(S)Trumpet Vines

We have a nice patio off to the side of an English garden overlooking Dickerson Pond. We have planted and care for some perennials around the patio area. We have a trellis to one side with climbing roses at the center and Campsis radicans, commonly known as trumpet vine growing up both sides of the trellis. We purchased the two trumpet vines four years ago in September after seeing one with a multitude of orange blossoms at a local nursery. These would be perfect for setting apart the roses and to help attract and feed additional hummingbirds that share the patio area with us in the summer.

Each morning I go out to the trellis and examine both vines for flower buds. Each morning I walk back to our front door disappointed. We have pampered these vines for almost four years and they have not returned our kindness with a single bloom. Last fall, we were about to rip them out and only relented after talking to a local nursery owner who said to give them another year. It is getting toward the end of that year! The past few months I have done a little research on trumpet vines. They are not native northeast flora. Considering their southern "bad girl" reputation, "Trumpet vine, Campsis radicans is fast growing and sometimes considered invasive in warmer climates," we thought we could control them in New York. What fools we are.

Perhaps it is the pampering that is at the root of our troubles. I found this posting recently, "For best blooming, give it full sun, well drained soil and low moisture and no fertilizer. If it doesn't bloom well chances are that you are pampering it too much. Prune it in early spring to shorten and remove dead wood. To control aggressive growth cut it back to the ground and it should resprout. The orange tubular flowers which attract hummingbirds and bees are produced on current season's growth." Whoa, here I am watering these (s)trumpet vines each day and placing fertilizer spikes at their bases and I realize now that it is tough love that these vines need. I found another posting that recommended hitting the trunk of the vine with a board to shock the vines into bloom. I took my Pro Prince tennis racket a weapon I mainly use to whack cicada hornets [read the August 6^th posting Modern Day Pterodactyls], and gave each vine several good forehands. I am also withholding as much water as possible and actively prune the vine to help let it know I am the boss. If I get a positive ruling from the Supreme Court and the water deprivation does not work, I might try to water board the vines into compliance.

I do have my fears about this approach. Another posting I found is giving me cause for worry,

When I moved into this house 18 years ago as a renter, I inherited a trumpet
vine - campsis radicans. I have learned that it was the last plant to leaf out in the spring and the first to lose its leaves in the fall. Here's my horror story and what I've learned about this vine. Over time the vine began to bloom and pop up everywhere in the yard. I would pull the sprouts only to find more year after year. When it pops up in the lawn it can just be mowed. After 13 years we purchased the house and had to cut down 5 trees and regrade the land due to overplanting and flooding. When we dug up the stumps from the trees and regraded we discovered roots of the vine 3' to 4' deep in the soil, up to 30' from the parent plant and as large around as my wrist! We dug and dug and, well you get the point. A year later we still had sprouts coming up from bits of roots that we'd missed.´

What if the vines turn on me? I do have some WMD I have gleaned for other postings that I can use if the (s)trumpet vines change their behavior from merely withholding their blooms to an outright invasion of the entire garden area. [I cannot reveal these methods at this time since I am composing this post only feet from the vines and I have suspicions that they can hear and unscramble my keystrokes.]

So I sit and wait patiently. Over three years of waiting are already in the books and I see little hope of any blooms this year. Do I give them another year? But how do I handle news like this one from another posting?

Q: My trumpet vine never blooms. Why?

A: These can be finicky to get blooming, especially for the first time. Like wisteria and climbing hydrangea vines, it's not unusual for trumpet vines to go five years before their maiden bloom.

Part of the reason is that woody vines like these tend to want to extend their arms sufficiently before thinking about reproduction. You may be able to speed up the first bloom a little by pruning back the leaders to encourage more side shoots, where the flowers are going to occur. Otherwise, it's a matter of waiting. I've even heard of people waiting for up to 10 years before they got their first trumpet vine flowers.

There will be no "ten year" wait in my garden. When I purchased these vines, I assumed I also purchased their reproductive rights. It will be five years and out. If there are no blooms next year, we will be enjoying one fine bonfire next fall. Let me type this one more time slowly and with emphasis and hope that the vines are paying attention, we will be enjoying one fine bonfire next fall. Wait, I saw a movement high on the trellis. Perhaps tomorrow, I will see the first bud. Forever the optimist!

Throlf

In the mid seventies we were living in Dorado del Mar, Puerto Rico. Our home was in a community of approximately two hundred houses on the former property of the Dorado Hilton Hotel and Golf Club. It was a mixed community with about fifty percent of the homes owned by Puerto Rican families. Some of those houses were just weekend retreats for those living in San Juan, and the rest were owned or rented by stateside people. Most of us "gringos" were working at US owned construction and pharmaceutical firms. Life was good.

One of the things that made it so good was the close friendships we made with other members of our community. Being away from your lifelong friends and family members, seemed to make each of our new local friendships that much more important to us. Like us, many of the families had young children. Most of the families had only one person working, so there was a family life reminiscent of the 1950's with the community simulating an extended family. Weekends at the club pool and tennis courts were a nine to five events. There were hours of tennis doubles matches and we all shared responsibilities watching the children at the pool. It seemed everyone played golf at least one time each weekend. And by the way, we did all go to work Monday through Friday!

Now my friend John was somewhat unique for our Dorado del Mar community. John was a stay-at-home Dad. His wife was the plant manager at a Dorado pharmaceutical plant. John like many of us was a very competitive person in any sport he played. He also had a temper fuse that was about one millimeter long. It was always easy to push John's buttons and get him to let his temper ruin his game.

Late one afternoon, John frustrated with golf and tennis asks me if I want to play nine holes of throlf. I cannot remember how John came up with this, but it is not the game that you can now Google. The Google cited game is for little kids and seems much too reasonable to catch the fancy of two twenty-nine year old men [kids]. John quickly described the game to me. All we need is one golf ball each and a walk down to the beautiful tenth hole at the Dorado del Mar Golf Course. On the walk to the tee, John explained the throlf rules to me. Here they are as I remember them.

• You must only move the golf ball with your hands.
  
• You can take a running start to the tee markers or to where your last shot landed before you throw your ball.
  
• You can roll the golf ball on the green or you can lean over and drop the ball.
  

Three rules, that's not bad! Regular golf has a rules book that is 192 PDF pages. The cost of throlf is also attractive. My current golf clubs, balls, bag and shoes probably cost about $1,000. For throlf, John and I just reached into our golf bags and grabbed any used ball for our pending match. This game is sounding good. Off we go to the tee. John wins the toss for honors, runs up and heaves his tee throw about fifty yards. Fifty yards – I am thinking that fifty yard is nothing. Now I am on the tee. I run up toward the tee markers with my arm as far back behind me as I can keep it, golf ball gripped somewhere between my thumb, forefinger and middle finger. As I near the white painted coconuts the course uses as tee markers I let the golf ball fly. To my dismay, my ball bounces, rolls and ends up about two yard behind John's ball. At Dorado del Mar the tenth hole is an uphill par five with the green overlooking the ocean. Beautiful! Getting on the green in regulation was out of the question. We both adjusted our ball grips and throwing forms. We tried different flight angles. We most likely were throwing near one hundred yards by the middle of the round. At the end of the round, I know my arm was killing me and throws once again were getting shorter.

