Do some things really get better with age or does our familiarity with them over time deepen our love and appreciation, thus making those things more special to us? I think one of the keys to answering this question is to make a conscious effort to always be looking for the new and unexpected in the familiar. It’s all too easy to take someone or something for granted, forgetting about the uniqueness and beauty that has always been there. The people and places that we most cherish are always in motion, constantly changing. After all, the only real constant in life is change. Whether it’s a loved one or a favorite place in the world, being present and aware of the unique beauty that’s before us is one of the keys to really showing up for life.

The idea for this essay came to me while out for a walk one recent evening. Sometimes I just listen to the quiet sounds of life in my neighborhood, and other times my walk has a soundtrack. On this particular night I decided to plug in my earbuds and put my iPod on “shuffle”.  After a few minutes of strolling, George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord came up. If a list could somehow be compiled of the most listened to songs of my life, this song would certainly be near the top. I was 14 years old in 1971 when I bought the 45rpm vinyl record of My Sweet Lord at the local record shop in my hometown. This song has been part of my life for half a century so I think I’ve given it some very deep listens. However, during my walk the other night I heard a nuance in the background vocals that I had never heard before. It was amazing, after countless listens I actually heard something new. Suddenly I was hearing this song with new ears. I liken this phenomenon to noticing something new in the smile of a loved one or perhaps a previously unseen characteristic in that person. I thought I “knew” My Sweet Lord but all I know now is that there are still doors that remain to be opened by me in that song.

Every time I listen to My Sweet Lord, my reaction is quite profound. I’m often nearly overcome with emotion while the song is playing. This music taps into a deep well of spirituality that I never knew existed within me. The Beatles were all very spiritual men, how else could they have created music that has resonated so deeply with so many millions of people? However, because of his deep connection to Indian music, it is  George Harrison who is known as the spiritual one of the group. I have no idea who or what God is but I think it has something to do with eternal love, joy and beauty. If that’s the case, then surely My Sweet Lord is the musical embodiment of God.

Using words to write about music is about as futile as trying to describe colors to a blind person. Trying to describe my feeling while listening to My Sweet Lord are equally futile, but I’ll take a stab at it anyway.

The song begins with a shimmering wash of acoustic guitars, layered like the brushstrokes of a master on a canvas. At :16 the sweet, melodic, double tracked slide guitar sound that is George’s trademark makes its entry with the first of his two guitar solos. At :48 the first hint of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound appears via some beautifully understated flutes. The backing vocals, in the guise of a chorus of angels, debuts at 1:26 with the joyous refrain of “hallelujah, hallelujah”. The song changes key as the Wall of Sound kicks into full throttle at 1:45 when drums, percussion, bass, more acoustic guitars and the kitchen sink are added to the mix. At this point George is so deeply into his lead vocal that at 2:23 when he sings, “I really want to show you lord but it won’t take long my lord”, his voice cracks with emotion. My eyes well up with tears here every time. The second guitar solo, between 2:39—2:53, is pure manna from Heaven. At the 3:00 mark, more angels join the choir as the mantra “hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, hare hare” is repeatedly sung. By now, My Sweet Lord is no longer just a pop song (was it ever?), but rather a prayer, and I’m filled with the hope and possibilities of love and beauty that this song invokes. During the final 1:47, instruments and voices are all working in perfect harmony, the joy of the musicians shining through like sunbeams shooting out from behind a cloud. The final fade out is a walk on the beach at sunset, the pinks and yellows, reds and oranges gradually giving way to the deepest shades of blue, then silence.

With the writing and recording of My Sweet Lord, I believe George Harrison and producer Phil Spector created music that is truly divine. Like this song, the people and places that I hold most dear will continue to improve with age because I will continue to find new and different ways to love and appreciate them. Hallelujah indeed.

As the sun finally rose, he was starting to understand the meaning of life. Well not really, but last night while he and his two best friends were deep into conversation, it seemed like they had it all figured out. Their talk was wide ranging and free form, bouncing from one subject to the next with a Kerouac like urgency. As the level in the tequila bottle got lower and lower, the three friends let it flow. Love, sex, aging, death and just how amazing is Roger Daltrey’s scream at the end of Won’t Get Fooled Again?  The sun was beginning to peak over the eastern foothills and yet the three friends felt like they were just getting started.

