Dance of the Five Dollar Bill (Christmas)

He stood there at the top of the Empire State Building, a pauper gazing upon a million kingdoms. Breathing in the frosty night air, he smiled and marveled at the sight before him. The city was so full of lights that he was amazed the sun ever bothered to stop by at all. And they weren’t just rows of lights showing the world that this was a city of immense wealth and industry. Many of the buildings had glittering holiday displays stretching the height and width of their steel frames - Christmas trees, Santas, frost-laden pictures of children sledding down the building’s face.

He threw his head back and laughed. He laughed so hard that the people around him began to stare, some even taking a pace or two back to distance themselves from him. He didn’t care. He laughed with so much joy that he knew that surely the entire city would hear him.

Yes, they would hear him. That was a certainty. For this city, with a million different voices and a thousand different cultures, would share, for at least a small time, the spirit of renewed faith and hope.

           

He knew there were many who didn’t believe in Christmas. It didn’t matter though, because Christmas believed in them. This was a city whose inhabitants spent much of the year keeping their distance from those around them. Some refused to notice the world around them, while others pleaded for one hour of anonymity. Tonight though, neighbors would meet neighbors, gruff men with leather hands would pick up their gurgling grandchildren, and people of seclusion and wealth would find a piece of charity in their hearts.

           

Esteban Munez was also a man full of the Christmas spirit. He reached into his grimy pants pockets, searching for his elusive, and last, five-dollar bill. It had taken him two days of collecting bottles and other salvageable goods to earn it. Now, with a surge of joy filling his heart, he threw out his arms and released the bill onto the night’s calm waters of wind.

           

Where would it land? Who would receive his gift? Who knew? It mattered not whether it be beggar or prince. He had given someone all that he had because God had given him all that He had. And that was what this was, a time of giving.

           

Closing his eyes and lifting his face to God, he offered his thanks for life and, more importantly, for hope. He valued his hope so much. With hope, the deaf could hear the voice of God and the blind could see His miracles and mercy. That was the greatest gift of all.

Far below and three blocks south, a hand wrapped in the tattered remnants of a glove, reached into the sky and grasped a miracle.

Christmas Lights

Yes, I know that Christmas is almost a full month away, but I still can't wait.  There is a little leap of joy in my heart every time I look at the crappy little tree in my living room.  The multi-colored prisms which dance upon the walls remind me of happier times years ago.  Each time I gaze upon them I can see a bit of the potential hope which lies in the next day; I go to bed longing desperately for it.

How much "Christ" is there in Christmas these days?  I believe there's more than what people might think.  One of the points of Christmas, at least I believe, is that we have the opportunity to show others the breadth of love and compassion which lies in each human heart.  Isn't that what Christ taught?  The only flaw with the idea is that we seem to put away that important lesson when we put away the lights.  The celebration of Christmas should be 365 days a year -- not 30.

I send out a note of love to all of those people who have been an important part of my life in the last year.  Better yet, I send out that same note of love to all of you who have been a complete pain in my ass during the last year!  So..to everyone, have a happy holiday and love your neighbor as you would have them love you!

If you don't like this entry...then Ba Humbug!!

Turkey Day

These last few years have been trying times for this nation and for hundreds of millions around the globe.  A climate of political unrest and economic instability has caused us to question the wisdom of our leaders and wonder as to whether God was still watching over us.

Eighty years ago many of the questions we are asking now might have sat heavy in the mouths of those who had yet to benefit from FDR's "New Deal".  How did they manage to make it through such times?  Do we have the inner strength that our grandparents had?

I know that there are folks out there in the conservative christian camp who would like to blame these tough times on everything from gay marriage to premarital sex.  Does playing the blame game really benefit anyone?  I believe that sometimes we have to chalk our misfortune up to "shit happens".  There will likely never be any concrete pedestal upon which we will be able to place the true culprit and say "there it is!  shoot the bastard!"  No super heroes will fly in to say our collective asses from the fires of our own creation.

Instead of blaming, let's be thanking.  I thank who ever it is that's running this circus for the fact that I'm still breathing and still learning.  I am thankful for my brains, my talent, and the dipper full of potential which I rise with each morning.  I am thankful for each friend I have who has stood with me through the worst of times.  I pray that I can return the favor from time to time.

