Same Birthday

Just type the phrase “famous birthdays” in the box, and Google will provide a list of famous folks who be blowing out candles the same day as you. Here are some of my kindred birthday people --

Nov 24, 1632 --- Baruch Spinoza
Pretty good start. Google says “ of all the philosophers of the 17^th century, perhaps none have been more relevant than Spinoza….His extremely naturalistic views on God, the world, the human being, and knowledge serve to ground a moral philosophy centered on the control of the passions, leading to virtue and happiness”

Spinoza quote: “True virtue is life under the direction of reason.” Tell that to a college kid on spring break.

Nov 24, 1784 -- Zachary Taylor
Also pretty good. The odds of my birthday being the same as that of an American President are only 8:1. Not that he was a great president. He was a war hero, the General who won the Mexican war, and back in those days people liked to vote war heroes into the Presidency.

He died suspiciously after only 2 years in office. So suspiciously that his bones were unearthed a few years ago and analyzed for traces of poison. As it turned out, there was no foul play, he simply had a nasty gastrointestinal reaction to a bowlful of ice cream and cherries. So I’ll be careful of that.

Nov 24, 1868 -- Scott Joplin
I would have been disappointed if there was no famous piano man born on Nov 24. It seems that everybody on the planet recognizes “The Entertainer” when it’s played, very much due to its use in the “Sting“ movie. I play it on my gig all the time, in addition to Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag”. Supposedly this ragtime style was the ancestor of jazz.



Nov 24, 1888 -- Dale Carnegie
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” was required reading for me in 9^th grade. Carnegie was a salesman, and simply a nice guy. Sold a lot of copies of that book too.

The thing I remember from his book is “Three Ways to Make Somebody Like You” -- focus on a) what he’s proud of b) what he’s interested in c) what he wants.

Nov 24, 1897 -- Lucky Luciano
Well what was this Mafia guy proud of? Not getting whacked. What was he interested in? Not getting whacked. What did he want? Not to get whacked.

He did survive a couple of close calls -- thus the nickname. But he died of natural causes at age 65 after a lifetime of wielding power in the treacherous New York mob world.

Nov 24, 1925 -- William F Buckley
Well I guess the question “What’s Your Sign?“ is an invitation to meaningless chitchat. Thus far, Nov 24 has produced a philosopher, a gangster, a piano player, a salesman, a military man, and now…..

…..a political columnist, famous for staunch Conservatism and an extraordinary vocabulary. He made one quick foray into politics, running for Mayor of New York City in 1965 as a somewhat facetious third-party candidate. Toward election day he said “If I win, I’ll demand a recount”.

                                           Nov 24, 1940 -- Pete Best

From the very lucky Mr. Luciano we now go to the very Unlucky Mr. Best. Getting fired from a band is, in itself, not the worst thing in the world, in fact it’s often a blessing in disguise, the next step in one’s evolution as a musician and person.

But when you’re fired from the Beatles, replaced by a short, ugly guy named Ringo Starr, and within a year they’re The Most Successful Band in World History, well…don’t give me that evolution crap.

Nov 24, 1946 -- Ted Bundy
Well the key word here is “famous”, and unfortunately he is quite famous for his misdeeds. No book on serial killers is complete without a whole chapter on this guy.


Nov 24, 1950 --Stanley Livingston
The TV sitcom “My Three Sons” ran from 1960 to 1972, with Livingston playing the role of Chip, the middle son. Major dollars at an early age. Perhaps this is not too significant, but his birthday is exactly the same as mine, both day and year. Which is significant to me, and some day I’ll send him a Birthday card.  

He stayed in show biz, producing, directing, acting, screenwriting, in movies, TV, and stage, seemingly doing what he felt like doing, seemingly completely out of the limelight. He has a website, with a pretty interesting resume, he looks robust, and I suspect he’s had a very nice life.

Nov 24, 1978 -- Katherine Heigl
The youngest, and the only female on my list. So what is “Grey’s Anatomy”? I wondered. Google says it’s a highly successful TV series in a hospital setting, with Ms. Heigl in a starring role. I haven‘t seen this show yet, but I suspect its really sexy.




Well that’s my Top Ten for Nov 24 --


HAPPY  BIRTHDAY TO YOU FOLKS
WHEREVER YOU ARE　
　
　

Simple Old David

“The Alamo” was on TV again this past weekend. Not a week passes by where an Alamo movie doesn’t turn up somewhere on the many cable TV channels.

For the uninitiated -- The Battle of the Alamo occurred in March of 1836, when 181 Texan frontiersmen in a shabby old fort fought a Mexican army of 5000. It took 13 days for the whole drama to play out, and supposedly those 13 days were crucial to the organizing of a much larger Texan fighting unit further north. This larger group, shouting “Remember the Alamo”, eventually defeated the aforementioned Mexican army, and the nation of Texas was officially born.