The best news was that I never missed a fairway. I did land in two green side traps and we improvised a rule that if you were in the trap, you could not run and throw, but needed to keep your feet still for the throlf shot. This is not a big penalty since we were already within a few yards the green. We did have one argument – it would not be a game with John without at least one controversy. Executing one of my short "putts," I dunked my ball into the hole and it popped out after hitting the bottom. We finally ruled it a made putt. This was the first and last time we tried this sport. Our arms hurt too much trying to throw such a light and small ball. It was a Bengay evening!

I have had thirty-two years to think about this round of throlf. I want you to consider some of these innovations:

• Bolf – this is played with the same rules of throlf but the bolfers have the option of using a fungo bat for shots from the tee or the fairway. Scores will be lower, but more rules will be needed. In bolf there will be balls out of bounds, lost and in hazards. Bolf rules could be much too complicated.
  
• Tolf – again this is played like bolf, but tolfers are using a tennis racket for tee and fairway shots. Putts could also be made using tennis rackets. I expect more control using the tennis racket rather than the fungo bat, but more rules than those used for throlf will be necessary.
  
• Crolf – a more genteel game. From tee to green a croquet mallet is used. I am afraid that water hazards and sand traps could make the game too difficult at times. A tea break after five holes will be a requirement.
  
• Polf – this is the lazy man's crolf. It requires an electric or gas polf cart and polo mallet. There is a big advantage to left handed strikers unless you can find a polf cart with left hand drive. Alcoholic beverages are absolutely forbidden on the polf course.
  
• Yolf – in the throlf adaptation, a large sling shot is used for all tee shots and optionally from the fairway. I am pushing this game since I have applied for patent for a graphite sling shot with a square groved leather ball flinger. I have registered the trademark 'Goliath' for this yolfing driver.
  

El Pickerel: Send Back the Carp

As one of the more faithful readers of the Dickerson Pondit blog, I made a request to write a guest piece since I could tell by the tired similes in the Pondit's last few postings that he needed a break. My name is El Pickerel, but my fellow fish (or is it fishes) prefer my nom de plume, Picky. I have been a resident in Dickerson Pond for the past four years – that is twenty eight years in people years or four dog years. Dickerson Pond was a nice place to grow up. Nice until they showed up. Those snooty foreigners with their vegetarian ways think they are better than us true American fishes (or is it fish). They look different than we, they eat different than we, they insist on being among their own. I say, send them back to Malaysia or Uzbekistan or wherever they are from. If living in Dickerson Pond just like we pickerel and perch live is not good enough for them, send them back to south east Asia or wherever. If you are in an American pond, you swim American, you eat American (no nibbling on algae, you chase little fish (or is it fishes), and if we fishes (or is it fish) could talk, you talk English. The Pondit is right, get rid of the carp. [Almost all of us pickerel are not in favor of the alligator solution.]

Life used to be so simple. The water was clear, the little fish (or is it fishes) were plentiful. A meal was always there for the chomping. Occasionally, while sitting in the sea weed – technically it is pond weed, but no one calls it pond weed – and digesting a young perch, I would glance up and see this object float overhead blocking out my view of the sky. One of the pickerel elders, Dick Pickerel, tells us that it is the Goodyear blimp and its appearance most likely indicates the start of the US Tennis Open in Queens. Since none of us argue with Dicky, especially Picky, I am cool with the Goodyear blimp theory. A few seconds after the blimp goes by overhead propelled by these long wooden poles moving in unison, I see this strange little fish swim by with these gorgeous earrings dangling from its belly. Most of you should know that we pickerel have no ears, and it is perfectly acceptable to wear your earrings on your belly. To me it looks like hors d'ouerves time in the pond. So I swim up and take a nibble. Ouch, next thing you know I am tangled up in the little guy's belly ring and this minnow must be spending overtime at the New York Health Club. I start to fight, but this little guy starts pulling me, El Pickerel forward. I say why bother, wherever this little guy goes I will just follow. In about a minute I look up and there is the blimp. Visions of alien abductions fly through my brain. I have heard stories of other fishes (or is it fish) being taken aboard these blimps and never being seen again. I start to fight to get away from both this minnow and the blimp. The little guy is very strong or maybe there is some sort of voodoo ray coming from the blimp and drawing me closer and closer. All of a sudden I am out of the pond. All my life I fantasized what it would be like to be out of the pond, and I now realize that was not fantasy, it was a nightmare.

I finally realize the source of the minnow's power, he was attached to a string and some humanoid was controlling it. I am now flopping around on the deck of the blimp. A big yellow rubber glove reaches down to grab me and some strange surgical pinchers reach for the minnow in my mouth. I go blank for a few seconds or was it hours or even days. Suddenly I am thrown from the blimp back into the pond. I sense something in the back of my head but cannot see it. We do not have any mirrors in the pond. My deepest fear is that they now control who I am and what I do. I am technically free, but cannot help but sense they will be back and the next time there might be no escape. Paranoia strikes deep.

I tell you this story to let you know that I can appreciate that the good old days were not always peaches and cream – to us fish (or is it fishes) minnows and frogs – and if I start carping about those foreigners, you will know it must really be a bad situation. I have very few friends, my type of fishes (or is it fish) left in the pond. Most have moved on to red states to be among their fellow American fish (or is it fishes). Picky is staying on. I now look out for the gaudy beaded minnows and search for the shadow of the Goodyear blimp. It is hard for me. The once clear pond water is now murky. I have started wearing Michael Phelps swimming goggles to help with my vision. My plan is to get abducted and stay abducted. I am hoping wherever the humanoids take me, there will be no grass carp or other non desirables. For some strange reason, I am more comfortable with the thought of living with extraterrestrials than with other fishes (or is it fish) from foreign lands.

If I make it to the other side, I will write. Until then, just keep following the Pondit. If he can resolve the grass carp infestation, maybe I can convince the humanoids to beam me back. Get ready Scotty!

