The Luna Park Gazette

I took a deep breath and focused on the words tattooed across the trainer's chest: "Death before Dishonor." This was Saturday afternoon and I was standing in the football field at Fort Hamilton High School beneath a merciless sun trying desperately to avoid both as I did mitt work for the first time in months. I did manage to duck the Grim Reaper, at least for the moment, so I guess one out of two ain't bad. Exercise in the age of Covid-19 is a dicey proposition, given the potential for transmission. But after months of shadowboxing alone in my living room, I wanted to hit something solid, and, well, it's been a long time. After a few rounds of this torture I came close to hitting solid ground--face first. "C'mon," my trainer said, "we gotta show these young whippersnappers a thing or two!" Great idea, but at that moment the only thing I could show them was that getting older seriously sucks. I just turned 63 years old, but t...

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” -- Sophocles I looked around the barren cavern that served as my prison cell and locked eyes with an emaciated woman in a ragged jumpsuit. I had no idea why I had been locked up in this rocky mountain hellhole, but being Catholic I figured I was probably guilty. I had only one question for my fellow inmate. “Where’s the bathroom?” I asked. The woman smiled weakly and pointed to a battered stool with a hole in it. And then I woke up. I turned 63 years old today and the very first thing I want to say is “Thank God.” I don’t like being this old, but I really like being here, seeing that we’re in the middle of a pandemic right now and the United States has lost nearly 100,000 people. That dream I had late last week is hardly surprising in light of the self-quarantine and social-distancing measures we're taking in response to the cornhole-a-virus that’s been ravaging our lives since March. Sinc...

"Anthony, please come around, something is lost and it cannot be found.”—prayer to St. Francis While I was freaking, my sister was praying. St. Anthony delivered on his title as the patron saint of lost things last week, after my 5-minute stroll in the park took a sharp turn on to Psycho Street. We finally had decent weather around these parts, with the sun shining and the temperature so pleasant you could almost forget we’re living in the middle of a plague. After work Wednesday, I had to get out of the house for a quick hike around Shore Road Park before coming home to fix dinner. I’ve been working from home since Covid-19 muscled into our lives—and thank God I have a job—and I’ve taken to wearing gym pants at “the office,” since there’s no sense in being all dressed up with nowhere to go. I don’t like to wear the casual duds outside of the house unless I’m doing my power walk because the pants don’t have decent pockets and I tend to cram everything except the Encyclo...

"Life does not come with a manual; it comes with a mother." There was this time in my life, back in the Eighties, when I was having trouble with this woman I was dating. I came home after spending a rather disappointing afternoon with her, feeling depressed and extremely bummed out. All I wanted to do was go crash in my room and hide from the rest of humanity. My mother, however, have different plans. As soon as I walked into the house and mumbled a vague “Hello” to my parents, my mother’s emotional alarm system went into hyperdrive. “What’s wrong?” she demanded. “Nothing,” I lied and kept walking, hoping that was the end of it. I could not have been more wrong. Upon hearing my pathetic response, my mother rose from her seat on the living room couch and began following me like a bloodhound pursing an escaped convict. “Don’t tell me that,” she said. “What’s going on?” “Nothing,” I said, sticking to my empty guns. “Everything’s okay.” But my mother would n...

When I saw Captain Kirk on Star Trek speaking to people on a video screen, I thought it was cool, but I never thought I’d ever do it myself. We’ll have to add that one to ever-growing list of things I was wrong about because Zoom, the online video service, has been a lifesaver for me during this Covid-19 house arrest. Last week, I used Zoom to reunite with some old writing class buddies I had not seen in years. Obviously, it would have been better to have seen them in the flesh, but I’m extremely grateful to connect with these wonderful people any way I can. And I’ll be using that very same technology this week when I resume (reZoom?) my current writing class. Of course, the tech door swings both ways and there have been a number of video chat disasters. Like the woman who went to the bathroom during an online video conference call, and, well, you figure out the rest for yourself. There was the TV anchor who diligently relayed the news of the day from home, unaware that...