Heads or Tails

 And everyone is changing

And the storefronts rearranging

I picked up a quarter and

I just saw my face.

But it's all coming back now

I can feel it isn't over

Hey, I know I was lost but

I miss those days.

-"I Miss Those Days"

Bleachers

With another one in the offing, I cannot help but wonder whether I squandered a golden opportunity all those years ago on the frequent occasions that I did something that prompted Dad to threaten to take away my birthday.  

Maybe, just maybe, I should have taken him up on it?   

At least once or twice.  

I know I was lost but I miss those days. 

-AK 

The Gift of Contribution

 

Today is Suzanne's birthday.  While characterizing my role in her life - and that of her brother, Rob - as they were growing up as "raising" is a test of the definitional elasticity of the verb "raise" since my principal functions were (a) to ensure the financial solvency of our household; (b) to drive the car whenever we needed to go someplace; and (c) to stay the hell out of the way of the Holy Trinity (Margaret, Suz, and Rob) as they did the voodoo that they did so well.   Once Suz and Rob each reached adulthood and his life took him two-thirds of the way across the United States, ensuring that the three of them occupy the same space far less frequently, I took on a fourth function:  Photographer (unless Rob's wife, Jess, is also present because to no one's surprise she is far more skilled than I).  This one, which I took several years ago at Beach Haus Brewery in Belmar, is one of my favorites: 

In the eight-plus years she and Ryan have been married, they have added three littles to their dynamic duo, the oldest of whom is not yet five, the youngest of whom is not yet two, and each of whom is extraordinary.  That last trait is directly attributable to the home environment in which Suz and Ryan are raising them, which allows them to flourish. 

Professionally, she is an all-star.  She is a Pediatric Speech Language Pathologist who specializes in Early Intervention.  In addition to attending to the needs of her clients and to performing student evaluations for a pre-school, she creates and sells her own materials that other SLPs can use to assist their own clients.  What else?  She writes her own blog and, based upon a conversation we have at dinner a Sunday or two ago, is now getting involved in podcasts.   

I hope that today the remnants of Kenan (and apropos of nothing, but can we stop naming every weather event that affects our day-to-day.  People remember the Great Chicago Fire, the Johnstown Flood, and the San Francisco Earthquake in spite of no one ever naming them) do not prevent Suz, Ryan, and the three kids from coming down the mountain to see Joe Joe, Nana, and me for her birthday.  You really have to be in our kitchen to appreciate the enthusiam with which my grandchildren infuse their singing of "Happy Birthday" and I would hate like hell to have the weather prevent them from doing it today.  

Happy Birthday, Suzanne.  Much love always.  Keep on doing what it is you are doing and, in the unlikely event you ever need me to drive somewhere, my keys are readily accessible on a hook in the kitchen. 

-AK 

The Deep Blue Sea

Detective First Grade Jason Rivera (Commissioner Keechant Sewell posthumously promoted the rookie officer) was laid to rest at St.  Patrick’s Cathedral yesterday.   

Men and women of law enforcement, including but certainly not limited to Detective Rivera’s brothers and sisters of the NYPD, lined 5th Avenue in support of their fallen brother and his family.  

If these images do not touch your heart, then when you reach the end of the Yellow Brick Road, you might want to ask the Wizard for a new one.  

-AK

Same Time, Next Year

It was at this time last year that I pulled out of the parking lot of 629 Parsippany Road as an employee for the final time.   I knew not what the future held in store for me.  

Then again, do any of us? 

Anyway, this is what I wrote then on my way out the door.  

Twelve months further on up the road, I have no complaints. 

-AK 

Friday, January 29, 2021

On The Way To The Next Morning

A picture postcard

A folded stub

A program of the play

File away your photographs 

Of your holiday.

And your mementos 

Will turn to dust

But that's the price you pay

For every year's a souvenir

That slowly fades away

Every year's a souvenir

That slowly fades away.

