Chapter 3: Mamas Don't Let Your Kids Grow Up to Play Hockey

There were many more days and stories from our time playing hockey on Lake Phipps.  It was the souce of much fun, excitement and mischief.  I enjoyed a few more winters of this kind of tom foolery until I went off to college and then eventually moved away to California.

My friends and I continued to play on the lake in the winters and then on the high school and summer league teams at the rink and around Connecticut.  We all improved, getting pretty good, pretty quickly.  We played JV hockey our freshman year, then 3rd line my sophomore season for the varsity.  

While hockey was my life and my passion, being "the man with the golden hands" I continued to play football for the high school team.  I also played baseball until I got to the Babe Ruth League.  I was an excellent fielder with a so-so arm and an above average bat.  That all changed when the pitchers starting hurling curve balls. Jon Capone ended my baseball career. I was sure that ball was coming straight at my face and then whoosh....it would drop and go right over the plate.  Or it would be coming right down the middle and I'd find myself swinging at a ball three feet outside the strike zone.  I was rendered helpless and looking like a fool.  Thus ended my competitive baseball career.

Football was another matter.  It was in my DNA....and it helped my hockey game.  I was more physical and a better hitter thanks to football.  I was also stronger and in better condition because of it.  The other thing that helped me with hockey was the fact that before I got my drivers license, my friends and I rode our bicycles everywhere.  I developed a massive hockey butt and thighs from all the leg work.

For football, we had spring training, weight lifting and what we called triple sessions in the muggy, sweltering August heat the week before we started back to school.  The biggest drawback to me for football was that it went until Thanksgiving day and the hockey team started practicing the first week in November.  We weren't allowed to overlap, so those of us on both the football and hockey teams had to wait until after the final game in late November before  we could start practicing with the hockey team.  

My friends and line-mates Dave Depew and Frank Longobardi and I were expected to be a big part of the hockey team for the upcoming season, my junior year of high school.

I was the starting tight end for the football team.  Tom Hunt was the head coach.  He was an old school tough, hard ass of a coach.  I think he had a cup of coffee with the Denver Bronco's but he had bad knees.  There's a good chance he would make headlines were he to be coaching in today's more sensitive atmosphere where beating and berating players is frowned upon.  But that was a different time.  So we were beaten and berated on a regular basis.  And we didn't complain.

It was Thanksgiving day, 1971.  We were playing Hillhouse High School, a New Haven, CT inner city school.  Always a tough opponent.  It was a cold, drizzly miserable Saturday morning.  

I was on the kick receiving team for the opening kick off.  My assignment was to go across the width of the field from the left side and block a kid who happened to be a 230 lb all-state tackle.  I weighed about 170.  He was bigger.  My advantage is he had no idea where I was coming from.  His advantage was 60 pounds of muscle.  

The kick off ensued. I sprinted across the field and dove, stretching my body out in front of said large tackle as he made a beeline for the ball carrier.  I nailed him.  He never saw it coming.  He went flying ass over tea kettle over me. I noticed the effect of his unsuspecting knee which sunk deep into the middle of my gut.  I rolled on the cold hard ground and got up clutching my left side, making my way back to the offensive huddle for the first play call of the game.  I could not catch my breath, much less a football.  The pain in my gut was immense.  I had to keep my left arm tucked into my stomach to try to contain the pain.

The first play was called.  Great.  Thanks.  It was a pass play.  A crossing pattern about ten yards deep, to me.    I ran, if you want to call it that, the route.  I made it across the middle.  Pete Riccio, my quarterback from midget football (no midgets played) fired a bullet in my direction, slightly above and away, just out of my reach.  I could not lift my left arm away from my stomach.  I couldn't reach it.  The ball was catchable.  But not for me.  I got my other hand on it, but to no avail.  Incomplete pass.  Second and ten.

I limped back to the huddle.  That was the last pass ever thrown my way. The rest of the half was a blur, which mercifully ended.  I played every offensive snap. During the break I went to Coach Hunt.  "Coach" I stammered, "I don't think I can go anymore".  

Coach Hunt turned and barked, "Herzog-you're in.  Balaban is a pussy."

I never played another play.  I sat on the bench huddled up, clutching my side.  I was covered with the Blue Devils poncho in the drizzling rain for the second half of the game.  I don't remember if we won or lost.

I rode the yellow team school bus for the twenty minute ride back to West Haven High School. Bouncing and bumping, feeling every little vibration, I continued squeezing my arm to my side all the way back to the school.

I got myself changed out of my football uniform and into my street clothes.  I don't remember how I got home, but the next thing I recall is sitting in the dark downstairs on the couch.  My sister got home.  She had been at the game.  I doubt she had a clue about what I was going through, but she recognized my pain when she came downstairs and saw me sitting there.

This was another moment in a life long string of instances of me not acknowledging pain.  I told her I was fine.  Thank goodness she didn't buy it.  "You aren't fine! You are as white as a ghost".  My parents weren't around.  She got Mr. Steinberg, Mark's dad, to come over.  He drove me to the Milford hospital.

Next thing I know I'm waking up with my mom telling me at least I won't have to go to Viet Nam.  "Say what?".

As it turns out that knee in my gut on the opening kickoff ruptured my spleen.  A spleen I no longer possessed.  All I had left was a large scar on my belly and the realization that I was done for the year.  No hockey.  I needed about six months to recover.  Damn it.  

