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Blue and Red. Two of the three primary colors in the spectrum of art. Alone, both are symbols of strength. Together they are the top two colors used in advertising. When red and blue are mixed, they create a variety of purples, such as violet and lilac. According to Google, blue is the people’s choice as the world’s favorite color, red runs a close second. Not even close, these two colors are the ones most prominently displayed on book jackets, and retail merchandise. In today’s American politics everything is about blue and red. Do you live in a red state, or a blue state?  Did you vote for Biden, or Trump? Red and blue dominate the landscape of American politics. Although many Americans claim to be independent, lavender and mauve are rare shades in current times. Political discourse has become so volatile that you’re not being honest with yourself if you can’t admit that America is, either in the midst of, or certainly headed towards our country’s second Civil War. The color divide in the United States is at its widest gap in my lifetime. And I don’t mean black and white.

Last Thursday night, on national television, the American public had an opportunity to watch two Governors, one who is the poster child for blue State policy, and the other preaching red state mantra. On one side of the stage stood the state of California’s Governor, Gavin Newsom. The lean handsome politician is a glowing commercial for a progressive left winged agenda. According to his critics he is morphing the state of California into a model of the Chinese system of socialism. In the other corner was Ron DeSantis, the Governor of Florida. DeSantis had a maverick type of approach when it came to leading his state’s fight against federal mandates during Covid 19. DeSantis fought against federal shutdowns and grew heavy criticism for Florida’s early return to schools during the pandemic. He resisted federal government directions regarding covid and was one of the first to buck vaccine mandates. His critics have labeled DeSantis a racist, who wants to ban books from schools and destroy Mickey Mouse.

Gavin Newsom is the blue state’s “machine like” candidate. He promotes the left’s progressive platform with his slicked back hair, and smooth words gliding across his lips. Newsom was bred on the political philosophy that “big government” is the answer to all that ails America’s constituents. He believes the government’s job is to make sure the playing field is equitable for all. Newsom is a “Robin Hood’, who wants the wealthy to bare more of the tax burden. Gavin Newsom believes the federal government should throw a big comfy blanket around the downtrodden of the world.  He was the pied piper of whatever President Biden said regarding shutdowns. In bending his knee to the teacher’s union Newsom kept California’s public schools closed for nearly two years. During Covid Newsom forced workers who refused to get vaccinated (for personal and religious reasons), to lose their jobs. California is a sanctuary state (major cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles) and is a haven for illegal immigrants to make their way into the United State with little resistance. The facts during the debate indicated that Newsom’s blue state of California is near the bottom of three critical categories that are of urgent concern to the public: education, crime, and inflation. Despite this fact there are many pols from both blue and red states who believe Newsom will replace Biden on the Democratic ticket sometime before November.

In the other corner wearing bright red trunks stood Newsom’s foe, the controversial Governor of the sunshine state, Ron DeSantis. He has been the leader of Florida the last six years and quickly developed into the blue staters biggest enemy. He is the Republican party’s front running candidate for President after Donald Trump. The blue staters see DeSantis as the same devil they see Trump as. Newsom is a polished politician coming from big money (he’s one of the Getty Oil family), DeSantis is of a much humbler background (but he did go to Yale). DeSantis is of Hispanic descent and served this country in the Marines Corps. DeSantis touts his state as being one of the most efficient during Covid. The stats say deaths per thousand in Florida were lower than in California, a fact that Newsom never did address. Ron DeSantis operated Florida in complete contrast to the two biggest blues states of California and New York. The disdain from the progressive blue staters was directed at DeSantis for spitting in the eye of federal lockdowns and vaccine mandates. He is also a fierce opponent of critical race theory being taught in Florida public schools. He is pro-life and adamantly opposes open borders. He was lambasted for loading up a group of illegal immigrants who had arrived on his doorstep and sent them to Martha’s Vinyard. DeSantis is a staunch supporter of state’s rights and would like to see government have less of a role in propping up individual plights. He is a strong constitutionalist who wants to leave rights such as abortion, education, and taxes up to each state. DeSantis believes in taking power out of the hands of the federal government. Last Thursday these two stood on a stage together, attempting to debate the issues that are the most urgent of the day. The American public got a clean look at the glaring extremes between the most recognized leader of a blue state pitted against the most recognizable representative of a red state.

There they were on stage, standing toe to toe. The contrast was as stunning as expected. For 90 minutes Newsom plead for a more “managed democracy” directed by an engulfing federal government. DeSantis is viewed by his opponents from the left as a right winged dictator who symbolizes all the characteristics as the evil leader of red state philosophy. Newsom fawns over “as big as you can get federal gov’t”, DeSantis was propped up by Trump and finding it difficult to remove himself from his thumb. His critics say “DeSantis is ‘Trump squared’ in terms of his politics. Newsom, who continues to insist he 100% stands behind President Biden’s re-election bid, is an eloquent orator able to slip and slide away from any question. DeSantis, his critics say is an evangelistic right winged insider. No matter what you think of Newsom’s ideology he deserves kudos for going on a perceived hostile channel (FOX). The detractors of Newsom see him as a “Manchurian Candidate” built to be a well-oiled computer of smiling facts spouting out a far-left agenda. They see him as an old time “con man who sells potions in a traveling show.” The takeaway for myself was: “I think it was great that the two came together to face each other. Yet, they were both so adamantly pitching their message that there was very little, to no, common ground struck.

To come to any sort of resolutions to the extreme tension that exists amongst our fellow countrymen we must first recognize what our differences are. Last Thursday, two titans of two major states in America stood on the stage and gave their representation of who stands where on the issues of the day. It is way past time to remove the traditional methods of labeling individuals. We must stop thinking in terms of Republican and Democrat, Liberal and Conservative. The Ideological war that is raging in America can be understood by how red states and blue states operate from opposite perspectives and priorities. It has become apparent that the two-party system of politics in America is a failed antiquated formula. As the two parties exist today there is little chance, they can govern this republic effectively again. If you tuned in to watch Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom have at it on a stage in Georgia, the people of America had a fair look at the future leaders of the red and blue of these two failed political parties. Both men, no matter what you think of their politics, are the political leaders of America’s future. One reverently believes that America’s only way forward is with a big federal government holding your hand all the way along. The other believes in “rugged individualism”, which for the people lacking in the standard needs sounds a lot like “let them eat cake.” Red vs blue did not suddenly create purple last Thursday night. It should have given the American electorate a clear picture of the major gaps in ideology that appear to be accelerating. In 2024 the people of the United States, especially the ones who now label themselves purple, will be forced to pick blue or red. It will be the biggest decision of all our lives.