It’s a compelling story which spawned no less than nine Hollywood movies. The story is further enhanced by the fact that a major celebrity of the time - Davy Crockett - was one of the Alamo defenders.

He was literally a legend in his own time, an 1830s Hulk Hogan, with both the macho aura and the fraud. His exploits -- bear wrestling, Injun fighting, and other wilderness prowess, were exaggerated to absurd proportions in the books of his time, for the provincial and the gullible. He “could ride a streak of lightning” and “leap the Mississippi”. A theater production, called “Lion of the West” was a fanciful presentation of his life -- Crockett actually attended this show, saw himself impersonated by an actor, and accepted a standing ovation at the end.

He parlayed his fame into politics, serving 2 terms in the US House of Representatives for his home state of Tennessee. But he finally overplayed his political hand, and was defeated in his attempt for a third term, a stunning rebuff for such a famous native son of Tennessee. In his concession speech he said “You all can go to hell -- I’m going to Texas”.

Now 49 years old,  he headed west with a  group of Tennessean cronies,  hoping to parley his fame, experience, and stature into  high position and a large spread of land,  in what he understood to be the newly-forming Texan Republic,  free from Mexican rule. 

Fess Parker, John Wayne, Brian Keith, and Billy Bob Thornton are the most recent movie “Davy Crocketts”, playing the cherished role in 1955, 1960, 1987, and 2004 respectively. The first three took a fairly standard approach, playing a one-dimensional hero with a coonskin hat who fought and died for Liberty and Texas Independence.

The Thornton version probed deeper, and suggested a man who had misjudged the situation in Texas, and now faced an identity crisis that would seal his fate.

In all honesty Crockett certainly hadn’t expected anything life-threatening in Texas, the 2004 movie suggests. In fact he “thought all the fighting was over”, that the Mexican army had been chased away, that Texas had an organized and sizable army, that his Texas Relocation would be easy.

Then one morning he woke up to find the Alamo surrounded by 2000  enemy soldiers, with many thousands more to come. He saw the situation grow hopeless -- and as the days built up to the final battle, he considered escaping.  There were several opportunities to gallop out in the dead of night, making a furious run for life, past the dozing Mexicans. But he stayed.



Davy Crockett (center) flanked by Colonel Travis (left) and Jim

Bowie in the 2004 version of "The Alamo"

What would the world think of The Great Davy Crockett if he’d “chickened out” and run from the heroic last stand? It would ruin The Legend which he’d cultivated over the years. On the night before the final, full Mexican assault,  knowing what was to come,  he confided to a friend,

           “If it was just me, simple old David, I’d sneak over that wall 
            and take my chances. But that Davy Crockett  feller --
            they’re all watching him..."

Of course, this statement comes strictly from the imagination of a scriptwriter. However to me it seems quite plausible that he said something like this,  to himself at least, on the last night of his life, as he pondered the difference between his real and public selves.

Just as surely, all of us are torn between what we want to be, and what people expect us to be. Even without the added complication of public fame, we all deal with people’s expectations, many of which we ourselves help to create.

Happily, I’ll never have to launch a solo frontal assault against a dozen bloodthirsty Mexican soldiers, with just a single-shot rifle in my hands. It wouldn’t work out for me any better than it did for the “King of the Wild Frontier”. But for him, as a consolation, it led to everlasting fame, through history books and the modern miracles of film and cable TV. So if it’s really important to be remembered and celebrated by millions of total strangers, hundreds of years after you’re gone, then simple old David did the right thing.

The Manhole

So what do you call it? A manhole, or a manhole cover? On the street I grew up on, I never saw a manhole cover removed, therefore I never saw the “hole” underneath. But it was too tedious to call it a “manhole cover”.

We simply called it a manhole. Drab, inconspicuous, simply functional. A thick, heavy, iron disk, more than 2 feet in diameter, with the letters “BSBQ” imbedded in the iron. (“Bureau of Sewers, Borough of Queens” -- I found out much later on). And though they’re probably all the same to manhole workers, there is a very special one on 46th Road, between 202nd and 204th Streets in Bayside, NY.

It so happened that this street was chosen by some Founding Baby Boomer kids to be a favored street for stickball. Not the kind of stickball you see in schoolyards, with some guy pitching at a rectangle “strike zone” painted onto a brick wall. (Not that there was anything wrong with that!).

By the time I was old enough to play with my earliest pals, bases were painted in strategic places on the street, and the game imitated real baseball, at least in the sense that baserunning and fielding were key elements. Pitching was eliminated -- the batters held the ball (Pensy Pinky or a “Spaldeen”) and bounced it whatever way they pleased before swinging the stick.

However, the “field” was ridiculously elongated. The street was only 28 feet wide, so first and third base were painted at the left and right curbs, 28 feet across from each other. To allow for a 60-foot run from these bases out to second base, or in the other direction toward home plate, the standard 90-degree angles of a baseball infield were dramatically stretched, and became more like two 30-degree angles at home and second, and two 150-degree angles at first and third. Runners “rounding second” had to do something resembling a U-turn, and many a kid fell on his butt out there for lack of traction.

