Showing posts with label Norwalk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Norwalk. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 4, 2023

It's Summertime, Summertime, Sum Sum Summertime

 

Oh, the sweet innocence of The Jamies’ song, their one and only big hit from 1958, that opening line nicely summing up my years as a high school somnambulist. I paid dearly for my penchant to “to live and have some thrills,” as another part of the song goes.

 

Fast forward more than sixty years. In one’s retirement one would think those halcyon thoughts of carefree abandonment could be rekindled.  Now, it’s the new responsibility of merely staying healthy. “It's summertime (ba-bam-bam)” so now we plan our brief trips around the realities of trying to see out kids, both more than a thousand miles away with their spouses (we also have a grand-dog who we will meet in August). 

 

Those plans now are burdened by the overpopulated and digitized world of today.  I need not go into all the details but suffice it to say, being an octogenarian, competing for space in a world which would not be recognizable in 1958, has its challenges. However, along with its frustrations, there are some throwbacks to the civilized past. One young lady noticing we were having trouble hearing the so called loudspeaker over the airport din, volunteered to act as an interpreter.  It’s not that my hearing is bad; it’s the audio-multitasking part.  So, lest this entry becomes the sour grapes that I could easily write, I publically say thank you to the people who care.  Still, it is a crazy world.

 

We flew up to a regional airport, HPN, from our regional airport, PBI, that in itself a delicate feat given all sorts of possible delays, but managed to get there only an hour late to pick up a car I had reserved with Avis/Budget (now merged for the greater good of the shareholders) and after a half hour of waiting for my checked in advance car, all license and payment information provided on line, an uncaring employee, after clattering away at his computer, tossed me the keys to a Toyota 4-Runner although I had rented a mid-sized car, not a truck. “Take it or leave it” he said.  “It’s the only vehicles for rent from anyone.”

 

So, we gathered our luggage and pole vaulted into our truck after finally finding in a parking lot to which we had to drag our suitcases and off we went on the old Merritt Parkway, always under construction and always stop and go traffic finally arriving at our hotel, one that is near our old boat now owned and beautifully maintained by our son Jonathan and daughter-in-law Tracie. We’ve stayed at this Marriott on and off for 25 years, seeking it out as a hurricane haven when we were living on the boat ourselves each summer. But the hotel has regressed with smaller rooms, no shelving and a refrigerator that never worked. Needless to say, it was packed with no options.

 

Our older son Chris and his significant other Megan drove down the next day from the Boston area to stay at the same hotel and finally, our little family was able to get together, one of the high points of the trip for us.

 

Captain Jonathan had a nice surprise ready for us all the next day, engines revved for a cruise, casting off the lines as soon as we all boarded.  The weather had been threatening and we were not expecting it.

 Here he is on the Bridge above.

 

We passed the house in which we lived before moving to Florida, exactly in the center of this photograph, the two-story home.

 

 

After the weekend, all took leave except for Jonathan who works remotely and ourselves who were hoping to recapture more of our old boating life.  Sitting on the boat in the harbor it was if no time had passed other than we are now just visitors. Those thoughts went through me as I sat looking out, Ann on the couch reading, her ponytail flowing over the cushion (the refrains of The Big Bopper repeat in my head still, “Chantilly lace and a pretty face / And a ponytail hangin' down / A wiggle in her walk and a giggle in her talk / Make the world go 'round.”) 

 

With no one down at the docks, it is eerily quiet. There is now a persistent east wind bringing in clouds, some cool temperatures, and an occasional light shower.  The door to the boat is open and I ingest the cool humid flow.  This easterly wind induces random slapping of waves on the hull and the chines, the only sounds I hear, continuous, and if I sat here forever, and the wind never shifted, that slapping would be in a one to one relation with eternity.  Reveries now shift to reality.

 Aside from visiting our family, having some excellent meals, we were able to see our old boating friends, Ray and Sue.  All of us in some way have had our health issues, probably Ray and me with the most serious ones, indebted to our wives for keeping us going. 

