Friday, May 28, 2010

Stroke Cut Call

Stroke Cut Call





I don’t know why, but I was convinced one morning recently that I needed a haircut.

Such conviction is not normally worthy of discussion or attention, and I wouldn’t normally pay attention to it, let alone bother someone else with it, but my little world is different, now. It has been amended by a stroke.

I don’t why I keep forgetting that. It’s a reality I am learning about daily. Who knows, maybe one day, when I get the hang of it, I could teach it; Stroke 101.

I am discovering, day by day, that a stroke alters one’s perception of what, “normal,” is. Is fact, a stroke should come with a warning; “Be careful of, ‘Normal.’ It’s likely a trap.”

“Normal,” is not that for me any more. Invariably, it comes as a surprise, almost every time.

The best, as far as expectations go is, “approximately,” normal. The worst—well, I don’t think I’ve seen the worst. But to paraphrase one of my sons—the worst would have to be, “really [messed] up.” Maybe, “really, really [messed] up.”

My son used that on my mother last fall. She was 89 and had been dying for—oh, I don’t know, long enough that the funny lines were getting really competitive. By then we were delivering lines about short-circuiting her combined defibrillator-pacemaker, because every time she died, it woke her up.

“Jesus, am I still here?” she would say.

Jed arrived from Florida. He abruptly said: “Oh, man, Grandma, you really look [messed] up!”

The simple beauty of it tore the house down. I was sure she would die laughing after that. Of course, she waited for someone to top it.

So, I needed a haircut. I needed one desperately, which in itself, is not normal. “Desperation” and “haircut,” were never words that appeared together in a sentence of my construction.

If they did, however (“desperate,” and, “haircut,”), two years ago, I would have walked into the upstairs bathroom, taken the comb and the small, blue haircutting scissors (presented to me by a professional haircutter, as a testament to my self-haircutting prowess), and had at my head.

Well, I’m right-handed. My right hand now doesn’t budge. My left hand never has seen scissors. I certainly don’t want it experimenting near my head.

Plus, I can’t get to the upstairs bathroom, because my whole right side won’t accompany my left up the stairs. Something about a strike. Maybe, a stroke.

I am home, alone, which is no big deal—in fact, I find that I like it—but there is no car to get to a haircutter. Remember: “One thing at a time.” Driving a car is about, well, twenty-three, on the list. I am still working on five; getting up by myself. (One and two were crucial, especially for an insufferably modest Irish-Catholic male.).

“Ooooh!” I thought. “I have a phone. Aha!”

And I had the name, Dawn O’Keefe Hores, in my head, for the first time—not the lady who cuts my hair but a haircutter, nonetheless.

I couldn’t believe the names were suddenly there. Dawn O’Keefe Hores is a friend. Friends’ names drift in when you don’t have any occasion to use them—like, say, you’re eating spinach—and drift out when you do. (This is from Stroke 101.). She gave me the blue scissors. She said she would love to come one day a give me a haircut. I would call Dawn.

I knew there was a function on my phone that said, “Free Information.” Or was it, “Free 411.” I don’t often dial out. It’s a one-handed thing. It’s a right-handed-one-handed thing. I would soon learn that it was a right-handed-one-handed-automated-voice-activated-too-fast-with-the-questions-don’t-hang-up-give-me-a-freaking-break thing.

Free 411 has commercials. All right, no problem. But the commercial for Verizon…or, was it Optimun…stole, “Hores,” as in, “Dawn O’Keefe Hores,” from my head. I couldn’t remember her last name. Bad news, I hung up.

Then, “Free 411,” is completely automated. So, first I answer, “residence,” and it corrects me: “Residential.”

“Sorry.” Now, I’m apologizing to a machine, which is not listening. It’s on to the next item…

“City and State, please.”

“Uhh…oh…Wait. Melv…”

“City and State, please.”

“Oh, of course…uh…” And I hung up, which took a while, now, to remember how to do. Nerves.

Okay, start again. First, I jot down her husband’s name, because Automaton is going to ask: “‘Brad…’ Oh, come on! I know his last name. He’s a fireman, I can see his face. I can see his truck. Big truck.”

How am I going to ask her number without her husband’s first name.

“Hores. Hores.” Write that down…oh, yeah…lefty…dammit…The ‘H’ looked like a ‘4.’

“City and State please.”

“Hores…I mean, no, Melvil…”

“City and State please..”

“Melville, New York.” (YEAH! Ta da!)

“Farmington, New York?”

“What? No. No, Farmington?…No, Melv…”

“What listing in Farmington, New York?”

“What? No…uh…Dawn O’Keefe…oh brother…Brad…I don’t remember…”

I would write, “Click,” but I really pressed every button on the phone. It’s really a good thing no one was home. I’d be getting my strait jacket off about now.



This is obviously not over, yet…cont’d

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Beer

Beer


I was waiting for Rudolph Schaffer.