Like a Coltrane solo their conversation flowed effortlessly, folding over and doubling back, constantly reinventing itself, tendrils twisting and climbing, reaching toward the morning light. There is much history between these three. Their friendship was forged in the psychedelic swirl of the Grateful Dead. Their roots go deep into the past and far towards the future. Theirs is an enduring friendship, rock solid and steady. Their conversation continued to swing from the hilarious to the sublime and to all points in between. They were improvising and playing off of each other. Coltrane continued to blow.

Outsiders listening in would  be amazed at the amount of sarcasm and abuse that’s bantered about. However one thing would be very clear, the love that these guys have for one another is undeniable. They can keep it light as a feather or go as deep as you’d be honest enough to let yourself go.

Their tequila ritual, born on a winter night in Mexico, is essential to these proceedings. The pouring of the amber liquid. The slicing of the lime. The clinking of the glasses. The deal is sealed once again. They are brothers in every sense of the word.

When I awoke this morning, the sun looked a little brighter, the sky a deeper shade of blue, the air seemed fresher, crisper, the birdsong a bit cheerier. I wasn’t thinking about covid or Trump or racial injustice or climate change. All seemed right with the world because today, pitchers and catchers reported to spring training camp.

As our long covid winter begins to wind down, major league ballplayers dust off their gear, bid farewell to their families and head down to Arizona or Texas or Florida to begin the annual rite known as spring training. Last season is a memory, the slate is wiped clean and for now every team is in first place. For one brief sun splashed moment, all things seem possible.

The start of the baseball season coincides with the beginning of spring and shares the associated themes of rebirth and renewal. A baseball season unfolds at a slower pace than the other major team sports. It begins amidst the promise of springtime, gradually giving way to the dog days of summer and culminating in the chilly air of autumn. When the first pitch of the season is thrown, spring flowers are reaching their shining faces towards the sun, trees are beginning to bud out. By the time the World Series champions mob each other atop the pitcher’s mound, the ground will be covered with frost and the colorful leaves of autumn.

In our brave new covid world, there are many unknowns surrounding the upcoming season. Barring unseen circumstances, games will begin on April 1. Sooner or later (hopefully sooner) actual fans will be allowed inside the ballparks, thankfully avoiding the sad spectacle of  seats filled with cardboard cutout humans. The air will be alive with the screams and cries, laughter and cussing of real fans, not prerecorded crowd noise piped in over the stadium’s PA system. The twin aromas of hot dogs and peanuts will waft through the air. Fourteen bucks for a beer? I will pay it, as long as I can sip that beer in a seat along the third base line with my friends on a sunny Wednesday afternoon. The starting lineups will be announced, the booming sound of the players names echo through the cavernous ballpark. The anthem will be sung, we’ll stand along with the players, caps over our hearts. The home plate umpire will shout two of the sweetest words ever uttered together in the English language; “Play ball!” I can hear it now, the snap of a brand new baseball hitting the catcher’s mitt, the crack of the bat, the mighty roar of the crowd as a majestic home run arcs into the left field bleachers. Spring is on the way and baseball is back!

Towards the end of Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life, James Stewart’s character George Bailey is at the end of his rope.  He has just been shown what his community would have been like had he never been born. It is a nightmare vision. He stands in the middle of a bridge in the dead of night staring down at the dark, angry river below. A cold and bitter wind blows. His head is bowed, his hands clenched in prayer. George Bailey’s voice is choked with emotion as over and over he repeats this mantra: “I want to live again, I want to live again!” Of course he does live again. In essence, George Bailey is born again. He sees his life with new eyes. His dark nightmare has given him a profound gratitude for his friends, family and the life that he has lived.

Unlike George’s nightmare which always ends, there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight to this existential nightmare that we’re all mired in. Human beings, inherently social creatures, are being forced to live in a world largely devoid of meaningful human contact. When I watch a film on tv where people are smiling and enjoying themselves in a social situation, I’m filled with a profound sadness and longing for a life that seems so long ago.

