2023/2024 Merry Christmas/Happy New Year: Santana ABRAXAS, Version 10

Steve Gallanter’s Blog: https://stevegallanter.wordpress.com

is a modest enterprise.  I usually send out about 40 or so Facebook copies and another 20 email copies of  brain candy with the occasional response from a friend being more than welcome as were the pass alongs which on 2 occasions reconnected me with folks from the past.

In April 2014 I began tweeting and my number of views exploded to about 200 altogether.

Oh joy!

...But wait there’s more…

I am both absurdly proud and humbled by the 1217 visitors this brain candy dispensary has tallied so far in 2023.

When the Christmas 2013 blog was passed along quite a bit it broke into the Top 5 of my Google search.

Most gratifying were several comments along the lines of “Thank you for this acknowledgement of a personal Christmas tradition, as I too have one.”

I responded to all of these comments gladly.  I was pleasantly taken aback at the number and intensity of these very private traditions and their importance to their adherents.

One gentleman took the time to send a message about his private tradition of chewing Trident spearmint gum after Christmas dinner as his now gone father had.

The last 10 years have brought thoughts of other Christmases to mind as my memory bank is thankfully still accepting deposits.  Indeed, this blog has precipitated thoughts of Christmases past to the extent that a 2023/2024 addition is appropriate.

 Keeping the faith is part of Christmas and the promise of a New Year is always uplifting even as the holiday transforms.

Christmas cards have largely been supplanted by a virtual blizzard of social media greetings.

Black Friday’s throng of shoppers have seen their number diminished by Cyber Monday’s ever increasing bandwidth and deliveries.

Indeed, grand-parenting, retirement, disability, estrangement and relocation change Christmas more with every passing year.

Still the Christmas spirit is till in my heart and those of many others…

In that spirit I am sending:

Merry Christmas: Santana ABRAXAS

Merry Christmas/New Year 2023/2024

Christmas is a time when we, even those of us who do not share in the religious meaning of the holiday, each have our own meaning for this day.

Santana’s ABRAXAS LP signifies Christmas for me. 

I bought ABRAXAS for my Mom for Christmas 1970.  Mom, Peter and I had seen WOODSTOCK and Mom was mightily impressed with Mike Shrieve’s epic drum solo on “Soul Sacrifice”.  While Mom always tried a little too hard to like what I liked her enthusiasm was more than sincere.

I saved my .75 a week allowance, pestered Dad for money and raked some leaves to conjure up the $3.49 to buy the LP at Port Chemists.

(I gave Dad innumerable promotional packs of aftershave and Borkum Riff pipe tobacco.  My brother Peter got Johnny Lightning 500 while I received several slot cars and Joe Paterno’s FOOTBALL MY WAY from Dad, a Penn. State grad.

It was my first “adult” gift-giving.

In 1970 I was 12.  It was to be my last boyhood Christmas.

Turkey, homemade cranberry sauce, (my Mom never, ever served that jellied, canned..uh.. stuff), and visits from neighborhood kids fulfilled every expectation.

Mom was surprised and delighted with ABRAXAS even with its “dirty” cover.  It played endlessly on the turntable of the Gallanter household’s Harman-Kardon Turntable, AM-FM Stereo with Recording Cassette Compact Stereo.

(Dad was quick to nudge me as a way of reminding me that he had purchased the stereo and had paid me to rake leaves.  On this Christmas I actually found this habit of his endearing).

Christmas 1970 was to be the last Christmas of our family as a unit although neither Mom, Dad, Peter or myself knew so at the time.

1971’s Christmas crystallized the cataclysmic changes, voluntary AND involuntary, familial AND cultural, well-intended AND malicious that would sweep through the lives of Mom, Dad, Peter and myself.

Christmas 1971 couldn’t have all of us in the same room for any length of time. I brought ABRAXAS to our North Shore Unitarian Universalist Congregation’s Jr. High room where I played ABRAXAS through headphones repeatedly to the puzzlement of the folks I willfully disregarded.

Headphones were clamped over my head as the congas of “Oye Como Va” reverberated.

