Finding Friends in a Strange Land

Two gentleman in the twenties up ended up homeless on a bench in front of the Bolton Free Library.  They were students who, with the help of an agency, traveled more than 4600 miles from Bulgaria to work in a resort motel on Lake George, NY.  They described their first days in America as follows: they arrived in Lake George by bus.  From there, they took a trolley the remaining ten miles to their prearranged employer in Bolton Landing.  Upon arriving at their destination, they were summarily discharged - fired - because their hair was too long.  Their agency, contacted for help, refused to believe they were released upon arrival because they were men with longer than shoulder length hair.  They were effectively left stranded with limited English skills, little money and no place to stay.

For three days, these very personable men from Eastern Europe, slept on benches in front of the Library until the Library's Director, Megan Baker, discovered their plight.  I happened to be in the library at the time and witnessed the flurry of activity that followed. A chagrined Ms. Baker charged back and forth throwing off one-liners in her wake: "they've been sleeping on the porch",  "they have no one to help them", "they haven't eaten in three days!".  Before I could reach for the credit card, Ms. Baker was forraging in a window box.  Out came the paper plates and plastic utensils the Library uses for functions - and sometimes arts and crafts, a bowl of pasta made it's way from the Library refrigerator to the microwave and then to a makeshift luncheon in the Adirondack room.  By all reports, the men ate ravenously.


In the meantime, Ms. Baker became an advocate for two student visitors she had just met.  In her frenetic style, she asked questions and began working the phone.  Their agency was contacted, their plight recounted and within and hour or two a new destination and a new job were secured.  She checked schedules and finally asked me to drive the young men to Lake George and the bus so that they could catch a plane to Seattle.  They would be met there and taken to a new opportunity in Alaska!


The men were not bitter of upset about recent events.  They treated it as nothing more than a bump in the road.  As I said before, they were very personable.  They spoke about the opportunities ahead, about their lives back home and the degrees they were pursuing.  They described Bulgaria as very much like the Adirondacks - but not as rich.  Everything about them was positive whether they were speaking about their native land  (they glowed when I mentioned I'd seen pictures of Sofia, the capital), the people they'd met so far or what they hoped to see and do while here; this was simply an adventure and a means to make enough money to meet their goals (university degrees).  They were off to Alaska!


They could not know that back at the Bolton Free Library Megan Baker stood at her desk crying.  She bemoaned the fact that they had no one to speak for them (I told her they had an advocate: her), that they were forced to sleep on her benches (why hadn't she known!) and that they went hungry in her town (people from Bolton aren't like that...what must they think of us...we're a friendly town).  I told her just what they said on the trip to the bus and relayed the positiveness of their attitudes.  She was grateful but it wasn't enough.  At the next Library Board meeting she made sure everyone knew foreign students were sleeping on library benches and going hungry in the Town of Bolton.  The Board immediately and unanimously passed a motion meant to insure that no one goes hungry on library property again.  It was the best example of NIMBY I'd every seen.  Go hungry...not in my back yard.


When I write (fiction), I generally wallow at the bleak and black end of the pool.  My characters are dark, nonredemptive folk; their stories rarely end well.  Right now, two young men from Bulgaria are working in Alaska to become, along with their fellow foreign students, engineers and doctors and lawyers.  They got there with a helping hand from a librarian from Bolton Landing.  It is an adventure I would love to have.  I fervently hope things go well for them and that they return to their native Bulgaria with a sense of the opportunity that is America. 


(By way of full disclosure:  I am a member of the Board of the Bolton Free Library.)

Not as Simple as "One Nation Under God"

(The following is a response to an op-ed piece appearing in the Adirondack Journal under the title of "One Nation Under God" by Daniel Alexander. http://www.adirondackjournal.com/news/2012/jul/31/one-nation-under-god/)

I found your editorial, "One Nation Under God" a bit schizophrenic.  That generally happens when you attempt to marry the Establishment Clause of the Constitution with public displays and practices of religion,  The real greatness of America's "Grand Experiment" was not that it guaranteed the rights and freedoms of the majority but, in doing so, it also protected and guaranteed the rights and freedoms of the minority.

I find it offensive that you denigrate certain groups for "skillfully [using] the freedoms we enjoy" in seeking redress in the courts.  That, frankly, is one of the freedoms we enjoy, one of the freedoms guaranteed within the framework of the "grand experiment".  The Founders did not limit dissension to commonly held beliefs.  One of the great hallmarks of this country is that no one turns water cannons on people praying on the steps of the Supreme Court or marching in opposition to government policies on the Great Mall of the United States.