-"Souvenir"

Billy Joel

Today, Weiner Law Group bids farewell to an exceptionally talented lawyer and an even better human being.  Worry not, I am not being immodest.  I am speaking of my Partner, Kelly Skopak. She is off to her next great adventure.  I join in the endless chorus of voices wishing her well.  She is a credit to our profession. She shall be missed.  

And as for Yours truly?

  

I am off, walking through the dark, heading towards the dawn, and excited about the day to come. 

-AK 

Fidelis Ad Mortem (Redux)

At times like these, I wish I was a man of greater faith.  If I myself had a relationship with God, then maybe - just maybe - I could understand his rationale for the events of the past seven days.  

For the life of me, I cannot.  

 

Partners.  

Now and forever. 

-AK 

Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom

Relax.    They are not mine.   I am merely their conduit, not their source.

Be careful out there.  February is almost upon us.  

-AK

The Merger of All Things Into One

Suzanne prevailed upon me to download an app for my phone that allows me to keep track of the books I read.  Spoiler alert:  In my use of it, it has no “look back period” meaning I shall not go crazy adding all the books read prior to downloading it.   This app, much like life, is a forward-looking exercise.   

Sunday I finished reading Norman MacLean’s “A River Runs Through It”, which is only one hundred and five pages long, which I believe qualifies it to be a novella (although do not quote me on that as there is a very good likelihood I am wrong).   

Notwithstanding the fact I know as little about fly fishing and Montana as I do about most things, I found it to be immensely enjoyable.  Norman MacLean had a gift for language of which I am very envious, painting vivid pictures in relatively few words and communicating ideas of depth with brevity.   The book’s final two paragraphs convey it better than I can. 

Extraordinary stuff.  

-AK

A Special Sort of Blessing

 

Not too long before I called it a day on Saturday night and shuffled down the hallway to bed, I received a news alert on my phone informing me that Dennis Smith had died.  He was eigthy years old.   As a member of the FDNY, Smith was a member of Engine Company 82 in the South Bronx in the 1960s and 1970s, a period in which that house was the busiest one in New York City (and perhaps the world).  His memoir, Report from Engine Co. 82, is an extraordinary read.  

Dennis Smith served the people of New York City as a member of the FDNY from 1963, when he sat for the exam, until 1981, when he retired.  In 1976, he founded Firehouse Magazine.  He was a leading advocate for firefighters and fire departments across the country.   

In 2001, twenty years retired from the job, Dennis Smith responded to the September 11 attacks and spent considerable time thereafter at Ground Zero, taking part in the recovery effort.  Not too long thereafter, his book Report from Ground Zero was published and soon became recognized as one of the seminal accounts of that terrible, trying time in our nation's history.  Whatever condition a book descends into when "dog-eared" no longer does justice to it is the condition in which my copy has found itself for several years.  I have read it too many times to count.  

On the eve of the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, he wrote A Decade of Hope:  Stories of Grief and Endurance from 9/11 Families and Friends, which, too, occupies a place in my library.  It is also a book I have read beginning to end more times than I can remember.  

In 2000, Mr. Smith wrote a piece about the six firefighters from Worcester, Massachusetts killed in the line of duty responding to the fire at the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Company on December 3, 1999, which fire had been started accidentally by two homeless people squatting in the building.    It was this fire that inspired Denis Leary to start the Leary Firefighters Foundation.  Among the six Worcester firefighters killed on that terrible night were Leary's first cousin, FF Jerry Lucey (38 years old), and a childhood friend and high school classmate, Lt. Tommy Spencer (41).  In Mr. Smith's piece, "A Reflection:  Worcester Firefighters - All Firefighters", he wrote: 

I have always thought that being a firefighter 

is a special sort of blessing. 

In the thousands of alarms I have responded to 

and the many hundreds of fires I have fought, 

I have believed that because I was one of a particular group

of people who did something so dramatic, 

so exciting and so necessary, no other endeavor in life 

could have given me such happiness and satisfaction. 