“When Steven doesn’t talk, he really doesn’t talk,” I overheard one girl mention as I re-cued ABRAXAS.

Hostility was assumed to be my motivation, and not one completely inaccurate, but astral projection back to 1970 was the guiding star.  It was still my Mom’s LP but she was caught up in her own affairs and didn’t notice it missing.  Dad lived in Forest Hills, Queens as the divorce was now final.

(I remember looking at a snapshot of Christmas 1962 in our home at 86 Henry St, Merrick, Long Island.  There is a tower of blocks in front of me wearing a devilish grin with my Mom kneeling beside me with a bemused expression.  I remember kicking the blocks over.  1962 is my earliest Christmas memory).

For several years I continued to play ABRAXAS at Christmas.  Most memorably in 1975 when my Mom returned home from a hospitalization and I wanted to comfort her.  ABRAXAS proved to be more curative than the turkey I attempted to cook with tomato soup flavored stuffing).

By 1973 I was not speaking to my Dad, an estrangement that lasted more than 3 years.  ABRAXAS’ “Oye Como Va” reminded me of the photo of Mom and Dad celebrating their 1st. anniversary with a grinning Tito Puente, the author of the original “Oye Como Va,” at the Palladium in Manhattan, where my paternal grandfather worked.

ABRAXAS signified Dad as well as Mom and the paternal grandparents who posed with me on their laps but who I have no memories of.

The summers of 1974,1975 and 1976 found me at  Rowe Unitarian Universalist Camp and Conference Center.  ABRAXAS was in the ‘Radio Rowe’ LP pile for the public address system that broadcast on a loud, sporadic basis throughout the camp. Santana was very popular with my brother and sister campers although they would have been taken aback, to say the least, at the talisman it was to me.

Boston gained me as a resident in 1978.  I left ABRAXAS with Mom.  I played it upon my early Christmas sojourns to the ancestral home.

In 1981 a group of we Port Washingtonians had a Christmas celebration at the New York, New York discotheque in Manhattan.  Mom remarked that the percussion of much disco reminded her of ABRAXAS.  The next day I played the now battered LP.  Upon hitching back to Boston I purchased a used copy at Looney Tunes Used Records.

1982 brought the realization that college graduation was beyond my capability.  At home in Port Washington I put on ABRAXAS to please Mom before disappointing her.

By 1984 my Dad had passed.  Yes, “Oye Como Va” reminded me that once upon a time Dad and Mom were deeply in love and Peter and I were fortunate to be the offspring of their union.  I have no recollection of my grandparents on either side but ABRAXAS is a talisman of their lives causing mine.

10 years pass. ABRAXAS PLAYS annually on my Panasonic Plus Cassette-to-Cassette AM/FM with Auto Reverse boom box.

1995 found my brother Peter and I at odds to the extent that I spent Christmas in Boston brooding ambivalently although I did send presents to Peter, his wife Aida and Mom.

I consoled myself with ABRAXAS “Hope You’re Feeling Better”s theme of ambivalence powered by congas and Carlos Santana’s wah-wah guitar pyrotechnics.

2022’s first week has made “Hope You’re Feeling Better” a talisman of COVID even more than “Oye Como Va.”

“Is that you

Your eyes slowly fading?

Is that you

Your mind full of tears?

Is that you

Searching for a good time?

Is that you

Waiting for all these years?

Is that you?

Look across the ocean

And I hope you’re feeling better.”

https://youtu.be/P_vJBz2_LtE

The clever wordplay of shifting from the declarative voice to the interrogative voice is the kind of lyrical daring do that seems to have vanished, along with the presence of rock music in general.

But make no mistake; “Hope You’re Feeling better” is perhaps Greg Rolie’s finest vocals on ABRAXAS. The questing baritone being cut off by the fiery pyrotechnics of Carole Santana’s wah-wah wailing is a metaphor that is far more descriptive than any printed lyric can give voice to.

ABRAXAS is definitely the gift that keeps on giving.

The repeated playing of “Hope You’re Feeling Better” is an uplift in much the same way as “Oye Como Va.”

