Fourth Lake, Chapter 2

Chapter 1 was posted at the end of January.

Later, while eating a breakfast of bacon and eggs together at their kitchen table, Phil, sipping his black coffee, read Judy an excerpt from that morning's Sunday New York Times.

"By a vote of 27-11, the House Judiciary Committee approved an article of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon yesterday, July 27, 1974, in an historic Saturday night session.  They accused him of the following high crimes and misdemeanors: 

Article 1-Personally, and through his agents, President Nixon attempted to delay, impede and obstruct the investigation into the illegal entry, by agents of the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP), of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, located at the Watergate building in Washington, D.C.  He attempted to cover-up, conceal and protect those responsible."

While Phil's nose was deep into the pages of the newspaper, Judy was eyeballing her husband and thinking about their escapade in the shower only a couple hours ago.  She had a smirk on her face and didn't care if anybody noticed.  Judy would have preferred that they go back and make love again, this time on their king-size bed.  They were alone, for a change.  Their two daughters, Kiley and Megan, were both at gymnastics camp in upstate New York.  They dropped them off last weekend and planned to pick them up when they return in two weeks from their getaway to Fourth Lake.

Judy knew that Phil was saddened by the latest development in the ongoing Watergate saga.  Both he and Judy had been supporters of Nixon.  They had voted for him every time he had run for president, in 1960, 1968, and 1972.  They were registered Republicans.

When Watergate first appeared in the press, Phil and Judy thought that it was some kind of an attempt by the liberal media to unjustly tarnish the President's image during the 1972 re-election campaign where he was otherwise unbeatable.  However, as more and more revelations came to the surface, they assumed that Watergate had been the work of the President's ill-advised underlings.  They couldn't believe that Nixon was actually involved in any way, shape, or form.  Then, with the release of the "smoking gun" tape, Phil and Judy realized that the President had done something wrong.  However, did that mean Nixon should be removed from office?  He was a very good president.  The country needed him.  Would removing him from the presidency fit the crime?  Would it serve the national interest?

"Look," said Phil, "he covered up, sure, trying to save those on his staff.  That's what a loyal executive does.  Maybe he should be censured or something, but thrown out of office, I don't know."

"Darling, you're a CPA, not a lawyer.  We don't know all the legalities.  Apparently, he broke the law being loyal, as you say.  Would you knowingly protect one of your managers if you knew he had done something illegal?"

"Maybe I already have."

"Don't say that, Phil."

"I'm admitting nothing."

"Look, Nixon's got a problem.  Let him deal with it.  But, we've got to get going.  It's a five hour trip to the lake and I want to get there as soon as possible."

Judy wanted to get there as soon as possible because she wanted them to try out the bed in their rustic cabin overlooking Fourth Lake.

To be continued next month...

Baseball

It’s February 15th and very soon Major League Baseball teams will start regrouping in Florida and Arizona to prepare for a new season of competition.  It’s like an early start to spring, a renewal of life.  And it’s all about the game of baseball, the game I love the most.  And why do I love baseball so much?  Let’s go back to the beginning, which is a very good place to start.

When I was growing up in the 1950s, baseball was clearly the number one sport in America.  Hence, it received the designation as the “national pastime.”  Anybody who considered themselves a sports fan was also a baseball fan.  I was greatly influenced to be a fan by one of my older brothers.  I would go with him to play baseball in the park in pick-up games.  The two oldest boys (often my brother) would, on an alternating basis, choose their teamates.  We created an imaginary field in the park and played baseball.  Eventually, the Little League came to town and baseball became much more organized with uniforms, coaches, schedules, stadiums, and umpires.

I played three years of Little League baseball for a team sponsored by the local Police Department.  Among our rivals were teams sponsored by the Fire Department and local enterprises, such as Huron Cement and Kingsford Pumps.  I wasn’t a very good player (good field, no hit), but I enjoyed playing the game.  My problem was that I was physically weak and afraid of a high, inside fast ball.  My son, on the other hand, was strong and fearless when he played for a variety of Little League teams.    

Parallel to playing baseball, I followed, through newspapers, magazines, radio and television, professional baseball players and Major League Baseball teams.  Which team should I be a fan of?  Maybe the one closest to home?  Or maybe the one who our father or older brother rooted for?  In my case, my older brother was a fan of the New York Giants.  I have been a fan of theirs my entire life, for more than 60 years, even when they moved to San Francisco in 1958.  My favorite Giant player was Willie Mays, number 24.  In 1965, I saw him hit one of his 660 home runs, in person at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.  In 1972, I made my one and only pilgramage to see the Giants play at their home field, which was then Candlestick Park.  They beat the Pirates, 8-0. 

