Booked

My Facebook friend, Wendy Wilson, recently posted the ten books that most influenced her. I have been contemplating this and wanted to share. These are not the best books I have ever read, but the ones that influenced me the most.

1. The Bible. Whether or not you believe (I do, but challenge a lot of it), it is a seminal concept for America’s laws and mores – for better or worse.

2. Robert Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land.” It was, in it’s own way, a bible for the 1960s counter-culture. Do you grok it? I’ve read everything Heinlein has ever published and he is a helluva storyteller. By the way, I read it only after my first lover insisted it was the greatest book ever. Thank you Karen.

3, The Hardy Boys stories. One day, when I was in eighth grade, I got suspended for the day for a minor infraction. I had to spend the day in the library and found, ironically, “The Tower Treasure,” the first in the series. I must have read at least 20 or so of these detective stories, often two per day on weekends. Last spring, I ran into an old friend from those days and his main memory of me was that I loved to read. That day started it.

4. “The Cruel Sea.” Written by Nicholas Monsaratte, the book is a tale of the Battle of the Atlantic during the Second World War. The focus was far more on the men who served on escort ships rather than the war itself. It was the first time my father gave me an adult book to read. As a senior, I wrote a book review on it and the teacher read it to the rest of her classes. It was the first time anyone had done so and it was the first small step towards becoming a professional writer.

5. “The Fireside Book of Baseball.” A huge book filled with articles and cartoons about baseball, much of it was focused from the turn of the 20^th century through the early 1950s. It was a compendium of short stories, newspaper reports, and excerpts from books. Given to me by my father, it inspired a lifelong love of the game. I lost it when I was in the Army, but was delighted to again find a copy when my ex’s parents passed. I don’t have many hardcover books as Amazon’s Kindle made reading easier as I travelled throughout the country in recent years. But I hold this one to be very precious.

6. The Harry Potter books. I began reading them when I was a teacher to find out what my students were so crazy about. I wound up buying the last one at midnight of its first day of sale. About once a year, I re-read each book and then binge watch the movies.

7. “The World of Jimmy Breslin.” At that time, Jimmy was a writer for the New York Herald Tribune and this book is a series of his columns from that era, along with some stories about Breslin. This includes the famous column about the JFK murder where he interviews the man who is digging the grave. While most students would get the Times delivered to their homeroom, I always brought the Trib in. Going back to early childhood, my parents would read the color comics to me every Sunday. Breslin was a writer who inspired me to top him – I never did. I even saw him on the Subway when he was writing for The Daily News. It was so like him to live the life of the blue-collar folks who so loved his work.

8. “Executive Orders.” I began devouring Tom Clancy’ s novels about protagonist Jack Ryan with “The Hunt for Red October.” In “Executive Orders,” Ryan is waiting outside and about to make an acceptance speech as he replaces a disgraced vice president when a 747 airliner smashes into the Capitol Building killing virtually every government leader – The President, Congress, the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs, the Cabinet and heads of many agencies such as the FBI. Ryan has to rebuild the entire government and it makes for a fascinating look at our government.

9. “Ender’s Game.” I discovered this book at the end of the summer as the library sold off its collection of summer reading paperbacks. I bought a bunch mainly for incarcerated students I was teaching at that time. But I’ve read this book over and over. It’s about a bunch of genius kids who are sent into space to fight a war against aliens. The ‘battle school’ they attend is designed to teach strategy. But these children, who have superior intelligence, are isolated and it helped me understand my own dealings with the school system. I had an IQ of 134 according to my high school transcript, but graduated #380 in a class of 400. I just couldn’t be bothered to do the busy work because I already knew it, having read the entire textbooks by October. It helped change my opinion of my high school self.

10. “The Age of the Tail.” Author H. Allen Smith was a well-known humorist. His most famous book, “Rhubarb” is the story of a cat that inherits a major league baseball team. But I loved his look at the social ramifications of the changes in life when in 1957 all mankind begins being born with a tail. Hilarious changes in etiquette, clothing and more are satirized. For example, one woman, born just before the change, doesn’t want to be associated with ‘older’ people. For her wedding, she wears an artificial tail as her bridesmaid moves it during appropriate times of the ceremony. Yet another gift from my father, it taught me satire.

Honorable Mention: Hector Hugh Monroe, whose pen name was Saki, was a British writer of short stories during the late 1800s and early 1900s. His life was shortened when he died at the age of 46 during the First World War. My favorite story is “Tobemory,” a satire on Victorian manners. At a country house party, a man announces to the others that he has taught the house’s cat how to speak. Tobemory has viewed many indiscretions of the guests. But being a ‘gentlecat’ he speaks no evil other to imply what he knows. Meanwhile the terrified humans attempt to kill him – unsuccessfully – in several ways. They are saved when another cat kills him. Of course, another gift  from my father.

