Taken Out At The Ballgame

          It was a typical Thursday night at Holman Stadium in Nashua, NH. The beloved Nashua Silver Knights were playing their fundamentally sound style of baseball. The crowd was larger than usual, as it was Department of Public Works Night at the stadium. I don't have to tell you how much those hard-working Public Works people enjoy their baseball. Comfortable in my usual Section 205 area in the upper level, directly behind home plate, I was enjoying another great night in the ballpark.
     Then it happened. I heard the crack of the ball hitting the wooden bat and the ball coming straight back. It just barely cleared the protective netting behind home plate, which has been protecting me for the past five years. I saw the ball coming at me at a tremendous rate of speed on a line drive. This is when things began to change. You know how you hear great athletes say the game "slows down" for them during stressful moments of their competition? Well, that is exactly happened with me! Initially, I thought the ball was coming directly at me, but as it got closer, I realized it was heading right towards the face of my beautiful special friend (wink, wink) Terry, sitting next to me. She was just finishing a sip of Diet Coke and not prepared to protect herself.
     I knew with the speed of the ball, if I tried to catch it with my bare hand, there would likely be some broken bones involved. There was also the chance that the ball could deflect off of my hand and still hit Terry in the face. I decided my best course of action would be to use the palm of my soft hand, to just knock the ball to the ground. As the ball got into range, I lunged at it and knocked it to the ground. I had no feeling at all in my hand after the ball hit it. I thought my entire hand was broken. The important thing was that Terry was safe. The ball was travelling so fast, the two guys sitting in the row in front of us, never reacted until the ball whizzed by their heads. A woman sitting nearby, noticed my heroic act, and admired my brave and selfless feat. She was staring at me with "wonton" eyes, as her man was busy checking his phone. Sadly, not everyone has a real Knight sitting next to them at the Silver Knights games.
       
          Update:
Since the incident, I have returned to my seat back at the ballpark. Outside of the occasional flashback to that evening, I am fine. No broken bones. I am not frightened by what happened, but I must say I have a heightened awareness of the things going on around me. Sort of like a hungry dog when the family sits down for dinner. Terry is happy that she didn't end up with Sammy Davis eye, or worse. She has been able to carry on with her life and a future modeling career is still an option for her, thanks to her Knight.

         PSA:
I tried to make this entertaining, but truth is it was pretty scary and painful. Someone could have really been hurt by that ball. All I can say is pay attention to the action on the field when you attend a game. Check your phone between innings if you have to. A bat or ball heading into the stands can hit anybody and they reach you fast! Just stay alert and enjoy the game and keep yourself and your friends and family safe.

Shazam

          Before we get started, let me give a brief description of "Shazam." It is an app on your smartphone, primarily used to identify music. You click on the screen, it 
listens to the music, and spits out the song title, artist, and maybe the album it is on. That is the informational part of this blog entry.
     Last week I was taking care of some important errands. I arrived at a little plaza in Merrimack with a Dunkin' Donuts and a dry cleaner. As I pulled into the parking lot, I heard a song playing on the radio in my car that I liked. I didn't know the name of the tune, so using my fancy smartphone, I Shazammed it and got the name of the song. That was cool. Prior to going to the dry cleaner to pickup my sexy shirts, I walked over to Dunkin's to grab a drink. Before I got my drink, I went in the restroom, because that's what I like to do at Dunkin' Donuts. While I was in the restroom, I heard the very same song that I had just heard in my car. In my head, I was thinking they must be listening to the same radio station that I was playing in the car. I took care of my business in the men's room, ordered an unsweetened iced tea, and completed my transaction. Next, I walked over to the dry cleaner.
     There were no other customers in the shop. I said "hello" to the woman working there, and she comes over and she says "oh, you're bringing music with you!" I was not sure exactly what she is talking about. Pausing to listen, I hear the very same song that I had been listening to in the car and then in the Dunkin's restroom. I glance around the place to see where the music is coming from. The clerk then says "the music is coming from your pants." I thought it was playing on the dry cleaner's radio, but apparently  I somehow played the song, after I Shazammed it! In actuality, the song was not playing in either of the shops I was in. It was playing in my pocket, on my phone! I turned off my phone and said "I have one of those Smartphones but, I'm clearly not ready for it." We had a good laugh and I grabbed my sexy shirts and headed home. Shazam!

