How Life Goes

My father, William Patrick Kenny, Sr., died on a Sunday.  The Sunday on which he died was the one that fell on this very date...thirty-nine years ago. 

I know not the relationship he and I might have had but for the fact he died when I was fourteen. No one does.  In the past thirty-nine years, to my memory, I have not wasted a minute playing the "what if" game.  Once upon a lifetime ago, he was here.  Then, he was not.  

The clearest memory I have - all these years later - is that May 31, 1981 served as my personal Line of Demarcation.  Childhood ended for me that morning.  When I tell people whose acquaintance I have made as an adult that I "have been old for a long time", it is because I have been.  It is neither a good thing nor a bad thing.  It is, quite simply, how life goes. 

And for me, the tally has now reached thirty-nine years...

...and counting. 

-AK

Twin Sons of Different Centuries

How incapable indeed. 

In December, 1919, twin brothers, Philip Felix Kahn and Samuel Kahn, were born in Manhattan.  The brothers arrived in the midst of a pandemic.  A century ago, it was the Spanish flu that was the world's scourge.  A couple of weeks after Philip and Samuel arrived, the Spanish flu took Samuel's life. 

Philip Kahn grew up never knowing his twin brother, Samuel.  He did quite a bit more than simply grow up.  He lived what was, by all accounts, an extraordinary life.  He fought in World War II in the Pacific as part of an Army aerial unit, taking part in the Battle of Iwo Jima and firebombing raids over Japan.  For his service, he was awarded two Bronze Stars. 

Following World War II, he married, started a family, and went to work.  As an electrical foreman he helped build the first World Trade Center and lived to see it destroyed in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, and then to see it reborn.   

A little bit more than four months after Philip Kahn celebrated his 100th birthday, this vibrant man who lived on his own in his home on Long Island and who kept himself in shape by walking one mile to two miles a day died.  

A century after the 20th Century's pandemic killed Samuel, the 21st Century's pandemic came for Philip.  He died from COVID-19 on April 17, 2020. 

Philip Kahn

Photo Credit:  New York Post

History repeats the old conceits, the glib replies, the same defeats. 

-AK 

A Better Man Than I

Presumably, you have by now seen the video that captured the interaction on Memorial Day in Central Park's Ramble between two people who share a last name and, based upon this glimpse into their lives, no other common traits or characteristics.  

I do not know Christian Cooper.  I doubt that he and I shall ever cross paths.  However, I am confident saying that he is a better man than I am or, truthfully, shall likely ever be.  Shame on me for it certainly seems that what the world needs now is more people like him.  

Do not take my word for it.  Read Sarah Maslin Nir's piece from the May 27, 2020 New York Times, which includes her interview with him, which she did only a couple of days removed from the incident in Central Park.  

If you do, then perhaps you shall come away with an impression of him similar to the one I formed.  This incident was not the defining moment of his life.  It was I believe, instead, a window allowing the rest of us to get a glimpse into the way he has lived his life - and shall continue to do so.  

-AK

Near and Farquaad

Food for thought.  A lot of time and energy has been spent faux flexing these past several weeks by middle-aged and older white men, including unfortunately those who occupy the highest offices of our federal government's Executive Branch.  I have known forever that real men don't eat quiche but they don't wear masks in public during a pandemic?  Color me stunned.  I had no idea.  It turns out that not only are the world's best scientists a bunch of nerds but they are pansy-asses too.  Boy that explains a lot, right? 

When I was a boy, my father taught me that a man stands up.  He stands up for what is right, regardless of whether doing so is popular.  He stands up and owns his own errors, because personal responsibility is paramount.  How can you trust a person to take responsibility for anything when he will not take responsibility for his own actions?  Rhetorical question, slick.  

I neither know nor have met Tom Nichols.  Yet, I find his assessment of DJT's character to be startlingly on-point.  Illuminating as well,  I have struggled for three-plus years trying to decide to whom DJT's leadership style seems the closest.  

Now I know...

-AK 

So Far, So Good

I have practiced law for twenty-six years.  Every now and again, one of my cases ends up in our appellate courts.  I have been exceptionally lucky that far more often than not, I am defending an order won below at the trial level and not asking the appellate court to overturn it.  

In New Jersey, our state court system is structured so that between our trial courts and our court of law resort, the New Jersey Supreme Court, is our Appellate Division.  While there are several different avenues by which a matter demands the attention of our Appellate Division, in my practice the avenue most-often-pursued is an appeal filed from an order entering a final judgment at the trial level, which is to say an order whose entry resolves all still-contested issues by and between all parties.  

