sgt. Goble's remains arrived in the United States on a flight that landed at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware.  

If life was a fair fight, then every Christmas tale would have a very happy ending.  It is not. Therefore, they do not.  Sometimes, such as in the case of Sgt. Goble's family (including six-year-old Zoey), the inequities seem particularly pronounced and the outcome seems especially unfair. 

-AK 

Mileposts or Millstones

I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray...

The final Friday of the second decade of the 21st century is upon us.  While I have not looked for one, it would not surprise me to learn that Hallmark crafted a card for just such this occasion.  "Final Friday of the Decade" seems like a worthy addition to the pantheon of greeting card company-created, made-up "days" that now pockmark the calendar.  I now believe that formerly stand-alone holidays such as Lincoln's Birthday and Washington's Birthday have been glued together to form one new holiday, President's Day, not to create a long weekend in mid-February but to open space for two new faux holidays for which greeting cards could be created.  

All kidding aside, we are now 20% of the way through the 21st century.  Does it not seem like just yesterday that the world was atwitter about Y2K and the havoc it would wreak?  Now the world is merely atwitter about all of the nonsense that finds a forum on Twitter, a platform that not all of us use (such as Yours truly) but that some among us use maniacally, more than making up for non-Tweeters like me.  

If you are a 20th century child whose life has now continued into a whole new century, do you recall what your hopes and dreams were for the 21st century way back when twenty years ago?  Do you recall what it was that made you most afraid when you thought about what life "in the future" would entail?  One score later, have things worked out as well as you had hoped, as badly as you had feared, or something else altogether?  

No matter what your answer is to that question, Hallmark probably makes a card for it.  If they do not, rest assured that they will by this time next decade.  Or better yet, my friend Phil Ayoub and his great outfit, Bow Ties Greeting Cards, shall.  If he is not your go-to guy for a greeting card, then damn it he should be.  

-AK 

Exercising and Exorcising

I struggle every day, in my day-to-day, to maintain an acceptable balance with the world around me. I presume that each of us struggles similarly, to our own particular degree.  Of that, however, I would not claim to be certain.  

I commit pen to paper (metaphorically speaking) as part of my ceaseless effort to keep the voices that fuel my inner demons under control.  A lifetime ago, before I met and fell in love with Margaret, and forged the life I now lead, I was under the delusion that copious amounts of alcohol consumed aggressively on a regular basis acted as an elixir.  In fact, just the opposite was true. Alcohol did not quell them.  It fueled them, which proved to be a very, very bad idea.  

For a number of years I had taken to writing on a daily basis. I did so because it served two purposes. First, it was cathartic. A daily exorcism if you will.  Once you resign yourself, which I have done, to the fact that the voices in your head cannot be eliminated and need simply to be controlled, your day-to-day becomes a less tricky minefield through which to tap dance.  Second, it was a good mental exercise.  Commitment to do something regularly requires discipline.  Commitment to doing something on a daily basis requires a lot of discipline.  

About a year ago, I stopped writing every day.  I tried to adapt to doing so on a regular or a semi-regular basis. It did not work.  Failure to do it daily robbed it of its cathartic benefits.  The loss of its cathartic benefits eroded my commitment to doing it.  Eventually, I stopped altogether. 

Throughout the course of the past year - and particularly so in these past few months - the Greek chorus in my head has grown louder.  Not loud enough to be a disruptive influence but loud enough to remind me of its presence and of its ability to knock me out of the acceptable balance that I work so hard to maintain.  

Again, I have started putting pen to paper.  The goal is to reduce the Greek chorus to white noise - something that is always present but of no moment whatsoever.  

Shall it work?  Truthfully, I do not know.  I am, however, willing to find out.  

-AK 

So this is Christmas...

In this life of hardship and of earthly toil

We have need for anything that frees us

So I bid you pleasure

And I bid you cheer

From a heathen and a pagan

On the side of the rebel Jesus...

-Jackson Browne

So this is Christmas...

Wherever the dawning of Christmas Day finds you this year, do your level best to make it merry.  If you shall spend even a small portion of today in the company of someone you love and who loves you right back and you shall do so with clothing on your back, a roof over your head, and food in your belly, then you have all the ingredients necessary for a Merry Christmas.  Not everyone does. If you do, then Christmas is a cause for celebration, not lamentation. 

Embrace the day.  Live in the moment.  Do not focus on what you do not have.  Do not dwell on the fact that there is a loved one or loved ones with whom you may not spend today. Accentuate the positive.  

Today is a day when each of us has the chance to be the richest person in town.  It is up to us whether we take it. 

Merry Christmas.

-AK

It's Christmas Eve...

Today is the final day of the penultimate week of the second decade of the twenty-first century.  As I approach my fifty-third birthday, I am hard-pressed to remember a time in which we the people of these United States have needed Christmas Eve as much as we need it right now.  The need for it is not a religious thing.  I am not a religious man.  The Lord and I have an understanding.  He stays out of my day-to-day.  I return the favor. 