I used to complain when I had to drag our kids out of bed and schlep them to school, often arriving with just minutes to spare. What I wouldn’t give for a morning like that now. Very few kids are getting sick yet they’re paying a disproportionately high price during our collective Covid nightmare. “School”  for millions of kids has been reduced to sitting in their rooms staring at a computer screen all day. No friends, no sports, no fun. For my children, distance learning has been an abject failure. They have lost an important time in their lives that they’ll never get back and that reality is absolutely heartbreaking to me.

When will we ever be able to see another persons face? See their smile? Shake their hand? Kiss them? I volunteer for a non-profit organization that gleans excess produce from farms and homes to give to the needy. I have no idea what the people I work with look like because I’ve never seen any of their faces.

On my bike ride yesterday I passed by my kids old middle school. The marquee out front reads: “Six feet apart but still together.” Does anyone really believe that? The pandemic has torn a gaping hole in our social fabric. We’ve never been so isolated. I sit in front of these Zoom meetings and desperately long for real human interaction without fear.

With virtually none of the usual social activities to mark the time, our days go by in a kind of fog, each one pretty much like the one before it. Is today Tuesday? What did we do last weekend? Did Christmas really happen. It’s all so stressful and disorientating. For most of my life I’ve been a fairly optimistic person but nowadays I find myself in unfamiliar territory. That half full glass is not quite as full as it used to be.

Fans of the Twilight Zone may remember the episode where a man finds himself in a town devoid of people. He becomes increasingly frantic as he races  from house to house in a panic looking for someone, anyone. He eventually breaks down, reduced to a sobbing wreck. As it turns out he is not in a town at all but in an isolation booth. This man is an astronaut, the booth an experiment to see how he would hold up during a long solo space mission. The empty town is his nightmare.

I desperately want things to turn out like they did at the end of It’s A Wonderful Life. We all emerge from this dark nightmare with a renewed gratitude for life and hope for the future. But of course this is real life, not the movies. Lately I’ve been feeling less like George Bailey and more like that poor guy in the Twilight Zone. Fortunately, the eleventh hour arrival of the cavalry led by Joe Biden atop his white steed may yet save us all from total disaster. I am guardedly optimistic, all of my fingers and toes are crossed. Time will tell.

I want our kids to go to school, real school, again. I want them to deal with the ups and downs of actual high school life. I want to see people’s faces again. I want to pass someone on the hiking trail without them turning away in fear. I want to hug my friends again. I want once again to go with my wife to our favorite Italian restaurant on a Saturday night. I want to sit in this wonderfully crowded place, listen to the buzz of a dozen different conversations, breathe in the heady aromas of garlic and tomato sauce and watch the bussers and waitstaff buzz around like bees. I want to go to the ballpark on a sun splashed Wednesday afternoon and sit with 30,000 other non-cardboard humans while we cheer on our beloved San Francisco Giants. I want to arrive at Russian River Brewery right when Happy Hour begins, fight my way through the crowd to the only empty seat at the bar and order my favorite IPA, sipping it slowly to savor the delicate hoppy flavors.

A virtual life is no life at all. I want to live again! 

As a child growing up in the 1960’s, the airing of The Wizard of Oz was an annual event not to be missed. It was long before VCRs, DVDs, video stores and online streaming enabled you to watch this iconic film whenever you wanted to. If you weren’t in front of your television on the night of its broadcast, you missed out. I  anticipated watching The Wizard of Oz with equal amounts of excitement and dread, dread because eventually The Wicked Witch of the West would make her appearance in the film. The Wicked Witch, played by Margaret Hamilton, was an absolutely terrifying figure to me as a little boy and one of the most malevolent and sadistic villains ever to grace the silver screen. Hamilton found her second wind later in life as the grandmotherly TV salesperson for Folgers Coffee, but she’ll always be The Wicked Witch to me.