Sending Out an S.O.S

Carpe diem! At Dickerson Pond the appropriate phrase is "Seize the Carp!" Dickerson Pond is about a forty acre lake formed by damming up a meadow in the 1920's. When I came to the area in 1999, this private pond was hardly ever fished. The members of the community that own the pond are seldom on the water although we have canoes, paddle boats and row boats available. I like to fish or at least spend time on the lake trolling with an Ugly Stick and low test line dragging an artificial lure behind the boat or canoe. In 1999 and 2000, I could see down to the bottom of the pond in most areas. Dickerson Pond is for the most part four to eight feet deep. There was lots of aquatic growth and many, many pickerel and perch in the lake. On most days, I would hook and land a pickerel or perch every five to ten minutes. My usual equipment that I kept on the seat next to me while trolling was needle nose pliers and a right handed rubber dishwashing glove. I would row with the left glove on my hand since I used it often while removing the fish from my line.

The lake is also home to herons, kingfishers, otters, muskrats, Canadian geese, eagles, turtles, frogs, salamanders and even a family of beavers. Occasionally, a swan or two make an appearance, but years of losing cygnets to snapping turtles has driven them to safer waters. In 2001 we had what I describe as an aggressive algae bloom on the lake. This made fishing with a lure almost impossible, since every cast and retrieval would fine the lure tangled with green slime. A solution to this problem was researched and quickly implemented. We introduced around five hundred nine inch genetically neutered grass carp into the pond to rid the pond of the excess algae. At the time, we understood that the carp would eat ad nauseam and pass away (kick the bucket) in five years. These carp do not eat anything but vegetation. There was a question posed by a resident on what would happen if the carp ran out of pond vegetation to eat. Someone did suggest that they would jump on shore and start eating the grass and perhaps smaller pets. That was probably not a verifiable answer. Recently the carp have become much bigger and food supply appears low. I keep a careful eye on the shore line when strolling around the lake.

These 500 faux carp are now fairly large. I can see them from the lake shore although this is getting more difficult since our formerly clear water is now getting to be more of a sickly green. Most of the carp are 36-40 inches in length and getting fatter every day. Here is what the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has to say about these Triploid Grass Carp:

WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TRIPLOID GRASS CARP?

Cost: Triploid grass carp cost between $5 and $15 each and are usually stocked at three to ten fish per acre, resulting in costs as low as $15 per acre. In comparison, herbicides cost between $100 and $500 per acre and mechanical control may cost more than twice that.

Time: Grass carp usually take six months to a year to be effective in reducing problem vegetation, although they provide much longer term control than other methods, often up to five years before restocking is necessary. When used in conjunction with an initial herbicide treatment, control of problem vegetation can be achieved quickly, and fewer carp are required to maintain the desired level of vegetation.

Overstocking: Once stocked in a lake or pond, carp are very difficult to remove. If overstocking occurs, it may be ten years or more before the vegetation community recovers. Even after carp are removed, other herbivores such as turtles may prevent the regrowth of vegetation.

Water Clarity: Aquatic plants remove nutrients in the water. When plants are removed, nutrients may then be utilized by phytoplankton, turning the water green. Clarity may be improved by reducing or eliminating sources of nutrients into the lake such as road runoff and lawn fertilizer.

Inflows/Outflows: It is in the best interest of people stocking carp to keep them in the desired lake or pond. It is also a required condition of the permit. Any inflows or outflows through which carp could escape into other waters require barriers to prevent fish from escaping into waters not permitted.

Now the residents at Dickerson Pond are responsible Americans. We reviewed the state of Florida recommendations for barriers and were not impressed. A decision was made to turn to the Department of Homeland Security and design our barriers after the anti illegal immigration fences being deployed in Texas, Arizona and California. I did argue that the Homeland Security fences were designed to keep undesirables (Mexicans looking for employment) out of an area and we were looking to retain the undesirables (carp looking for algae) and quite possibly needed to research the design criteria for retention fences rather than exclusionary fences. But the height and foreboding look of the Arizona fences were just too captivating to resist. Fortunately, someone in the community did some additional research and informed us that the Olympic record for high jumping by a triploid grass carp was merely three meters (39.37 inches) and that was a carp found to be using anabolic steroids to enhance performance. We will once again review the recommendations of the FFWCC.

We need to rid our pond of the alien invaders. They live ten to fifteen years and not the five years we were led to believe. We want our pond back and we want it back now. I do have some recommendations from Clemson University and I am going to share them with the rest of the community. Here is what the learned people at Clemson tell us:

The following is a list of potential grass carp predators that can seriously reduce or eliminate all grass carp:

1. Man
   
   
2. Largemouth bass, bowfin, etc.
   
   
3. Osprey, herons, etc.
   
   
4. Otters
   
   
5. Alligators
   
   

Well, this looks interesting. We do have ospreys and otters, but I believe these are predators for young grass carp. I have a sneaking suspicion that I will not be seeing an osprey flying overhead with a fifty pound grass carp dangling from it talons. Herons, forgetaboutit. We have no largemouth bass and I doubt even the professional bassers (that is the proper term for a redneck bass fisherman) have caught a bass with a mouth capable of a fifty pound chunk of carp. If I can get a group of otters organized – a street gang of otters (perhaps they can call themselves the "Sharks") – they might have a chance to cull off a carp or two for food. But how much carp can an otter eat. I'm calculating five hundred fifty pound carp as 12,500 meals if the otter can eat two pounds at a seating. We cannot wait that long.

Man – we introduced the carp, we can remove the carp. Now I have been able to get within four or five feet of the carp in a silent canoe foray. These carp are gregarious if you find one, you will find fifty. I believe they gather as such to constantly engage in "carpial" sexual activities. Little do they know they have zero chance for successful reproduction? Maybe carp sex is just plain enjoyable? At five feet what am I supposed to do Mr. Clemson? Hit the carp with my paddle? Is it legal to shoot carp? Is there man vs. carp battle engagement recommendations? Your readers need more direction! Help!

The answer must be number five. I must contact the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and find out the number of recommended alligators to introduce to Dickerson Pond to rid us of these carp. I am guessing no more than twenty twelve to fifteen foot hungry gators could clear out those carp in a month maybe two. I cannot imagine there would be any red tape in getting an alligator stocking permit in New York, the city of New York breeds these critters in their sewers. Surely they would let us borrow twenty for a couple of months in Westchester County.

I do recommend anyone planning on visiting us at Dickerson Pond this August and September to leave their pets and small children at home. A steady diet of grass carp might not be that attractive to the alligators. I will address ridding the pond of twenty very fat alligators in a later posting.

Béisbol!

In the mid 1970's, my job gave me the opportunity to transfer from upstate New York to Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. That might sound somewhat regular to us living in the "oughts," but for me and my family it was an adventure. Although a Bronx boy by birth, a college graduate and working for a large pharmaceutical company, my trip to visit our manufacturing plant in Barceloneta, PR and look for housing was the first time I had been in an airplane. That first trip was an eye opener for me. Palm trees and sugar cane for as far as I (eye) could see. Tropical beaches and staying at a resort hotel nestled between golf courses and the Caribbean Sea, there was nothing not to like.

