Bowling

In the 1950s, the early days of television, bowling was a popular sport, both for participants and spectators.  I remember watching bowling on TV.

Don Carter was one several professional bowlers who competed in televised events.  Women bowlers were leaders in female sports in the post-WWII era.

One of the confusing aspects of bowling is its scoring.  One time as an adolescent, I asked my Uncle Sam Friedland (really a cousin by marriage) how it is scored.

He patiently explained: for a strike, ten points plus the pins on the next two balls; for a spare, ten points plus the pins on the next ball.  Today, scoring is automated.  No need for pencils.

When I was in Junior High School (Kingsford Park), I was the captain of a bowling team made up of Bob Thayer, Dick Cafelone, Bob Allison and one other whose name I cannot remember.  We were in first place going into the last week of competition.

The opponents of the second place team did not show up and forfeited their match.  Thus, the second place team would jump ahead of us pending the results of our final competition.

Before we bowled, I was offered a compromise: a playoff between the top two teams.  I accepted.  Turns out it was a bad choice.  We bowled so well that my team ended up in first place despite the forfeit. 

The playoff was on a Saturday morning.  Two games, total pins wins.  Our gym teacher, Mat Barkley (a classmate of my Aunt Frances), kept score.  We lost by one pin.  They got trophies, we got nothing.  

I walked home with Bob Thayer.  He cursed our bad luck all the way.

Years later my son Bret signed up to be on a bowling team in Mid-Queens Fresh Meadows.  As I recall, he was the smallest on his team, but he was the best.  I bought Bret his own bowling ball and we occasionally went to the lanes and bowled.

Crossing Delancey

 Crossing Delancey is a 1988 romantic comedy film starring Amy Irving (nominated for a Golden Globe), Peter Riegert, Reizl Bozyk, David Hyde-Pierce and Sylvia Miles.  The title uses Delancey Street in lower Manhattan as a symbol of a crossroads, both literally and figuratively, representing the protagonist's journey as she navigates between the Jewish world she was born into and the literary world she aspires to.

Crossing Delancey is a cinematic treat worth viewing, an enjoyable, crowd-pleasing romance involving Jewish characters. It contains a New York love triangle in which the heroine faces a choice between two very different men.  

Isabelle (Irving) works for a New York bookstore where she mingles with the city's literary elite, whom she idolizes. But outside of work she is lonely and unfulfilled. When Dutch-American author Anton (Hyde-Pierce) comes to the bookstore to give a reading, he shows an interest in Isabelle, who is charmed.

Isabelle pays frequent visits to her Yiddish-speaking Bubbe (grandmother), Ida (Bozyk - a Yiddish theater stage actress in her only movie role), who lives in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Anxious for her granddaughter to settle down with a decent Jewish man, Ida hires a marriage broker (Miles). 

Although enraged, Isabelle grudgingly allows the matchmaker to introduce her in Bubbe’s kitchen to Sam (Riegert).  At first Isabelle is dismissive of Sam, believing that the small business he owns, a street corner pickle stand, is too working class to provide the life she  wants. 

Instead, Isabelle sets her sights on Anton and the New York City intelligentsia.  She learns that Sam kept turning down the matchmaker because he was waiting for her to bring a photo of Isabelle.

Sam has quietly had a crush on Isabelle from afar for many years. "How do I talk to Isabelle?"  She is deeply touched.

One day at a store book reading, Sam shows up invited by Isabelle, as does Anton. Isabelle leaves with Sam, and later agrees to meet him the next day at her Bubbe’s apartment to go on a date.

After work the next day, however, she is sidelined by Anton and, believing that he is romantically interested in her, goes to his apartment. She discovers instead that the narcissistic Anton wants an assistant he can sleep with, not a real wife or girlfriend.

A disgusted Isabelle rejects him and races to her grandmother's apartment.  Will Sam still be there?  Will he give up waiting for her?  Or not?  

  

Paladin, Chapter 6

INT. GENERAL STORE - DAY

POLLYANNA and another woman, GRACE, plain-looking and 40ish, are yelling at each other.  Charles intervenes.

CHARLES: GRACE, be quiet.  You, too, POLLYANNA.  

They are both silenced.

CHARLES: PALADIN, my wife, GRACE.  

PALADIN: Pleasure, ma'am.

PALADIN grabs POLLYANNA's arm and escorts her out of the store.

EXT. IN FRONT OF GENERAL STORE - DAY

PALADIN: You've got some explaining to do, lady.  

POLLYANNA: Don't know what you're talking about.

PALADIN: Glad I made you pay in advance.  I'm about to get on my horse and head back to San Francisco right now if you don't start telling me the truth.

POLLYANNA: Go fuck yourself.  And you owe me a $1,000.  

PALADIN: First, I don't give refunds.  Second, I'll figure some way to give you something in value for the $1,000 you paid me.  In the mean time, you'll have to excuse me.

PALADIN leaves POLLYANNA in the street, takes his horse and walks across the street to the hotel and enters.  

Love means...

Ryan O'Neal the actor was born in Los Angeles on April 20, 1941 (84 years ago today).  In 1964, he landed the role of Rodney Harrington on the ABC nighttime soap opera Peyton Place.  It was an instant hit and boosted O'Neal's career. 

He later found success in films, most notably in the romantic drama Love Story (1970), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama; Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up, Doc? (1972); and Paper Moon (1973), which earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

O'Neal died in Santa Monica, California, on December 8, 2023, at the age of 82.  His cause of death was congestive heart failure.

I remember a scene from Love Story filmed in front of an entrance to Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan where I had my first surgery five years later.  Ryan O'Neal is leaving the hospital followed by his father, played by Ray Milland.

Ray:  Oliver, why didn't you tell me?  I made a couple of calls and as soon as I found out I jumped right in the car.  Oliver, I want to help.

