The Luna Park Gazette

I made a real ash of myself last week. I got caught looking by Ash Wednesday. The day just blew right by me and not only did I forgot to get ashes on my forehead, but I also ate a turkey sandwich for lunch in flagrant violation of the no meat rule. I can’t believe it. Eight years of Catholic school, a lifelong Christian, observant parents and I still treated one of the most important events of the year like it was just any other hump day. I had no idea what was going on until the late afternoon when I saw a guy coming out of my gym with the telltale mark on his forehead. “Hey, brother,” I said, “is today Ash Wednesday?” He gave me a look that seemed to say, “why, no, schmuck, I like to smear black dust on my forehead just for shits and giggles.” “Yes,” he said with more than a trace of annoyance. I still had plenty of time to get my ashes, but by then I had already eaten meat and that took all the value of out going to church for me. And what makes this all the more frus...

I did a mitzvah for a Marine last week and I almost missed it. For those of you who don’t know, a mitzvah is a good deed, and this particular good deed—as minor as it was—also helped me atone for an earlier misstep. I was pulling my cart through the snow on a recent Sunday morning for my weekly shopping routine. I don’t remember much of what was going on, quite frankly, because my mind was wandering all over the place. Maybe I had zoned out because shopping is one of my least favorite things to do, or it’s just a habit that I’ve fallen into, but whatever the reason, I was barely in contact with Planet Earth. The snow had clogged the sidewalk down to a narrow path near the corner of Third Avenue and I was dimly aware of an older woman walking toward me. My mind was still tossing around one random thought or another as I stepped aside to allow the woman to go by first. As she went by she gave me the loveliest smile. “Thank you!” she said with such enthusiasm. That shook the ...

This never would have happened in Hawaii. I lost a glove this week and I can’t help thinking that if I had gotten that job in Hawaii that I had interviewed for last year I wouldn’t have lost my glove because I wouldn’t have been wearing gloves in the first place. I also wouldn’t be wearing scarves, parkas, ski caps, boots, long underwear or any of the other several tons of crap and equipment that I have to wrap around myself if I so much as contemplate exiting my crib. No, if I had gotten that Honolulu gig, I’d be wearing flowered shirts, white shorts, and sandals while cheerfully guzzling exotic tropical drinks and leering drunkenly at comely young tourists. I’d have a tan to beat the band and I’d be happy, oh so incredibly happy, as opposed to the miserable frozen wretch that I am now. I’d almost lost one of these gloves a year ago while doing a stay-cation, but I found it at my gym the following day. I lost it again on Tuesday at my gym, but two kind ladies at the front ...

If I had to name two of the most dissimilar people in the world, I don’t think I could do any better than Mr. Parks, my high school mechanical drawing teacher, and Old Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra. And yet these two men, who, to my knowledge never came anywhere near each other in the real world, managed to link up in the three-ring freak factory that I like to call my mind. I know this doesn’t sound at all logical, but it’ll make sense once I explain myself. Or then again, it may not, and in that case I apologize in advance. Mr. Parks was a compact, bullet-headed man who spoke in this very sharp, exact tone. Presumably he was a draftsman in his early life and everything about him was precise and direct—no guesswork, no nonsense, just results. If he thought you were goofing off, Mr. Parks didn’t hesitate to inform you. “Hey, you, little guy,” he snapped at one of my diminutive classmates one day. “Sit down and start pushing a pencil because it’s going to be a hot summer ....

What was I doing on January 7th? It was a Wednesday, I know that much from looking at the calendar, but nothing else about the day sticks out in my mind. Illustration by Graham Winn-Lee I went to work, came home, ate dinner, watched TV, did the usual routine, apparently, with nothing out of the ordinary. But I recently realized what I didn’t do on January 7th. I didn’t remember it was the anniversary of my father’s death. My father died on that day in 2008, and, as best as I can remember, I didn’t pray for his soul, go to church, or even put a notice on my Facebook status. The day just slipped by me without any acknowledgement of my father’s passing. I’m not sure what to say about that, except that I’m very sorry. I backed into this realization while reading the news stories about the American Sniper controversy that started when filmmaker Michael Moore tweeted that his uncle had been killed by a sniper in World War II and how his father thought snipers were cowards. ...

Dr. Joel raised his right hand to me in a gesture of farewell. “Go and enjoy life, young man,” he said. “Stay out of doctors’ offices.” Now there’s two great bits of advice—enjoy life and steer clear of doctors. And I really liked that “young man” bit, but I felt compelled to gently inform Dr. Joel that I’m turning 58 this year and that perhaps “young” wasn’t the most accurate adjective he could use. “You’re younger than I am,” he remarked. So be it. Dr. Joel is my gastroenterologist but I’d think he’d make a terrific rabbi. He’s just so caring and knowledgeable. I had gone to him for a second—third?—opinion about surgery for the internal misery that drove me to the hospital in November. His answer? A decisive “No!” He believes that the incident was a flare-up in my colon that has since righted itself, and thus there is no need to cut me open. Dr. Joel showed my CAT scans to one of the top surgeons at Maimonides Medical Center and he also nixed the knife. He actually...

So have I really been at this for a decade? It’s hard to believe, but 10 years ago today I sat down and cranked out the first post of this blog. I had no idea what I was doing and it showed. I rambled, ranted, and shared far too much information. I’m still doing all of that today, come to think of it, but at least I’m trying to keep the posts a little shorter. There have a lot changes in that time, including the death of my father and the sale of our family house. There are other changes in my life that haven’t happened as quickly as I would’ve liked, but I don’t see any reason to give up. While I’ve threatened to post more often, it’s been hard to break the weekly routine that I settled into some years back. I have all these projects bouncing around my imagination that make more frequent blogging pretty close to impossible. For a while I thought about giving the blog up when I reached the 10-year mark. That’s plenty of time, I reasoned, put it aside and devout more time ...