6/13/07
6/9/07
those muggers from Jersey
Dad and Dado left already. Man, geezers are early risers. Dad came knocking on my door at 7am and they both seemed ready to go. I'm worried that Dad won't put food in front of Dado as much as I did. Dado will say he's not hungry, but then eat the banana, yogurt and cereal bar I put in front of him.
I got on itunes and made a Dean Martin/Bobby Darin CD for him for last night. I can't believe a few days ago I asked if he liked Elton John, Johnny Cash or Frank Sinatra. (That's the oldest music I know!) Thursday night I bought a 1940's CD on itunes and threw in some Gene Autry. We listened to that a couple times yesterday. A few times a song would come up and he'd say "Oh, remember this?" I told him, "Dado, that was 30 years before I was born. That's like someone asking you if you remember a song from 1890." He laughed at that thought.
He's never been mugged. He's lived in New York City his whole life, carries several hundred dollars with him all the time, and has never been mugged. He said the muggers are all from out of town; like Jersey probably. They go to the Broadway district and hit up people who are out on the town. Makes sense I guess.
He was my age in 1952. He talked about how there weren't many cars in New York City at all until the 80's. Then he starts complaining about Puerto Ricans.
Dado gave me this jar of coins for tolls. I love this jar– he told me he's had it over 50 years. Besides regular coins(mostly quarters), it has 2 late-1800's silver dollars and three 2-dollar bills. The jar itself was for $1.09 Hadden House imported coctail baby corn. It smells and looks like his apartment did.
I got on itunes and made a Dean Martin/Bobby Darin CD for him for last night. I can't believe a few days ago I asked if he liked Elton John, Johnny Cash or Frank Sinatra. (That's the oldest music I know!) Thursday night I bought a 1940's CD on itunes and threw in some Gene Autry. We listened to that a couple times yesterday. A few times a song would come up and he'd say "Oh, remember this?" I told him, "Dado, that was 30 years before I was born. That's like someone asking you if you remember a song from 1890." He laughed at that thought.
He's never been mugged. He's lived in New York City his whole life, carries several hundred dollars with him all the time, and has never been mugged. He said the muggers are all from out of town; like Jersey probably. They go to the Broadway district and hit up people who are out on the town. Makes sense I guess.
He was my age in 1952. He talked about how there weren't many cars in New York City at all until the 80's. Then he starts complaining about Puerto Ricans.
Dado gave me this jar of coins for tolls. I love this jar– he told me he's had it over 50 years. Besides regular coins(mostly quarters), it has 2 late-1800's silver dollars and three 2-dollar bills. The jar itself was for $1.09 Hadden House imported coctail baby corn. It smells and looks like his apartment did.
6/8/07
Everything you wanted to know about brakelights...
but didn't want to ask the cab driver.
I got to explain how the brakelights light up automatically when someone steps on the brake. He didn't know if it was something they did on purpose or not. We saw truck start to change lanes on some car without looking, then snap back into his lane. Dado asked about how hard it is to change lanes and what's involved.
This is the longest– and really only– road trip he's ever taken. When he was 16 or 17 was sent to Nevada by train to work in the CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps. According to Wikipedia, it was FDR's work relief program designed to combat poverty & unemployment from the Depression. Groups of 200 guys worked outdoors doing construction and buidling roads. Dado said you got a dollar a day– $30 a month. $22 of it went back home to your parents and you had $8 a month to live on.
In WWII he was in the Merchant Marines. That's when he lost contact with his brothers and sisters. Back in NYC in 1945, I went to work at his uncle Connie's bar, Hurley's, the only establishment in Rockefeller Center to not be owned by Rockefeller. Rockefeller offered them $1 million to buy it and they refused. Dado said Walter Winchell wrote in his column about how those Hurley's could turn down $1 million for a bar.
