Category Archives: Slice of Life

Turning Away From The Trainwreck

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Bube2

By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE — May 25, 2014.

That was the day that the president used the occasion of Memorial Day weekend to visit troops in Afghanistan, California was memorializing the victims of a shooting rampage two days earlier and Pope Francis visited the Holy Land and talked about … peace in the region.

It was also the day that Sofia had a play date about 45 minutes from our house. Not too far to say no, but too far to go home just to come back 2½ hours later.

My wife and I decided to use the occasion to explore the thriving metropolis of Harleysville (Montgomery County).

Not feeling much like the Vikings of yore, we wound up at a joint called the Harleysville Hotel, which is a pub/sports bar that I suppose is hoping on Friday and Saturday nights.

We sat down at a table that, literally, had a TV screen right above us.

There was no choice but to look at it.

And the Phillies game was on.

I told my wife that this was the first time I had bothered to lay eyes on the Phils this season. Surprised, she asked why.

I answered her question with a question: why should I?

While I rarely win an argument – especially when your wife is lawyer – she accepted my rationale.

It was already predetermined that the 2014 season was going to be like a B-level action-adventure flick with the well-worn plot twists, mandatory car chases, gratuitous violence and predictable ending.

It’s the kind of movie that permeates the cable dial, and the kind that I click right through in a desperate attempt to stimulate the few remaining brain cells I have left.

The 2014 Phillies, by design, were pretty much the same way. They entered the season needing everything to go absolutely perfect to maybe linger in the conversation for a wild card berth.

Instead, nothing has gone right.

And I say goodbye and good riddance.

On May 25, the villain of this horror movie was Josh Beckett of the Dodgers. From the few early-game pitches I watched, while also checking out the more enthusiastically played college softball game on another screen, I muttered that the feeble Phillies were not going to touch him.

As the burger and fries arrived, I paid more attention to the stubborn ketchup bottle than to the Phillies.

It wasn’t until I got home later and was scouring the Internet for sports information as I prepared for the pending PhillyPhanatics.com Blog Talk Radio show that I saw Beckett had actually no-hit the Phillies.

I was neither mortified nor embarrassed to be Philly-born and bred.

I was simply bemused.

And in the months since, I have looked back on that day with regret.

Had we not walked into the Harleysville Hotel, a place with more television screens than patrons, I would be able to say that I made it through the current season without watching a pitch.

Instead, there is a caveat: I have not watched a pitch by conscious choice, and the only time I did by happenstance was the same day when they were humbled into a state of hitlessness in a season that has seen a once powerful offensive team come up as futile as the pope’s pleas for peace.

OBJECTIVE VIEW

It’s not like I am some sort of sports seer – like some Vegas oddsmaker with the soul of Nostradamus – to know that the Phillies were not going to be worth the time and effort.

I was just objective enough to not be like a subjective kid in a Phillies’ cap.

And it’s not like I dislike baseball.

The Phillies were my first favorite team in 1970. I learned to read the sports agate page by comparing their record against that of the National League West cellar-dwelling San Diego Padres. I watched repeated showings of highlights on the 1950 World Series during rain delays until the slow and steady rise by the middle of the “Me” decade culminated with a highlight to wash away being swept by the Yankees as the high-water mark.

In 1980, and in heart-stopping fashion, they won it all.

I never really mustered the same enthusiasm for the Phillies, or baseball, after the moment when Tug McGraw fanned Willie Wilson with Philly’s finest walking behind the backstop with police dogs on leashes.

It was like finally getting to kiss your high school crush at graduation, and checking it off the bucket list.

Baseball was probably No. 4 on my list – football slowly overtook hockey, with basketball a semi-distant third – but anyone who knows me knows that there pretty much is no No. 5.

No golf. No tennis. No soccer. No NASCAR. No Boxing.

Just the big four – including baseball, and I’m not wired to do anything other than to root, root, root for the home team.

Yes, I still cringed when Jim Fregosi pulled Roger Mason for a worn-out Mitch Williams. From my sixth sense, I knew the Joe Carter homer was coming, just like I knew this disastrous season was on the horizon before the first story about a non-roster invitee coming off Tommy John surgery ran in the antiques known as newspapers on the day when pitchers and catchers reported back in February.

I still played fantasy baseball in a carry-over league, building a team that was ready to dominate before the strike of 1994 caused the league to fold.

I still went to Cooperstown a few years later and considered it the hallowed ground that it is, even without Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson enshrined.

And I’ll talk baseball – arguing matters like whether the 1977, 1980 or 2008 Phillies were the best in franchise history (I got 1977) and what 25 guys would make the roster of the All-Jewish Team – without hesitation.

Heck, my favorite all-time board game remains Strat-O-Matic Baseball.

I enjoyed the window of opportunity being reopened in the first decade of the new century, one that saw a World Series title in 2008 and a loss to the Yankees in the 2009 World Series before the slow and steady decline to where we are now began.

It now seems that my 7-year-old Sofia, who I will have seen bat more times this year in her coach-pitch softball league (I was an assistant to the assistant coach) than Ryan Howard or Chase Utley until the ends of their careers, will also be watching highlights of a World Series loss (circa 2009) to the dang Yanks two decades from now.

The difference is that she probably won’t care.

And if she does, it won’t be from my influence.

FINAL STRAW

If I had a final straw on the back of a camel under the care of a chiropractor, it was the trade deadline that just passed with nary a move by overmatched GM Ruben Amaro Jr.

It is true confession time, folks.

I may not have been subjecting myself to the pitch-by-pitch torture of games – although maybe I would if I suffered from insomnia – but I have been following the Phillies fairly closely.

I check the boxscores, and team stats, every morning after a game. I read whatever I can about the progress – or lack thereof – of the few farmhands that, through attrition, they sell to the unwashed masses as prospects.

And I was getting psyched for the possibilities of the trade deadline.

Understanding that baseball is not like other sports, where being brutal does not guarantee a chance for a short wait before retooling through the draft or farm system (even if the stink in the barn is fumigated by the arrival of imports from other organizations), it was clear a push onto the reset button was vital.