In the film’s climactic scene, Dorothy is being held captive in the witch’s castle. Her little band of fellow travelers is outside plotting her rescue. Once she is  freed from a locked room, Dorothy and her friends are then pursued through the castle by the witch and her gang of axe and spear wielding  soldiers. Suddenly, they find themselves cornered. The Wicked Witch sets the end of her broom on fire and uses it to ignite the Scarecrow. Horrified, Dorothy grabs a nearby bucket of water and throws it on her friend. The witch is in direct line of the water. Water of course turns out to be the witch’s undoing. She slowly sinks into the ground screaming, “I’m melting, I’m melting!” When the soldiers realize what Dorothy has done, they fall to their knees in thankful supplication and proclaim, “Hail Dorothy!” The menace has finally been vanquished.

When Joe Biden places his right hand on the Bible on January 20th to take the oath of office, myself along with tens of millions of others in the United States and around the world will all breathe a collective sigh of relief. This will be our “Hail Dorothy” moment. The evil and hate filled regime of Donald Trump will finally have come to an end. He leaves in disgrace as the only president to have been impeached twice. Trump’s lasting legacy will be his complicity in the murderous and violent assault on our nation’s capitol by an armed and angry mob of his supporters, many of whom are members of violent white supremacist groups. During his four years in office, Trump has sown the seeds of hatred and division that have torn our country apart. Sadly, many of those seeds have come to fruition in the likes of senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and countless other mini-Trumps like them. The Trump presidency has been an unimaginable national nightmare. Like all nightmares, we eventually wake up but their effects can linger with us for a long time to come. 

President Biden carries a heavy weight on his shoulders. He will have the Herculean task of trying to unite our country and heal our deep national wounds. The road ahead is daunting and fraught with peril. Being a father and teacher of young children, I have no choice but to hold out hope that he is up to the task. God bless you Joe and… Hail Dorothy!

After witnessing the horrific assault on our nation’s capitol by Donald Trump’s mob, I felt an urgent need to do something life affirming, so I visited one of my favorite spots in nature.

One of the things I love about visiting a favorite place in nature are the chimerical like changes that it undergoes throughout the seasons. Nowhere is this more evident than at Bullfrog Pond in Shiloh Regional Park. I’ve written about this place before but each time I return, it’s like I’m seeing it for the first time.

Huge oak trees dot the hillsides that ring the pond, they stand in stark contrast against the washed out and uniformly gray winter sky. The sun is a spectral disc trying in vain to break through the overcast. A delicate veil of fog clings to the tops of the oaks where a huge hawk is perched, barely visible through the mist. The parched brown hillsides of summer and fall have given way to a carpet of hopeful green, winter rains having finally awakened the grasses from their long slumber.

It is so still, so quiet here today. The trees and bushes are stoic. The pond is a perfect green mirror, it’s surface unmarred by even the slightest of breezes. I can hear the chatter of an acorn woodpecker, the shrill whistling call of a red shouldered hawk, the rhythmic rapping of a woodpecker, the chit and chatter of a Stellar’s Jay. The resident black phoebe announces its arrival with a “chip, chip” as it captures an insect in mid-air.

The sun briefly breaks through the cloud cover and illuminates a large heart shaped spider’s web bejeweled with droplets from this morning’s rain. The many willows that surround the pond are naked and bony, their brown and yellowed leaves cover the ground beneath my feet. I breathe deeply and fill my lungs with the perfumed air, it smells of mud and sage, decay and rebirth.

Out of nowhere a coyote appears. It trots casually through this scene no more than 30 yards from where I sit. It stops and we briefly lock eyes, then it continues on its way. Seeing one of these animals in its natural habitat is a special occurrence that never gets old. From its pointy snout through the many browns and grays of its body to its black tipped tail this coyote is a stunningly beautiful animal.

The overcast is beginning to break up, the sky now more blue than cloud. A slight breeze picks up cooling the sweat on my back from the hike in. I sit in the midst of all this wonder, grateful for the day, grateful to be alive.

