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Anniversaries and Otherthingaries....
May. 26th, 2019 06:55 pmAs Memorial Day weekend moves along, I'm reminded of other, non-military, memories. It was 25 years ago this weekend, two weeks after I'd begun my first job in Buffalo after a decade in Rachacha, that we went house-hunting and put in the offer on this one which, ironically, was accepted by Kodak's relocation department as the then-de facto owner of the house. (They'd hired the husband of the couple who'd lived here only a few years after Original Owner Eddie, and despite our somewhat skeevy status as home sellers back home, they took our offer and the rest, as they say, is history.) That weekend of showings and negotiations, two-year-old Emily in tow, included a flat tire on Memorial Day proper on our then-main ride, unaffectionately known as Cruela de Bonneville; at least one diaper change outside an open house; and a rejection of our offer on a bigger and further home which ultimately led to us being here and not in Dana Heights (karma: dude ultimately accepted an offer lower than ours, and his business, in the same strip plaza as our realtor, went out of business not long after).
That first job lasted barely a year. This house became and remains a home a quarter century on.
----
I was also reminded of another anniversary yesterday. May 25th is known as "Towel Day," in honour of Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which advocates for always carrying one just in case. While it's one of the many MayDays we pay attention to, this year was especially significant because it was the 42nd anniversary of another sci-fi event ("42" is important in Adamsian theology; google it if you must.)
May 25, 1977 was the Very Limited Release premiere of a silly little sci-fi film subtitled "A New Hope." In the whole New York metro, the premiere played in two cinemas in Manhattan, I think one in Jersey, and exactly one for all of Long Island. In Hicksville. I am not making that up. It was close enough for me and my friend Dennis to ride our bikes to a few weeks after the opening to see what the Force was all about. It didn't take long for those theatres to begin selling out regularly; eventually more prints arrived, more screens were added, and the rest, as they say, is Force Story.
----
This weekend is also the 38th anniversary of my graduation from Cornell. It was one of the few times that my entire family was in the same zip code at the same time, although things between my father and sister Donna were still such that we could not all sit down at the same table to follow. She and Joe got me a lovely watch, which I still have, and still worked last I knew, my having abandoned analog time for the ubiquitous iTime device some years back.
(Detour about this: I'm of the feeling that it's best to get these kinds of things out of the way while everyone is still with us (and preferably with it): Eleanor's brother reported to her, week before last, that he'd gone in for heart surgery. He originally emailed her about this on May 8; I instantly knew why she'd missed this news, since that was our Finally Go See Hamilton But She Was In Too Much Pain Herself day. Anyway, here's his report on the condition his condition was in:
( Cut for all kinds of HIPPAA violations )
One consequence of this news is it got both of his sisters back in touch with each other. Eleanor, through some personal revelations and recollections of some metoo things her sister had been involved in, had cut off all contact with Karin at the end of last year, but with this on the horizon, they reached an acceptable peace about communicating for Charlie's sake. )
Anyway, back in time to 1981:
Cornell graduations back then were ruthlessly efficient; there was exactly one ceremony, it took all of an hour, with the football stadium filled with all the year's candidates from the eight undergraduate and other non-professional graduate programs. (Lawyers, doctors and vets got their own elsewhere.) Only the PhD's got to walk the stage; the rest of us hoi poloi had our degrees conferred by college en masse. No honorary degrees, no famous speakers (the Uni president gave the only address), thanks for coming, return your cap and gown and pay your parking tickets if you want a transcript.
Most of those procedures still hold for Commencement itself, but Cornell has sexed up the weekend in other respects, no doubt to reflect the considerably higher price of admission. There is now a pre-Commencement ceremony called "Convocation" which brings the star power; Joe Biden was the guest a couple of years ago when I wandered through Ithaca on this weekend, and this year they invited me to livestream this year's speech by some Science Guy named Bill Nye. He was Cornell '77, so graduated (at least the first time) the May before I got there. They archive their stuff, so he's here if you need him.
----
Finally, not my anniversary, but I'll play it in August:
I went to high school with all make and manner of cool people. Many became doctors and lawyers; at least one a year behind me wound up on the Mets; quite a few have made livings off their writing; and, of course, our fairly famous serial killer. But musicians make up a good chunk of the fame, and the one I've known the longest, and never expected that path from, was a kid in the clarinet section named Freddie Reiter. He was better than me at it, but so was just about everybody; I'd have expected him to have joined Alan in the trumpets in medical school, or Louise in the flutes in psychology, but he wound up hearing music as his calling and the sax as his primary instrument. Twenty-five years ago, after making his bones with the likes of Stanley Jordan and Lou Reed, Freddie founded the New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble. Their 14th studio album is about to release, and his band has performed all over the world..... and I've never seen it in person.
We're fixing that.