…Indeed, the ambivalent holiday of 1995 seeped to mind…

Being well into my 30’s in 1995 I had made my own Christmas tradition of surprising someone that I liked with a gift that spoke to an affection that had not been fully expressed.  Being single, childless and employed in an industry that throws folks together and throws them away with equal speed I had learned that small blessings are sometimes the only blessings one can receive but that can be a good thing.

…I was sitting on the living room floor of 24 Haviland St, Apt. 28 at about 9 P.M. 2 days before Christmas wrapping up 2 gifts while ABRAXAS played through the open door of my bedroom.  My roommate was out of the country for the holidays so I felt little compunction about playing my music a tad louder than I might have otherwise.

I was wrapping 2 gifts for a former co-worker.  Patricia was a beautiful woman who had tended bar at the same venue as I.   Although it had been a brief and occasional job for her the chit-chat of the time when I was an afternoon employee at that venue had crossed over to more chit-chat when we briefly worked the same bar.

Patricia was in the midst of several transitions in her life and I was taken aback, although pleased, when she asked me to call her.

Over the course of more than a year these calls became more frequent and more intimate and I found myself listening more than I spoke.  Certainly, I was flattered to be trusted but more than that I trusted her with the pure aspects of my heart that had become very distant.

Pure and impure thoughts mingled, as Patricia was a beauty.

I was thinking about how to finesse a meeting with Patricia so as to give her both of her gifts.  One was a sardonic look at the recent past while the other was a light unto what was to come.

The phone rang, landlines had only begun too cede their domain to pagers, and it was Patricia.

“…Steve, I am at the bar. I have a present for you.  Where do you live?”

“I have 2 presents for you. I live 25 yards away I’ll be there in 5 minutes,” I replied.  My heart did a full-gainer. Steeling myself I managed to wind some Scotch tape around my gifts and jetted out the door to the bar.

Patricia was by the pay phone smiling.

I ordered drinks, we took a booth and we spoke briefly of the joy and relief of having finished Christmas shopping.

“What did you get me,” she asked with the slightly turned head that moved my eyes and heart.

I gave her the 1st. package and she ripped off the wrapping with an urgency that was enthralling.  Laughing out loud she proclaimed, “I don’t know what I would ever use this for!”

“I know, that’s why I got it for you!”

I slid the other gift over the booth’s table when the owner of the bar came by to shake my hand and wish me a Merry Christmas.

I thanked him and introduced Patricia who also wished him a Merry Christmas.

“You know him?”

“I’ve been coming here since 1979,” I offered while wondering what Patricia might think of my recreational habits.

Patricia unwrapped the second gift and plugged it into a socket. She smiled a closed mouthed gesture of gratitude while nodding slowly in a way that signaled that all was right in the world if for only this moment.

“C’mon open your present.”

I opened Patricia’s package to find a mustard colored turtleneck that would undoubtedly be a good fit underneath a leather jacket for Boston’s winters.

I blinked involuntarily and held her hands briefly.

“Hey, do you think that the Prudential Mall is still open?”

“If there is any night of the year when it would be open late tonight would be that night.”

“Let’s go, we can leave the stuff in my car.”

My mind was pondering whether this meeting was a gesture of sympathy for being estranged from my family, gratitude for being a shoulder to cry on or just because Patricia was a good kid…or something more.

We walked the 200 or so yards to the Prudential Mall and after determining that indeed the stores had closed at 9, walked back to the car and I removed my gift.

We hugged.

Patricia got into her car.

I returned to my apartment…

1997 found Mom in a nursing home for the final phase of her life.  I bought her a new Walkman with ABRAXAS poised to play.  She was delighted.

1999 found Mom receiving a Discman.  The first CD…?  Yes, she remembered.

2004 brought the end of Mom’s life.  On that Christmas I played ABRAXAS at 2 AM in the living room of 42 North Bayles Ave, Port Washington on my Discman in a private memorial to Mom.

2013 found my now gone friend Steve Boisson offering that he had “never thought of Santana as Christmas music” while offering blues artist Charles Brown as his own eccentric Yuletide troubadour.

2019 found me in brother Peter’s place in Port Washington, N.Y. the night after Christmas patting my protruding tummy and nursing a straight up Jameson.