PS the song that caused all of this was "Too Close" by Alex Clare

                       

The Beat Goes On... (Part Three of the Health Trilogy)

                      

          I would imagine that after reading the first two parts of my Health Trilogy, people have questions about how I am doing now. I have had to make some changes to my diet and my general lifestyle. One of the most important parts of me getting better is to deal with my Sleep Apnea. I was diagnosed with severe Sleep Apnea back in 2006 or 2007, but foolishly did not use my sleep mask. The doctor say not dealing with the Sleep Apnea probably caused my heart to weaken. Who knew they weren't kidding about the dangers of this Sleep Apnea stuff? I knew a lot of people that snored, so I wasn't too concerned about it. Besides, who wants to have something on their face all night when they're trying to sleep?

     I have had my sleep study and I picked up my sleep mask. I plan on using this mask and not just throwing it to the side. The doctors also seem to think if I was a little more active that would help my heart. I have been known to sit without moving for 11 hours at a time, so this will take some getting use to. I love going to places and doing things as long as there are seats there when I get there. I used to refer to my periods of inactivity as rotting. That can't be the best way for a human to live. These are things I'm learning today at age 52.
     Also, I have added vegetables and fruits to my diet. I am not going to lie to you, the first week my body rejected these items violently. For the past 4 months I have had no alcohol, potato chips, onion rings, hot dogs, salted pretzels, or deli meats. Nor have I watched any girl on girl porn. This has all been difficult at times.
     Since my second and third brushes with death in 2015, I have had one of my life goals reached however. I got to send dirty messages to a beautiful girl that I have known since grade school. For a solid 40 plus years, she has been out of my league as they say. But recently I achieved a dream of exchanging some naughtiness with her. I will not mention her name so she will not be embarrassed, but her initials are DL. For my sports friends that does not mean disabled list.                     
                            
Even though I live by myself, I am not alone. I am blessed with a loving and caring family, which includes a great group of cousins that love and care about each other. I have also cultivated some of the greatest friendships a person could hope for. I am a lucky man.
     Thankfully both of my hospital stays were relatively brief. I know a lot of people would have come and visited me, but I didn't really want too many visitors. If you were one of my friends somehow broke through my defenses and visited me, I do deeply appreciate that. I did want to mention two special people who helped me a lot. First is my brother. I only have one and when I saw him come into my room, I instantly felt more comfortable. Seeing his face helped calm me down immensely. He also told me that he loved me 2 times in 3 days which is a record. I don't count the 56 times he said it during his bachelor party for many reasons. Second was my Hawaiian, Amy Lasiter. She was with me throughout both hospital visits, and was a great companion for me. Amy has taken a huge interest in my health and nags me, I mean "reminds me," of what I need to do everyday to get healthy. This might shock a lot of you, but sometimes that can be difficult task. I know most of you think I am a low maintenance, carefree guy, but occasionally I can require lots of maintenance and attention.
     So, bottom line, I can definitely get healthier and that is my goal. Things are already getting better. I plan on writing more blogs, telling more bad jokes, posting odd things on Facebook, and being a part of all of your lives for a long time. Thanks to everybody for your concern and support. I love you all.                      

Dwayne the Bathtub I'm Dwowning (Part Two - Brush With Death #3 of 2015)

          So I lived comfortably from Saturday August 22 through Wednesday August 26. Then I woke up in the morning of Thursday August 27th. I walked to the bathroom for my morning whiz. I walked back to my bedroom and felt like I had walked 500 miles. Now, I am not the most active guy, but I can usually handle that seven step walk quite easily. I sat on my bed, but could not breathe. At first, I thought it was just in my head because I had a lengthy breathing test before I left the hospital.  I could not catch my breath, so I decided I needed some help. I knew I couldn't drive to the hospital that I had just been in so I chose to go to a closer hospital. In hindsight, I should have called 911 as I remember wondering if I could even drive when I got in the car. I made the trip to the hospital and had to lean on the counter of the emergency room receptionist desk to keep standing up. I could barely get enough air out to say my name loud enough so she could hear it. I was in the Emergency Room in seconds. This entire time I thought that this was it for me. I was never going to blog again.
                            

The Emergency Room folks hooked me up to to an intravenous tube of Lasix. Apparently, Lasix is a diuretic used to treat fluid retention. I had only heard about it in Horse Racing, so I imagined it had to be good for me. My lungs had filled up with fluid  and I had congestive heart failure. I wasn't sure what was going to happen with this Lasix stuff, but I soon learned where the phrase "pee like a racehorse" came from. I had to jump out of the bed and grab my pee container right away. I got everything in position, but my little fella seemed to have shrunk while I thought I was dying. I didn't have the proper angle and my liquids flew over the top of the container and hit the seat next to the bed. I tried to reach it in order to wipe it up, but I couldn't reach because of my intravenous hookup.