As for Viet Nam, it turns out my lack of spleen meant I was susceptible to Berry Berry or some tropical disease and I would not be eligible for the draft as a result.  I think I would have rather gone to war if it meant not missing my hockey season.

So that was that.  I didn't play that year. I don't even remember one thing from that hockey season.  I did show up for spring training for football but I quickly realized I wasn't willing to risk my senior hockey season.  So I gave up football.  There were a lot of people disappointed in me, but I stuck to my guns.  Quitting football was a big deal.  I probably could have handled it with more maturity.  I honestly don't recall much that went down then but I still have the letter from my big brother, who was away at Brown University by then.  He expressed his disappointment at me being a quitter.

*(update-It turns out I did play some of my junior season.  A few years ago I ran into my team-mate, David Hanson and he told me that I'd played and he produced a newspaper article of WH beating Hamden.  There was a picture of me missing an open net on a pass from David. I still have no recall of that season)

By the way, Herzog.....Donny Herzog, the tight end who replaced me the day I got hurt, grew over a foot and went on to be named all-state defensive end the next season and then went on to play college ball at Northwestern.  The team, the West Haven Blue Devils or the Westies went on to go undefeated and win the state championship.....without me!

At least I could now prepare for my upcoming senior hockey season.

more to come......

Chapter 2: Skating On Thin Ice

Fresh Ice! Lake Phipps-from my back yard

Besides Mike McDermott, two adult mentors came into my life at that time.  First was Vern Gesner.  Mr. Gesner was the ice czar of Lake Phipps.  He was the one who everyone relied on to determine when the ice was thick enough to skate on.  And he had played for the Blades.  The New Haven Blades were the local semi-pro team.  They played in the old Eastern Hockey League at the New Haven Arena.  ( I did some checking and Mr. Gesner actually played for the New Haven Bears, a predecessor to the Blades). The hockeydb.com website inaccurately spells it Gessner with two S's. 

Mr. Gesner was a wizard on the ice.  My instant hero.  Everyone's actually.  For a living, my hero was a plumber and a lobsterman. He could stick handle through everybody and make the goalie look like a fool.  Two boots were the make-shift hockey goal.  There was no "lifting" the puck so you had to be able to either shoot it past the poor sap who was playing goalie or you had to be able to deke him and shovel the puck past him.  

The Gesners lived directly across the lake from us.  They had lights on their dock.  Mr. Gesner would shovel an area in front of his property to form a hockey rink/figure skating area and then flood it to keep the surface smooth.   His wife had skated in the Ice Capades and his daughter, Gail, was a figure skater.  We hated her. 

 My first real job as a teenager was working with Mr. Gesner in the summer on his lobster boat. I would wake up at 4:30 five days a week and row across the lake to his house.  He kept his boat in the harbor in New Haven. My job was to empty the lobster pot once Mr. Gessner would pull them out of the Long Island Sound. I had to separate the lobsters from the rest of the creatures we caught. Then I would separate the males out, measure them and peg their claws.  Everything else was tossed back into the water. Then I had to put my hands into a trash can full of rotten fish and bait the traps. I got sick the first day out. The only good things were that we were done by noon and the money was good. Of course I spent almost every dollar on hockey. 

That winter of 1967-68 hockey became my life. I was in the 7th grade at Gianotti Junior High.  (Proudly in our hearts you lie) Everything I did was centered around playing hockey.  I couldn't wait to get home from school.  I would do everything in my power to avoid trips to my grandparents.  That was just time I couldn't skate.  We would get home from school and play until dinner then come back out and skate the length of the lake in the moonlight.  All you could hear was the scraping sound of the steel blades cutting the ice, wooden sticks banging pucks and the occasional freezing cracks that would scare the uninitiated but was comforting to us.

My other mentor was Whitey Bensen.  Whitey was our supplier.  Our dealer.  He was the source of us getting our stuff.  He sold hockey sticks and equipment out of the trunk of his car.  As soon as I could I saved enough to buy a pair of Riddell kangaroo leather skates.  They were green.  They were awesome! But I think I would have probably used the word groovy or cool.  

I was so happy.  Whitey took me and my friends under his wing, kept us outfitted and out of trouble for years to come. Whitey, and his son Kyle, went on to become the largest hockey and lacrosse retailer in Connecticut.  I still stop in and say hi and buy sticks for my son when I'm in Connecticut.  They supply many of the Connecticut high school, prep school and colleges, including NCAA Natty Champs, Yale.

Weekends were always the best.  All of the local high school team players and some college kids would show up and we would have these large games that would last all day long.  The legendary local high school hockey coach, Art Crouse was always there.  He lived at the other end of the lake with his family.  His son's Arty and Marty would be there.  Arty was the robust backup goalie on the team.  Marty was a diminutive but fast little skater.  Other high school players included; starting goalie, Richard Goldsmith,  Defensemen Tony Amendola and Mark "Duck" Williams, forwards Arty Friend and Kerry Bertrand.  Kerry could lean and turn on a dime making the tightest turns I'd ever seen.  He would almost be parallel to the ice.  I always tried to copy that.  There were the Degennaro brothers and many more, but it was always a great, fun community event.

We were there too. The next generation.  Me, Steiny, Mike McD, Frank Longobardi, Frank Vingiano, Bob Blakeslee, Dave Depew, Paul Sikorsky, Dave Hansen and our goalie, Scott Dufresne.   Italians, Polish, French, Jewish and Irish....but mostly Italian.