From here???

It has come to my attention that while Trump won the election, Hillary will win the popular vote. It's happened five times before -- beginning with Andrew Jackson, and until this election, the Al Gore defeat. But the political differences have never been so dramatic until now.

That, of course, leads us to why we need — or don't need — the electoral college. People scream that the election should not be decided by 538 people. It isn't really. Each of the electors, people assigned by the candidates to represent them, generally reflect the choices made by voters in their state. It was proposed by Alexander Hamilton and opposed by James Madison. 

But that's history, as this election will shortly be. And while Hillary supporters hope that some rogue Trump supports will vote for Hillary, Trump has just too many electors for a few to make any difference.

And so we have a president elect who is loud-mouthed, addicted to Twitter, without experience and is appointing cabinet members who, in the minds of many, are completely opposed to the status quo. You can't have much public housing when the Secretary opposes it. The EPA has someone who is decidedly anti-EPA, and so it goes. 

What is going to happen will be far more than the end of Obamacare. It will be a cultural sea change, perhaps a violent one. Many aspects of our social agenda will be completely changed. Programs from the Lyndon Johnson era may disappear. What would our society be like without head start? 

We will see an even greater polarization of racial lines which, I suspect, will lead to increased violence. There will be many anti-poverty campaigns. But here's the problem: Johnson's Great Society programs weren't aimed at the Black population. Its primary focus was on rural Appalachia and similar places of intense poverty. And if you travel across rural West Virginia, for example, you encounter countless abandoned and crumbling housing owned by whites. 

Once, places such as rural Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Western New York grew as huge corporations ripped natural resources such as iron, coal and even oil from the ground. We've pretty much stopped using coal, especially to heat our homes. the amount of iron our steel mills use has been reduced considerably through recycling. And mills are closing due to competition from Asia and cheap and inferior steel products flood our markets. And with them, tens of thousands of good union jobs. I am a baby boomer. And I grew up in an era where it was assumed I would be better off than my parents. And for much of my life I was until the great recession put me permanently out of work and my marriage ended. . But if you ask young people today, they are not expecting that the "American Dream" is their birthright.

There is going to be a huge economic upheaval. One of my sons works for a human service organization treating developmentally disabled adults. I wonder if it will be funded? I certainly can see much legal action as programs are cut and a conservative Supreme Court upholding the cuts. They will have to rule not on the Constitutional issues, but on the issue of if the government has the right to not provide social services. It has already been ruled that social services themselves are Constitutional, but does that mean they have to continue to exist?

It is a scary prospect. I am glad that I have Social Security, a dependable source of income. I don't envision even a conservative court disbanding it. But the fact is, it is possible that the amount of my monthly payments could be reduced. I can envision people like myself flooding bankruptcy courts. 

Do you know what I know?

It’s the holiday season again. I have more than 200 holiday songs in my iTunes and sometimes I suddenly burst into tears when one comes on. I suppose after listening to many of these songs for nearly 70 years, it can be normal.

Take, for example, “I’ll be Home for Christmas.” It was originally recorded by Bing Crosby in 1943 – the Second World War era. While generally considered as a letter written by a soldier to his family, the lyricist, Kim Gannon, said it was written about anyone who couldn’t be home for Christmas. In fact the song was banned by the BBC because of its potential do damage troop morale. The last line, I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams,” was considered quite depressing at the time.

But my interpretation of it differs strongly. The song begins “I'm dreaming' tonight of a place I love • Even more than I usually do
• And although I know it’s a long road back, • This, I promise you …I’ll be home for Christmas.”

The song describes an ideal holiday, with snow, mistletoe and presents – all where the love light beams. And for me, that was the Christmas of 1954; the last Christmas my family was together before my mother walked out on us in a drunken stupor.

The place I loved was that day and that time and the road back was impossibly long. My parents never divorced. I have no clue why. But from my childhood I hoped that one day they would reunite. But my father died in 1972 and finally I accepted, at the age of 24 while in the Army, that my being home for that Christmas was only going to happen in my dreams.

Perhaps the saddest Christmas song ever also came out of 1943. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” It was originally part of the score for “Meet Me In St. Louis,” a musical. Judy Garland, a tragic figure in her own right, sang the song.

