Author: Paul

I enjoyed reading a column in the business section of today’s paper by an old timer who had learned the hard way that you don’t sell your stocks when the market goes down. After four recessions he determined that rather than trying to buy when the market turns around he should be buying each time the market goes down ten per cent from the high. Then again at 20% and 30%. I liked how he wondered aloud if this time might be different before he pulled the plug. “Nothing relieves anxiety more than taking action.”

“Eggplant is overrated. ” This was all we caught of a woman’s cell phone conversation as we passed her on way down to the Sea Breeze. It was seventy degrees and we wanted to walk into Webster one more time before they swing the bridge open on April 1. We were surprised to see people heading in to Don’s Original. One person after the other pushing the door open. I’m surprised we haven’t seen more discussion about getting this quarantine over with. We’ve been out of circulation (other than walks) for over two weeks and some people haven’t even started. Cuomo says our apex is still three weeks away.

A shiny red pickup cut right in front of us as we walked by the boat launch. The guy, wearing his baseball cap backwards, had his window down so I said “Geez. Go right ahead.” His jacked up truck was just a few feet away. He said, “Thanks” and revved the engine. I looked back and saw his “Proud Veteran” bumper sticker.

Heading back in to our neighborhood we saw a young father guiding his daughter along on a small pink bicycle. We said hi and she looked up with a big smile and said “First day without training wheels!”

I watched some crazy YouTube videos before trying to cut Peggi’s cast off her wrist. She didn’t really want to go to the doctor’s office and risk getting exposed. Cuomo says we won’t reach our apex in New York for three more weeks and we are just coming to the end of a 14 day near isolation streak. We had four people over for dinner on Friday two weeks ago and we toasted to this thing before hunkering down.

This one guy took his son’s cast off while they were camping somewhere in a trailer. He was wearing a Superman t-shirt and it looked like his sone was terrified of him. The video had thousands of views but he had turned comments off and was selling real estate ads in the about section. Doctors would use a Dremel and vibrate a score line down both sides. I borrowed this Makita oscillator from my neighbor and tried to score the cast with it but the wire cutters did the job.

A few weeks back I replaced the florescent lights in our garage with led bulbs and it made the perfect operating room.

It wasn’t even two years ago when we learned of Janet Williams‘ passing. And now, Ted Williams, who I didn’t know was even sick. I posted the same picture then, one I took at a Margaret Explosion gig in the Bug Jar.

We first met Ted in 1988. His parents were members of Oak Hill Country Club and friends with Jeanne Westerfeld, another member who we were doing a lot of commercial art work for. Ted’s parents were trying to find a job for Ted and they told him he should meet us.

He came up to our attic office at 55 Hall Street and introduced himself as a poet. We made it clear we were lucky to have work ourselves but we hit it off. We were deep into shooting products for the 1989 US Open merchandise brochure and we had them all spread out in the attic. Ted told us he had an idea for a product that would sit inside a golf hole and and make a noise if a ball landed in it, something you could hear from a long distance, in case you got a hole-in-one for example. He probably left us a copy of his book and we probably bummed a Winston off him before he left

The next significant meeting was in our dining room where we hatched plans for an alternative broadsheet, something we decided to call the Refrigerator. Martin Edic, Peggi Fournier, Robert Meyerowitz and Chuck Cuminale were all involved but we decided to publish anonymously, something Ted was never on board with. He was a real writer. We were not. He left after issue 14 and started the Freezer.

Peggi and I played music with Ted as members of his Stage Poetry Group, later renamed the Media Assassins. We’d hang out in Ted’s attic until morning, talking or looking at his slides. He was a poetic photographer. I will miss him.

They will be closing the swing bridge in another two weeks so time is running short if you want walk into Webster. In the past we’d meet friends for lunch on St. Patty’s, at Shamrock Jack’s for many years but then they got so busy they started charging admission. We moved on to the Bayside and tried to get there before noon to grab a table overlooking the bay. It’s not an Irish joint but their food is better and every place has a good beer selection these days.

Today it was just Peggi and me. We made peanut butter sandwiches and we put those and two cans of beer into my backpack. We walked through the park, down Culver to the lake and across the bridge into Webster where we found a picnic table between the lake and the bay.

There are more people than ever out in the park. We ran into Bri from the Little and Brenda from Atlas Eats. But it was so sad to see all the Sea Breeze hot spots closed or doing take out only. Shamrock Jack’s had a tent out front strewn with Guinness banners but the park lot was completely empty.

The photo above, taken this afternoon as we walked along the lake, goes well with Todd Beer’s painting from yesterday’s post. These days I spend quite a bit of time thinking about painting. I’ve been getting my digital house in order, scanning old photographs, tucking things away on PopWars and keeping the Margaret Explosion site up to date. And I’ve become addicted to walking. I’m wearing out my third pair of Merrill hiking shoes since we walked the Camino. Those activities, along with reading the paper, can fill up a day. I’m hanging on to the idea that you can become a better painter just by thinking about it.

I’ve been scanning photos I want to hang on to knowing someday I’ll want to downsize further. Old photos take up very little space in the cloud and they are so much easier to find.

I’m guessing my mom took the photo on the left and Peggi’s mom probably took the one on the right. Both of us in our father’s arms, both photos taken the same summer twenty two years before we met.

Peggi’s father’s birthday was on March 3rd and my father’s is today, the 5th. They both had a huge impact of our lives. We continue to be influenced the experience.