A MOVING EXPERIENCE

When someone tells me they would like to pursue career in radio, my first response is to ask, “Are you out of your mind?” Next would be to let them know that part of the job description is to be prepared to pack up and move at a moments notice. You can go into work on a Tuesday morning and be actively pursuing another job by Tuesday afternoon. In between, you might as well pack up the car because the odds are pretty good that you'll be moving.......again. I've made some pretty substantial moves since deciding to venture forth into my chosen profession. I've moved from Connecticut to Puerto Rico to Northern New Jersey to Philadelphia to Chicago to Dallas to Miami. With each move came, not only the hassle of packing up and moving myself but, eventually, moving a family as well. As the family grew, the moves got tougher but we all seemed to turn out OK. I was more fortunate than most in that the last major job I had lasted for 25 years so a few of my kids got to “stay put” and grow up in one place – well, actually two places since the company moved from Chicago to Dallas but, at least, there was a semblance of stability. One of my earliest moves was also one of my most memorable because of some friends I had made in a local band and, ironically, it was between radio jobs. In 1970, I had come home from a little 18 month visit to South East Asia and, after a reception that included being spat upon for serving my country, I moved to Puerto Rico for a radio job. It only paid about $150 a week but, I was young, single and pretty limber when it came to negotiating the twists and turns of my 22 year old existence. While in San Juan, I met a young lady from New Jersey, married her and left the island. It all happened in about as much time as it took for me to type this sentence. What did we know? We thought it was a good idea at the time. We moved to New Jersey and I got a job selling clothes at Archie Jacobson Clothiers in the Menlo Park Mall. I didn't last very long at that job for any number of reasons, the main one being that when I sold someone a suit, I would send them to J.C. Penney's at the other end of the mall because the shirts and ties were cheaper. The boss kinda frowned on that since I was supposed to be selling Archie Jacobson shirts and ties at twice and thrice the price. While I was there, I also decided to go back to school and enrolled in Brookdale Community College. I had the GI Bill to pay for it and I took full advantage of that particular benefit......any number of times. Looking back on my career as a scholar there is nothing that would have distinguished me or that would have even justified my being there in the first place but it was at Brookdale that I met someone who made quite a difference in the avenue I decided to follow. It was during an English Lit. 101 class that I met a guy who became a good friend. I suppose I could lie and tell you I remember his name but I don't. It was 1971.....if you know what I mean. I know that we shared a common talent. We bonded over the fact that we both played percussion, in general – conga drums in particular, the major difference being that he was in a band and I wasn't. He invited me to one of the bands shows in a club at the Jersey Shore and, subsequently, to other shows. I became pretty friendly with a number of guys in the band, particularly the sax player. He had gone to high school in a small town in North Jersey with another friend named John who the sax player called “Abe.” John called him “Nick,” so, I did too. Nick had an apartment at Sandy Hook Beach where we could almost fish from his balcony and we were all hanging out there, one day in July, when my now ex wife was preparing a surprise birthday party for me. They kept me occupied and then we all went back to my apartment where the surprise was waiting. I was taken aback and everyone had their laugh. The party came off without a hitch. The band had a gig that night at a local Catholic School and I accompanied them into the school gym where I climbed a rope and enjoyed the concert from the rafters. It was a little dangerous but, I was still young, nimble and stupid and it was a fun evening. I didn't see the guys in the band much after that. We hung out a little but, unbeknownst to us, we were all heading for much brighter times and many better things. I went on to work for a radio station in Plainfield, New Jersey which led to a job in Philadelphia and then a fairly significant radio career. The band recorded an album and changed their name from Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The album was “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.” Yes, moving is part of the job description when one decides on a career in radio. My move from Puerto Rico to New Jersey was one of the first ones I made and the one that set my career in motion. I'm retired now. I have finally unpacked the car.

NERVOUS, NORVUS?