As the winter turned to spring, the lake melted and we fished.  We also scoured the lake bottom along the shore line for pucks that were lost during the winter.  Hockey gave way to baseball.  For a bit.

That spring held the greatest surprise.  The city of West Haven completed construction of the rink at the high school.   We lived about a mile from the school and the new rink.  Instead of having to wait until the next winter, we got to keep playing starting in the early summer.  Whitey Bensen held a hockey camp.  I still have my "report card".  I would get better!  But it did say I had talent and great potential.  I'm sure they said that to all the kids.

In the fall, during my eighth grade I joined the West Shore Youth Hockey League.  I can't remember the name of my team. (note: I just found this picture...The team was "American Legion".  I guess I was the Captain.) We played in the Bantam level.  Hockey always did have strange names for the different age levels....there's mites, and squirts, peewee's and bantams, then you get to midgets and juniors....you either sound like a noise one makes while peeing or you are a politically incorrect slur....

Once in the midst of my son's youth hockey days I was telling someone I worked with he plays "midget" hockey.  This level goes from 15 to 18 years old, right before you graduate all the up to "Junior" hockey.  Whoa, you are finally a Junior.  Anyway this co-worker found it kind of interesting that there is a hockey level for midgets.  He didn't say it, but he was thinking how odd that my son was a midget.  I straightened him out but I think it was he who had it right.  It is a bit odd.

Whatever our team was called we wore Boston Bruins colors and we lost our first game by score of 13-0.  So much for talent and potential.

Things picked up and we did much better.  I made the all-star team.  I also got hurt.  I took a nasty spill on a hit from behind in the corner.  I came down hard, flat on my seat.  This was significant.  I'm still paying for it.  I'd injured my back but I also learned how to hide my pain.  They said I broke my coccyx.  All I know is it hurt like hell and I was not allowed to play for a month.  

As soon as possible, I was back on the ice.  In addition to the Bantam league, the lake was now frozen again and we continued to spend every available free moment skating.

We would also sneak out late at night and go to the New Haven Arena to play after midnight. Someone must have known someone.  I was getting to be pretty good, along with my buddies.  We would go and skate with the older high school kids.  Somehow we convinced my brother who had his driver's license to take us to New Haven.  We would play until 3:00 am.  I'm fuzzy on the details.  I don't recall how we got around my parents.  I don't remember if we snuck in or if someone let us in.  I do have vague and slightly disturbing memories of us all playing hockey wearing only our jock straps at 3 in the morning.

Tony Amendola(Back row, 2nd from Right)
Also Whitey Bensen and Gunner Garrett in the
front row

If memory serves me, it was the following winter that I had my near death experience.  I had gotten a very bad grade in my freshman algebra class. I was threatened by my mother with having hockey taken away until my grade picked up.  It was during one of those late night skating sessions that I shared my woes with senior defenseman Tony Amendola.  Tony was a bad ass.  He took shit from no one.  His advice to me was to tell my mom to go "f-herself" if she followed through with her threat to punish me.  I was inspired.  Great talk.  Thanks Tony!

So then that happened.  Sure enough my mom brought the hammer down and I came back with a poorly timed and ill-conceived retort.  All hell broke loose.  I will spare you the ugly details but suffice to say that I "ran away" for a few days.  I stayed with another buddy, who was not the best influence...his name was Blakeslee.  Bob Blakeslee.  Bob lived on the other side of the tracks.

Bob was my age.  A talented defenseman with a blistering slap shot.  He ended up going away to a prep school, Trinity Pawling or TP for our junior year.  I think Whitey Bensen helped him get a full scholarship....today those go for close to $50,000.  Probably about $5000 back then.

I'm not sure why he returned to West Haven for our senior year.  Something about drinking and weed most likely.  Oh, the prep school life.  But he was was back on the high school team for our senior season and helped us get to the state championship finals that year.  He also brought Lacrosse back with him so we had a club Lacrosse team that spring.

I returned home after a few days in exile to serve my month long stint in the penalty box.  When you live on a lake and your life is consumed with hockey you end up learning all kinds of terms and distinctions for weather and different types of ice conditions.  I imagine it is similar to some degree to how Eskimos have so many words for snow or the way surfers have so many terms for waves and wind.    Same with skiers.   Also true for pond hockey players.

There was a day during my prohibition when my parents were out of town.  When a lake freezes for the first time of the season it creates a beautiful sheet of mirror like "black ice".  It's called black ice because it is clear and with the dark water visible beneath the frozen surface it appears to be black.

There is nothing better for skating than black ice.  After a day or so of a cold snap the ice continues to freeze, getting thicker but it also expands.  Like ice cubes in a glass of water, the ice surface develops cracks.  They happen constantly.  The ice splits and cracks making all kinds of cracking and pinging sounds.  Sometimes a fissure will fire up right between your own two feet.  Others will come from an angle and intersect with an existing crack.  There is really no risk of falling through the ice.  It's too thick by now.   The risk is potentially catching your blade in one of these cracks, getting your foot stuck and possibly twisting an ankle or a knee.  Mostly the worst that happens is it causes a skater to lose their footing and wipe out.

Over a few days the ice forms many cracks and lots of snow from all the stopping and starting.  We simply move to new virgin areas for fresh ice.  It was always good to know which property owners were finicky about us playing in front of their homes.  A winter version of "get off my lawn".

