Ritual

from Jacqueline

It’s mid-October and 82 degrees in the Bay Area.  There’s not a cloud in the sky and I know it’s probably pretty much the same throughout the state.  But I’m ready for a few clouds. I’m ready for rain, and to be snuggled up by the fire with a good book on long dark evenings.  

I’m ready for fall, and winter. Technically, it’s fall – there are leaves of gold, brown and red across my lawn, and the sun is low in the sky.  And I’m in the midst of changing the curtains and chair covers.  It’s something that almost everyone did when I was a kid.  The clocks changing in late October meant that it was time for the inside of the house to reflect what was expected outside the house.  Down came the summery cotton or linen curtains, all cabbage roses and bright colors, and up went the heavy velvet or wool drapes in burgundy or gold.  Light slip covers were lifted from the chairs and sofas, laundered and put away for the next year, to be replaced heavier fabrics you had to wrangle into place, ready for those evenings of sweatered-up lounging. I have to admit, the house I grew up in was likely to have more ice inside the windows than outside, so you were thankful for those heavy curtains keeping the drafts at bay.

My husband thinks this is a strange ritual, this changing of the curtains and slipcovers – it’s right up there with what he calls “British women’s throw pillow disease.”  Yep, I kind of like pillows – they go nicely with the lounging. But there’s a sense of excitement when I take down my white curtains and replace them with the gold velvets – the evenings have been getting nippy, and the windows in my 1942 bungalow are the breezy originals.  The white slipcovers are still on the sofa – after all, it was very hot yesterday, so it doesn’t seem quite right for the darker covers to go on, but it will be time, come All Hallow’s Eve. 

It’s just a funny old ritual of mine, a way to mark the passing of the season, a connection to the rhythm of life.  And as soon as those velvets come out, it’s as if I’m a child again – I can almost hear the wood-saw in the distance, and smell leaves being burned on days when a silk-scarf mist barely rises above frosty ground.  The cows cluster in the corners of fields for warmth, and it seems that even the sounds on the air are different, as if muffled against the cold.  

Everything is ready for sleep – until, that is, I break out those white cotton curtains, come Spring.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Football Plus Family Equals Everlasting Memories

From the messy desk of Paul Levine...

You gotta kiss a lot of frogs to see a prince of a game like this.

You gotta sit through rain and snow and fog and an occasional abomination  like the infamous 6-4 loss to Iowa in 2004.

But last Saturday night was warm and clear in Beaver Stadium as Penn State won a MIRACLE come-from-behind, quadruple overtime game against Michigan, 43-40.

Here, tailback Bill Belton scores the winning touchdown in the fourth overtime, and the players celebrate.

There were four of us who traveled from Miami. My lady Marcia, son Mike, and his wife, Aja, who happens to be seven months pregnant. (I have lobbied unsuccessfully that the child be named "Nittany" or at least "Lion").  Yes, we watched the Homecoming Parade, had dinner at the Tavern, ate grilled stickies at the Diner, and hit the Creamery for bittersweet mint ice cream, vanilla/peanut butter, Danish apple-pecan, and various derivations of chocolate. 

Here we are having breakfast before the game with long-time comedy writer and Penn State pal Carmen Finestra, one of the creators of ABC’s "Home Improvement."

Nineteen years ago, Carmen,  Mike, and I attended the Rose Bowl together, watching Penn State paste Oregon, 38-20, to complete an undefeated season. But this year is different. The Nittany Lions are on probation as a result of the Sandusky child abuse scandal. The team’s record coming into the game with undefeated Michigan was a modest 3-2, and there will be no conference championship or bowl games. 

A boost in morale is what the doctor ordered, and the team delivered. It started as a rainy, chilly weekend. Here’s Marcia in the mist at the University Arboretum two days before the game. (We get our football weekends started early).

Seeing all the students in their "whiteout" togs, Marcia delivered deadpan a statement with which no one could disagree. "They have a lot of school spirit here, don’t they?"