I used to be a blood donor. It was a quick, easy way to make a few bucks and I knew I was, ideally, helping a fellow human being. Whether I actually was or not was a moot point. I thought I was helping someone and that was all that counted. I prided myself in my readiness to jump in, at a moments notice, roll up my sleeves and pick up a free pair of movie tickets. My altruism blew my mind (he wrote, with all the humility he could possibly muster up). If I saw a bloodmobile in the neighborhood, I knew it was time to catch a movie or make enough to bring home pizza. But, that was then........and this is now. Then – I was young and vibrant......now – not so much. Then – it could be my entree to a movie theater or would allow me momentary hero status by bringing home a surprise pizza or two......now – not so much. Then my blood was a healthy and in-demand commodity - now – not at all. As a rock & roll radio guy in the late '60's and through '70's, my lifestyle gave me enough pause to be a little concerned about whether I ever would reach the, then, dreaded age of 30. If I did, I theorized, then I could worry about the future. In the meantime, anything went...........anything. The lurid details, entertaining though they may be, are a subject for another day. It's the results of those lurid details that turned me from a self serving blood god - the bloodmobile had a poster of me, needle in arm, grinning from ear to ear and flashing a big “thumbs up” - into a pariah......a castaway.......a hemogoblin. The fact that I had made it past 30 told me that I was OK without really having to change anything. Sex, drugs and rock & roll were still the order of the day. No reason for the carousel to stop. It didn't. There was one party, in particular, that comes to mind. It was a record company party for a band from Australia (they were from an area near a little river) that was in the early days of it's looming popularity. At one point, their, then, road manager broke out a huge “rock” of pure cocaine and was scraping off a continuous “line” as he walked down a long table. Yes.....I did. I went on the air a few hours later with no sleep, nasally and dripping into my mustache. It was a two man show but we were useless to each other on the air because we had both been to the party. If I were a prayin' man, I'd pray that no recording of that show exists anywhere. And yet, I still didn't see any real damage. There was no reason stop doing what I had been doing. Unless, of course, you count the fact that I had gotten married and had my first kid two years earlier but not me. My gauge was reaching 30 with little or no consequence and, that, I had done. It was about 6 years into my 30's when, while enjoying a private regimen of Tequila Sunrises, cocaine and cigars – I had stopped smoking cigarettes because they were so bad for my health – that I nearly saw the light. I had been doing a few lines with a friend and went home to mow the lawn. I lit a cigar and went to the garage and got the lawn mower ready. I had made about 5 or 6 passes on the lawn when I started to get light headed and began to turn gray. It seems my heart had stopped beating and was fluttering. I was in Atrial Fibrillation and wound up in a hospital bed. Remember when I mentioned that I nearly saw the light? When I got home, the first thing I did was have a couple shots of tequila and a nice cigar. It was a matter of days before I was back in the hospital and back in A-Fib.....an issue which has now plagued be for well over three decades and for which I still take the same meds. I immediately quit doing cocaine. I never enjoyed it and, really, only partook because everyone else was doing it. Apparently, it was also around this time that I discovered I was part Lemming. I stopped drinking alcohol. All these years later, the most I will drink is a very cold beer on a very hot day. It took a little longer to stop smoking cigars. Over the 30 some years between then and now, I have developed a number of “issues” that dictate a number of different medications. From diabetes to skin cancer to low blood flow in the legs, I deal with these annoyances that often come with the territory. But it was that episode on my lawn that precluded me from ever giving blood again. The doctors gave me medications that affect my heartbeat. One of the meds is toxic and the other controls the rhythm – which, you'd think, as an erstwhile percussionist, I'd have a pretty good handle on. Imagine the look on a blood recipients face if he got some of my blood and his heart started to flutter? Ironically, I was recently diagnosed with severe anemia and had to have a blood transfusion. The last person in the world whose blood I would want transfused into me would be me. But, to whoever was kind enough to donate the blood that made me feel better.....enjoy the movie.