I applaud your statement that "there must be room in this country and its government for all forms of religious and spiritual beliefs".  However that statement fails to recognize that public prayers in this country tend to reflect the majority Christian viewpoint at the exclusion of most others.  I cannot think of or imagine a public prayer that seeks the blessings and assistance of multiple gods (One Nation Under God means one god no matter what beliefs may be present) or entreats the spirits of the earth (you mentioned pagans) to guide our deliberations.

Your editorial goes on to state that "our courts need to quit attacking religion and slowly chipping away its importance in our society".  It has become fashionable to rebuke judges as activist whenever they take a position contrary to (one side or the other's) position.  Your article does not mention specific instances where the courts chipped away at religion or even acknowledged the existence of cases that found FOR religious interests.  The men and women who wear the robes are, to my mind, honest, deliberative, intelligent human beings who take difficult issues seriously and decide them to the best of their abilities.  I may not always agree with their decisions - sometimes I might feel like screaming - but  I believe in the honesty of the process.  That, too, was part of the "grand experiment".

Finally, your suggestion that Mr. Douglass (in Essex County, NY) call for a moment of reflection has merit.  When someone, somewhere discovers a way for a supervisor or a principal or a teacher to suggest prayer without making it feel like a requirement to pray, maybe we can put this issue to rest.

Penn State ...or the State of the Program

James Carville, on "This Week on ABC" took the position that the Penn State Football program should not be gutted as a result of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.  He spoke eloquently about all the people who would be hurt by a trash and burn campaign.  At one end of the spectrum were all the contract holders whose businesses depend on Penn State games.  At the other end of the spectrum stood all those scholarship kids whose dreams are tied to a Penn State sport program,  Nowhere in the Carville philosophy is forgiveness for the self-serving fools who let all those crimes and all that harm come to children.  Mr. Carville suggested we turn loose the lawyers and let them feed on the bones of Penn State and all those individuals who deserve to be stripped bare and marched before the public eye.

I agree.

I have always had difficulty with blanket punishments because they inflict pain and suffering on everyone - innocent and guilty.  Everyone who had absolutely nothing to do with Jerry Sandusky and the abuse of children, everyone who had never heard of Jerry Sandusky, everyone who had no knowledge of his crimes and no means to stop and/or prevent them should not be tarred with the same brush as coaches and administrators who saw nothing but dollars signs and the need to protect the program and the profits it generated.  Besides, gutting the program has the effect of diluting the guilt pool. In giving into a punitive blood lust, in slapping down and destroying everything in our path, we lose sight of the individuals who deserve the ignominy of the spotlight.  Every single selfish, self-serving, greedy, morally bankrupt fool who could have stopped harm and injury from visiting even one child should be put in the position of losing everything - reputation, treasure and freedom.

George Will, on the same program, went on to say that “big-time football has no business on college campuses” because it is "inherently corrupting".  If you consider academic sport beyond the immediate Sandusky moment, as Mr. Will was, you face an entirely different subject and, again, I agree.  When you consider that top tier college coaches make more money (by significant margins) than university presidents, when, to but things into perspective, you consider that Albert Einstein, today,  would bank a pittance for the Theory of Relativity compared to the salary and successes of Joe Paterno you can understand why certain highly positioned individuals sought to protect a game before children.  Worse than the injury caused by Jerry Sandusky is the lesson taught every kid in High School and every kid  who makes the collegiate cut. 

My father was a junior high school teacher.  One of the stories he brought home from the classroom - one I am sure many teachers can tell - was of a kid who told him he was waiting to drop out so that he could run drugs for the local dealer.  The kid told him point blank that nothing he could say would change his mind because he (the kid) could make more in a week than he (my father) made in a year?  Without the squalor of drugs, are we sending the same corrupting message to future collegiate gladiators?

I do not have - or offer - answers.  I don't know what they would be.  I just know that present reality doesn't work.

Summer Doldrums

Sitting across from me is the Captain Morgan. Not THE Captain Morgan of happy hour fame but a tour vessel docked by the Sagamore Hotel.  It is a perfect morning, cloudless skies, a bejeweled lake and a gentle breeze to add a little comfort to the heat.  From where I am sitting on the beach in Roger's Park, I can see part of the Sagamore's stately veranda. The Main Building's cupola almost floats above the trees on Green Island. Beyond, the verdant green of the Adirondacks rises from the shores of Lake George.  It is a breathtaking sight and the perfect place to write - something I am anxious to do since the holiday and summer distractions have given me more than a few reasons to be lazy over the last nine days. For the record, that is the lie I have been cultivating from my seat in the sand.

