Spring Break 1997

Picture it, if you can. March 31st, 1997, heavy snowfall coming down in the early morning hours.

I woke up early that morning because that semester in college, I had an 8 a.m. class three times a week. Though there were no classes that week, I thought it'd be a good idea to not make any changes in my sleep patterns.

I was, to put it mildly, a wreck right then. The toll of working part time and being in college full time was really hurting me. Also, I had really been raked over the coals, as the saying goes, at a staff meeting a few days earlier. I asked for the week off the next day and the director of our agency was able to let me have it.

I was standing in the bathroom shaving when it hit me that what I really needed was to just get away from it all. This was around 6:30 or so in the morning. I finished shaving, then showered and put on clean clothes. I quickly packed a bag and then called the Greyhound station to check departure times for various cities. The agent I spoke to really listened to what I was saying about just wanting to go, and to go now. He suggested something Greyhound had at the time that was called the "Ameripass", which was a seven day pass good for travel on any Greyhound route anywhere in the country.

I went out into the dining room and told my Aunt Jane (I was renting her spare bedroom at the time) what I had in mind. She offered to take care of my cat while I was gone. I gave her $20 for cat food, litter and whatever else might be needed, and $20 more as a small token of gratitude.

I caught the local bus to my bank, took out $500, and used $300 of that to get travelers' checks. It was a short walk from there to the bus station. I was on the bus to New York at noon, because the agent suggested it as the best place from which to get to anywhere else.

While on that bus, I remembered that my co-worker and friend Patty had suggested Myrtle Beach as a possible destination for spring break. I decided to give that a try.

By the time we reached the city, I had about five hours or so to kill before catching the bus to Myrtle Beach. I spent that time walking around Manhattan, having dinner, and buying a few things in a Woolworth store (the last time I ever set foot in one, as it turned out).

The weather was getting really bad by this time, and the Greyhound driver we had from New York to Baltimore handled it really well. I ate again, while at the Baltimore station (the second one, which was newer and is on the edge of town). I slept well most of the rest of the way.

I woke up when the driver announced that we were ahead of schedule, and could stop to eat if we wanted to. A show of hands decided the matter; we stopped to eat.

I do not recommend traveling without having any idea where you're going to stay, but that was the first time I did it, though not the last. Fortunately, I found a small but clean room with an ocean view for a reasonable rate.

What did I do the four days I was there?

I relaxed. I ate at a restaurant Patty had recommended. I sat on the beach and waded out into the warm water of the Atlantic Ocean. I listened to my mix tapes. I listened to local radio stations. I played miniature golf. And, I spent the last three nights with people I met.

What happened was, I was at a club named "Mother Fletchers". This was Tuesday night. I was dancing with the girl who had won the wet t-shirt contest and things were going great, until her boyfriend walked in.

I thanked her for a good time, and sat down alone near the back. About half an hour later, I was drinking white wine when I got the feeling I was being watched. Which turned out to be the case, but in a good way. This kid tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I went to Broome Community College.

I do, I replied. He then introduced himself and said to several other people "See? I told you I've seen him on campus". He then introduced me to everyone else and we hung out the rest of that night until closing time, and the two nights after that as well.

I really hit it off with one of them, a girl named Tracy. So much so that the first day back on campus the next week, she spotted me and came over to talk to me. She invited me to her birthday party that night. I accepted, and though I had no time to get a gift, I did get her a card.  It didn't take long for us to figure out we wanted to be boyfriend and girlfriend.

She cried a lot the night we broke up, and to be honest, so did I. She cried even more the next night, which was when we all had one last huge party to mark the end of the semester. She came very close to getting back together with me but her best friend talked her out of it. After that, over the summer, we were still friends, but never spent time alone. And in the fall, she transferred to a school in another state. I never saw her again.

Twenty-one years have passed since I got on that bus for Myrtle Beach, a town I liked so much I later spent a whole winter there (December 2009 to March 2010).

As always, I thank you for taking the time to read this.

I Got The Job!

Yesterday at 10:08 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, I accepted a job offer from the Y.M.C.A. cafe. It's  part time, 20 hours a week to start. The pay is competitive with what similar positions offer. I have a very good feeling about this. The cafe serves good food at reasonable prices, and to get to work is just a short walk of three or four minutes.