The Lyke’s (Ray and Mary) humble abode sat directly across from my early childhood home located on Hook Street in Hurley, New York. My family resided in that location for only six years (1960-1966), but in the short period of time I developed two habits that not only stayed with me but grew stronger in the following 60 years. In those years on Hook Street barely a day would pass without me finding my way into the Lyke’s kitchen to have at least one glass of Mary Lyke’s home brewed iced tea. For the remainder of my life iced tea never stopped being my Mother Mary’s milk. For 365 days a year, every single day of my life, iced tea has been and still is my go-to refreshment. Way back in the sixties as I would sit and enjoy Mary’s special formulation, I would hear some strange music coming from a nearby bedroom. The occupant of that adjacent room was a 16-year-old teenager, who, when she wasn’t sequestered in her room doubled as me and my brother’s babysitter. Inside Doreen’s room was a shrine like museum dedicated to some new British band called the Beatles. She had posters, buttons, tickets to concerts, movie stubs, and individual photos all pertaining to this group of boys wearing the long hair and huge smiles. From the moment I laid eyes on the lads I thought they were a non-human kind of special. In my six-year-old imagination they must have been a creation of Doreen’s silly machinations.

Earlier this month I learned the Beatles were releasing a track John Lennon had recorded back in the seventies. I am not a fan of Artificial Intelligence, but technology presented an opportunity for the two living band members, (Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr) to work with AI and some old demos they had been given by John’s spouse (Yoko Ono) in the nineties. What they produced was a single track that had the four legends standing together harmonizing in a way that has yet to be mimicked. I went immediately to my feed to watch our heroes together, one more time. I could not believe my eyes. There was The Fab Four, together, laughing, singing to each other, sounding as if it were 1965 again. There were all the boys, 43 years after the assassination of John Lennon, and 23 years since the death of George Harrison, frolicking about as if they never experienced a nasty break up. First came all the goosebumps, then the flood of tears as I watched the video of their new song repeatedly. The memories came flooding directly at me. The first one, and most vivid vision, was a night back in 1966 when Doreen asked my mom permission to take Gary and me to see the movie ‘Help’ at the Sunset Drive In. It was the Beatles follow up movie to A Hard Day’s Night (1964). When lights came on, I remember seeing Ringo running across the big screen wearing a gawdy, but extremely valuable red ring on his finger. Seeing the Beatles that night at the Sunset Drive In was a feeling I wouldn’t have again until I fell in love for the first time. That night, the three of us sang “she’s got a ticket to ride,” all the way back to Hook Street.

Our babysitter didn’t understand the amazing present she had given myself, and my brother.  Five minutes into the movie as the Beatles screamed for help, I was hooked. I was prepared to join a cult of crazed teenagers across the globe who had already fell in love with John, Paul, George, and Ringo. On a chilly February afternoon in 1964 the lads from Liverpool arrived at New York’s LaGuardia International Airport and the composition of America’s social culture was altered permanently. On Feb. 9, 1964, a Sunday night, the Beatles made their first appearance on the famed “Ed Sullivan Show’. They sang ‘She Loves You, and ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ in front of 200 hundred screaming teenyboppers in the Ed Sullivan studios. A phenomenal 73,000,000 watched the British invasion from their homes. These four young men, who were from the same city of Liverpool England, would go on to sell more records than any other band that ever-struck notes together. It is not a stretch to say from 1964-1969 the Beatles changed the way the world looked and sounded. To say they changed my little life, and my outlook upon it, is a fact. Like so many others who are feint hearted, it was love at first sight. These four baby-faced men with the floppy hair had a mystical aura surrounding themselves that made me positive that this band had been put together somewhere beyond the earth. The Beatles presented a unique progressive style of tight-fitting suits, thin neck ties, pointed black boots, to go along with the big smiles: oh, those smirky smiles. “We may be bigger than Jesus,” John joked upon his arrival on American soil.  It was the words that streamed from their mouths that sewed my enduring love affair with the Beatles.

At first glance, my favorite Beatle was Paul. To my 6 years old eyes, Paul looked as if he could be one of my mates on the playground. His sheepish grin attached to something I could only recognize, innocence. I wanted to believe that Paul was the ringleader of the gang. As the years went on, I discovered, that it was my brother’s favorite, John, that was considered the founder and final decision maker within the group. John was 40 years old when he ended up being shot down in the street in front of his home. All four of these men were geniuses, but John stood out as the Nietzsche philosopher, a deep guru, helping a whole generation learn to critically think and contemplate the social issues of the day. At the time of his death Lennon, along with McCartney, were considered two of top song writers in the history of the earth. His personal development musically and psychologically is evident in the trajectory of his work from ‘Please, Please Me’, or ‘Help’ to his later classic hits ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ or ‘Imagine’. In the beginning every LP that was put out by the band, no matter who was the original collaborator, the writing credit read Lennon/McCartney. While leaning to McCartney in my younger years, it wasn’t long before I began to appreciate John’s genius. God only knows what the world missed by not having John around the last 45 years. “The third Beatle”, not necessarily in the that order was George. He of the handsome quiet type who would also evolve into a prolific songwriter and performer in his own right. Doreen’s favorite was Ringo. The unfazed, goofy drummer who never missed a beat. Sitting in Doreen’s bedroom listening to old Beatle 45’s was the greatest introduction to the world of music a kid could have. 60 years later that raggedy looking bunch from Liverpool, England would be considered the most influential entertainers of the past two centuries.

I received word that an old tape recording, written by John Lennon, was out there floating around. Along with the help of recent technology, Paul and Ringo were able to put Lennon’s track to video of the G.O.A.T.’S performing one last song. Like out of a dream, standing together were the four lads from Liverpool bonding one last time. There, once again I was looking at the four infectious smiles, together like they were on The Sullivan Show with the whole world watching. I was looking at Paul and Ringo, today, singing and dancing merrily with their two deceased childhood buddies. All the generations they touched had a chance to remember how the Beatles had played an important part in their lives. We loved them for so many reasons; the way they looked, the way they dressed, and for the words that came out of their mouths. But mostly we loved them because we went through the loves, and the break ups of our lives together. Their catalogue of poetry is embedded in their followers more than any history lesson we ever learned in school. I confess to having watched the official last song more times than I care to admit. Each time I headed for the tissue box.

