You Can't Dress Him, You Can't Take Him Anywhere

First the good news, strawberry, apple & banana stains come out in the wash. Now the other news.

Yesterday, I pulled a doozy. After putting a lot of the above fruit in a blender with four ice cubes I hit the “crush ice” button and periodically poked it around with a knife until it turned to mush. Then I poured my first pint of poor man’s smoothie.  I took the glass to the computer and sat to enjoy my treat.  My phone rang, I answered it put it on speaker and placed it down on the desk. It was my cousin Jimmy.  He went to Green Bay this past week to see a Packers game, his first time at Lambeau Field. I got pretty excited talking with Jimmy about the hallowed place but especially my fondness for the Packers throwback game jersey. Blue background with a yellow circle on the front with a blue number in the middle.

Does it get better? For some reason it reminded me of The Who’s Quadrophenia. Rock & football. Oh, yeah.

When I get excited my hands start taking off like Frank Crosetti in the third base coach box waving Yogi Berra in on a homer. 

One of my hands whacked the glass. It started tipping towards the computer keyboard, but luckily, it fell back on my lap. Unluckily, it poured half itself on my new Droid phone.

“Jimmy, I just dropped a glass of lava on my lap, call you back.”

Got up started wiping myself, the floor, the rug, before I noticed my phone made a strange noise. Wiping it off I saw two things: two icons on the phone’s screen. One was a waste paper basket with a demonstrative arrow coming out of it and standing next to the basket was an icon that looked like an incredibly sad R2D2. I said out loud, “this ain’t good.”  

I changed my pants and came back to see if there was any change in the phone’s status, I sat in the chair and felt a creamy cold sensation against one of the apples of my ass.  I forgot to clean the chair and picked up some of the fruit lava on the new pants, the good pants.

Hour after the mishap, the phone came back to life, and the evil icons went away. I hope I learned my lesson but it’s more likely The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore.

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Fyi, Our Town & The West Side Spirit published my column about“Half-Birthdays.”

Safe at Home

I never shook Mickey Mantle's hand and that remains one of my few regrets.

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When I was 8 years old, Mickey stood right in front of me at the 86th Street RKO theatre in April 1962, when they made that silly movie "Safe at Home," to capitalize on the Maris & Mantle, M&M boys' 1961 home run derby. The Yankee team made appearances in several New York City movie houses to promote the film.

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I forced Dad to get to the theatre two hours early to make sure we were on the aisle. We had a quick burger across the street at Prexy's first. At seven o' five, word spread the team bus had pulled up in front. The Yankees came into the lobby dressed in suits & ties and marched down the right side of the movie house. Yogi Berra walked by me and stepped on my toe, but I didn't notice, though my father did and wanted Berra to apologize. It was strange seeing Dad pissed at Yogi.

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Elston Howard stopped in front of me, and put his arms behind his back like a military MP. Ellie saw I was having a baby over Mickey Mantle standing right next to him two feet away from me shaking in my sneakers. Dad and Ellie exchanged laughs over my dilemma, then Howard leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Say hi, he won't bite you." But I was too scared to say anything to Mickey. As the Yankees walked on stage for a final bow, I dribbled my opportunity away.

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Below is a letter I wrote to Mantle when I was 13.