The initial drive out to our company's manufacturing plant at Barceloneta, seemed endless, with sugar cane growing on both sides of the small highway. When we reached the main road, there were small stores and businesses and even some sleepy towns. The landscape changed as we neared the plant. The sugar cane fields were now replaced by pineapple fields, or at least that was what I was told. I had no idea how pineapples grew and always wondered how they fit them into the cans. But lo and behold, in the middle of acres and acres of pineapples was the Winthrop Laboratories pharmaceutical plant.

A couple of months later on New Year's Day, the family was on an Eastern Airline jet headed for Dorado, Puerto Rico about half way between San Juan and Barceloneta. We rented a home in a golf community just outside of Dorado, a small town with very few stores and maybe one traffic light. Our belongings including Christmas gifts for our young daughters were coming by sea. They arrived about two months later primarily due to a port strike that affected the entire island. We had a week for sightseeing. In Puerto Rico many businesses close the week before Christmas and do not reopen until after Three King's Day, January 6^th. We visited El Yunque, Fajardo and San Juan. Brilliant sun filled days. For our first two months we only experienced rain overnight. We were in paradise.

Living was easy, as long as you could accept you were not in New York or Delaware, but in Puerto Rico. The water was good and plentiful (not always the case in the Caribbean), electricity worked (most of the time), telephone service was good and with a short car ride, shopping was OK. At the plant, the management team in place before I arrived had transformed local pineapple field workers and stay-at home moms to be stellar chemical and pharmaceutical workers. Things were great except for one small faùx-pas. In those two months before we left New York, I do not know how many people we told, "You have to come down and visit us." They all did! It was hard to explain to them that I had a job and needed to go to work each day.

I have done it again. This post is titled béisbol and I have not mentioned it once. Winthrop Laboratories had a softball team in the Arecibo Industrial League. We actually built our home field on the edge of our property – we had pineapples cultivated both inside and outside our property line fences. Just beyond our right field fence there were rows and rows of pineapples. Each year the two divisions of the Arecibo Industrial League held a ceremonial all star game. The game was held under the lights in Arecibo and drew quite a crowd. I was the sole "gringo" on the field. I felt quite honored. Baseball (béisbol) is quite respected in Puerto Rico. It is almost as popular as soccer (fùtbol) and dominos.

All aspects of the game are played to their fullest. During this game we had a thirty minute delay due to the pondit just being the pondit. Playing shortstop with a runner on first base, I moved to my left to field a low line drive. Rather than simply catching the ball and recording the out, I let the ball hit my open glove, picked the ball up after it hit the ground, stepped on second base for a force out and threw to first for a double play. This seemed like a good idea to me. Immediately there was a gaggle of base runners, managers, coaches, umpires and I suspect several spectators milling around second base arguing and gesturing in very rapid and animated español about what had just taken place and citing nonexistent rule books as well as moral and ethical codes. Does Abner Doubleday or a supreme being permit someone to purposely drop a fly ball to their or the team's singular advantage. After twenty minutes, it was decided that one should not be allowed to purposely drop the ball. They then spent the next ten minutes debating whether the drop was on purpose or just happened. Finally there was a philosophical discussion on how to distinguish when a ball was simply missed or maliciously dropped. This was all for a game that had no bearing on anything. [By the way, I believe the decision was correct. A fielder cannot intentionally drop a ball to gain advantage.]

Béisbol was fun in Puerto Rico. Even the arguments were entertaining and civil. We spent three very good years in Dorado and learned lessons being away from "home" that stayed with us the rest of our lives.

Westchester: Land of Much Wampum

Although I have lived in Westchester County since 1977, that makes thirty-two years of not knowing what the Westchester County government actually does. I have some understanding of village, town and school district operations, but the county government is a mystery. Today I want to talk about just four of the responsibilities I know belong to Andy Spano and his team. Later I can discuss other items as they come across my radar screen. This year's county budget is $1,780,000,000. Yes, that is $1.78 billion. That is a lot of wampum even for Westchester.

We do have very good libraries in Westchester. They even have very polite system that calls my home to let me know that books we have reserved are actually at the library. I take that back, the system is efficient, but as hard as I have tried, I find it impossible to engage the library caller in a conversation. Perhaps they get paid by the number of calls they make and chatting with me is just like taking money from their pockets. "Mr. Holt, Charles your copy of Blue Beard is now at the Croton-on-Hudson Library. It will remain at the library until June 13, 2008. Please pick up your books." This poor woman sounds as though she has swallowed a frog or has a hangover that will not go away. Every word is a struggle for her. I often feel compelled to ask her how she is doing, but I only get silence at the far end of the line.

Now the libraries in Westchester are city, town and village responsibilities. My guess is that these hung over phone callers with their garbled voices are the county employees or autobots created by the county. They cannot be paying them a significant share of the $1.78 billion otherwise they would sound much more joyful on the phone..

Every few months we do receive a rather large mailing from the county. Enclosed in those packages is the latest rendition of the evacuation plan in case of an accident at the Indian Point Nuclear Power plant. At Dickerson Pond we are about five miles as the crow (or neutrons) flies. We live on a narrow two lane road with nothing by double yellow lines for miles. There are also two schools within a half mile of our location. Now as I read through the plan there are a couple of key premises to it working well. The first is that we will have alarms that work and that we know what to do when the alarms go off, fat chance. Next is that the people assigned to drive the evacuation buses will immediately rush from where they are to our area to collect the school children and residents. They will hear that there is a nuclear accident at Indian Point and jump in their bus/car to drive toward the nuclear incident, right. Now since the plan makes the roads in our area all one way, leading away from Indian Point the bus drivers and their vehicles must drive against the traffic. I can imagine how easy it will be for the assigned bus drivers to drive in towards the panicky evacuees and make to their assigned starting point, assuming anyone will want to drive toward Indian Point. That makes about as much sense as the evacuation plan's recommendation for parents not to drive to the school where their children are to pick the students up, but to abandon their children and leave on the evacuation route with the idea of rendezvousing with their children in some ill defined location. Oh that is going to work well.

There are over twenty million people living within fifty miles of Indian Point. Public Safety employees cannot get seventy thousand fans out of Giant Stadium after a football game in any semblance of order, and these same people expect twenty million people to evacuate in a prescribed fashion. I hope we are not spending much money on these plans. When I hear the sirens, I am packing up the contents of my wine refrigerators and heading to the condo basement area.

We do have Westchester County police. One of their big responsibilities is patrolling the Westchester County Parkways. These roadways are another county responsibility. Most of these parkways are aptly named after moving bodies of water. Aptly because any time there is more than a rain shower these parkways are fully submerged. The primary responsibility of the county police seems to be barricading the parkways and redirecting traffic to the secondary roads least capable of handling the traffic. We have state, city, town, village and NYC Water Department police forces in the county. There does not seem to be a police shortage in Westchester, but who am I to know.