As the days passed the ice would get thrashed and we would adapt.  When it snowed it would cover the ice and hide the cracks.  There was no use trying to play until the snow stopped.  But we would skate.  

Snow Covered Lake Phipps

When the snow stopped falling we would get our shovels and clear away a rink sized patch.  This area would now be surrounded by banks of snow on all sides.  Plenty of pucks got lost in these snow banks.

The ice was never great after a snow storm.   We had to take breaks throughout the day to shovel all the snow that came from blades stopping and starting during each game.  The worst conditions came after a snowstorm if it would rain and then freeze up right away.  In these instances a hideous crust formed.  There was no way to skate on this.  We know because we tried anyway.

Hopefully and usually, after this crust formed we were lucky enough to get a warm spell and  maybe even some rain.  This served to completely melt the surface area of the ice.   The shoreline and under the docks would melt entirely.

When the next cold snap arrived the watery surface would refreeze, as would most of the shoreline.  The last to freeze was the water under the docks.

This freshly refrozen melted surface and rainwater was the next best thing to play on besides the initial black ice.  It was this type of condition that we had one fine cold sunny Sunday morning while I was still on suspension with my parents out of town.  Hmmm.

So I did what any self respecting kid would do.  I got my hockey bag, I bundled up and I snuck out down to the other end of the lake to spend the day doing what I loved best.  And what a day it was.  Perfect weather, temperature in the teens.  Perfect Ice.  All my friends were out.  The entire local hockey community was there for this glorious day.  Vern Gesner, Art Crouse, the high school team, my pals...it couldn't have been more perfect.  Uh oh.  

The ice was milky white.  There were no freezing cracks other than the one's happening during this day. It was freezing cold, but sunny with clear skies.  The shoreline had refrozen for the most part but you did need to pay attention as there were weak spots.  Not hard to spot or avoid though.

The area underneath the docks remained open water.  Occasionally a puck would be lost to one of these holes.  But they also had a plus side.  You could drink ice cold lake water from them when you got thirsty. This is something we all did many times throughout the day.  There was little that could quench your thirst better than this.

Here's what you had to do.  You would skate up to the dock, lay your stick and gloves on the dock or behind you away from the water then you would get on your hands and knees  and shuffle up to the waters edge.  Then you lay flat on your belly on the ice.  Carefully you  reach your head over the edge and you literally suck the water right out of the lake.  

We all did this many times.  This time as I was gulping this magnificent refreshment, with my body stretched on the ice and my mouth in the water the entire shelf of ice I was laying on collapsed.  Suddenly I'm submerged in the ice cold lake water kicking my feet realizing that trying to swim with steel blades on my feet was not going to work.  I can't say my life flashed before my eyes.  I was, however, wet, shockingly cold and before I needed a breath, I reached out and grabbed the wooden post of the dock.  I was able to quickly pull myself to the ladder and climb out of the water.  

Did I almost die?  Probably not. Would my parents kill me if they found out?  Definitely!

Once on the dock and out of the water I was relieved.  But now I'm realizing how wet and cold I was in my soaking clothes and hockey gear.  Being in the water was shocking but surprisingly it was not a sensation of coldness as you might imagine.  Being underwater, unable to breathe, sinking from the weight of my skates, everything was a reaction.  Being on the dock, out of danger, but cold and wet was just plain miserable.  Immediately everything began to freeze while underneath everything remained wet.

I went over to Blakeslee's house to thaw out, warm up and laugh about the ordeal.  As evidenced by the fact that I'm here to tell this tale, my parents never found out and so did not need to kill me.  Yep, I just called my mom to verify...she never knew of this.  Someday my kids may tell me things.  

More to follow.....

Chapter 1: I'm A Hockey Guy

I'm a hockey guy.  I played, I coached, I reffed but most of all and to this day I'm a hockey dad.  I fear those days are numbered.  For as long as I can remember, I've had as one of my favorite jobs and purposes to drive, support, fund and cheer as my son worked and played his way through the youth, prep school, junior and now college ranks.  I'm his biggest fan.  This role has been the target of much of my energy over the past eighteen years, ever since his mini-mite days at the age of four.  Occasionally there is pain, frustration, disappointment and heartbreak.  I'm talking about for me.  Lord only knows how it's been for him.  I'll let him tell that side of the story.

I'd never heard of hockey.  I was twelve years old.  I grew up on a farm in the Florida panhandle.  We played football in the fall.  Basketball in the winter and baseball in the spring and summer.  We hunted, fished and played army.  I was pretty sure I would play football at FSU or the University of Florida some day.  

That is until my dad ruined my life and moved us to Connecticut in the summer of '67.  I'd just finished the 6th grade.  I thought my life was over.  I left all my friends behind, including my girlfriend, Becky Messer. Becky was a dream.  I was shy.  It took me since the 1st grade to finally get the nerve to be her boyfriend.  I was in love with her from the first day I set eyes on her on my very first day of the 1st grade.  I specifically remember my mother saying goodbye as she left me at Mrs. Kates' 1st grade class room.  I had a lump in my throat and was on the verge of tears....then I saw Becky and all was good.  Bye Mommy!

But alas, poof.  Off to Connecticut.  I told myself it was only temporary, but it soon became evident it was over.