GREETINGS

Everything we do is a choice. From getting up in the morning to going to bed at night and everything in between – what we eat, when we eat, breathing.....technically, all choices. The choices vary in scope and impact, painting some with a more important hue than others. As I attempt to sort through some of the choices I've made over the last 7 decades and put them into some semblance of order of importance in my life (other than breathing. I'll have no problem with breathing in the #1 spot on my choices hit parade), my biggest realization was that I was around in the '60's and '70's and am incapable of judging choices that I don't remember making. Then I remembered a choice I made in late 1965/early 1966 that turned out to be one of the wisest moves I had ever made. I had just spent my first semester of college in what was then a college but is now a university. It was 50 miles south of Pittsburgh......Waynesburg College in Waynesburg, Pa.......in the southwest corner of the state, bordering Ohio and West Virginia. It was a small, primarily Presbyterian Liberal Arts college and it was the one I got into. I was a far cry from class valedictorian. I think I was 57th in my class.......a class of 56. Waynesburg was the college I got into. I realized I wouldn't be there for long when I was first “rushed” by one of the fraternities on campus. I was curious so, I checked it out. I didn't get very far. You see, this was 1965. There were 31 Blacks and 9 Jews at the school and the 40 of us were barred from the “greeks.” I was gone after the first semester. It was while I was on my way back home to enroll at Uconn that I got the dreaded letter. I'm sure you've gotten it/seen it/read about it in the history books – It began, “Greetings… you are ordered to report for induction.” I was 18 years old and it scared the shit out of me. Probably, literally but, like I said....it was the 60's. Many of my friends and colleagues were getting the same letter. Some took off for Canada, some went off to war.......some never came home. The first step was the physical to determine if the Army even wanted you. I decided to go so I could get an idea of what I might have in store. Not to mention, I didn't want to go to jail. There were people who would show up to the physical doing things that made a 4-f rating a certainty. Ted Nugent, for instance, shat his pants to make sure he wouldn't be sent to war, making him, today, perhaps, the world's biggest hypocrite and coward but, that's a vent for another day. I passed my physical with flying colors and walked out with a big “1-A” stamped on my paperwork. NOW, it was time to make a choice. I could show up for my Army basic training and do 3 years with a year in Vietnam being a sure thing - I was 18 and had no training in anything but flunking math exams....I would have been infantry on the front lines - or, I could try to enlist in another branch and have a better chance of doing something a little safer. My dad was in the Navy. He spent part of WWII attached to a Marine unit as a radioman and fought in the Battle of Leyte Gulf....the deciding Naval battle of the war. My uncle had been in the Air Force and was stationed in Korea smack dab in the middle of the Korean Conflict. Now it was my turn and I weighed all of my options. I could just go ahead do my Army duty but, instead, I chose to enlist in the Air Force. Even knowing that I was committing to 4 years instead of 3 and that any duty in S.E. Asia was 18 months instead of 12. The deciding factor? I liked the uniform better. When I left for basic training in April of 1966, it was very early in the morning. By the time my mom got the mail that day, I was in a bus, on my way to Texas. In her mail was my reporting date for Army boot camp. I had made it by about 6 hours. I went to S.E. Asia in 1966. I spent most of my time in the Philippines with TDY's (Temporary Duty) in Saigon. It was just across the South China Sea and when they needed extra bodies for a few days we would go to do pretty menial stuff. I spent my entire 4 years either driving a fork lift in a warehouse of typing bills of lading to ship stuff. Not very dangerous at all. On January 10, 1970, I stepped off a plane in San Francisco. I was home safe and semi-sound. As tedious and mundane as my work was for 18 months, there is, to this day, absolutely no doubt in my mind that the joining the United States Air Force had been the right choice.