I know I just skimmed over these areas of service and perhaps some other day I will give each the full attention it deserves. So much to say -- so easy to ramble on.

Baseball on the Tarmac

It is the beginning of April in the Catskill Mountains. Why are there twenty boys and a baseball coach on the high school tennis courts with no tennis nets or tennis rackets? Well the Yankees and Red Sox go to Florida for spring training, the Onteora Central School baseball team heads to the tarmac. In the spring of 1962 there was no baseball field at the high school. So our team's initial infield practice was held on two tennis courts. I was trying out for the team and was placed at second base, a spot near but not actually adjacent to one of the metal posts that supported one side of the tennis net for most of the late spring, summer and fall. The paved surface of the courts with its dark colors was perfect for an early snow melt. The outdoor temperature was in the mid forties, perfect baseball weather. The coach would hit ground balls with a fungo bat working his way from first base to second, to short and third, then back again.

The hard surface of the tarmac made the use of a rubberized baseball a necessity. As hit by the coach the ball would spin and each subsequent bounce of the ball would be either abnormally high or low depending on the spin imparted by the tennis court surface. But even the low bounces were almost knee high. I mentioned I was placed at second base. In my sophomore year in high school I possibly was five feet five inches and weighed one hundred and twenty-five pounds. I looked natural for a second baseman. As practice wore on, I was eventually moved over to third base. In his wisdom, the coach decided it would be better for the team if the third baseman was able to catch a ground ball and throw it all the way to the first baseman. Now throwing ball after ball from third base to first base – let's see the infield is a diamond but a truly a square with ninety feet between bases and that make the throw 90 feet times 2 or 127 feet – for a one hundred and twenty-five pound teenager in forty-five degree weather is not good for the arm muscles. By the time the season started, I was praying that the ball would be hit anywhere but third base!

Those of you who have baseball in your veins realize that the beginning of April is a late start for spring training. Our first two weeks of training were in the gym! We would exercise and warm up our throwing arms, as much as our small gym would allow. Most memorable was practicing our base running which included sliding into base. This was done by laying potato sacks on the floor and running as fast as you could then flinging out your feet hoping beyond all hope that your thigh and hip would land on the potato sack and not the dry, hard gym floor. This was cruel. This was not baseball.

Time for our first game, and we were fortunate to be starting with a home game. So at 2:00 PM we head for the bus – home game? Remember, Onteora Central School did not have a baseball field. We all rode the bus to Kingston which was nineteen miles away for our home games. I forget what team was our opponent that game. Little wonder since most games were the same for us. We were the antithesis of undefeated. It was not the bus trip that put us at our biggest disadvantage. It was trying to catch ground balls that were not taking tarmac hops and the fact that we have had no batting practice at all. It was a long season. I missed one game with a dental emergency. We were playing a powerful Marlboro team. I learned the next day that we had lost 43 - 2 and that they called the game due to darkness in the third inning. My replacement at third base had made six errors in the first inning. It was bad.

The next year the school district added a baseball field on the huge terraced hill behind the gym that was home to our a track oval and a football field. What did not get put in was a right field! The base path from first base to second base was parallel to the backstretch for the track and the distance between the second baseman and right fielder allowed for intimate conversations. A rocky slope was directly behind the right fielder then there was the woods leading up the mountainside. There was a stake in right center field that designated any ball into the woods was considered a double whether it was a four hundred foot blast or a two hundred foot pop up. Oddly left field went on forever. A foul pop fly to the right of the third baseman was an adventure. If you crossed the running track to catch it, you ran the risk of running off the side of the terrace. I will say that the stake in our right field was a step up from the manure pile used to indicate ground rule doubles at the home field for the Pine Bush team.

We actually won a couple of games the year we had our own home field. Being able to practice on a real field including hitting pitched balls prior to the start of the season is a plus. I enjoyed playing ball and the teams that we played were overjoyed to have us on the schedule. It isn't often you can be that happy and at the same time make those around you feel the same.

Now baseball at Onteora has improved. My brother-in-law eventually became the coach and did a wonderful job with the program. My nephew played ball on the team and went on to college with a baseball scholarship. The school has a real baseball field now and it doesn't share real estate with the track team and football team. As I think back I do not remember us winning any football games that year either. But our high school band won state awards. Perhaps the reason for the terraced field was for the marching band. The football field was added so they would have a reason to mark up the field to aid the band in perfecting their routines.

My only regret is that if we had started the game against Marlboro earlier in the day, I wonder if we could have come back to win? It only takes a few walks and well placed hits to score forty-one runs.

Modern Day Pterodactyls

Specius speciosus, here is a topic certain to grab everyone's attention. It has been a central focus of the 'pondit' and several of his neighbors each July and August. Most of the northeast is free from this plague that missed the Pharaoh but has settled in the Dickerson Pond environs, the giant cicada hornets.

These are BIG insects! Several local residents have slightly exaggerated the size of these flying creatures and compared them to pterodactyls that they remember from years back. The Dickerson Pond community is an aging community, but I have challenged some of the residents about their age and memories.

Every sunny morning about thirty to fifty of these flying fortresses zoom around our English garden in search for hot, torrid waspian rapture. Mate, tunnel, kill, fertilize and repeat. This is the essence of their two month of terrorizing our garden. Our stone patios around the garden are slowly sinking into the middle earth as the tunnels created by these beasts become as numerous as the stars in the sky. Two unconfirmed sightings of cicada hornets carrying off a toy poodle and a calico cat might also be a product of local minds under the influence of steroids or martinis.

I did mention that these critters are BIG. They hunt and kill cicadas that are in our linden trees and provide the nightly concerts for our area.

Now these delicacies are harmless but are one to two inches long. Our winged beasts of terror, the cicada hornets, kill these insects then fly back to our garden carrying the carcass in order to bury it as food for next year's crop of killers. Are you starting to get the idea of just how large these modern day pterodactyls really are?

Tunnels, so the fertilized female cicada hornet digs a tunnel to store the cicada she is about to hunt. The dry gravel between our patio stones is an ideal medium for this work. One tunnel will leave a mound about three by three by three of debris on our patio. One tunnel we can accept, hundreds is socially unacceptable and has led me and others to seek out internet help for controlling these predators. One "practical" idea was to come out late at night and cover the patio or nesting area with a fine mesh. In the morning when the burrowing females wake to start there cycle over again you can bombard them with liquid or powder chemical agents (Weapons of Wasp Destruction). That did not seem sporting to me. One neighbor spent two days rearranging his patio stones to decrease the gaps between the stones. Two days of rock moving did not seem attractive to me, and has proven only marginally successful.