That first summer in Connecticut was spent in a rented beach house at Gulf Beach in Milford.  I made a few friends.  We swam in Long Island Sound.  We played baseball every chance we got.  I spoke to Becky every Wednesday night at 7pm.  Soon the calls ended and I've never heard from her since.  Every so often I check on Facebook, but nothing.  I'm sure that young beauty that I lost is a big fat momma living in a trailer park somewhere.  My curiousity remains.

*(Update- Since I wrote this, I have reconnected with Becky.  She's married and living in Virginia. Her daughter lives very close to where we live in San Diego.  I had a chance to meet up with Becky and her daughter last year.  I was wrong.  She's a lovely person, did not get fat and I'm so happy to have been able to close that loop.)

At the end of the summer my parents bought a house in West Haven, the next town up the coast.  It was a cool house, made of slate rocks and redwood.  It was split level and sat on the shore of Lake Phipps.  We had a row boat.  We bought a canoe.  Plenty of time was spent fishing, swimming and rowing around the lake.  

There was no shortage of kids in the new neighborhood.  My first friend was Michael McDermott.  His family lived on the other side of the empty lot that separated our two homes.  Mike and his younger, red-headed brother, Timmy were the kids of Ed and Barbara.  Mr. McDermott worked at a funeral home.  I suppose he was an undertaker, but I really have no idea what he actually did there.  

My other friend in the neighborhhod was Mark Steinberg.  We called him Steiny and later, Bird.  We, along with other kids in the neighborhood played a lot of touch football on the small "green" nearby.  This patch of land was on a slope and had a huge cedar pine right in the middle.  It's a miracle no one got hurt.  But isn't that the case with much of what we did as kids.

Continuing my promising football career, I went out for midget football that fall.  I played for the team sponsored by the Armstrong Rubber factory.  I earned the moniker "the man with the golden hands".  Once I caught a long bomb from Pete Riccio and scored a touchdown.  They announced someone else's name over the PA system.  My mom straightened that out immediately.

As the weather turned cold, my first winter approached.  Mike McDermott was at my house and he noticed I had a table top hockey game still in the unopened box that it came in.  It turns out Mike played hockey and from that moment on my life would never be the same.  He immediately began to pull me into his world.  

Keep in mind, I'd never seen anything related to hockey in my life other than this hockey game.  For some unknown reason the Christmas before we left Florida, my parents(or Santa?) got me this game as a gift.   I have to ask them if they recall and what were they thinking that  would have them get this game for me.  I was confused when I saw my first hockey puck.  As far as I knew it should have been large enough to come up to knee height.  That's how big it was in the table top game.  What was this little bitty thing?

So we opened the game.  We carted it back and forth between houses depending on whose parents minded less.  We played games.  We held tournaments.  We kept stats.  We developed plays...my favorite was where you push the right wing down his lane with the puck then from the corner he makes a pass to his centerman who is being pushed down the middle at the same time.  If you time it right, he jams it past the goalie with a one timer at the perfect moment.  The other play was to have that same right winger  rip a spin-a-rama slap shot from the blue line.  The men were made of metal, probably tin.  It was the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs, two of the six teams that comprised the National Hockey League at the time.  The players were flat with the face and uniform painted on each side.  We curved and angled the blade of their sticks so that when they took their slap shots the puck would angle up off the surface and often would find its way into the goal.  Top cheddar!  

And we fought.  Mostly Michael and I.  We were developing somewhat of a rivalry that would last through high school. There were numerous disputes, arguments and allegations of cheating that erupted into the two of us going after each other.....we never threw punches, but we fought.   Funny enough with one exception, in all the years that I would go on to play ice hockey I never fought.  Never had to.  Except once in Thursday night men's pickup, but that's another story.

This new and growing interest in the game that Michael McDermott played eventually spilled out onto the driveway where we played ball hockey.  Our equipment was tennis balls, welded goals, old worn down wooden, straight bladed hockey sticks which, if the nail had already fallen out, was worn down to a dangerous spear.   More tournaments, playoffs, scrapes and fights.  It's amazing no one lost an eye.

Schiavone PeeWees with Mike McDermott, John Glynne
and Kyle Bensen

Soon enough the hockey season was upon us.  Mike played peewee hockey in New Haven.  Mike and his dad invited me to go with them to the games at the New Haven Arena.  We would stay up late watching the Rangers on black and white TV, then wake up at 4:30 in the morning to get to his game.  This was my introduction to cold weather.  Nasty cold weather.  Too cold.  

Mike was a bit of an enigma.  He was introducing me to this new world...for that I will be forever grateful.  But he was a goofy kid.  So it was not easy to look up to him.  He had a chipped tooth.  A hockey badge of honor.  His team was Schiavone's.  Schiavone's was a wrecking company.  Bodies went missing from time to time.  You tell me!

Mike was ten or eleven at the time.  I was twelve.  He loved hockey, but he wasn't all that good of a player.  John Glynne!  Now he was a good player.  He was the best hockey player in the league, absolutely amazing to watch.  I was in awe.  He skated and carried the puck with grace..and boy could grace skate.    But I kid.  I would meet John Glynne again years later, first in our high school rivalry with Hamden High(Jonathan Quick's hometown) and again later in college where I would break his leg at the University of Vermont with a hip check.  He went on to have a minor pro career in the AHL and in Europe.  I hear it was derailed by drugs.

So I went to the games every weekend with Mike and his Dad.  Once I had a chance to go ice skating at Ingall's Rink at Yale.  I'd never skated in my life and it was not much fun.  I couldn't get going.  It made no sense to my brain.  I had no control of my feet.  Thank goodness for the boards.  