Far more often than not in my matters, our Appellate Division has entered an "unpublished" opinion and order, which limits its reach to the parties and the issues of my case.  However, last week, right before the Memorial Day holiday weekend, a three-member panel of appellate judges handed up a published opinion in one of my cases, which opinion preserved the relief I had won for my clients in the trial court.  

I am hopeful that my clients' win in the Appellate Division shall not be short-lived.  Since the panel's decision was unanimous, the plaintiffs are not permitted to automatically appeal it to our Supreme Court.  They do, however, have the right to file a Petition for Certification to the Court, asking it to take up their case and to overturn the Appellate Division, which petition they must file not later than twenty days from the Appellate Division's May 21, 2020 decision.  

My adversary is not only a very talented attorney but he is a friend.  We attended law school together at Seton Hall almost thirty years ago and are fellow members of the Class of 1994.  Whether he shall file a Petition for Certification for his clients is something that I shall soon learn.  

Stay tuned. 

Step by Step

The governing bodies of the towns along the Jersey Shore will have to wait until this weekend, May's last, to see just how well their social distancing guidelines on their beaches and boardwalks work.  Through no fault of their own, Memorial Day Weekend did not give them a true and accurate test.  The weather was not well-suited for beach activities, including Saturday's "every animal grab an Ark buddy" rainfall, which held down the number of day trippers.  One might have thought that after two-plus months of getting wedgied by life, an eighty-degree-plus, sun-soaked long weekend had been earned by us good residents in the State of Concrete Gardens.  

Nope. 

Nevertheless, it was nice to spend the long weekend at the beach with the Missus, Sam I am, and Joe. We did a whole lot of nothing, which is just about my favorite thing to do at the beach.  Saturday night we supported one of our favorite local establishments, Harrigan's Pub in Sea Girt, and Sunday night I hopped on over to Hoffman's Ice Cream in Spring Lake to pick up - through the window - the ice cream I had just ordered on-line.  Neither experience was the same as it ever was but each was something I needed.  Each made me feel good and reminded me that while things are not yet back to normal, they are continuing to move in that direction.  

Slowly but surely.  Step by step. 

Eternal Grace...

Conclusion of letter from President Abraham Lincoln

to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a Boston widow, upon learning

five of her sons were Union soldiers killed in action.

November 21, 1864

Grace is timeless.  It is also, I believe, innate.  You are born with it or you are not.  You may attain it. You may not obtain it.  

Today, we pause to honor those men and women, full of grace, who have laid their lives as a sacrifice on the altar of freedom for this nation and for all of us.  A sacrifice to which Abraham Lincoln paid a beautiful tribute more than a century and one-half ago.  A sacrifice to which my son, Rob, paid a beautiful tribute a dozen years ago, which I have reproduced in its entirety below. 

There is nothing I could write - or hope to write - to improve upon either man's message.  Therefore, I shall not.

Just A Thought

I started thinking in this time of war what this day means. It is for those who didn't come back. They didn't come back to their mothers, their wives or their kids. They stormed beaches, fought and died in foreign countries. All that returned was a box and a folded flag.

I recently attended a Springsteen concert in North Carolina. I traveled by plane through this American land because I could, because I am free - and because of the generosity of some good friends. As Springsteen played a song called "Last to Die" I got emotional. The song asks, "Who'll be the last to die...." presumably in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It does not matter what you think of the American involvement in these wars. What does matter is that we remember these brave American servicemen and servicewomen.

Meanwhile I am enjoying a Springsteen concert, enjoying a beer and enjoying starting a career with the best government in the world; enjoying freedom. How can I do this? These are my brothers, my peers, guys my age fighting and dying. They volunteered so I didn't have to. They're not coming back to their favorite band, their favorite beer, their families or the state they grew up in.

Their children will not know their fathers. They will know only their sacrifice and some stories their mothers will tell. They sacrificed for someone they will never meet - you and me.

Remember them today.

-RJM

U.S.S. Arizona Memorial

Photo Credit: Robert J. MacMaster 

(c) 2014

-AK

A Sort of Homecoming

And you hunger for the time

Time to heal, desire, time

And your earth moves beneath

Your own dream landscape. 

"A Sort of Homecoming"

-U2

This "off-season" is the first one since we bought our house in Lake Como back in May, 2015, when Margaret and I spent zero weekends at the beach.  Although it is our summer escape, we use it year-round.  I am my father's son, which is to say that I am parsimonious.  If I pay for something, I intend to get what I deem to be fair use out of it.  The bank that holds the mortgage on our little Paradise by the Sea cares not that we use it as our summer home.  They demand a payment every month.  And since I have to pay them every month, I get my money's worth out of my summer home, even when summer is months away.  