 

 

And Ann managed to see our close friend, Betty, for lunch and reminisce about their 50 year friendship.  I had hired Betty as a copyeditor way back in the early 1970s but for the last twenty five years she has free lanced as one of the leading and most sought after copy editors in scientific publishing.  That was not her academic background, but it just came naturally to her.

 

The week flew by and before we knew it, we were back on the jammed Merritt Parkway, returning to White Plains Airport, and although I promised not to bitch, I must scratch this one.  Finally getting our truck back into the lot, and having lunch at the airport (which used to have a very nice restaurant but now catering to bar hoppers and fast foodians), we reluctantly went into the “pen” to get through TSA.  This airport has a holding area, as if you are cattle, totally disorganized, and dependent on prior connections / aircraft. 

 

 

Happily for us, our fully booked JB A320 flight arrived on time from Orlando and, a miracle, they called for boarding the aircraft on time. People were sitting or lying all over the floor it was so packed.  Grateful for this little gift, we stood, and got on line.  After committing ourselves, an announcement was made that they had no pilot for the plane.  But he was taking a limousine from JFK to HPN so 175 people had to wait for his arrival and hope his vehicle isn’t involved in a traffic issue.  Altogether crazy but given other horror stories of traveling post Covid, we are grateful, and, in particular, to see our “kids” no matter what.

 

So come on and change your ways

It's summertime (ba-bam-bam)








 

Sunday, April 14, 2019

A Musical Week


It’s our universal language and while the political discourse is discordant, music seems to bring out our commonalities.  Our favorite musical genres are songs from Broadway, the Great American Songbook, and Jazz and so it was with much anticipation that we looked forward to last week which began with a show at the Delray Beach Playhouse, I Believe in You! – The Songs of Frank Loesser.

Ann arranged a preshow dinner at Racks Fish House off Delray’s famous (and congested) Atlantic Avenue, a happening place.  It was a balmy early April evening, with a nice breeze so we dined al fresco.  Imagine our surprise reading the appetizer menu which included Copps Island, CT oysters!  Copps Island which is connected at low tide to Crow Island is where we have taken our boat for the last 35 years during the summers, anchoring there on weekends.  So here we were, some 1,250 miles away dining on wild oysters from those very waters.  These are bottom planted as opposed to cage or floating trays and the oysters are known for “sweet briny flavor and plump meats. “  It was a nice and nostalgic start to the evening.

Delray Beach Playhouse which opened in 1947 is a community theatre featuring everything from one person acts to full scale plays.  They have a dedicated audience, we now among them.  But who knew, the playhouse is on Lake Ida, a fresh water lake right off of I95, comprising 121 acres, but seeming much larger than that as it is long and narrow.  Looking at it is reminiscent of our days on Lake George in NY and Candlewood Lake in CT as one can see similar boat houses and lake front homes.

I Believe in You! – The Songs of Frank Loesser was narrated by Randolph DelLago who has been the Resident Artistic Director of the Playhouse since 1982.  He also sings in this production.  When one thinks of Frank Loesser, one recalls the iconic Guys and Dolls, one of the great classic musicals of Broadway’s Golden Era.  It perhaps has more recognizable songs than any other musical, including those of Rogers and Hammerstein.  He only wrote four other musicals, The Most Happy Fella and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, being the most notable.  Songs were performed from all of these with original still scenes projected on a backdrop.  The Most Happy Fella has one of the most moving rhapsodic opera style songs ever written for the Great White Way, “My Heart is So Full of You,” one of my favorites for the piano, with an exotic bridge section of eight bars.

But Loesser, who was cast out by his family as they thought “songwriting” was beneath their dignity (his father was a piano teacher and his brother was a classical piano prodigy), found his roots in popular song in Hollywood before migrating to Broadway.  There are many memorable songs he wrote for The Great American Songbook and this show had many, such as “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You,” “Heart and Soul,” “On a Slow Boat to China,” “Two Sleepy People,”“Baby, It’s Cold Outside,”“No Two People,” and “Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year” (the latter being another personal piano favorite of mine).  Along with DelLago, performances were given by Alicia Branch-Stafford, a soprano, baritone William Stafford, and Hanz Eneart who added a little cabaret dancing to the show as well as joining the ensemble in song with a comedic rendition of” Once in Love with Amy.”