Their current tour takes them from Spain to Moscow to Italy and then Chile; but hey, everybody has to stop at home and change their underwear, and thus there's one blessed gig in Manhattan on August 28th. And the Mets are home that night and the two surrounding ones, against Your Chicago Cubs.
Alas, I will not get to reconnect with his girlfriend, also in our high school class, who he reconnected with after many years; she's an artist and teacher in Colorado, who will be back teaching that week. But it will be awesome to hear his sounds and see his talent after all these years.
----
There were supposed to be other things here: the past week of work; birds in front and back of the house; Pepper's rescueversary coming up. But that's what future posts are for.
That first job lasted barely a year. This house became and remains a home a quarter century on.
----
I was also reminded of another anniversary yesterday. May 25th is known as "Towel Day," in honour of Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which advocates for always carrying one just in case. While it's one of the many MayDays we pay attention to, this year was especially significant because it was the 42nd anniversary of another sci-fi event ("42" is important in Adamsian theology; google it if you must.)
May 25, 1977 was the Very Limited Release premiere of a silly little sci-fi film subtitled "A New Hope." In the whole New York metro, the premiere played in two cinemas in Manhattan, I think one in Jersey, and exactly one for all of Long Island. In Hicksville. I am not making that up. It was close enough for me and my friend Dennis to ride our bikes to a few weeks after the opening to see what the Force was all about. It didn't take long for those theatres to begin selling out regularly; eventually more prints arrived, more screens were added, and the rest, as they say, is Force Story.
----
This weekend is also the 38th anniversary of my graduation from Cornell. It was one of the few times that my entire family was in the same zip code at the same time, although things between my father and sister Donna were still such that we could not all sit down at the same table to follow. She and Joe got me a lovely watch, which I still have, and still worked last I knew, my having abandoned analog time for the ubiquitous iTime device some years back.
(Detour about this: I'm of the feeling that it's best to get these kinds of things out of the way while everyone is still with us (and preferably with it): Eleanor's brother reported to her, week before last, that he'd gone in for heart surgery. He originally emailed her about this on May 8; I instantly knew why she'd missed this news, since that was our Finally Go See Hamilton But She Was In Too Much Pain Herself day. Anyway, here's his report on the condition his condition was in:
( Cut for all kinds of HIPPAA violations )
One consequence of this news is it got both of his sisters back in touch with each other. Eleanor, through some personal revelations and recollections of some metoo things her sister had been involved in, had cut off all contact with Karin at the end of last year, but with this on the horizon, they reached an acceptable peace about communicating for Charlie's sake. )
Anyway, back in time to 1981:
Cornell graduations back then were ruthlessly efficient; there was exactly one ceremony, it took all of an hour, with the football stadium filled with all the year's candidates from the eight undergraduate and other non-professional graduate programs. (Lawyers, doctors and vets got their own elsewhere.) Only the PhD's got to walk the stage; the rest of us hoi poloi had our degrees conferred by college en masse. No honorary degrees, no famous speakers (the Uni president gave the only address), thanks for coming, return your cap and gown and pay your parking tickets if you want a transcript.
Most of those procedures still hold for Commencement itself, but Cornell has sexed up the weekend in other respects, no doubt to reflect the considerably higher price of admission. There is now a pre-Commencement ceremony called "Convocation" which brings the star power; Joe Biden was the guest a couple of years ago when I wandered through Ithaca on this weekend, and this year they invited me to livestream this year's speech by some Science Guy named Bill Nye. He was Cornell '77, so graduated (at least the first time) the May before I got there. They archive their stuff, so he's here if you need him.
----
Finally, not my anniversary, but I'll play it in August:
I went to high school with all make and manner of cool people. Many became doctors and lawyers; at least one a year behind me wound up on the Mets; quite a few have made livings off their writing; and, of course, our fairly famous serial killer. But musicians make up a good chunk of the fame, and the one I've known the longest, and never expected that path from, was a kid in the clarinet section named Freddie Reiter. He was better than me at it, but so was just about everybody; I'd have expected him to have joined Alan in the trumpets in medical school, or Louise in the flutes in psychology, but he wound up hearing music as his calling and the sax as his primary instrument. Twenty-five years ago, after making his bones with the likes of Stanley Jordan and Lou Reed, Freddie founded the New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble. Their 14th studio album is about to release, and his band has performed all over the world..... and I've never seen it in person.
We're fixing that.
Their current tour takes them from Spain to Moscow to Italy and then Chile; but hey, everybody has to stop at home and change their underwear, and thus there's one blessed gig in Manhattan on August 28th. And the Mets are home that night and the two surrounding ones, against Your Chicago Cubs.
Alas, I will not get to reconnect with his girlfriend, also in our high school class, who he reconnected with after many years; she's an artist and teacher in Colorado, who will be back teaching that week. But it will be awesome to hear his sounds and see his talent after all these years.
----
There were supposed to be other things here: the past week of work; birds in front and back of the house; Pepper's rescueversary coming up. But that's what future posts are for.