Not this year.  

COVID-19 is only responsible for a very small portion of the disruption in our off-season action plan.  At the end of last summer, we hired a contractor to do what turned out to be a substantial renovation to our home.  Last fall, Margaret and I were in "pre-construction" mode, packing things up, moving furniture, etc. in anticipation of the renovation, which began right after New Year's Day.  Our contractor, John Case, did a masterful job.  I cannot sing his praises loudly enough.  It was a substantial enough project that it took until mid-March to complete...just in time for "the global pandemic". 

So, between construction and contagion, we spent zero nights in Lake Como from September through May.  When here, I love to run on the boards and on the beach.  I had not run a step on either since September - until I went out for a short 2.8 mile run to/from the Shark River Inlet at sunrise on Friday morning.  

I knew I had missed being on the boards.  I did not realize how much until I was running on them north towards Avon and then back home.  

17th Avenue Beach, Belmar

approximately 10 minutes to sunrise

People sitting on beach awaiting sunrise

Belmar

Shark River Inlet (Belmar side) 

approx. a minute or two before sunrise

Belmar Fishing Club Pier

approx. a minute or two after sunrise

16th Avenue Beach Playground, Belmar

approx. ten minutes after sunrise

17th Avenue Beach, Belmar

approx. ten minutes after sunrise

After I reached our beach on 17th Avenue, I headed up 17th to home.  It is truly a privilege and a blessing to be able to spend the time I did in my most favorite place and at my most favorite time of day.  

-AK  

One Ocean. One People. One Canoe.

Promotional poster for 2018 documentary "MOANANUIAKEA"

(has nothing to do with Belmar or Atlantic Ocean but simply

stunningly beautiful)

I was supposed to have spent a portion of my Saturday morning rumbling, bumbling, and stumbling all over the streets of Spring Lake, New Jersey, as a participant in the 2020 Spring Lake 5.  Alas, poor Yorick, it was not to be.  F U very much, COVID-19.  Although considering the rain, "F U very much" might be a tad strong.  

A tip of the cap to Belmar Borough Administrator Edward Kirschenbaum, Mayor Mark Walsifer, Council President Thomas Brennan, and Council Members James McCracken, Thomas Carvelli, and Patricia Wann.  It is an inarguable point that COVID-19 or not, as Memorial Day Weekend announced summer's unofficial start, Belmar's boardwalk and beaches shall teem with people.  Knowing that waving their arms and telling people not to come would be fruitless, and possibly spell the end for many of the town's small business owners, they took the time to work out a plan, which plan they hope shall enable those of us who enjoy Belmar's beaches to do so safely. 

Kudos to Mr. Kirschenbaum for saying what, in my experience, public officials are far too reluctant to say, which is that while the governing body believes they have come up with a good, solid plan, the truth of the matter is that, until they see it in action, they cannot know whether they have.  "There's no playbook on this", said Mr. Kirschenbaum.  Truer words may have never been spoken. 

The plan's highlights include:

• The beach will be divided into four zones in order to manage capacity — while maintaining social distancing — and be able to shift beachgoers, if needed, to less-crowded areas.
• Social distancing will not be required for family groups, household members and couples.
• In addition to the main ticket area at Taylor Pavilion, where seasonal and daily badges will be sold, booths for daily badge sales will be situated along the boardwalk with two additional ones situated at Silver Lake — all staffed by one borough employee at each location.
• There will be no water fountains along the beachfront, but showers are now motion controlled.
• Restrooms will be open and cleaned on a regular basis.
• The playgrounds will remain closed. 
• There will be no volleyball or other sports activities permitted on the beaches, including all forms of ball or Frisbee throwing. 
• Lifeguards will be properly equipped following United States Lifesaving Association guidelines, particularly with the use a bag-valve-mask if resuscitation is required.
• Face coverings will be required in the restrooms and strongly encouraged when it is difficult to maintain a six-foot distance from others.
• Business owners along Ocean Avenue will be required to post an employee outside their establishments to ensure proper social distancing is maintained.
• A volunteer “Friendship Force” will be assisting to ensure visitors are social distancing properly.
• Failure to comply with social distancing guidelines will result in removal from the beach. 
• Beachgoers are being strongly encouraged to visit the borough’s website or social media — on its Facebook page or on Twitter — to get real-time updates. In addition, Monmouth County will be offering a full rundown of updates at areas beaches on its website.