We don’t often get a chance to say our proper goodbyes to the special people we squeezed so tightly during our lives. The Beatles made me believe all dreams were possible. That the top of the mountain was reachable. Artificial Intelligence has given us one last goodbye to our friends. New technology made it possible to see the four lads together one more time, making us feel like only they could. The question “what is your favorite Beatle song?’ comes up occasionally. After viewing this latest release of nostalgia,  the latest Beatle release ‘Now and Then” will replace ‘Help’. After wearing out this new tune, I sent my old babysitter an inbox message on fakebook. ‘Hey Doreen, have you seen the new music video put out by Paul and Ringo? I’m thinking about doing a story on the Beatles. Who was your favorite, Ringo? What do you remember about our experiences with the Beatles on Hook Street?’  It did not take Doreen very long to message me back: “Of course, I’ve seen it. I was madly in love with the Beatles, still am, especially Ringo. Two things I remember about you Richie, your love for the Beatles and your love for my mom’s iced tea.” My travels of late have me passing by Hook Street on occasion. With ‘Now and Then’ streaming on my car radio I took a turn back unto the road of 320 and 318 Hook Street.. Past the Naccaroto’s, and before the Roland’s. I stopped my car in the street between houses. Over the musings of ‘Now and Then’ I could hear four louder voices coming from Doreen’s old bedroom. ‘Help me if you can I’m feeling down and I do appreciate you being round.’ I drove away hearing those soothing voices of my past singing in the present: ‘Now and then I miss you. Now and then I want you to be there for me.’

The wind was whipping hard off the banks of the Hudson River. It was a bitterly cold January night on the grounds where America’s Generals are manufactured. I was eight years old making my first visit to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Myself, my dad, and my brother were getting ready to enter the venerable Army Gillis Field House, home to the 1968/1969 Cadet basketball team who had the nation’s basketball community buzzing about the young gun the Army had hired to run their basketball program . As my family found refuge inside the warmer, but still frigid field house, my dad leaned over and spoke to me in a reverent tone, “Richie, keep a close eye on the coach of Army.” It’s hard to forget the way my father said those words to me. I remember thinking ‘wow this guy must be special, because my dad was not easily impressed.’ As if he was delivered from the night sky, from the top steps of the arena, strode a determined looking young man who had been the West Point Men’s Varsity Basketball Coach the prior three seasons. Robert Montgomery Knight was 30 years old and had already been anointed by the New York City sports media with the nickname of “The General.” That cold night heated a passion for basketball in me that would last for 20 years. In the next two decades all thing B-ball would be a top priority in my life. My mentor in that span of time was Bobby Knight.

On that night, from the moment I laid eyes on the fiery leader of the cadets, I decided I was going to play college basketball at whatever college he would be coaching. I quickly discovered that there was a consensus among sports writers, and Army hoop followers, that Bobby Knight, in his mid-twenties, had established himself as one of the top teachers in the country. It wasn’t just that his undermanned Cadet team (In those days if you were over six foot five you could not attend any of the three Military Academies) were beating some big-time programs. It was the way they played defense that got more attention than the victories. His team’s played with a sense of intensity and purpose of which I have yet to see matched. That January night, as I sat packed in warmly between my dad and brother, with 5,000 other witnesses, watching a passionately crazed baby-faced man stalk the sidelines like a tiger stalking his prey. Knight saw himself as Patton chasing Rommel through the dessert. That night I watched him berate officials, scream like a madman at his team, and mostly will his team to an 81-66 win past Seton Hall. Playing point guard that night was a kid from Chicago named Mike Krzyzewski.  In one night, I saw the greatest coach of his time coaching a player who went on to break all his mentor’s coaching records. Long before Nolan Richardson’s Arkansas team of “40 minutes of hell” or Frank Davis’s “94 tight” Knight’s West Point teams picked up opponents’ base line to base line providing a clinic in suffocating man to man defense. What I felt that night in the Army Field House turned out to be very real. I went on to play four years of basketball in college and became a High School Varsity Basketball Coach at the age of 24.

As I was beginning my coaching career Coach Knight had moved on to Indiana University. With the Hoosiers, Knight would win three National titles, including his undefeated 1976 team. They are still the last Division I College basketball program to go a full season without a loss. In the years I was playing and coaching basketball (1970-1990) Knight was easily the most recognizable name in basketball. Some loved him, most hated him, but 95% of those who played on his teams would take a grenade for the team, or their General. He coached the game in a time before there was anything known as “a player’s coach”. If you elected to play for “The General” you understood from day one it was “his way, or the highway”. His players played each possession as if it were their last. His players never, ever, questioned orders or strategies. The few times I saw anyone challenge Knight they were instantly refuted, embarrassed, and sometimes physically assaulted.  Playing for Knight meant every practice and every game you were going to leave every ounce of effort you had in your body on the hardwood floor. The General’s teams respected all, feared none, and the players that made it through four years graduated 100% of the time. In my years playing college basketball I would always look back to those Bob Knight Army teams and focused on playing every night and every practice with that type of intensity. After graduating from college, I was ready to teach the kids about General Patton in the classroom and imitate Bobby Knight on the basketball sidelines.

My coaching and teaching career began in Pine Bush, New York in 1982. My first gig was as the J.V. basketball coach for the “Bushmen” (literally their nickname) which was located 30 minutes due west of West Point. I was confident I was on a course to be one of the top coaches in the area. In everyday life I have no problem being “an original”, yet in my initial years of coaching it was obvious that I was doing too much mimicking. After three years of a very successful run with the “Bushmen” my alma mater came calling. John Ford was the athletic director at New Paltz High in 1985. “Rich we have been watching your progress the last few years. We are excited to offer you the position of varsity basketball coach. There is one thing I want to make clear before you accept, I will not tolerate any Bobby Knight type antics.” The year before, “Coach Knight”, on a warm February afternoon in Bloomington Indiana, got overheated and threw his chair across the floor of Assembly Hall as a Purdue Boilermaker stood on the free throw line preparing to shoot technical fouls. For his loyalists, the winning deflected his bullish behavior. The very next year (1986/87) Knight would go on to win his third and final National Championship. I lasted four years as the coach at New Paltz. The honeymoon was short and bittersweet. There were more than a few rewarding moments. The best one was meeting my wife Donna whose brother was on my team. At the time I was coaching , the game itself was going through some major changes in the rules. The three-pointer arrived, the transition game became a priority, and passing up a two-footer for a 25-foot jump shot became a strategy. It was not until the September, before what would have been my fifth season, that the athletic director called me into his office. I knew it was coming, “Rich, the school board of the New Paltz School District has decided they do not want ‘a win at all cost type coach.’ They have instructed me to not renew your contract for the upcoming season.

