May We Never See Her Again

And Sandy, the aurora is rising behind us

This pier lights our carnival life forever

Oh, love me tonight, 

For I may never see you again. 

 

Jet Star Rollercoaster

Photo Credit:  Matthew Clark

(c) Matthew Clark 

Ten years ago, Superstorm Sandy introduced herself to the State of Concrete Gardens.  The Missus and I lost power, which did not get restored until Election Day.  We lost power.  Far too many of our neighbors and fellow residents lost much, much more.  Lives were lost.  Homes were lost.  

Ten years later, and still for far too many, the storm is not yet over.   May it be so eventually.  And when it is, may they make it through to the other side.  

-AK 

Shoulder to Shoulder

It has been an extraordinarily long Autumn on the Front Range for my beloved Colorado Buffaloes. They lost their first five games of the season by large margins.  Blowout after blowout.  It was not pretty.  After the fifth consecutive annihilation, the head coach and his defensive coordinator paid for it with their jobs.   

Interim head coach Mike Sanford, hired in the offseason as the offensive coordinator, and the architect of an offense that produced all of sixty-seven points through five games, and his reconfigured coaching staff had a bye week to get the Buffs ready for their Family Weekend home game against PAC-12 rival, the Cal Bears.   

And they did.   

Yesterday, under sun-soaked October skies and an enthusiastic home crowd at Folsom Field, the two-touchdown home dogs broke through for their first win of the season and defeated Cal 20-13 in overtime.  

Whether these kids win another game this season I cannot pretend to know.  I know that they demonstrated a lot of moxie this weekend.  They did themselves proud.  They did CU proud...    

Folsom Field Post-Game Celebration

Photo Credit:  Rita Williamson

...and sent the fans home happy.  

‘Neath the Cover of October Skies

It has been my privilege to run in the New York City Marathon three times as a member of the Stomp the Monster charity team.   Hell, on two of those occasions I actually finished the damn race.   In the words of the late, great American philosopher and comfort food Meatloaf, “two out of three ain’t bad”.   Actually it’s 66.7%.  If there is one thing I learned while struggling through every high school math class (other than geometry) I took, a success rate of 66.7% is in fact quite bad.  

But I digress.  

This morning in Manasquan I shall be one of a few hundred runners participating in Stomp the Monster’s 8th Annual Spooktacular, which event is a tremendous fundraising vehicle for them and helps them do the great works they do for cancer patients and their families throughout New Jersey.   If you would like to participate but did not sign up, then come to Leggett’s this morning and do so.  

It is a beautiful October Saturday at the Jersey Shore.  A great day for a run and some post-race festivities at Leggett’s…

all ‘neath the cover of October skies.   Hope to see you there.  

-AK

While Jimmy Malone Gently Weeps

On Wednesday night, the nightmare that lurks in the back of the hearts and minds of every law enforcement family became all too real for the families of Sgt. Dustin Demonte and Police Officer Alex Hamzy of the Bristol, Connecticut Police Department, who were murdered in the line of duty after apparently being lured to an ambush, and the family of their fellow officer, Police Officer Alec Iurato, who was shot and seriously wounded.    

Sgt. Dustin Demonte was just thirty-five years old.  A 2005 graduate of Middletown High School, and thereafter, a graduate of Central Connecticut State University with a Bachelor's Degree in criminology, he was the Bristol Police Department's Officer of the Year in 2019.   He was married and the father of two children, just three and two years old.  His wife, Laura, is pregnant with the couple's third child. 

Police Officer Alex Hamzy was a Bristol, Connecticut native son.  He joined his hometown police department in 2014.  He was named after his father, Alex Hamzy, Sr., who described his fallen son as, "a patriot and an All-American" who lived out his dream every day by serving and protecting the men, women, and children of his hometown.  Just thirty-four years of age, Officer Hamzy is survived by his wife, his parents, and his two sisters. 

-AK 

Scrapbooking

If you are lucky enough to be a grandparent, then you certainly know of which he speaks...

...enjoy your Sunday.

-AK 

Looking Out the Window of the Roaring Bus

 

This afternoon I shall do something that I have not done in at least five years.  I shall spend a bit of time on the campus of the high school from which I graduated in the penultimate decade of the last century.  In recent years, I have distanced myself from it by choice. It has been my response to what I consider (both at the time it happened and now) to have been mistreatment of a first-class human being whose privilege has been mine to know and to call a friend since we graduated from W-H together way back when (although I swear only one of us looks essentially unchanged all these years later and is not the one of us who stares back at me in the bathroom mirror every morning).  

Suffice it to say, what transpired got my Irish up.  Five-plus years later, it remains elevated.  Spoiler alert:  It shall remain so given the unbearable likeness recent events bear to the repetition of history.  Non-engagement is the rule.  This afternoon is the exception.  

