Berkshire Journal October/November 2017

  Culled from sketchy notes jotted late at night.

Again I find myself wondering what Dad would say about how I'm living. For example, what would he think about my $19 Glenfiddich at Puck's at the United Terminal before my red eye to Hartford? At least I could tell him it was a double.
  I have another scotch on the plane hoping it will allow me to sleep but I have no such luck. Or maybe just dumb luck. After changing planes in Chicago I'm even more wide awake and read all the way to Connecticut.
Mark picks me up and we have a good drive full of laughs. He's one of the funniest guys I know.
 16 Ridge Ave is as welcoming as ever. I don't know who was more excited when we pulled in the driveway, me or Mom.
 After a shower the three of us go to the Forge for lunch and it's like I've never been gone. The day whips by and after my traditional late night walk to the lake I finally fall into my old bed. Again I'm soothed by the quiet and stillness of this old neighborhood. It's grandly comforting. Thirty-six hours of being awake. Not my personal best but still rather impressive. I sleep like a stone at the bottom of the lake.
  The next few mornings I walk in the crisp autumn air. I'm still wearing the boot and brandishing my REI collapsable cane. A fine lightweight tool perfect for my rambles around Wojtkowski's woodlot. The ground is littered with leaves and I make a lot of noise rustling along the trail that leads to the country club. I see hawks and woodpeckers, black capped chickadees and crows. I remind myself to fill the bird-feeder in the yard. I'd like to see cardinals this week.
  Most mornings are windy and I wear my warmest fleece and gloves. Rain is forecasted in the next few days and Halloween is predicted to be cold. October has been mild but we are not lulled into false comfort. There will be frost by next week.

   For bar hopping I use Grandpa Ferdyn's old cane. It's been in the closet going on fifty years. What I remember of him was a gentle old man with white hair. He spoke very little English but was quick to smile. Dad said he was once the strongest man he knew. The cane is a relic, a simple stick with a curved handle. That it was needed by my grandfather I find interesting. I'm not quite sure why. I don't know a lot about him. He left Poland in the late thirties, before WWII. He had a farm for a while up on Mount Washington.
  I can see him slowly moving up our driveway on a cold day. He wears a farmer's coat. The leaves are down, it is this time of year. I am not much older than five years old. Michael is next to me. It is a world gone.
  So I shuffle off to the Forge with the old stick for support. Who could have predicted such future for a long forgotten piece of wood that lay unused and unneeded for most of my life? It gets me safely to my barstool. I would hope Grandpa Ferdyn would be amused by something he couldn't possibly imagine. I raise a glass to his memory, fading as it is. There are very few of us left who knew him. For most of us we stick around for a few generations and then we are not even remote thoughts in our decedents' lives. Think about that.

  One night I set my alarm for two am. I plan to watch the Orionid meteor shower. It peaks between two and three am. The meteors are debris left over from the last passing of Halley's Comet. Unfortunately the sky is not clear and occasional stars poke through the light misty clouds. Orion is barely visible. After fifteen minutes I see one faint, almost opaque, smear in the hazy sky. I shiver in the night and can almost smell Winter's approach. Moments later I'm back in my warm safe bed.

I decide after dark to do some solo bar hopping just to see what the city has become. Many of my old haunts are long gone; Jay's, The Branding Iron, The Emerald Room, The Linden Lunch and The Lantern. Luckily The Forge is still a safe sanctuary but I always save that for my last stop of the night out of tradition.
  I find two rather generic bars on North Street. Both lack the casual decadence and edgy energy of the old Lacos when Sam and Fred used to own it. Now there was a bar where on any given night the barely controlled mayhem made it a rather interesting room. If there's anyplace in Pittsfield like that now I failed to find it.
  I find another sterile place out on route seven in Lenox. I could easily be in any bar in any mall in any city in the country. And I know, I've been stuck in enough of them.
  The Hot Dog Ranch in its new location offers the feel of the good old days and I'm instantly made to feel right at home. It helps that my old friend Carl now owns the joint and the charming Nikki is behind the bar with a smile and a very generous pour. Finally a place I could sit all night. But I feel a nightcap at the Forge is appropriate so I drive past the lake for a final sip before getting back to Ridge and a slow walk to the water's edge to listen to the waves caress the sandy shore. It is both peaceful and melancholy, like so many other of life's ponderings.