He had recently just taken the reins of his father’s and grandfather’s F.& M. Schaffer brewing company, which in 1973 was on Kent Avenue, in Brooklyn, New York, where it had been for quite some time.

I was writing a story about beer. Me. It was to be called, “Beer, I Love You.”

(I kid you not. This has always been the best job.).

I still couldn’t believe my luck, in choosing this second profession, in the hope of forging my way through this life without performing anything like work. I was, maybe, 26, and had been writing newspaper stories for three years, ever since I had left teaching, which I also loved.

The problem with teaching was that it required starting all over with the same stuff every year, for 30 or so years. That frightened me. What if, after the 17th year, I was bored?

Reporting introduced you to a new skill every week, and you didn’t have to learn it, just learn enough to get somebody else to explain it.

It made me giddy to think that I was getting paid to write about beer.

It already had gone around the office that I loved beer. So, what did they do but assign a reporter who loved beer to write about beer. It was unheard of, this journalism; exactly the opposite of what my father told me the Army would do. The Army would assign a guy who loved beer a job where he blew up breweries. The guy would go to his bunk each night in tears. .

At an editor’s urging (Think of it; at an editor’s urging!), I already had interviewed Ivo Havlacek, the fifth Havlacek to preside over the brewery in Pilzn, Czechoslovakia, where they made a beer called Pilsner Urquell (in American), or, loosely translated, “Pilzn from the original source.” It was the acknowledged, “King of Beers,” the finest beer in the world, the finest beer in history, the first laagered beer, golden beer.

When The Kremlin rolled tanks all over Czechoslovakia, the communist government had approached Ivo’s father, Ivo, and said, “You will make more Pilzn beer!” I guess they thought Ivo’s father would snap to it.

“Not so fast!” said Ivo’s father, instantly making himself a National Hero.

(I love this story. Ivo Jr. told me it, through a Russian interpreter, no less, on a marketing visit to The States.).

“What?” the Kremlin guys said.

Ivo’s father said: “The law of this land, going back to 1292, through all the political upheavals, says Pilzn beer has to be aged in limestone caves. Any brewmeister who violates that rule is to be tarred and feathered and run out of Pilzn, by Bavarian law, whatever the ruling country is. There are 22 miles of limestone caves under Pilzn. You want more beer, you find more limestone caves.”

Whoa. The guys from the Kremlin did not know what to do. But they had to do something, or they would lose face. They decided to market Pilzn beer in the United States, where it had been banned since the first World War. They would take it out of…some other country.

Meanwhile, I had to interview an American brewmeister to balance the Ivo Havlacek interview.

The closet beer brewer was Rudy Schaffer. I was to interview him, to ask him questions about his life, his business, the product, the family, the problems, the market, the past, the future; virtually anything and everything I could think of that satisfied my curiosity. Or, that satisfied the curiosity of persons who picked up a copy of Newsday and paged through it until their eyes landed on a full-page glass of beer with the words, ‘Beer, I Love You,” superimposed on it.

The interview went well enough. We went through the brewing process, saw single-file lines of 12 oz. bottles marched through the bottling process, with a bottle every so often rejected by a magical electrical eye that determined whether the bottle was too filled or not filled enough. It was fun.

I had forgotten that I was accompanied by a Newsday photographer, John Cornell. He saw this happen.

A stainless steel beer tap was mounted on the wall in Rudy’s office, next to the, “Stein Room,” where the Schaffer’s entertained brewmeisters and company executives from all over the world. It looked out of place, with the ancient table and the chairs carved by hand by coopers centuries ago.

I wanted to get Rudy Schaffer to say something about, “cleaning the coils,” from the barrels to the tap. Some saloon owners needed to know why I evaded their establishments. I brought up the subject, and the normally calm, business-like, Rudy Schaffer lit up into the likes of a raging bear.

“Do you know where that beer comes from?” he asked, not waiting for an answer. “The Barrel room, below here, where somebody taps a barrel from one of hundreds of barrels. Do you know what beer company executives say about that, ‘ordinary’ Schaffer beer?”

(I didn’t say a word.).

“They say, ‘Wow, Rudy. This is the best beer! What do you do, save it for private use?’

“It’s Schaffer beer, poured through a clean tap.”

“Really. Right out of that tap, there,” I said, not wanting to suggest anything. Aw, maybe.

“Yes. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of a clean system.”

“Brewmeisters from all over the world say that beer right out of that very tap, is the best they ever…”

“Yes. And it’s regular Schaffer beer.”

“Really. Wow. Right out of that tap, there…”

I saw Cornell out of the corner of my eye.

“Yep, right out of that tap.”

I gave it up. I never tasted the beer. I wrote the story, Schaffer moved to the LeHigh Valley, the beer changed, and I was uncorrupted, but not exactly by choice.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Dr. Seuss

Larry,


You stopped me at, “Dr. Suess.”