They may have even become worth watching, dare I say it, if only for the sake of morbid curiosity.

It came and went with nothing.

A hollow feeling, to say the least.

I had the MLB Network on the tube for more than two hours – after clicking through some “B” movies – and they didn’t even mentioned the word “Phillies” until a half-hour after the deadline pass.

And when they did, it was with a passing chuckle and shrug.

A recent potentate, your Phillies have plummeted that far off the radar screen.

Bottom line: This organization can’t get out its own way if it tried.

The farm system is in shambles, both in terms of finding talent and cultivating what bit of it remains. Everywhere you look, you see once-heralded homegrown players – Maikel Franco, Freddie Galvis, Roman Quinn Jesse Biddle, etc. – backsliding.

And they can’t even make a trade, if only for the sake of doing it to make themselves relevant (with the Eagles about to render them completely irrelevant), while in “seller” mode.

Amaro can’t be trusted to rebuild. And his boss, Dave Montgomery, is best-suited to be in his office deciding what date would best to give away Harry Kalas bobblehead dolls.

But the real issue, the core of the matter, is not about either one of the non-dynamic duo who get pushed out in front of television cameras to bemoan bad luck of injuries.

GETTING OWNED

I recently came across a poll that asked which Philadelphia team you’d buy if money were no object.

My answer, after careful consideration, was the Phillies.

Even though they are No. 4 on my list.

Even though baseball, compared to the other three major sports, brings up the rear here in Gordonville.

Even though I haven’t watched a pitch – by choice – this season, and certainly don’t plan to with the sounds of pads popping at Eagles’ training camp.

Why?

Better question than about my blind eye to their B-movie script and Bollywood ending.

The other three teams are in better hands. They may make mistakes, but the goal is to win, not just exist in a state of suspended animation.

My purchase of the Phillies would be done as a public service. Personally, I am good with the Phillies, overall. Numerous division titles, five pennants and two World Series titles since I dared to care at age 5.

But what about everyone out there who still cares? They are the ones being slapped in the face while being asked to present their mortgage papers to bring their families to a game.

You could say the Phillies’ high payroll is proof that the mystical ownership group lurking in the shadows cares about winning, but it was more caring about the windfall of a window of opportunity opening by happenstance – and in spite of a dunce for a manager – a few years back.

They developed man-crushes on the nucleus of the team, sticking themselves with onerous contracts and not realizing they needed to make pragmatic moves before standing in quicksand and yelling “help” at the 2014 trading deadline while the rest of the league laughs.

Without going to Google, can you name one of the Phillies’ owners?

I can’t.

And until one steps out of the shadows and takes charge, I am not watching.

Not even at the Harleysville Hotel.

This column first appeared at http://www.phillyphanatics.com

No Gray Area: Life Is Sweet

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Merchant

By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE – When Natalie Merchant took the stage at the American Music Theatre in Lancaster on July 9, my excitement of seeing one of the more provocative singer-songwriter voices of my formative years briefly turned to more to melancholy from my close-up view (third row, center).

When I had seen Merchant in concert – back when she fronted the 10,000 Maniacs in the 1980s and once shortly after she launched her solo career in 1993 – she was a restrained whirling dervish in patented schoolgirl attire.

About a year and a half older than myself, there was a combination of youthful exuberance within both of us, I suppose.

But on July 9 – 2014 – time had passed.

My initial shock of seeing her hair, now less than shoulder length and turned almost all gray was a not-so-subtle reminder of the evaporated decades.

Still dressed the same, but slightly more full-figured, and one would without prior knowledge might be tempted to quip that Merchant looked somewhat silly.

She barely began the first song – “Lulu,” from her new CD – when I reflected on myself.

If Natalie could see a picture of the “much fuller” G2 that used to see her in concert and the one now, she may have had some initial shock as well.

I also rock some gray, particularly in my goatee, and far less hair on top of a dome that once housed curls to spare.

And like Natalie, I’m not vain enough to do anything about the gray. And I’ll do a Kojak before the monstrosity of a weave or wig to combat the baldness.

I am also a married man now — one who spent most of the concert with my daughter, 7, on my lap because the seating Gods predictably placed “that guy” in front of her (and chose my lap over switching seats).

As Merchant sang “Lulu” – a carefully crafted song about Louise Brooks, a silent film star whose mind of her own led to with a quick fall from grace – it quickly became all about the music.

The verses of the opening song ended with the lines “everybody knew your name” before changing to “everybody cursed your name” before concluding with “nobody knew your name.”

And at some level, one has to wonder if Merchant saw herself in the subject of the song, causing her to pen it.

Any of us who have experienced a rise and fall can certainly relate to the story of Brooks.

And to that of Merchant.

Like me, Natalie became a parent later in life. I’m sure it created a seismic shift in priorities. Your career, whether as an acclaimed singer-songwriter or a big-fish-in-a-small-pond journalist, takes a back seat to the most important job you will have.

Backed by a multi-piece band that included strings, Merchant continued with a set list of mostly slower introspective songs – like “River” (about River Phoenix), “Seven Years” and “Beloved Wife” — that may not immediately register with the casual fan expecting a greatest hits package.

Merchant may or may not have been completely “into it” at the start. Just another gig in just another town, far from the big cities and larger venues she used to play, but this audience was loaded with diehards.

“We still love you, Natalie,” was a common refrain from the audience between songs.

While the music was well-rehearsed and beautiful from the jump, the vibe began to build like a life force.

You wish you could bottle it up, but that would make it less special when it does reveal itself.

You just have to let it happen, and absorb it when it does.

Merchant began moving to the music with less inhibition, and interacting — and being playful — with the audience.

(Note: This was confirmed by “that guy” after the show. He was in front of me in line in the bathroom and holding a set list he copped from one of the performers. He said he had seen her four times on the tour, and this was the most “free” she seemed.)

Whenever Merchant performed a song from the new release, her first of original material in 13 years, she jokingly held up the CD case and gently reminded the crowd that it was for sale in the lobby.

She also added that there were no T-shirts because “she doesn’t like seeing her face” on them.

I vividly remember having a 10,000 Maniacs shirt back in the day, and it was of an album cover with no faces, so the logic is debatable.

