Times Like These

Foo for thought on June’s final day…

Happy Birthday, Bowinkle…and welcome to Club Double Nickel!

-AK

The Gains of Pain

Food for thought today and every day…

Be careful out there. 

-AK

Break Glass In Case of Emergency

Here’s to hoping there is not a Katy Perry song lurking out there someplace…

Fingers crossed.

-AK

At What Cost Pain

Something to consider on June’s final Sunday…

Be careful out there.  

-AK

When the Shoe Fits

Some days this space writes itself.   This week has been chock full of such days…

…like it or not.  

-AK

Get Your Meter Running…

Fuel for thought for the first official Friday of Summer 2022…

Faux pine tree air freshener sold separately.  

Be careful out there but get out there and do something. Time keeps ticking away whether you are an active participant in your life or not.  

You are the one paying for this trip.  Make it one for which you shall gladly leave a generous tip.

-AK

The Company Kept

Not by everyone, to be sure, but by some of us…

all roads lead to perdition.  

-AK

The Summer Solstice

Summer officially arrives today in the Northern Hemisphere.  It is the longest day of the year in terms of sunlight.  I look forward to its arrival today as I do every year.  

 

The older I get, the more I appreciate and savor summer’s long days.   It is the promise of summer that carries me through winter’s dog days.   

-AK

A Well-Told Story

Yesterday afternoon, sitting on the beach, I finished reading Dave Grohl's The Storyteller.  I enjoyed it immensely.  I cannot recommend it strongly enough.  

-AK

Two Words and Twenty-Nine Years Later

First, a very happy Father's Day to my fellow Dads everywhere, including my father-in-law, my brothers, my brothers-in-law, my son, and my son-in-law.  A damn good group and one in which I am happy to call myself a member. 

It was twenty-nine years ago today that I became a father.  At shortly after 12 noon, the late, great Judge Raymond DeMarco married Margaret and me.  By uttering just two words, "I do", I went from being single to being a husband and father of two.  If memory serves, Rob was seven and Suzanne was eight.  I have never - and shall never - refer to either of them as my "stepchildren".   Doing so would - to me at least - imply or otherwise suggest that I feel some lesser bond to either of them than I would if they shared even a little of my DNA. To the contrary, I am thrilled for both that they do not and am proud of the life each is making with their families.  Margaret and I have the five most spectacular grandchildren for whom any grandparent could ever hope.  

My wife is an extraordinary woman.  One of the great mysteries of my life is what Margaret sees looking at her husband that ever made her say, "I choose you" and has yet to make her say, "Here, let me smother you with this pillow."  I am not an easy man with whom to live.  She somehow manages to make it seem much easier than it is.  For that, I thank her.  

I thank her more for her decision - three-plus decades ago - to allow me into her life.  I have little doubt that had she and I not become, well, she and I that she would be doing quite well for herself, thank you very much.  I, on the other hand, would not.  I never realized that I was desirous of having an actual, full life until I met my wife.  Before Margaret, I could not have imagined spending my life with another person.  Now?  I recoil in fear at the thought of ever living a day of my life without her - and not just because I have no idea what bank it is in which we have our money or what the password is for our Amazon Prime account.   

Brian Wilson expressed it better than I ever could.  What would I be without her? 

-AK 

 

Children and Animals First

We adults are just going to have to swim for it...

-AK 

Happy Hour Is A Contact Sport

A favorite of mine to whom I owe my brother Bill an enormous debt of gratitude for having introduced me, James McMurtry, speaking words of wisdom to weekend warriors everywhere.   

Tonight, and every night, be careful out there.  Wherever it is that “there” may be…

Indeed, it does.  

-AK

The Artful Imitation of Life

A nickel’s worth of insight for the first day of the second half of June…

-AK

The Last Exit Ramp Before Innocence’s End

I am nowhere close to being anything resembling an authority on Hunter S. Thompson but when I came across this on-line, I smiled.   He most assuredly was right about this…

…at least that has always been my experience.  

May it always be so.  

-AK

Happy Flag Day

-AK 

Life's Greatest Song

 

Dave Grohl

Today is Mom's birthday.  Dave Grohl is right.  Without her, there would have been no music.  

Not even a single note.  Happy Birthday, Mom.  

-AK 

A Shout Out to Disappointed Idealists Everywhere

Margaret and I recently watched George Carlin's American Dream on HBO Max.  I must confess that I had forgotten exactly how much I have missed him.  If ever there was a time in the history of these United States that screams out for Carlin, we are living through it.  

So here's some words of wisdom for a Sunday in mid-June, courtesy of George Carlin, to cynics near and far...

-AK 

The Gospel According to George

 

Take my word for it, folks, the paint is wet.  

-AK

Basic Math

Food for thought for a Friday in June, courtesy of one of my favorite fictional characters...