But there was another eradication method proposed one site that fit my warped sense mortal combat. Now during the frenzied period of cicada hornet daily mating, I stand with tennis racket in hand waiting for a hornet to light on the outer branch of one of the large evergreen shrubs in the garden. They rest only for seconds. A step or two nearer and using my preferred forehand stroke with a western grip, I swing in anticipation of the escape path the cicada hornet will take. I listen for the distinct ping of cat gut striking beast. That sound is a confirmed hit. I then search in the direction I most likely propelled the hornet and use my Mick Jagger flip flops to confirm the kill. Yesterday I had sixteen hits and eight confirmed kills. This is a good day, but not a record. My neighbor's mother who comes visiting on weekends from Chinatown in NYC, prefers a badminton racket. It is lighter and allows for more speed through the killing zone. I have to try one.

I know, I need to get a life.

Getting 100 Million Clowns to the Station

How do they do it? How do all those clowns fit into that one miniscule vehicle? I have yet to read through every page of Al Gore's $5 Trillion Energy Plan, but a quick search of the document did not reveal any mention of clown cars. This seems to be a significant oversight and given proper consideration could trim $2 to $3 trillion off the estimated cost of the plan. At first I thought that at least T. Boone Pickens was on the right track until I realized I made a typo in my Google search and entered "blown" instead of "clown." Is it possible neither of these prominent Americans ever went to a circus? I am estimating that a reasonable number of circus clowns able to fit inside a modified VW Beetle are eight. Hold onto that estimate, it will be useful in a few paragraphs.

I am no longer commuting to work each day, but have years of experience qualifying me as a subject matter expert on commutation. My former commutation station is rather new and has a parking lot designed for about 700 cars. Most of the spots are paid for monthly, but there are about 200 that can be rented on a daily basis. I have used both methods and neither is without serious trials and tribulations. A monthly pass allows you to park in any of 500 spaces as long as you display your pass that conveniently hangs from the rear view mirror of your car. In my case it is usually hanging from the mirror of the car I chose not to drive that day. That all too frequent occurrence enables me the luxury of finding a metered spot and paying an extra three dollars to park, assuming I have three dollars in change or bills in my possession. If you arrive at the lot at any civilized hour, you have 300 yard walk to the station. Fortunately it never rains until you are at least 100 yards from the umbrella you left in your car. Once you get near the station, you get to use one of the three machines machines (Delphic oracles) that sadistically ask you an impossible riddle, “What is the number of your parking spot?” You can now: (1) guess the number, (2) realize you do not have the slightest clue and skip paying (That assures it is a day they will be checking the lot for scofflaws.), (3) walk back 300 yards, find your car and mindlessly repeat the number over and over again on the 300 yard walk back to the station.

Next, it is time to go to the coffee hut for traveling provisions. At least the Delphic oracles mentioned above allow you a sense of individual identification and assume you have a different number each day (Not so when I was paying daily parking on a regular basis. I beat the demonic oracles by parking in a remote area – 400 yard walk – and using the same numbered spot (#699) each day. My mother did not raise any fool!). At the hut, I am but a small coffee, a splash of half and half, with a buttered hard roll. I accept this lot in life and would not dare ask for a piece of crumb cake in fear that the entire operation would grind to a screeching halt with that request. Five years of receiving the same order without a word exchanged between vendor and customer. Five years longing for one lousy piece of crumb cake.

The actual station platform faces directly across to a cement, gravel and asphalt plant. From spring to fall trucks from the Town of Cortlandt, Villages of Ossining, Tarrytown, Croton-on-Hudson and the City of Peekskill line up to get the goo that smooth the potholes of our lives. That was until gas prices were $4 per gallon! (Asphalt is a thick form of refined oil. It is heated with gravel and is moldable while hot. It becomes "road" hard at normal temperatures. This transformation creates a surface for smoothing out all the bumps in our lives. Apparently, there is a point where our town governments believe that potholes are socially acceptable and smooth sailing is not a right but a luxury. Crude oil above $120 a barrel is that point. The asphalt plant has been idle for months.

Remember the clown car – eight clowns in one VW Beetle? Too many of the cars in the station parking lot are closer in size to a Yukon Denali than my Subaru Impreza station wagon (What more appropriate transportation to get to the station than a station wagon?). A typical commuter drives three to ten miles to the station, carries one brief case or oversized handbag and comes alone in their vehicle. Here is the tale of the tape:

Category	Yukon Denali	Impreza Station Wagon	Clown VW
Weight	5,635 lbs	3,064 lbs	1,900 lbs
Price	$51,000	$23,000	$1,595
Mileage	15 mpg	22 mpg	35 mpg
Height	77 inches	58 inches	.75 clown
Length	202 inches	173 inches	1.5 clown
Width	79 inches	68 inches	1 clown
Volume	711 cubic feet	395 cubic feet	1.125 cubic clowns
Weight per passenger	5,635 lbs	3,064 lbs	238 lbs
Volume per passenger	711 cubic feet	395 cubic feet	0.14 cubic clown
Fuel cost per round trip per passenger1	$3.73	$2.54	$0.202
Fuel cost per round trip for 100 million commuters	$82,060,000,000	$55,880,000,000	$4,400,000,000

1. Seven miles each way with gas at $4 per gallon
   
2. 100 million commuting clowns carpooling
   

So if we can do some slight social engineering and get all commuters to switch to a 1963 VW Beetle and commute by walking to a central commuting point with eight commuters in a car, we stand to save over $77 billion dollars per year in gasoline costs. As reasonable as this sounds, do consider the impact of showing up at the office or factory dressed like Bozo the clown.

'Take paradise and put up a parking lot' ... Joni Mitchell

As I get older I find myself searching for those experiences that weave the essence of my being. Baseball is a skein of yarn that shows up in my amazing multicolored dream coat over and over again. Where do I begin? Several years after the end of World War II – oh by the way I am an early on certified baby boomer – our family left The Bronx for the wilds of Long Island. We were home owners with a bedroom for each of us and a front and back yard. Actually, our house bordered on a large open lot and the opposite side of the lot was in Queens. But to friends and relatives, we might as well have moved to Bora Bora. It is here that baseball entered my bloodstream.

It started with a Spalding ball (a.k.a "spaldeen") and our back roof. It took some imagination and hours of idle time. It would always be an important game, usually the Giants vs. the Dodgers but occasionally the Giant versus the Yankees. I would start a nine inning game by tossing the spaldeen as high as I could up onto the roof of our Cape Cod style house. I would record an out if I caught the ball without it bouncing on the ground, it was a single for one bounce, and a double for two and four or more bounces was a home run. If Hodges, Pee Wee or the fearful Duke Snyder were "up to bat" my eyes would be riveted on every bounce on the roof. There would be no errors. When my Giants were up, I was slightly more lax for Davey Williams, Monte or the great Willie Mays. The beauty of this game is it had only one participant. No friend to get bored and no arguing over calls.