We shall find out - beginning this weekend perhaps - how well the plan works.  I am confident that a group of people who took the time to formulate something that appears to be very well-thought out will, should the need arise, take the time to modify it or to adjust it.   

Those of us enjoying Belmar's sun and sand must do our part too.  It is not incumbent solely on the governing body to put it into action.  It is incumbent on all of us too.  Want some useful advice? Not from me, I did say "useful" did I not?  Here are some tips for being safe while on the sand, from a real-life medical professional.   

Personal responsibility is the responsibility of every person. So, get into the canoe and grab a paddle.

-AK 

...And Wash These Sins Off Our Hands

Welcome to the unofficial start of summer in these United States, the Memorial Day Weekend. By the time you read this, I will likely be back from my first Shore-based run of the season, which this morning took me south on 3rd Avenue into Spring Lake's downtown and then brought me back north along Ocean Avenue in Spring Lake, on the Boardwalk in Belmar, and then up 17th Avenue to home. 

This weekend's forecast is, in a word, underwhelming.  So what.  There is no reason to cry and whine about something beyond your ability to control.  Instead, recognize the circumstances then and there confronting you and fucking make the best of it.  Me?  I shall at my most favorite place in the company of my best girl, my father-in-law, and my faithful, four-legged, quarantine companion.  Making the best of it is really not terribly difficult for me to do. 

Enjoy yourself, however and wherever you spend this weekend.  Be smart. Stay safe...

...'cause summer's here and the time is right.

-AK 

     

A Bummer, Plain and Simple

Under normal circumstances, or anything masquerading as a reasonable facsimile thereof, we would be two days away from the Spring Lake Five Mile Run, which has served as the unofficial start to Summer at the Shore for more than forty years.  COVID-19 rendered the proposed May 23 date a nullity.  However, last month, the good folks who organize the Spring Lake Five announced that instead of canceling the 2020 edition, it would be moved from summer's first weekend to its last.  Its new date was to be Saturday, September 5, 2020. 

Alas, it was not to be. 

On Tuesday afternoon, my inbox sagged a bit upon its receipt of the latest e-mail from the race organizers entitled, "Important Announcement - Spring Lake 5 Mile & Kids Race Cancellation for 2020".   Not too subtle, huh?  

The Spring Lake Five Mile Run - Sep. 5, 2020

Update May 19, 2020  Note:  We do NOT have any of the 2020 race items (shirt, glasses or calendars) for distribution.

Dear Registered Runner,

After careful consideration, the Spring Lake 5 Committee has decided that the 2020 Spring Lake 5 Mile Run will not be held on the rescheduled date of Saturday, September 5, 2020, and cancelled for this year.

We understand the disappointment many might feel about the cancellation of the 2020 Run.  However, due to the uncertainty of the current global health crisis, we have determined that a large gathering of people that results from our Race would be unsafe for the runners, our volunteers, and the many spectators that line our course.

All registered entrants will be automatically entered into the 2021 Race which will be held on Saturday, May 29, 2021, without having to register next year.  All waivers signed by registered entrants for the 2020 Race will be extended and apply to the 2021 Race. No further action is required.

Any runner who wishes not to participate in next year’s race or rescind such waiver must opt out through RunSignUp no later than July 1, 2020 in which they will be eligible for a full refund, less any processing fees.  Refunds will not be processed until after July 1st.  click here to request a refund:  https://runsignup.com/Race/NJ/SpringLake/TheSpringLake5Miler

After July 1, 2020 any runner can transfer their number up to the date of the 2021 Race under our transfer policy.  No refunds after July 1, 2020.

Kids Race - no action required: Refunds will be automatically applied by RunSignUp for anyone who has paid for entries to the 2020 Spring Lake 5 Kids Race, less any processing fees. Refunds will be processed after July 1st.

Please visit our website at www.springlake5.org to obtain further information on the above.  Note:  We do NOT have any of the 2020 race items (shirt, glasses or calendars) for distribution.

We look forward to seeing you next year, and hope that you and your families stay safe and healthy during this difficult time.

Ed Hale, SL5 Race Director
Rich Sciria, Chairman, SL5 Trustees

This event, which I love, is a massive undertaking and a labor of love put together by the men and women who organize it and who serve as its trustees. For them, Spring Lake 5 Day is the culmination of months of hard work, managing a gazillion moving parts, and putting on a road race in which more than 12,000 people participate.  

