Monthly Archive: September 2025

Recently I was having Sunday brunch with family at a popular little place in the more upscale part of our county.

I just happened to be looking out the window at the tables outside, two of which were recently vacated, but not cleared. This is the type of place where they give you the pot when you order coffee.

The place was pretty crowded and there were many people milling around out there waiting for a table. I watched as a guy walked up to the table, poured coffee into one of the used cups and sat down to drink it. He moved to the other table still drinking his coffee and then he got up, dropped off the coffee cup and picked up a half eaten sandwich.

When I shared what I was witnessing, my brother told a story of how back in school he once saw a kid take food that was left on top of the trash in the lunchroom. It made me glad it was my sensitive brother that witnessed this and not another kid who may have ridiculed him. My brother said it made him think that although we had some pretty “lean” years growing up, we never went hungry. Oh, there were days when a Devil Dog was all there was for dinner, but we always try to see the humorous side when talking about those years. That said, I’d pretty much kill to be that weight and be able to eat Devil Dogs for dinner now.

At the risk of stereotyping, the guy in the restaurant did not look particularly homeless. Maybe he had mental problems, or an addiction, or maybe he was just hungry, but I’m still thinking about him and feeling grateful for how our lives turned out.

When the doorbell rings in the middle of the day, I can be fairly certain it’s a neighbor needing assistance with something – often technology based. I really don’t mind this as I read that a fulfilling retirement should consist of a third of your time spent with family, a third spent on community, and a third spent on yourself. I chalk the neighbors up to community.

Often, it’s cell phone related (“I usually mash this button, but that’s not working”); or help needed with something like a digital frame (“My grandchild sent this and I’m not sure what the heck I’m supposed to do with it”); or perhaps it’s the always popular, “I may have ordered something on the phone/computer by accident” situation.

I’ve even encountered the unbelievable, “Can you help me? I think I threw out my savings bonds.” (Spoiler Alert: She did, and there’s actually a U.S. Treasury Department process for it.)

Recently though, the request was for help with for an upcoming cruise. It was too early to check in so I told them I would try in a day or two and get back to them.

After checking them in as much as I could I headed to their house to get the rest of their information. Their air conditioning had gone out overnight, so they were in a little bit of a tizzy. As I stood in their hot kitchen listening to them yell at one another about where the (expired) passports were, and how they had trouble with the name on the birth certificate last time, and just about everything else one can imagine, I ran out the door, saying, “No worries, I’ll come back.”

A little later the husband brought over the paperwork. On his way out, he said, “I better get back and apologize to my wife for yelling at her.”

“Aww,” I said. “Blame the heat.”

“She’ll say, ‘What was your excuse yesterday?’”

“Oh, sorry.”

“I don’t know what it is anymore,” he said. “She could say hello and it aggravates the hell out of me. The doctor says it’s normal at our age, but if it gets any worse, there’s a pill he can give me.”

Who knew they had a pill for that?

Besides helping our “community,” my secret hope is that all the assistance hubby and I provide is being stockpiled as “goodwill” or “karma” that will come back to us someday. Hopefully, we never need that grouchy pill, but maybe we’ll have kind neighbors that will help us if we do.

It’s unbelievable to me that I’m still talking about a crazy shark tale from fifty years ago, but apparently, Jaws made a big impression on me. Not only was the movie the first drive-in I ever drove to, but the book by Peter Benchley was the one that got me hooked on reading.

It’s also unbelievable for me to think that I literally did not read an entire book until I read Jaws at sixteen years old. I have Dear ole Dad to thank for that enlightenment.

My father was one of the thousands of dads who schlepped out from Long Island into New York City for work in the 1970s. And, like most of them, Dad took the Long Island Railroad (LIRR).

There were many rituals to riding the LIRR. Like, don’t touch the big piece of cardboard shoved between the seats and window in car so and so, as the same group of four uses it every morning when they lay it across their laps (two riding backwards, so they face one other), to play cards. And, when you finish a newspaper or paperback, do feel free to leave it on the seat for a fellow commuter.

This is how I got to read Jaws. Dad picked it up on the LIRR; and, when he was done, he left it lying on a table at home, carrying on the railroad’s pseudo library lending system.

I’m sure it was the intriguing photo on the cover that piqued my unmotivated, teenage interest, as I devoured the book, couldn’t wait to see the movie, and forever after was a voracious reader.

Thanks, Dad!

I am not big on rewatching movies, and I really don’t like sequels (unlike Dad who famously said, “The higher the number, the better the movie.”) So, I have not seen Jaws since that warm June night when I drove a bunch of us in my mother’s station wagon to the local drive-In.

Fortunately, I have a cinephile niece who was willing to join me for the re-release of 1975’s summer blockbuster (and, apparently, the movie that created the word “blockbuster”). It was better than I even remembered, and that opening scene – chillingly and skillfully achieved with no blood, and no shark – is still one of the most vivid movie memories for me and still has me talking about it all these years later.