Some 50-state tour highlights from California, Hawaii and Arizona
After a ride through Olympia National Park, we began one of the most scenic drives you can make in North America. We traveled the Pacific Coast Highway all the way down the Washington and Oregon coasts into California. Then we headed west to Yosemite National Park before making our way back to Reno. That trip took us though Nevada, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California, as well as British Columbia.
For our next trip, I decided that I needed to visit Southern states we had missed. This would be a total road trip with no air travel involved. So we set out from New Jersey and headed west on Route 80 to Pennsylvania before heading south through Maryland and Virginia to Shenandoah National Park and Smoky Mountain National Park. We continued south through North and South Carolina into Georgia. Then we headed west through Alabama and Mississippi to New Orleans and another new state, Louisiana.
The final road trip was in Arizona and New Mexico, with a short side trip into El Paso, Texas. This completed the contiguous 48 United States. Around this time, we made road trips to Florida and Southern California because we wanted to see more of those states. On those trips, we visited Joshua Tree National Park, Death Valley National Park, Everglades National Park and tiny Dry Tortugas National Park, 70 miles off the coast of Key West.
But in our quest to visit all 50 states, all we had left was Alaska and Hawaii. I knew that neither of these was going to be a road trip. Since my wife and I are confirmed cruise enthusiasts beginning with our honeymoon 40 years ago, we decided that the visit to these last two states would be by cruise ship.
Alaska was first. We picked up a cruise in Vancouver, British Columbia that took us all the way to Anchorage, Alaska, with several scenic Alaskan stops along the way. While we were on that cruise, we booked our Hawaii cruise, timed to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary.
We flew to Honolulu and completed our 50 states, enjoying beautiful tropical weather in January. We picked up our cruise and that took us around to all the major islands. We felt like we had really seen our 50th state.
When we told people on the cruise that we had just completed the 50 states, the inevitable question was, “which one was your favorite?”. My answer was California because of its diversity. California has every type of terrain you might want to see from mountains to desert to gorgeous coastline and everything in between. In fact, on our way home from Hawaii, we spent a few days driving down the coast from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo.
The next most frequent question I got from people was “what’s next?”. The answer is “I don’t know.” Someone suggested the Canadian provinces, but I actually have been to all of them too. I think my “collect them all” days are done. From here on, I will just try to get to more beautiful places in the world I have never seen. I have my eye on Switzerland and Australia. You can’t have too much beauty in your life.
Celebrating a momentous anniversary that few people ever see
March 2019
Attaining the age of 65 is as notable in American life as turning 18. While your 18th birthday signals the beginning of adulthood, turning 65 signals the beginning of full membership in the ranks of what is euphemistically called “senior citizens.” I joined this club a little less than a year ago and now partake of its Medicare and other senior citizen benefits. In a word, I am now officially “old.”
But this past weekend I participated in a celebration of when old turns amazing. My mother and father-in-law celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. That’s right. Their marriage is old enough to qualify as a senior citizen.
Joseph and Lillian Heaney have been married 65 years
Joseph Heaney married Lillian Walker on February 27, 1954. When I first met them in 1975, they had already been married more than 20 years. They celebrated their 25th anniversary shortly after I married their daughter. And now, shortly after we celebrated our 40th anniversary, they have reached the milestone of a 65-year marriage. That’s an accomplishment that very few people ever attain, and it’s worth celebrating far beyond the immediate family.
Needless to say, the world was a very different place 65 years ago. My father-in-law would be happy if I told you some facts about 1954:
– Brown v. Board of Education legally ended “separate but equal” school segregation in the US
– Biggest Songs included: “Sh-boom” by The Chords, “Mr. Sandman” by The Chordettes, “Hey There” by Rosemary Clooney, and “Oh! My Pa-Pa” by Eddie Fisher
– The Big Movies included Rear Window, White Christmas, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
– Top Television Shows were: I Love Lucy, The Jackie Gleason Show, Dragnet, and You Bet Your Life
– The world population was about 2,772,000,000
– 1954 Prices: House: $8,650
Average income: $3,960
Ford car: $1,548 - $2,415
Milk: $.92
Gas: $.21
Bread $.17
Postage stamp: $.03
T-Bone steak: $.95/lb.
Clearly a 65-year marriage has had to navigate many changes. But Joe and Lil made it look easy, and along the way created a family of three children, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
We wish them good health and much happiness as they cruise on into the uncharted waters of a 65-year-plus marriage.
Harnessing the power of a unified community
March 2019
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech in Illinois where he said “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” At the time, the single issue dividing the nation was slavery. Today, we are not divided by a single issue anymore, instead we are divided on every issue. It’s as if the sides have incorporated into formal institutions. We are a house divided.
Lincoln predicted that such a state of politics was untenable – that one side or the other would eventually win out. He was right about slavery, but what would he think of the division we have today?