INTEGRITY IS SPELLED D-A-D

As I write this, it is 3 days before the 20th Father's Day without my dad. He died in 1996 but not before passing on to me and my brother a set of values, ethics and morals that garnered him respect and adoration for all of his 72 years. I can only hope to have carried them into my life with as much ease and grace as he did and that my kids have seen fit too integrate them into their lives as well. There are certainly worse legacies to leave for their kids. I can point to dozens of examples that prove my allegations and to scores of people who knew and loved him and will, without hesitation, back me up on this. But, there is one story, in particular, that has stuck with me throughout the years. It's a tale of selflessness and humanitarianism that stays with me, top of mind, wherever I go and whatever I do. It makes me both proud and humble as I try to live my life with the integrity I learned watching him deal with the twists and turns that we all have to negotiate throughout our lives. My Dad sold furniture and office supplies. He began, upon returning from WWII, selling pencils and books to Uconn students at the college bookstore. It paid the bills and, eventually, propelled him to the stockroom at Plimptons, a stationary and office supply store in downtown Hartford. He was a quick study and, with diligence, was soon moved from the stockroom to the main floor. He was selling pencils again but, this time, rather than college books, he was pairing them with all manner of office supplies and, ultimately, office furniture. Over the years, he became an expert and, with his incredibly outgoing personality, built trust filled relationships with all the right people. He was furnishing entire office buildings from the insurance companies in Hartford to the offices of Electric Boat in Groton. Everyone knew that if you needed a chair or a desk or a lobby full of couches and tables, you called Jerry Brett. He was friendly, funny and loved by everyone and he always gave you a great deal. The buyers knew it and the manufacturers knew it. He had been with Plimptons for more than a decade and a half and was thriving when the store was sold to Litton Industries and he was “downsized” out of a job. Not only did he not panic - he didn't miss a beat and kept up his daily routine. He got up at 6am, took a shower, put on a jacket and tie and went to work. What had been getting in the car and commuting 30 minutes to the store in Hartford became walking across the room, picking up the phone and trying to find a job. Looking for work had become his full time job. A job that lasted for nearly a full year. Paying the bills got tough but,with the help of my grandparents, he was able to keep the lights on and food on the table. My parents were brought up to “pay it forward” and were always there when I have hit rough spots in life just as I now try to do with my kids. My dad was having trouble finding work but kept all of his contacts and, eventually, decided to open his own business. With a partner (who later screwed him and left him with nothing.....but, that's another story) became a furniture manufacturer's representative, basically cutting out middle men like Plimptons and selling, for the manufacturers, directly to companies for their offices and buildings. He opened a showroom in Hartford and did quite well. Before long, he had opened showrooms in Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago as well. Through hard work and tenacity, he was back but, as inspirational as his actions were, this story isn't what inspired the awe with which I jot these memories down. Dad had just begun his new venture and was in his favorite clothing store picking up a few things to help him “dress to impress” potential customers, when he saw a guy he used to work with on the other side of the store. H went over to say hello and learned that the guy, who had been “downsized” at the same time as my dad, was not having much luck in finding steady employment. His wife was sick and he had $50 bucks in his pocket to try and find a decent jacket to wear on job interviews. My dad saw him eyeing a very nice jacket that had a $100 price tag. After they were done chatting, my father, as he was walking out of the store, grabbed a salesman, shoved $50 in his hand and told him to tell his friend that the jacket had been marked down to $50. He then went home and made a few calls, one of which helped get his friend a job. The guy never knew. I never knew either. Nobody did except my his wife.....my mom....who shared it with me after he was gone. Morals, ethics, values, integrity.......that's how I learned to live by watching my dad. I only hope that I have been able to successfully convey, to my kids, the importance everything I learned from him and that they pass it on to my grandkids. They say that if you wanna know the measure of a man – look at his kids. I hope I have represented well.