But I’ll manage to survive.

This is just Natalie being Natalie.

If she were like everyone else – basking in the limelight with the likes of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Beyonce, etc. – she wouldn’t be her.

And I wouldn’t be there in the third row, with my daughter on my lap, soaking up the moment and using the opportunity to replay my own trials and tribulations while relating – as I always have – to her insightful and unique lyrics.

And on July 9, there was no better place on the planet to be.

It all got the best of me during “Life Is Sweet” when she sang out: “But I tell you, life is short/Be thankful because before you know/It will be over … Cause life is sweet/And life is also very short/Your life is sweet.”

My wife instinctively knew that this song – with Sofia being held tight on my lap – was going to make me lose it, and reached across Sofia’s unused seat and rubbed my shoulder.

To my left, my mother glanced over – probably wondering what the big deal was – but some people just don’t get it (case in point, her only take-away after the show was that Merchant had a good voice but should buy a wig or “do something” about the premature gray).

But I do.

I always got it.

And Merchant was clearly getting it that her voice – and her songs – still had a place in this crazy, mixed-up world.

Merchant followed “Life Is Sweet” with “Ladybird,” my favorite track from the new CD, and ended the set with “Break Your Heart” before a rousing ovation brought her back to the stage.

While people starting shouting out requests, I felt a bit annoyed because I wanted to see what she had up her own sleeve without urging.

She heeded the plea of some joker who wanted to hear “Bleezer’s Ice Cream,” and she fortunately stopped after only eight bars and launched into “Wonder,” sparking more energy in the room that was growing more intimate by the song.

A woman approached the stage and gave her some flowers, then another came up and whispered something.

Merchant came back to the mic and said – in a playfully hushed tone – that the woman requested “something by 10,000 Maniacs.”

The audience responded as expected.

Merchant, who is often reluctant to fall back on songs from her old band, then added: “And I said … yes.”

“These Are Days” followed, and the audience that had spent much of the show sitting and intently absorbing the music was up on its feet clapping along (Sofia, too).

And something amazing happened. Maybe it was just the lighting, but her hair didn’t seem as gray.

And she smiled wide as she danced around with the old verve.

It was a transformation.

Natalie Merchant became the Natalie Merchant of a bygone era.

And I went there, too.

Welcome to the power of music.

I barely got to whisper to Sofia that “These Are Days” was the “summary” song at the end of Mommy and Daddy’s wedding video when more requests reigned down.

I cringed when I heard more mellow requests, and was pleasantly surprised when a call for “Hey Jack Kerouac” – one of my all-time favorite 10,000 Maniacs songs — was accepted, on the contingency that the guitar player knew it.

He did, and Merchant sang along while the drummer found a beat.

She continued with “Carnival” and urged the crowd to its feet with “Kind and Generous.”

When the song ended, she left us wanting more.

And everybody knew her name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Force Is With Me

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Image

By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

By GORDON GLANTZ

GORDONVILLE – A lot of writer types spend Father’s Day looking at the past, with dear-old-dad yarns, and I have done my share of that as well.

That is particularly true in more recent years. My father died in 2008, father-in-law in 2010 and stepfather in 2011.

But I feel myself pulled by a force keeping me in the present, and focused on the future.

That force is the greatest of all: My daughter, Sofia, and my love for her.

Last Father’s Day, I suppose I was still in a state of semi-shock, having recently joined the ranks of the unemployed and trying to find my footing in a New World Order.

Priority No. 1 was simply to make up for lost time with Sofia.

As it was, I was seeing her for a grand total of 45 minutes a day – including 10 to 15 minutes of just watching her sleep, kissing her cheek and stroking her hair – when I would return home from the salt mines well after she ventured off to Dreamland.

In the time since, I have completely wrapped my arms around the role of stay-at-home dad. Ironically, I have been able to do this while doing twice as much writing – not to mention different types of putting pen to paper (actually fingers to keyboard, as old-fashioned writing actually give me hand cramps) – as I did when employed by a newspaper.

It is the best of both worlds, because no writer’s soul is complete without love.

I know it sounds corny – even in a John Lennon kind of a way – but Sofia turns me to a bowl of mush.

I have always loved her so much that it often hurts.

For those of you who thought I would grow weary of driving her to and from school and her myriad of diverse activities – not to mention play dates, negotiated pit stops for snacks, monitoring homework progress, brushing her hair and giving allergy pills – keep on thinking.

It has been the best time of my life.

When Sofia was born, I professed pleasure that she was a girl. It was not just a cover story, as I felt being a daddy to a little girl was easy.

Just let her be “daddy’s little girl” and let the chips fall where they may.

A boy? With me? The sports pressure might have reared its head.

No, I wouldn’t have made a theoretical mini-G2 do anything against his will, but I would have made him try – and keep trying – before waving the white flag.

I know that sports are how boys are defined, and how they define themselves.

Without sports, I know I would not have had some modicum of self-esteem. I would have wanted the same for him, but surely would have relented if it was there without it.

With a girl, in these times, the whole playing field is open. Dance, music, art … you name it, you got it.

And she got it.

Sofia started with dance lessons two years ago.

We say that is her passion, but we can modify that a bit to her “first passion.”

Sports dabbling started last spring with coach-pitch baseball. She was one of only two girls on her team. She wasn’t very good, but she always kept a good attitude and a smile on her face.

She tearfully confessed last summer that she wanted to learn how to do a cartwheel like some of the girls in her dance class, so we signed her up for gymnastics.

She will never be on the platform of the Olympics hearing the national anthem, but she has gotten 100 percent since she first walked into the Little Gym of Spring House last summer.

She enjoys it so much that we had her birthday party there, and any suggestion of crossing it off of her hectic agenda gets met with protest that would make Abbie Hoffman proud.

Although my wife sees it differently, Sofia had no qualms about moving on to play Rookie Softball this spring. It was all girls, which was a plus. I was told it was “exactly the same” as last year, but with girls and a softball, so I was comfortable with the format.

No more boys saying stuff like: “Why do we have to have girls on our team?” (“Why do we have to have boys on our team?” Sofia snorkeled back.).