Breaking up the week was a trip to Peanut Island with my friend John, a destination on the boat which will become more frequent as the water warms to bathtub temperatures.  Amazing that at one time in my life, jumping into the waters off of Copps Island into 70 degree water was refreshing but now wadding into Peanut’s current 79 degree water seems difficult!  Maybe that’s because the air temperature on Thursday was in the high 80s.  Got home late in the afternoon, just in time to clean the boat with John, shower, and get ready to go to the Maltz Jupiter Theatre.

There we saw West Side Story towards the end of its run, so I am not publishing a full review.  This is what the Maltz Theatre does best but, still, we were a little concerned about seeing this yet again.  Could it still possibly be fresh (although the music by Bernstein and lyrics by Sondheim are immortal)?

The short answer is a resounding yes!  I think some of the classic musicals are being looked at in a new light, due to the times and the influence of Hamilton.  Most recently this is apparent with the Circle in the Square’s current production of Oklahoma which some have criticized as a travesty, irreverent to Rogers and Hammerstein’s intent.  I’m not too sure, although that was my knee jerk reaction.  Now, thinking about it, and reading more about it, I’m willing to be persuaded and therefore we’re going to see it sometime in August.  I’ll be lining up for the chili and corn bread!

There is a dark side to Oklahoma, as in all of the R&H plays.  Just think of Billy Bigalow’s corruptibility in Carousel, or the racial tensions of South Pacific and The King and I, the lurking Nazi shadows in The Sound of Music.  These musicals were played out for the audiences of their times with relatively happy resolutions (just what was expected then).  One could cast them now in an entirely different light and why not?

In a sense, the Maltz’s interpretation of West Side Story has been so influenced.  A framing device of Hurricane Maria has been introduced.  How ironic is that, the Maria of the story picking up after Hurricane Maria, alone with her memories of Tony?  This scene reprises at the end of the show.  It was a lovely, moving touch, particularly in the light of how this terrible storm has been politicized.

And with Puerto Rican born Marcos Santana’s direction and musical staging, we have more of a take on the Sharks rather than the Jets.  The hell-bent fury of xenophobic victimization is explosively probed by Angel Lozada who plays Bernardo.  Michelle Alves performance as Anita is more than up to the easily remembered performance of Chita Rivera in that part.  Alves is every bit as dynamic as a dancer and is a very talented vocalist as well.

Not enough praise can be directed toward Jim Schubin who plays Tony and Evy Ortiz as Maria.  Schubin brings a strong sense of constant optimism and wonder to the role as well as a clear tenor voice.  Ortiz is the ideal Maria, a soprano and coloratura who is radiant in the role of Maria (she was recently on the West Side Story national tour).  They had the perfect chemistry as Tony and Maria and their duets soared.

The choreography by Al Blackstone (with additional choreography by the director), gives a hat tip to Jerome Robbins’ choreography but is original and pulsating on the Maltz stage.  It’s a smaller cast than the original musical, but one would not know it.

With the refugee crisis of our times, it was time to look at West Side Story through a different lens, and the Maltz comes through. 

And last night we attended the 1st Palm Beach International Jazz Festival, the first, we hope, of many in the future.  It is the idea of one of South Florida’s premier jazz singers, Yvette Norwood-Tiger, who has traveled the world with her interpretations of jazz classics, particularly songs sung by Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.  She performs in six languages including English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Xhosa.

She created an afternoon and evening performance with different groups and singers.  We attended the evening performance and thus my comments are confined to that.

First up was Marlow Rosado, a Latin Jazz pianist from Puerto Rico, and his group.  Rasado is a salsero, and is imposing at the piano with his driving salsa rhythms, somewhat reminiscent of Monte Alexander.  I said to Ann that I’ve never seen a pianist who could pass as a football tight end and the physicality of his performance spoke wonders.  He posted last night’s performance on Facebook, so you can catch him there.
 