What a weekend it was. The new $100 million hockey arena, paid for by  generous alumnus Terry Pegula, opened with a sellout crowd and a 4-1 victory over Army.

The perennially terrific women’s volleyball team defeated Minnesota 3-2.

And, the football team kept us on the edge of our seats for 4 ½ hours before delivering us from cardiac danger. 

It all got me to thinking.

I attended my first game at Beaver Stadium as a high school student in November 1964, a 28-20 shutout of Pitt. The wind chill was zero, and oldtimers – hey, I’m one – regard it as the coldest game every played there. I’ve been at many memorable games since.  In 1967 – Joe Paterno’s second season as head coach – there was the 13-8 upset of number three ranked North Carolina State, with future Grammy-winning musician Mike Reid providing the defensive firepower.

The next year, I watched Ted Kwalick return an onside kick for a touchdown in a 28-24 win over Army to help preserve what would be a undefeated season. Let’s not forget the Todd Blackledge engineered 27-24 come-from-behind victory over Nebraska played under temporary lights in 1982...leading to the national championship victory over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. Yep, I was at both of those games.

I was at the Fiesta Bowl following the 1986 season when the two-touchdown underdog Nittany Lions upset powerful Miami 14-10 for Paterno’s second national championship. And I was there, way back on January 1, 1969 when Kansas had 12 men on the field at the Orange Bowl, allowing Penn State a second shot at a two-point conversion and a 15-14 victory.

But of all the games – and I include that horrific 6-4 loss to Iowa – none was as memorable as the Miracle Over Michigan. Why? Family, of course. Three generations of Levines in attendance, if you include the one carried by Aja. There, too, was Marcia, who brings infinite joy to my life, and will defend me if I am ever charged with a felony. Lifetime memories are made of weekends like this. And I intend to savor this one forever and a day.

Paul Levine

Would Anyone Mind ... If I Had A Bath?

from Jacqueline

Last weekend I was in North Carolina staying with dear friends who I know pretty well.  We’d spent the first morning visiting their new haunts – they’d relocated to the state from the San Francisco Bay Area about six months ago – so by the time late afternoon rolled around, we were back at their home ready to relax and kick back.  At that point I asked my hosts if it would be OK for me to take a hot bath.  They looked a tad embarrassed and said, “Well of course it is,” and seemed incredulous that I had asked (after all, the guest suite had its own very nice bathroom).  I hadn’t wanted to embarrass anyone, and tried to explain that, well, I had never in my life just assumed it was OK to go ahead and take a hot bath when I pleased, especially in someone else's house.  Again, there was that look of incredulity.  My husband is used to me checking in with him by now (“OK with you if I have a hot bath, love?”), even though I know he thinks it’s a bit odd.  But then, he was brought up in a house with plenty of bathrooms – and we all know you Americans are mighty particular about the number of bathrooms you have at your disposal.

 I suppose it all goes back to childhood – don’t most of our little ticks and habits that others don’t quite understand go back to childhood?  Let me explain.  Until I was thirteen or thereabouts, I had never lived in a house with an actual bathroom.  But then, I had never lived in a house less than one hundred years old.  Most old houses were not built with bathrooms, and unless someone had added a bathroom later, well, this was what you had to put up with – the WC was outside, and if you wanted a bath, someone had to stoke up the fire to heat the water, which would later be drawn off to fill a tin bath placed in front of the kitchen range. 

 That’s how we used to bathe when I was a kid – of course, you had privacy, because by the time the water was hot, the rest of the family were in the living room watching Coronation Street (Britain’s longest-running TV soap - sorry about the pun).  I still remember my mother placing towels on the rail above the range, so they’d be warm by the time we needed them – and on cold nights she’d open the fire-door, so you were toasty and flushed with heat as you steeped yourself.  At some point Dad brought home a real bathtub, which was plumbed in just behind the kitchen door – it was a huge kitchen, by the way – and the same rules applied; the fire was stoked, the water heated up sufficiently, and the family vanished while you had your bath. This is what happens when your parents buy a somewhat decrepit early Victorian house “in need of some modernization” – which turns out to be a 25-year remodel project.  Therefore you can see how the business of having a hot bath always required something of an announcement and a bit of preparation.  