Ryan:  Jenny's dead.

Ray:  I'm sorry.

Ryan:  Love means never having to say you're sorry.

The line has been criticized and mocked for suggesting that apologies are unnecessary in a loving relationship. Another character played by O'Neal disparages the line in the 1972 screwball comedy What's Up, Doc?

In that film's final scene which is on an airplane, Barbra Streisand's character, responding to his apology, says "Love means never having to say you're sorry," and bats her eyelashes.

O'Neal's character then responds in a flat deadpan voice, "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard."

I agree.  I believe it's very important in a loving relationship to apologize when appropriate.  I have done that many times.  

Basketball

When I was fourteen years old (1959-1960), in the ninth grade (the equivalent of a freshman in high school) at Kingsford Park School, I tried out for the baseball team, my favorite sport.  I remember a couple of moments.

Once I singled, but was thrown out trying to steal second base.  Another time I hit a fly ball that was caught by the centerfielder.  My playing career was over.

Basketball was not nearly as popular as baseball in those days.  I didn't play the game.  It was rarely on TV.  Occasionally, my family went to see the Syracuse Nats play in person.

I tried out for the Kingsford Park basketball team (only for boys - no girl's team) only because many of my friends did as well.  By some miracle, at the practice before the first game, all of my shots went in.

In the locker room, before the first game, the coach announced that I was in the starting lineup.  I was scared to death.  All I wanted was a seat on the bench.  It didn't take long before the coach realized that was where I belonged.

Forty years later, my son Bret was a freshman at Cardozo High School.  He made the Junior Varsity boys basketball team.  A few games into the season, Bret became the starting point guard and stayed there through his sophomore year.  

I was very happy that I was able to be at some of his games in person.  

Understanding the advantage of being ambidextrous, Bret learned how to dribble with his left hand.

Bret loved and understood the game of basketball.  I remember one time we were at the Palestra for a Penn game.  With less than a minute to go, he understood that the game was essentially over.  I was still nervously in doubt.  Bret was right, I was wrong.

Twenty-five years later, my grandson Leo is a freshman at the Bronx High School of Science.  He was one of only four freshman to make the boy's Junior Varsity basketball team.

Like his Uncle Bret, Leo loves and understands the game of basketball.  Through the miracle of modern technology, I was able to watch several of his games on my computer.  I was impressed with what I saw of Leo.

I look forward to bigger and better things in his sophomore season at Bronx Science.

I'm Still Here

 I'm Still Here (Ainda Estou Aqui in  Portuguese) is a 2024 political biographical drama film directed by Walter Salles based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva's 2015 memoir of the same name. It stars Fernanda Torres as Eunice Paiva, a mother and activist coping with the forced disappearance of her husband, the dissident politician Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), during the military dictatorship in Brazil.

At the 82nd Golden Globe Awards, Torres won the Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama category.  At the 97th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Actress (Torres), Best Picture and won Best International Feature Film, becoming the first-ever Brazilian produced film to win an Academy Award.

In the film, in December 1970, Rubens Paiva lives in an idyllic house near Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro with his wife Eunice and their five children. He continues to support political expatriates without discussing his activities with his family.

A military raid takes place in Paiva's house, resulting in his arrest and disappearance in January 1971. 

Eunice's public inquiries on Rubens' whereabouts result in her arrest and torture for 12 days. She is questioned about whether her husband is involved with pro-democracy movements, which she denies.

A journalist and family friend informs Eunice that Rubens was killed, but the military authorities refuse to confirm it officially. Left to care for her children alone, Eunice sells their home and moves to São Paulo, anticipating a new start close to her maternal family.

Twenty-six years ago, Torres's mother, Fernanda Montenegro, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress (Central Station).  She didn't win.  All of Brazil was hoping Torres would win this time.  But, she didn't.  Que pena!

Paladin, Chapter 5

 EXT. MAIN STREET OF WINDFALL, NEVADA - DAY

PALADIN and POLLYANNA ride into Windfall, a small town with the usual assortment of businesses: a saloon, a hotel, a general store, a blacksmith shop, a sheriff's office, etc.  They ride to the front of the general store and dismount.  They enter the store.

INT. GENERAL STORE - DAY

The store is busy with a number of customers.  There two people assisting them, a handicapped man and a woman.  POLLYANNA, with PALADIN following approach the man, CHARLES, a slender, older, serious looking man.

POLLYANNA:  CHARLES, I'm back.  This is PALADIN.  I brought him from San Francisco.

CHARLES extends his left hand.  PALADIN takes it with his left. 

CHARLES:  PALADIN.  Welcome to Windfall and welcome to our store.  What can I do for you?

PALADIN:  Perhaps we can speak privately.

CHARLES:  Okay.  My private office is this way.

While walking away with CHARLES, PALADIN notices POLLYANNA and the woman clerk eyeballing each other suspiciously.

INT. CHARLES PRIVATE OFFICE - DAY

CHARLES sits in chair by a desk.  PALADIN remains standing.  He hands CHARLES his business card.  CHARLES reads it.

PALADIN:  Your girlfriend POLLYANNA says you're in need of help from a bully because of your right hand.  If you want, I can teach you to defend yourself with your left.

CHARLES:  I don't understand.  I'm afraid you've been misled.  First, I've learned to be very proficient using a knife with my left hand.  And second, the so-called bully is POLLYANNA's husband, BIG DAN.  And I am certainly not her boyfriend.  GRACE is my wife and partner here at the store.  Perhaps you noticed her.

PALADIN is surprised and feels taken advantage of.

PALADIN:  I beg your pardon.  She paid me $1,000 to help protect her boyfriend...you.  Why would she lie like that?

PALADIN and CHARLES hear two women shouting in the store.  They both leave the office and return to store.