Dado worked there 1045 to 1950, serving Joe DiMaggio, Tuesday Weld and Perry Como. Perry Como always drank a beer from Pennsylvania, as he was from Pennsylvania. They got a lot of business from guys working in radio and TV who wanted a drink, without crossing 6th Ave. One time, a guy came in and ordered a "pinch and soda". Dado turned around, made the drink, turned back around and the guy had dropped dead. Heart attack. Last words on earth were "pinch and soda." (A pinch, apparently, is a Hague & Hague.)
Back then everyone drank coctails: daiquiris, stingers, sidecars, brandy alexanders, gin alexanders, slow gin fizzes, orange blossoms. In the 70's it all switched to "punches", as Dado called them. After Hurley's he went and worked in various bars on Wall Street for 30 years, right across from the World Trade Center. He retired in 1982.
I picked him up from his apartment Thursday. It reminded me of the apartment Tom Hanks' character in Big stayed at when he had to go to the city and get an adult job. Small, sparse, smelled like 30 years of cigarete smoke. Everything felt brownish-yellow.
I'd always been under the assumption he was reclusive. Non social. But on this trip he's been talking as comfortably and often as anyone I know. From all I can gather, he's been ready for this trip for awhile.
We met Dad here at the hotel in Knoxville at around 7. They're staying in the room right next to mine. Dad seems preoccupied and a little tense. He'll probably be that way till they make it back to Waco and Dado's settled in.
I got to explain how the brakelights light up automatically when someone steps on the brake. He didn't know if it was something they did on purpose or not. We saw truck start to change lanes on some car without looking, then snap back into his lane. Dado asked about how hard it is to change lanes and what's involved.
This is the longest– and really only– road trip he's ever taken. When he was 16 or 17 was sent to Nevada by train to work in the CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps. According to Wikipedia, it was FDR's work relief program designed to combat poverty & unemployment from the Depression. Groups of 200 guys worked outdoors doing construction and buidling roads. Dado said you got a dollar a day– $30 a month. $22 of it went back home to your parents and you had $8 a month to live on.
In WWII he was in the Merchant Marines. That's when he lost contact with his brothers and sisters. Back in NYC in 1945, I went to work at his uncle Connie's bar, Hurley's, the only establishment in Rockefeller Center to not be owned by Rockefeller. Rockefeller offered them $1 million to buy it and they refused. Dado said Walter Winchell wrote in his column about how those Hurley's could turn down $1 million for a bar.
Dado worked there 1045 to 1950, serving Joe DiMaggio, Tuesday Weld and Perry Como. Perry Como always drank a beer from Pennsylvania, as he was from Pennsylvania. They got a lot of business from guys working in radio and TV who wanted a drink, without crossing 6th Ave. One time, a guy came in and ordered a "pinch and soda". Dado turned around, made the drink, turned back around and the guy had dropped dead. Heart attack. Last words on earth were "pinch and soda." (A pinch, apparently, is a Hague & Hague.)
Back then everyone drank coctails: daiquiris, stingers, sidecars, brandy alexanders, gin alexanders, slow gin fizzes, orange blossoms. In the 70's it all switched to "punches", as Dado called them. After Hurley's he went and worked in various bars on Wall Street for 30 years, right across from the World Trade Center. He retired in 1982.
I picked him up from his apartment Thursday. It reminded me of the apartment Tom Hanks' character in Big stayed at when he had to go to the city and get an adult job. Small, sparse, smelled like 30 years of cigarete smoke. Everything felt brownish-yellow.
I'd always been under the assumption he was reclusive. Non social. But on this trip he's been talking as comfortably and often as anyone I know. From all I can gather, he's been ready for this trip for awhile.
We met Dad here at the hotel in Knoxville at around 7. They're staying in the room right next to mine. Dad seems preoccupied and a little tense. He'll probably be that way till they make it back to Waco and Dado's settled in.