That is not me, though I had the same stylish haircut.

At last, when I was 13, the builders came, walls went up, the large kitchen was rendered smaller - and after what seemed like weeks of construction, we had a real bathroom with an indoor WC!  But the fire still had to be stoked if anyone wanted a bath, so you still had to ask, “Is it OK if I have a bath tonight?”

Perhaps there’s really no need for me to request permission anymore, though I still believe it's the right thing to do.  Someone else might need the hot water I’m just about to wallow in.  Growing up we only had that one bathroom (eventually ….) – indeed, everyone I knew only had one bathroom – so obviously I wouldn’t want to be languishing in the bathtub while another family member was banging on the door and turning blue with the need to use the loo.  Clearly, asking if it’s OK to have a hot bath is a habit acquired in childhood that after all these years – and many bathrooms later - I just can’t seem to kick, though there was respite during the years I lived alone and could do what I liked with the water supply.  No one has ever said, “Oh no, it’s shower or nothing in this house,” or “Maybe tomorrow” or “I don’t think so.” – but I know I would feel ill mannered if I hadn't bothered to ask.  And I’m not the only one.  When I was last staying with my oldest, dearest friend and her family in England, we were watching TV one evening, when she stood up and said, “Anyone mind if I have a bath.”  No, no one minded.  It just took another hour until the water was hot enough for me take a bath - and of course, I asked first.

 My question to you, gentle reader, is, in the realm of good manners, what has lingered in your life from childhood?

Homecoming Weekend: It's Not Just a Football Game

From the messy desk of Paul Levine...

I'm getting personal today.

Autumn is in the air.  I'm taking my son Mike, his wife Aja, and my lady Marcia to Penn State this weekend for homecoming. 

Stroll with me, if you will, down memory lane.  Here I am with my son on campus...28 years ago.

Then a few years later at a Penn State football game.

 

 

How do the years go so quickly?  Five minutes after that picture was taken, Mike was a student in the College of Communications at Penn State, just as I had been.  Here we are during his student days.

And here, too.

The similarities don't end there.  I covered the football team as sports editor, then editor-in-chief of The Daily Collegian.  Mike did play-by-play of the games 32 years later for the student radio station.  I became a newspaper reporter; he became a sports broadcaster.  Now Mike and Aja have an almost-three year-old and are expecting a second child.  Herewith Violet:

Mike, Aja, and Violet:

 

Marcia and Violet:

My daughter Wendy also has two children, Jonah and Lexi, meaning I will shortly be the grandfather of four!  Where, I ask again, have the years gone?  Herewith, Wendy, Jonah and Lexi: 

Back to homecoming.  Odds are, Penn State will lose to Michigan.  But this isn't just about football...though sitting in a crowd of 107,000 partisans as the Blue Band takes the field for a big night game is an experience to savor. 

It is a different era now.  The beloved Joe Paterno is gone.  Eventually, his legacy of success with honor and integrity will outlast the scandal that has tainted his name.  "We can lick the world with liberal arts," he was fond of saying, an unusual statement for a football coach.  Then there is this, from his 1973 Commencement Address:

 

"We work hard to achieve our goals and when Saturday comes and we walk on the grass in this stadium, we stand as a team. We tighten up our belts. We look across at our opponents. We say, come on, let’s go, let’s see how good you are, let’s play. We are ready. We play with enthusiasm and recklessness. We aren’t afraid to lose. If we win, great, wonderful – and the alumni are happy for another week. But win or lose, it is the competition which gives us pleasure.

"It is being involved in a common cause which brings us joy and memories which endure in teammates. It is making our very best effort, that we have stretched to the very limit of our ability, which makes us bigger men and more able to stretch again: to reach even high as we undertake new challenges."

Joe was not just talking about football.  Here he is, delivering that address:

 

So what will I do this weekend?