There’s this wonderful Hobbit hole of a used bookstore in Santa Rosa and it is a bibliophile’s dream. When I walk into Treehorn Books I feel as if I’m entering one of those archaic shops in the Diagon Alley of Harry Potter novels. There are books piled on top of books, books behind books, books on the floor, it’s a veritable cacophony of books!  Wheeled metal ladders provide access to the top of the ten foot high shelves that line the walls. At Treehorn you’ll find books on every subject imaginable; from UFO’s to Metaphysics, the Kennedy assassination to rafting down the Yang Tse River. Romance novel maven Danielle Steele is represented here as well as classic authors like Faulkner, Hemingway and all points in between. You name it, Treehorn’s got it. I once found a book there written by a woman who travelled around France with her family on a quest to find the source of the ingredients in the baguettes she and her family enjoyed while on holiday there. Not exactly best seller stuff but quirky, original and a good read; in other words the typical book tucked away in the stacks here.

The dim, yellow cast lighting at Treehorn Books adds an extra layer of mystery to the place. There’s just enough light to read by but it’s low enough to where I feel like I can hide in plain sight among the stacks. And the smell! For me there’s something so comforting and familiar about that universal used bookstore smell. I’m sure there’s a scientific explanation as to what chemical compounds make up that smell but I like to think that it’s equal parts age, wisdom and wonder.

I rarely enter Treehorn with a specific title or author in mind. With no plan I have no expectations; I just open my mind and browse. I never know what I’m going to find here so it’s kind of like hunting for buried treasure. I read the book spines, check out the cover art, read the synopsis on the dust jacket. If it moves me, I usually buy it. I occasionally find interesting things inside of the books. On a book I recently purchased someone had written this Serbian proverb on the inside back cover: Be noble for you are made of stars. Be humble for you are made of earth. I thought that was so neat, a message out of the blue reminding me that life should be lived with grace and humility.

I have a particular fondness for a used book. The creases in the cover are like wrinkles. The yellowed and dog-eared pages are all telltale signs that this book has passed through many hands. In some way, reading a used book is like having a shared experience with someone whom I’ve never meet.

The price of each book here is written in pencil on the title page. If there are multiple copies of a book that I’m interested in, I’ll check the prices on all of them. Occasionally the same two books in the exact same condition will have two different prices! The human touch, it’s all over this bookstore. When I’m inside, I can feel the deep sense of love and respect that the  owners have for books and how much they value reading.

When the COVID lockdown happened last March, Treehorn was one of the first places I thought of. Would they survive? A world without used bookshops seemed unimaginable to me. Initially, bookshops were closed because they were not considered “essential”. Can you believe that? To me reading is essential! As a grade school teacher, I’d always tell my students, “Reading is the most important thing you’ll do in school.” Before they were allowed to reopen, I called Treehorn a couple of times with a list of books that I wanted to buy. Even though he wasn’t supposed to, the owner took my order over the phone and arranged to meet me out front with my books in a plain brown paper bag. I felt like we were co-conspirators in a drug deal or something.

Books are essential. You can stare at a Kindle until you fry your retinas, but in my mind there’s no substitute for a real book. Technology has improved many things in our world but books are not one of them. I love the feel of a book in my hands and that rustling leaves sound the pages make as I turn them. With anticipation I open the cover, eager to unlock the secrets within.

In the late 90’s I was in the midst of a major career change. I’d reached the end of the road in non-profit management and began to look for something more fulfilling. I decided to become and elementary school teacher. Since I had graduated college nearly 20 years ago, I was required to pass the MSAT (Multi-Subject Assessment for Teachers) as a prerequisite for acceptance into the teaching credential program at Cal State Monterey Bay.  The MSAT is a massive test covering math, science, english and all points in between. The night before the exam, I stood on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Santa Cruz and said a silent prayer to the universe asking for strength and guidance. The next day I arrived at the test site armed with my sharpened #2 pencils, nervous but confident and determined to succeed.

About halfway through the exam, I came to the section on music. The first question read: “What is the primary function of the electric guitar solo in rock music?” It was at that moment that I knew I would pass the test, I knew I was going to be a teacher. The universe lobbed one over the plate and I hit it out of the ballpark! (The answer incidentally was “to highlight the guitarist’s technical prowess”, or something to that effect).