Peter’s television was displaying a vivacious Latina declaiming the weather.

“That’s Audrey Puentes.  Her father is Tito Puentes,” Peter offered.

“Hmmm..,” I said to myself.

My grandmother Marie Jack, biologically my Mom’s stepmom, gifted me a Christmas ornament featuring 2 cardinals in a gilded cage in, I believe 1973.  It never occurred to me at the time that I would never see Marie again although the passage of time and circumstances eventually made this reality evident.  From 1997 to 2017 I brought the ornament to the ancestral home for the talismanic Christmas tree.  In 2017 I neglected to bring it home but Aida was good enough to rescue the birds as they nestled in my rolling case for the Greyhound to Boston.

Much to my sadness the fragile frame of the cage was twisted in transit and my efforts to restore it fell short.  However, it is intact, if a little twisted, and resides next to Aunt Goldie’s sock monkey as ABRAXAS plays.

Our decade has brought the passage from this world and from my life of more than several folks; Martha Shaw among them, and places. Looney Tunes records, where I purchased my Santana ABRAXAS CD has been gone since 2012; likewise T.C’s Lounge, with local watering holes and record stores right up there, or down there, with trilobites as fossils.

ABRAXAS keeps record stores and Christmas alive at one and the same time as this mind contemplates Christmas 2022 and the New Year of 2023.

To all those folks both present and absent I humbly offer,

“Oye Como Va.”

ABRAXAS signifies Christmas; calling out to heart the folks who have passed, friends who are missed, places that are gone and the phases of the Christmases past, present and future.

ABRAXAS is a talisman as real as a rock, in LP, cassette,  CD and YouTube formats that holds in its notes the presents, love, tears and hopes of Christmas every time I so much as touch it.

I am listening to it right now.

“Oye Como Va”

“Hope You’re Feeling Better”

!Merry Christmas!

!Happy New Year!

G.L: HOMELESS?

G.L. is a neighborhood woman I became almost acquainted with about 12 years ago. Our paths had crossed at a Fenway CDC meeting concerning the Huntington Ave. branch of the YMCA’s plan to demolish their old gym and enable Northeastern to expand with the blessing of Mayor Menino in spite of the fact that the mandated Institutional Master Plan(IMP) had been circumvented and Northeastern was disregarding its own promise to cap enrollment.

…I will spare you readers the saga. Suffice to say that the gym was demolished and Northeastern continues to expand…

G.L. was someone I had already seen around the neighborhood for years and years. Shopping at Whole Foods, wandering through CVS and browsing at the Mass. Ave. Economy Hardware. As is so often the case maintaining eye contact for more than a nanosecond became appropriate.

Such is the etiquette of what passes for “community” here in liberty’s chosen home.

G.L. was a 30ish woman with a tea with milk freckled complexion and long, cascading mahogany wavy hair cascading down the back of her spindly frame.

I had never spoken with her but her neighborhood shopping, accompanied by the kind of 2-wheeled cart usually wielded by someone much older, was characteristic of a local.

I did notice that she wore a 6″ diameter J.F.K. MA/D button on whatever her outerwear was. Whether the button was old or a retro item I didn’t know but it was interesting.

The Fenway CDC meeting regarding Northeastern’s plan was held in the Community Room of the Morville House, the seniors’ building a mere hop, skip and jump from my domicile.

The YMCA meeting attracted about 100 folks. Some folks were repelled by Northeastern’s utter disregard of their own stated promise to cap enroll. Others were cheered by the fact that Northeastern was a non-profit in the increasingly gentrified Fenway.

I had more than a little skin in this game as a 40+ year resident of the East Fens and as a “student” at Northeastern 78-82 and again in 85 when Northeastern was the country’s largest private university and the least expensive.

G.L. made no comments but appeared attentive. Once the discussion concluded on an inconclusive note and the remnants of Martinelli’s Effervescent Apple Juice, donated by Whole Foods Market’s Symphony Hall branch had been drained when I walked over to G.L.

“What did you think?” I asked.