But there were some discernible differences. These girls, mostly in second grade (Sofia and a few others were in first), could play much better than the kindergarten and first-grade boys in coach-pitch. And unlike coach-pitch were strike outs. Not after three pitches, but you still had to humbly take a seat after swinging and missing too much in an at-bat (the amount of times varied, depending on variables like the number of kids there and how much time was left in the game).

The first two games, after some spring training in the backyard, Sofia put the ball in play in seven at-bats.

I’d like to say they were tape-measure shots, but you would probably only need a ruler to measure how far they traveled.

But she was happy. And I was happy to see her happy.

And then, fateful game No. 3.

Cruella De Vil’s evil twin, coaching for the team from Plymouth Township, insisted on strikeouts after five swings.

Sofia had a rough day, striking out four out of five times. The next game, the struggles continued and the confidence began to wane.

That was on a Saturday of a weekend I had her alone (her mommy left town for a girls-only weekend and I was gleefully tasked with “daddying” her up). I don’t know if the slump bothered her as much as it bothered me, but she seemed more than willing to go the next day for some swings in the batting cage at Freddy Hill Farms.

We went to what we were told was the slowest machine, but the ball came out pretty fast. Before she was ready, she got beaned in the thigh. She started to cry and wanted to go home. I explained to her that she had to stay in the batter’s box and she wouldn’t get hit.

After some coaxing, she got back in. I told her she didn’t have to hit the ball, since it was going so fast, but to just give me good level swings.

Lo and behold, she hit the ball a few times. And then, it struck her in the hand.

She was legitimately injured, with a formidable bruise on her thumb.

I got some first-aid stuff from the staff and we sat on the bench near the cage while she cried it out (giving me a chance to hold her tight, which was my lemonade out of the lemons).

Meanwhile, a young lady in North Penn High softball attire stepped into the same cage and began working on her swing. I told Sofia to watch how she batted, but Sofia was quick to point out that she was older and could handle the faster pitching.

And it struck me — as if I had been beaned — that I was bordering on being guilty of treating Sofia how I would a boy.

I needed to reel myself in.

She thought softball was fun, and didn’t seemed too bothered with her slump (she is more into being a fashionista on the field, making sure her headband and sunglasses matched the lime-green uniform).

We played two rounds of miniature gold, got some ice cream and didn’t talk softball.

Three days later, we were back at the field. My job — as a low-level assistant — was to keep the scorebook and make sure the girls stayed in their predetermined batting order, had their helmets on and didn’t swing their bats until they were in the on-deck cage. As fate would have it, Sofia was batting first that game and was at the plate before I could even say anything.

They gave her well more than five swings, but she struck out anyway.

Things were more settled before the second at-bat, so I called her over and channeled my inner Mike Brady (dad on “The Brady Bunch”).

“If you do your best, honey, it’s the best you can do, so just do your best,” I said.

The look on her face was worth the 6,000 cutie-pie pictures I take — and post to Facebook at an obnoxious rate – on a per-week basis.

It was like a cloud had been lifted.

And she hit the ball.

And she kept on hitting it – sometimes so far that you could measure the distance with a yardstick – for the rest of the season.

She started showing more confidence in the field, being a sure bet on soft grounders in her zip code while knowing which base to go with the ball (even with an arm almost as bad as Ben Revere’s).

She played all the positions. I thought she was best at second base, but she seemed to get a kick out of catcher after I told her that I played there (I actually played more first, but I want no part of her playing there for now).

The softball season, which was pretty much our activity together, was probably as much of a learning experience for me as it was for her.

All I want her to do – no matter the endeavor — is her best.

And I promise I will do the same.

In the present, and in the future.

 

The Gift

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By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE — Blowing out someone else’s candle doesn’t make yours shine any brighter.

When I first saw that scroll through Facebook one day, I was moved to tears (and I’m man enough to say it).

I woke up one day – maybe around 2010 – and found myself in a work environment where this anonymous saying should have been recited like the pledge of allegiance, and plastered on the wall as a reminder to those refusing to salute.

Sometimes I think that if I had come up with that idea, the storyline may have gone differently.

But the reality was that, if only because it would have been my idea, it would have been dismissed offhand.

That’s how it was going by the end of the roller-coaster ride.

My star had fallen.

It was what it was.

Playing it back in my mind, I had been on the endangered species list for a while, making me not unlike many of the middle-aged jobless souls cast adrift across the country.

I had overstayed my welcome, plain and simple.

The script said I was to ride off into the sunset on my own terms, with dignity, but I kept hanging on.

For reasons I can’t explain, I needed a little push out the door.

That came when my candle was blown out by a Kangaroo court.

Whether or not it ever made anyone else’s shine any brighter is something I ponder less as the days, weeks and months pass.

I think I know the answer, which speaks more about that place than it does about me.

It is what it is.

And it is what it became.

A blessing.

They gave me a gift.

A gift I have been unwrapping ever since.

 All Good

Instead of taking my blood pressure three times a day to make sure I wasn’t going to follow family tradition and drift into stroke terrain, it has been normal since the morning after.

Although my medication had been changed and tweaked, the real life-saver was my little girl.
When we first told Sofia that Daddy wouldn’t be going back to work anymore, the reaction of our young old soul was to cry.

All she had known for what was then six years on earth was visiting with me, although I brought her there less and less the more hostile it got. People didn’t even want me around, let alone my daughter.
Still, there were fond memories. It was the place where she took her first steps and where certain people who don’t run with the pack still made a fuss over her.

Plus, I think she understood that the job, for all its increasing stress and negatives, provided me with a place in the world.

It wasn’t uncommon for strangers to approach in public and ask if I was me – and she was Sofia – based on the regular mentions of her in my Sunday column that, for a while, made her the best known toddler in Central Montgomery County.

So, in her own little way, her initial reaction was to mourn the loss.

But it didn’t last.

How could it?

When we added that it meant she would see me all the time, especially at night, she did one of those smiling-through-the-crying things that kids do.

And it was all good.

And it has been all good ever since.