Next up was Eric & The Jazzers, a South Florida group of professional musicians that play swing/bebop from the great era of Duke Ellington.  Eric Trouillot also served as MC for the night’s performances, a guy from the Bronx who brought out the best of the very well represented NYC crowd (including us).

His group’s trumpet player, Yamin Mustafa, is one of the best we’ve heard and pianist, Chad Michaels, obviously has studied Oscar Peterson’s technique closely. As Mustafa said, the group’s musical selections are eclectic.

But the star of the night was clearly the evening’s organizer, Yvette Norwood-Tiger.  Yvette is a survivor of a benign yet life-threatening brain tumor because of its size and position, but had a successful operation some seven years ago.  Every time we’ve seen her she encourages the audience to “find that door opening” and for her it is singing Horace Silver’s jazz classic "Song for My Father."  Naturally, Yvette means it quite literally, thanking God for the opportunity to continue on with her unique gifts, a powerful yet sometimes subtle interpreter of the Great American Songbook. 

Backing her up musically were all the “old gang” we see almost every Sunday night at Double Roads in Jupiter, her musical director for the evening and oh-so talented pianist, also the co founder of the Jupiter Jazz Society, Rick Moore.  Along with Rick were Marty Gilman, on sax and flute, Joshua Ewers on bass and Michael Mackey on trumpet.  Marty is a multitalented musician who can play a large number of instruments at the professional level and we watched Joshua and Michael while they were still in high school, and have now grown into professional musicians in their own right.

And to bring this entry back to where it began (remember, Copps Island, in the Norwalk CT chain of islands), I learned that Horace Silver (Yvette’s tribute composer), was born in Norwalk, CT so it seems that all roads lead back to our years there.







Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Another Goodbye



Our summer on the boat is already drawing to a close.  Hard to believe, the seasons, the years, kaleidoscopically flying by.  This is an unusual year for us, a late arrival and now an early departure as we are flying to London to visit old homes, haunts (mainly theaters and museums) and friends. I call it my London farewell tour. We’ll be there for a week and then board a ship in Southampton for an Atlantic crossing, our fifth and our last such crossing as well.  The cruise makes several stops including, Rotterdam, two in Norway, the Shetland Islands, and three in Iceland, Boston where we’ll have a day with our son, Chris, ultimately arriving at the Brooklyn pier (Brooklyn figures prominently in my life).  Jonathan will meet us there with our car packed and from there we’ll begin our drive back home.

It will be some time before we return home; meanwhile my blog will go into “quiet mode” as it is impossible to update while traveling.

Wistfully, I post some pictures to mark our departure:

 Pecks Ledge Lighthouse in the background, a shot from the cockpit as the boat returns to port.

 A sunset scene back at the dock, a sailboat languorously passing by the homes on the east shore of the Norwalk River where we used to live.

 Perhaps the original house in Shorefront Park where I walk in the mornings, built in 1870, set high on a hill, one time overlooking the river but now with the entire area fully developed, homes blocking the view.


The Thunderbird of my teenage dreams as exhibited on “Cruisin’ Night” at our Club.

 Another sunset overlooking the bow of our boat.


And finally, a moonrise on the Norwalk River.

Hope to return next year!

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Time Out



Swept Away

I've stepped out of the blogging batter’s box for a while.  In fact, there will be more breaks over the next couple of months.  A few of my faithful readers have wondered where we are, why the silence, and although writing from our present location on a boat is complicated, this entry plus some photos addresses that question.  But it results in a Facebook-type entry, just personal minutiae best ignored by others.

It’s that time of the year again for us, driving up from Florida to move onto our boat in Connecticut. Our son Jonathan now maintains the boat so he’s entitled to use it as if it is his own; thus our time here has diminished over the years.  The “old girl,” ‘Swept Away’ stands tall. Optimistically speaking from a health viewpoint, next year we might just fly and rent a car while here.  This is the 17th time we’ve done this drive together, and this one was the worst.