For this afternoon, among those individuals who W-H shall honor at its annual Alumni Awards Ceremony is a long-time friend who happens to be among the people on this big blue marble I admire most of all.  Matt Albano is a good a human being as I have ever known.  For him, an exception must be made.  Failing to do so would violate the code of conduct by which I try to live my life.

 

So, on this second Saturday of October, I shall - if only for a moment - go to what once upon a lifetime or two ago felt like home.   Today, at least, it is a stop on the route of this particular bus.  

-AK 

No Wind Sock Required

If from the time spent here you learn nothing more than this, then it has not been time spent in vain…

Live a life that is faithful and true to your core principles and you shall be well-served.   Unless your core principle is that you are an asshole.   In that case, it is a bit more of a dice roll. 

Speaking from personal experience, you should still be better than fine.  You may not end up winning any popularity contest but who cares?  Life is not a popularity contest after all.  And at day’s end, being principled beats the piss out of being popular.  

Plus it frees up a lot of time that you would have otherwise spent tying to gauge the direction of the wind.  

-AK

Farewell to a Hero

Lieutenant Alison Russo-Elling served the people of the City of New York as a member of the FDNY for slightly less than a quarter century.  At sixty-one, she approximately six months from retirement, looking forward to spending time with her daughter and her grandchildren.  

Then, last Thursday, everything changed.  In a New York minute.

Lt. Russo-Elling walked a half block from her unit to grab something to eat on Thursday afternoon.  Instead of getting lunch, she was stabbed to death by yet another one of New York City's seemingly endless supply of madmen.   It was an unprovoked attack, of course.  As if that makes any goddamn difference to her family.  Any difference at all.  

Twenty-one years ago, Lt. Russo-Elling was one of the heroes who responded to the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.  In addition to serving and protecting the residents of New York City, in her spare time she volunteered as a member of the Huntington Community First Aid Squad, serving and protecting the people of the town where she lived.  

Her death is not merely heartbreaking, which of course it is.  It is infuriating.  She shall be missed by those she loved and those who loved her most of all.  Every day.  

Forever. 

-AK 

A Hole in the World

 

Seventy-one years ago, today, the hearts of my mother and of every Brooklyn Dodgers fan were broken by Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants.  Thomson hit the pennant-winning home run off of Brooklyn's Ralph Branca, winning the 1951 National League title for the Giants and a date with the Yankees in the World Series.  Spoiler alert:  the Giants won the pennant (just ask Russ Hodges) but the Bombers won the Series. 

Sixty-four months ago, today, my heart broke.  Ten days shy of her eighty-ninth birthday, my all-time favorite Brooklyn Dodgers fan died.  Earlier this year, when it was announced that Gil Hodges was finally being enshrined in the Baseball Hall-of-Fame, I thought of Mom and I smiled.  On September 17, 2022, Joan Hodges, Gil Hodges' widow, died.  Joan Hodges was ten days shy of her ninety-sixth birthday.  

While I have never met any of the three Hodges' children and likely never shall, I feel as if I have a keen appreciation for how each of them feels - today and every day.  They miss the hell out of a woman each was lucky to call "Mom".  

I am in touch with that emotion.  

-AK 

A Well-Deserved Honor

Somewhere, my mother and father are smiling.  

On Saturday, October 8, among the individuals being honored by The Wardlaw-Hartridge School at its annual Alumni Awards ceremony shall be Matthew P. Albano, Esq., Class of 1981.   It has been my great pleasure and privilege to know Matt since...well for so long that I cannot remember a time in my life that I have not known him.  

In addition to being Kara's classmate and a great friend to Kara, Jill, and me, Matt was one of my parents' favorites.  He ranked high on the list of Dad's all-time favorite students.  It was a not-very-well-kept secret in the Kenny household when I was a child that Matt was who my parents wanted me to be when I grew up.  

As luck would have it,  five-and-one-half decades into this life, I have never hit that mark.  Some footsteps were easier to follow than others, such as our shared career in the law at which I like to think I have held up my end as opposed to my ill-fated foray into wrestling.  

Unlike Matt, who was a standout at W-H, I would have had to been much better than I actually was to have qualified as "terrible".  In his four seasons wrestling for Doc Rud, he won too many matches to count and placed in the State Championships.  In my one season on the mats, I notched two wins and an encyclopedic knowledge of the composition of high school gymnasium ceilings throughout the State of Concrete Gardens.  

This Saturday, I shall be among those in attendance saluting Matt and his fellow honorees.  And somewhere, my mother and father shall no doubt be looking in on the afternoon's events and smiling...  

Matt Albano's masterpiece - made for Dad

...as shall I.  

-AK 

Make Life Huge

Welcome to October!  This time last year I was in the home stretch of my preparation for the New York City Marathon.   We all know how well that turned out.  In hindsight I could have spent that time chugging Mountain Dew and inhaling pork rinds.  

But I digress.  

Today’s words of wisdom come from the legend himself, Bill Murray…

Sage advice indeed.  Be careful out there..

…and make life huge.  

-AK