 

I will admire the leaves, eat grilled stickies at Ye Olde College Diner, peer at Mount Nittany, see classmates, visit the  Communications College Dean, eat mint-chocolate chip ice cream at the Creamery, watch the homecoming parade, attend the President's tailgate, speak about "Strategic Communications" for an on-line course, and root-root-root for the home team.  I will amble along the same sidewalks I did as a 17-year-old freshman...when Lyndon Johnson was President.  I will look at the students, who will appear impossibly young.  Was I ever that young?  Oh, to be 17 and know what I know now.  Or even 45!

 

I will take a time machine to an earlier, simpler time of pep rallies and pop quizzes, of crisp autumn air and all-nighters.  A time when the future was without limits and possibilities were endless.  It is homecoming, and I am going home. 

 



 

 

Paul Levine`

Car Love Never Runs Smooth

Patty here...

A couple of days ago I was talking to a friend who said that women don't love their cars, not the way men do. I begged to differ. That's when I remembered a blog I posted a few years ago after I dumped the car love of my life.

It was a convertible—my first and probably my last. The two of us had a great relationship. It was young and had a great ass. But after a few years, I wanted more than it could give me. I hated myself, but I needed a sedan with a back seat. It was an agonizing decision, but I had to part ways. Breaking up is hard to do, but I’d been through it before. You grieve and then you move on. I told myself the convertible wasn’t right for me. But when I unloaded my Thomas Guide and waved goodbye, all I could think about was the exhilarating feeling the two of us had cruising down Pacific Coast Highway with the warm Southern California air sweeping over our curves.

In the days after the separation I was overcome by a debilitating ennui. Sure, I had a new love, an International type: sleek, reliable, engineered to perfection. But the breakup with the convertible wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I needed counseling, so I unloaded all my emotional car baggage on a friend. She told me she was attached to the first “nice” car she ever owned. All the others were just transportation. Just transportation? Could I be happy settling for only that? It made me wonder. How many cars had I really loved before?

My first car was one of those generic Fords, painted in a shade of green not found in nature. I inherited it from my sister when she moved on to another car relationship. The Ford had a stick shift and got about ten miles per quart of oil. It was the sort of ride you parked six blocks from wherever you were going so your friends wouldn't know that you two were an item. Early on, I realized our affair wasn't going to last; it was a high school fling that would never get me where I wanted to go.

My next car was a robin’s egg blue Corvair Monza with wire-wheel hubcaps. It had been around the block a few times, which gave it an aura of danger. People said the Corvair was bad for me, that gas emissions leaked through the heating system. Ralph Nader told me to dump the car or it would be the death of me. Big deal. So I had to leave the window open in the winter when the heater was on. I was young and impetuous. It was a small price to pay for what I thought was "the one."

After that affair ended, I hooked up with a Toyota Celica, my first new car. I wanted so much to love it. It was a sporty four-speed that never complained about carrying my bicycle rack on its back. Eventually, that accommodation just wasn't enough. I tried to make it work, but when I was with the Celica I shifted from heartbreak to heartbreak. On hindsight, I stayed in that relationship way too long.

After that, I went through a series of auto affairs. None of them lasted very long. The convertible was the first car in years that could light my fire but it was over all too soon. I've been with this new car for a few years now. We're in a good place. I don't push its buttons; there are too many of them to figure out. It takes me where I want to go and never complains when it's tires are low or when I crank up the radio to "deaf." Time will tell if we have a future, but I’m warming to the heady aroma of leather and the sound of the soft purr when I turn it on. Who knows? Some day we may be racing around curves on the Angeles Crest Highway and I’ll finally say the words: “I love you, baby.”

So what about you? What cars have you loved before?

Happy Monday!

Rest in Peace, Tom Clancy

By James O. Born


 I don't want to be the guy who only blogs when someone dies. It just worked out that way this week. Writer Tom Clancy passed away Tuesday in Baltimore. Unlike my blog about Elmore Leonard passing away, this is not about my personal relationship, I never personally met Mr. Clancy. We shared an editor, Neil Nyren, at Putnam and we had many friends in common. He is one of the few writers my kids liked.  I even managed to snag a couple of signed books for my son when he was in highschool.  Any time a teen aged boy shows an interest in reading you support it strongly.