The essence of baseball is a competition between a pitcher and a batter.  The other batters patiently wait their turn.  The fielders patiently wait for the batter to hit the ball and then spring into action to catch it or field it and try to eliminate the batter turned base runner before he reaches first, second, or third base and especially home plate to score a run.  Some of the most athletic performances I’ve ever seen have been those fielders running, diving, catching, and throwing a baseball. 

It has been said that hitting a round ball with a round bat is the hardest thing any athlete can do.  If he is consistently successful just 30% of the time, he will become a superstar, earn millions of dollars, and be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Thus, by common sense, the pitcher must have the advantage in this competition with the batter.  There is a baseball maxim that good pitching beats good hitting.

As I said, the baseball calendar begins in February.  March brings practice games.  From April to September, the thirty Major League teams compete during the regular season, aiming to qualify for the postseason, where only ten advance.  October is the postseason which ends with a champion crowned by winning the so-called “World Series.”  From November to January, teams try to improve their rosters by trading for players on other teams or by signing free-agents.  So year to year, the players on each team change.  So, what stays the same?  Maybe the uniform?  Maybe just the name on the uniform?  Maybe nothing?  Where are the St. Louis Browns or the Montreal Expos today?   

The regular season consists of 162 games.  This means about six games per week, or almost every day.  This is one of the beauties of the game.  There’s almost always a game tomorrow.  No reason to dwell on a defeat.  After a victory, no time to gloat.  There will be more to come the very next day. 

The season is not a sprint.  It’s more like a marathon.  It’s almost impossible to stay at an equilibrium.  Instead, the season becomes a series of highs and lows.  If, as the season is drawing to a close, your team remains in competition for the postseason or the championship, you can revel in the nervous tension this creates.  On the other hand, if your team has fallen out of contention, then you can start thinking about next year.  There is always next year.    

There is no clock in baseball.  No running out the clock.  Put your watch away.  Take your time.  According to pitcher Jon Lester of the Chicago Cubs, “If you use a clock, you take the beauty out of the game.” So, let’s build some suspense.  Each time a batter comes to the plate is a unique experience to be savored.  The last time, the pitcher struck him out.  Next time, he could hit one over the fence.    

So, if there is no clock, how do we know when the game is over?  It’s over when each side has had its nine innings or twenty-seven outs in their attempt to score runs.  Thus, at the end of the game, each side will have had the exact same number of chances to score runs.  How fair is that?  Therefore, no lead is enough and no deficit is too much.  If the game is tied after nine innings, the game goes to extra innings until one team has more runs at the end of an extra inning.  There are no ties in baseball.  (There is also no crying in baseball.)  A game is not over until it’s over.

Besides athletic ability, there is also strategy involved.  Who should play where and what will be the batting order?  Should you make a substitution, especially the pitcher?  Should a runner on base try to steal the next base or should the batter sacrifice himself to move the runner closer to home plate?  Should you play the infielders in to try and cut down the runner at home plate and risk giving up a base hit?  Or should they play back for the double play and possibly concede a run?

Some critics complain the game is too slow.  When I was a kid, games commonly took around two hours.  Today, they are more commonly three hours.  And since there is no clock, there is no telling how long a game will last.  My pet peeve is batters who, after every pitch, step out of the batter’s box and adjust both of their velcro batting gloves, even if they did not swing at the pitch.  This should be prohibited.  It slows the game.  Look at a vídeo of a baseball game from the 1950s or 1960s and you will see that the batters, who did not have batting gloves nor helmets, did not leave the batter’s box once they entered it. 

Those are some of the reasons why I love baseball.  Any questions?

Eagle Cove

Eagle Cove was a co-ed summer camp, primarily for Jewish children, nestled in an area on the south side of Fourth Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, in northern New York State.  I say was because, unfortunately, it no longer is.  For what ever reason, it closed after the summer of 1993.

“Green is the color of the Adirondack Mountains.  It’s the color God picked out to paint the scene.”

I was a camper at Eagle Cove for five years between 1953 and 1959.  The first time I ever googled my name, I saw myself from photos taken during that time that had been posted on the Internet.  I actually returned to Eagle Cove as an adult (everything seemed smaller) for a brief visit in August of 1974.  I remember because it was right around the time President Nixon resigned.  In 2004, I returned to the area to see the camp again, but it was gone.  However, I took a boat ride around Fourth Lake which passed right by the camp’s old water front.  I also chartered a seaplane for an above ground view of the camp.  All the buildings were gone, but you could see where they had been. 

Like all decisions in my family, the decision to send me to Eagle Cove was made by my mother.  She wanted a two-month summer vacation from caring for her four children and Eagle Cove provided it.  My three older brothers preceded me there, and since they survived, my mother figured it was also good enough for me, too.

