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Often, traveling will play a trick on you. For example, on the Wednesday before the Thanksgiving holiday, I traveled by interstate bus from New York to Storrs, Connecticut. The distance was 147 miles according to the mileage on the bus ticket. The first twenty minutes of the trip got us from New York’s Port Authority Bus Station on West 41st Street to West 84th Street and Amsterdam Avenue — a distance of about two miles.

After that we gathered ’speed’ and I exited the bus in Storrs 5 hours and 15 minutes later. More than five hours to travel just 147 miles. Just a few days before, I had flown in from Asia. The second leg of the flight was from Vancouver, B.C., Canada to New York’s JFK Airport, a distance that traversed the entire North American continent, and took just 4 hours 20 minutes. Go figure. (more…)

About three weekends ago, I was one of more than 56,000 people in attendance at Belmont Park, in Elmont, NY, for the 2005 edition of the Breeders’ Cup, which is commonly known as the Super Bowl of thoroughbred horse racing. One hundred of the best racehorses in the world were on hand to compete for purses of 14 million dollars in eight separate races. Over 122 million dollars was wagered on these races which were simulcast to horse racing venues across the country, and likely a lot more in Western Europe, where horse racing originated and was called the sport of kings.

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The first time I read those words that are the title of this month’s column, they had been written by Paul Moran who writes the Horse Racing column for Newsday, a New York area newspaper. The circumstances were a golden October afternoon, when a horse called Go For Wand shattered her right ankle while battling Bayakoa, an Argentina-bred mare, down to the wire for the 1990 Breeders Cup Distaff Championship. (Photo above – The Painting below)

Pure Heart by Michael Geraghty

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Back in the old days before PC’s and VCR’s, before anyone had ever dreamed of DVD’s, before cell phones, and definitely before television, there were movies. And before movies, the main entertainment mediums were books and art and music. It was an age of mystery and things that were usually discussed in bed, or at least behind closed doors, maintained an aura of magic, or fantasy, or at minimum, a sense of romance.

I hear the breezes playing in the trees above

while all the world is saying you were meant for love.

Isn’t it romantic merely to be young on such a night as this?

Isn’t it romantic?

I first heard the words, Isn’t it Romantic as they were crooned on the soundtrack of a movie called The Day of the Locust.

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So, did you grow up in a city or was it the suburbs, or maybe you were a kid who grew up in a rural neighborhood where you had to get on a bike and pedal for a while just to see your next-door neighbor’s house.

Me? I grew up on Long Island, about 40 miles east of New York. We had lots of woods near our homes, so we had many opportunities to go exploring with the family dogs. And we played at being Cowboys and we fought the Indians, only make believe of course, but we did have our tree forts. We were outdoors, and we had our dogs with us. We followed tracks in the leaves, and believed we were brave hunters.

Los Tres Amigo by Richard Iams

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Do you know those wonderful lyrics to the September Song written by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Maxwell Anderson in 1938.

Well, it’s a long, long time
From May to December
But the days grow short
When you reach September…

The authors are not just talking about the Autumnal Equinox coming in a few weeks, when the hours and minutes of daylight exactly match the hours and minutes of darkness. No sir, they are speaking about the seasonal change when the summer delights end, and then we return from holidays and go back to our work-a-day worlds. They are asking us to think of the aging process, of how each of us will have fewer and fewer days left to spend with those we love. And, they are softly and gently reminding us not to waste even a single moment of the allotment given to each of us.

When the Fog Rolls In

Holding The Family Together

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So today is Labor Day and is a National Holiday in the USA. This fact is sort of misleading as most shops are open for business, as are movie theaters, bars, and restaurants. Many people will be working. Taxi drivers, bus drivers, and the rail, water, and air transportation systems will all be manned and operating so we can get to where we want to go. The painting below is called Archlight and this is a woman ‘working hard’ at resting. It is by Gabriel Picart, as are all the paintings on this page.

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