 

However you spend your weekend and wherever you spend it, be careful out there.  And remember the Gospel according to Bosch:  Everybody counts or Nobody counts.  

-AK

The Handsome Groom and His Bride

Well would they ever look so happy again?

Yeah the handsome groom and his bride

As they stepped into that long black limousine

For their mystery ride…

“Walk Like A Man”

-Bruce Springsteen 

Looking at this photograph from their wedding day on this, their anniversary, I do not pretend to know the answer to the question of whether my mother and father ever were as happy again as they appeared to be at this particular moment in time.   

Nor do I pretend to know whether they knew the answer to that question or whether either was ever brave enough to ask it of the other.  

-AK

Three Things

Not ever having been mistaken for a genius myself (a streak I reasonably anticipate will continue uninterrupted through the day I die - at least), I consider it worthwhile to listen to such a person.   In support of my position I am constrained to point out that in “A Few Good Men” the fictional game show on which Lt. Daniel Kaffee feared he would end up as a contestant was “Should We or Should We Not Follow the Advice of the Galactically Stupid”.  

Which of the three is most important?  I reckon that is for you to decide.  I will say only this:  If you know, you know.  

-AK

The Promise of Someday

Food for thought for a Tuesday…

-AK 

As Seen Through and By the Eyes of the World

Seventy-eight years ago today...

If you have not yet read it (and I might ask for what it is you are waiting since it was published sixteen-plus years ago), then without reservation I recommend you read Douglas Brinkley's terrific book, "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc:  Ronald Reagan, D-Day, and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion".   

After you have read Brinkley's book, then you might want to watch President Reagan deliver his speech, which all these years later still strikes me as pitch-perfect.  

-AK 

 

Tennessee Waltz

Food for thought for June’s first Sunday…

-AK

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

Sir Anthony Hopkins speaking words of wisdom for June's first Saturday...

...although I could not help but notice he did not mention eating a dinner of fava beans and a nice chianti.  

Not even once.

-AK 

Zero to Sixty

Five years ago, today, my mother died.  She died in Jupiter, Florida, where she had lived for the final twenty of her almost eighty-nine years.  My sister Kara was with her.  I was not. 

June 3, 2017 was a Saturday.  I had driven down the Shore on Thursday night, celebrated Work From Beach Friday, and gotten up Saturday morning to run north on the boardwalk at the 17th Avenue Beach in Belmar, over the Shark River Bridge, and through Avon-by-the-Sea, Bradley Beach, and Ocean Grove on my way to Asbury Park.  It was a running route that took me past the Belmar Fishing Club, which is located on a pier at Belmar's northern end and two or three blocks south of the Belmar side of the Shark River Bridge, and which on this morning seemed to me to look especially beautiful. 

Belmar Fishing Club - Belmar, New Jersey 

Saturday, June 3, 2017

It may seem impossible to believe that a day that began bathed in such beauty could turn so bad.  Yet it did.  

By the early part of that afternoon, Kara called from Mom's hospital room.  Mom was failing badly and wanted Kara to call so I could have the chance to tell her I loved her and to say goodbye to her.  Five years later, and I still do not know if Kara and Mom were crying on their end of the phone.  I was sobbing so violently on my end that for ten minutes after the call ended, I was convulsing in the middle of the living room.  Had I tried to bite my own tongue, it would have more closely mimicked the epileptic seizures of my childhood.  Considering I had not had one in more than forty years?  It proved to be very much like riding a bicycle.  

By late afternoon, Jill and I were in her car driving south to Florida.  We had not even made it through Delaware when Kara called to tell us that Mom had died.  We drove on through the night and arrived in Jupiter on the morning of June 4, 2017.  It was a Sunday.  

On Friday, June 9, 2017 (which coincidentally was Mom/Dad's anniversary), Kara, Jill, and I headed north back to New Jersey.  Before we did, we walked to Mom's beach.  It was a place where she had spent some of the happiest years of her life.  

For the second time in one week, I used my cell phone to say goodbye to Mom and to tell her that I loved her.  

This time, we both were in Jupiter.  

Mom's Beach - Jupiter, Florida

June 9, 2017

-AK

Apples, Trees, and Memories

It seems almost incomprehensible to me that Margaret’s mom, Suzy B., died thirteen years ago today.  She battled like a warrior poet against cancer for the final five-plus years of her life.   Ultimately it took her life.  It never took her spirit.   She simply would not let it.   

My mother-in-law was an extraordinary woman.  She raised an extraordinary woman.  I ought to know.  I am married to her.   

Margaret and the Sue’s Crew Quilt

-AK

It Is Better Than The Darkness

Some words of wisdom for June’s first day, courtesy of the late, great Charles Bukowski…

-AK