Eagle Cove’s formula was structure.  Before each season even started, its directors had planned every moment of the eight week season for each camper.  There were fourteen boys cabins and about half that number of girls cabins.  Most had eight campers, a counselor and a counselor-in-training (CIT).  After reveille, we marched to the large mess hall building for breakfast.  After cleaning up ourselves and our cabin, each group engaged in two pre-planned activities.  Before lunch, there was a general swim at the most beautiful part of Eagle Cove, its waterfront.  After lunch and a rest period, each group would engage in another two pre-planned activities.  There was a second general swim before dinner.  After dinner, there was relaxation before lights out.  And no talking after!

What were these activities?  We had baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball, tennis, arts and crafts, swimming instruction, canoeing, hiking, Indian lore, etc.  The camp was well-maintained and periodically upgraded, especially the waterfront.  By my last year, they had built a complete Little League baseball stadium.

“We welcome you to Eagle Cove.  We’re mighty glad you’re here.  We’ll set the air reverberating with a mighty cheer.  We’ll sing you in, we’ll sing you out.  And we will raise a mighty shout.  Hail, hail, the gang’s all here.  We welcome you to Eagle Cove.”

By most accounts, the campers had a good time at Eagle Cove.  Unfortunately, I have mixed feelings about the place.  However, what ever negativity I have, I take 100% responsibility for.  If you read Lord of the Flies, you realize that boys, especially between the ages of eight and fourteen, can be cruel.  It’s just in their DNA.  Typically, in a cabin of eight boys, there will be one or two leaders, five or six followers, and one runt.  For most of my time at Eagle Cove, I was the runt.  I think my happiest year there was when someone else became the runt of my cabin.

And what made me the runt?  After all, back in my home town, I was a well-adjusted boy with plenty of friends.  Well, first of all, it was my attitude.  I had a bad one.  It had not been my choice to go to Eagle Cove.  I didn’t want to be there.  I had been perfectly happy the prior summers of my life at home.  I had begged my mother to let me stay, but to no avail.  All of my bunkmates quickly realized where I was coming from and let me know, in their own way, that they didn’t appreciate it.  I was probably ruining their own good times. 

Second was swimming.  When I first arrived at Eagle Cove, I couldn’t swim.  By eight years-of-age, I had developed a fear of the water.  Twice a day, I had to face a mandatory general swim.  The camp was divided into three groups, based upon your swimming level.  There was the area for the non-swimmers, the minnows.  The shark area was for intermediate swimmers and the whale area was for the real swimmers.  Most of the campers were in the whale area.  In my first year, I believe that I was the only non-swimmer in my group and I stayed there until my last year at camp.  This forced me into a twice-daily period of humiliation and teasing.  One of my proudest moments at Eagle Cove was when, with the help of a very kind swim instructor, I finally passed my shark test.  I was then no longer the only fourteen year-old hanging out with non-swimmers, half my age.  I still have the badge and certificate I earned fifty-five years ago.

So, I was the runt.  I became the victim of daily abuse, teasing, etc. from my bunkmates.  I was bullied, before I know what bullying was.  And I didn’t know how to deal with it.  I should have had a better attitude about camp.  After all, it was a wonderful place with plenty of enjoyable things to do.  And I should have put forward a better effort to learn how to swim. 

I also should have dealt better with the teasing.  I should have ignored it.  The more I complained, the more they teased.  Until one time!  When I was ten years-old, I came as close as I have ever come in my life to killing someone.  It scares me thinking back.  Inside the cabin after lunch one day, I couldn’t take the abuse one boy was giving me.  We got into a fight, more of a wrestling match.  I got him in a choke hold and squeezed as hard as I could.  When he said he couldn’t breath, I let him go when he promised not to tease me again.  I let him go, but he started doing it again almost immediately.  I grabbed him once more around the neck in the same choke hold.  I was furious.  I couldn’t trust his promises.  Thankfully, I finally let him go before anything bad happened and he never bothered me again. 

I must mention a couple more highlights of my time at Eagle Cove.  It wasn’t all bad.  In 1958, as a thirteen year-old, I won the Mohawk Unit Ping Pong championship.  (I was runner-up the following year.)  My name was entered onto a permanent list of honor that was on display on the second floor of the mess hall building.  I found it when I went back to Eagle Cove in ’74.  In 1959, my group travelled to another camp, Racquet Lake Camp for Boys, for a basketball game.  I couldn’t believe their team was coached by Gene Shue, a professional basketball player for the Detroit Pistons.  Incredibly, in those days, professional athletes needed off-season jobs.     

“I know a place that’s quiet and serene.  I know a place where beauty reigns supreme.”

I wish I had better memories of Eagle Cove than I do, but that is my reality.  I don’t want to forget anything about my life, neither the good, the bad, nor the ugly.  