   


A nice old doctor calmed me down and let me know that I wasn't going to die and I did not need any surgery.  After I peed for about three hours, I started to feel better. I assumed I would be back home by dinner time. Then some soft-talking doctor came in and said I was going to be admitted to a room and might be there a few days. Needless to say, I did not like him.  In my mind, I assumed the soft-talker was wrong and I would be home in two days maximum. Friday came and went and I still wasn't going home. I remember texting a friend because I was so sad and mad about not being able to leave and go home. It was a long and emotional evening.

AND THEN BRITTNEY CAME INTO MY LIFE...
    Brittney was my main nurse and single-handedly provided me with my will to continue living. After we talked a couple of times, I didn't care how long they had me stay there. It might seem odd, but that was one of the best weekends of my year. In fact, I told her I would like to come back for a weekend during the Holidays. I believe it was Sunday morning when I woke up and saw her in my doorway. With the bright lights shining behind her, she looked like an angel. I asked her if I was in Heaven. She told me no, I was still in Nashua. It was unbelievable. She could give me shots or draw blood and nothing hurt at all. Sunday came and I heard the news that I was going to be discharged later that day. I was so sad. I did not want to leave anymore.
(This cartoon is for my sexist, shallow male fans that enjoy
this type of thing. This in no way reflects my feelings for
Nurse Brittney)

Let's take a quick break from Brittney before this all seems obsessive and borderline creepy.

     I had a live Fantasy Football Draft on that Sunday that I was in the hospital. I called in and my friend put me on speaker phone and I was able to make my first four picks from my hospital room. That is something that I never imagined doing and should make for an interesting memory next year.
PS  My team stinks

Okay enough of that, back to Brittney!
           
   
     (In the dream world I very briefly created for Brittney and I, this would be the song that I wrote
for her. It is very healthy, and not weird at all, to have an active Dream World.)
  
     Now I don't want you to think I only enjoyed her because of her angelic looks. She is also an excellent nurse, very professional and caring. And you can't teach one person how to restore the will to live in another person and she has that ability. It was like magic. My heart continues to get stronger and there will always be a piece of it that belongs to Brittney.

My favorite memory of my second hospital stay that does not have to do with Brittney follows:

     My bartender and great friend, Adrissi, came to visit me at the hospital. She happened to be there when the sun was going down. The sun was shining right onto my hospital bed. She asked if I wanted her to adjust the window blinds because she is very caring that way. The string for the blinds were too high for her to reach. In her short-ish skirt she climbed onto a chair to reach the string. She kept adjusting the blinds and I kept saying "that's too much" or "that's not enough." Eventually, she realized I was just enjoying her standing on the chair and she turned around and wagged her finger at me and said "you are a naughty, naughty boy." This was another great test for my heart.

Rhythm of the Night (Part One - Brush With Death #2 of 2015)

          My story begins on Saturday August 15, 2015. When I woke up, I had planned a day of watching the local Roller Derby team with some friends. In the morning I received a text from a friend requesting a ride to his bank. When I picked him up it turns out he was not feeling well. We ended up going to the Emergency Room. It turned into quite a lengthy visit, but my friend received the care he needed and is doing well now. I missed the Roller Derby, but the hospital trip seemed a little more important. Some people think my priorities are all screwed up, but I got this situation correct.
     The next day I assumed I had picked up countless germs and diseases by spending the previous day in the hospital. I developed a cough and sore throat and then an earache took over. On Wednesday August 19th, I called my doctor for an appointment. They did not have any appointments available that day so they referred me to one of those Convenient Urgent Care places. They did the usual blood pressure and listening to my heart. The doctor asked if I had heart problems which I did not. He said it didn't sound "right." They hooked me up to an EKG machine. The doctor said that also was not normal. He faxed the results of that test to a local hospital. The hospital instructed the doctor to send me directly to them. I was in a state of disbelief as outside of my aching ear, I felt the same as I always did. After a few of my statements that I was fine, the doctor said he would get an ambulance to take me to the hospital if I wasn't going to drive myself there. It was then I realized that he wasn't kidding and I really needed to go to a hospital to have my heart looked at. I may not have driven straight to the hospital because I felt fine, but I did go that day.

