Weekly Mail September 25, 2022

 

Hey There:

All of you who read this know how much I lament the end of summer, which happened officially this past week. But even a summer kid like myself has to appreciate that first taste of fall weather when it comes. It came, ironically enough, on Thursday, the firt full day of fall.

Usually, it's still quite warm through September into early October, but this week here in NY, we had temp dipping into the high 40's. That I'm really not ready for, but these 60 degree afternoons are very enjoyable. Walking up from Pen Station on Saturday was a particular treat. I hope you all got to go out and enjoy some of this great weather. 

LAWSUITS: New York State vs Trumps

Just minutes after President Biden finished addressing the UN General Assembly, New York's Attorney General Letitia James announced the state had filed a massive lawsuit against Capt. Orange and three of his adult children, that accused the 4 of them of fraud. Namely, that they were overvaluing their assets in order to secure loans and insurance. The suit is looking to bar them from owning and operating any business in New York State. 

Obviously, this all has to play out, and Trump will have his day in court to refute all of these allegations. So far of course, all he's done is what he does best, lie and call people names. Had the audacity to call AG James a racist if ever there was a scenario of the pot calling the kettle orange. 

But I think my favorite part of this entire mess was when former US Attorney General Bill Barr criticized James for "dragging the children into this." 

From The Hill.com this is Barr speaking to Fox News  

Trump’s adult children did have roles in the former president’s businesses, Barr said, “but this is his personal financial statement, prepared by the CFO, accounting firms were involved in it. … The children aren’t going to know the details of that, nor are they expected in the real world to do their own due diligence and have it reviewed independently.”

Well isn't that special??

First of all, Trump made it clear that his two oldest sons, Don Jr. and Eric, were going to run the Trump Organization while Orange was in the White House. So either that was more bull$h-t from the master of BS, or more likely, Trump kept his hand in the business with help from Don Jr. and Eric. The idea that those two (and Ivanka) didn't know what was going on is to say the least, hard to believe. 

I mean it's almost as if Barr is saying. "Look, those three are so dopey, that they couldn't have known what their father was doing." He may have a point, but again, the idea was that the former president was supposed to divest himself from his businesses while he was in office, and that Jr. and Eric were in charge. That's why they had to be included in the lawsuit.

And I also think it's awfully rich of Barr to be yelling "Leave the kids out of this" when they are all still going after Hunter Biden for whatever it is they think he did. I've heard Hunter Biden's name so much these last two years, I feel like he's been the one running for office. 

Trump has two other children, Tiffany, who is 28 and not involved in the Trump Organization, and Barron who is still in high school. Now, someone wants to go after them, yeah that's an issue. They are off limits, since Tiffany isn't involved and Barron is still a kid. 

Don Jr. is 44, Ivanka is 40 and Eric is 38, and again, all of them are in senior positions at the organization. They're fair game. If they did nothing wrong, then hopefully the case will prove that out. 

But it seems like Letitia James and Co. has the goods on them. And I think they know it. 

We'll see how it all turns out. 

AUTO ACCIDENTS-Follow the Silver Can Road..

Picture this...you are driving on a long lonely highway when you look over on the other side and see all the beer you can drink lying on the road. What's more, it happens to be your favoprite brand. 

That's the predicament I would have been in had I been driving on I-75 in Florida on Wednesday morning instead of at my desk on Long Island. 

There was a 5 semi truck pileup on I75 in Brooksville, FL, a suburb of Tampa. Two trucks had already collided, two more were able to stop in time. It was the 5th truck, that was unable to stop and pushed the second 2 into the first two. It was also the 5th truck that was filled to capacity with cases of Coors Light. 

Three lanes lined with cases of Silver Bullets. Lord have Mercy!

There were no reported injuries as a result of the accident, (thank goodness) just beer, lots of beer. 

I'm sure most of the cans of Coors were damaged beyond repair. Or in this case beyond drinkability. 

99 bottles of beer on the wall

99 bottles of beer

If one of the bottles should happen to fall

what a waste of alcohol! 

                                           Coors Light for the Road- photo credit Florida Highway Patrol

BASEBALL: Mets Mess out West

Jacob deGrom has been so good (when healthy) the past 5 years, that when he throws a clunker like he did on Saturday afternoon in Oakland, it's quite jarring. 

SNY put a stat up that even after watching deGrom these past 9 seasons, still caused me to do a double take. They noted that when deGrom let the A's 4th run score the other day, that was the first time in 40 starts he had allowed more than 3 runs. He broke a record that had stood since 1913. Amazing, but that's not what caught my eye.

