Additional Observations....

One of an actual occasion remembered, one of an even older occasion I don't remember, and a few odds and ends.

The workweek was reasonably busy- three straight days of court, none taking terribly long and all going more or less as planned. Tuesday was the first of them, and it bringing the start of the new month, I remembered what else that brought with it:  It was 35 years ago that day, in 1984,  that I woke up with the Wease (a WCMF morning DJ, not a disease), put on one of my two suits, and headed in for my first day of work as an almost-real lawyer. (The bar results wouldn't come for two more months, admission not for almost three after that.) On my desk on the 11th floor of First Federal Plaza were five files- a will to draft for a local chiropractor, a couple of others involving a Ponzi scheme case that would later turn into a bankruptcy case lasting 12 years, a set of corporate minutes to update for the "Dilly Deli," and probably my first ever collection case.

I would never have a completely clear desk after that. The will client died in 2012; I do hope he updated the thing after I left in 1994. The Ponzi schemer was still alive and living in Pittsford at last report. The Dilly Deli dissolved sometime in the 90s.

I'm still here- mostly on my own now after going through that firm, a bigger one, a smaller one, which got bigger then smaller and finally convinced me to get down to Mostly Just Me.  My sister was a big part of moving to exactly where I did back then, a furnished apartment in a neighborhood that just happened to have a Methodist church at the other end of the street.  I wandered into it one Sunday, and while I've given up that faith (or, more, its national leaders have given up on mine), it led directly to the woman I met and married and much of the life that came after that.

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Also heard from my college roommate this past week. We've been emailing on and off and are trying to swing a get-together at some point, but he came up with this old chestnut. I know exactly where at Cornell that is, but couldn't even begin to guess when it was, or what that t-shirt says:



We're still on for a get-awaying of our own at the end of this week. Two of our favorite singers are playing at a small club in Toronto on Friday night, and we have dinner-and-the-show plans for it.  Because travels are hard on both of us, especially Eleanor, we decided to book an overnight, preferably with time in a room ahead of time for, what else, napping! This proved to be the usual cluster of internet fail; a check of the club's neighborhood led to a booking site with a perfectly lovely full apartment to ourselves for a decent price- which we then lost because the site wouldn't accept a perfectly lovely and valid credit card.  We wound up picking one a little further from the venue, but for quite a bit less for the stay; only problem might be a later check-in time than we'd like, but I'm going to check on that tomorrow.

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Then there was one of the saddest occasions to observe:

I mentioned last weekend that I'd attended a gathering of Mets fans at a local racino.  There was the thrill of seeing the three of our 1969 championship team's members, but I also got to meet the local sports-radio personality who emceed the event. (Meeting and greeting the three Mets required a VIP package; Howard was just hanging around.)  He's about my age, moved here from Long Island for school about the same time I came for law school, and has long confessed his life as a suffering fellow fan on his programs on different stations over the years.  He was gracious, but something seemed a little off.  The following Tuesday, I found out what:

His on-air co-host,  just-turned-40 and recently married, had not been on the air at all for several days.  Nobody said anything; in the cutthroat radio business, that usually means bad things- but not THIS bad.  A few months ago, Jeremy had announced to his listeners that he and his new bride were expecting- quadruplets.  Well, the whole previous week, he and his wife had been in the local Children's Hospital, as she went into pre-term labor and, one by one by one by one, lost all four of them.  Each was named; each was held; each is still grieved and will always be.  Jeremy's announcement of it was heartfelt and heartbreaking, but I passed a message along to his co-host, the one I'd met the previous weekend, when he knew what was going on, couldn't talk about it, and still honored his commitment to introduce three of our childhood heroes at a racetrack out Far Far Away.

Later in the day after hearing that news, Amazon delivered the latest book co-written by one of the Mets at the event:



The key word in that title is "After." Unlike his previous book, which was about the memories of what happened in the Met's magical 1969 season, this one mostly traces the later lives of those players, not all still alive and many who remain struggling with ailments and Alzheimers.  I've just started reading it, and it's a touching yet sobering reminder that the superstars of our memories are, in the end, just as human as the rest of us are.

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Ending with a couple of updates and a few sillies:

- I finished Learned League ninth out of 26 with a final record of 14-10-1. Pretty good after an 0-9 start.

- The Mets ended their season over .500 and one team out of making the post-season. Their manager got the boot earlier this week, and their first baseman broke all rookie records for home runs, so we've got Hope, if not Howe, going into 2020.

- And finally, just for fun:  a friend photoshopped this one to make it more haikuily accurate:




- while I photoshopped our walking-buddy dog into this one, so I'l finally have something to say when people tell us, as they do at least once every Sunday, that Ursula "looks just like a wolf!"