“It is complicated, the whole IMP thing”

“I love your J.F.K. button.“

“Thanks. Did you like J.F.K?”

“Well, I was 5 and J.F.K. was a very mixed bag as a President but his murder was one of the worst things that has ever happened in this country.”

“Yes. Well have a good night.”

Further salutations were needless as both of us were wearing stick on name tags.

G.L. always gave me the toothy grin that follows the inadvertent meeting of head nod acquaintances at CVS.

Eventually, this retracted back to head nods. I thought little of it and indeed G.L. wasn’t seen at any of the local organizations meetings that I attended. Evidentially Whole Foods was still on the itinerary. I took the liberty, after the obligatory head nod, to glace into G.L’s cart and saw no meat. A fleeting thought, of which I have many, thought of asking whether she was of Veggie Nation that I am a citizen of but that fleeting thought was a …fleeting thought...

As the years crawled by, am I the only 1 whose sense of time has gotten slower with age? Please advise...

…the fleeting eye contact became more fleeting on G.L’s part and eventually on mine...

Hey, there have been 100s of Fenway folks I have chatted with on 1 or 2 occasions. Indeed, over the course of 7900+ bar shifts chatting with strangers is a career skill.

Still…I did notice that G.L. was now trailed by a Pullman type of 2-wheeled luggage rather than a shopping cart and now narrowed her eyes to avoid even the most inadvertent of eye contact.

So be it….and these little non-interactions continued through my visits to Whole Foods, CVS and Mass. Ave. Economy Hardware. The J.F.K. button remained affixed regardless of outerwear or weather.

2020 ushered in the COVID era and the closing of my employer of better than 9 years. While I was fortunate enough to receive unemployment benefits and SNAP benefits and remain well the temporary closing of the Huntington Ave. Y had left my frame looser than I would like.

To combat this I power walked through the Prudential Mall complete with mask, water squeeze and a Walkman, I am not making this up, blaring the Gypsy Kings or the Rolling Stones. When my ears were naked the Pru’s s music system invariably treated me to a 120 BPM instrumental version of George Michael’s “Every Thing She Wants” whereupon...

…there was …

G.L. being trailed by the very same 2-wheeled Pullman luggage; now bulging from its contents and patched with swatches of silvery duct tape. G.L’s hair was now noticeably longer and grayer and her knees were bony. Even in the climate controlled Pru she wore a hoodie under a windbreaker paired with cargo shorts and the omnipresent J.F.K. button

G.L. had been by herself on each and every previous sighting, including our chat at the Fenway CDC, but now there was a gray-haired gentleman walking alongside but not really with her.

Hmmm…

I had never contemplated any sort of attraction beyond fleeting eye contact. Was this guy her?…closer inspection wasn’t advisable as I had to keep up my 2 steps per second pace for the 300 steps on my route on the way to my 10,000 steps…so I kept on stepping until my 10,000 steps were stepped, drained my water squeeze and strolled to my domicile.

My next mall walk saw the same scene with the battered bulging Pullman, hoodie, shorts, J.F.K button and the guy.

Having avoided eye contact I continued another 2 steps a second and on my next lap saw G.L. and the guy sitting on a bench. They were sharing a bottle of Coke and seemed to be engaged in an animated discussion.

I switched lanes so as to avoid detection and kept on stepping.

30 seconds later, I stride by on the the front of the bench. G.L. made a nanosecond of recognition and returned her attention to the guy and her now unzipped Pullman while handing the Coke bottle to the guy.

I dared not look at the Pullman.

“Is G.L. homeless?” I asked myself.

Homelessness folk are the reality of Boston.

My initial experiences with homeless folk were on my boyhood visits to New York with my parents during school vacations and for the occasional sports event. I recall all too well seeing a man curled up in front of a building adjacent to the Tin Lizzy restaurant in Manhattan where I dined with Dad prior to attending a Ranger game. I recall being stunned, tearing up and then backing away.

My Mom took my brother Peter and I to Madison Square Garden to see the bowling alley and we were startled by panhandlers in the Long Island Rail Road lobby in Penn Station.

By the time I was able to gallivant into “the city,” which means Manhattan, (No, Mets games do not count), when I was 13 I had learned to acknowledge and distance myself from stuff that was all too factual.