There was nothing about that experience that made me want to do it again.  I'm not sure where I got them, but I ended up with a cheapo pair of ice skates.  Winter was coming and the lake would soon be frozen.  Big deal though.  I couldn't skate.  I'm not even sure I wanted to.

Our house was a split level redwood and slate rock structure with an upstairs in the back overlooking the lake.  There was an open terrace upstairs above the kitchen and living area.  We've since had it enclosed and is now what we call, even forty years later, the "new room".  

One day late that autumn the terrace, which was covered in pebbles was submerged in a puddle from the rain.  It had no railing, just a flat top roof with nothing to protect you from walking or falling right over the edge to the ground below.  A cold snap turned the entire pool of rainwater into a solid sheet of ice....yay!  A second story skating rink with no boards.

I got my skates and put them on.  No one was home.  Just me, the skates, the ice and a fifteen foot drop.  

I shuffled onto the ice and waddled out to the middle.  I pointed one foot, turned the other and pushed.  I slid a few feet and tried it back the other way, making sure all the while to stay as far away from the edge as possible.  Well, just like that, I learned to skate.  It clicked.  The mechanics made perfect sense.   I would never be the same.

The dock in our back yard

Mike McDermott's house to the left

Soon thereafter the lake froze and we went out.  I had it down in no time.  I learned to stop, both ways.  I learned to turn, to skate backwards.  And I was hooked.

I bought a stick.  A Northland Pro, a heavy piece of lumber with a straight blade and as was soon to be discovered, it was held together at the toe with a nail. Next I bought gloves, then shin pads, a helmet and a jersey.  I sent away to the Gerry Cosby Company at Madison Square Gardens and got a #7, Rod Gilbert Rangers jersey.   I had to iron on the letters and numbers.  I spent many hours pouring through hockey equipment catalogs dreaming about getting new gear.

To be continued.....

Oy Vey

I grew up on a farm in the South.  The farm was an eight hundred acre cattle ranch, black angus primarily.  The South was the Florida Panhandle.  Flora-bama to some.

We were the only Jewish family in the county.  Mr. Sheinberg owned the shoe store in town. Apparently he was a single gentleman.  I have no idea how he ended up in Bonifay, Florida.  What ever you imagine a redneck southern hick town to be, that was Bonifay and then some.  We had a "colored" section of town.  There was a rodeo every October.  The parade for the rodeo winded through the one main street of town.  We had something called an "all-night sing" which was a gospel marathon that went all night long.  I remember being in homes where old grandmothers were quilting.  We fished and hunted. We spent time in the colored section at the home of our "help".  We referred to Anna as our maid.  But she was much more than that.  Anna was family, very much a parent in many ways.  I remember the smell of fried chicken and cornbread.  Grits and turnip greens.  Foods I enjoy to this day.

My siblings and I are all three years apart.  My older brother is three years my senior and my sister is three years younger.  We were shipped off to temple, or what we called Sunday school with Anna or one of the other babysitters who took care of us.  I have no idea why we went to temple on Sunday's. More often than not we went to Baptist or Methodist churches with my friends in Bonifay.  As I understand it, most activities in the Jewish religion occur on Friday nights and Saturday.  This was early and mid-sixties.  Our parents were busy with their friends.  We had our own lives.  Anyway, we would head off to Sunday school about an hour away every Sunday.  I remember very little of the experience.  I remember none of the religious aspect of it.  I went until I was twelve when we ended up moving to Connecticut.

My father had been a cattle farmer since moving to Florida fifteen years earlier.  Ivy league educated, he had the option of going into the film and entertainment business where his father, my grandfather was the president of a large movie studio.  My parents were married and moved to Florida where my dad wanted to try his hand at farming. His wedding gift from my grandfather was the farm.  In addition he was a lover of jazz, specifically dixieland.  He had lots of friends from "up north"(the New York area) who would come down and visit for weeks at a time.  They would jam out in the barn until the wee morning hours.  Banjos and Basses.  Trumpets and Trombones. Drums and washboards.  Oh and kazoos.

So, after fifteen years of farming my father decided he wanted to move back north and become a full time musician.  He moved in the late spring/early summer of 1967 while we were still in school.  Once school let out we followed suit.  We moved to Gulf Beach in Milford, Connecticut for the summer until my parents found and bought a house on Lake Phipps in West Haven at the end of the summer.  I was heartbroken and angry to be torn from the comfort of my life and my friends in Bonifay. I held on to this anger for years until I had a chance to go back as an adult.  What was I thinking?  Getting out of there was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Anyway, back to the temple thing.  I never felt "Jewish".  If anything I was more "Jew-ISH".  I had Jewish roots and a heritage.  But it was not a part of my upbringing or my culture. My folks had no commitment to religion.  Anything we did was as a token for my grandfather who was both an Orthodox Jew and......well, let's be honest....wealthy.

And so it was.  I was 12, going on 13.  I would be bar mitzvah'd. This was not up for debate.  My entire understanding of the Jewish experience stemmed from a little movie my grandfather's company made called "The Ten Commandments".  So it was off to Rabbi Mirsky in West Haven for bar mitzvah lessons...Hebrew lessons?  I don't know.  Whatever, it was as foreign to me then as it is now.