For me, Spring Lake 5 Day is a pretty easy ride.  About an hour before gun time, I take a leisurely walk from my house in Lake Como south on the Boardwalk towards the starting line, which is about two miles away.  While I walk, to my left I see the ocean.  To my right, I see the race volunteers hard at work manning various posts along Ocean Avenue, and I listen to the kids from School of Rock warm up in their position at the intersection of Ocean Avenue and South Boulevard, from where they will perform as runners pass them heading north, and around Lake Como, in the first mile.  

I completely understand why the event's organizers cancelled this year's race.  I appreciate their concern for all of participants, officials, volunteers, and spectators and I applaud them for doing all they could to keep the dream of a 2020 Spring Lake 5 alive for as long as could. 

I am saddened by the cancellation of this year's race.  Knees willing, I shall participate in the 2021 edition and shall experience once more the sights and sounds of Spring Lake 5 Day that I have grown to love so much.  In the event I have ever taken any of them for granted, I shall do so no longer. 

Stay well. Stay safe.  

-AK 

Princess Pistachio

One of the things that has helped our household keep its collective wits during this extended "stay-cation" has been our regular interaction with Suzanne, Ryan, and their three littles.  Since Maggie arrived slightly more than three years ago, Nana has spent a significant portion of several days a week with Suzanne, spending time with her and with our grandchildren, while also helping Suz out so she can take care of her clients in her speech language therapy practice.  

Rylan arrived less than a month before Governor Murphy's Executive Order directing us to, essentially, shelter in place.  Our household and Suzanne/Ryan's household have followed the tenets of that order faithfully.  Neither Suzanne nor Ryan makes an unnecessary trip anywhere. Ryan has worked from home since mid-March and Suzanne tends to her clients through Zoom and other remote applications.  Margaret similarly became a non-traveler upon implementation of the Executive Order.  With certain, one-off, limited exceptions, Suzanne and Ryan travel have traveled nowhere but to our house, which they do on Sunday evenings for dinner.  Margaret has not traveled anywhere.  Neither has Joe.  The only traveling I do is to my office, one or two times a week in the wee small hours of the morning when the joint is practically deserted to pick up work, to the grocery store (Pop Pop shops for both households), and to the gas station.   

All of my grandchildren are a B-12 shot.  Time spent in their company improves my mood, lifts my spirits, and makes me - for a little while anyway - less of an asshole.  Of all the things I love about them, my most favorite thing that my grandchildren do is their never-ending ability to amaze me.  They are an extraordinary little group, blessed with big brains and even bigger hearts. 

A rite of Sunday dinner is Maggie and Cal helping Pop Pop get dessert on the table.  Margaret and I typically have several types of ice cream in our freezer (although truthfully neither of us eats much of it at all), which I faithfully take out and put on the table as part of the dessert menu.  A few months ago, Maggie's favorite ice cream flavor was strawberry.  More often than not, she would ask for it (by color "pink" as opposed to by name).  Then, right around my birthday in early February, she noticed that Joe Joe's ice cream of choice is pistachio almond.  One Sunday night she asked him if she could try a little bit of his pistachio almond.  Voila! A new generation of pistachio almond fan was born. 

Fast forward to this past Sunday night.  Maggie and Pop Pop were at the freezer, taking out the various types of ice cream that were going to be offered as dessert options.  As she stood to the left of where I was crouched down, she saw the container of strawberry ice cream.  In the sweetest, almost conspiratorial tone of voice I have ever heard, she leaned in close to me and, while patting me on the arm, said, "Pop Pop, I'm not going to eat the pink ice cream any more.  You don't have to take it out."  

I smiled immediately and then simply had to laugh. Her sincerity was unmistakable. So was her formulation of the thought that since she had been the only one she had seen eating "pink" ice cream, and she had now abandoned "pink" for the food-coloring-enhanced green treat that is Turkey Hill Pistachio Almond, I no longer needed to expend the time or energy carrying "pink" all the way across the kitchen.  Her logic was unassailable. 

I kissed her on the head and told her that we would leave "pink" in the freezer.  Once she sat back down at the table, she watched excitedly as Suzanne put a small scoop of pistachio almond in a bowl for her and then squirted some Reddi-Whip into a second bowl for dipping.  With her dessert prepared, she moved down to her seat at the opposite end of the table from me - and right off her great-grandfather's right shoulder - where the two of them each enjoyed their pistachio almond ice cream, thick as thieves.  

I just looked at them, smiling.  Three days later, thinking about her, I still am. 