It is, however, a spiritual thing.  Here, in these United States, at a fundamental level, our collective spirit of what it means to be an American has been broken.  In this century of extraordinary technological advancement, have we actually made the world better for ourselves?  For our children?  For our grandchildren?  Respectfully, we have not.  

In a world of "instant everything" and being able to direct Alexa to cue up our "Netflix and chill" on any of our several personal devices, we have unquestionably created a world of greater convenience than that in which we were raised, the one in which our parents were raised, or the one in which our grandparents were raised.  At what cost, however, to the quality of our day-to-day?  Convenience and quality are not synonyms.  It is troubling, to me at least, the extent to which they have become mutually exclusive.

We embrace technology and the advances it has brought us, including the advances we never knew we needed such as the ability to order shoes or play Angry Birds using our smartphone while going to the bathroom.  At the same time, we have consciously and aggressively embraced ignorance.  Worse yet, we have embraced it to the point of weaponizing it.  Ah, the irony, which I have little doubt is lost on those to whose behavior it speaks most pointedly.  

When did we the people of these United States become a people who flaunt our unwillingness to be challenged by anyone with an opposing point of view?  Or by anyone who might want to simply educate us - even just a little bit?  Was it when we elected a President of the United States who wears his "I don't read" mantra as if it is a badge of honor?  I know not.  Perhaps.  On the other hand, perhaps his election was not its beginning but its culmination. 

I know simply that our weaponization of ignorance has permeated our politics at every level.  Political opponents are no longer rivals or even adversaries.  Now, they are enemy combatants. As such, they are not entitled to certain rights, such as engaging in fact-based, law-based, substantive debate on issues of importance.  Debate has been replaced by the rapid repetition of attacks, insults, and lies, aimed at reinforcing in the minds and hearts of supporters the idea that everything said by everyone on the other side of the issue is not only a lie but a lie aimed at taking an inalienable right away from them, or worse yet, manipulating them into surrendering it voluntarily.  

We have time to correct our course - right up to the point when we run out of it altogether.  Course correction is not a Democrat thing.  Course correction is not a Republican thing.  It is an American thing.  

I submit that it is a necessary thing.  Why not use today, Christmas Eve, the one day a year when we are the people we always hoped we would be, to begin it.  There is no time like the present, right? 

Especially on Christmas Eve. 

-AK 

These Three Things

Without intending to, the Missus and I have managed to elongate Christmas this year.  In our house, the festivities began yesterday with Maggie and Cal (accompanied by their parents, of course) seeing what Santa Claus left for them at Nana and Pop Pop's.  We shall not put a wrap on Yuletide revelry until this Sunday, when all of our grandchildren will be together under our roof, where Papa Joe, Nana, and Yours Truly can squeeze a little bit more Christmas spirit out of the three of them.  

Grandchildren are the the greatest development of my life.  Bar none.  While I do not spend nearly as much time with any of them as I would like (damn you both, work and geography!), I love every moment I spend with them.  Each of mine is a walking, talking B-12 shot.  

I have only been on the job as Pop Pop since May, 2017.  In spite of still being under warranty, I can say confidently that I have learned enough from watching my power trio do their stuff to appreciate how selfish it is of us adults to want any child to grow up "quickly".  Why the rush to hurry them into adulthood?  The average life expectancy for people in these United States here in 2019 is 78.87 years. Although I sought refuge in law school in part to mask my arithmetical deficiencies, even my arithmetic is adequate enough to recognize that, on average, we spend significantly more of our life as an adult than we do as a child.  

One of my favorite activities is sitting on the floor of an empty bedroom in our house that Margaret has effectively converted into a playroom for Maggie and Cal, and simply watching them play.  Their imagination is as boundless as their energy and their enthusiasm - all three of which are contagious.  Occasionally, Pop Pop is invited into whatever it is they are doing although, truthfully, more often than not Pop Pop serves as an object on which to climb or a receptacle on which to store animals, crayons, etc. that are not being actively used at present.  Whether participant or prop, there is no place I would rather be.  

Children have much to teach us.  If we choose to pay attention, then we realize that the lessons they impart are imparted to us all day, every day.  Life is a journey, not a destination.  We, the adults, will be better served if we recognize that we should not insist on children speeding through the first portion of theirs in some hackneyed effort to make us feel better (or simply less worse) about where we are on ours.  Doing so is unfair to them and to us.  

-AK 

And Behold, an Angel...

I am not a betting man.  However, I would wager that the past eighteen months of your life have passed more easily for you than Angel Perez's have for him.  Sadly, I know that is not true for everyone but I hope like hell that it is for most of us.  

