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A bumpy anticipated night; cerebral road forks and subways of my mind; maybe this blog will make sense. I said last night at Grand Central Station, “I love the smell of New York subways, deep in the underbelly of the city; a musty aroma after a warm mid summer night’s dream.”

If they made cologne encapsulating that smell, I’d buy. Kramer on Seinfeld wanted to bottle the smell of ‘beach;’ same idea. The headlights of an approaching train and I thought Harry Potter was about to scoot me away. J.K. Rowling wrote early ‘Harry Potter’ on the back of fast food napkins, so the legend grows. Yesterday was a mid summer night’s dream; went with wife, son and special sister-in-law to see Paul McCartney at Yankee Stadium.

How can I express the feeling of being there, filling all my senses, (yes even ‘Up in Smoke’ olfactory) marveling at this nearly 70 year old wondrous icon singing for nearly three hours without even a plastic bottle of water to the lips. ‘All My Loving’ of the man, his music, my youthful complacency never having seen the Beatles or Paul live or having gone to Woodstock. I languished in my discontented youth without purposeful direction. Why do I love my youthful complacency; because it taught me all the right moves for living now.

Paul’s music was a cyclonic explosion of a myriad of memories. Day tripping all over planet Tralfamadore; I was at a college frat party with a first girlfriend (a senior in high school), holding her hand, or ‘She Loves You’ while I was in the dorm preparing a cheat sheet for Botany or wondering about becoming a ‘Paperback Writer.’ I really did become a writer. Yankee Stadium rocked full. ‘Give Peace a Chance’ cerebrally echoed heading back to the subway; a fight broke-out nearby, while exiting because a guy accidentally bumped another guy’s wife.  Ten thousand in that stadium hallway; somebody was getting bumped. I yelled-out the song’s name but it didn’t curb hostility and there wasn’t enough room to shrug my shoulders.

Two nights ago I watched an HBO documentary on the life of baseball great Curt Flood. I should mention to you all that a long time ago in a galaxy far away, I watched my share of network television until CBS messed around with the show ‘Dallas.’ Being hooked on the show, wanting to be just like JR, I even bought a cowboy hat and strolled sidewalks of Jersey, proudly and ducking under most doorways because of my prohibitive 6′ 6″ height without the hat.

The next ‘Dallas’ season had a strange story line followed by the following season telling viewers, that the previous year was just a dream. I’d call that a mind-rape, abuse and a waste of time. For me that was the dramatic, happy ending of all network television forever. No corporate executive sitting on a soft sofa is going to waste my time ever again on insipid programming. So I took to a life of news, biography, science, talk, college sports and documentaries and of course old movies.

Back to Curt Flood; once again I clench my fists of frustration that growing up, I did not pay enough attention to him and what he was valiantly fighting for. On January 16, 1970, Curt Flood shocked America and baseball by filing suit against Major League Baseball and its reserve clause. Baseball had faced legal challenges in the past, but never had a player of Flood’s caliber/class attempt to attack the game’s sacred reserve clause which effectively bound a player with contract to a team for life. The St. Louis Cardinals outfielder had three All-Star appearances, seven Gold Gloves, and a pair of World Series championships while he earned $100,000 a year, yet accused baseball of violating the 13th amendment, barring slavery and involuntary servitude. Most of the public and media initially reacted to Flood’s action in utter disbelief, branding the outfielder an ingrate, a destroyer, even a blasphemer. He gave his life and the rest of a high paid career to his principles. Only near the end of that precious life, did he get standing ovations by peers for his courage and what he accomplished(game changed and free agency) which he so needed; sometimes he cried at ovations. So I add Curt Flood to an ever growing list from my youth, of people I should’ve known. A lesson for millenials (mid-youth): Don’t let life pass you by. But it usually does. Sure, too bad youth is wasted on the young.

Back to television; I forgot, sometimes there are miscellaneous shows I’ll watch but mostly cable because bad words can be used. Bad words are life blood in the sharpened race, tinged with playground reality and fireside chat with speakers on. So I watch ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ occasionally. Of course no show is going to own me anymore.

On the recent season premier of ‘Curb’ there was a segment when a young girl gets her period for the first time in Larry David’s foyer. He ran upstairs for his soon to be ex-wife’s box of tampons and tries to instruct the girl through the closed door how to use it. He didn’t do well because what guy really knows. Why do I bring this up?  Borrowing a Phillip Roth, ‘Goodbye Columbus’ story line; back in college in 1968, I had a rich doctor’s daughter girlfriend. Her parents liked me and lavished trappings of the good life on the poor son of an old fashioned shoe-salesman. Girlfriend and her mother were obsessively close. When her family took a month long cruise to the Greek Islands, they left Calvin with the family Lincoln Continental to use; it promptly died a mile from the ship terminal; a harbinger of things yet to be perhaps. When the family returned, doctor and wife sat me down, since I pinned their daughter by a romantic lake at the Jersey shore, and informed me that they will only let their daughter marry a doctor. I was two years away from being a pharmacist and was not changing careers. Seems like a forerunner of the Kyoto Protocol (curbing greenhouse gases); nobody budged.  But I was smart enough to realize long term relationships do need a modicum of sexual compatibility and since we were both virgins, we’d have to address the issue.