In 1975 I first attended CBGB’s by the nexus of Bleeker and Bowery and saw the Ramones invent punk rock. The Bowery was then studded with SROs and rooming houses. Following visits saw the bums drinking “puck,” a concoction of sweet sherry and red wine. Nascent punks from Long Island were markets for yelps of “Spare change” and many obliged.

Following settling in Boston in 1978 my rooming house residence(s) featured many folks who were minimally housed. I got to know and even befriend some of my domestic neighbors and occasionally shared TVs, stereos and beer.

For a variety of reasons these houses no longer exist. Indeed, 57 Hemenway St, where I lived from 79-85 is now owned by the Fenway CDC and boasts a plaque by the front door testifying to this once common housing.

As the cost 2021 saw the lessening of the COVID pandemic I saw G.L. around from time to time although eye contact was nil. Upon her passing me at While Foods accompanied by the 2-wheeled shopping cart I would spy a look at her feet and she was wearing socks; the absence of socks being mute testimony to the lack of laundry facilities that are one of the many effects of homelessness.

“Is G.L. couch surfing?” I asked myself while glancing at the left greens in her cart. “Couch surfing would explain the clean socks and food. Maybe you should just stop speculating,” I told myself. “Maybe she is unemployed. Maybe, just maybe, she is one of those folks for whom public perceptions are virtually meaningless.”

From 1980 to 1982 I was on the paid staff of the Pine Street Inn homeless shelter. A sister Rowe camper arranged a meeting with the Asst. Mgr of the Women’s Unit. I worked primarily in the Women’s Unit giving shower passes, assigning lockers and signing up women for Boston City Hospital(BCH).

Undiagnosed diabetes, hyperglycemia, sight and hearing loss were very common maladies. Much of our guests’ problems were organic.

Additionally, illegal immigration, the closing of residential hotels and the barring of sub-let leases created a structural force that was very real.

But the time was mostly enjoyable and enlivened by playing my 12″ single of Ottawa’s “Hands Up” for our guests. The work was more jovial than trying and the flexible schedule fit my needs.

L. and I would make the occasional trips to the Candy Cupboard for snacks for our emaciated guests. This is in stark contrast to the obese denizens of Mass. and Cass of 2023.

G.L. seemed to be thinner and grayer every time I saw her and the now wobbly wheeled Pullman moving through CVS without the gray-haired guy. The J.F.K. button still affixed to her hoodie. She was wearing socks.

Both of us avoided eye contact.

Is G.L. homeless? A couch surfer? The lover of the gray-haired guy? Is this little slice of the Fenway a product of my overly presumptuous mind? Maybe she is just one of those folks who don’t give a flip?

I do not know whether G.L. is homeless.

Indeed, in a lot of ways I would prefer not to know.

G.L, I wish you, and your J.F.K. button, well.

Bartending vs. Serving: Taste and compare.

How to get the job

–Bartender: Apply for management

–Server: Apply for bartender

Social status

-Bartender: Impresses friends under 30

–Server: Impresses guests over 30

Work status

-Bartender: Token

–Server: Token

Nickname

–Bartender: Joe Genius

–Server: Steve

Kicks

–Bartender: Adidas Dual Threat

–Server: Dr. Scholl ‘s Work with cushion heel

Socks

–Bartender: Thick

–Server: Thicker

Walking

–Bartender: Side-to-side like zone defense in basketball

-Server: Heel to toe race walking

Terra firma

–Bartender: Perforated rubber mat

–Server: Stone floor

Pants

Bartender: Tactical cargo shorts

-Server: Polyester dress slacks

Top

–Bartender: Muscle, theme and promo T’s

–Server: Company issued

Hair care products

–Bartender: TRESemmes spray gel

–Server: Water

Hydration

–Bartender: Iced tea with club soda and 4 lime wedges

–Server: Iced tea with club soda and 4 lime wedges

Nutrition

–Bartender: 16 oz. milk with CVS whey protein

–Server: 16 oz. milk with CVS whey protein

CVS

–Bartender: Across the street

–Server: Around the corner

Local attraction

–Bartender: Fenway Park

–Server: Theater District plays and shows

Sports metaphor

–Bartender: Bar/MLB, dance club/NFL

–Server: NBA

Weight

–Bartender: 176ish

–Server: 168ish

Aches and pains

–Bartender: Broken fingers, bruised knees

–Server: Callused insteps, sore arches

Job security

–Bartender: “Job security of an ice cube.”