Where would the world be if there were no firefighters, 

I would ask myself, for no one knows like those who battle 

on the periphery of the flames just how fast and deadly

a fire can be.  But, it is like asking where would we be

without the police force or the military 

or even the government, 

for the world needs brave people 

to protect us if the human family is to survive.

-Dennis Smith 

(March 2000)

-AK 

Fidelis Ad Mortem

 

If yours is a family that includes at least one law enforcement officer, then you know the steps that the family of fallen NYPD Police Officer Jason Rivera shall walk forever are one you pray you shall never have to take.  More than that, they are steps that - were you imbued with the power to turn back time - you would do all you could to ensure neither the Rivera family nor any law enforcement family ever had to take.  Not a single step.  Not a single family.    

Police Officer Jason Rivera, twenty-two years young, was killed in the line of duty on Friday night.  He and his partner, Police Officer Wilbert Mora, were gunned down while responding to a call of a "domestic disturbance".  Officer Mora, twenty-seven years young himself, was still battling for his life as I wrote these words on Saturday evening.  

At twenty-two, Jason Rivera was a son, a brother, and a husband.  He was also a rookie police officer.  A young man whose call to serve the people of New York City came from a very personal place. 

The people who live and who work in New York City are lucky.  They are lucky because notwithstanding the lamentations of those, including loudmouth politicos out to score quick political points by screaming "Defund the Police!", who shall never be willing to put themselves in harm's way to save the life of a stranger as Police Officer Rivera and Police Officer Mora did, they shall continue to be protected by the thousands of men and women who are inspired and who shall continue to be so inspired to do so.  

It is no different for them than it is for their colleagues in Federal, State, and Local law enforcement across this country.  Regardless of where they work, the beat they walk, and the consituency they serve, each is motivated by a sense of selflessness and a sense of service that many of us - including Yours truly - shall never possess nor, perhaps, completely understand.   The least we can do, therefore, is appreciate it.  

-AK 

The Highway That Is Life

On a late summer night more than a decade and a half ago, Margaret and I sat on the grass at the Garden States Art Center with Lynne, Gidg, and (if memory serves) Carolyn and enjoyed watching Meatloaf power his way through his live show.  It was an experience akin to having access to a really cool jukebox as he and his band tore through a playlist of instantly recognizable songs.  It was not a show where those in attendance stood and cheered.  It was a show at which we sang along to almost every - if not every - word.  

My phone buzzed in the wee small hours of Friday morning with a news alert telling me that Meatloaf had died Thursday night.  Heaven, apparently, could no longer wait...

I reckon that it shall not.

-AK

  

The World According to Kowalski

Who'd have thunk that this would still be relevant twenty-two months later...

and that at least for Yours truly, it is as true now as it was then.  As it has always been, for that matter. 

-AK 

Feels Like Home

 

…and sometimes it is a place that inspires a very specific kind of feeling.  

That, at least, has been my experience.  

-AK

Eternity's Echo

 

Nothing quite like a compelling quote from a historically significant human to set the stage for Yours truly airing a repeat today.  Remember:  Even if it has previously appeared in this space, if you have not read it before, then it is new to you!  

Laziness, thy name is my name...

All kidding aside, what appeared in this space slightly more than one year ago struck me as being as prescient (or not) now as it was then.   That is, of course, my opinion.  

You decide. 

-AK 

Sunday, January 17, 2021

We'll Marry Our Fortunes Together

So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies... 

In these United States, if we are truly as lost as we have appeared to be for the first two decades of this century, engaging in an ever-escalating, unabating tit-for-tat exchange of insults and invective that fueled the historically unprecedented attempted insurrection of the Congress by the President less than two weeks ago, then there is no point in continuing with the Founders' experiment. A Republic requires some tending to, which is never easy.  It is ours, as the great Benjamin Franklin reportedly observed, for only as long as we may keep it.  