So, just what is the function of the electric guitar solo? To blow our minds? To offer us regular folk a glimpse into the divine? To provide a vicarious experience of rock stardom? I’d say all of the above. In many ways, rock and roll is the guitar solo. Take a ride on starship Stratocaster, blast off into parts unknown and never be the same again. Every fan of rock and roll has their favorite guitarist and solo. Many a cannabis fueled discussion has been had on this very subject. Here are some of my favorites, not in any particular order.

George Harrison- My Sweet Lord

George was a trailblazing and underrated guitarist. He invented a sweet, melodic and often copied style of slide playing. Like most of his solos, this one is short but oh so sweet. Unlike many rock guitarists, George didn’t play like he was getting paid by the note. His solo on My Sweet Lord gives me the shivers every time.

Jerry Garcia- Stella Blue (live)

Picking a favorite Jerry Garcia solo is like trying to choose my favorite Hawaiian sunset; they are all subtle, sublime and achingly beautiful; bursting with colors yet to be named. However, if backed into a corner, I’d have to go with Stella Blue. Jerry obviously felt this song quite deeply as his solos on Stella Blue were consistently heartfelt and achingly beautiful.

Neil Young- Down By The River

Neil is from the “ragged but right” school of guitar playing. His grungy guitar work here predates the Seattle scene by 20 years and served as an inspiration to Nirvana, Pearl Jam and their like. The beginning of his solo on Down By The River is basically one note, but oh what a note it is! Avant grade guitarist Henry Kaiser once said, “Neil Young puts more feeling into playing one note than most guitarists put into their entire lives.”

Keith Richards- Can’t You Hear Me Knocking

While he occasionally solos, Keith’s primary function in the Rolling Stones is as the most distinctive sounding and innovative rhythm guitarist ever to strap on an axe. The best Stones tunes are all built around one of Keith’s riffs. On Can’t You Hear Me Knocking, he plays five different variations on the opening riff. I bet he had a few more up his sleeve.

Mick Taylor- Can’t You Hear Me Knocking

The golden era of the Rolling Stones was 1969-73 which coincided with Mick’s tenure in the band. On this tune, after Bobby Keyes incendiary sax solo, Mick keeps the train rolling with a sweet, emotive and bluesy solo of his own. When the two of them team up to duet at the end of the song, it’s almost too much to take.

Jimi Hendrix- All Along The Watchtower

Jimi makes this Bob Dylan tune his own. His screaming, wah-wah drenched solos conjure up the darker aspects of the Sixties. There were no fancy high tech effects in Jimi’s day, he did it all with volume, feedback and a generous use of the tremolo bar, making his Stratocaster speak in a language that we’re still trying to decipher.

Eric Clapton- Little Wing

Clapton does to Hendrix’s Little Wing, what Jimi did to ‘Watchtower”. Clapton never seems to run out of ideas here. With each note his soaring solos grow more intense and build on the previous one. At the end of the song, we’re left spent and in awe. “Clapton is God” was a popular saying in the Sixties. It’s hard to dispute this, as Clapton’s playing on Little Wing is simply transcendent.

David Gilmour- Money

The weird time signature, haunting bass line and gritty Roger Waters vocal are all fantastic, but what really makes this tune fly is David Gilmour’s searing guitar work. His solo has two, count ‘em, two crescendos!  His screaming high notes and masterful use of  sustain keeps me on the edge of my seat every time. The intensity of Gilmour’s playing here is truly inspired.

We’re all from somewhere. Being from someplace is being of that place. Where I’m from is as much a part of me as the color of my eyes and the bouncy way I walk that my friends can identify me by from 100 yards away. I am from the much maligned, often lampooned, grossly misunderstood home of Bruce Springsteen, Frank Sinatra and the absolute best pizza on the planet, one of the original thirteen colonies, The Garden State, New Jersey.