ZEIDE

I spent my entire career, which translates to a good portion of my life, surrounded by some very quirky people. Rock and roll radio of the 70's and beyond was wall to wall quirk. From the time Wavy Gravy popped up at Woodstock in 1969 reminding us how “We're all bozo's on the bus, so (we) might as well sit back and enjoy the ride,” my generation has personified the idiosyncratic and unconventional. I would venture to say that there isn't a soul over 60 who can't look back and find someone who has crossed their path and made them smile with their peculiarities. The choice of subjects is abundant which is why I surprised myself when the first person who came to mind was my great grandfather, Aaron......a man known and loved by my family as Zeide (Zay-da)........the family patriarch. The guy from whom we all took our cue when it came to life's negotiation. Aaron came to this land from Russia in 1905, bringing with him his wife, his 14 year old son (my grandfather) and enough friends (and their families) to run a farm and start a Jewish community in Ellington, Connecticut, a land where the belief still held that Jews came complete with horns. A belief he was able to successfully counter by wearing a hat. A hat that, for the entire time I knew him, he never took off. Zeide was born in the Ukraine, in the rather large town of Ekaterinaslav, now known as Dnipropetrovsk. He was a woodsman about whom very little was known before he just sort of appeared, one day, at the lumber yard owned by the Levine family. Word had it that he wielded a pretty big ax, which was, apparently, enough to impress the young Eda, the woman who would become my great grandmother, Bubba. They wed, had a son and then, with as many of their brethren and sistren as they could round up, proceeded to escape the Tzar's pogroms, organized massacres of Jews in Russia or eastern Europe, and headed to the good ole' U.S. of A. to find some of that opportunity that had eluded them while they were busy fending off Cossacks swords, an activity they heard they could find some relief from in the new world. Oh......and he needed enough guys for a minyan - a quorum of ten men over the age of 13 required for traditional Jewish public worship. So, off they went to a new world. Sometimes, when necessity is the mother of invention, quirkiness is the means to the end, the second cousin, as it were. In order to maintain a sense of community and pride in their heritage, Zeide and his minyan minions realized that they needed a shul, a synagogue in which to practice their faith in their new home without fear of reprisal but they had never built anything like that before and didn't have a design. “LEON,” Zeide yelled to his son, my grandfather, “kumen do aun brengen a blayer.” Yiddish for “Come here and bring a pencil.” “We need a shul. Draw us a shul.” The 14 year old who would become the man I knew as the strong head of the family, drew a square and put a couple of angled lines on top for a roof. “Here ya' go,” he said, handing his father a picture that looked as if a 5 year old had just drawn a box, “Here's your synagogue.” The men used the “blueprint” and built a big box and put chairs in it. The box still sits in Ellington and has been designated a historical monument. My grandfather is listed, in the records, as the “architect” by virtue of the fact that he had a pencil. Aaron began to show more of his quirkiness around the end of the 30's when the German ship, the MS St. Louis, with 908 Jews aboard, tried to land in Canada and then the United States. They were turned back and those who were not given refuge in European countries went back to Germany, some, to their deaths. Franklin D. Roosevelt was President and Zeide NEVER forgave him. He was so upset that he refused to change the clocks during Daylight Savings Time because he felt that it was something Roosevelt wanted him to do. “I'm a farmer,” he would reason, “I know what time to get up. The sun tells me not Roosevelt” The clocks remained where they were. He was rarely on time for anything but he made his point. As he got older his quirkiness seemed to magnify. At least in the eyes of this, then 8 year old. It seemed bizarre to me that he always wore a cardigan sweater with hard candy in the pockets that he would hand out to the neighborhood kids on his daily walks. The candy sometimes had no wrapper and would be covered with lint but his heart was in the right place. I, also, never saw him without his hat. He wore it inside, outside and, presumably, to bed. For a short time when I was very young, I just assumed he was born with a fedora on his head. The irony is that I have now become what I considered quirky and, at times, embarrassing. I have two cardigan sweaters (that reminds me, it's time to stock up on and unwrap a bunch of hard candy) and I wear hats – all the time. I have become Zeide and I'm sure my grandkids have some of the same reservations about my sanity and my ability to live a life without quirk. Aaron, the man I knew and loved as Zeide, passed away when I was about 13. He was 93. We should all live so long.......and maintain the sense of goodness, family and community that this man possessed......amid his quirky ways. One of his quirkiest quirks, however, was that his fly always seemed to be open. I have one picture of him and it's just the way I remember him. An old man in a cardigan sweater with his hat on his head and his fly wide open. Now, if you'll excuse me (“zip” sfx).

