by John Walters
Nor’Easter Bunny (At Christmas)
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
There’s nothing like snow in Manhattan before Christmas day. Sets the right tone. A reminder: it’s still technically autumn for another few days.
Perhaps our favorite thing about a big snow dump in NYC? How it covers the city in a blanket of silence. Car traffic dwindles to a trickle. No horns. Few sirens. It’s peaceful. Silent nights are impossible in Gotham, but a good snow fall brings you as close as you’re gonna get.
Parts of New York state and the East coast will receive more than a foot of snow. They won’t need to dream of a white Christmas.
Tom’s Gone
Last night came word that ESPN’s man of tinkling piano-key essays, Tom Rinaldi, is jumping ship for Fox Sports. That would have been shocking news prior to this fall, but in 2020 Rinaldi, whose greatest ESPN presence is an essayist/features guy for College GameDay, has been nearly invisible.
No explanation has been given for Rinaldi’s reduced role this fall and with COVID-19 striking both ESPN and Fox’s college crews, neither network has felt too obliged to explain unexplained absences. Was Rinaldi pining for a move to the west coast? Was he chapped that Pat MacAfee was stealing some of his College GameDay thunder? And how will Fox’s Tom Verducci, who has carved a Rinaldi-like role for himself at Fox, react to this addition?
Stay tuned. It seems an odd departure. Rinaldi seemed culturally attuned (read: Woke enough) to being at ESPN and he had high visibility, particularly with college football playoff and golf telecasts. Fox won’t come close to matching that in either sport.
Black Leagues Matter
Satchel Paige. Josh Gibson. Cool Papa Bell (above). On Wednesday these men and all of their fellow Negro League players at long last, and posthumously, received overdue validation.
From The New York Times…
On Wednesday, Major League Baseball took one of its biggest steps to redress past racial wrongs: It formally recognized several of the Negro leagues as on par with the American and National leagues, a distinction that will alter the official record books to acknowledge a quality of competition that the long-excluded players never doubted.
With the change, more than 3,400 players from seven distinct Negro leagues that operated between 1920 and 1948 will be recognized as major leaguers. And the statistical records will be updated.
White Sands
Three words that, when put together, always induce us to want to read the next sentence: “cocaine ghost boat.”
So this happened in the Marshall Islands: an unmanned boat (above) drifted close to shore and, upon inspection by locals, was found to have 649 KG (1,430 pounds, or 3/4 of a ton) of cocaine on board. That has a street value of $80 million (or so Phyllis informs us).
The stash was confiscated by police who put the white powder into an incinerator (why they did not simply layer it onto the beaches is a mystery to us).
You wonder if this Pacific island revenue loss will take atoll on the drug cartel…
The Meaning Of Life
We are really enjoying Anxious People by Fredrick Backman (recommended by our cousin Lauretta). If you are looking for a Christmas gift for someone who likes to read and has both a brain and a heart, this will more than suffice.
Anyway, there’s a scene on pg. 84 between Zara, the caustically witty, insensitive banker and her female psychologist, whom Zara is only seeing because she must if she is going to be prescribed sleeping pills. They’re talking depression and Zara drops a little truth bomb on the shrink. Here’s the passage:
Zara: “That’s because people like you look at people who are wealthier than you are and say, ‘Yes, they may be richer, but are they happy?’ As if that was the meaning of life for anyone but a complete idiot, just going around being happy all the time.“
The psychologist noted something down, then asked, still looking down at her notepad: “What is the meaning, then? In your opinion?”
Zara’s reply was the response of a person who’s spent many years thinking about this. Someone who has decided it was more important for her to do an important job than live a happy life.
“Having purpose. A goal. A direction. And do you want to know the truth? The truth is that far more people would rather be rich than happy.”
Zara’s psychologist, in “Anxious People”,would then respond,”Being satisfied with your direction, and recognizing your purpose, will certainly help you achieve that goal.However,the achievement may not make you rich, or happy, in which case you must reexamine your value system.”……”That’ll be $175,please.”
They actually make that joke later in the page.
I’ll have to check out “Anxious People” at the library. Sounds like an interesting read. How’s that for positive feedback? But, while I’m here … I believe “tinkling piano-key essays” ought to be “tickling piano-key essays,” no?
“Take atoll on the drug cartel”. Laugh, snort, laugh, snort. 🙂 What do YOU think happened to cause that boat to become unmanned?! A shoot-out on the high seas & the shooters fell overboard when shot? OR did a whale break surface near the boat & cause the person to fall overboard? My goodness, what a mystery! And oh yeah, I’m assuming those higher up the chain on each side of that drug “deal” are mighty pissed. $80 million adrift at sea & then up in smoke?
How much are you missing NYC during the holidays? I’m sorry for you jdubs. But at least you don’t have to shovel snow or worry about slipping on ice these days. 🙂 Here in the DMV, we lucked out yesterday & only got about 3-4 inches but then instead of the rain they called for, we got sleet. BUT, luck again as today was really sunny & much has now melted. Farther north & west of me they got 8-10 inches before the sleet. Yuck!