Pass the bar.

You sit at the bar. Friends talking. Strangers talking. People engaging. You think 100 years ago they may have been talking about, oh wait, maybe it was Prohibition so everyone was at a speakeasy. People were gonna get their booze. As Pop Pop used to say…near beer. You think about what dreams were born at the pub, the bar, the watering hole, the well (Springsteen), the dive. You get it. Maybe dreams were born. Maybe dreams died. Maybe it was cheers to a birth. Maybe it was cheers to a death. Maybe a cheers to a wedding. Maybe cheers to a divorce. Maybe it was celebrating the championship (Go Phils!) or maybe it was to drown sorrows from losing the Series in 93 (still hate Joe Carter!). A guy friend of me reached out and said “I miss you”. I know he was probably drinking. He’s a good guy and fun to be around. He’s working hard to support his wife and kids. Somewhere along the line, we all went our different ways. Connected today by social media yet not social. I felt bad cause it was too late to drive to his house and well that was that. I told him  we had a plan to all meet up. I thought to myself. Who knows if this would be the last time I could be talking to him? Maybe there was more going on. I didn’t ask. In 2022, we are bound in such different ways. Technology has disconnected our real connections. Part of me doesn’t like it and I work in tech. Tech has gotten me in trouble some times. Caught in the act we shall say. But in a way happy I was caught cause I was doing wrong. There lies my question. Are we engaging today? Are we being human to humans? I use tech a lot for my personal life (pictures, blogs). I admit that. But are we still there for each other? I don’t know. Maybe that’s how we get off track. We forget who our friends are. Are they people or images on a screen now? I can’t hug a picture.  I like hugs. Haha. Til next time. Next round on me! 

Here’s to you Aunt Joan. You were always enjoying a cold one. You always were engaged and entertaining. You always were interested to see us. You were empathetic. You had joy. You were independent. Your hugs and cheek kisses were always something I sought out. I never was in a bad mood around you. Even when Mom passed. You were there with that same empathy and you didn’t even talk cause I knew you loved my mom. I knew you I loved us. I knew we loved you. You lived good. You lived an honorable and joyous life. I never ever heard one person say one bad thing about you in all my 44 years. That speaks volumes. I will miss seeing you. I will miss you the way you drank your beers. If my memory serves me right. You just held your beer a way I will remember until my time comes. Say hi to mom and Kathy and “Joe”. My God he got a kick out of you calling him that. Say hi to Uncle Har. He is probably making everyone laugh. The two of you. Two special humans I will remember forever. Just your personality and temperament. Thank you for loving us. 

Now I think I'm going down to the well tonight

and I'm going to drink till I get my fill

And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it
but I probably will
Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the glory of, well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days

Glory Days. Bruce Springsteen

Before the mast

It’s usually the sun that gives you hope and light and all that stuff you read in a Hallmark card. The moon usually isn’t directly out the window of my balcony. I happen to lay down to watch a movie and I look up and the moon, in all its dark beauty shining through my door. It was so bright and vibrant that the sunrise can wait another 6 hours. You truly never know where you can pull hope from. The light of the moon can guide you just as much as the light from the sun…it’s all about perspective. 

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now. Henry David Thoreau

In the stars

About 2am the wind was howling. The trees were shaking off the road. A cool breeze of a summer not yet in flux. A clear sky, clean air, a calm heart. Summer nights always opened up the endless possibilities of youth. A hot day wrapped in a cool night under the stars. Opened up the balcony door. Bare feet touching the cool concrete. Arms dangling over the railing and asking for answers but not needing them. Desiring to know the purpose of this life but in the way of wonder and not in pressure. The stars above, shining above us now, have been shining for some time…shining over us as kids, as friends, as always. The light shining over the silhouette of the tree line. I wonder what’s past the trees and if the clearing will bring clarity. 