By the fall, she was practice teaching near Niagara Falls and we planned the most clandestine secret assignation. I’d come to visit, no parents would ever know, we’d consummate in a cheap motel.  I’d become a man and decide whether med school was in the wicked witch of the north’s crystal ball. Twenty minutes before leaving, her mother called and asked me to bring some sweaters; it was getting cool up there. I was devastated and still am; trust was all gone; my own bed and breakfast room waited that her mother booked for me. Alas, we got a motel room and we were just about ready for the deed, when she went to the bathroom. Ten minutes later, a sheepish voice came through the door, “I got my period. Do you know how to use tampons?” I still don’t. Another ten minutes, she emerged wearing no less than seven pair of underpants. On the long lonely winding drive back to Jersey, I heard ‘The Beatles’ sing “Hey Jude” for the first time and heard Paul sing it last night and goose-bumped.

“Hey Jude, don’t make it bad
take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

Hey Jude, don’t be afraid
You were made to go out and get her
The minute you let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better”

I knew what had to be done. I didn’t agree with all the lyrics but the melody killed. Truth told, I never forgot; maybe if I had the impetus, I’d lie down and talk to someone to see if I was scarred. Here’s what I wrote her:

8-25-68

“It seems I could only look back-look back on past yet recent memories. How ecstatic and carefree I feel now. It’s strange but now I see little children laughing and dancing gaily around and around a MAYpole-but so slowly they danced as if in slow motion. The sun was so very bright that I had to squint. Oh, but they are gone now.

Then I saw a great vast body of water-an ocean with its towering waves thrashing the sandy desolate beaches. The water was such a clear dark blue-its perfect union with the sky at the distant horizon was only upset when little ships sailed on by.  But suddenly the sun vanished behind a great surge of dark gray ominous clouds; a storm came but then it passed.

Finally I saw a little girl with bright green eyes. She was running, dancing, and singing. She was so happy. Far away from the little girl, I also saw a little boy with searching brown eyes. He was running, jumping and climbing and he was so happy too. Then the two children were ushered home where they ate a nourishing and carefully planned meal. They had such a good time again after being dismissed from lunch. Later they prepared for sleep and dreamt of promising and pleasant things.

The children are running now and TIME is running so fast as if to overtake them. One day they bumped into one another while they were still running. The boy picked the girl up, looked deeply and apprehensively then affectionately into the pools of her green eyes and held her hand tightly for only a brief moment. She ran off again and so did he. This time they were running away from one another, on a straight, rigid, freshly paved road. Their backs were turned and they didn’t see each other crying. As long as the road remains straight, they won’t hurt each other again for they can’t bump into one another.

Maybe they will stop crying. Maybe they will get tired of running.

Oh, but it is so foggy now. It might snow or did they buy pop-corn or a box of candy. They will both be late for lunch; that would be terrible.”

Cal

I never saw or heard from her again after my Dear John letter. ‘Hey Jude’ helped change me. Life is full circle. Last night more ‘Hey Jude’. A few months ago, Facebook helped me find her. So I saw her again that night and then I went into the kitchen, hugged my wife and thanked her for being part of my synchronistic life.

As you know reading my blogs, I’ve been concerned with living to 150 years old; kind of a quest, Jason and the Argonauts and tinged with enough reality and caring that I am now joining an organization that is advocacy and research for unlimited life, which is becoming more plausible with every Moore’s Law year, as human knowledge doubles. For a recent newborn I told the parents, their child will more than likely live to 150 but with quality and extended time on tennis courts.

Part of the tools to help us all get there is spreading the word that this is a realistic goal. “Knowledge is Good.” From, ‘Animal House.’  Lions and Tigers. Oh my.

Here’s a link to the website; start exploring, expanding, digesting and growing younger and going to rock concerts and lengthening your telomeres. There is something in the hills.

http://www.imminst.org/

An easy way to sign off on today’s “Beatles” oriented blog; share a few words from ‘Imagine.’

“Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world”

John Lennon

Imagine ‘them’ just quietly solving the debt ceiling and doing the right thing for the economy and good and welfare of all upright standing beings.

CONTAC T INFORMATION

website: http://vichywater.net

Facebook: Cal Schwartz

Twitter: Earthood

Email: earthood@gmail.com

LINKS:

link to magical Jersey shore.   Also check out the ‘Jersey Shore Icon Contest.

http://www.visitthejerseyshore.com/

and for special deals on Jersey shore rentals: (it’s never too late)

http://shorevacations.wordpress.com/

Vichy Water Book Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj2ko9gcC_M