I am thankful for the memories which can be tasted in every bite of my mother's famous thansgiving dressing.  And though I have spent this day alone, I am thankful for each phone call from loved ones who telephone to let me know that they are thinking of me as much as I am thinking of them.

I am thankful for the pulse which beats within each of you who are reading this.  Whether it be holiday time of just a plain old Saturday in March, I hope that each of you go to bed tonight with a little thanks in your hearts as well.

The Good, the Bad, and the Warty

Sunday morning took me to the bewitching town of Salem, Massachusetts.  It’s a town which most people who are not native feel the need to visit if for other reason than to say they’ve done it.

The center of town is as bad, if not worse, than any other small town whose lifeblood is tourism.  Nearly every inch of town was crowded with vendors selling tacky t-shirts sporting witches on broomsticks, or offering $30 tours to what seemed a hundred different haunted houses.

If they weren’t selling t-shirts they were selling your usual astronomically priced bits of funnel cakes, French fries, an all manner of other foods which would seriously frowned upon by your hometown doctor.

Once I got out of the downtown my luck improved.  The neighborhood homes, which I would later learn had been mostly converted to condos, were set side by side on narrow streets, each painted gaily in fall colors.  Upon these streets I could feel the town’s soul quietly pulse with a sedate intensity.

Final verdict?  It was okay.  Salem is a town worth visiting, though not worth basing a vacation.  I walked away from the experience tired and a little peeved, but it’s a burg which I couldn’t help like at least a bit…warts and all.

There are some who might consider this trip to be a colossal failure.  To a certain degree I am in full agreement with them.  There are dozens of sights qwhich I have not indulged in to the extent that I would normally. 

I have not lost my fervor for this little neck of the woods.  Is it less of an adventure?  Perhaps.  You’ll find this to be the case with nearly any place which you have frequented a great deal.  It’s not that I no longer appreciate the rainbows which crown the Charles River after a good rain or the worn stones which mark the final resting place of the dead in the Old Granary Burying Ground; it’s that the shock and awe of discovery has morphed into the quiet appreciation which settles into any gentle and long term love.

My own body has been my greatest foe these last couple of days.  Sunday evening found me, just when I was hitting my stride, winging my way to an emergency room on the far side of the city.  I had been found unconscious by another of the hostel’s visitors.  Fortunately, there was also a physician visiting.  I am told that he took my pulse and urged the hostel’s staff to phone 9-1-1.

I learned most of what happened by a second-hand account the following day.  All I remember is talking on the phone with a good friend and then waking up in the ER.  I can’t really tell you what happened to me, largely because I can’t spell it, but I did learn that my pulse had been shooting north of 160 beats a minute when the folks at the hospital did the voodoo that they do so well.

I was released about 4am the next morning, escaping as quickly as they would possibly allow.  I was not eager to leave because I was feeling spectacularly better, I was just worried that I had left many of my belongings out in the open.  Theft is not something which you normally have to fret about when staying at a hostel, but a visitor, to any place where there are strangers in and out, is wise to be cautious when it comes to valuables.

Anyways…back to my story.

I slept most of Monday.  I was tired and felt pretty well drained.  I did wander out long enough to pick up a little bit of grub at a nearby grocery store.  The rest of the evening was spent chatting with other people who were resting up from their days of adventure and in talking with a really cute librarian with whom I’ve had a long acquaintance.

Tuesday has been pretty much a complete wash.

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Saturday in the Park

 I woke up this morning and saw what looked like another day of depressing grayness through the window in my bedroom.  I therefore resigned myself to another dreary and moist trip through Beantown.

Since I did manage to wake up early enough to get their free continental breakfast (think Fruitloops, bananas, and bagels).  While munching on a quite tasty banana, I poked my head outside to judge the true potential damage for the day.  It was actually pretty clear!!  Chilly, but a most definite improvement over the previous twenty four hours. 

So, I polished off the last bite of fruit and made a dash to my bedroom.  Grabbing my cameras and my monopod (kind of a useless thing for me), I burst onto a gloriously beautiful city and the tender hour of 8am.  For anyone who knows me, such an hour is positively the crack of dawn for me.

My first stop, of course, was Boston Common.  I sat on a bench across from the Park Street Church and drank in the nearly flawless blue of the morning sky.  The stream of morning pedestrians was only beginning to pick up.

I walked around the Common for about an hour, taking little snapshots of whatever caught my attention.   I got shots of the Park Street Church, a statue which I hope was George Washington, and a couple of the glittering dome of the Massachusetts State House.  (I might be wrong about what it was but it sure was pretty!!)