I don't recall going to the Rabbi for that long.  I do remember, not understanding anything.  Not a word.  But before I knew it, I was planning my bar mitzvah.  My mom tells me that the Rabbi had to search Jewish law high and low to find a loophole that allowed me to be bar mizvah'd on a Sunday.  There we go again.  For some reason, probably because I had no idea what the hell I was doing, I wasn't able to have my bar mitzvah on a Friday or Saturday.

The day of my bar mitzvah was the single most humiliating day of my life.  All I recall is stammering through the Hebrew words, written in English on the page in front of me.  I had to wear a suit.  It was awkward and I was embarrassed by the entire affair.  I can still see the look of horror on the faces of my family and friends as I bumbled my way through the text.  To top it off, I, who had already been told many times how awful my singing voice was had to chant the entire service.  It was cruel and unusual punishment.  Not just for me, but for my parents, my siblings, my friends.  I can only imagine what Rabbi Mirsky was thinking.

I recently had the opportunity to visit my parents in West Haven.  They live in the same house on the lake where I grew up.  I was talking to my dad and I asked him, "Hey Dad, no details...please, but was my bar mitzvah as painful for you as it was for me.

My father is going to turn 84 this year.  His simple answer, with a chuckle was, "No fucking way!".

Thanks Dad.  That's pretty much what I thought.

So What's Not To Love?

A number of years ago I had a client who was a lawyer with the City Attorney's office. I'll call him David C.

David and I got along very well. He was a commodities trader. We spoke numerous times throughout the trading day and we would meet nearly every afternoon after the market closed for a five mile run through Balboa park.

We would speak right at the close of the market, then I would hustle over to the San Diego Athletic Club to change into my running gear. I'd then jog up to our meeting spot and we would set off on our run.

We shared many stories and conversations during those hour long runs. The topics of our chats ranged from Seinfeld to Sisyphus.  One day we were sharing war stories about our fathers. Mine was getting on in age at the time. His had passed away a few years ago.

Both of us had what you might call temperamental Jewish fathers. My dad, for example, had on a number of occasions lost patience with waiters in restaurants. I shared with David that I had many memories of following my dad as he lost his temper and stormed out of any number of eateries. The issue was always the same. My father would request his beer be served at the same time as the main course. Any time the waiter would bring the beer early my dad would get pissed and we would all follow in tow as he stormed out. It was his contention that this was the establishment's way of trying to sell him more liquor.

Now David told me his own story of his father's crotchety ways.

His father was a short stout man. Retired from owning and running parking lots in Los Angeles. In his later years of retirement he'd purchased a meal card at a local restaurant, also in LA. He paid $100 for ten meals. Half way through the allotted number of meals the restaurant owner, who was also an attorney informed the elder Mr. C that due to his rude and abusive behavior he was no longer welcome to eat there. The owner refunded the balance of the unused meal card, $50.

Mr. C demanded not only the amount offered, but the entire $100. The owner refused. Offended by this action Mr. C called his son, my friend and client, David in San Diego. Remember, David too, is an attorney.

David, knowing all to well his father's ornery ways curtly dismissed his father's claims and told him to drop it, he didn't have a case.

A few years later Mr. C passed away. The matter was all but forgotten.

That is until one night David was home watching TV. He happened to be watching The People's Court. You know…Judge Wapner and Doug Llewellen.

Dave sat there casually watching this cheesy show when all of a sudden his jaw dropped and his eyes bulged. To his horror and disbelief, like watching a slow motion train wreck out comes the now deceased Mr. C and the attorney/restauranteur for the next case.

David could not believe what he was seeing.

Judge Wapner proceeds to hear the case, first from Mr. C's side then from the proprietor's. if you've ever seen The People's Court you may recall Jydge Wapner always held a soft spot in his heart for the elderly. And so it went. The judge heard out Mr. C's side of things patiently then he turned to the younger defendant for his side. This guy starts going on about how rude and abusive his customer was and why he booted him from his place. The judge became irritated saying this had no bearing on the case and quickly awarded the case to Mr. C.

Upon exiting the court room Mr. C was met, as was the custom by the ever friendly Doug Llewellen. "So, Mr. C, congratulations. What would you like to say about this case and the verdict?"

My friend is sitting with his mouth wide open there in the darkness of his den as his now deceased father looks at the camera and says, "my son is a big shot lawyer in San Diego. He told me I didn't have a case and I should forget it."

I'd say David easily had me beat with this one.

I'm Going In

I'm Going In

My folks are getting along in age. They both turn 84 this year. Both are fiercely independent. My family, like most, is strange. At least from my perspective.

My dad recently tripped and fell on the walkway coming or going to get some leftovers my mom left in the car. Nothing broken. Banged his knee up a bit. He spent the next few weeks dealing with the aftermath. Water on the knee. Some fever and chills. Possible infection. There were multiple doctor and urgent care visits. Crutches were needed to get around the house including going up down the stairs.

I think this incident frightened my mom. She called me to discuss having me fly back to Connecticut. I think she was scared this may be the start of a decline from which there might be no recovery.

Fortunately he seems to have healed up pretty well. But the wheels were set on motion for me to come back to spend some time helping them out with other issues. One being providing home care tech support. The other dealing with some estate planning issues.

Yesterday I caught a flight to Boston, rented a car and drive down to stay at my sister's in Rhode Island. I got up this morning, walked on the beach with my sister, Rachel and her husband, John and NAIA. I took a Yin Yoga class and then headed down to West Haven, CT. I pulled over at a funky little seafood place and grabbed a lobster roll and a birch beer.