No, that was the stat that said that deGrom had allowed 1 run or fewer in 49% of his starts. Almost HALF of all the games this man has started he has allowed one run or less.

That is flipping IN-SANE! 

And again, it's a painful reminder of how little run support this guy has gotten throughout his career. Unfortunately that wasn't the issue in Oakland on Saturday.  Jake simply didn't have it. He didn't get any help from that waste of life umpire Angel Hernandez, but the hard hits he allowed were all on him. And after scoring 3 runs in the first and another in the second, the Mets could get no more against an awful A's pitching staff. 

I suspect this was just a bump in the road and that deGrom will be back on his game in his next start. He has to be, for that start could very well decide who wins the NL East and gets a bye to the NLDS. 

As for the Yankees, as of this writing, Aaron Judge was still stuck on HR number 60. 

A few years ago, when I was still listening to Mike (Sitting Bull) Francesa, Timmy told me that if he ever got to meet Mike, he would ask him if he thought Aaron Judge would ever be as good as Babe Ruth. I figured being that Francesa has three kids at or around Tim's age, he would gently explain to Tim that Ruth could do something that Judge couldn't do, and that was pitch. (This was before the days of Shohei Ohtani.) Obviously, if an adult called the big guy and asked such a question, he'd be told to "Get LAWST" 

I thought about that conversation with Tim as Judge was hitting that 60th home run, which of course ties him up with the Bambino.  I'm tellin ya, not to dad brag or anything, but my kid was onto something back then. 

I'm publishing and posting this masterpiece early on Sunday cuz the fam and I are taking a road trip for a couple days. By the time you read this, Judge may have caught Roger Maris and the Mets hopefully bounced back against Oakland. I'm hoping to do a special next week that I hope you all enjoy. Till then..

Stay Safe

and Have a Great Week 

Weekly Mail September 18, 2022 (Season Premiere)

 

Hello Everyone!

So we are back for our 8th year since our 2015 re-launch. When I started doing this again, I just took it one week at a time, not even imagining that I'd still writing this all these years later. Originally, I started e-mailing this from my AOL e-mail in 1996, and pretty much went till Timmy was born. A couple of attempts to start it up again went nowhere, but on September 12, 2015 I posted one to Facebook and we went from there. And now, here we are.

I hope you are all well and that you are still enjoying this. 

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I mentioned in my last blogpost before our hiatus that Tim would be starting high school. The first day of school was August 31 here in Oceanside, which I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record, I believe to be utter bullspit. It's one thing if you are starting college and you get all that time off between semesters, but to be starting grammar or high school before Labor Day here in NY is just wrong. I know in other parts of the country they go back in early August, but they are also out by Memorial Day. 

And as I've also mentioned before, Tim doesn't mind going back to school before Labor Day. Actually, he had tryouts for his cross-country team on his birthday August 30, which was the day before school started. He didn't mind that either. This is just his old man kvetching.

And to be honest, the Sunday before Labor Day, I was in 7-11 and I witnessed a kid paying two dollars for something that cost $1.77 and asking the cashier why he was only getting back 23 cents. He thought he should be getting back a buck twenty three. The cashier said if he gave him back that amount he'd be losing a whole dollar. I honestly don't think the kid was trying to pull a fast one either. "I don't say this often, Lord knows I don't think I've ever said it, " I told the cashier, "but these kids need to get back to math class". He laughed and agreed with me. 

Sigh. 

Anyway

SINCE WE'VE BEEN GONE

We've have a couple of major obituaries. One is getting all the hype you would expect it to, the other didn't get nearly the coverage I thought it should. 

Mikhail Gorbachev- When Ronald Reagan died in 2004, and George HW Bush died in 2018, they were both given credit for leading America out of the Cold War. And rightly so, especially in Reagan's case. 

But none of it happens if there wasn't someone on the other side willing to listen, willing to embrace change, someone who believed in personal freedoms and human dignity. Someone who was willing to fly in the face of convention and take a huge risk. That someone was Mikhail Gorbachev. 

When he came to power in 1985, the Soviet economy was a mess, about the only thing they seemed capable of producing was nuclear weapons. Gorbachev encouraged his people to speak more freely, to think more freely in the hopes that these thoughts and ideas would lead to more productivity. 

He also knew that you could catch more flies with honey than vinegar, so he promoted and encouraged discussions with the west, specifically the United States. Together, with Reagan and later Bush 41, they were able to make several pacts that drew down each of their nuclear arsenals. 