CELEBRITY TALES.......AS I REMEMBER THEM: DAVID CROSBY AND GRAHAM NASH

As I sit down to write this, it has been nearly a whole day since the news of a world without Crosby, Stills and Nash. Word of the end came in a response to a question during a recent interview Graham Nash did with a Dutch magazine. "It's the first time I've said this out loud but this is the way it is. You asked me if there is more CSN? Well, my answer is no and that is very sad because we were pretty good but I'm currently not fond of David Crosby. He treated me horrible the last two years. Really, really awful. "I've been there for him for forty five years to save his fucking ass but he treats me like dirt. You can't do that to me. You can do it for a day or so, until I think you're coming around but if you keep going and I keep getting nasty e-mails, then I'm done. Fuck you." The first time I met Graham Nash, it was with David Crosby. It was the late 70's and any interviews we did for the Fox & Leonard Morning Show on WYSP in Philly were done at my partner, Sonny's place. Because of the way we did the show with me in the studio and Sonny at home, we had all of the resources we needed to do a complete broadcast from his living room. We recorded all of our interviews there. It was much more intimate and there were fewer people to confuse things and get in the way. We made the guests feel like it was just a few buddies, “hangin' out and shootin' the shit.” We got some pretty good interviews that way. Keep in mind that it was the 70's and I was part of a successful morning show on one of the top AOR – Album Oriented Rock - radio stations in of of the top markets in the country. Drugs were part of the landscape. The record promo guy who brought Graham and David to the apartment for the interview was a legend in the music industry who was universally loved. Since very few people know this story, I will refrain from naming him. He was, probably in his 70's at the time and had been “promoting” artists for many years yet, he was so astute that he was able to slip nicely into the relatively new world of “sex and drugs and rock & roll” without losing an iota of momentum. The guy was good! He and Crosby & Nash got there in the early afternoon. The weed and coke were set out with chips and Coke on the refreshment counter. David and I dug in and started exchanging heroin stories with a few tales of hallucinogens thrown in for good measure. I think he particularly enjoyed my description of dropping a tab of mescaline and sitting in a tree in a park in Puerto Rico, just watching the world go by in a variety of shapes and colors. We were all having a pretty delightful time when someone suggested that it might be fun to get our friend, the old promo guy, high. Someone approached him and handed him a joint. He was such a master at his job that he would sometimes have to “break character” to keep his charges happy. He took a hit on the joint and we waited for the “fun” to begin. And waited.....and waited. Nothing. We were being typically young and assholish for the times and, fortunately, a hit off a joint is about as harmless as it gets and he remained unscathed, kept his artists happy by complying with their idiotic behavior and got his record on the air. In other words.....this “pro” did his job. Despite us. All in all, it was a successful interview and we had what we considered to be a good time while getting the job at hand done. I didn't see David Crosby again for quite a few years. By the time we had another interview scheduled, it was more than two decades later. I had been free of all things drug related for close to 20 years and Crosby, too, had been clean for a good deal of time. I quit when I began having heart issues in my late 30's. David Crosby's medical history is downright mythological. We met in a small studio. There were about 7 people there and Crosby was visibly uncomfortable. His first act was to clear the studio and he wasn't at all polite about it. I believe his words were something like, “All you assholes, get the fuck out.” We were alone. Before we rolled tape we reminisced about the day we got “promo guy” high and traded stories of how we had gotten clean. How we had both gone cold turkey when our physical limitations told us we had no choice if we wanted to live. We then had an absolutely delightful interview about Crosby, Crosby and Nash, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Crosby, Still, Nash and Young and, of course, The Byrds. It was a very lucid and fun interview. I never met Steven Stills. I've heard the stories but I can't, so I won't, validate any of them. The disagreements among members of the group are very well documented but Crosby and Nash always seemed, to me, to be a team. Good friends who always had each others musical back. I guess that's not the case. I was disappointed when I read about the end of a very integral part of the musical landscape of my life. I guess to expect any type of reconciliation is “Helplessly Hoping.” I guess it's out of the question to ask for “Just a Song Before (They) Go.”