I'm heading to my parents house on Lake Phipps now. I'm going in. I'm not sure what to expect other than that this should be interesting. I'm here to help them with what ever they need help with.


As my brother-in-law said, "this is the beginning of a process".

These updates will be about family, aging, coping and eating.

I'll keep you appraised.

Its A Small World

It's a Small World After All

Driving home last night I found myself listening to a show on NPR about "coincidences". They had asked listeners to submit their stories of coincidences and after receiving thousands of submissions they were telling the more interesting ones.

The bigger question was; Do coincidences have any larger meaning or are they just happenstance?

There was a story of a guy who asked his friend, a girl, to text him a picture he could use as a sample screensaver for his new phone. She sent him a picture of herself as a 4 year old child from 18 years earlier. In the background of the picture was this guys grandmother. The photo was taken on the other side of the country where the girl was vacationing as was the guys grandma. Small world.

Another story involved a guy who was interested in asking a girl out. He randomly noticed a dollar bill he found with her name, Esther, written on it. He framed the bill and gave it to her on their first date. She looked shocked but said Nothing. Turns out Esther had previously, a few years earlier, been frustrated in love and decided to write her name on about a dozen bills with the thought that one day her soul mate would find one of the bills and return it to her. They've been married for 14 years. She only told him the story after they were married.

Finally there was a young couple planning their wedding. The groom to be was showing his future mother in law his old family photos. The mother in law said nothing but had realized she had once been engaged to the boys late father but turned him down because her father had arranged her marriage to another man. This happened to be an immigrant family where this wasn't that unusual.

There were other stories, but this report got me thinking about coincidences of my own.

I recalled a particular evening I once spent in New York City. I experienced a pair of rare coincidences that night. The thing about "the city" is that its huge and there are gazillions of people, pretty much all of who are strangers. Years ago I once ran into an acquaintance at a New York deli. Also, one time we were heading to a hockey tournament in the San Fernando Valley and as we pulled into our hotel parking lot we ran into friends who were visiting the Guggenheim Museum. Then there was the time last summer we were driving back from a hockey tournament in Phoenix and I bumped into an old friend at a gas station in the middle of the desert.

But New York City?

About seven years ago my business partner, Scott and I went to New York. We were being recruited by one of the major wirehouse brokerages firms. First class accommodations. They put us up at the W Hotel in Times Square.

The first evening we had drinks at the bar in the W. Scott, befriended the doorman. Pretty quiet night.

We had our meetings the next day and decided to head downtown for dinner. We caught a cab and took the forty block ride. I forget the name of the restaurant, but it was a fun place, buzzing with energy, good food and I recall it was noisy. I got a phone call from my wife early in the meal. In order to hear her over the din I took it outside to the sidewalk. (I just recalled the restaurant. It is Balthalzar on Spring St. In lower manhattan. http://yelp.com/biz/KgpOYAG-r_eDsQXFXt0nnQ)

A cab pulled up and a woman got out and inadvertently hit me with the car door. It was no big deal. It was really just a nudge but she was so sorry. She got out and profusely apologized. I let her know I was fine and it was no problem. We crossed paths a few times during the remainder of the meal and I would pretend to duck each time we crossed paths.

The meal ends. Scott and I decide to walk back uptown toward Times Square. We walked to Little Italy and had cannolis for dessert. Scott went to a tarot card reader and was given some interesting advice. Something about the letter M being very important to his future. Morgan Stanley was the firm recruiting us at the time. We took this as a sign. We ended up going with UBS.

Eventually we hopped a cab for the remaining twenty some odd blocks back to Times Square. We got to the hotel and went upstairs to the bar for a drink.

Remember, we are forty blocks away from the restaurant and it was three hours later. Near midnight. In New York City.

We get out of the elevator to enter the bar and who do we run into? The lady from the restaurant who hit me with the taxi door.

Small world. We say hello, have a good laugh and go our separate ways. Now I'm married to her. No wait, that's not what happened. I never saw her again. Or if I did I wouldn't recognize her anyway. So that was the first coincidence of the evening.

Scott and I headed downstairs. The W Hotel has a club downstairs. You have to go down to the street then go downstairs from there to enter the club. We get in line and Scott recognizes the doorman from the previous night. The one he'd "befriended" at the bar upstairs. The doorman recognized us and waved us ahead. So now we are in. He says he'll take us to the VIP section. Yay. Never been to one of those. He leads us through the dark club to an area cordoned off by a velvet rope. It was really dark.

It's midnight. In the basement level at a hip club. In the middle of New York. It's very dark. My eyes are still adjusting. The music is pounding. The only thing I recall seeing was the ample cleavage of a lady standing in line in front of us as we were entering the VIP section. As my eyes adjusted to the light I lifted my view to realize that the person attached to the cleavage was the (now ex-) wife of a good friend from San Diego. I looked to the left of her to see standing next to her was my buddy, a hockey pal. He was also my dentist and my son's roller hockey coach.

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, they walk into mine.

So we all had a good laugh at the coincidence. Turns out they had a cruise scheduled with their teenaged kids but none of them wanted to go so my friends decided on a quick getaway to Manhattan…to come see me I guess.

So, there it is. It's a small world after all. Two coinkydinks in the big apple on the same night. I don't see any larger meaning in any of this other than having this story to tell. Cue the music. "It's a small world blah dee blah". Have fun getting that tune out of your head.