One particular manhole -- The Manhole, to be reverent about it, served as home plate. No need to paint a 5-sided “home plate” figure. The Manhole was perfectly located, about 80 feet in from the 202nd street corner, surrounded by houses full of kids. The asphalt “field” ran some 250 feet down the street, toward the less-developed far end of the block.

The Manhole was the Center, where sides were chosen, where you ran to score a run, where you threw the ball to prevent a run, and most of all, where you stood alone for a few seconds, keenly observed by all present, with stick and ball.

In the beginning, it was where I watched “the big kids” play. They were fearsome and macho, and some of them could hit the ball over Mr. McHugh’s house into the trees of the woodsy vacant lot at the far end of the block on the left side. This was an automatic home run.

Mr. McHugh’s property made for some rather curious Ground Rules. McHugh, shrewd dude that he was, owned 2 adjacent properties, far down the left side of the street. The first property, occupied by nothing but weeds and flowers, was unfortunately completely enclosed by tall hedges, not quickly accessible. Any ball hit there was an automatic Out.

The second property -- adjacent and further out, contained the McHugh house, and was equally inaccessible. The only people who deliberately hit the ball toward McHugh’s house were those who hoped to clear it. It was either Home Run or Out, and batters who adopted this strategy were especially subject to scrutiny.

The crazy layout of the bases dictated that you hit the ball straight ahead. There was hardly any Right Field or Left Field. This was good, because there was really no practical way to play the game if the ball was hit too far off center.

Nonetheless, there were some properties just past first and third base, on the right and left sides, that were considered “Fair Territory”, and kids could be seen scampering into driveways, through lawns and bushes, on walkways and porches, chasing that elusive pink rubber ball.

If the neighbors were annoyed, they never seemed to show it. Kids and adults alike might drop what they’re doing at any given time to observe some stickball. As in pro baseball, where the focus is usually on the batter -- on 46th Road the focus was on whoever was standing at The Manhole. It felt like a stage.

One of the more heartwarming sights was that of a kid named Gerald, a 15-year old Polio victim who could barely stand. Yet the big kids let him play. He would stand for a minute at the Manhole, actually get the stick around and hit the ball -- a soft ground ball usually, and another kid would run the bases for him.

A more amusing sight would be some young teenybop girl in short shorts, hanging out with the big kids, trying her luck at batting both the ball and her eyelashes.

Less amusing were the frustrated attempts of the youngest kids trying to get the hang of it. Bounce the ball once? Bounce it twice? Hit it high or low? Short fat broomstick or long skinny one? Two strikes, yer out, on this street. I was pretty lousy at first, actually got “chucked” (fired from a choosed-up team) a few times.

Then, at some point, I got the knack. My 46th Road stickball got supplemented by some real baseball with bats and gloves at a real field elsewhere, with a different group of kids. There I learned to whack a baseball, flipping it in the air and not attempting to bounce it first. This transferred over to the broomstick and rubber ball pretty easily. Eventually I had enough strength and skill to knock a few over McHugh’s house, quite a sweet experience.

I never did become part of a “big kids” crowd that played stickball and flirted with the girls. The aforementioned “big kids” social crowd disappeared, and was not replaced by a new group of big kids, it seemed. Perhaps I was at the tail end of a Golden Age of Stickball on 46th Road.

I passed by the old neighborhood recently. There was absolutely no one to talk to, half of the houses had been razed and replaced by larger, gaudier structures. Mr. McHugh was long gone, and his two properties were completely unrecognizable from long ago, now occupied by large showy buildings. My dad’s old house, right across the street from the former McHugh properties, was also barely recognizable.

I had a few minutes to kill, so I got out of the car, talked with the Asian man who now owned my dad’s former house. Strolling down the street, I was awash in all the memories and images of kids and adults on a young and happy new suburban Baby Boomer street some 50 years ago.

Presently the asphalt looks pretty new, perhaps recently re-done. Certainly no sign of painted bases, nothing to indicate that anybody had ever played stickball there. Which is all perfectly fine. Everything evolves, as it should, on 46th Road and elsewhere.

Then I came to The Manhole, located exactly where it always was, looking like it always did, the “BSBQ” still quite clear to read, stepping out of the past without a trace of age.

I stood there staring out at the ghost of an asphalt stickball field, seeing one kid after another, facing me 60 feet away in between third and first base, playing the closest “infield” position. I saw Gerald, the teenybop girls, big kids, little kids, and the curious onlookers. I summoned my imagination and pictured the top of McHugh’s house, as it was back in the day, 250 away and inviting us all to reach it. And if it was possible at the moment, I would have emptied my wallet for a broomstick and a Spalding rubber ball and one more time at bat at The Manhole.