Take Me to Havana

In December of 1952, when I was seven years old, my family, all six of us, traveled by car, two cars actually, from Oswego, New York, to Miami Beach, Florida for a vacation.  Some interesting things happened along the way, including my being unable to climb the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. and a trip to a hospital in St. Augustine, Florida, to receive a shot of penicillin from the biggest needle I have ever seen.  I went to my first college football game, the North-South All-Star game at Miami’s Orange Bowl, but the thing I remember the most was not going to Havana.

My impression is that it was a spur of the moment decision by my parents to take the short flight from Miami to Havana, Cuba for an overnight stay.  Unfortunately, only half of us were going: my parents and one of my older brothers.  My eldest brother would stay behind to supervise the two youngest, which included me.  I felt robbed, cheated, deprived of something; I wasn’t quite sure of what at the time.

On September 18, 1953, one of my boxing heroes, Carmen Basilio, from nearby Canastota, New York, got a chance to fight for the Welterweight Championship of the World against the champion, Kid Gavilan, at the War Memorial Auditorium in nearby Syracuse.  Gavilan was from Cuba, that place I hadn’t visited.  Basilio floored the champ in the second round, but lost a close split decision.  I read all about it in the newspaper the next day.  (Tragically, on April 3, 1962, another Cuban boxer, Benny “the Kid” Paret, a favorite of mine, died from injuries suffered in the ring defending his Welterweight Championship of the World.)  

On July 3, 1960, I was an usher at the wedding of my eldest brother at a hotel in Rochester, New York, also the home of the minor league baseball team, the Red Wings.  That day, the home team played a double header against the Havana Sugar Kings.  Some Sugar King players, including Leo Cardenas, a Cuban, who would move up to the Cincinnati Reds the following month, were hanging out in the hotel lobby.  A group from the wedding engaged the ballplayers in conversation.

The hot topic that day was the aftermath of the revolution that had recently transformed Cuba.  On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro and his followers overthrew the dictator, Fulgencio Batista.  A year and a half later the Sugar Kings were talking about a very chaotic situation in Havana, that place I hadn’t visited.

On January 3, 1961, US President Eisenhower broke off diplomatic relations with Castro’s Cuban government over concerns about Cuba becoming communist and spreading that ideology to the rest of Latin America.  On May 1 of that same year, Antulio Ramirez Ortiz boarded National Airlines flight #337 from Miami to Key West, Florida.  Holding a steak knife to the pilot’s throat, he commandered the plane and demanded, “Take me to Havana.”  That was perhaps the first of a growing epidemic of airplane hijackings between the US and Cuba over the next couple of decades.

On October 22, 1962, I was home alone when President Kennedy came on television to address the nation.  He mentioned a crisis involving offensive missiles in Cuba, that place I hadn’t visited.  Besides being extremely worrisome for the nation as a whole, I was especially concerned because that older brother who had gone to Cuba ten years earlier was in the US Navy stationed at Key West, right in the thick of what could have been WWIII.  Thankfully, war was averted, but all flights between the US and Cuba were cancelled for decades.  In addition, US citizens were legally bared from travelling to Cuba.

When I was at college, I studied the unique economic system that Cuba’s government had formulated.  It was the only communist country that did not industrialize, relying instead on an exclusively agrarian economy.  Coincidentally, I now live in São Paulo, the latitudinal equivalent in the Southern Hemisphere of Havana in the Northern Hemisphere. 

For all of the above reasons, I have been curious about Cuba for a long time.  I object to the dictatorial policies of the Castro regime, but that is separate from the Island of Cuba itself and the Cuban people.  They and I share a love of baseball.  In 1949, Minnie Minoso became the first black Cuban to play in the Major Leagues, with the Cleveland Indians.  I have had a chance to experiment with Cuban food (including black beans), which I like very much.  One of my favorite music CDs is the Buena Vista Social Club, Cuban music performed by old-time Cuban singers and musicians.  As a father myself, I supported the return of Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba.  Besides, being in the Caribbean, the weather there has to be great. 

The whole world can go to Cuba, except Americans.  Americans can go anywhere in the world, except to Cuba.  Recently, the travel restrictions have been eased to a certain extent by President Obama, but Americans cannot simply call up their travel agent and book a trip to Cuba like any common tourist going to any common destination.  It’s a favorite winter place to visit for our Canadian friends to the north.  My Brazilian wife and her compatriots can visit Cuba anytime they wish.  Why can’t I?

In 1971, I legally visited communist Yugoslavia and communist Hungary.  In 1973, I legally visited communist East Germany.  (Wow!  Two of those countries no longer exist.  Was it something I said?)  Hundreds of thousands of Americans legally visit communist China every year.  So, why is Cuba treated differently?  There are reasons; there are always reasons.  But, they are hypocritical.  The bottom line is that my civil and human rights to freely travel are being infringed upon by my government for no valid purpose.  I demand that it stop.  I want to lie on the beach at Playas Del Este and walk the streets of Miramar.  Please, American Airlines, take me to Havana.