–Server: Always understaffed so relatively secure for servers with 5+ shift availability

Sex

–Bartender: Yes

–Server: Overhear 2nd. dates and date nights chit-chat at tables

Music

–Bartender: Every genre imaginable

–Server: J. Trap; 45 minute loop

Career move

–Bartender: Management

–Server: Bartender

Income

–Bartender: $$$ now

–Server: Next day deposit to debit card

Guest payments

–Bartender: $$$ now

–Server: $$$, credit cards, Up n Go via phone, credit cards

Guests’ bad habits

–Bartender: “Make it strong.”

–Server: “Is there a charge for extra meat?”

Co-worker bad habits

–Bartender: Barback sitting down playing Candy Crush while you stock beer

–Server: Servers sitting down texting while you stock ice

Alcohol

–Bartender: Lots

–Server: Specialty cocktails

Food

–Bartender: $1 Honey cashews from vending machine

–Server: Pan-Asian cuisine with entrees up to $36

Management style

–Bartender: Personal and direct from G.M. and Asst. Mgr.

–Server: Corporate from as many as 4 managers

Future?

–Bartender: 2+ years ago in the rear view mirror

–Server: Bring on 2023

Woo Sox! Woo Sox vs. Syracuse Chiefs(N.Y. Mets AAA affiliate), Polar Park, 9/23/2022

AAA baseball is the bestest!

I had been wanting to visit the Woo Sox at Polar Park in Worcester, MA since the facility opened in 2021 replacing the Paw Sox at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, R.I.

Worcester is a scenic 70 minute trip from Back Bay Station to the historic, turreted Union Station rail/bus station for $24 round trip. There were quite a few Woo Sox fans who got off for the game, likewise the buses. It is a circuitous 10 minute walk from Union Station to Polar Park.

Game time was 6:45 which enables screaming 10 year-olds with mitts to see games. MLB take note.

Polar Park is a 2 tier facility with a relatively large foot print compared to MCU, the home of the short season A ball Mets affiliate Brooklyn Cyclones on Coney Island

Admission were mostly via smartphone but your retrograde correspondent’s $39.99 Obid Voyage doesn’t read or generate QRs so my downloaded hard copy entitled me to a $22 Upper Box seat which featured a ledge for my Polar Diet Orange Dry and 2 bags of cashews.

The entrance to Polar Park has a kids’ playground with swings made of baseball gloves and a t-ball set-up where boys, and more than a few girls, hacked away amidst the Polar bears.

Lots of 50+ folks, screaming 10 year olds with mitts and more than a little Spanish being spoken on the Concourse.

Beauty is the word that describes the thrill of walking up the ramp and seeing the crescent of green and brown, calling to mind racing ahead of my parents on the boardwalk from the Port Washington line of the L.I.R.R. and entering Shea Stadium better than 50 years ago.

This alone justifies the price of admission.

I immediately bought a 16 oz. Polar Diet Orange Dry and began my sugar free slaking. I paired my diet Orange Dry with 2 bags of Planter’s Cashews which were $6 for a 3 oz. bag that sells for $2. at my 7-11.

Ouch!

For yeast lovers the Worcester micro-brew Wormtown is available at all concession stands and has a dedicated beer bar which I did not partake of.

It is interesting to note that here in the 21st. century independent brewers have proliferated while independent soda companies are an endangered species.

Polar Park is in its 2nd year of operation and still has that new ballpark smell. 330′ to RF, 405′ to CF and 330′ LF. CF is straight across and the power alleys are curvilinear.

There is about 20′ from home plate to the backstop but there is virtually no outfield foul territory.

Polar Park’s infield dirt is considerably browner than that of MLB as MLB has put more crushed brick into the infield since 2003 for the optics of HD television.