At the young age of 22, I decided to “go west young man” and seek fame and fortune in The Golden State. At first I was simply dazzled by California. All of those Beach Boys and Eagles songs that I had listened to incessantly all my life seemed to come alive daily right before my eyes. That and all of the girls looked like Joni Mitchell. California was everything that New Jersey wasn’t. I had made it to the promised land and was never going back.

I made a lot of new friends back then and like me, they were mostly from somewhere else. None of them had ever been to New Jersey, let alone ever met anyone from there. I felt so exotic, like an indigenous tribesman from the Amazon Basin. I’d often be asked, “You’re from Joisey?” Joisey? Where the hell does that come from? I can honestly say that I’ve never, ever heard anyone who’s from New Jersey pronounce the state’s name like that. And how about that buffoon from Saturday Night Live back in the 80’s with his inane catch phrase, “You’re from Jersey? I’m from Jersey!”, spoken in a voice like Elmer Fudd on helium. Then there are the tried and true misconceptions that Jersey is an industrial wasteland overflowing with toxic waste. Of course none of this stuff is true. As a transplant to California, I suddenly found myself defending New Jersey’s honor against those who would dare take the birthplace of The Boss  in vain. It’s true that Jersey’s industrial corridor is ugly but if that’s your only impression of the state, well you’re missing the point. Northwest Jersey is filled with farms and forests. My sister lives up there and her yard is regularly visited by bears. The Jersey coastline ( “the shore”) is beautiful. The Pine Barrens in the central part of the state are vast and sparsely populated. My hometown of Caldwell is a quaint and peaceful place, reminiscent of the fictional Bedford Falls in the film It’s A Wonderful Life. Angelo’s Barber Shop occupies the same place on Bloomfield Ave. that it has for decades. My dad and older brother still get their haircuts there. Some of the tastiest corn and tomatoes you’ll ever eat are grown in New Jersey.  

Jersey people are “real”.  When I’m back there visiting, there’s something reassuring in the way folks ask, “Eh, how ya doin’?” It’s a refreshing change from the “have a nice day” nonsense that I hear too much of on the west coast. There’s no beating around the bush in New Jersey though, people will usually tell you exactly what’s on their mind. That brusqueness is often mistaken for rudeness, another Jersey misconception. However, you haven’t been told to “fuck off!” until you’ve been told by someone from Patterson.

For a while when I first relocated, I really wanted to be from California. I was so enchanted with my new home. I pushed my Jersey heritage into the background, not disavowing it but also not exactly boasting about it either. But the older I get, the further into the past my life in New Jersey recedes and the deeper my appreciation grows for being from there. My parents still live in the house that I was raised in. My siblings all live in the state. My roots there are deep. I was raised with a strong sense of pride in who I am; an Italian-American from New Jersey. That pride still lives in me. Through the years, things would come up from time to time to remind me just exactly where I was from.

Like millions of Americans, I was glued to my tv set while the tragedy of 911 was unfolding. I remember watching these two eyewitnesses being interviewed on the streets of Manhattan. Listening to their heavy east coast accents, it hit me hard; these guys could be my brothers! It was my people who were suffering. One of my actual brothers was working in Brooklyn that day, he watched in real time as smoke billowed from the Twin Towers.

After Hurricane Sandy devastated the Jersey coastline, one image that’s permanently burned into my psyche is that of a rollercoaster sitting in the Atlantic Ocean off of the amusement pier in Seaside Heights. One of the highlights of my family’s annual trip to the shore as a kid was to ride that very rollercoaster. Like I said, being from someplace is being of that place.

The Mafia and Jersey are synonymous in many peoples minds, and rightfully so. The Mob does have a rich and colorful history in the Garden State. The Sopranos was one of the most critically acclaimed tv series of the past 25 years. I loved that show mostly because while watching it I felt like I was hanging out with my Jersey pals. Listening to Tony and his crew talk  was like eavesdropping on one of my aunts and uncles conversations. The producers of that show really did their homework as every cuss word and slang term for food (mozzarella cheese is “mootzadell”) was absolutely spot on. If you lived in Jersey though, The Mob wasn’t just an abstraction. About ten years ago I sat around my younger brother’s swimming pool one summer day listening to my mom and two of her sisters nonchalantly tell the story of how my Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Sal wanted to have the abusive husband of their daughter “wacked”. Evidently my uncle knew a guy who knew a guy… That same uncle nearly got wacked himself once. As a younger man he was drunk at a wedding and mouthed off to a guy who, unbeknownst to him, was “connected”.  I think my aunt saved him from sleeping with the fishes.