Lucky Seven

Before the axe fell, I drove Sofia to school in the morning, picked her up, set her up with a snack while anxiously waiting 15-20 minutes for a babysitter and then zooming into work like Steve McQueen  – where I would still get the evil eye from the CBB (Candle Blowing Brigade) for being tardy in their judgmental eyes.

By the time I got home, post-midnight, the best I could do was a kiss on the cheek while she slept.

All told, that was about an hour per day with the child we waited a long time to have. Yeah, we had the weekends, but I was often so exasperated that I needed to sleep off the week, exhausted from defending my candles from those conspiring to blow them out (not easy when it is most often happening when I’m not in the building).

This last year?

All Sofia, all the time.

And I couldn’t be any more content.

Sofia just turned seven. We have a tradition of staying up until her birth time,10:31, to officially ring in her new year – although she had a party for her school friends, a snack-time party at school last week and a house party for friends and family this past weekend.

And, in typical Sofia fashion, she got choked up.

We reminded her of all the good things that happened when she was six, like the addition of a pain-in-the-ass dog and the several trips we were able to make this past summer.

It was also the year she and Daddy got to make up for lost time.

I see and hear those parents who can’t wait to get a break from their kids, hoping against hope that snow doesn’t postpone school, and I just don’t get it.

Maybe they need to walk a mile in the shoes of a parent longing to be with their child during her wonder years – those before it becomes all about the friends, and the boys – instead of breathing in the air of a toxic environment alongside miserable people perfecting the art of throwing rocks from glass McMansions.  

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

I was accused of wanting everyone to like me, and being too focused on that, but that dime-store analysis was off-point.

It was more about what I really loathe.

It was about being misunderstood.

They were the hunters, and I was the witch.

I admit that it was new for me in an environment where I was once beloved, but surely nothing new for many of you reading this.

It happens.

Things just snowball.

It soon became easier for those above me in the food chain to go with that flow, to ignore their self-created litany of double standards and join the lynch mob and point to the blown-out candle I had become, and give it credence.

They have to live with themselves, and look at their own sorrowful images in the mirror.

I am living with myself, and thriving in the process.

All the Write Stuff

A writer by trade, I am actually writing more – way more – now than before. People are paying me to do it, and I can do it from my own home, meaning I eat dinner with my family and can watch my daughter grow while willingly chauffeuring her to her myriad of activities.

The only aspect of my past life I miss is the connection with the readers. Some of you found me on Facebook and caught the midnight train to Gordonville here in the Blogosphere.

I also know that a lot of my readers don’t have computers, so connection is lost.

Just be assured that the writing is alive and well. You will hear from me again. I’m working on one book, with a few others on the backburner.

My first step into writing was song lyrics, which began in high school, where teachers probably conned themselves into thinking I was taking fast and furious notes about whatever yawn-inducing subject they were yammering about.

It continued in college and pretty much ended once I started working for the man.

I am writing songs now at a similar clip. And with 30 years of life experience – and an enhanced vocabulary — in my hip pocket, I am putting my adolescent self to shame (although some of the college-era songs were pretty darn good, if I must say so myself).

In any event, my songwriting partner and I will be putting out a CD of 13 original songs – some old, some new — this year. It may go somewhere, and it may not. Either way, a sense of satisfaction I was not feeling will be there.

I want to live forever, but we share the same fate.

At the very least I’ll have this music bug scratched off the bucket list, although the hope is that this is only the beginning.

And the fact that Sofia has been with me to the studio has added to the joy. I play the songs in the car, and she sings along, as she knows all the words.

My words.

When it’s a new song, she’ll offer an opinion, which I not only value but look forward to hearing more from as her palate grows.

 A Sense of Smell

The inevitable happened recently when Sofia asked if I had written any songs about her yet. For all the odes, via columns, I have yet to cross that bridge.

When I do, I know it can’t be generic. It has to be “Born To Run” or “Thunder Road,” not “Born To Be Alive” or “Thunder Island.”

She would expect no less, as a burgeoning music buff.

Sofia’s favorite song these days is “Let It Go” from “Frozen.” She sings it a lot. Some parents would get annoyed, but I’m not some parents.

While off-key, it is with a passion that sends chills up my spine.

I’m not kidding myself. She sings it because she likes it, but I can’t help but feel like she is singing it for my benefit, telling me to let it go.

All I can say in response is that I have, and she is the main reason why.

I always felt the adage about smelling the roses was a waste of time. My theory about life was that you only go around once, so why bother with the detour?

But that’s the point.

You only go around once, so you should bother.

And what you shouldn’t bother with is blowing out someone else’s candle so that yours will shine brighter.

If you believe in karma, you will get burned.

Willie Nelson Quote

 

 

A New View

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A year back, I took turning 48 unusually hard. Maybe it was because 48, unlike 47, rounded up to 50. Maybe it was because I was unhappy with parts of my life that are in the rear-view mirror now. Today, I turned 49, and I’m pretty content. The view is not so bad. As a matter of fact, I am enough at peace with it that I think I will stay here — stuck at 49 — permanently. Every year, from now on, will be my 49th birthday. Side benefit, Sofia gets to stay six days shy of turning seven.

Next … Is Rex

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By GORDON GLANTZ
@Managing2Edit
 