My dismissal turned out to be an abrupt ending to my official affiliation with basketball. There were other offers and opportunities, but the days of being the next Bob Knight were finished for myself. While I was making the first big transition of my adult life Coach Knight was digging a hole for himself in Indiana. The age of videotape would provide the concrete proof of the type of abuse he dished out to all who had direct contact with him. Besides throwing a chair on the court during a game, he poked officials and players in the chest, and he verbally accosted Indiana University’s administration in the press. Finally, after violating a “zero tolerance” order, despite three National titles, 902 wins, and a legacy of being one of the best to ever to roam the sidelines he was given his walking papers by Indiana President Myles Brand in 2000. A year later the now neutered General accepted the head coaching position at Texas Tech. From 2001-08 Knight did well enough not to tatter his reputation as one of college basketball’s most impactful mentors, before retiring and moving into the television analyst booth.  Although his continued boorish behavior caused him to lose some of the luster for me, I choose to remember the “Army Bob”. Bobby Knight was a very well read and intelligent man. In another time Knight would have been a top General in the United States Army, commanding troops in places like Normandy or the Philippines. Not unlike many old General’s, coach Knight could not find a way to evolve. He went into the millennium hanging on to his stubborn mantra of “my way, or the highway”. In the end, the man who once commanded the audiences of Presidents turned into a sort of caricature of himself.

The news came down last week, Robert Montgomery Knight had passed away at the age of 83 due to complications related to Alzheimer’s. It has been 54 years since that childhood “Knight” that I was introduced to an imposing figure, fittingly wearing a G.I. Joe haircut. My eyes fixated on a college basketball coach nervously pacing back and forth. He was like a bobcat, growling, staring, constantly screaming instructions to his team, and with his mere presence intimidating the opponent. Like the infamous 17-year-old bank robber, “Billy the Kid” his legend grew rapidly far and wide. The 6’5” former Ohio State sixth man took very little time to establish himself as the quickest draw in college caging. By the time Knight became head coach of the Hoosiers, he had established himself as a hoops guru, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. Every High School basketball coach in America signed up to attend instructional clinics conducted by Bobby Knight. When he spoke basketball everyone within hearing distance came to attention. When an order was shouted to one of his players, they carried it out exactly, or their ass went to the bench.

Bobby Knight lived in a space inside his mind where winning was not optional, losing was unacceptable. The record shows Knight won consistently (902-371), and he won within the rules of the NCAA. To me his most impressive credential is that 100% of the players who played four years for him walked across the stage at graduation. I still hear myself screaming “See the Ball” as I encourage my charges on defense. Until I sat down to write this story, I had not realized that I was merely channeling the voice echoing from West Point’s Gillis Field House all those years ago.

The Sunday prior to Labor day 1967 was the kind of idyllic day that is indelibly etched in my mind. The high blue summer sky wasn’t going to catch the sun hiding on this day. The steam was bouncing off the concrete patio that was acting as the dance floor for the annual end of summer blowout party held at Williams Lake Hotel in Rosendale New York. The sounds of splashing water and crews constructing sandcastles could be heard over the music pouring out from the patio. The summer sun worshippers were draped over the upper balcony listening to the Lake’s summer house band doing their cover of Sinatra’s ‘Summer Wind.’ If ever there was a day in my life when I could have stopped the clock, just one time, that day back in 1967 would have been it. Standing at the top edge of the patio I had the perfect view to say my goodbyes to all things summer. It was the ending of an innocent era. We were on the brink of RFK, MLK assasinations, the summer of love, Woodstock 69, the moon landings and the Nixon Presidency. But on this day the innocence remained. The blue and yellow rafts sprinkled across one of the seven Binnewater glacier lakes. The shrieking of the shuffleboard was being drowned out by the “Simon Says” game that had broken out on the side lawn. Teenage waiters and waitresses hustled to get the food and beverages to the patrons who were hanging on to those last few delicious sips before the curtain closed on another summer. The game room was bustling as the teenyboppers were desperate to make their final move or else wait another summer. From the juke box the Zombies were asking: “what’s your name, who’s your daddy, is he rich like me?” This is what the Sunday before Labor Day looked like to a seven-year-old boy as the summer of 1967 was saying good-bye.

Underneath the sleeping willow trees, a couple of the boys from way back when, oblivious to their surroundings, were punching time clocks hovering over their makeshift chess board. From a perch between the stage and the water, I surveyed the little piece of ground that was my fiefdom for one more day. Looking back more than 50 years later I am still amazed at how idyllic the scene presents itself. My mom was on a beach chair by the water. She was good for a full day gossiping in a last grasp effort before she was back to reading fairy tales to elementary school kids. Before we moved to New Paltz my dad worked summers at the Lake tending bar, and this Labor Day would be his last. He reminded me in the morning, “remember when you come into the bar call me Uncle Randy.” At the time I had no idea what kind of game he was playing, so I went along. Craig Murray and Candy Canning, the two Lake teen stars walked hand in hand towards the woods on the perimeter of the property. I always paid attention when I saw the boy get the girl, especially Candy Canning. I never stopped to think how fortunate I was to be creating so many sweet memories of my childhood. As a seven-year-old I assumed this is what summer looked like everywhere. Those Labor Day weekends were filled with experiences of provocative intrigue. I was not aware at the time, but the summer of 1967 would be the last of my “perfect little summers.” I was having my last look of good adulting fun while maintaining utter innocence. I had the feeling a movie reel was playing and everyone in the scenes were actors playing roles in my story. A tall handsome young man named Don Anderson was being introduced on the patio stage. All the young girls swooned to the crooner’s (part time server) upbeat rendition of  ‘Mac the Knife’. The sun was brighter, the music was smoother, and the libations were ice cold.

If any of the American holidays are bittersweet, it is Labor Day. One big party representing a sendoff to a summer full of seasons in the sun. In the next breath it meant a time to open books and get serious about all the tasks ahead. Labor day weekend is a metaphoric portal of play time to work time, of summer shenanigans to getting your nose to the grindstone. Labor Day is very similar to New Year’s in that in both instances it is a time for both looking back and planning ahead. Those first few summers spending July and August at Williams Lake gave me a magical look at a big summer party. The waiters were tall and handsome wearing white shirts, long pants, and black bow ties. The waitresses donned short shorts to go along with loosely fitting tank tops. Nobody was aware of it then, but it was era that was losing its glitter. The Catskills and resorts like Williams Lake were losing most of their market share to oceans and casino vacation spots. The days of going to the Lake with your family were giving in to family excursions near the ocean. For a short span of years Williams Lake contained a mythical enchantment for a very impressionable pre-teen. The memories of sailboats drifting at sunset, sparkling splashing water, and the ice cream trucks filled with toasted almond bars. Everyday my mother gave me a quarter which I had to make last through the day. Twenty-five cents were good for one seven-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola, (10 cents), a bag of Bachman pretzels (five cents), and a game of pinball (10 cents). The total experience was priceless.