Sitting down to rest once again, I made a phone call which set me upon the adventure of a lifetime.  My mission, should I choose to accept it, was to go in search of two fabled statues of frogs.  And no, I don’t believe they were undercover Princes.  They were stoned, but I don’t believe they were royalty.

I took snapshots as trophies of my great accomplishment and set off again…this time in search of Egg McMuffins (without the egg).  Never found that pesky McDonald’s.

I did stumble upon the Boston Book Fair.  There were about thirty or forty adjoining booths.  There were representatives from Emerson College, Harvard University, New York Times Book Review, and the Boston branch of the Sisters-In-Crime, the nation’s premiere organization for female mystery writers.

To find out what other interesting things might be afoot, I stumbled into the fair’s large transparent information tent and began working my masculine charms on two ladies working the front table.  When they didn’t fall under my awesome spell, I whipped out my infamous Puppy-Dog look.  It worked!  They were like putty in my hands!

I learned there was a long list of locally and nationally known authors speaking.  I crossed my fingers and prayed that I would know at least ONE.  The name Kenneth C. Davis popped clearly from the huddled masses and my heart sang with jubilation.

Kenneth C. Davis is the author of a wonderfully informative series of books under the umbrella title of “Don’t Know Much About”.  “Don’t Know Much About History” is my favorite of the titles and was, fortunately, was the book which he was pimping out at the fair.

Late as usual, I showed up at his lecture about halfway through.  He was holding court in the front part of the chapel in the Old South Church.  I was surprised to see that he wasn’t giving the song-and-dance you might normally expect.  He was running a little history trivia game – you know like the high school days when super geeks rules the academic bowl circuit?

Well, one game finished up and they set up for another, with Davis choosing contestants from the audience.  Lo and behold, I got picked!!!

Of course I dazzled them with my brilliant and well-timed answers!  How dare you question my – wait, what was I saying?

Anyway, my team won the little competition and I, along with my champion teammates, was given little goodie-bags as prizes.  The bag contained a hardcover copy of Mr. Davis’ book and an audio version of the same.  Whew, glad I had been too cheap to buy one before the lecture!

Anyway, we were all given the opportunity to line up and have Mr. Davis sign our books.  It was great….he was tremendously nice.  I shook his hand, turned with a smile and I was….well, history.

I wondered aimlessly after that.  The only down part of the day was the fact that I am not able to walk very far without sitting down to rest and ease my pain as much as possible.

I did finally make it to the Boston Public Library.  It was extremely nice, but its master reading room is still overshadowed by the wonderful reading room at the University of Oklahoma.  I know, I normally knock OU on the head whenever possible, but I’ll show the old team spirit every now and then.

The day ended about five o’clock.  The weather was good enough to do a little more, but I was about to drop where I stood.  I have spent the rest of this day basking in the memory of a sunny day and kept a firm grasp on my FREE SIGNED BOOK.

Like Bein' Back Home

I made it into town last night on a little more than a wing and a prayer.  It was almost miraculously event free.

I crawled out of bed around four in the morning on Thursday and spent much of the next two hours wearing a hole in my tiled floor as I paced back and forth between my office and my bedroom, going through my little pre-trip check list, absolutely sure that I was leaving something behind which was going to make my trip an absolute flop.

I made my flight to Chicago with no muss and no fuss.  I kept my somewhat irreverent humor in check long enough to make it through the security checkpoint without the kind of intimacy which would normally end three days later with the question…”So, why didn’t you call?”

Am I the only person who thinks that the pre-flight safety instructions look suspiciously like a synchronized swimming routine?  As the flight attendant swung her arms toward the sides of the craft, toward the ceiling, and back to the floor, I could have sworn I could hear her counting off the beats to a salsa song playing only in her head.

Do they have a talent contest for flight attendants?  Maybe there’s an unaired television pilot out there somewhere for “So, You Think You Can Fly?” or “America’s Next Top Flight Attendant”  I was going to give her a perfect ten for her routine, but I thought she was a little shaky on the dismount.

One of the young women serving our flight, though very nice and friendly, was unfortunate when it came to the exciting world of aesthetics.  With pencil-thin eyebrows which looked like they had been applied with a Bic pen and makeup which seemed to say, “Uh-oh, better get Maaco!”, she made me think about what might happen if a drag queen was blindsided by a Mary Kay cosmetics van.