Unfortunately, the reforms he proposed didn't bear the immediate results he wanted for the Russian people and in the summer of 1991 a coup was attempted by Communist hardliners. Though the coup failed, Gorbachev's time as leader was over. Sadly, much of what he was able to accomplish had been laid to waste by Vladimir Putin, not the least of which is the normalization of relations between America and Russia. 

Maybe that's why there wasn't as much made of his passing as one may have thought. Maybe it was one of those things you had to be there for. To see the Berlin Wall fall, to see Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia break free, to see how things had changed, just from the late 70's to the early 90's.  Maybe it's that the hopes and expectations many of us had back then have gone away, and thinking about what could have been is too much. 

All I know is there have been few people in my lifetime who was able to effect a positive a change then Mikhail Gorbachev. he wasn't perfect and not every decision was wise, but his heart and his soul at least from where I was sitting, always seemed to be in the right place. 

Queen Elizabeth II- Now, you can't turn on any newscast since the Queen died last week and not see wall to wall coverage. All the major networks descended upon London and will be there at least until the Queen is laid to rest on Monday after her funeral at Westminster Abbey. 

And hey, I get it. Let's face it, most of us weren't around the last time this happened and those of us who were had to be very young. Elizabeth II had this gig for almost 70 years. There aren't many jobs that you can even come close to approaching that kind of longevity. Pope maybe? Nope, most priests are ordained around 25 or 26, then you have to get promoted to bishop, cardinal and then Pope. Most Pope's are in their 60's and 70's when they get elected. John Paul II was 58 and he lasted 26 years. 

Here in America, Supreme Court justice is a lifetime appointment. Also head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers is a pretty steady gig. But even the Steelers have had 8* head coaches since Her Majesty ascended to the throne upon the death of her father in 1952. By contrast, America has had 14** Presidents in that time. 

Getting back to the point that most have us have never seen the crown be passed on, who the hell knows when or if we will ever see this again? King Charles III (man that's gonna take some getting used to) is 73. If he lives as long as his dear departed mum or even more insane, his crazy old man, he will have either 23 years as king or 26....remember Prince Phillip made it all the way to 99! Those British royals have some good genes, I think it also helps that they don't have much in the way of official responsibilities. (On a side note-I'm still waiting to hear back from Buckingham Palace on my application for either Prince Andrew's old gig or Prince Harry's. I know everyone's a bit busy over there this week, but maybe once King Charles III settles in he could give it a once-over) 

The funeral is Monday morning and yes, I'm going to try to get up early and watch some of it. Like I said, it could be a while before we get a chance to see this again. 

            The Queen is dead. Long Live the King! 

BASEBALL: Down the Stretch We Come!

We've got two weeks left in the regular season, and while both NY teams are shoe-in's for the playoffs, they have made things more interesting than perhaps we thought they would be. 

The Yankees, through the first 3 months of the season, were drawing comparisons to the great Yankee teams of yore, specifically the 1998 version who won 114 regular season games and pretty much waltzed to World Series win number 24. 

But they were 13-13 in July and 10-18 in August, and panic set in up in the Bronx. They seem to have straightened out, having taken 2 out of 3 last weekend against the Rays and sweeping a two game series at Fenway vs the Sawx. 

Aaron Judge is 3 HR's away from breaking the Yankee (and as far as I'm concerned the all time) record for home runs in a season. That will be fun to watch.  

As for my Mets, well they took two out of three from the MLB best Dodgers in early September, then lost two out of three to the lowly Nats and were swept by the almost as bad Cubs. Meanwhile the Braves absolutely refuse to lose. Even after sweeping the Pirates at home this weekend, the Mets weren’t able to put any more distance from the Braves, who swept the Phillies. 

The Mets and Braves play one more series a week from Monday. That will most likely decide who wins the division and who plays in the wild card series. 

FOOTBALL: Miracle in Cleveland 

I was celebrating my nephew’s second birthday on Sunday during the Jets Browns game. The house where the party was mostly had Giants fans, so I was watching the Giants play the Panthers. I flipped it over to the Jets game just before we left, and the Browns had scored to take what looked like was going to be a 2 touchdown lead. It was coming up on the two minute warning, and I figured that was that. 

Of course when I got home, Timmy informed me that somehow the Jets had squeezed out a one point victory. A quick touchdown, a successfully recovered onside kick, and another quick touchdown. Unreal! I really thought Timmy was pulling my leg when he told me that the Jets had won. 

Could this be the beginning of something special here? Or at least something different? True, this was against the Deshaun Watson-less Browns, but hey you gotta start somewhere. 

BTW-and H/T to my friend Colin McGarvey for this….Sunday was the first time since 9/27/2009 that the Mets, Jets, Yankees and Giants all won on the same day. 