Flash forward fifty years to Labor Day Sunday 2023. I stared out into the quiet of Sunday evening coming down from the back deck of my house on Flower Hill. Gazing out into the groggy twilight the past didn’t seem so far away. All those school days of being a student, and then a teacher, when Labor Day was all about play time ending and work time beginning. When I left teaching Labor Day turned into a day of me declaring “Rich Siegel Independence Day.” There would be no more ringing bells screaming at me, no more tests to take, no more out of touch administrators telling me what, and how to teach. It was time to leave summer and school days behind. It was time to enter a world where you were accountable every day to yourself only. A world where you were measured on the results you produce. A world where you are your own boss and completely accountable for yourself. A world where there are no unions or gov’t agencies to support you when you slip. Before I blinked my eyes, I spent 35 years working for myself, where any income I was paid was only from business I directly produced. No matter what, throughout the years whether I was a schoolteacher or an insurance man, Labor Day has been a time of reflection and transition. It has been a time for singing the songs that you heard anytime you were near a body of water. Labor Day is a time for setting goals and putting on your serious face. For me, it has been a time of letting go and for starting anew.

Sitting alone on my back porch the end of summer 2023 there were certain things that didn’t look any different than the end of summer of 1967. The school busses were warming up, leaves were already showing a hint of orange, and the nights were beginning to chill. The cars stood still on the New York State Thruway filled with city folk attempting to be the first one home from the mountains and lakes of Upstate New York. As we grow older, we tend to think the world was such a better place when we were young. I would speculate all generations come up feeling that way. The fact is we change, we evolve, and so does the periphery world around us. None of us stay the same, nothing at all stays the same, and certainly nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky. “Heading out to San Francisco for the Labor Day weekend show, I got my hushpuppies on I guess I never was meant much for glitter and rock n roll.” Every Labor Day weekend since the time I left home for college I sang the words to the Jimmy Buffet song “Come Monday” on the golf course to my golfing mates. To me the song represents a symbolic transition between summer and fall, childhood and grown up. “Come Monday it will be alright,” Buffet opined of a summer love that he intended to carry over to fall.

This Labor Day turned out to be a reflective opportunity to remember and respect all the Labor Days of yesteryear. Tonight, I didn’t hear splashing water, or local celebrity crooners making the young girls cry. I drifted all the way back to the innocent nostalgic summers of my youth and the world it exposed me to. In my head was a vision of Jimmy Buffet cruising the California coastline top down, girl, and guitar securely in hand. There was nothing in his view except for ocean and the setting sun. The summer was over. It was time to head south to start looking for that lost shaker and salt.

The golf ball arrived at the zenith of the steep incline adjacent to the putting surface. At the summit, the Bridgestone One oscillated trying to push out one more forward roll. One turn East and the little white golf ball would glide down and snuggle near the flag stick. One rotation West and the ball would return from whence it came. Sometimes God wins, sometimes the Devil wins. Golf is not unlike the game of life, an inch here or an inch there and your whole world can be turned upside down. For Jason Day, competing in 2023 British Open in Liverpool England, half of a rotation of his golf ball meant the difference of him making a five instead of a three on the 17^th hole. The result placed Day in a second-place tie with three other players. In monetary terms the wrong turn of his Bridgestone cost Day $500,000. Laying on my couch two days removed from knee replacement surgery I watched Jason Day’s eyes as his golf ball had returned to the exact spot, he had just struck it. His eyeballs rolled to the back of his head which was pointed directly to the sky Realizing full well it was past any time for any kind of divine intervention. “How could the game be this cruel.” Once you become aware that everything in the game of life and the game of golf is controlled by yourself and not by anyone watching the game, you’re left with two choices: Throw a hissy fit and give up, or swallow hard, take your medications, and start over.

There are a litany of perspectives when it comes to god, the devil, and the overall spectrum of religion. My personal theory is that everyone possesses an energy representing all their positive potential and an energy that is in the business of selling you the easy way around all of life’s inevitable obstacles. My entire life has been two, long, separate, conversations with the two spirits that are in a constant battle for my soul. Sometime in my late 20’s I entered a 30-year contact with the darker side of my inner self. The deal was not very complicated. I proposed to my dark side that if he stepped out of way, helped me navigate the big catastrophes. He would let me see what I produce without interference from all things that come easy and burn fast. There was nothing written, simply a verbal agreement between me and one of my soul mates. A standard quid pro quo with the side of myself that fed my destructive compulsions. I had three simple requests: 

1. I get the girl. 

2. I receive shelter from the horrible curve balls we are unable to hit (car accidents, cancer, victim of crime) 

3. I will maintain a full head of locks well into my golden years. 

I wanted to be accountable for what I made of this life. My success and failure, all my wins and losses.  Only I was not willing to surrender my soul for eternity, so I kept my requests reasonable. If those three requests were met, then my personal Lucifer could get his pound of flesh. When the fourth quarter arrived that would be my time to pay the piper, life well lived or not. .”The test will either make you quit or it will give a greater appreciation for all that went before and all that lies ahead.”

It was a bleak and blustery Sunday night in March of 2020. As I walked out of the Egg’s Nest Tavern, I braced for a head wind I sensed through the damp.. It had been a month since I turned sixty and it was time to button down the hatchets. I had just left my dad’s house for what would turn out to be the last time the two of us would be together in my childhood home. It wasn’t 100% clear to me yet that my evil partner in crime had not so subtly began collecting his debt. In the prior couple of years my business was disrupted to the verge of panic creeping into my normally unaffected façade. Six weeks after that stormy night in March of 2020 my Dad died in a nursing home. The death was covid related. My business was failing, now my muse was gone, and the country was shutting down for a pandemic. On top of these life events my physicality was morphing into  “busted down old man”. I had already had one hip replacement and was preparing to have the other hip and right knee replaced in succession. I don’t think of myself as a “woe is me” kind of guy but I dug myself into the proverbial bunker of a long private recovery. The dark side of my psyche was showing me that life is meant to be hard. That nothing great can happen until you understand that you can’t make it to the promise land without experiencing the pain. By the grace of God my inner devil had gotten me this far in one piece, it was his turn to take a piece of flesh.