-AK   

One For Whom The Bell Tolled

"Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls, 

It tolls for thee."

-John Donne

James A. Mahoney, M.D., died on April 27, 2020 after having contracted COVID-19 approximately two weeks earlier. He likely was stricken either while treating ICU patients at University Hospital of Brooklyn, which was his full-time gig at which he worked every day, or while treating patients across the street at Kings County Hospital, which is how he spent his evenings.  In the early days and weeks of the COVID-19 virus' assault on New York City and its hospitals, Dr. Mahoney consistently headed into danger to help patients and his fellow doctors and nurses treating them. 

Dr. Mahoney spent just about four decades at University Hospital of Brooklyn, first as a student in the early 1980's and, thereafter, as a pulmonary and critical care physician.  University Hospital of Brooklyn is part of the SUNY system and Dr. Mahoney was also Professor Mahoney, helping educate future generations of physicians.  Those closest to him expressed two prevailing sentiments discussing him after his death.  First, while he was an extraordinary physician he was an even more extraordinary human.  Second, the impact of his loss is immeasurable.  

Too often these days the focus of the debate in this country centers on numbers.  How many thousands have died?  How many millions are out of work?  The big picture is important, of course.  Its importance though is reflected perhaps best of all in the realization that the "big picture" is the amalgam of countless individuals, each of whom is a little picture, and each of whom stands alone in addition to being a component part of the larger tapestry.  

No man is an island. Each is a part of the main.  

-AK 

It It Beginning To Look A Lot Like Summer

With Memorial Day Weekend mercifully awaiting us at week's end, the Missus and I spent pretty much all of Saturday down at our little Paradise by the Sea, getting the house in shape for the new season.  After toiling hard, and boy did I whine about it, at or about 3:30 in the afternoon we walked up to the 17th Avenue Beach to see what we could see on a simply gorgeous spring Saturday.  

We saw much that made us smile.  The watchword this summer at the Shore is "social distancing" and although it remains to see how well that goes in Belmar once the season opens this weekend, on Saturday afternoon it certainly looked like the people on our beach were honoring it.  Sure, there was a considerable number of people out enjoying the sand and the sun but when you looked at them you saw clearly how well individual groups maintained their distance from each other. 

Sadly, while Belmar made significant improvements this off-season to the playground on which Maggie (and perhaps this summer Cal as well) plays, which is located adjacent to the Boardwalk on the 16th Avenue Beach, the playground is not open.  

It is too early to tell whether it shall open at any point this summer or whether the next time Maggie and Cal are able to use it, their eighteen-month-old little sister, Rylan, will be joining them on it...

...in the summer of 2021. 

-AK 

A Little Part of It in Everyone

Daily, we are bombarded with messages on television, whether pep talks from news anchors and actors or PSAs that "We Are All In This Together".  Are we?  I wonder.

It has been said that a national tragedy reveals much about a President in that many Americans take a cue regarding how to react and how to process what has happened by looking at what the President does. The Challenger disaster happened on January 28, 1986. President Reagan's State of the Union address was scheduled for that night. He did not give it. Instead, sitting behind his desk in the Oval Office, he delivered a pitch-perfect address - a eulogy almost - honoring the seven astronauts who had lost their lives.  On September 20, 2001, nine days after the 09/11 attacks, President Bush addressed the nation and a joint session of Congress, noting that although the President comes to Congress typically to report on the state of the union he need not do that because in the days since the attacks, Americans had shown the world how strong we were. 

For months following the 09/11 attacks, we the people of these United States seemed a bit less partisan than we had been in the days and weeks that preceded them.  We seemed more tolerant of one another's differences of opinion and political beliefs.  We seemed to sense that having been given but one communal canoe, we had to dedicate our efforts to paddling it together and purposefully in order to get through what had happened. 

Where has that gone? 

Do not misunderstand.  On a daily basis, Americans do extraordinary things to assist one another in these terrible, trying times.  But we also do unspeakable things, such as murder a store security guard in cold blood after he tells a potential customer she must leave the store because she has chosen to disregard the store's policy mandating all who enter wear a face covering.  

It is overly simplistic and, perhaps, a little unfair to lay the blame for the atmosphere of intolerance and insolence entirely at the feet of the Provocateur-in-Chief but he certainly deserves a heaping share of it.  Having spent a lifetime trying to mask his own failings and shortcomings by demeaning and deriding others, if you believed for a minute that shoulder-deep in a national crisis his lethal combination of arrogance and ignorance helped create that he would be in anything other than perpetual attack mode, then you have simply failed to pay attention.  