“Next year all our troubles will be out of sight,” was a hope a frightened little boy could cling onto. And that frightened little boy grew into a still-frightened big man. Perhaps I was looking for the “olden days, happy golden days of yore. There have been way too few Christmases with faithful friends gathering near to me, and I thank God for my friends Frank and Gina who were there on those first Christmases after my wife of more than 30 years and I divorced. Even then, I have felt friends were few and far between. I find myself blessed with more than 100 Facebook friends these days and while most are simply acquaintances and classmates (some of whom I barely knew then yet somehow am close to now), there are many I feel very close to.

Yet still this song nearly always turns me into a tear machine. Both these songs are of hope. Yet in my soul I know that Christmas, and Jesus Birth, is the real hope in my life. These days, my favorite carol is “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.” This is a version sung by the Joy Strings, a former Salvation Army Band, and is set to the melody of “House of the Rising Sun.” I feel that every year we have the opportunity to make the community we live in our personal Bethlehem. For in every heart there is a chance for a spiritual rebirth.

The earliest Christmas song I remember is Gene Autry’s “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” that my parents gave me for my wind-up record player. I was around three or four when I went to my cousin Luke’s Cub Scout Christmas Party and the children sang “Silent Night, Holy Night.” To this day I think it was one of the most wonderful performances ever. I was so filled with peace.

I am not a big Elvis fan. Like others, I really liked him when he burst upon the scene. But I became less passionate about his music. But he put out a Christmas Album with the classic hymns: “It is not secret what God can do” and “Peace in the Valley” that are filled with passion and hope.

Other songs bring back happy memories. “Do You Here What I Hear” was always an enjoyable carol. But I remember it from my senior year of high school when I joined the chorus in need of three more credits in order to graduate. We sang it for our Christmas Concert and went caroling one night at the town green. Yes, they were called “Christmas Concerts” in the1960s and are now “Winter Concerts.” And battles still continue over religious music in public schools, as administrators have to walk a fine line. It seems that religious music is acceptable in a concert not exclusively dedicated to a Christian or other religious holiday. And so, perhaps, “Away in a Manger” is fine as long as it mixes with songs like “Winter Wonderland” and “A Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire).

It is interesting where religion fits into the public schools. Sometime around 1995, I was substitute teaching a third grade class in a local public school. I decided everyone should write something about Christmas. I asked the children to give me words about Christmas and they were very enthused about sharing words like Santa, presents, Christmas Trees, decorations, writing cards, snow, etc. We were about 30 words in before one of the children asked, “Doesn’t Christmas have something to do with Jesus?” Walking a very fine line, I was allowed to say that Christians believe Jesus Christ was called Christ because it means “Savior” and the mas in Christmas meant birthday. The children then took the words that were on the board and had to use at least five of them to write about Christmas. Alas, not one referred to Jesus in their essays, which I suppose was good for me since it was a public school after all.

Other songs lift up my spirits. I laugh at “Dominick The Donkey,”  “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” and similar songs. There are those who may say that these songs are disrespectful to God, but I think that no matter how much we are off target regarding Jesus birth, God enjoys his children laughing about silly things. As a young child, for example, I loved Spike Lee’s “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” and “I’m Gettin Nuttin For Christmas.” I always enjoyed the sexual byplay of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” and Ertha Kitt’s sensuous “Santa Baby.” And I remember a version of “12 Days of Christmas” via Sesame Street with Cookie Monster ending each verse with “And one delicious cookie.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GibJKwCGkk8

And then there is the New Year. Long before Dick Clark’s “Rocking New Year’s Eve, Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians ruled the roost in the early days of television, coming from first the Roosevelt Hotel and then the Waldorf Astoria. I found his last New Year’s Eve show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL60HdslvOk

Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne” came at a time, 1980, when I was having problems in my marriage. I spent much time thinking about old girlfriends and lovers. “We drank a toast to innocence…” seems to continue to play on my mind. I find great comfort that my senior prom date and I have been reunited. As I listen to this song, I wonder about so many different “might have beens” and think how I found so many different ways to just walk away from relationships. Many remember Harry Chapin’s Taxi. He wrote a sequel to it called, “Sequel.” It was the story of Sue and he many years later as Sue is flying high on life and Harry is acting on the stage. Harry ends with:

Yes, I guess it's a sequel to our story

From my journey between Heaven and Hell

With half the time thinking of what might have been

And half thinkin' just as well

I guess only time will tell

There are dozens more songs that, as happened many times, have overwhelmed with Christmas spirit. There are some radio stations that dedicate their entire playlists to Holiday music. It’s a nice break from sports, politics and oldies. Yet, driving in my car, I can still burst into tears. . .and also into joyous song!

So tell me, how does holiday music affect you?