The kind of battle I was about to wage called for clarity. There was no way I could get through these tests unscathed if I was under the influence of alcohol. It is often said that people, places and things need to change if you as a person are going to evolve. I quit all of my vices and stopped frequenting the normal haunts filled with the losers and the hustlers who I called friends. It was time to dive deep into my immediate family and get a grip on my personal health. Sometimes in life your grit gets tested. Do I have the gumption to adjust to a life that I never really wanted to embrace. We buried our dad in April of 2020. Gone  was daily confidant and best friend. The Pandemic raged on. I suffered through two bouts of long covid, both times they were wrongly diagnosed, one as a heart attack and one as a bad flu. While I was sick, I was being bamboozled out of major bucks from a former business associate. After making a ascent to the top of the mountain, for the first time I was sliding backwards. My strategy for running the race has always been to have the look of the hair but the brain of the tortoise. And nothing frightens the tortoise more than falling back. The tortoise is slow and steady, going backwards is never an option. By the deep spring of 2020 I was spiraling downwards. My emotional, physical, and financial state was in peril. It was time to get back in the boat and start bailing. The alternative was to watch my ship sink into the abyss way before its time. The ball had rolled back to my feet. 

The payback had begun. I have lived most of my life with a lethal blend of arrogance and pride, now it was time to face the reality of living life when youth, at last, had run out. What, if anything, had been learned in fighting the good fight for 55 years? What if anything was owed? It was getting easy to start calculating the losses. My parents had passed. My daughters moved out of New York to Atlanta and Rhode Island respectively. My business was suddenly not the smooth oiled machine printing money hand over foot. The pandemic turned into a political and scientific battleground. I fell victim to the woke bullshit that came from high up places. Moreover, by body, which had been steadily breaking down the past ten years earlier was now in need of major repairs. Most disappointing was that during the pandemic I was cancelled by several friends and partners based on some political commentary. Besides my immediate family I was left to walk in the new old age alone.. Left alone in a hot and deserted place there are only two options: You can wilt and disappear into obscurity, or you can see your plight as an opportunity to make the necessary changes to move forward. My mind went back to the inner devil and the contract I entered a long time ago. I had been given the opportunity to make it to the top and now it was time to see how I reacted as the mob came for my chips. My days of living fast and large were behind me. Acceptance is the first and most challenging step to any type of evolvement. All the things I that identified were either taken from me or I gave up. Three years off, no golf, no gambling, and no drinking can make a man lose patience, or gain it. I had become an orphan in the true sense of the word. Now it was time to see what I could do on my own.

It has now been over a month since I underwent knee replacement surgery. Every movement for the past month had been wrenched in pain. Like Jason Day after his golf ball returned to his feet, I found myself looking to the heavens with a confused and frustrated scowl. “How can I be trying so hard and not making any progress? Will the sun ever come out again?” It was a look of despair that only comes when your life has run into a series of challenges that seem to be non-reversible. The British Open was taking place a few days past my surgery. This was my third major surgery in three years. Unlike any other physical obstacles, the knee replacement was by far the greatest test I have been through for my patience and pain tolerance. The affects of having my knee sawed drained a big piece of life out of me. As a sharp pain shot through my right knee, I reached my breaking point. “This is the final payback. The slate had to be clean now. I had earned the privilege to go back to living life on my terms.” The ball had rolled back to my feet. All that has been giving back had left me completely empty and completely full. The prowess of my youth has faded like the labor Day sun. Anybody who makes it to 60 carries the wounds and scars that are owned solely by them. No matter how hard I’ve tried to reject any flavor of humility in this life it has started to creep in. For me it is now about my inner devil releasing me peacefully into elder statesmanship. My devil has had his way with me most of my life, now it’s time for me to see what kind of deal god is looking for.

“Rich, slow down, I do not want to die in this car, my life ending up being a statistic.” I was 26 years old and had already put my life on cruise control. From my perspective there was nothing in my way but an open road. The world had already become my oyster. I was driving a red 1986 300ZX with an entire summer of shenanigans in front of me. I turned to my travel companion with a smug grin. ‘There ain’t nothing going to slow us down today,’ tapping on the shiny new toy strapped to my dashboard. My mother, in one of her ill-advised attempts to help her younger son get around life’s restrictions, had gifted me a “fuzz buster” so I could avoid adding to my growing pile of speeding tickets. My radar detector indicated I had clearance for another 30 miles as I pushed our speed to over 100 mph. When I heard the words “slow down” I immediately pressed my foot harder into the accelerator speeding to 120 mph. Simultaneously, what looked to be an army of flashing lights and sirens were gaining on me. In a matter of seconds two New York State Trooper cars had me boxed in like a sardine and appeared to be calling for backup. “Hey Jim, get a look at this beauty. This guy has one of them fancy radar detectors to go along with his fancy ride.” His partner took the bait. “Wow, I’ve never seen one so elaborate. That had to cost “pretty boy” an arm and a leg.” For 15 minutes I sat there and was served up a record helping of humble pie. The story would provide for many laughs over the years but in the moment, there were numerous ominous warning signs regarding my future that I wasn’t ready to accept.

The situation I found myself in was making the career highlight films of these two road-tested authorities. They handed me a ticket for 100 mph (that insured the maximum fine) in a 65-mph speed area. Much rougher than the 300 hundred dollars I eventually paid was listening to the two troopers roast me. “Did you ever see a bigger compensation problem than this guy Jim? A big shot, trying to go the speed of light.” The other officer was shaking his head sizing up my passenger side. “Yeah Jim, I’ve seen tons of them, cocky kids who believe they are non-perishables. Most of them end up dead before they make it to 30.” They were talking directly to each other, but I was more than aware who their soliloquy was directed at. After the officers had distributed my litany of moving violations, I was left alone to hear a second lecture form the person riding shotgun. “I don’t know about you, but I have big plans for my life, and they do not include getting banged up in a car.” At this point my patience was running thin. “What do you want?” I asked the young lady I would marry three years later, ‘a dude driving steady in the right lane, minding all the rules, hanging on for dear life.’ I crumbled up my parting gifts and tossed them in the backseat. In the four years since graduating from college I move immediately into the far-left lane and pressed my foot to the metal.. In my mid 20s I was a full-time high school history teacher and a varsity basketball coach. I had money in my pocket, a dynamic sports car, and a nice-looking partner in the front seat. I felt like I had enough street credibility to drive as fast as I liked. At the time, the incident was nothing more than a funny joke. I was nowhere near perceptive enough to grasp the metaphorical warning that my life’s biggest crash was lying in wait for me.