Today our politics has been reduced to a spectator sport with teams and cheerleaders no different from the NFL. We have turned our debate over important national issues like health care and immigration into a competition where you have to root for one side or the other. No nuance is allowed. You must pick a team and stay with it no matter what. And if an idea comes from the other team, it’s immediately a bad idea. In fact, anything the other team says is immediately ridiculed. Getting the other side upset is seen as a victory.
Clearly, it’s impossible to solve important issues when the only aim of the exercise is to score a victory. That’s how we get half solutions like the Affordable Care Act, which provides lousy healthcare that is not affordable by many people. That’s how we try to solve the immigration problem by building a wall. The truth is that when we treat politics as a game, everyone loses.
If we are ever going to be able to solve complex problems like health care and immigration, we will have to stop treating national issues as footballs. Stop playing games and start thinking about the common good – the good of both sides. All it takes is electing politicians who swear allegiance not to a party, but to all the people. We used to ridicule nations where everyone embraced the party line. Now the majority of votes in Congress are along party lines. And that’s true no matter what the issue is!
But all it takes to stop this nonsense and get on the road back to a functional Congress is for each member to think for themselves, rather than asking what the party position is. We need courageous people who answer to the people and not the party. And if they’re only there for one term, so be it. There are millions of people in this country who could all serve one at a time. There’s nothing to be gained by keeping someone in Congress to reward them for not thinking for themselves. We don’t need lifers in Congress anyway. In fact, term limits are long overdue.
I think that Lincoln was right about a house divided against itself. It’s like a house with termites. The damage is slow, but it is s
ure, and it is serious. We ignore it at our peril.
Paging through memories of nights in the theatre
March 2019
One of the great things about living near Manhattan is how easy it is to partake of all the world-class entertainment. There’s opera and symphony and all kinds of professional sports. There are countless jazz clubs and other venues to hear every genre of music. But above all, there’s theater.
Above, clockwise from top left, are my Playbills from: Into the Woods (signed by the composer); Grease (my first Broadway show); a 1972 flop musical called Via Galactica; and Julie Harris in 1976 as Emily Dickinson in The Belle of Amherst
I have been a theater fanatic ever since I saw my first Broadway show almost 50 years ago. Back then, you could sit in the balcony of a Broadway theater for $8.00 or less (depending on the show). I remember seeing Pippin in 1972 for $12 (I had splurged for front mezzanine seats). Because theater was so inexpensive, I did it all the time in the ‘70s. And I was such a fan, that I kept every Playbill. As you can well imagine, I have hundreds of them now.
I bring this up because I was cleaning up the basement recently and throwing away as much of the junk I have collected in the last half century as I could. I came upon the boxes of theater programs and had to make a decision – keep or trash. Now I am at the stage of life where I am trying to downsize. My kids are all grown and married and I don’t need to keep paying for the upkeep of a four-bedroom house. So we are trying to get rid of all the stuff we don’t really need in order to be able to live in a smaller home.
I have had no problem throwing away scores of audio and video cassettes as well as lots of books and records. But the Playbill stash has so many happy memories, that it was tough to be as ruthless.
My collection began in 1972 with my first Broadway show, the original Broadway production of Grease with Barry Bostwick as Danny Zuko. The balcony tickets were $6.60. I had just come back from a five-week backpacking tour of Europe, and I was anxious to explore New York the way I had explored Paris and Rome. There’s nothing like seeing other cities to make you appreciate the big city nearby. I resolved to partake of all the cultural riches just across the Hudson.
My parents had never taken me to the theater. They were movie people. They made me believe that Broadway was for rich people. But as I have said, ticket prices at the time were under $10. Of course, movie tickets were under $3.00. But I think that the bigger reason we never went to see a Broadway show was that they were a bit intimidated by New York City. So we rarely went there except once or twice a year to Radio City Music Hall, which in those days featured a movie and a stage show featuring acts like you could have seen in vaudeville decades earlier. And of course at Christmas they had their special Christmas pageant. But that was as close as I ever got to live theater while I was a kid. That changed when I went to see Grease in 1972.
Recently, as I opened my stash of programs, among the treasures I found was the opening night Playbill for a 1979 Lerner and Lane musical called Carmelina. My front mezzanine opening night tickets cost $19.50. The show was quite forgettable, but it didn’t matter. Opening nights back then were always special because the critics were all there. They sat on the aisle so they could make a quick exit and run back to their newspapers and write their reviews on deadline. Opening night performances usually began early for that reason. The norm was 6:30 or 7:00.
The next year I sat in the orchestra for the opening night of a revival of West Side Story (tickets cost $23.50). In point of fact, I sat in the last row of the orchestra. But I was rewarded by having Stephen Sondheim standing right behind me, watching the first revival of what was his first Broadway show. His co-writer Leonard Bernstein was nowhere to be seen. Speaking of Sondheim, I have a Playbill from the original production of Into The Woods that I got Stephen Sondheim to sign. It’s probably my most prized Playbill.
