The Luna Park Gazette

So, like just Mark Twain, it seems that reports of my air conditioner’s death have been greatly exaggerated. The saga Five O’clock Charlie, my loudly ailing AC took another turn last week, and there was enough drama going on around here to power a week’s worth soap operas--most of which was my own doing. As mentioned in the previous post, I was forced to order a new air conditioner when my formerly reliable kitchen unit began making all manner of hideous sounds. I was less than thrilled about dropping 300 bucks, preferring to spend that dough on my upcoming vacation, but I couldn’t hack the godawful noise the thing was making, and I was genuinely concerned that it would explode and hurl shrapnel all over my home. In addition to the expense, a new air conditioner meant redoing a job I thought had been completed and bugging one of my neighbors to install the thing--something I had really hoped to avoid. He’s a great guy and very agreeable, but I hate bugging people if I ...

There’s an episode of the old M*A*S*H TV show where an inept North Korean pilot regularly drops a bomb near the army hospital. The doctors and nurses dubbed the guy “Five O’clock Charley” because he arrives every day at the same time. The pilot, described as a “washout from Kamikaze school,” never hits his intended target, an ammo dump, and his plane makes such a racket that everyone knows he’s coming. People start making bets on how far away from the target Charley's bomb will land. Only Frank Burns and Margaret think he’s a threat and they bug Henry, the C.O., to get an anti-aircraft gun. The episode was aired on Sept. 22, 1973, and I started thinking about it this week when the air conditioner in my kitchen started making godawful noise. I tried denial, telling myself that there was nothing unusual with the clanging and banging coming out the thing, but my logical side was telling me there was something very bad going on. I had bought two air conditions when I first ...

“The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature.” — Antoine François Prévost Whenever I went looking for a Father’s Day card, I tried to avoid the tool-themed cards. They usually show images of hammers and saws to nail down the idea that Dad is the guy who fixes stuff. Like a lot of men, my late father fancied himself a bit of handyman, and like a lot of men, he might have… overestimated his abilities. I remember when he replaced the bathroom light switch, only he put it in upside down, so you had to flick it up if you wanted to see what you were doing in there. And there was the time he rebuilt the cellar steps. I believe one of my brothers was supposed to help him, but Dad wound up doing it on his own. When he bragged about his achievement, my brother sarcastically claimed that even Phoebe, the family cat, was afraid to walk down those steps. I have absolutely no interest in the whole Mr. Fix-it schtick. If the job is anything beyond changing a light bulb, I quick...

I strolled down Comfort Road yesterday and in the process, I walked right out of the comfort zone. Allow me to unpack this gibberish for you. One of my Meetup groups had scheduled an outing to Governors Island, which is located in New York Harbor, roughly 800 yards from Manhattan and about 400 yards from Brooklyn. The island has been used for military purposes since the Revolutionary War and it is home to Fort Jay and Castle Williams. Over the years it has been used a military stockade and a U.S. Coast Guard installation until 1996. It has since been decommissioned and is now open for public use. I’ve been there several times and I always marvel at how you can see the skyscrapers in Manhattan a short distance away and yet I still feel as if you’re miles away from the city. The local Native Americans used to call the place “Nut Island”, probably because of the chestnut, hickory, and oak trees located there, although I suspect they named it after me. I always have fun when I ...

It’s a shame my father never experienced karaoke. My dad really liked to sing, and he would burst into song at any time without warning or provocation. It seems a shame that we, his family, was his only audience. I’m sure he would’ve enjoyed getting on stage a local watering hole and belting his favorite hits. I think the only problem would crop up when it was time to get off the stage and hand over the microphone. Then we might have had a donnybrook on our hands. My dad did a lot of his singing behind the wheel of the car and yesterday evening I recalled one of his greatest internal combustion concerts when he launched into a spirited rendition of “It’s the Same Old Shillelagh”, an Irish novelty written by Pat While, who recorded the song in 1927. Bing Crosby record the song in 1945 for his St. Patrick’s Day album, but I did not know of its existence until my father starting singing. “ Sure, with the same old shillelagh me father could lick a dozen men ,” the song ...