But that was not my only "solitary" game. Right behind the row of poplars separating our back yard from the lot, were thousands of beach shore rounded stones. Whether they were left from construction or just natural for Long Island I did not know or care. With those stones and a make shift bat, most likely a fat dowel left from home construction, I would toss up stone after stone and try to hit them as far as I could into the lot. Once again, I cycled through Giant and Dodger line-ups and used my warped judgment on whether the swing produced an out or a hit. I do believe the Giants had a perfect season in 1955 while playing the Dodgers in my back yard, that in spite of them winning the National League pennant elsewhere.

By the time I was nine, I graduated to the make shift ball field near the center of the lot where the big kids from Queens played their games. Most of the time it was "flies up". One player would bat, tossing the ball up with one hand, then trying best he could to knock the ball over the heads of several fielders standing where they thought they had the best chance of catching the hit. If you caught it on a fly, you became the batter. If you caught it on a bounce or a roll, you could take the ball and throw it in toward the batter who was obliged to place the bat on the ground perpendicular to the thrower. If your toss hit the bat and the current batter did not catch the carom before it hit the ground, you again became the batter. This would go on for hours. Being nine years old and short, many fly balls headed my way were intercepted by older fielders.

If enough players were in the lot, we started a game. Enough was ten people! You needed a pitcher, first baseman, shortstop and left fielder. The hitting team was required to provide the catcher. More times than not the baseball was wrapped in electrical or friction tape to keep it from losing its cover. Any ball hit to the first base side of second base was an "automatic" out. There was no set number of innings. We just played on. I was ill suited for this game. From the time I was five years old my uncle taught me to be a left hand batter, not a coveted switch hitter, but merely a left hand batter. His thought process was that this would enhance my chances to make the major leagues. My potential major league status did not impress the boys from Queens. When it was my turn to bat, almost always the solitary left hand batter, there was no consideration for the short stop and left fielder moving to second base and right field. It became my responsibility to hit the ball to the opposite field. This lack of concern ultimately ruined my chances for a successful major league and even college baseball career. Was there ever a left hand batter who could not pull the ball to right field besides me?

Now the boys from Queens were mostly from families that were Italian and Greek. These were my role models and some of the language skills I was able to learn were well accepted by my non-lot friends but seemed to cause some anguish to my parents. One adjective (gerund) I brought home caused me much more anguish than it did my parents. How could so common a word, it was part of almost every sentence spoken in the lot, be worth that much punishment for me for a single use at the dinner table?

I loved being a kid! By the way, check out this link to see what today' generation has for entertainment rather than my "lot"! (use this address and select the satellite view - 45 kalda avenue, new hyde park NY) Joni Mitchell, I share your pain.

The Other Side of the Mirror

On Thursday, July 22, 2004 a massive contingent of troops bombard, invade and quickly overwhelm the Hawaiian Islands. The invading force is a coalition of Chinese, North Korean, Iranian, Yemeni and North Vietnamese soldiers. In fact, eighty-five percent are Chinese troops, ten percent North Korean and only token forces from the other coalition participants. Using modern weapons and surprise the invading forces suffer minimum casualties and subdue the islands within two days.

Although initial world opinion is overwhelmingly critical of this action, the international community is unable to make any coordinated effort to stop the invasion and occupation of the islands. The invading coalition makes it immediately clear that it has placed and armed numerous nuclear devices on the island. It has informed the international community and the United States that any attempt to retake the islands or attack any territory of the coalition partners will result in the detonation of these devices.

Although it is unclear why the coalition took this actions, several communiques and recent statements by politicians and the press in the coalition countries have cited the United States poses a threat to world stability, that United States has repressed and prevented the indigenous Hawaiian population from obtaining self rule and they allege that the United States has and is concealing an enormous cache of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). International press stories hint that the real reason for the invasion was for China to gain access to the lucrative sugar crop in light of the recent demand for sugar that has tripled the price of this dwindling commodity. This has been vehemently denied by the Chinese government.

In order to protect their citizens, the coalition nations have detained any US citizens who were in their country at the time of this action. Although no formal charges have been made against these detainees, they remain in detention centers and have no communication with the outside world. Coalition countries continue to assert their rights to this action and state that the detainees are being treated humanely.

It is now over two years from the start of this incident and the islands are still occupied. Many Hawaiians have responded to the occupation with violence. Militia groups continue to harass and attack coalition forces. Sugar cane fields are routinely set on fire. Electric and water utilities are disrupted. Coalition forces are responding with house to house searches to seek out and engage the insurgents. Many coalition troops and thousands of civilians have been killed or injured in this ongoing effort. China reports that over one thousand of its troops were killed or injured during the past two years. That is in contrast to sustaining less than one hundred casualties during the initial invasion.

The United Nations is actively working to broker a settlement. Although self determination for the Hawaiian people is an issue, the demand by the coalition forces that the United States reveals and destroys all its WMD and that the US vows to discontinue research or production of such weapons is preventing any diplomatic resolution of this conflict. The US refuses to consider this demand even with the offer of the coalition force nations to do the same. Right now, the conflict is at a stand still. Daily casualties for both civilians and coalition forces continue to mount. The pressure on the global economy and sugar shortages and runaway prices takes a toll on all economies. There is a reported demand from some the Chinese population for a resolution of the conflict. But the central government and their control of the press has been able to isolate and neutralize the effects of any internal protests.

At this time, we can only wait and hope the suffering of the people in Hawaii soon comes to an end.

Prejudiced, Not I …Well Maybe

[Squirrels!] The Dickerson Pondit lives in a fairly rural setting - trees, lake, deer, coyotes, foxes, birds, snakes – you get the idea. I also live within forty miles of New York City whose gateway still rings out with these words,

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

I enjoy the olio of humanity of NYC. I am not always one hundred percent comfortable with everyone I meet, but The Bronx is surely more interesting than Greenwich, CT! So as I try to reaffirm my broad tolerance of all mankind, I have to admit that my holier than thou all inclusive attitude does not extend to all of God’s creatures. [Squirrels!]



I have a soft spot for birds. I am a three bird feeder guy with a spare feeder in place in case of any feeder malfunctions. I know you are thinking, what could go wrong. That is the exact attitude that CBS executives were having during the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show and look what happened then. I want no part in any malfunction feeding a red-breasted sapsucker. So I am prepared. I make sugar water for the hummingbirds, have thistle seeds for the finches and a fine seed mixture for the other local song birds. [Squirrels!]


