The Luna Park Gazette

Now I know how Moses felt. Bear in mind I'm not talking about the adult Moses, who led his people out of slavery, parted the Red Sea, and brought the Ten Commandments to the world. I'm talking about the infant Moses, who, before he grew up to become Charlton Heston, was set adrift in the Nile by his mother. (Thanks, Ma!) I went tubing on the Delaware River today and I got that same feeling of helplessness as I planted my butt inside a rubber tube and set myself adrift in the Delaware. As I sit here typing this, I am exhausted, sunburned, and delusional, though that last one may be a pre-existing condition. I also stubbed my toe something awful this evening and I think I may have gotten some nasty river virus. Oh, but I had a great time. I'm hurting like a veteran cage fighter, but I tried something different, I expanded my world and faced my fears. And found they were perfectly justified. I had won this trip from a singles group when I attended one of their earlier events, ...

History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history. -- Clarence Darrow My father had an incredible capacity to tell the same story over and over. Whether it was war stories, episodes from his life growing in New York during the Depression, or his life and times and as salesman for a meat wholesaler, my dad would tell us these stories over and over until the point where I had many of them memorized. He geniunely didn't seem to realize he was repeating himself. Or if he did, it didn't seem to bother him. This usually wasn't so bad, and, in fact, the army stories and the tales from the old neighborhood were very entertaining. It was like an old stereo player, where the thing automatically lifts the needle back to the beginning of the record. When he talked about the horrors of the Depression, my father had a stock line that he'd always say. "There were grown men selling apples in the street !" he'd say, still not believing it even after t...

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. My father had this saying I try to remember whenever the going gets tough. When faced with a tough or unpleasant task, he would say “better behind you than in front of you.” In other words, get through the difficult business as quickly as possible, instead of putting it off and worrying about it. This is a great bit of advice that I don’t follow nearly as much as I should. I didn’t go to visit my father’s grave on Sunday, the first Father’s Day since his death. I didn't pay my respects. It's bothering me, but not all that much. And that really bothers me. I had received a free ticket to a winery tour in the North Fork of Long Island during the Prospect Park horseback riding fiasco, which is the least they could have done for me, given the misery I went through that day. The tour normally goes for 80 bucks, and since it was a single’s event, I persisted holding onto the delusion that I might actual...

The directions were simple: follow the horse crap. And that's what I did. I went on a horseback riding tour of Prospect Park on Sundy and while I won't exactly say that I regret it, I'm pretty sure I won't do it again. But that will probably change in a few months. I keep convincing myself that I like horseback riding, but every time I get on top of these huge animals I realize that I'm not cut out to be a cowboy. Maybe it was all those westerns I used to watch as a kid, where the hero jumps on his trusty horse and rides off to rescue the schoolmarm. They make it look so easy and the horses are always so agreeable. So, I con myself into believing I'm going to have a great time, and I'll get the hang of riding in no time at all. Then I'm holding to the reins and preparing to meet my maker. This happened a few years back when I took the mule ride down the Grand Canyon. A co-worker had told me a friend of hers had done this very thing and had a great time. ...

I woke up the other night to screams and a wild dog tearing at my face. It was another nightmare. This time it was our family dog, Schnapps, or some demonic version of him, who died more than 30 years ago. All I remember of the dream was that he was viciously biting my face right along the jawline and I couldn't fend him off. This follows a recent nightmare where my late father was about to attack me. It seems like the dead and I just can't get along. I opened my eyes and saw it was 12:20 AM on the digital clock. Somewhere in the neighborhood, an idiot in his car was leaving rubber, so the screaming I heard was actually the screeching of tortured tires. I had to get up early for work that morning so I could cover the same-store sales reports for May. I have to be in an hour ahead of time to start writing the story, which I update about three times during the morning. It's pretty stressful and this one was made worse by the fact that it would be the last time I would be doin...

You wouldn't think a movie like "The Exorcist" could call up happy memories, but for my family it brings back one of the best. With the strong exception of my father, my mother and the rest of us loved old scary movies. Not the young-virign slash 'em up garbage like the "Friday the 13th" series, but the older flicks, what my mother and my aunt liked to call "a good creepy." We liked to sit around the TV and watch all the old Universal horror films, like "Frankenstein," "The Werewolf," and, of course, "Dracula." "Children of the night," my mom would say in her best Bela Lugosi, "what music they make." My father was the lone holdout in this happy mix, loudly declaring his disdain for the horror and science fiction genres at every possible opportunity. Whenever we were watching TV and a good creepy came on, my father would loudly declare "that's me!" get out of his chair and stomp back in...

I saw a sign in the window of a Chinese restaurant that I think should be the theme of my 50th birthday. It was a handwritten note taped to the window that read "Grand Reopening." Now to the best of my knowledge, this place has not been sold, did not close down for renovations, or changed its menu. The only thing different about the place is the sign. I'm guess I'm showing my age here, but I can remember when a restaurant used to have one grand opening and that was it. I figured a grand opening was like virginity, once you lose it, you really do lose it. Apparently, I was wrong. I could quibble about the word choice, but I like the idea of taking something you can only do once and doing it again. Hell, every day for a restaurant is a grand opening if you really wanted to stretch the point. I think I'll look at my life in the same way. Every day will be a grand opening and I'll keep it going until I get it right. So far, I'm off to a good start. Here I am, ...