While I shall never be mistaken for an optimist, pie-eyed or any other variety, I choose to believe that a basis exists for continuing to press forward with the Founders' experiment. I have five grandchildren, the oldest of whom will not be four until May.  I have skin in the game. Whether you have grandchildren, you too have skin in the game. Each of us does. 

It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw...

America is found in Frank Miller, his wife Alice, and the boys and girls of all ages from the Millers' Dallas, Texas neighborhood who responded to Alice's invitation to join Frank for a catch.  

America is found in Ted Lumpkin, Jr. and his fellow Tuskegee Airmen, who during WW II simultaneously fought against fascism in Europe and racism in the United States Armed Forces and kicked the hell of out of both foes. On December 26, 2020, less than one week shy of his 101st birthday, Mr. Lumpkin died in a Los Angeles hospital. His reported cause of death was COVID-19 complications. 

America is found in Landon Hacker. Nine years ago, he was a drug addict living on the streets of Camden, New Jersey.  On January 13, 2021, Chief Justice Rabner of the New Jersey Supreme Court swore him in as a member of the Bar of the State of New Jersey. 

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike...

Less than twenty years ago, on October 20, 2001, a boisterous crowd gathered in Madison Square Garden for The Concert for New York City, a benefit to honor the City's first responders, their families, and those killed on September 11.  Among the highlights of the show was the set David Bowie performed. At the time of the September 11 attacks, he lived with his wife, Iman, on Central Park South. Neither of them was an American by birth but both became New Yorkers, engrained into the fabric of the City as it was into them.  His performance of "Heroes" during his set brought the house down.  

His set also included a stirring rendition of Simon and Garfunkel's "America", sung by an Englishman who had not been born here but who sang every line as if he had experienced each firsthand.  He sang it as a love song to a country that may not have been the land of his birth but was most assuredly a land that he loved.  

If it is true that America has been lost, then let us make it our job, yours and mine, to find it.  

All come to look for America...

-AK 

In Pursuit of One's Fortune in the Promised Land

 Well from small things, mama,

Big things one day come.

Yeah from small things, mama,

Big things one day come. 

-"From Small Things" 

Bruce Springsteen

Thought for a mid-January Tuesday...

The moral of the story?  There are no small things.

-AK 

Solid First Step

Too often it seems to me that we defeat ourselves.  We ignore the wisdom of Occam's Razor.  We elevate the complexities of Life and our undertakings to the point of oxygen deprivation.  As long as these behaviors are not deliberate or intentional - and are something akin to inadvertent self-sabotage - we can change the trajectory of our life's arc to save ourselves from endlessly repeating them. 

It occurs to me that very much like the beginning, right here is a pretty fine place to start...

Slow and steady wins the race, right?  This step is a damn solid first one.  

-AK 

  

Did Someone Bring An Extinguisher?

 

Today is the birthday of one of the bravest, coolest, and most bad-ass humans I know and shall ever know:  my sister Jill.   Stupidity being the flip side of valor, I am not enough of either (although admittedly much more blessed with the former than the latter) to note which trip around the sun she celebrates today.  I am enough of the former to note that now she is just about as old as she is tall.    

Almost.  

Wilma and her much-taller younger brother

Post-race 2017 NYC Marathon

Wilma has always been one of the great heroes of my life.  So shall she always be.  

Jupiter - April 2017

(I'm sitting down in this picture) 

Happy Birthday, Wilma.  Much love today, tomorrow, and always. 

-AK 

  

Acting Upon A Most Beautiful Dream

 

It is perhaps fitting that it was on Dr. King's birthday - thirteen years ago - Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger performed the "Miracle on the Hudson" and effected an emergency water landing of US Airways Flight 1549, which had lost both of its engines to bird strikes shortly after departing LaGuardia Airport.  