GORDONVILLE – Rex.
Not the first name I would have picked for a dog.
Not the second, third or 35th.
I usually go for an Eagles quarterback and it seemed that Nick (or Nikki for a girl) would have had the best odds in Vegas.
But then again, Rex – a black lab mix at that awkward half-pup, half-adult stage of about 18 months old (according to his teeth) – kind of picked me.
And in the intervening week, the name he came with is kind of growing on all of us.
The dog on “The Waltons” (RIP, Ralph Waite) was named Reckless, so our official story is that this is a variation.
The actual story?
It all started on one of the Antarctic days when Laurie and I went to SuperFresh at the Centre Square shopping center to stock up on supplies for the snowstorm du jour.
A weekend day, it meant that the kind folks from Home At Last Dog Rescue in North Wales, were outside – braving the harsh cold – to have the dogs available for adoption interact with passersby.
We had been there before, often reaching over and under other people to pet a pooch while a volunteer pretty much ignored us.
No time for such frivolity that day.
Because we had an alternate agenda, I made it clear that we were not looking at any dogs, as tempting as it may be.
It was too cold, and we had to reach over and under people to get bread and milk and eggs.
I did add one caveat: Unless, of course, I’m struck by the same kind of thunderbolt that found Michael Corleone when he first locked eyes with Apollonia while on the lam in Sicily.
It happened that way back in 1990 at the Philadelphia SPCA on Erie Avenue. That’s when and where another black lab mix, Randall, looked into my soul from behind the bars of his cage.
He was one day overdue to be put down, and it was 10 minutes to closing.
He lived with us in three different places – from Northeast Philly to center city to the current suburban homestead – until 16 ½ and is still spoken of in rightfully revered terms.
We later added Kelly, who was more sweet and pretty than special and intelligent like Randall, but they – along with cat named Tyler – were like the three musketeers.
Kelly died first, battling through a litany of health issues to last until 10 ½, and Randall went while Laurie was pregnant with Sofia.
Tyler passed on to Rainbow Bridge, but new cats were added.
Somehow, despite being “dog people,” we became a three-cat household – with the current lineup consisting of Hank (5), Licorice (nearly 2) and Hershey (nearly 1).
We often spoke about adding a dog, as it seemed the last piece of a puzzle – along with a new kitchen and bathrooms – to make our house truly a home.
And with memories of Randall, we set the bar pretty high.
We felt Sofia was a year or two away, but there was no target date. Maybe her eighth or ninth birthday, or one of the Christmases in between, but nothing concrete.
It was going to come down to being struck by the thunderbolt, and that came that frigid Saturday in early February when a woman was walking Rex away from the crowd of volunteers and frigid shoppers and the dogs when we crossed paths in front of the Jade Garden Chinese Restaurant (our personal favorite).
His resemblance to Randall caught my eye, so I stopped to interface with him. Laurie was already half into the store when I called her back. The woman walking him began telling us Rex’s heart-wrenching story.
He was a recent arrival from South Carolina – Darlington County, the setting and title of a Springsteen song – and was apparently beaten in front of shelter workers there when his previous owner surrendered him.
From what I gather, he stole the hearts of the Darlington County people enough that they didn’t want to put him for a long period of time in one of their multiple-dog outdoor kennels where fighting is common and where any dog who fights – even in self-defense – is summarily put down with the aggressor.
An angel of mercy named Roz, who networks with the Darlington shelter, had seen and heard enough. She agreed to foster Rex and he was shipped to the frozen north (not that the south was much better) in a massive vehicle of small cages.
Roz, who had only had Rex in her care a short time, joined our conversation. By that time, a very timid Rex was warming up to us.
I looked up at Laurie for guidance. She looked at me with that “it’s up to you” look.
It’s a look that comes with consequences, because I was going to have to live with my decision.
But I had already been struck by the thunderbolt.
When we pried ourselves away to walk into SuperFresh, Rex started to follow us.
When we left, and loaded up the car with the typical haul to last 12 winters, Laurie wheeled the shopping cart back toward the store (we do that, unlike some others who would be named if I knew their names) and Rex spotted her and started pulling away from the next group of people fawning over him and waged his tail while looking in her direction.
I started the engine, turned on the heat to about 90 degrees and looked up again to see people engaged with Rex.
“Get away from my dog,” I muttered.
My dog.
Yep, my dog.
He found me.
Went home, filled out the online application and he was with us a week later.
The prime directive is a lot of TLC, which is always on the menu as a blue-plate special at the Glantz Diner.
The vet, who gave Rex a clean bill of health, warned against spoiling.
But that’s how we roll.
All things considered, he is doing well.
Not sure if he realizes just how lucky he is to have it made in the shade with us, but we can take the satisfaction of providing him with a place to land.
Rex is generally mellow – when I’m weaving my written tapestries at the laptop on the dining room table, he usually lies down underneath it — but he seems to be coming out of his shell.
The housebreaking is … well … coming along slower than expected, but I blame that on the weather and the lack of places to walk that aren’t snow-covered.
He had an adventure after just a few days, staying overnight in a pet-friendly hotel (Comfort Inn in Montgomeryville) and was an instant attraction with staff and other powerless refugees.
My mother, who lives with us, has a phobia about dogs. She tried to be afraid of Rex, but it’s impossible.
She declared, upon getting him, that she won’t be joining me in the car to pick Sofia up from the school if he is there, too.
After three days, her butt was in the car while Rex snoozed in the back, only to perk up when his favorite playmate, Sofia, appeared.
Rex has also signed peace accords with Hank and Licorice. For some reason, he senses weakness and fear in Hershey and gives him a hard time, but we have seen recent signs of thaw.
Just like this bitter winter that was made better by one moment when time froze.
And the thunderbolt struck.
 
 

Sad Day On North Broad Street

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Temple

By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE –Telemarketers, how much to I loathe thee?

Too many ways to count.

So much that I refuse the opportunity to go on a do-not-call list.

Instead, I’d rather answer and argue (or track them down when no one speaks after answering).

As much as I try to support my alma mater, Temple University, I have grown weary of the hunt for money I don’t have.

Doesn’t mean the door is slammed shut on the place where my parents and many friends and family went to school, let alone where I met my future wife, but we are more prone to deal with snail-mail pleas for dough than ill-timed callers.

When Temple pops up on Caller ID — a regular happening — I don’t answer.

That is going to change.

I don’t mean to give an earful to the poor coed on the other line who is trying to make a buck — especially since Temple isn’t exactly Rich Kid Central — but the buck (and bucks) stop here.

The news this week that the only sports being granted clemency from death row are men’s crew and women’s rowing (or maybe the other way around, but what’s the difference?).

Baseball, softball, gymnastics …

Gone with the wind.

Some may call my line in the sand righteous indignation.

I just call it righteous.

I admit to not following those sports on the chopping block, but I admire the athlete who toil under the radar for little glory.

On Facebook, my stance was quickly challenged.

There was the expected put-up-or-shut-up challenge, to which I responded that do plenty of that.