CELEBRITY TALES.......AS I REMEMBER THEM: CARL SAGAN

When one spends as much time in radio as I did, one gets to meet, interview and, occasionally, hang out with some pretty impressive people. It doesn't take very long to realize that the bulk of your “famous” guests are just normal folk......like the rest of us. Should they choose to wear pants, they will probably put them on the same way as we all do.....one leg at a time. They, often times, don't really want to be there any more than you do. But, every once in a while, if you're lucky, you'll get to meet and spend time with someone who inspires practically everyone who knows their name. This is a story about one such meeting, with a man whose inspiration gave us the wherewithal to “blast through the millions of miles from Earth to far-flung stars and brave the dangers of cosmic frontiers safeguarding the cause of universal peace in the age of the conquest of space,” if I may be so bold as to paraphrase Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. It was a phone call I was never expecting. It was 1991, I was new in Dallas and looking for a good gym where I could stay in shape. The Jewish Community Center, which had an amazing gym, was a few short blocks from my apartment. So....I joined. Now, I'm not a particularly pious guy. I was raised going to synagogue on the High Holidays and after my bar mitzvah at the age of 13, I never set foot in one again. I needed a good gym and I had found one and the fact that it was part of the JCC couldn't have been more convenient because I worked out religiously. I was in between marriages, knew nobody and found the JCC to also be a nice source for meeting some new people. I worked out daily and decided to expand my horizons so, I joined a singles volleyball league, which I soon learned wasn't really a league....it was a weekly volleyball game that served as a pre internet “Jdate” or “eHarmony.com.” I liked to play volleyball. I never dated anyone from the “league” but I met a few cool and interesting people, one of whom was the woman who ran the game and booked all of the speakers who would appear at the Center throughout the year. During the course of one of our conversations, the fact came up that I was on the radio. Sometimes, when people hear that, they have certain expectations. There have been occasions, for example, when, at a party, someone would, inevitably, say, “Hey, why don't you get up and announce the next song,” to which I have responded, “If you go into the kitchen and flip the burgers, then, I'LL go to work.” Not the kindest reaction but, relatively effective. “The phone call” came one evening, shortly after I had finished dinner. It was the from the volleyball coordinator/events booking lady from the Jewish Community Center. They had a special event coming up and, knowing I was in radio, wondered if I would do the introduction of their special guest.........for free. Having raised 5 kids, “for free” is, generally, not an option. The equation is simple: I work for you = you pay me. “Who is the special guest,” I asked before “putting my foot down” and refusing to work gratis. The woman answered, “Carl Sagan.” Before I could even take a breath, “I'm in!” came out of my mouth. I didn't even have to think about it. Carl Sagan? Even if I had a paying gig that night, I would have canceled and I would have been able to come up with “billions and billions” of reasons why I couldn't work. The evening of the event came and I was more nervous than I have ever been about going up on a stage to make an introduction. I had done it dozens of times for some pretty big names, but this was friggin' Carl Sagan. One of the most amazing minds of the 20th century. He was an astronomer, an astrophysicist, a cosmologist and author. He was the guy who made science popular. I was just a DJ. I was the guy who talked ABOUT guys like Carl Sagan. His wife Ann Druyen accompanied him. Another brilliant mind who, as an author and producer, specializing in shows about cosmology and popular science was partly responsible for her husbands PBS series “Cosmos.” I was in awe and trying not to drool. We sat down, backstage at the JCC, in a lovely version of the “green room” and began to chat. You would think that sitting, talking with one the smartest guys who ever graced the planet would elicit an intelligent question or two about any number of things that make us all inquisitive. “Are we alone in the cosmos?” “Where did intelligent life begin?” “What about that little existence of god thing? Although, his atheism kind of answered that question before I could even think to ask it. But, that wasn't where the conversation was going organically. Since we were in the Jewish Community Center, we began with the topic of cultural Judaism, but we were finding we had a number of things in common and, as “just a couple of guys” with Brooklyn roots, we quickly shifted to “chocolate egg creams” and “stickball.” We determined that New York bagels were the best anywhere and it was because of the water. We discovered that we both had a love of boxing because, as younger men.....make that boys.....we would sit with our dads and either listen to the fights on the radio or watch the early TV broadcasts of some of the all time greats. Before we knew it, two hours had gone by and I was being ushered out onstage to introduce the man who, for the next several hours, would proceed to dazzle the audience with his knowledge and he would do it in such away that the rest of us....those without PhD's in subjects we can't pronounce …would understand. It was like having a conversation with one of the guys. The kind of guy you would want on your stickball team. The kind of guy you want to watch the fights with and maybe go out and have a bagel and an egg cream with afterward. The kind of guy I had just spent 2 hours backstage chatting, reminiscing and being very comfortable just “hanging out” with. The kind of guy for whom the term “inspiration” is an understatement. The kind of guy, that I very pleasantly discovered, Carl Sagan was.