     I have been very lucky in my life and have had little to no experience in hospitals. No stitches, broken bones, diseases, or serious illnesses. (knocking on wood currently).  The hospital staff did a bunch of tests and determined I had an irregular heartbeat, specifically called Atrial Fibrillation (AFIB). I found it weird that I had something called "AFIB" as I have spent most of my life lying and making up stuff. Still I expected this to be a quick visit as I felt fine. I was not happy when I was told I would have to stay overnight. I slept in my jeans just in case they changed their mind and decided to send me home. They did not.
     Made it through my first overnight stay in a hospital. It wasn't much fun. The next day was full of tests and I was rewarded at the end of the day with having my heart shocked back into its correct rhythm. I lost the rest of my sparse chest hair during this procedure, which was okay because it made it easier to see the rectangular imprint on my chest where the electroshock paddle thing was. I never had been "put under" as they say, but I sure liked it! I was quite high afterwards. I may have tormented the nurse who took care of me after this procedure. There might have been some inappropriate questions and comments, but I was under a lot of stress. She got me back by setting the alarm on my bed so it would go off when I left the bed. That scared the heck out of me when I got up to close my window blind. It was a very funny prank to pull on a guy that just had a heart procedure. After I survived that, I realized I was going to be okay.

Tidbits I learned from my first hospital stay:

- the hospital treats water like gold when they don't know what it wrong with you. It took two hours of begging to get half a Dixie cup of water in that place.

- it is not nice to yell out "Man, I couldn't take another bite of this blueberry muffin!" when your hospital roommate is on a "liquid only" diet.

- Sometimes weird things happen. One of my overnight nurses had a first name of "Almedina."
My brother and I have a good friend named "Al Medina."  how cool is that? (see photo)

- now that my heart is back in it's proper rhythm, I have noticed I am a much better dancer and I am not behind a beat when I clap my hands at concerts!  All of these years I suffered! Who knew??
(I have to apologize to my friend Crystal, who tried to make me look good dancing and I always let her down. Little did we know it was because my heart was out of rhythm)

     I was discharged from the hospital on Friday August 21st. I was free to live my life in perfect rhythm.

     The next part of my story is coming soon.

                              

Circling Through Life

          My time spent at the lovely Holiday Inn in Nashua, NH is over.  Sixteen weeks on the road, but back home now. I wrote the following in the hotel then kind of lost sight of it with moving back home and assorted other items. The info is a little dated, but I figured I should get it out to my loyal readers and then get started on my next masterpiece. It is nice to be back in the comforts of my own home surrounded by all of my junk.  I sure do miss that maid service though!
     B.B. King passed away of Thursday May 14, 2015.  After the news sunk in, I needed to play some B.B. to hear his voice and distinct guitar-playing.  Sadly, the part of my house where I store the bulk of my cd's is unreachable due to the repairs going on inside my home from the horrific roof collapse back in February. Thankfully, I don't always return my cd's immediately back to the stand where they belong. I was able to track down two renegade B.B. discs in a random pile of cd's, which was quite fortuitous. They have been with me ever since.  I have "Live At The Apollo" from 1991 and "Let The Good Times Roll: The Music of Louis Jordan" from 1999.  These two discs have helped me through my B.B. grieving process.
     The following day, we suffered another loss.  Football placekicker Garo Yepremian expired.  His fame came during the 1970's and as a kid, I had no idea what a "Garo Yepremian" was.  His name was odd, he looked odd and threw the oddest pass in football history. The fact that he threw this pass in the Super Bowl in 1973 just adds to his legacy. His team, the Miami Dolphins, won that Super in spite of his pass.  I learned two new things about Mr. Yepremian last week:
1) after all of his fame and success with the Miami Dolphins from 1970 to 1978, he went on to play one season with my beloved New Orleans Saints in 1979 (that is where his fame and success ended).
2) he was born in Larnaca, Cyprus which is an island somewhere. His family home had no indoor plumbing and they kept warm by burning olive pits. They also made some mean Dirty Martinis.
     Somehow over the years, I forgot how much I loved Kelly LeBrock in the mid-1980's.  I don't think I am alone when I say her talent was under-appreciated.  Her work in the back to back films "The Woman in Red" and "Weird Science" can holdup against any two films of the great actresses of our day. The fact that she does not have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is an injustice of epic proportions.
     Okay, that's it for new.  Look for a fresh blog entry coming out soon!!
   

Weekend With Larrys

 

Recently, I spent some weekend time with two of my friends named Larry. They don't really know each other, but they may have met once years ago. They both entered my life around the same time in the late 80's or early 90's.  A couple of Friday's ago, I went to see one of my Larry's play with his band in Leominster, MA. I have always needed nicknames for my Larrys, so my friends could tell them apart when I spoke about them.  This particular Larry was originally known as "Larry Lasagna" due to the fact that his actual last name contains many of the same letters as the word "lasagna." He is currently known as "Guitar Larry" which is probably a more suitable nickname, as he is a fantastic guitar player.