I have my feeders hanging from linden trees near our patio. In the past I used twenty pound test fishing line and an ‘S’ hook to hang the bird feeders from the delicate linden boughs. Today I am using reinforced metal cables and carabiners. [Squirrels] To refill my feeders I do have to climb a stone wall. This is no so hard, it is only about three feet high from the patio side but does have about a twenty foot drop on the far side. I have been successful reminding myself that the evening after a couple of glasses of medicinal red wine is not the time to refill the feeders. I enjoy watching the birds feed, but do have my preferences. Male goldfinches to female goldfinches, hummingbirds that hover rather than perch to feed, chickadees to starlings, cardinals to blue jays – again males cardinals to females. I do not believe this male/female thing is prejudice, but no one is a good judge of their own prejudices.


I and most of my fellow humans judge ourselves at the top of the intelligence scale for all fauna. I must admit that these last several months have had me questioning this accepted premise. [Squirrels!] There are some animals that I am having trouble outwitting. Now I am a gentle person. I have made it through my entire life without once coveting, owning or firing a gun. I did have a bow when I was young, but did no more than target shoot. But recently I spent hours scouring toy stores looking for the highest power water gun available to an unlicensed owner. I ended up going to the mother store, Toys-R-Us, on Broadway in New York City to find the suitable weapon. This pump loaded pistol has a thirty-five foot range. Perfect for my patio and my favorite seat about fifteen feet from the primary bird feeder. I admit that I considered much more powerful weapons, including a sling shot I used for pests about twenty years ago. Fortunately, I reflected on the nature of the community where I am living and realized the image of me with a BB gun sitting on my patio eyes riveted on a hanging bird feeder would bring complaints to the condominium board. I believe me holding a Buck Rogers blue, lime green and orange squirt gun would never become a board meeting complaint.


So I now spend hours on the patio, gun at my side waiting for the kill. Male cardinals could be feasting on sunflower seeds, several male goldfinches could be jockeying for a spot on the thistle feeder and hummingbirds could be hovering over all four sugar water spouts on their feeder. Yet my eyes are focused not on these marvelous birds but at the linden tree about twenty feet from me and five feet from the bird feeder. I am waiting for the perpetrators. [Squirrels!] But they sit casing the crime scene a comfortable thirty-six feet away. They case and I stare. Stalemate!


Epilogue:


Today the heavens opened and we had a thirty minute downpour. We waited for the rain to stop to drive to the supermarket. As it let up and I got the car, we slowly drove away and I glanced over at the bird feeder. There he was, hanging upside down, soaking wet trying his hardest to get at the bird seed. He/she was soaking wet now but at other times spiteful enough to stay thirty-six feet away from me and my gun. Oh this is not prejudice, this is jaundiced bigotry. [Squirrels!]

No Cell Phones in the Fast Lane

Just this morning I read that we lost 51,000 jobs in the US during July, 2008. Economists had expected a loss of over 75,000 jobs, so this bad news is really good news or at least not so bad news. I am certain there is a web site or a thousand pages federal report giving the details on how, where and when these jobs were lost. How does a job get “lost.” Does it go out into the woods without a compass? Does it drive like a man and refuse to ask for directions? Do “lost” jobs ever get “found”? Sorry, I lost my train of thought! I believe I have a pretty good idea why many of those jobs were lost, at least those that were lost in midtown Manhattan.


I am an urban walker. Although I am not an “I live in the city” New York walker, I have qualifications. First I was born in New York City – well not exactly, I was born in The Bronx. I have worked in Manhattan twenty-two of the last twenty-seven years. For several of those years I walked from Grand Central Terminal to 37th Street and Broadway. In 1999 that walk of five streets and four avenues took me on average fourteen minutes. Good day it was twelve minutes and the worst of days seventeen minutes. A bad day was rain, puddles, slush and heavens forbid, having to wait for a light to cross a street! Those days are long gone.


What has changed? I am almost nine years older and reluctantly will admit to losing a step or two. That amounts to seconds. There are seasonality factors to consider: Heavy winter coats and bad weather add travel time in the winter along with the walk back to GCT being in the dark. Those factors are balanced by the distraction of summer time fashions and the loss of concentration those fashion models cause to me and others. These seasonal factors tend to balance each other out.


I just realized I am already writing paragraph four and have not even alluded to the title of this posting. I have not yet stumbled back to those 51,000 lost jobs. Of course, if they are truly lost jobs I should not be able to stumble upon them. Last year my walk back and forth from the train terminal … I have to pause here – to commuters like me Grand Central is a terminal since the Metro North service terminates at Grand Central, but to the millions of subway riders, Grand Central is a station, since trains continue both uptown, downtown and side town. Let’s see, if a commuter transfers from a train to a subway at Grand Central does it become a “stational”?


I did it again and now it is paragraph five. Lately that walk to the office is nearly fifteen to twenty minutes. That is three additional minutes. Yes, I am complaining but I am not whining. This is serious. Three minutes each way adds up to twenty-two hours per year of lost time for me. Consider that there are a million people on midtown Manhattan streets each day and you are looking at 12,500 lost work days. An average work year is two hundred and twenty days, so this is a loss of almost fifty-seven full time work years. And what do I attribute this highway robbery of American productivity? It is Dick Tracy and the weak dollar. I remember as a kid reading the Sunday comics, there would be Dick Tracy talking into a telephone device on his watch. Remember these are newspaper comics. Dick was always stopped with wrist up when he was communicating. Today it is cellular phones. But this is real life and people walk while they talk or better put, they stroll while they talk. If I am walking behind someone and their cell phone rings, the person starts to move at half the speed. It is one quarter of the speed if they are texting. People on the phone walking toward me are slow moving hazards. They have no idea where they are heading. Two or three side by side cellularites and there is no place for me to pass. It is now hard to find someone walking in NYC who is not on a cellular phone.


Did I mention the weak dollar? Perhaps it was Adam Smith who came up with this economic modeling formula: W$ + MTM = MMT. That is given a weak US dollar and the attraction of Mid-Town Manhattan and you get Millions of Tourists. The definition of a tourist in NYC is someone in shorts and a shirt they should not be wearing, speaking in a foreign tongue (that includes the queen’s English) walking at least three abreast looking up at the top of every building. They actually move at a pace that slows down the cellularites.


But I said I was not a whiner. I have a solution and I am confident as soon as Michael Bloomberg finds this blog, we will be weeks away from resolving this walking quagmire and getting back at least 57 of those 51,000 lost American jobs. All New York City sidewalks must become one way and marked with three lanes. The curb side lane is reserved for the walkers meaning to get from point A to point B. The middle lane is for the cellularites who are communicators and not walkers. The inside lane are for the tourists who are gawkers and not walkers. With a hefty set of fines and aggressive enforcement we might also be able to balance the 2009 NYC budget. Why must we of the private sector always be the ones resolving these city problems. Sigh…..