New Jersey is often the butt of jokes and misconceptions. That just stiffens my resolve and makes me all the more want to defend it, to tell people what Jersey is really like. For starters, only someone from New Jersey knows that you never refer to taylor ham as pork roll, or for that matter even knows what taylor ham is. A whole pizza is a pie, and eating it with a knife and fork or asking for your pie to be topped with broccoli could get you wacked. A massive sandwich on a soft roll loaded with every type of unhealthy lunch meat (“cold cuts” thank you!) is a “hoagie”. New Jersey does not have a coast, it has “the shore”, and you never go to the shore, you always go down the shore. When you mention The Boss, everyone knows who you’re talking about. 

Being from someplace is being of that place and I’m proud to be from New Jersey.

When was the last time you received a letter? I’m not talking about the latest fund raising appeal from Greenpeace or the water bill. I mean an actual handwritten letter. When did you last write a letter to someone? I bet it’s been a while for  both.

The ubiquity of email and texting has relegated the handwritten personal letter to the dustbin of history alongside house calls from your doctor and pre-dawn visits from the milkman. In our increasingly cold and impersonal world, letter writing is just one more thing that I mourn the passing of. A couple of years ago, I decided I would singlehandedly try and revive the lost art of letter writing. I sent long personal letters to seven close friends. I recieved one reply. Of course that hasn’t always been the case.

In the spring of 1979, a close friend of mine and I drove cross-country to relocate to California from New Jersey. With our minimum wage Tower Records salaries we were barely able to eek out a living. During our first three months here, owning a telephone was a luxury that we could not afford. We’d use the corner phone booth (ahhh phone booths, another dustbin relic!) to call our families on the east coast…collect! So for me, letter writing then was a lifeline, a way for me to keep in touch with those who I’d left behind. I worked mostly 4pm to midnight shifts at Tower so I’d come home late, smoke a little pot, listen to the late, great Americana radio station KFAT and write letters into the wee hours of the morning. It was an exhilarating and liberating period of my life but also sad and lonely at times too. I’d fill yellow legal pads with words; my hopes, dreams, and fears pouring out through my fingertips and onto the page. Writing is such a tactile experience. I love the feel of a pen as the nib drags across the paper leaving a trail of blue in its wake. Writing a letter requires time and patience, both being in short supply nowadays. Letter writing is the ultimate in delayed gratification. If I send a letter to someone on the east coast and they reply immediately, the fastest turnaround time I could hope for would be a week. The ways we communicate now often require instant replies. Letter writing also requires thought and a basic understanding of spelling and grammar. My Pilot G-2 .07mm pen does not contain spell check or auto correct. It’s up to me to catch my mistakes and to correct them. Every essay that I post on this blog begins as a handwritten piece.

During my seminal first years in California, I wrote countless letters to family and friends. If you could arrange them chronologically, the trajectory of my life at that time could be traced through those letters. There’s an old box in our garage which contains hundreds of replies I recieved during that time. Every once in a while I’ll dig that box out and rummage through it. Each one of those letters is unique. The sizes, shapes and colors of the envelopes are all different. There are so many cool stamps and postmarks too.  My mom used to send me a few brightly colored leaves from our backyard trees every autumn. A letter from an old girlfriend still retains the faint scent of patchouli oil. With each letter, you get a little piece of the person who wrote it. Emails? They’re nothing but 1’s and 0’s, meant to be read and deleted. I doubt anyone prints out emails and saves them in a box.

It’s an uphill battle trying to retain a little of the personal touch in a world that grows more virtual every day. So writing letters is my way of pushing back; a small, personal rebellion against tweets and texts and automated voicemail. Keep your eyes on the mailbox, there just may be a letter from me tucked in there between the bills and junk mail.