This is a real, strange development, and I will ask you to indulge me for a moment, because I spent a few hours searching my brain and my computer, and I am enjoying a tiny triumph, thanks to you.

In February of 1973, I trekked off to Romania with the Syosset High School Band, basically to write the story of the first American High School Band since, “The War,” to so visit. The memory of it is awash with other memories, which I am currently enjoying. So, thanks for that.

I developed a lot of friendships on that trip. The following spring, a telephone caller—I think to my home but I can’t swear to it—said that he (or she) was a member of the band who traveled throughout Romania last year and that there was a, “Hat Day,” at the Syosset High School that morning. A photographer and I would do well to see it.

I said, “Hat Day?” The caller hung up.

I called in a photo assignment and drove from my house in Amityville to meet with a Newsday photographer from the Garden City headquarters, to see what this, “Hat Day,” was about.

Well.

When I arrived at the office, all I could say was I had just been in an unwritten, live, Dr. Suess book. Everyone but the photographer and I were wearing hats, of all kinds, colors and shapes.

It all was about a, “protest,” by the entire student body (wise guys to nerds to jocks to princesses) against a policy barring hats in school. A, “Hat,” demonstration, in support of one kid (who years later became a famous dancer) named Doug Varrone. The principal got wind of it and decided that rather than fight it, the faculty, staff, administration and custodians would join in.

Two veteran journalists, Mike Unger and Kevin Lahart, told me later to write it, “Dr. Suess,” style.

But Newsday, too, had a policy. No news story had ever been written in verse in Newsday. One attempt, a parody of, “The Song of Hiawatha,” had been offered years before by not-yet-columnist Robert Mayor, but the copy desk crushed him by printing it as prose paragraphs and running it atop two other stories—a heartbreak to see.

Still, I wrote, for the next day’s newspaper:

Hat Day

By Ed Lowe May 17, 1974



Hat day declared. Hats were the rule

Hats on the heads of Syosset High School.

Hundreds of beanies, sombreros and caps,

Fedoras and fezzes and hats with ear flaps,



Wool hats and helmets, hat songs and games,

Mets hats and Jets hats and hats with no names.

To stop all this, now, would be such a shame

(And impossible, too, said Walter Yanette,

the principal.). He wore a silly hat, yet.



What started all this? What made it all go?

It started, said one kid, when someone said, ‘No.’

It started with Bemak...no, Feinstein...no, Doug.

Hey, couldn’t we keep all that under the rug?



Doug Varone, 17, in a writing class, see?

He wore a brown hat, like this one on me.

Walt Bemak, the chairman of English dropped in,

Told Feinstein, the teacher, ‘Doug’s hat is a sin.



‘He must take it off, Don. No hats on in school.

‘No shoes off—or hats on. That is the rule.’

‘I don’t mind it,’ said Feinstein;

don’t mind it at all.

‘It isn’t distracting. It isn’t too tall.

‘It isn’t too colorful. It stays on when he reads.

‘Maybe it’s part of him, something he needs.’



‘No good,’ answered Bemak. ‘This is a school.

A hat is no educational tool.

‘I don’t wish to be obstinate, cranky or cruel,

‘But, that hat has to go.

‘A rule is a rule.’



WELL, that’s all the rest of them wanted to know

They spread it around, for a month or so, slow

They organized HAT DAY.

They schemed and they planned

They even set up a parade with the band.



They had posters and streamers

and yellow pompoms,

Including a HAT CAKE from one of the moms.

Feinstein’s writing class did all their ads,

Wrote letters and papers concerning hat fads.



And contests they had

(They looked forward to that,

‘Cause Bemak was judging

HIMSELF IN A HAT!).



Custodians, nurses, typists and clerks

(To tell you the truth, they all looked like jerks.).

‘But what of tomorrow?’ I asked ‘Doc’ Yanette.

‘Tomorrow’s tomorrow. My mind is set.

‘Hat Day will be done

‘And a rule is a rule.

‘There will be no hats

In Syosset High School.’



Becky Clock was head of the copy desk. She laid it out with pictures atop, one showing Varrone with his signature hat, one showing the villain wearing a ladies hat. The copy was broken into stanzas, each one beginning with a huge, Seuss-ian capitol letter.

I got a lot of letters. Washington bureau reporter Myron Waldman, whom I would not meet for a year or two, sent a note consisting of comments by a half-dozen reporters covering the Watergate hearings. One of them, a Washington Post guy, said, “Newsday must be the only Newspaper in the country where you could write like that…if you could write like that.”

I unearthed the thing about twenty years ago, when I was speaking to an entire school over the public address system. I never rehearsed a speech in my life, but I wore the copy out, rehearsing that. The kids liked it.

Sorry I got so carried away. I still owe you a response on your stroke. You seem to have the right perspective. It’s always there. Keeps us appreciative.



ed