Have we the people of these United States, having waded through the muck and mire of partisan political bullshit for so long, poisoned the national reservoir of cooperative spirit that has served us well for two hundred and fifty years beyond the point of no return?  As a Pop Pop whose oldest grandchild turned three earlier this month, I certainly hope not.  As an educated, informed man whose eyes are wide open and have never looked at the world through rose-colored glasses, I fear we have. 

I've seen the needle and the damage done. 

-AK 

Not Just An Empty Lot That No One Mows

Now I know all the things that I didn't know

I got smokes, but I buy 'em now, I guess I'm old

Drive-in's just an empty lot that no one mows...

"Drive-in Movies"

Ray LaMontagne

If necessity is the mother of invention, then perhaps Patricia Dellaportas of the Bel Aire Diner in Astoria, Queens is its midwife.  

According to its website, the Bel Aire Diner has been a fixture in its Queens neighborhood for more than a half-century.  These days, however, the far-flung impact of COVID-19 and the toll it has exacted on the physical, emotional, mental, and economic health of these United States has been felt equally by longstanding neighborhood legends and new kids on the block alike.  It has been more than sixty days since the lights figuratively and literally went out all across New York City - not just on Broadway.  It could be at least sixty days more before even a reasonable facsimile of normal returns to the City.  

In times like these, pivot or perish may be the mantra du jour.  At the Bel Aire Diner in Astoria, Ms. Dellaportas and her crew opted for the former.  So far, so good.  Since New York City's "shelter-in-place" guidelines prohibit the diner from opening its doors and serving customers in its dining room, the Bel Aire has come up with a really cool idea.  One that certainly seems to support its "retro diner" bona fides while also introducing its customers under a certain age to a great American pastime and a vestige of a time when dinosaurs, such as Yours truly, roamed the earth. 

Wednesday nights, the parking lot at the Bel Aire Diner turns into a drive-in movie theater.  A twenty-five-foot outdoor screen provides the video, a local radio station provides the audio, and for a $20.00 cover (it holds your spot in the Bel Aire's parking lot and is applied to your food order)  This past Wednesday night, there were two showings of Dirty Dancing and the week before it was Grease on the menu.  

Thus far, it is a hit.  The diner reported to the New York Times that its two showings of Dirty Dancing were sold out.  Presumably, if people keep showing up, then the Bel Aire will keep popping up as a drive-in movie theater for the foreseeable future.  

Maybe the drive-in movie theater is poised for a post-pandemic comeback? After all, it is the perfect social distancing entertainment platform.  Even if it is not, for now at least in Astoria, Queens, something old is new again.  

In a time where things that make us smile are in woefully short supply, the Bel Aire Diner's pop-up drive-in does the trick. 

-AK 

Musings on a Friday During the Pandemic

Oh, we are halfway there.

Provided of course that "there" is the end of May.  Technically speaking, at or about noon tomorrow we will officially be halfway to the month's end but given the somewhat amorphous nature of time with which we are presently wrestling, it is best not to split hairs. 

I have no idea how you spend your leisure time and I promise you that I am not inviting you to tell me.  However, if you own a television and turn it on every now and again then might I suggest that you familiarize yourself with Bosch on Amazon Prime.  Titus Welliver portrays Michael Connelly's titular character, a Detective in the Los Angeles Police Department about whom Connelly has written more than twenty novels.  Connelly helped create the television series and through six seasons and sixty episodes has remained intimately involved with it. 

If you have read a number of Connelly's Bosch novels, as I have, then I believe you will enjoy this show quite a lot.  If you have never read a single page of any of them and, furthermore, had never heard of the books or the character before you sat down to watch your first episode of show, then I believe you will enjoy this show quite a lot.  I offer my wife, Margaret, as an example of such a viewer.  Thirty days ago, she knew Bosch solely as a maker of quite excellent power tools.  Now? She's hooked. 

Earlier this year, pre-pandemic, Amazon announced that the next season of Bosch, its seventh, shall be its final one. At this point, it is anyone's guess when production shall begin on it and, more importantly, when it will be available to view.  Take it from me, try to pace yourself while watching the first six seasons.  Sixty episodes sounds like a lot...until you start to binge them.  Then?  Not so much. 

Without giving away a damn thing about the show, but perhaps piquing your interest regarding the manner in which it is crafted, I leave you with this extraordinary version of "What a Wonderful World", which plays as an accompaniment to the very last scene of Season 6...