Behind me are some of the distactions.  My grand daughter and my neice are taking a tennis lesson.  Beginner Tennis is like watching - or, in this case, listening to - a t-ball game...a lot of comedy if you're interested in amusing the kids and a lot of pain if you expect to see skill and talent.  Right now, their instructor is asking each seven year old, "What's my most important rule?" The one kid who knows - "Don't swing the racket close to anyone!!" - swings his racket to demonstrate.  The two other kids in my charge, a younger grand daughter and my five year old nephew, are attempting the reinact the Normandy Invasion.  With every manner of plastic contrivance they are attempting to wrest the beach from an entrenched army of early morning gulls.  Somehow, their repeated assaults drive the scavengers in the direction of my beach chair and laptop.

Languishing on the pages of my notebook is Pangea, my alternate reality and principal location for the second novel.  For the last nine days notes and thoughts have not been translated into narrative.  The distant bluffs and promontory that define the Pangean landscape - reminiscent of the Tongue Mountain range - are silent.  For the moment, taking some time to observe summer boaters, scanning the skies for passing ducks and geese and marveling at the occasion Blue Heron, sharing a beer with a summer acquaintance and just finding a reasoned level of calm in an otherwise choatic world, is enough.  That is, afterall, what Pangea is all about.  Peace, tranquilty, harmony and happiness.  At least partially.  It is that aspect-  the "tomorrow" part of the story - that I am "researching" right now.  It is not hard to make the case and accept that all this procrastination is necessary.  Soon, I will have to lumber back to my study and translate research into words.  It is inevitable.  Not to mention necessary.  The steady drumbeat of guilt is getting louder. The summer doldrums will pass.   But not today.  The Gulls have been routed.  It is time for a dip and then a beer...and maybe some soft ice cream for the kids.

An Anniversary Remembered

AN OPEN LETTER TO NEW YORK STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN

I am the grandfather of Hope (12) and Mackenzie (6).  On June 26, 2010 they, together with four other children - Abbigayle Smith (1); Emilie Smith (3); Lewis "Carl" Smith III (7); and Paige Cox (8) - perished in a house fire in Fort Edward, NY.  I am writing – as others have – because the circumstances surrounding this tragedy defy understanding.

When I was much younger – in college – I took a philosophy course.  During one lesson, the Professor posed the question: Why does 2 + 2 = 4?  We debated the issue for forty-five minutes without success.  At the end of the class, the Professor offered the simplest possible answer:       2 + 2 = 4 because it has to.  Everything – anything – else is chaos.  That is how I view the official conclusions that following the investigation into the deaths of my grandchildren. 

Please consider the following:

On the day of Hope and Mackenzie’s wake, their father, Lewis Carl Smith gave an interview with the media - (I believe it was Fox News but I am not sure.) – during which he credited Abbigayle's cries with waking him up.  That was the moment when grief met incredulity.  Before that I was content to hold my wife and cry, to comfort my daughter and to sit in the dark when alone remembering the smiles and giggles of two perfect children.  That was the moment I realized that baby Abbigayle slept in the same room as her parents.  Mr. Smith and Samantha Cox, her mother, escaped the building.  Baby Abbigayle died in that bedroom.  Consider that the first “2” in my equation.

Some months later, my daughter Florence, Hope and Mackenzie’s mother, stood by the side of the road protesting one of the many fundraisers involving Mr. Smith and Ms. Cox.  This one was on fire safety.  As she stood holding a placard for passing motorists to see, Carl Smith and Samantha Cox pulled up.  Ms. Cox approached my daughter and asked if she understood how difficult it was to (a) know your child was dead and (b) leave her behind.  Consider that the second “2” in the equation.  I cannot imagine knowing or thinking or fearing or believing my child is dead and leaving her in a burning building.  I can see leaving my keys, my wallet, my pants and my digital frame (one of my favorite purchases) but not my child.  During the last two years, my wife has told me repeatedly that she would have left me behind but not the baby.  Not only do I believe her, I understand completely.  Life would be easier for me if I could finesse these two paragraphs and make 2 + 2 = 4.  I cannot.

As an aside, the NYS Fire Report confirms that Baby Abbigayle died in their bed.