In those days I was in a big hurry regardless of if I had anywhere to go, or not. I was racing as fast I could to whatever big event was next. Not once did I take a second to get a grip on myself. I was suffering from a bad case of “what’s next syndrome” that is typical amongst young people who are both ambitious and extremely impatient. My traveling companion who made it quite clear that it was my car she was enamored with, not me. “Rich, you think you are such a clever one, but you do not understand that there will be consequences down the road as a result of your sloppiness.” I don’t really remember what I said back to her, but I do recall my attitude back then was diluted ‘I was born with a leprechaun on my shoulder, everything will always work out fine me.’ Yes, I was that shallow, entitled, and immature. ‘I’ll be just fine, I may not be untouchable, but I am close,’ was the mantra I consistently used back then to get me through whatever crisis was simmering. The conversation was not going to die easy. “On the outside it looks like you got it all together, but we both know better,” she said with disdain. “You’re working on being a narcissist, you always think you’re the smartest person in the room, and you are very insecure. The worse part is you recognize this and are doing nothing about it.” She was right, but at that stage in my life I could have cared less. 

Through the years the incident was good for many belly laughs at mine and my mother’s expense.  Only after all the distance and time that was put between that day back and 1986 and today, can I see how loudly life’s warning signs were screaming at me to slow down. The whistles were blowing, the sirens were roaring. I was living large without the experience or wisdom to back it up. When you are moving that fast you don’t see much, there is only a far-off mystical destination in sight. I had decided to skip all the apprenticeships, claiming top dog status before producing top dog results. I told anyone who would listen that I was on my way to reinventing the art of teaching and coaching. I was a classic case of a cocky young man who was so egocentric that he committed the mortal sin of not seeking the help of those who went before. There is no doubt that the speeding ticket I received that day back in 1986 was a loud warning alerting me that the road ahead was filled with huge potholes. At the time I was a teacher, a coach, and all around entitled, selfish guy. My eyes were wide shut, I couldn’t see myself past tomorrow. From my view whatever loose plan I had concocted in my head was working. All I had to do was keep showing up and the money, fame, and status were in my future. I believed I possessed a guardian angel who made sure all was right in the world of “Rich Siegel”. In the following three years, without request, I was presented with the hard lessons I had always been convinced I would find my way around. I learned there are no guardian angels; only yourself. You choose the direction, the goals, the speed. Success and failure are soley in the eyes of the beholder. I learned we are the ones responsible of our paths. And I learned I wasn’t as good a driver as I thought.

Standing in that moment at 26, in the summer of 86, everything looked idyllic. I didn’t want to listen to the voices telling me to slow down, I was sprinting towards a place having no idea where that place was. I was not yet familiar with the teachings of Lao Tzu and his philosophical wisdom “the journey of 1,000 miles must begin with a single step.”  At the time I could not comprehend how long that 1,000-mile trek can be, uphill in the dark, both ways. In my eyes anyone who was telling me to slow down was a conspiracist theorist who was jealous of my propensity for acting the part of the ‘Big Shot’. In my warped mind I had figured this life out at a very early age, I thought I was immune to the hard lessons that are necessary along the way. Those painful lessons that you will lean on in the future. I honestly thought God’s angels had tapped me on the shoulder, “don’t worry Rich, we’ll keep you under a close watch.” Yes, I was that delusional. There are consequences in this life for our flaws that we aren’t able to get under control. I woke up on my 30^th birthday an “Insurance Man”, married, with merely a couple hundred dollars in the bank. Robin Leach was not getting ready to invite me onto ‘The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’. That 26-year-old hot shot cruising in his red 300zx was going to be forced to swallow a lot of bitter pills in the years ahead. They are what I call today “Now or Never Pills”. At the age of 30 I had to pay off all the fines of my past and start my sentence as an adult.

“They’re they go,” the officer not named Jim said to no one in particular. “yup, there they go”, repeated trooper Jim. Like the arrogant dummy I was in those days I fell for the trap. ‘Who?’ I blurted out. My two captors began laughing, (unprofessionally I might add,) “Who?” he wonders, trooper Jim said staring directly into my eyes. “There they go, all of them people you were passing.” He reached his hand inside my car to hand me my citations before giving my “fuzz buster” a few final loves taps. “Yup that’s a real nice machine you got right there. The troopers headed back to their ride. “Where do you think that kid will be ten years?” I imagined hearing one of them asking the other. “Dead, in jail, or he’ll be ruling the world.” Although they were right about my life being a rough ride, none of those three things came to attrition. Today, I barely recognize that shiny boy who was so far away from who he would become.

One of my favorite fables is ‘The Tortoise and Hare.’ If ever there was a young man in his 20’s who resembled a high energy rabbit it was me. I was running at full speed and anyone who stood in my way was going to get run over. On that day back in 1986 I was still three years from any type of starting line of an adult existence. It took me three years to understand that I was running myself out of the race in the first mile. All those people driving the speed limit got to their destination’s way before me on that day. I’d love to bump into those two troopers who went over the top in belittling me. “Hey guys, I want you to meet my wife, she was the girl in the car with me that day.” I want to tell them, not right away but I did slow down; I wanted to tell them they were wrong about me. For the moment, I am securely planted in the right lane of life and for now I’m appreciating the smooth ride.

It could only be chalked up to happenstance that I found myself on the last day of the 2022/23 school year settling down on a bench adjacent to the Elementary School I attended back in the 1960’s. The day was slightly overcast and not as warm as one might expect the temperature to be for the beginning of the summer. It was official, I could see a couple of remaining teachers carrying boxes to their car, school was dismissed until Labor Day. The Ernest Myer Hurley Elementary School (named after the principal at the helm when I was matriculating) didn’t look much different from the way I remembered it on a very similar day exactly 56 years when I rode my bicycle home on the quarter mile trek back to my house on Hook Street. There were very few vehicles left in the parking lot, but I suppose everything looked apropos considering the date. There is always an eerie quiet that can be heard at a school ground the moments after the final yellow bus has left the building. Staring out over the solitude of a vacant ball field, that I recalled as the stage for classic fourth grade softball games that my big brother starred in. Memories that I was sure had been lost along the way came rushing back. Mrs. Hutton was my first-grade teacher, and a blond girl, named Kelley Cahill, with a big gap in her two front teeth, was my crush. At seven years old my progressive parents allowed me to find my own means of transportation to and from the halls of academia. In 1967 I assume it was reasonable to put a seven-year-old on his two-wheel bike with the red streamers flapping in the open air.