     I met this Larry at the Stormy Monday bar located in the old Country Gourmet restaurant in Merrimack, NH.  The Country Gourmet was located where Buckley's restaurant is today. Larry played there with a band called the "Swanky Moes" and I cannot guess how many times I went there to see them, or how many people I forced to come with me. I also can't imagine my total bar tab there, as I used to like drinking beer back then.  We developed a nice friendship through our musical connection. Sadly, the Swanky Moes split up and followed different musical paths throughout the region. I gave Larry my number to call me if he started up a new band. Now this was in the old days before MySpace, Facebook, text messaging etc... I wasn't sure if I would ever hear from my friend Larry.  Days turned into weeks and weeks into years, until one day I came home and had a voicemail message from Larry on my home phone!  The clouds lifted off of my musical life and I was back in business as a groupie!

     Over the years, I have gone to see Larry play all over New Hampshire and Massachusetts. I love his guitar playing and the songs he likes to play. All of the times I have seen him have been enjoyable. We have had some memorable moments as well.  We gave hair-styling tips to a young woman at the Strange Brew.  There is a good chance she never went out in public again after that exchange. I witnessed a woman willingly get spanked for her birthday for three hours in Lowell, MA while the band played on. Larry saved me from an ill-advised romantic interlude in Goffstown, NH with a woman with a nice sweater. Larry's guitar playing makes the ladies crazy! I think what might be our fondest memory however, is when I went to see him at a restaurant/lounge/hotel in Rochester, NH.


Not only did I get to listen to him play, but I expertly ordered the ham steak dinner while I was there. Easily the greatest ham steak dinner of my life. It even came with freshly canned pineapple. No lie, one of the best meals of my life and  I owe it all to Larry.
 

Larry & Mark

Now my friend Larry has reunited with his Swanky Moes band mates and formed the L&M Rhythm Kings.  It would not be right to talk this much about Larry and not mention his sidekick, Mark.  He is another great guy, great musician, and someone I am happy to call my friend.

       

I saw my other friend Larry on the Saturday afternoon, following the Friday night that I saw the Larry described here already.  There was no more difficult way to describe that.    This Larry is simply referred to as "Old Larry" or my "OLD friend Larry" within my inner circle.
   

I met this Larry at a job soon after college. My boss told all of her staff that we were getting a new employee who just left the Air Force. I was expecting a young, clean-cut guy to be joining our team, but instead we got a guy who already had completed a full career in the Air Force. I didn't know if he ever saw active duty, but I was fairly certain he was involved in the majority of skirmishes that our country was ever part of. We initially became friends due to our mutual love of the Boston Celtics. Eventually, we discovered we enjoyed a lot of the same music as well.  Since then we have gone to many concerts together and exchanged a bunch of CD's. I should also mention that this Larry also played in a band called "The Delrays," a few decades ago. The only song I remember from the cassette he played for me, was of him singing "Proud Mary." I don't think Mary, or anyone else would have been proud of his vocals. It wasn't all bad however. He met his lovely wife Barbara while part of this band. They have been together ever since.

     Despite a little age difference, we have managed to have lots of fun and laughter over the years.  One of my favorite gags that I pulled on him was when he was looking for work years after we worked together, and I setup an interview for him where I was working at the time.  He left his Winter coat in the lobby when he went in for the interview. While he was in there, I filled up the sleeves of his coat with crumpled up paper. When he came out of the interview and tried to put his coat on, he couldn't get his arms in the sleeves!  It was the funniest thing I ever saw! Eventually, he pulled all of the paper out and got his coat on. I am not sure if the interviewer saw his struggle with the coat, but he did not get hired.

 He got me back though a few years later though.  One of my friends seeded and worked on putting in a lawn for me. That night Larry came over to visit. He always had a hard time backing out of my long driveway, so he decided to turn around on the lawn.  I yelled at him from the front door and he just cranked up "Fun,Fun,Fun" by the Beach Boys and gave me the middle finger as he drove on the lawn.  He still denies this happened, but it did.  I certainly wouldn't put it in my Blog if it wasn't true.

   
I have learned many things from Old Larry.  He has shown me incredible generosity and thoughtfulness over the years. He is also a tremendous friend-keeper.  The guy has friends all over the country and has a great ability to keep in contact with them. Larry has also shown me that you can survive a personal tragedy and still carry on with your life for all of the other people around you that need you. I am in that group that need him. He has amazing inner strength.
   


Larry is also ultra-talented in the world of fly tying. I knew nothing about this art of tying flies for fly fishing, but I learned a lot from him. His work has appeared in many books.  For me, the most impressive thing is that he actually had a postage stamp made with one of his flies pictured on it!  Is that nuts? I say yes.

     So those are my two Larrys. I love both of these great guys.  There are lots of things I don't have, but I am blessed to have many good friends like these two dudes.