I'm excited about this. I finally have a chance to show what I can do, and to learn more. Once I have enough experience under my belt, I'll be allowed to run the cafe by myself at times. That will  tell me, one way or the other, if I have what it takes to open a small restaurant of my own at some time in the future.

I'm so glad I never gave up on things.

Things I Want To Say

First things first, okay? I haven't posted here in quite some time, because I've been dealing with some things in real life. So, I'm sorry, but there's not much I could have done about the lack of posts.

I've been good, for the most part, but just had such a problem dealing with winter weather. I'm just not able to handle the cold, the wind, the ice, the snow and various combinations thereof the way I used to be able to. There were far too many days I went nowhere, or just one block up the street to the convenience store and one block back. Being the person that I am, I did go out a few times when doing so wasn't exactly the safest thing to do.

I mean, when it's four degrees out with a wind chill of minus-eight, that's dangerous. But that night, I just didn't care. I had to get out and do something, anything, to take my mind off things. So I caught the #57 bus to Vestal and got some groceries at Wal-Mart. I had it timed what should have been just right in terms of waiting for the bus back, but the bus was behind schedule. It was starting to snow heavily, which is why the bus was running late. Still, it felt good to just get out of the building I live in.

I've done more of the work needed to get my catering business up and running. I still have to attend the food safety training the local health department requires, which is free and takes just one day. I also need to deal with a few other requirements, such as getting a waiver for worker's compensation insurance, because at first, at least, I'll have no employees.

I had two job interviews that went very well, but didn't get the job from either of them. Still, it was good to be in the running, at least, as it were. I am currently in the running for a volunteer position that could possibly lead to a paying job. I've done that twice before in my life and had it work out well both times. So, fingers crossed and all that.

Things in my building are good, overall, but we have several new residents who are making for a real problem in the kitchen. Unwashed dishes, dirty counter tops and such are bad enough, but there have been several incidents of the smoke detector being set off. If the kitchen winds up being closed for an extended period of time (which has happened before) or even worse, closed permanently, I'll have to move. Neither my budget or dietary restrictions can handle any extended period of canned and frozen foods.  Plus, I've been turning out some first rate food lately. Baked macaroni and cheese, pizza, pasta sauce and tuna casserole are some of the things I've made from scratch and been very pleased with. I have a recipe for brownies I want to try, as well.

As regards current events and politics, I'm both worried, and optimistic. Worried, because hard liners like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are downright dangerous when given positions of power and both men are on the rise once again. Optimistic, because there is hope for the mid-term elections. But the people who run the Democratic Party, my party, need to embrace the core values the Party once stood for.

So, that nicely sums up what's been going on. I do intend to resume regular posting soon, but as always, I won't make any promises.

Also, as always, I thank you for taking the time to read this, and I wish you the very best.

Saturdays, Now And Then

It's Saturday night and here I am at home, doing pretty much nothing. I did go out for about forty-five minutes this afternoon. That was to have dinner at the Salvation Army and to get a few things from the convenience store up the street. They sell what was my dad's favorite pizza and whenever I can, I pick up a slice or two. It's not the best pizza I've ever had, it's not even the best in this area. But it's what we ate when I was growing up so it's nice to still be able to get it now and then.

Weekends have meant different things to me at different times in my life, as you might expect. As a child, Saturday was the one night I was allowed to stay up late and I appreciate that, all these years later. As a teenager, some weekends I made good money by babysitting. Or I might sit in on a game of poker with my brother and his friends. We never played for money, just for fun. Or I might find something good to watch on television and if lucky, have something to snack on while doing so.

When my wife was alive, we often went out on Saturday nights, usually to see a movie. My brother did a nice thing by letting us use his car, as he could get a ride to work and back with someone else.

When Michelle's health really started to worsen, that ended for the most part. But we'd still watch a movie, just at home instead of in a theater. We had a forty inch flat screen television paired up with a really good and quite expensive sound system designed for watching films. That thing was a real pain to set up but once I found the sweet spot for its settings, it was well worth the expense and the effort.

When I lived in San Francisco, I never had very much money to spend after paying the bills but I was able to afford a Netflix subscription so again, Saturday was movie night. And now that I'm in Binghamton once again, I've gotten back to that. I do have the money to go out but most of what there is to do downtown revolves around nightclubs and bars, and I was never much into that to begin with and certainly am not now.