the landing

It was as if the rain evaporated before it hit the ground. Maybe that was it. Tears never landed. Maybe they disappeared like the past, gone in an instant....not to be remembered. It was all so fast. The time, the moments, the light...up in the morning, sunset, night. I grew up loving the light of the sun and then the darkness crept in and it was the light of the moon that garnered the attention. The sun shines....all over this planet. There are great things happening. There are bad things happening. The sun still shines. I imagine dying on a sunny day...how could you be sad? All the while people die all over the world on every day of the year, my day will be no different. I hope the sun can shield my loved ones from the hurt that comes on that day. I can't recall one speck of the weather the day my mother died. I only remember my sister's phone call. She was gone. My sister shrieked as she said that to me. It was so final. In a dark sense I wish I could see my face at that moment. I was alone when I got that call. I remember the pain of hearing "gone". It is final when it's referring to that. My mother, gone, never to rise like the sun again, but she rises in my mind, in my heart and protects me from the thoughts and feelings to which I cannot control. She is the sun in the days when my darkness is not lit up by the moon....and she continues on in her life after this one. I can still look at the sun and smile. It sometimes smiles back...causing a salt-filled droplet in the corner of my eye....no different than the drops that filled up the ocean....mixed with the rain that made it to land so many years ago.

Maybe

Maybe I was scared. Maybe I was afraid of what I would do when there were no other doors to open. Maybe it was all in my head. Maybe I wasn't where I was supposed to be. Maybe I was. Maybe where I am isn't really anywhere at all. Maybe it's as confused as we are. Maybe time is passing us. Maybe we are just passing through time. What will be 100 years from now? Will they remember us from the past? How will they refer to us? How will they see us? As a friend said, "the father leaves the legacy..." What about us individually...what is our legacy? Who was I really supposed to be or did I become exactly what I was meant to be? Did those off ramps derail my trip? "Even if you're standing on the right track, you can still get hit by the train.." Will Rogers was on to something. We can put things behind us...but they are still there. I remember a time, 2000, reading those emails so fast..I didn't know how much they mattered. Sometimes I re-read them. I didnt get rid of them all. It was a time when we didn't know that emails would become memories...to last forever. Maybe I am not really writing. 

"You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment."

Henry David Thoreau

Sonset

 “Mistakes are just opportunities to learn to be better…” That’s what I first heard this morning. Woke up at 330am worrying about things I couldn’t control run by people who choose to do wrong versus right. I would say I woke up on purpose since it was bothering me. I woke up and researched, read, checked processes until I thought I would go back to sleep. No chance. The mind was in hyper speed. Then something went off. I’ve missed a ton of sunrises. Natural ones. There was never a need to wake up when the sun was waking up. On the contrary I could’ve been going to bed when the sun was rising. Not often, but it’s happened. It’s about 28 degrees where I live. Nothing fancy about my area. It’s not a place you’d set your google map to go. It was home before, it has become home again. It’s a place of my past, maybe of my future. I can live where ever I want, yet I am here. Maybe by chance. The sun is rising. As I write (type) this to my notes on my phone, I see the sun in the distance. I am not afraid of a new day. I am grateful of the new day. The cold is the alarm clock my body always thrived off of. The cold was always my wake up call. The cold was this unsafe natural feeling I always enjoyed. Just as much as the sun. The cold makes me feel alive….the sun lets me know it’s a new day….a new opportunity to get it right. I hope wherever you are….you get to see the sun…because even on the coldest days, the brightest sun is there for you to know there are better times ahead. 

I've found that there is always some beauty left - in Nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you. -Anne Frank

Penn St.-Delco reclaims division baseball crown

October 4, 1996 | Delaware County Daily Times (Primos - Upper Darby, PA

Section: News

655 Words | Readability: Lexile: 1210, grade level(s): 11-12

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Klein's goal wins for Widener in field hockey

WAYNESBORO -- Penn State-Delco rallied from a two-run deficit to post a 4-2 win over host Penn State-Mont-Alto yesterday to capture its second straight CCAC Eastern Division baseball championship.

The win sends the Lions into Sunday's CCAC best-of-three title series against Western Division kingpin PSU-Beaver at State College. Sunday's doubleheader begins at 11 a.m. Game 3, if necessary, will be held at 11 a.m. Monday.

After spotting Mont-Alto its two-run cushion, PSU-Delco roared back with three runs in the fifth. Tom Keogh got the rally started with a single and scored on Ryan Mattei's hit. Kevin Dorrain added a run-scoring double and Mike Pralle chipped in with an RBI single.

Mattei added an insurance run with an RBI double in the seventh to help make a winner of Mike Daloia, who scattered seven hits and went the full nine innings.

""Mike did a real nice job'' said first-year Delco coach Adam Winters. ""He never got in any serious trouble. Even when we had a little defensive lapse in the second inning, he hung in there and bailed us out.