Perhaps gas prices and a pent up urge to hit the American road, mostly I95 for this trip, has had their impact.  Hotels were sold out along the way, some sleeping in their cars at rest stops.  Luckily, we had reservations and the weather cooperated so we could keep to our schedule, first stopping in Savannah, having dinner with our friends Suzanne and George who we don’t often have an opportunity to see.

Then we drove the longer haul to Frederiksburg, VA on a Saturday so we were in a prime position to go through Washington early on Sunday morning.  In spite of having made the journey so many times, between today’s GPS “preferred route” and utterly bewildering signs, we now seem to miss the connection from I95 to I495 and this time had to correct that by going through Laurel MD, but early enough to make the detour just a minor inconvenience.  From the Jersey Turnpike to Norwalk though it was bumper to bumper with frustrated drivers 25 cars deep at gas stops on the Turnpike to take advantage of Jersey’s lower prices.  I topped off in Delaware, not that much price difference, and that was sufficient to get us here plus.  After the narrow Garden State Parkway, zany drivers zigzagging to get a few car lengths ahead, we crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge less than 48 hours before a construction crane collapsed across the roadway, creating a traffic nightmare but luckily no loss of life.

It’s a massive structure that is being built to replace the aging bridge.  When I was a kid my father had a 35’ Owens that he and I brought up the Hudson River to Poughkeepsie.  We stopped overnight at a marina that was at the base of the Tappan Zee then under construction.  So I’ve seen two bridges being built there and amazing I’ve seen the entire life span of one, its construction and before long its destruction.

Arriving in Norwalk felt like we achieved a military objective without casualties.  Thankfully, our son and girlfriend Tracie were here to meet us, help us unpack the car and even prepare dinner, sparing us yet another restaurant visit.

Low Tide Shorefront Park
The first order of business the next day was to get my sneakers on and resume my early morning walk routine, at home the golf course in North Palm Beach, and Shorefront Park here.  Amazing, years after Hurricane Sandy its impact is still being felt in this area, homes being torn down or raised (the flooding here ruined many houses).  So there are empty lots and the homes that are not simply being raised with the help of insurance companies are new “McMansions.”  The whole character of the neighborhood is changing from one that felt so familiar to me from my childhood in Richmond Hill, Queens to one of wealth, progress I guess, but a loss of a time when we mere mortals could enjoy New England waterfront.  Over to you hedge fund managers and real estate moguls!

Terec

It only took a few days before s**t happened, breaking a tooth on, of all things, cucumber salad (guess it was ready to go).  I knew a crown would be inevitable and my instinct was to fly home to my dentist, but that would have required multiple trips as he would put in a temp while the crown was being made.  Our friend Cathy here suggested her dentist who makes his own crowns while you wait using the Terec system which I can only liken  to a 3D printing system, the dentist shaping the remaining tooth into a post and using CAD technology to design a crown, a porcelain/ceramic substitute, it being manufactured while you wait.  Two plus hours later, voila, I walked out of the office with a new tooth!  Luckily for me he had a cancellation so within 24 hours what I thought would be a nightmare was immediately resolved.  Thanks, Cathy and Dr. Tamucci!

Copps, Crow, Chimons Islands
So, we begin our “vacation” with this past weekend being hotter here than in Florida.  Jon and Tracie came up from the City on Sunday and we all went out to our mooring set among the Norwalk Islands.  We and our friends used to be the head of the nautical “wagon train” out to the islands, our kids tagging along and now the reins have been turned over to them, we the passengers. Ironic to look around, seeing all the islands,  remembering  them from four decades ago, but watching our “kids” now in charge, we tying up our boat to one of theirs.

As I began this very personal entry with a baseball metaphor, I conclude with the realization that we’re no longer the generation on deck, but the one in the batter’s box facing a full count. If we cannot continue to get hits, hopefully we’ll foul some off.
 
Sunset at SNBC