I stay loyal to the football team, wasting many a nice autumn day having my heart torn out, only to “put up” with the jokes from the Penn State people who engulf me.

When I encounter a young person considering Temple, I don’t shut up about the school’s many pluses.

Another Facebook friend decried the emphasis on sports in general, and hinted that a change in priorities could lead to a cure to cancer.

My counter was that a scholarship to an athlete who may not have otherwise gone to school could lead to a cure to cancer.

Riddles aside, there is a deeper issue, one that needs to be addressed.

I think my friend — like many who shrugged off this news — is thinking of football and men’s basketball.

There are schools, mostly based on geography, where other sports are big (ice hockey in New England, upper Midwest and Colorado and lacrosse from Maryland down to the Carolinas) but it is primarily those two where an abundance of full scholarships are handed out by schools like Moonies giving out fliers at airports (back when they could get past security).

At the top levels, the so-called big-time (where Temple wants to be in football, for example), we are probably seeing more athlete-students than student-athletes.

However, these are the sports that make the lion’s share of money for the school (so it can pursue a cure to cancer) and it’s not as much through donations/ticket sales, as it is from TV contracts.

The schools make the dough, the athletes get nothing. Some get diplomas, but we know how much that’s worth these days.

For the ones who don’t, all they gave up were half a decade’s worth of a jump start of being in a blue-collar union, and they have torn knees and concussion syndromes to show for their time in servitude.

The sports being cut, like at Temple, are not the same thing.

We are dealing with true student-athletes who put in a lot of extra blood and sweat on top of schoolwork. Many don’t even have full scholarships. They were recruited based on promises about a school, in terms of what majors it offered and the coach selling him or herself on the specific sport.

They could have picked more serene places, blocking out life’s realities a little longer, but instead chose Temple.

And Temple chose to kick them in the gut.

Just like I am going to do to the next caller looking for money.

 

NFL: Cold As Ice

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By GORDON GLANTZ
Gordonglantz50@gmail.com
@Managing2Edit

 

GORDONVILLE — One of the many magical aspects of being a parent is watching your little bundle of joy begin to grow into a little human being with personality traits and burgeoning talents.

For my daughter, Sofia, who is going to be 7 – with elements of 17-months-old and 17-years-old wrapped up in her persona – dancing has enveloped her soul.

Ballet. Jazz. Tap. Irish jig.

Doesn’t matter.

Does it all.

Does it well.

Three dance classes a week – one after school and two at a local dance academy – and countless performances at home, sometimes in the kitchen in the middle of dinner or in the living room instead of practicing her piano and doing her homework.

She didn’t get it from me.

I am not a person you want to see dance – especially since giving up alcohol almost a decade ago.

It’s getting pretty ugly this week, though, as I’m doing a lot of dances.

A snow dance. A wintry mix dance. A cold, hard rain dance.  A bitter, biting wind dance.

Anything that will make it miserable on those in attendance at Super Bowl 48 (when the Roman Empire returns, I’ll use Roman numerals) this Sunday.

The National Football League, in its ongoing attempt to conspire against itself and alienate its minions, thought its Teflon veneer would protect its most holy day when the decision was made to play this year’s Super Bowl in the Meadowlands.

This is nothing against two worthy opponents – the Seattle Seahawks or the Denver Broncos – or the true-blue fans of those teams who are making the trek to the Atlantic coast in the midst of a particularly harsh winter.

Nothing would make the NFL look dumber than it raining, snowing or whatevering on its parade.

Nothing is more satisfying that making a village idiot out of a know-it-all.

This hope that it is a disaster does not come from a spirit of hate.

Actually, it is because I love the game of football. The way Sofia loves dance (as opposed to throwing a football, which is as painful to watch as me doing a Mr. Bojangles impersonation).

The NFL deserves a lot of credit for getting football past baseball – yawn – to the top of the sports mountain. But if it stays on this arrogant course, the sport is going to come sliding back down that mountain and find itself behind the likes of curling and team handball.

There is no law that says the Super Bowl has to be played in ideal conditions. It could easily rain in Miami or be windy in Phoenix.

I was disappointed at Super Bowl 39 that I had to put on a hooded sweatshirt under my No. 54 Jeremiah Trotter jersey for a game in Jacksonville, Fla.

But it was like an October evening.

Except for the outcome, it was ideal.

Just like extreme heat should not play a factor in the outcome, neither should adverse winter conditions.

It’s a fall sport, so fall – in February – needs to be replicated as much as possible.

So why is it in the Meadowlands?

Reach into your money clip and pull out a dollar. That’s why.

The New York market, with its media machine and elevated prices, was too much of a lure. And a little latent 9/11 sympathy doesn’t hurt either.

By comparison, Philadelphia – or Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, etc. – would have no shot at ever hosting a Super Bowl.

Never ever? Never ever.

Justin Bieber would have a better chance of scoring a TKO against Bernard Hopkins.

But the NFL could not resist taking a bite out of the frosty Big Apple (even if the game is being played across the bridge atop Jimmy Hoffa’s body).

Such a decision seemed unheard of back when the league – behind the leadership of Pete Rozelle and Paul Tagliabue – was making all the right moves. This included making its own mythical films, the merger of the NFL and the AFL, playing games on Monday night and the creation of the Super Bowl.

But now, arrogance gives way to its first cousin, ignorance.

Only the ignorant would try to get out in front of the issue of player safety but want to extend the season to 18 games without expanding roster size, which would mean more salaries.

Only the ignorant would play sloppy games on Thursday nights, all for the sake of television revenue, when any football player will tell you that three days is not enough time for a body to recover.

Only the ignorant would expand the rule book from the size of a binder to the Oxford dictionary – with the game’s nuances legislated to the point of annoyance, while not changing the basics of how it is officiated (see NHL).

Only the ignorant would sit in the comfort of luxury boxes while the commoners suffer in the cold bleachers on Super Bowl Sunday.

Can’t do much about it, can we?

Except dance.

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This column first appeared at http://www.phillyphanatics.com

Rally Time

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By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE — When a twister blows through a small town in Tornado Alley, the whole community rallies.

They are hoping — and expecting — outside help, but they don’t wait on it.