Photo Credit:  Janis Krums (Associated Press)

Dr. King's message regarding the importance of human beings being able to look beyond and past the color of one another's skin and, instead, to assess one another on the quality of one another's character is perhaps more important now than it was even at the time he first said it.  It certainly is not any less so. 

Thirteen years ago, as Captain Sullenger, his crew, and the passengers on Flight 1549 floated percariously on the Hudson River's surfaces,  New York Waterway ferry crews sprang into action and came to their rescue.  Neither the rescuers nor those being rescued hesitated for even a moment to inquire about another's ethnicity, gender, political affiliation, race, religion, or sexual orientation.  

Actions undertaken for the benefit of another without thinking about any of that person's ancillary or component parts.   Imagine that. 

-AK

The Answer to the Question?

Presuming the question is, “How does a parent communicate the depth of her disappointment in her son’s behavior when he himself is 61 years old and is therefore well beyond the age at which he can (a) be grounded; and (b) be sent to bed without supper?”

-AK

Court is Adjourned

 

Unfortunately for recently-fired New York Giants Head Coach Joe Judge, when you occupy an office once occupied (figuratively if not literally) by Coach Parcells, when you only win ten of the thirty-three games contested on your watch, put an utterly unwatchable product on the field, and embarrass the people who sign your pay check by spouting gibberish, you are what you become...

and what you become is unemployed.  

-AK

At the Point of Intersection Between Shaw and McClinton

 

It turns out that some people, those who can, sing about them too.

Delbert McClinton

"Victim of Life's Circumstances

Here's to ending up getting knocked sideways. 

-AK 

My Faithful Canine Companion

I have often acknowledged that I prefer the company of my dog to the company of most humans.  It is a position for which I offer no apology.   

Today, my faithful canine companion celebrates a birthday.  Truthfully when you are a dog whose life is, well, Sam’s then every day is your special day.   Every time I see her sprawled across Margaret’s lap, snoring, while Margaret and I watch television at night or every time I watch her tear ass across the back yard during our nightly Dingo session, I smile and think of my father’s reaction every time he heard someone use the phrase “It’s a dog’s life” as if that was a bad thing.  Dad used to laugh and say, “I wish I lived a dog’s life.  I’d have it made.”  

Sam would agree with my father.  

We adopted Sam when she was approximately twelve weeks old.  She arrived in our home in late March 2018 tasked with doing the impossible, which was to fill the hole left in our hearts by Rosie’s death three weeks earlier.  Since her arrival almost four years ago, she has made the impossible attainable.  

I smile at the thought of being Sam’s third-favorite human in our house.  I am far up the track behind Margaret and behind Joe, both of whom she absolutely adores.   Better yet, I am comfortable with knowing that I am no better than Sam’s fifth-favorite human.  Jill and Joe both are ahead of me in Sam’s rankings.  

Fifth place is more than good enough.  Sam has a big motor and a big heart.  Me?  I am happy that she shares both with me.  

Margaret is just happy Sam shares a bit of the couch with her.  

Happy Birthday, Fats.

-AK

The Best Therapy

Among the things I enjoy to do most of all is read.   Although I might be what one, especially if that "one" is Margaret, calls a voracious reader, I am an infrequent reader of fiction.  I prefer non-fiction.  Regardless of genre, I am a fan of good writing.  I do more than simply appreciate it or even admire it.  I stand in awe of it.

During the course of this past week, I read two simply terrific novels.  An attorney is an author of each of them.    Each is available to purchase on Amazon.  I cannot recommend them enthusiastically enough.  The first of the two that I read is Brian Cuban's "The Ambulance Chaser".   

  

It is Brian Cuban's first novel.  It is an entertaining, fast-paced, and taut read.  I did not simply read it.  I devoured it.  I was sorry when I reached its end.   