We take the train to NYC for a concert (Springsteen at the Walter Kerr Theatre) and a few days of sightseeing. The ride along the Hudson River is beautiful on this cold rainy afternoon. The foliage has peaked but some bright yellows still remain although today they are dulled by the gray sky.  The contrast is subtle.
   I stare at the water mesmerized by train’s steady rhythm on the old tracks.  I'm too hyper alert to concentrate on reading so I watch the river go by.
 New York! It's been a while for me and I had forgotten the energy of standing on a street corner and watching humanity go by. I suffer from a touch of vertigo. But not so severe as to dull the excitement of feeling the pulse in the city's veins.
  As a reminder of the old days (for me) we stop into Sparks for an appetizer and a glass of wine. That hospitable old room is a friendly and comfortable haven. If I lived in NYC (which I never could) it would be my Pickle Room.
  Central Park has always held a specific charm for me. It is historic and majestic and contains within itself a multitude of riches. It is also romantic. On a morning walk and despite the cold, the paths are surprisingly crowded and I couldn't help but feel immersed in the life of the city. Shivering but not ready to leave we find a coffee spot to momentarily warm up before heading over to see Strawberry Fields.
  The first music I ever remember hearing was on a tiny plastic radio in the bedroom that I shared with Mide was the Beatles.  Specifically Hey Jude and Let It Be. Thus I became a lifelong Beatles fan. As did  Mide. Their music is so imbibed in my heart as to be a part of me, almost like a necessary organ. I know this doesn't make me unique and enough books have been written about the band's impact on music and culture that I'll stop here with my own critique.
  Naturally John Lennon's solo albums became a big part of the soundtrack of my semi-misspent youth. He planted what at the time seemed like very dangerous ideas in my soft and impressionable brain. I mean for a Catholic kid who was a Boy Scout and an altar boy to hear, "Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try." Well....   My mind whirled like a tornado tearing through a mobile home park. That has been called the most thought provoking song ever written. It has never gone out of favor with those who crave a peaceful revolution.
  I was doing homework at 16 Ridge when it came on the radio that John had been shot and killed in front of his apartment, the Dakota, across from Central Park. I ran down the stairs, Dad was watching Monday night football and had just heard the news. Howard Cosell was the first to announce it to the nation. While Dad was not a great fan of pop music he was nonetheless slightly shaken. He knew how important this was to me. We sat in pretty much silence for a few minutes before I went back up stairs. My homework was left unfinished that night and I skipped school the next day to show my solidarity with a mourning world. For days after people drove with their headlights on as a sign of disbelief that life could instantly go so askew. 
  The memorial itself is rather simple. A round mosaic with the word IMAGINE at its center. Plants donated from around the world surround the grounds. Today the crowd of about twenty-five is rather boisterous but my own heart is solemn. We stay only a few minutes and I gaze toward the Dakota where Yoko still lives and can look down out of her window as world travelers pay tribute to her husband. I find that to be an act of courage as falling deep in love often is.
 On the ride back a few days later we have better weather. The sun is shining and today there is more orange than yellow in the trees along the river banks. The Catskills, Washington Irving's muse, loom hauntingly in the distance. Irving was fascinated by the mysteries of the hollows (sleepy) and secluded towns that caught his imagination.  The train rolls along and we share a bottle of wine as the dark silhouette of the mountains become more distant.
  I spot three bald eagles in the tree tops surveying the pools that swirl in the Hudson's shallows.  They have made a great comeback all through New England as DDT has ever so slowly been diluted from the environment. There are even eagles nesting near Onota lake in Pittsfield. Fran routinely sees them, as I did once, fly over 16 Ridge. A small wonder maybe, but to me a sign of progress. Knowing a little tiny spot in nature is becoming more wild is encouraging.

There is finally a frost and then after a night in the low twenties there is a morning of leaf rain. The sun is shining weakly as the trees shed leaves in a steady drop of color. There is no wind and after a few hours the woods are naked and somehow melancholy. It feels like winter.
  A few days ago I went up to the cemetery and Dad and I spilt our usual Bud Light. Actually I only take a sip and pour the rest out in front of his stone. "How could you drink that piss?" I laugh.
  One of the few lies I ever told my Father was when he would say over the years, "When I'm up there at Saint Joe's I don't want you wasting your time visiting."
 "I won't!" I'd promise. Nor did I want to. I didn't even want to think of him up there. But oddly enough, I visit every trip. I think he'd forgive me my fib to him all those years ago. At the time I meant what I said.

  Today I drive by the house on Berkeley Street where he was born and raised. As the Raven flies it's about a mile from the new section of Saint Joseph's Cemetery and I bet that if I climbed on the roof of that old house I could make out through barren trees the graves on the hill. He's so close to where he started out it makes me feel some sort of balance that on a certain level is mind cramping. Such a life of travels and work and family, love and sadness and massive responsibilities met with compassion and determination and to finally be buried so very close to where you started out..  Well, there's some sort of lesson in there but I'm probably not smart enough to figure it all out. But I don't think he would have wanted it any other way. Unlike me who wants my ashes scattered from Greylock to Sea Ranch to Yosemite. Born with a gene for wanderlust even today three thousand miles from my austere beach apartment and comfortable on the couch in Mide's old room my dreams are of Ireland and for some reason a place I've never been, Japan.

As always there is so much more as the three weeks flit by and my notes become more sparse.  A drive south county to the old cottage on lake Garfield. Drinks at the Lion's Den, another yearly tradition. A scramble around the summit of Greylock with Mark and Marcus. Two dinner parties at Hauge's. A bright Cardinal at the bird feeder. Wine and whisky. Fran's wonderful cooking. Late night visits with Mide where we sip 33 right from the bottle. Which we do again the day we say goodbye.
  My first visit back to the A since I sat there with Dad now eight years gone. My heart was in my throat but my company was beautiful. I couldn't ask for a better ear for my mind's bereft scratchy murmurs.
  The night before we leave for Hartford there is a violent wind and rain storm that wakes me from my already poor sleep. The windows rattle and in the yard the tree branches clack against each other. I'm awake now until dawn and listen to the rain on the roof tapping out its inscrutable koan.
  Finally it's time to say goodbye to Paulie. And of course have a good cry with Fran. Mark is bringing us to our hotel at the airport.
 I put Grandpa Ferdyn's cane back in the closet where it will sit for who knows how long. I wouldn't be surprised if years from now I'll need it again but for different reasons. Life is funny that way.