I try to be careful not to disclose privileged information when someone deems me worthy of hearing it. Clancy was widely known as a mercurial personality who reportedly once tried to buy the Minnesota Vikings and bought a share of the Baltimore Orioles, but I recall one story I heard about him where a young man who had cancer in South Florida contacted him as a fan. By all accounts Clancy went far above and beyond the call of duty and did everything he could to make this young man's plight easier. To me, doing something like that, when no one's paying attention, is much more important than being known as the minority owner of the Baltimore Orioles. (For the record I would not mind being the minority owner of any major sports team. Except the New York Jets.) I was also a fan of Tom Clancy.


 We often hear debates about whether people can learn to write or are natural writers. The element many people leave out his storytelling. Clancy was a storyteller on a grand scale. His lesser-known novels such as Red Storm Rising and The Bear And The Dragon detail global military conflict better than any other book ever written. That is my opinion, but I will confidently state it as fact. Because although the books are filled with military detail, which I don't know to be absolutely correct, the stories and characters themselves drew me in to the novels.


 I read Red Storm Rising while on a long surveillance with the US Drug Enforcement Administration. There is a tremendous amount of dead time during an activity like that. The surveillance was more than twenty-five years ago and I can remember every nuance of that novel. There is no higher praise I could give to a work of literature.

 I will choose to remember Mr. Clancy by his act of kindness for a young man stricken with cancer and his ability to create an entire universe of conflict which entertained me for hours on end.

If he had done nothing else in the world (and he achieved a lot), those are two notable accomplishments.

 Rest in peace, Tom Clancy.

Is This the End of Jake Lassiter?

From the messy desk of Paul Levine...

I only do this once a year.

So please bear with me.

It's what Dave Barry calls "strumpeting" your book.  Yeah, advertising its wares shamelessly, like a Times Square streetwalker.  (I know the Times Square reference is really dated, but then so am I).

So, here it is.  October 1.  Official publication date, and I'm flogging the hell out of "State vs. Lassiter," the tenth of the series featuring the linebacker-turned-lawyer of somewhat dubious ethics.

Yeah, the guy who played at Penn State but cut so many classes that "Joe Paterno parked me so far down the bench my butt was in Altoona."  The guy who went undrafted, but signed as a free-agent, lead-footed linebacker with the Miami Dolphins.  The guy whose most famous play was recovering a fumble against the Jets, getting smacked in the head and turned around, then racing to the wrong end zone for a safety...in a one-point loss.  The guy who sneaked through night law school, then passed the Bar Exam on his fourth try, something he still figures was a computer glitch.

Sneak preview:  In "State vs. Lassiter," Jake is charged with killing his girlfriend/banker, who supposedly is about to blow the whistle on him for skimming client funds. 

But no spoilers.  Whether Jake is vindicated or spends the rest of his days as a jailhouse lawyer, I'm not saying.  If you want, you can read the first four chapters here.  (They're very short).  The novel is available as both a Paperback Original and an EBook. 

The book has gotten some nice pre-pub buzz.  My favorite five-star Amazon review says: "Blend the wit of Carl Hiaasen with the dialogue of Elmore Leonard and throw in John Grisham's courtroom skills, and you have Jake Lassiter." 

I'll leave you with Jake's own self-description: 

"You won't find my mug on Facebook.  I don't have a life coach, an aroma therapist, or a yoga instructor, and I don't do Pilates.  I open the door for women and walk next to the street in case a horse and buggy jump the curb."

"So," he's asked, "you're not trendy?"

"I'm a carnivore among vegans, a brew and burger guy in a Chardonnay and pate world."

"In other words, a throwback?"

"If that's what you call someone with old friends, old habits, and old values."

And that, old friends, is that.

Paul Levine