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One more quick obit here…. My friends the Dietrich’s lost their mom Pat over Labor Day weekend. No matter what I wrote on this blog, she always took time to tell me how much she enjoyed reading it. I can’t tell you how much that meant for me to hear. RIP. 

It’s good to be back.

Stay Safe

and Have a Great Week 

*The Steelers have had 3 head coaches since 1969. The Giants by contrast have had 5 head coaches since 2016. The Jets? 4 since 2010. 

**King George VI died on February 6, 1952, Elizabeth immediately became Queen, but her coronation was June 2, 1953. 

Weekly Mail September 11 Special 2022

 

September 11, 2022 

21 years on, here's what comes to mind as we look back on that horrible day....

 

Over the summer I saw something on the news that I found rather distressing. The 9/11 Tribute Museum was closing down due to financial losses suffered during the pandemic. 

"Financial hardship including lost revenue caused by the pandemic prevents us from generating sufficient funding to continue to operate the physical museum," - Jennifer Adams, co-founder and CEO of the museum

Turns out this is not the National 9/11 Museum which is right there on the site of Ground Zero.  That thankfully is still open. According to the National Museum's website..

The 9/11 Tribute Museum and the National September 11^th Memorial & Museum are separate non-profit institutions that both share the history of the tragic events that changed the world.

The 9/11 Tribute Museum remembers 9/11 in galleries and on walking tours through the stories of those directly experienced the tragic events – family members who lost loved ones, survivors, Lower Manhattan residents and workers and rescue and recovery workers.  It offers visitors, through artifacts, stories, photos and videos, the ability to learn factual information about the events, the unprecedented rescue and recovery operations and the tremendous spirit of resilience and service that arose after the attacks and continues today. 

The National September 11 Memorial Museum serves as the country’s principal institution concerned with exploring the implications of the events of 9/11, documenting the impact of those events and exploring 9/11’s continuing significance.  The Museum tells the story of 9/11 through interactive technology, archives, narratives and a growing permanent collection of artifacts, stories, photos, video and other materials that shape our shared history.

It's the Tribute Musuem on Greenwich Street that was closed down, it's website still offering virtual tours. And while I was glad to see that the National Museum would remain open, it brought to the fore another big concern that I have expressed here many times over the years on this post.. Will the memory of what happen that day fade so much that we start to actually forget? 

Two years ago, when we were still in the throes of the pandemic, I thought maybe the anniversary would take a backseat to the thousands we lost to COVID-19. It didn't. We still mourned the victims of COVID as we also remembered the close to 3,000 we lost on 9/11.  People still
put flags out on their porches and windows, many of us changed our social media profile pictures to remember. 

Today is Sunday, which to me is always a sort of fascinating case study in this. Many of us spend the morning, sitting quietly watching on TV as they read out the names of those who perished on 9/11/01. Down here in Southern Nassau county, there is a multi-faith memorial service in Point Lookout. Tara and I attended that the last time the anniversary landed on Sunday (I believe that was 2016). So maybe we do something like that as well.

But then at 1 PM, many of us are watching as our football teams are having their season openers. On Sunday September 9, 2001, they had it where President George W. Bush stood with a group of kids on the White House Lawn and flipped a coin in the air for each of the games that day. They beamed that into each stadium. The next time I saw the President, he was at Barksdale Air Force base in Louisiana, trying to assure the suddenly shaken nation that America's resolve would pass the test it being put through that morning. 

That we can enjoy a football game or any event, sporting or otherwise just hours after the heart wrenching remembrances can surely be a testament to our abilities to keep moving forward. But I still have that nagging feeling that we should be doing more to keep that memory burning. 

Many of us now have kids that either weren't born or were very young when this happened, who have only learned about this the way we may have learned about Vietnam and the JFK assassination, or how our folks learned about Pearl Harbor and WWII.  Learning history of course is how we keep the memories alive. 

Which is why I was so upset to hear that the Tribute museum was closing. Any time we lose something that helps us to remember or helps those who weren't born yet to learn, it's a loss. 

But, we will still have the national museum to go to, and yes those magnificent fountains where the foot prints of the Twin Towers are, will always be there, always a place to go to pray, to mourn, to reflect

And most of all, To Never Forget.

God Bless those we lost that day, and those they left behind.

God Bless the rescue workers we've lost and we continue to lose to cancer and other diseases from the air they breathed in in the weeks after the attacks. 

God Bless those of us who lived through it, and those of us who didn't but have had it as an everyday part of their lives. 

and

God Bless America 

Weekly Mail returns September 18, 2022