On June 26^th, 2010, my eldest granddaughter (Samantha) turned 16. She wanted a beach party and I was in Roger’s Park in Bolton Landing hanging streamers and waiting for the DJ when the cell phone rang.  Our celebration ended with a crudely written sign on a paper plate: “cancelled due to death in the family.”  Two days later, Samantha cancelled her (6/28) trip with People to People.  On June 23, 2012 Samantha will graduate from High School.  She has asked us not to throw a big party.  Instead of a gathering of friends and family and teachers, counselors and coaches, the people who shaped her life during the preceding twelve years, she has consented to a small BBQ to allow her family to congratulate her and send her off to college. 

I sincerely doubt this letter will change anything. Conclusions are set and time marches on.  I have come to the realization that I will mourn everyday for the rest of my life and, in the natural course of time, will go to my grave knowing that I could not do right by my grandchildren. Worse, the system failed Hope and Mackenzie as it failed Baby Abbigayle.  Nothing will change that. Perhaps the only purpose of this letter is to let another human being know that.  

Thank you for listening.

One Night With The Grandkids

(Excerpt from THIS LITTLE PIGGY BELONGS TO THE DEVIL)

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Piggy-Belongs-Devil-ebook/dp/B006J9PX8A 
http://www.mycroftpress.com 

Colin and Connor were in the dark.  They were whimpering, desperately trying to find their way out of the house.  It was so dark they were literally lost within their own home.  Colin took the lead as they made their way down the hallway.  Connor, holding his brothers shirt with a firm hand, followed behind offering advice.

            "Feel the doorknobs for heat.  Remember fire prevention week.  Feel for fire," Connor reminded his brother trying not to sound scared.

            "I can't see the doorknobs.  I can't see anything," Colin complained.

            "I know," Connor's voice answered wanting to sound reassuring.  He could not see his brother or even the hand that he anchored to Colin's back.  His twin's pajama top was white but it could just as easily have been black.  Maybe, magically, it was black.  Maybe it was as dark and as dense as the air around them.  Connor held tight to his brother's nightshirt; more than anything, he feared losing his grip.  If that happened, he would be gone.

            "Feel everything." he continued.  Hearing his voice gave him substance.  He found it reassuring.  "Slide your hand along the wall.  If it feels hot..."

            "Okay."

            Colin pressed his small hand flat against the wall.  It felt cool.  Slowly he moved forward.  The wall was gritty and a little oily, different than he remembered when the lights were on but it wasn't hot.  He could smell smoke.  It was all very familiar like the campouts they went on with dad and grandpa, and he could hear the crackle and occasional pop of wood burning, but there wasn't any heat.  And no light.  Why couldn't they see anything?  Light should be getting in from outside.  From street lamps.  And fire glows.  It's orange.  Why couldn't he see the fire?

            Colin's hand found a door.  He stopped, moving his fingers up and down trying to find the knob.

            "What's the matter?" his brother asked tugging on his pajama shirt.

            "It's a door."

            "Is it hot?"

            "No."

            "Open it."

            "I don't know where we are.  Which door?"

            "It doesn't matter.  Open it.  We have to figure it out."

            Colin turned the knob and pushed inward.  Light spilled out into the hall.  The boys could see up and down.  Everything was black onyx, slick and shiny, as if someone came in and painted their house while they slept.  In front of them, in the glow of their familiar New York Giants lamp was their room.  It looked normal.  Comfortable and inviting. Untouched by whatever had happened to the rest of the house.  Connor's Derek Jeter poster hung next to his bed.  Colin's bright red El Camino, his dream car, dominated his side of the room.  Books, magazines and the clutter that defined their eleven year old lives were strewn everywhere.  Laundry basket basketball left more socks and underwear on the floor than in the hamper.   Everything was as it was supposed to be.  Just as they remembered it.  Somehow, in the dark, they ended up back where they started.

            Colin began to complain.  They were trying to get outside, away from the house.  That's what they were supposed to do.  They planned and trained for this in school.  They drew escape routes - one hung on the back of their door -  but it didn't work.  Somehow, Colin had failed and he felt miserable.

            "It's good.  Everything is fine.  Let's go to bed," Connor answered sounding confident.  He started pushing past his brother.

            "But what about the smell?" Colin persisted.

            "That crazy guy next door must be burning trash again.  Let's go.  I'm tired."

            “Shouldn’t we look for mom?”  Colin asked, holding back his twin.  That was another lesson:  plan a meeting place...gather with your family...stay together!

            “They went out, remember.”

            “Maybe they’re back.  Maybe they’re sleeping.  We were sleeping.  Do you know what time it is?”