6/7/07
banks like IDs
7.5 hours to go according to mapquest. we're at a hampton inn in frederick, md & dado is passed out. we finally rolled in here at 10:30– i think he usually goes to bed at 9.
i didn't get out of boston till 10:30, due to me being a dumbass and renting a car from a place at logan– which actually isn't remotely near logan. whatever. damn airport.
after the requisite getting turned around, i made it to dado's 'hood by 3. he really has no belongings, so i really didn't need to park at the public garage 2 blocks away. buh-bye $20. after i threw is 2.5 bags into the cavernous trunk, we dropped by his hsbc bank to close his accounts and all that. which was impossible.
the whole reason we're having to drive him to texas, rather than take a plane like all the other miserable airline passengers, is that he has no photo ID. to get a photo ID when you've never had one before, you need SIX forms of identification. dado has like, 4. and since his birth certificate wasn't exactly done correctly in 1920 ("Baby Hurley" instead of "John Hurley") it doesn't exactly count as ID. he's gone through the application process for a corrected birth certificate, but the best they could do is "Boy Hurley" which friggin doesn't help a thing, unless by "help" you mean "irritate".
so he's never going to have a photo ID. this is clear. and apparently didn't matter until the past 2 decades. but this presents a problem at the bank when you want to close the accounts with your life savings in them. (no hsbc's in texas, btw.)
but after an hour we worked it out.
we drove about 6 hours after that. some random stuff i picked up:
he doesn't like sinatra, cash, elton john or any of that modern music. just 1940's and a little 1950's. in a few minutes, i'm going to check itunes for 1940's hits & try and make a cd.
his two parents were both born around 1892 & came over to the US in 1919. His dad was from Cork county and his mom was from Galway.
he doesn't feel sentimental about nyc (he says) because all his boys he used to talk sports with have died. excpt "george". and george is just 60-something; he was the youngest of the guys.
i think he never wore a seatbelt till today. it seems his interest in them has more to do with the possible fine than with anything safety-related. i also got to explain the correlation between a driver hitting his brakes and the taillights lighting up. :)
i didn't get out of boston till 10:30, due to me being a dumbass and renting a car from a place at logan– which actually isn't remotely near logan. whatever. damn airport.
after the requisite getting turned around, i made it to dado's 'hood by 3. he really has no belongings, so i really didn't need to park at the public garage 2 blocks away. buh-bye $20. after i threw is 2.5 bags into the cavernous trunk, we dropped by his hsbc bank to close his accounts and all that. which was impossible.
the whole reason we're having to drive him to texas, rather than take a plane like all the other miserable airline passengers, is that he has no photo ID. to get a photo ID when you've never had one before, you need SIX forms of identification. dado has like, 4. and since his birth certificate wasn't exactly done correctly in 1920 ("Baby Hurley" instead of "John Hurley") it doesn't exactly count as ID. he's gone through the application process for a corrected birth certificate, but the best they could do is "Boy Hurley" which friggin doesn't help a thing, unless by "help" you mean "irritate".
so he's never going to have a photo ID. this is clear. and apparently didn't matter until the past 2 decades. but this presents a problem at the bank when you want to close the accounts with your life savings in them. (no hsbc's in texas, btw.)
but after an hour we worked it out.
we drove about 6 hours after that. some random stuff i picked up:
he doesn't like sinatra, cash, elton john or any of that modern music. just 1940's and a little 1950's. in a few minutes, i'm going to check itunes for 1940's hits & try and make a cd.
his two parents were both born around 1892 & came over to the US in 1919. His dad was from Cork county and his mom was from Galway.
he doesn't feel sentimental about nyc (he says) because all his boys he used to talk sports with have died. excpt "george". and george is just 60-something; he was the youngest of the guys.
i think he never wore a seatbelt till today. it seems his interest in them has more to do with the possible fine than with anything safety-related. i also got to explain the correlation between a driver hitting his brakes and the taillights lighting up. :)
6/6/07
after 86 years, it's time for waco
I'm helping my grandfather move tomorrow, from NYC where he's lived his whole life, to Waco, TX, where my parents live.
Two years ago, when he was 84, my parents suggested he come live with them & he wasn't into it. But now, 2 years later, he's doing it. (Not sure what changed.)
I've only seen him 3 times in my life: Once when I was 19 and had a few hours' layover in Newark, he came and met me at the airport. The second time in '02 when I met him for breakfast with my parents. And this past January, when I took the photo below. We sat there about an hour and he told me about my grandmother who died about 25 years ago.