I do not know Brian Cuban.  I am, however, somewhat familiar with his story, which is admirable, and which he documented in "The Addicted Lawyer:  Tales of the Bar, Booze, Blow, and Redemption."    In case you are not familiar with his story or with that book, I would recommend it to you.  It shall make you a fan of his.  I know it made me one.  

After I completed "The Ambulance Chaser"  I read Stuart Whitehair's first novel, "Due North".  Stuart is an attorney and also a graduate of the University of Colorado, Boulder.  Actually, he earned his B.A. and his J.D. in Boulder.  I have been a faithful reader of his website, CU At the Game, for the past ten-plus years.   Spoiler alert:  I am a big fan. 

"Due North" is a simply terrific book.  It is a terrifically well-paced whodunnit with well-developed characters.  More than that, it also serves as a love letter to Paradise Valley, Montana.  Stuart's words paint a gorgeous picture of the area.  I have never been there.  It is now on my "places to visit before I die" list.  

If you read either of them, then I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.  

-AK 

Contrary to Popular Opinion

One of the lessons that WPK, Sr. imparted to me, his youngest child, remains fresh in my mind four-plus decades post-tutorial.  "Life is not a popularity contest", my father used to tell me, "and if it is, we're not winning."  To Dad, being respected meant more than being liked.  He never chased affirmation or approval.  He was a man of many acquaintances and few friends.  

I strive to follow his example.  I live my day-to-day by a fairly simple mantra, which is not unsurprising considering I am a fairly simple fellow.   I fight hard to attain the best results I can for my clients.  I do so by fighting fair.  I have little interest in being well-liked.  I treat with respect those I encounter in my day-to-day, in my personal life and in my professional life.  I neither shape my beliefs to fit my circumstances nor chase trends in an effort to score a seat at the cool kids' table.  

You do you.  If you believe that you are truly served better by wetting your finger and raising it above your head to better judge the direction in which the wind is blowing before you take a stand or adopt a position, then I shall not waste your time or mine looking to disabuse you of your notion and its inherent folly.  If you like, I can provide you the name of a discount medical supply company from which you can purchase a whiplash collar.  Presently, and perhaps perpetually, you shall need one.  Maybe even more than one.  

As for me?  I shall be just fine.  As always.  

It is the lesson one learns from fidelity to the code.  

I have learned it well.  I continue to learn it better every day. 

-AK 

Safe Journey, Mr. Poitier

Sidney Poitier died yesterday.  He was ninety-four years old.   

 

Mission accomplished, sir.  Mission accomplished. 

-AK

The Value of Today

A kernel (the Missus and I have been on a popcorn kick lately) of thought for January’s first Friday…

And if the answer is “No”, then do something to change it.  

Be careful out there.  

-AK

By Twilight’s Last Gleaming

 

On New Year's Eve, Gidg and I spent a bit of time in Manasquan participating in the Jersey Shore Running Club's Twilight Run.  This year-ending two-mile fun run was shelved last year due to an earlier iteration of COVID-19.  This year, it was "Omicron Be Damned!"  Apparently, there were many  people among the participants who considered it difficult to take seriously a virus whose name might have had it mistaken for the latest forgettable installment in Michael Bay's interminable Transformers franchise.  I must confess that neither Gidg nor Yours truly were among those many people.  Neither of us spent a moment longer than necessary indoors to pick up our bibs and the entirety of that time was spent masked up and as far away from others as possible.  

While I participated not at all in the event’s social aspect, I did participate in the Run.   I did so representing the good people of Boulder County, Colorado, including but not limited to those who share my affiliation with CU.  

Although there is actual proof of me crossing the finish line (as opposed to only running 35.5% of the required distance) I did in fact complete it.  It was only two miles after all.   To the surprise of no one, least of all me, I did not finish first (as evidenced by this photograph taken by a photographer stationed at the finish line.  

This young woman was not the only person who finished before I did.   She was merely the closest one to me at race’s end.  

-AK