Lest you think that I only went to musicals on Broadway, I have Playbills from several Neil Simon comedies as well as Broadway productions of 12 Angry Men, That Championship Season, and a 1992 production of Streetcar Named Desire where Alec Baldwin played Stanley and Jessica Lange played Blanche. I loved the straight plays as much as the musicals. It was the fact that they were live that was so appealing.
What makes my theater program collection more interesting is the fact that I also have the programs from shows I saw in London, Washington and Boston, among other places. In fact, I even have the programs from community theater productions I saw in New Jersey. It’s a lifetime of theater-going memories all in one place.
And theater-going away from Broadway became more common for me beginning in the 1980s, as Broadway ticket prices went through the roof. While movie prices made their way to $10, Broadway tickets zoomed to $100 and beyond. So Broadway turned into what my parents had always believed – entertainment for rich people. As a result, I sought out off-Broadway and regional theater, and I was rewarded handsomely. In my opinion, the most innovative theater today is not on Broadway; it’s in the smaller theaters in Manhattan and beyond. And I have all those programs as well.
So I will not be trashing my theater program collection. It brings me joy paging through and remembering my lifetime of theatergoing. And I will keep adding to the collection. In fact, as I write this, I am going to the theater this evening. Movies are great, but there’s nothing like live theater. And there’s probably nowhere in the world that has more of it per square mile than the New York metropolitan area. It’s our compensation for all the horrendous traffic.
Escape from the
money pit
June 2019
I hit a lifetime milestone last week. I sold my house where I had lived for 21 years and moved into a townhouse apartment. It seems like the cycle of life to me. Just a little more than 40 years ago I bought a one-bedroom condo unit and we moved into that right after we returned from our honeymoon. And after a few years we bought a house. Except for a brief time in 1984 when I changed careers, we have owned a house ever since. Until now.
What made me give up home ownership? I was tired of paying for the repairs and maintenance of a house. I had found that a mortgage payment was only the beginning of the costs of home ownership. I was tired of being responsible for cutting grass, shoveling snow, and fixing the endless variety of stuff that goes wrong in a house like a new roof or new retaining wall. Some people like taking care of that stuff; others don’t mind paying someone to do it. I am neither of those people.
As I signed up for Medicare last year, I began to think of what my retirement might look like. I have always liked the idea of being free to live in any area of the country I pleased. Removing the anchor of a house with a mortgage just makes that easier. I can live on yearly rentals now. The sense of freedom that brings is amazing. I don’t plan to retire for several more years, but now I’m ready to be footloose and fancy free.
And cashing out the equity in our house allowed us to pay off all our debts and reduce our monthly payments to a bare minimum. Unlike with the house, there are no hidden costs to renting. All that money that used to go to service our debts now goes into my 401(k).
I think I began to be disenchanted with home ownership when I saw my stepfather’s predicament. In order to maintain his house and pay the taxes, he had to take out a reverse mortgage that by the time of his death exceeded the value of his house. It also left a mess for his heirs that we still haven’t completely sorted out. I didn’t want to do that to my children.
Now I know there are many Americans who consider home ownership essential to the American Dream. I don’t. My father never owned a home in his entire life. I now own a car that cost almost twice as much as my first condo. Next time (if there is a next time) it will be a rental. There are many rugged individualists out there who need to have their own home because they don’t want to be dependent on anyone else. God bless them. I don’t mind a little help as I enter the last part of my life.
I think the best part of dumping my house was
being forced to unload a tremendous amount of stuff we had collected in the last 40 years. We are now down to the essentials, and it feels great. And because our children have never lived here, it feels like we are starting over. It’s definitely a new chapter in our lives and I’m excited to see what lies ahead.
An extra special
Father’s Day
June 2019
It was an awesome Father’s Day gift. My daughter handed me a box inside of which was a frame with the wording “Me & My Grandpa.” That would not be extraordinary if it had come from my son and daughter-in-law, who have given me two fantastic grandchildren. But Jennifer, my youngest child, has no children.
However, a look at the picture inside the frame instantly explained. It was one of those ghostly sonogram pictures that don’t seem to have improved much since my daughter was born more than 30 years ago. Of course, the meaning was apparent. My daughter was pregnant and I am going to have a third grandchild in December.
As of this writing I don’t know the gender of the child, but since I already have one of each, it doesn’t matter at all. All I want for Christmas is a healthy grandchild.
This will be a different experience for me because my daughter and son-in-law live in New Jersey. My other grandchildren are in Vermont and I don’t get to see them as often as I would like. This one will be more accessible and that may mean more babysitting duty. But it will also mean that I may have a better view of this grandchild’s development, which is the most rewarding part of parenthood. It’s great to see those milestones like first steps and first words and then first day of school.
Of course it’s so much better being a grandparent than a parent. We get all the fun and none of the responsibility of parenthood. We get to say “yes” more than “no.” And kids learn that right away. My grandson Bryce had me in the palm of his hand even before he could talk. He would point to those cookies he wanted and grandpop would oblige him. His sister Caroline did the same (and still does). That’s what grandparents are for. We say “yes.”
Tales of the Tarantula Page 26