-AK 

A Journey Through the World of Self

I last spent a "work day" in the office on Friday, March 13.  Since then I have worked five or six days a week, as I always do, but other than early-morning trips to/from the Firm to drop off work and to pick up work, my home has been my office. 

These past two months have put two discrete facets of my personality on a collision course.  First, I am resistant to change.  Almost criminally so.  Intellectually, I understand its benefits and its necessity.  Yet...

Second, I am not a not a terribly social animal - particularly at work.  I view co-workers through the same prism as I do fellow passengers on a plane, which is to say they are men and women to whom I may have no connection other than our simultaneous occupation of adjoining spaces.  I have been with the Firm for more than twenty-two years.  I am well-acquainted with a number of my colleagues, several of whom were already at the Firm when I joined it in 1998.  We are acquaintances and professional colleagues, nothing else.  For me at least that is more than enough to permit us to thrive in our shared space.  

As we near completion of the ninth week of isolation, I am proud to say that in spite of my innate resistance to change, I have handled it very well and shall continue to do so. While I chafe at the use of the phrase "new normal" since this is no longer new and it has never been normal, I have acclimated very nicely to my new surroundings.  I am fortunate that the Firm has neither furloughed nor laid off anyone since this nightmare began.  I have taken it upon myself to ensure that I do all I can to ensure that it does not have to do so.  I begin my work day before sunrise and work through to dinner time, Monday through Friday.  While I have no idea how the Firm's other attorneys spend their days, I take on faith that they each do at least as much as I do every day.  At the risk of sounding immodest, thus far our Firm has navigated this unprecedented time in history quite well.  I have little doubt we shall continue to do so.  

Nine weeks into isolation, however, has reinforced my lack of interest in participating in the social aspects of the workplace. The contact I have had with my colleagues during these past two months has been entirely work-related, such as discussing an issue on a particular case or brainstorming something. I have had almost no "incidental" ("Hey, how's it going?"/shoot the breeze/gather around the water cooler) contact with anyone from the Firm, including my Partners. I must confess that I have not missed it.   

When this pandemic finally ends and life as we formerly knew it, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, becomes the order of the day, I do not know whether I shall simply fall back into my old routine...  

I do not know that I can.  Is there such a thing as "end of separation" anxiety?  

Asking for a friend. 

-AK 

Same As We Ever Were

Chalk it up to observational bias if you must.  I have lived in New Jersey and a ninety-minute drive from New York City (save for four years shuffling off to be a Buffalo on Colorado's Front Range) my entire life.  Warts and all, this is my favorite part of this country.  More than that, this is my favorite part of the planet.  I was born here.  I raised my children here.  I have lived here my whole life.  I shall die here.  

Before you pull a hammy doing the dance of joy at that last declaration, know that I mean "someday", not today.  

Since the world shut down sixty days or so ago, the Missus and I have watched several television programs whose stated purpose has been to raise money to help Americans who have been gobsmacked by COVID-19.  Men and women who, through no fault of their own, have had the rug pulled out from under them.  Days formerly spent at work, supporting themselves and their families, have turned into days spent on interminably long lines, hoping their Food Bank does not run out of food before it is their turn. 

I must say that far and away the two most compelling fund-raising programs I have watched have been those whose energy has been focused on the people of this region.  Last month, the New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund aired the Jersey 4 Jersey Benefit, a one-hour program that featured a number of heavy hitters from our side of the Hudson.  Almost $6 Million was raised.  

Monday night, Tina Fey hosted an hour-long program, sponsored by the Robin Hood Foundation, called "Rise Up New York!", which raised more than $115 Million. I thought it was pitch perfect from beginning to end. 

Perhaps my favorite piece of it, though, was Alicia Keys' performance of "Good Job".  Admittedly, I do not know her music well enough to know - as I listened to it Monday night - whether it is a new song or simply "new to me".  

Frankly, it matters not.  The message is what matters. 

It is just one man's opinion but I think that the single most frightening aspect of our current situation is the uncertainty regarding how it shall end and when.  I believe that the only way to combat the feeling of helplessness inextricably linked to answering those questions "I don't know" is to focus on winning today.  Make it through today and then get up and do it all over again tomorrow.  Do not look too far ahead.  The lack of certainty and of clarity might overwhelm you.  Just keep doing what it is you are doing.

And what it is you are doing is one hell of a good job...

You're the engine that makes all things go
And you're always in disguise, my hero
I see your light in the dark
Smile in my face when we all know it's hard
There's no way to ever pay you back
Bless your heart, know I love you for that
Honest and selfless
I don't know if this helps it but…

-AK