They galvanize, and take action — as a whole — as soon as the storm passes.

They do it themselves.

A slow, silent and subtle storm has left the Norristown Area School District leveled.

The once-proud athletic tradition is a shell of its former self.

And with the athletic director and head football coach jobs up for grabs, the community has been put to the apathy test.

The good news is that there are positive signs.

On Monday night, there will be a meeting to plot a course about where to go from here.

And when you have suffered to ignominy of losing football games to schools — like Springfield-Montco — that once were deemed not even fit to take to the same field as Norristown, you can’t shrug it off.

When private and parochial schools are picking the bones of your home-grown talent and leaving only a skeleton behind, it’s time to act.

Monday’s meeting will not be a pleasant gathering over tea and crumpets, nor should it be.

The tornado has left devastation in its wake, and it can’t be more of a mess when the meeting adjourns.

The encouraging sign is that many former athletes who gave blood, sweat and tears into sports at the school are among the loudest voices.

Let’s hope that the power brokers — that being the school board — are there, listening, with open minds.

 

 

You Say You Want A Resolution? Try A Cease Fire

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By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE – We all live with regret, and sometimes it’s the little moments – the seemingly innocuous choices to put the left foot in front of the right – that rise to the top of the list as the calendar unmercifully flips from year to year.

Let us board a time machine and travel back to the summer of 1986. My father had rented a house in the mountainous woods of Vermont for the summer.

After taking advantage of the freedom of no parental supervision for weeks on end, my sister and I went there for a week in late August.

It was a pretty cool place, with the feel of an old-fashioned log cabin but modern amenities that included a Jacuzzi the size of a small swimming pool.

I remember being at a creative peak as a songwriter – and guitar player (something I have since given up) – and using the long car rides to plays at places like the campus of Williams College and shopping outlets as fodder for whatever deep thinking a 21-year can have (brains don’t fully develop until the ages of 24 and 30).

And now, for that moment of regret.

It should have been when I lost my temper when everyone in the car – father, step-mother and sister – mocked Suzanne Vega’s first “tape” after 10 seconds into the first song, but I’m still proud that I defended Suzanne’s honor (even though she rightfully looked at me like a stalker when I was first in line and babbling like an idiot when we saw her at the Sellersville Theater a few years back).

Plus, the joke was on them when Vega had a big hit a year later with “Luka.”

No, it came when my sister and I went to a concert in whatever nearby sign of civilization that served as the pseudo-downtown area.

The featured act was Woodstock hero Richie Havens. We walked into what was basically a glorified barn with a bunch of benches laid out in front of a stage.

While the latent hippie types malingered, we went straight to the front row.

I briefly noticed a few homemade cassette tapes that had the name “Rod MacDonald” written on them in magic marker, but gave it no real thought — other than my own musical endeavor, The Last Wave, was not much different (except we weren’t warming up for Richie Havens and never made it out of my basement, except to record some songs in my guitar teacher’s basement).

MacDonald took the stage with an acoustic guitar and rolled through a set of well-written songs that he set up with poignant and witty stories.

I had him pegged as either a 1960s has-been or wannabe who, through bad luck, had been nothing more than a regional New England act.

Then he finished his set with what he jokingly said was his “hit song.”

Actually, as benches began to slow fill with earth-shoe-wearing refugees from New York City and Boston, there seemed to be some measure of familiarity with the song – “Stop The War” – in the audience of less than 200.

As a songwriter type myself, I listened intently and was spellbound by the lyrics.

I was expecting a leftover Vietnam-era song, but it was one of those songs that can fit like a hand in a glove at any place in time.

Through the years, the words of the chorus managed to stick:

“Stop the war, Stop War

Stop the War within yourself

And you won’t have to fight with anyone else.”

After MacDonald was done playing, I ventured to the back of the “theater” to locate a bathroom and maybe grab a snack.

I noticed the tapes still there, and figured that I would wait until after the Richie Havens performance and pick one up.

Havens then played, and I was enthralled at his unique guitar style that I have later learned was due to him being self-taught.

He ran through a bunch of songs – including plenty written by Bob Dylan, who I was all about that summer (even more than Bruce Springsteen) – and brought the crowd into a bit of a frenzy with “Freedom,” the song he rocked a much larger throng with at Woodstock.

The show had ended and we exited into my father’s waiting car out front.

It didn’t hit me until halfway home that I never picked up MacDonald’s tape.

Maybe it was because I was riding a buzz that both Havens and his backup guitar player acknowledged me with winks and nods for appreciating the performance with such intensity. Maybe it was because my sister wasn’t feeling well (or at least that it what she said).

Or maybe it was that underdeveloped brain of mine.

The following morning, back in town, MacDonald was in the same diner eating breakfast with his manager. The G2 of today would have approached, heaped platitudes upon him, told him I was an aspiring songwriter myself and asked about buying a tape.

But I was more timid back then.

It left me with regret.

I thought I had read somewhere that MacDonald had died, but I must’ve Googled the wrong dude.

He is not only alive, but his career has gone well from those days of selling homemade tapes. He was not really the 1960s leftover I imagined, as he was just building his reputation in the 1980s as key cog in the folk revival in Greenwich Village.

And his under-the-radar music has come a long way, in terms of availability.

Just about all of his songs – many of which have been covered by a plethora of quality acts – are available on iTunes.

Including not one, but two versions of “Stop The War.”

First verse about a general. Second verse about a stock brocker.

You get the picture.

A lot of people are busy making New Year’s resolutions, and I usually do the same.

A few years back, I decided to make them more inward than outward (losing weight, exercise, etc.).

In 20I1, I tried letting things slide.

LOL.

Come 2012, I tried not caring what other people think about me.

More LOL.

In 2013, there was the old attempt at not worrying about what is out of my control.

LMAO.

Well, in 2014, I’m going to raise the bar.

And really, when I look in the mirror at the well-meaning but flawed being glaring back, it’s not a laughing matter.

I’m going to stop the war.

The war within myself.

So that I don’t have to fight with anyone else.

To Rod MacDonald, thanks.

I may have forgotten to buy your tape back when my brain was not fully developed, but I never forgot your words.

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