I know not whether I could walk a single step - let alone a mile - in Angel Perez's shoes.  He has shown an incredible amount of resolve these past eighteen months.  His family has done likewise.  His story is a remarkable one.  

His is a story that I recommend you take the time to learn.  An exceptional piece of writing by Spencer Kent, entitled "The Man Who Lived", is the conduit I recommend to you to attain that knowledge.   

-AK 

The Taming of the Demons

Today is the Winter Solstice.  Here, in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the shortest day of the year.  Every day, beginning tomorrow, until the Summer Solstice six months now, there shall be an incrementally greater amount of daylight than there was the previous day. 

Mom died in early June 2017.  Six-and-one-half months later, I had done a less than stellar job of processing how I felt about her death.  Do not misunderstand.  I am not a complete moron.  I knew that I felt a profound sadness - far worse than anything I had ever felt - or have ever felt - about my father's death thirty-six years earlier.  Without my mother, I felt a bit adrift.  No Broadway impresario would ever put up the money necessary to mount a production of "Little Orphan Adam" when the "orphan" in question is a fifty-year-old man.  Nor should they.  I, for one, would not pay to see it. 

I happened to be at the beach two years ago on the Winter Solstice.  In 2017, the Winter Solstice fell on a Thursday.  Since I had to be in court in Toms River at 9:30 that morning for a Settlement Conference, I slept Wednesday night in Lake Como.  When I awakened Thursday morning, I went for a short run, heading south down Third Avenue into downtown Spring Lake before making a quick left turn out towards the boards and, thereafter, a second left turn that aimed me north towards home. 

My run began in the darkness, as my runs do more often than not, and the sun was beginning its ascent over the Atlantic Ocean as I headed north towards home.  As I ran north along the boards, the sun rose not only to my right but also behind me.  The sun rises farther south along the Jersey Shore in December than it does in July.  I could not help but notice - as I was running north - the number of people who were running across the sand in a southeasterly direction towards the sunrise.  Finally, after a couple of minutes, I stopped and turned around to see what it was that had captured their attention.  What I saw was, quite simply, jaw-dropping. 

   

Early morning is my favorite time of day.  When I run along the water, whether on the boards or on the beach, I take photographs of the sunrise.  While it is a phenomenon whose beauty I appreciate every time I see it, I am constrained to admit that its beauty varies from day to day.  I have yet to see a sunrise as spectacular as that which I saw that morning.  

Two years further on up the road from that spectacular sunrise, I am constrained to admit that I still have difficulty dealing with Mom's death in spite of now being two-and-one-half years removed from it.  I am resigned to the fact that my profound sadness regarding it may not in fact ever go away but, instead, through the dual elixirs of time and distance become less pronounced.  Grief as white noise if you will.  A little background music, perhaps, to serve as a musical accompaniment as I run along the water, fighting with and trying to tame my own demons.    

I, for one, welcome the company...

-AK 

Moments and Milestones

Rose Kennedy was right.  Whether you are born a Kennedy or a Kenny, life is not about attaining milestones.  It is about accumulating moments.  Moments that produce a memory that you can revisit every now and again - even long after the moment itself has passed. 

My grandchildren are extraordinary...said every grandparent ever.  However, in the case of my grandchildren, my saying so is not a case of Pop Pop's wishful thinking.  It is a fact.  I am reminded of how extraordinary each is every time I am lucky enough to be in their company.  

Last week, the Missus and I took a mini-vacation and traveled to Colorado to spend time with Princess Abigail (and her mom and dad).  Geography being what it is, we do not see our youngest grandchild on a regular basis.  The Colorado branch of the family tree will be in New Jersey for several days next week for Christmas.  However, when they travel this direction they are perpetually constrained by having more loved ones to see than they have hours in the visit in which to see them. So, I invited Nana and Pop Pop out to see them in order to secure a nice chunk of uninterrupted time with Abby (and her mom and dad).  It was an extraordinary visit.  It was so not because of a singular thing we did but, instead, because of the time we were there, present in the moments that comprise Abby's day-to-day.  

So it is also for the time that I am privileged to spend (luckily for me on a far more regular basis) with Maggie and Cal, both of whom regularly amaze me.  Maggie, my first-born grandchild, is not yet three.  Her little brother, Cal, is not yet two.  They are, however, two of the best teachers I have ever had, which I submit is no small accomplishment given that from my first day in Mrs. Spaeth's kindergarten class to my graduation from law school I spent twenty years in school.  Maggie and Cal constantly remind me what it is that is important.  A lesson each imparts not by saying anything but, rather, by simply doing and by being who they are.  

It occurred to me - perhaps for the first time ever - as I sat writing this that Pop Pop is much more than who I became when Maggie was born.  It is who I am and who I shall be every day for the rest of my life because of my grandchildren, who they are, and what they do.  It is not something I attained.  It is something I am privileged to be. 

-AK