            Connor looked in the room.  His brand new digital alarm clock, the one with the iPod dock that he wanted and bought for himself, sat on his nightstand.  The time blinked 1:17 AM.  It kept blinking as the time changed.  1:17...1:18...

            "We must have lost power.  My clock says 1:19 in the morning," Connor noted looking as the time changed again.  Minutes went fast.  They better get to sleep if they wanted to sleep at all.

            "It might be much later than that.  Maybe 4:00 A. M.  They could be back," Colin persisted.

            “Then I wouldn’t wake them.  He’d get mad.”

            “You sure?” 

            “Yeah,” Connor answered sounding a little annoyed.  “I’m tired.  If it is 4:00 o'clock...I'm fucking tired."

            Connor grinned.  Cursing was something new for him.  He loved saying the word “fuck”.

            "Let's get to bed.”

            Side by side, my grandchildren stepped into the threshold.   A huge and wicked plume of fire enveloped the boys in a violent whirlwind of orange tendrils and white smoke.  There was something unnatural about it, like dancing flames from some very old cartoon.  The blaze swirled around them rising steadily, driven by unheard music.  One step...two step...one step...two step...cha...cha... cha...  The ceiling above them burned and the blackened hallway filled with an eerie, unnatural glow.  Colin and Connor stood motionless, leaning forward against the force of the firestorm, their long hair fluttering madly behind them.  Their mouths hung open.  Their teeth, clean and white against ebony, reflected miniature, flickering portraits of the blaze while their eyes bulged wide and large; they saw and understood everything.  I am certain of that much.  For just a moment the boys seemed to take on an unnatural sheen, to glow the color of the flames, before darkening first to an ochre and then to the oily black of the hallway.  Their skin seemed to bubble and then to crack, curl and shrink from their identical features.  White wisps of wriggling worms…thin, insistent, persistent, present, ever-present, rapidly multiplying smoke-like creatures…more alive than dead, twisted and crawled through every crack, hole and crevice the boys’ possessed (or the fire provided) until they escaped into the crackling universe.  Then, finally, almost mercifully, the boys exploded. They just disintegrated into two giant orange puffs of ash, their dust carried away within the great swirling, all-consuming inferno. 

            And then, once again, I screamed.  I opened my mouth, stretching my jaw to the point of pain and issued a sound no creature has ever made.  Or was meant to make.  It was as mysterious and as mythical as anything I’d ever read in books or seen at the movies.  I could not stop.  I bellowed for hours and hours and days and days as the essence of my grief spread across my neighborhood and the lands beyond.  Birds fell from the sky by the thousands and stars, one by one, faded in the heavens.  The world turned as black as the hallways of hell.  My anguish knew no boundaries.    

            And then, once again, my eyes opened.  I was in bed lying next to my wife.  She was awake, but not because I shattered windows and frightened neighbors.  There were no dogs howling, no cats hissing at unseen dangers.  I tossed and turned and whimpered.  In this world, my grief was not majestic.  In this world, I was reduced to quiet tears and constrained moans.  It was all so very impotent.

            Brenda rubbed my back feeling dampness through the cotton.  Gently she whispered in my ear.

            “You should call the doctor.”

            “I can’t. Too much to do.”

58 & Thinking About Sex

A recent negative review posted on Amazon.com got me thinking.  Couldn't help it...it was about my book, This Little Piggy Belongs to the Devil and, even though I shouldn't, I'm going to provide a little commentary.

"All he talks about is sexual and its just horrible. I wouldn't have bought the book if i knew the continent (sic)was so perverted. Don't waste your money if you don't want to hear about penis and sex through the whole book."

I am sorry that the book is not about sex.  I've written about sex before and it's a lot funnier.  I used to talk about sex in my stand-up routine...

("My wife couldn't be here tonight. She's suffering from RRSA:  recurring, remitting, sexual Alzheimer's.  Every time I suggest sex her brain concocts bizarre, unbelievable excuses: the curtains are open... if you're not laughing, don't feel bad.  No one ever got that joke.)

...but This Little Piggy Belongs to the Devil is a psychological thriller about a man, a sixty to sixty-two year old grandfather who slowly loses his mind as he wallows in the grief of losing his only grandchildren to fire.  It is a first person account during which he retells the history of his family from his own childhood through the deaths of his grandsons and beyond (as he targets the person he blames for the fire and plots vengeance).  It is an exercise in anger expressed in gritty language, pained and passionate sex, violence, a wealth of memory and (maybe) a little twisted humor.

Personally, I think the characters deserve so much more than reducing them to sex objects.  They have so much to say...before during and after sex!