This was nice, to just reflect a little on the past.

Again, as always, I thank you for reading what I've written, and I wish you the best.

I'm Still Here

I regret that I haven't posted anything new in so long but January wasn't a good month for me. Too much bad weather, too many things to deal with, too much...of pretty much everything.

And the last few days I've been dealing with a sinus infection, which is never fun.

But I'm still here, honest. I can tell you that I made some good food the last few weeks, The best was my homemade macaroni and cheese. I used just five ingredients, which were flour, cheese, salt, pepper and milk. The milk and flour I used to make a roux. Once that was done, I added the cheese, which was mild cheddar. Once that was done, I seasoned it very lightly and it came out just right.

I mean, for my tastes, it was perfectly seasoned. Also, I used very good macaroni, which is key to the whole thing, of course.

I also made some fried chicken strips, which also came out really well. Lightly battered and again, seasoned just so. I paired them with homemade stuffing and corn.

What else can I share with you?

Well, if you like soul music in all its various forms, you might want to look into a series of releases all using the title "Eccentric Soul". These are various artist compilations, most of which focus on a particular record label. These labels are mostly very obscure ones but some of the sides they cut are very good. The most recent one I purchased is sub-titled "Sitting In The Park" and was inspired by a man who had 35,000 45 R.P.M. singles in his personal collection at the time of his death in 2014.

His name was  Bob Abrahamian and from what I've read, he was fanatical (in a good way!) about preserving soul music produced in Chicago and surrounding areas. He would spin these rare records while on the air at WHPK.

Here's a link to it.  http://www.numerogroup.com/products/eccentric-soul-sitting-in-the-park

I've received no compensation whatsoever for posting the link or for recommending the release.
I just want to share the good stuff with anyone who might enjoy it. If you don't want to wait to have a disc delivered, you can do what I did and buy the whole thing as lossless FLAC files. Or, if you want them, you can also get MP3 files but there's no pricing difference so I went with the lossless files.

As always, I thank you for reading this and I wish you well.

Lunch With A Friend

I am sorry that I haven't posted recently. I've had a lot going on. Here's something I hope you'll enjoy reading.

To call someone a friend is not something to be taken lightly, I believe. I have many people I know, most of whom I regard either as acquaintances or colleagues. I don't have many friends, but honestly, that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Because anyone I do consider to be my friend has earned it. That person has been good to me and is trustworthy. That person must be a person of good character and possessing traits we consider to be good ones.

Over the past several months, I've had to take a second look at who is a friend and who isn't. People who repeatedly don't return phone calls or respond to a text, have been dropped from the list. People who do respond but can't make time for something as simple as a lunch date, are on probation. People who respond and do make time to actually spend time with me are good to go.

Yesterday, I had a very nice time catching up with my friend David. He asked if we could meet at a  restaurant that I had never heard of. It's a location in the "Core Life" chain. I always trust David when it comes to choosing a place to eat, and once again he did not fail me. After looking at their menu on their website and calling them to ask a few questions, I knew what I would order. Also, I knew how much money I'd be spending, which is always something I have to be aware of.

The food was very good, the restaurant was very clean with a nice decor, and the serving size was just right. I chose the make your own bowl option with the following for my salad:

- Romaine lettuce
- wild rice
- roasted corn
- cherry tomatoes
- cucumber
- diced celery
- raspberry vinaigrette dressing
- diced chicken
- tortilla strips

As I said. the food was very good, as was the fresh lemonade. Just as importantly, the company was very good. David and I met when we had a morning class together during what was the first semester for both of us in the Hotel and Restaurant Management Program at S.U.N.Y. - Broome. We've both had a lot of personal growth since then, but we still get along very well. Our personal backgrounds are very different, as our are ages (51, soon to be 52 for me, and mid-twenties for David).

But we respect and like each other. David is very intelligent, very honest and is one of the hardest working people I know. Both times he was part of my team in a professional kitchen, he did work that can only be called "outstanding".  The hour and a half spent together was a very pleasant hour and a half.

As always, dear reader, I wish you the best.


 

And So Begins The New Year

Well, folks, here we are. At midnight when it became 2018 in my time zone, I played "My Way" by Frank Sinatra and drank a Wild Cherry Pepsi. I hope your evening was safe and fun. Please accept my wishes for the best in this new year.