I'm picking up a rental car in the morning & should be in NYC by 2. He said he has about 4 large garbage bags worth of belongings; mostly clothes probably. I wonder what he thinks about consumerism & the mad purchasing frenzy we Americans stay in. Why doesn't he have things? Is it a Depression mentality, or does he just simply not want anything?
I called him today to let him know we're all set with the rental car. He asked if it had seatbelts. Seatbelts! I said, "Oh yeah, it'll have awesome seatbelts." He said he wanted to make sure, since he's always hearing about seatbelts on the radio. For a split-second I thought he might be joking, but It's highly likely that all his experience with cars comes from the radio. He would never take a cab, and he doesn't really leave his apartment, much less Manhattan. When would he have been in a car in the past 86 years?
Aside from 5-minute phonecalls on birthdays and holidays, I haven't really talked to him much. He and my dad are both brief phone talkers. So I'm interested in what 13 hours in the car with him will be like. (Oh– my dad's meeting us halfway, in Knoxville, to drive him the rest of the way while I drive back to Boston.)
I borrowed a cooler from Brian at work and spent $36 at the store tonight getting water, fruit and snacks. I would have gotten beer, but they don't sell beer at the store! (Ok, maybe I wouldn't have gotten BEER.) I don't even know if he drinks beer. After my whole life of brief phonecalls just to check in & wish happy whatever, I really don't know much about the guy.
This time tomorrow night, we should be in Pennsylvania or some damn thing. Until then!
:)
Two years ago, when he was 84, my parents suggested he come live with them & he wasn't into it. But now, 2 years later, he's doing it. (Not sure what changed.)
I've only seen him 3 times in my life: Once when I was 19 and had a few hours' layover in Newark, he came and met me at the airport. The second time in '02 when I met him for breakfast with my parents. And this past January, when I took the photo below. We sat there about an hour and he told me about my grandmother who died about 25 years ago.
I'm picking up a rental car in the morning & should be in NYC by 2. He said he has about 4 large garbage bags worth of belongings; mostly clothes probably. I wonder what he thinks about consumerism & the mad purchasing frenzy we Americans stay in. Why doesn't he have things? Is it a Depression mentality, or does he just simply not want anything?
I called him today to let him know we're all set with the rental car. He asked if it had seatbelts. Seatbelts! I said, "Oh yeah, it'll have awesome seatbelts." He said he wanted to make sure, since he's always hearing about seatbelts on the radio. For a split-second I thought he might be joking, but It's highly likely that all his experience with cars comes from the radio. He would never take a cab, and he doesn't really leave his apartment, much less Manhattan. When would he have been in a car in the past 86 years?
Aside from 5-minute phonecalls on birthdays and holidays, I haven't really talked to him much. He and my dad are both brief phone talkers. So I'm interested in what 13 hours in the car with him will be like. (Oh– my dad's meeting us halfway, in Knoxville, to drive him the rest of the way while I drive back to Boston.)
I borrowed a cooler from Brian at work and spent $36 at the store tonight getting water, fruit and snacks. I would have gotten beer, but they don't sell beer at the store! (Ok, maybe I wouldn't have gotten BEER.) I don't even know if he drinks beer. After my whole life of brief phonecalls just to check in & wish happy whatever, I really don't know much about the guy.
This time tomorrow night, we should be in Pennsylvania or some damn thing. Until then!
:)
5/31/07
5/24/07
Tom the Cat
i love dogs, but cats are more like people; you've got outgoing ones, bitchy ones, sweet ones, mean ones, off-balance ones. the only reason i'm more partial to cats at this point in my life, is they're more self-sufficient. you can't leave a doggie in an apartment for 3 days the same as you can with a cat.
anyway, here's Tom. he's my favorite little guy from one of the best sites on the 'net: www.stuffonmycat.com
anyway, here's Tom. he's my favorite little guy from one of the best sites on the 'net: www.stuffonmycat.com
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