Was it coincidence that 56 years to the day I ended up back at the exact same spot? Lol. What a day! The triple crown of happiness for a kid: The last day of school, the first day of summer, and the longest day of the year all wrapped up in one. On that June day in 1967 I pedaled down Zandhoek Road with a breeze blowing through my hair and an eternal summer of sun and fun ahead of me. In those days everything in my life centered around baseball and the Beatles. Across the street from my house lived our babysitter, Doreen Lyke. Miss Lyke had been diagnosed with a classic case of Beatle derangement syndrome by the time she reached 16. In the back of our house we had a makeshift baseball diamond where I honed my skills with the top teenage ball players from Hook and Walnut streets. I still see my dad, jogging from our back yard, his lean long body dolled in a white tee shirt, kinos, and a pair of high top Keds. In my seven-year-old mind any ball field I was ever on with my dad he was the best I ever saw. There he was running at me, I tossed him the mitt we shared ‘one day I might get to be just like him,’ I said to myself.  After the game it was time to go across the street and have some of Mary Lyke’s home brewed iced tea and listen to some tunes from four mopped topped teenagers who resided in Liverpool, England. I could have never imagined then, living in my idyllic Shangri la, that what lay ahead was going to be anything but perfect.

Before I knew it, it was 15 years later and I wasn’t standing on a major league pitching mound. Instead I perched in front of a bunch of 16-year-olds in a classroom somewhere in Pine Bush New York. My parents had eked out livings in teaching gigs and it always looked like not such a bad idea to me. Let’s start with the fact that it is a full-time job with benefits,  20 weeks of vacation a year, and you can retire at 55. Throw in snow days, wind days, heat days, cold days, and much more…..  it was a no brainer that a lazy Peter Pan type would decide to be a teacher. Besides, becoming an adult was never a priority for me. The truth I’m finding about myself in the late stages is that ‘I’m a teacher, but I could not sustain my passion for teaching working within in the constraints of America’s public education systems. Today, I feel blessed to have been able to be a teacher and coach in the Public-School systems for seven years. The years I spent in the classroom and on the basketball, courts were without a doubt the most intense of my life. Everything I am today, every word I say, and all the attitude I have developed were baked the deepest from my experiences in the 23 years I lived in the public school system. It can happen in life. One moment you are gloriously chasing your dreams in a certain direction, and then a strong wind comes along and moves you in a different direction. Starting over can be the most frightening of times.

What does a naturally born teacher do after turning his back on his life’s destiny at the ripe old age of 28? Of course, he can’t wait to be an insurance salesman. I had identified myself as three things before turning 30: A school kid, an athlete, and a teacher. I do not mean to offend when I say I doubt anybody grew up dreaming about being an “Insurance Man”. In the most critical juncture of my life my best option was pounding the pavement selling insurance. I had walked away from everything I knew, whatever identity I used to own was gone and all my apples were thrown into being a businessman.  The toughest questions I had to face came from my parents, simultaneously, ” What the hell are you doing?” And the more basic, “Why in the world?” There were several factors, but it came down to a voice inside of me. Untethered security and stability or take a shot at life moving over to a different lane. The six-month running conversation I had with myself back in the spring of 1989 went something like this: ‘Rich this is the time to suck it up. Eat your humble pie, finish up your credits, and get a teaching and coaching job in the same district.’ That voice had control of me right up to the very end. Another voice that speaks truth to myself was relentless, ‘No way can I continue to listen to bells and administrators for another 30 years. It will not end pretty.’ I jumped right into the business world and never swam in the shallow again. I handed in my teaching license, collected the $3,452 which had accumulated in my union retirement fund and signed up for my three-week course to be an insurance broker. In one years’ time, at the age of 29, I quit my stable chosen career, got married, moved to a new city, and started my career in the world of finance.  ‘Hello, my name is Rich Siegel and insurance is my game.’ Go figure. Let me not forget I was broke.

It was June 23, 2023, the day after I my respite at Ernie Myer’s school. I was driving my car around looking for a parking space during the local high school graduation. The covid kids, warriors who missed far too much time while the so-called experts held their education hostage for two years. Covid was finally in their rear-view mirror as they marched towards the stadium in their maroon gowns and white caps. You could see the water dripping off the tassels swinging side to side. I watched from a distance as the undaunted graduates braved the rain as if they had expected it. The clock in my head had quit running on school time some 35 years ago when I started the long journey into business and finance. And now here I was falling out of the other side of those years. For the first time I officially allowed myself to question myself in reference to my life altering decisions back in 1989. ‘Did I do the right thing for myself leaving the teaching profession?’ I stopped moving my fingers for several minutes before I gave myself time to reflect before formulating my reluctant answer. ‘I don’t know. I will never know,’ And ‘What’s the difference?’ I thought about how much the characteristics at this time reminded me of similar
crossroads and that once again it was time for dramatic alterations. A time when I needed to act, when I needed to adjust, even reinvent. I had to change my perspective, I needed time to reevaluate my priorities preparing for the end of the game.

Somehow, after all the in-betweens, I had ended up in the exact place I started my journey 60 years ago. The little boy from Hook Street had put a lot of mileage behind him. He’d driven some smooth rides and there was more than his share of highways where he didn’t miss a pothole. After all the bumps and bruises I had come through the storms relatively clean, still with a fighter’s chance. I was sitting in front of my old elementary school in the processes of a major make-over. My phone started buzzing, and I was
thrust back to the reality of the day. “Hey dad just wanted to let you know our flight is delayed and I’ll be at the airport in Puerto Rico for the next 12 hours. Not a big deal, I’ll be back in Providence tonight.” I hung the phone up and thought about how far my daughter had already traveled, and how many open highways that lay ahead for her. The great philosopher Carl Jung saw life in the round as “something forever coming into being and passing on.” All those sayings I vividly recall form my youth, “What goes around comes around.” “We reap what we sow.” “Every dog has his day.” I could hear Mrs. Hutton asking us to turn the page. “See Pete run. Look at Spot. He is Pete’s dog.” It seems like such a long time ago. It also seems like it happened yesterday. Along the way the words have gotten bigger, and the
world kept getting more and more complicated . There will be many times when you’re out there alone on the road when it will be prudent to listen to that voice calling you home to your roots. Once you return to the starting point it will all come back to you. You just have to get back on the bike again and start pedaling.