HURRY UP AND WAIT

I feel like I've been waiting my whole life to understand what it means to get old. Until recently, I didn't even realize that getting old was a “life zone,” for lack of a better term. Not aging, mind you. That's a logical process that just, sorta, comes with the territory. I remember always being dissatisfied with whatever age I happened to be at any given point in my life because I just knew the grass would be greener in that next phase. I always considered my younger brother fortunate because he had the advantage of looking at me and saying, “Hell no. I gotta find some greener grass than THAT!” Each year of our life is spent with the anticipation of being a year older, especially when it is a milestone year. We reach these milestones by simply existing for any given amount of time. Get past the first nine years and you're in..... “double digits.” Three more years and you're........a Teenager. Once you realize that being a teen comes with it's own set of issues, you can't wait to be done with all the awkward nonsense. You know that, eight years into this particular leg of the journey, you'll reach a milestone that gives you a glimpse of what adulthood will be like. You'll be.........18. The age of majority, where you will now have the opportunity to make some of your own decisions. You will be able to serve your country and, in times of war, you may be drafted.......I was. You can now be thrown into the middle of a conflict and, quite possibly, die. Don't try to get a beer, though. For that, you have to reach the next milestone......21. Now, the wait to quench that thirst is finally over and you can freely walk into a bar and feel like an adult. This is where the wait for a more idyllic existence is split into 10 year increments. We are aging as well as getting older but that concept is still too abstract to make a difference. “Gee, I'm 25 but when I look in the mirror and I still see 19. Man, I can't wait 'til 30 so I can feel like a real grownup.” This is a general rule of aging but occasionally rules are meant to be broken. For MY particular segment of the baby boom, part of our generational mantra was, “Never trust anyone over 30.” Once we tuned 30 and began to grow up, we understood that it was time to put down the Daffy Duck doll that I carried in my back pocket and start getting serious about raising a family and doing the things responsible adults do as they age as gracefully as they possibly can. After the trauma of turning thirty wore off, the aging process just “was.” It was understood that there would be a couple of more milestones like hitting the big 5-0 and turning 60, which meant you were now in a decade where it was all supposed to pay off. Words like – retire, pension and Social Security enter our lexicon. And yet, for the most part, I can still remember looking in the mirror and, just like when I was in my 20's, seeing a 19 year old me. I didn't appear that way to anyone else, I'm sure, but, I preferred to keep the image in my minds eye alive and milk it for all it was worth. It's a nice perception and it can keep you young until......one day......out of the blue, aging becomes “getting old.” It just happens. Real fast. You really don't expect it. Things start to hurt and fall and clog and change colors and sizes. Your hair turns gray and your prostate gets bigger than your ego. The wait is over. All that preparation and anxiety has come to this. You are now officially getting old. I don't see 19 in the mirror any more.........I see my grandfather and it's pretty unsettling. The only drugs I do, these days, are prescribed to do things like keep my blood sugar steady, keep my heartbeat steady, keep my blood pressure steady.....you get the idea. All the crap that was caused by years of messing around with all those other drugs. I really can't tell you a whole lot about the experience though. It was the 60's and the 70's and I was there. That's about the only fact that I can accurately remember. Each day, now, I wake up and take stock of what aches and pains are waking up with me. That is how I can gauge the “normal” for the day. Each day is a new “normal” and you adjust accordingly. This is what I've waited my whole life to understand? That Bette Davis was spot on when she said, “Getting old ain't for sissies?” I have to be honest. I'm digging the wisdom that comes with getting old. I miss an awful lot about being younger but most of it is physical. I would give anything to be able to play a game of baseball but, I can't. Although there are a few guys my age that still do things like that, my body will let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I'm not one of them and that I will, if I don't sit down and act my age, most likely break a hip. I've accepted the fact that the list of my contemporaries is getting shorter by the day as is the list of things that I can do without pain and weird noises coming from parts of my body that I didn't know existed. I'm still waiting for a couple of milestones in my life. Turning 70 will be a big one and it's not that far off. They say that 70 is today's 50. No it's not.......it's 70......but we old rock and rollers will not go quietly. My cousin still tours at 75 and that's about the average among the “classic rockers” today. There is, of course, the BIG milestone. The one that we will all reach. As close as it may seem to be getting, I plan on stretching this “wait” as far as I can.