Okay, so I made it to Boston.  The moment I set my feet upon Mass Ave.. I felt like I was once again on my native soil.  Everything was exactly as I left it a year and a half ago.  The gourmet pizza shop which had become a habit of mine during the last three trips was still playing footsies with the Haagen-Daz next door.  Bank of America, on the corner of Mass Ave. and Boyleston, loomed large and unquestionably reliable.  Looney Tunes, a hole-in-the-wall music store had its doors open and was belting old Glen Miller recording into the gray blanket which had be laid atop the city by the hand of the Almighty.

Once inside the hostel, a dorm-styled place to crash, I made a point of doing absolutely nothing for the rest of the evening.  I broke my tradition of going to Boston Common the moment I hit town due to the bleak weather and the onset of what I assumed was twilight.

Today was at least a bit more exciting.  I didn’t end my snorefest until about almost 10:30 this morning.  By the time I grabbed a shower and headed out, it was rapidly approaching noon.  You wouldn’t have had a clue about the time by looking at the sky.  The bright light of the Sun was playing hookie and surely partying with a hungover Moon.

I went in search of the LIBRARY --  you must use all-caps when talking about any of the great Holy places of the earth.  Surprisingly, I have never been to this particular place before (please note the pleading of a repentant sinner).  I was almost set to walk in and soak in what wisdom was available without a library card when I saw that it was past twelve-fifteen.  I knew that if I didn’t get back soon, I was going to miss my pilgrimage to another of my Holy Sites, a tour of Fenway Park.

The tour started off at the Team Store across the street from the ballpark.  I succumbed to commercialism and socked-out some cash for a Jacoby Ellsbury shirt.  Going on a tour of Fenway, whhich is now in its 100^th year, without a piece of Red Sox paraphernalia is like going to church without your bible.  This is an assertion which only the truly devoted of baseball fan(atic)s can fully embrace and understand.

After listening to about fifteen minutes of the most horrible jokes from out tour guide (seriously, he made my material sound positively stale with age), we were ushered in the land of the Pesky Pole and the Jolly Green Monster.

There were about seventy of us on the tour.  With that many people even I managed to not get lost even once.  We went first to the uppermost deck of the stadium where we were treated to an unspoiled view of the field.  There was a young woman offering to take free professional quality photos of anyone willing indulge in the whole graven-images thing.  The picture taking was free, but the picture getting was $35.  And before you ask, no, I didn’t fork over the big bucks. There’s a reason I’m known as a cheap bastard.   

We traversed from one side of the stadium to the other where we got our chance to sit for a moment in the highly-coveted Green Monster (pronounced Monsta in Boston),  It was great!

The other highlight of the tour was being able to go in and hangout in the Press Box.  It’s probably the only time I’ll ever get to go in there, but I’m not too  proud to use it shamelessly to my advantage later in my career.

And then it was over.  I actually shed a tear and muffled a snuffle!  I am not always the cold and heartless beast my detractors, and the IRS, make me out to be!

So, here I am in the fresh darkness of a Friday night.  I’m relaxin as best as I can.  I thought about going out to a club, but figured I’d already spent enough money for one day.

I’m praying for a sunny day tomorrow.  I desperately want to see the area’s color in all of its magnificence and splendor.  I want to feel the naked light upon my face and to drink in the peace and tranquility which is blood and bone to this beautiful old broad which we call Boston.

First Day In Adventure Land

Most of my friends, and all of my family, have asked me why I don't go any other place besides Boston when I go on vacation.  It's kind of like asking someone why they don't go out with the girl down the hall when their girlfriend is out of town. 

I have traveled a decent amount in my life.  I've been to San Francisco, walked through the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., eaten a slice of pizza from a street vendor in Chicago, and shook Jay Leno's hand at a taping of the Tonight Show.

All of that was exciting, but none of these events gave me the toe-tingling type of buzz which filled my head the instant I stepped from deck of the ferry which transported me from one side of Boston Harbor to the other.

It is easy for most people to get a sense of what instant attraction is - at least where it relates to a bond with other people..  There is often very little logic involved with the process.  The best way to describe it is as a feeling which strikes you fast, strikes you hard, leaves you silly from the slappin'. 

I'm absolutely crazy for this town.  It's true love with a zip code.