The wind blew from LF to RF.

The lighting was bright, without shadows and the bright green batter’s eye enables hitting.

Polar Park resembles PNC Park in Pittsburgh although it does not have the 21′ high Clemente wall in RF.

Additionally, the interior is similar to PNC in that concessions, bathrooms and the team store are equidistant and boast monitors so there is no need to miss any action. Everything is still pretty squeaky cleany and not yet marred by graffiti. I made a point of visiting 2 of the Men’s Rooms and both of the facilities had an attendant with a squeegee for the floor and mirrors.

The concourse is wide enough to accommodate 6 folks across and is a far cry better than that of McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket.

One of the better features of McCoy Stadium was the outfield berm where a family can bring a blanket and spread out. Polar Park has kept this feature. Lots of Moms and Dads encircled by screaming 10 year-olds with mitts. Some things never change.

The Woo Sox were playing the Syracuse Chiefs the AAA team of the New York Mets which made for a certain comedic element as folks wearing Syracuse Chiefs and N.Y. Mets gear wandered about.

Ironically enough Syracuse was the Yankees AAA franchise during my long ago youth. Go figure.

The biggest difference between MLB and AAA is that not all of the players are known to casual fans. Some years I follow AAA but 2022 flew under my radar.

The Woo Sox starter was Nathan Eovaldi on a rehab stint from the BoSox; a sentence that was also served by erstwhile ace Chris Sales who succeeded in breaking his hand while “rehabbing.”

Other familiar Woo Sox included 2B. prospect Jeter Downs; a tough name for Sox buffs, and Jaren Duran whose nonchalant chase-down of a fly ball lost in the bog enabled the Blue Jays’ Raimel Tapia to hit an inside-the-park grand slam.

Yes, I booed Duran.

The Chiefs had the suddenly svelte Dominic Smith who lost his Mets role with the fine recent play of Mark Canha and perennial backup backstop Mike Perez, still wearing a Pirate cap on his Jumbotron pic, and former Sox backup backstop Deven Marrero who was playing 2B for no apparent reason.

Gotta love AAA!

Eovaldi gave up a towering blast to Dominic Smith faster than my butt could warm my Upper Box seat.

I was seated next to 2 women who chatted through the game about the game itself.

After the 1st. inning I intruded a little and offered that they knew the game.

“Oh yeah, we played high school softball together and I played park league ball for years.”

One of the true measures of live sports is meeting someone you have something in common with and nothing in common with at one and the same time.

Yes, they did know the game.

I lent them my binoculars for 2 innings.

In the 2nd. inning with Mike Perez of the Chiefs on 3rd Perez took too much of a lead and got caught in a rundown. Woo Sox catcher Ronaldo Hernandez chased Perez back to 3rd.

In the 2nd. inning with Mike Perez of the Chiefs got caught in a rundown between 3rd. and home with Woo Sox backstop Roberto Hernandez correctly chasing Perez back to 3rd; when Jake Mangrum began doing a little dance around 2B...

No!!!

…both of the women screamed as Hernandez has now left home plate abandoned while looking down Mangum which gave Perez the window of an unguarded home to slide into.

Hernandez hung his head in shame, not just for his mental gaffe, but for the fact that his 1st. inning HR had been nullified.

“Gratifying” comes to mind to see that my sister fans, and many others in the park, saw what was happening and it makes me smile to know that there are fans who know what they are watching.

The bestest part of the AAA is seeing players jet out of the batter’s box every single time.

Large player salaries do not bother me. It does bother me when players do not play hard…that means you, Ronald Acuna.

Baseball is a game defined by failure, If Lebron James or Giannis Antetokounmpo shot for a .333 percentage they would be at the Y in a “shoot to play” game.

In baseball if you can go 1 for 3 long enough you will be in the Hall of Fame.

Baseball truly is like life.

Pitch clocks will be coming to MLB in 2023 and have been used in AAA for 2 years. I never thought I would write this but the 9 seconds for pitches with the bases empty and 15 seconds for runners on base works for me. I am looking forward to the implementation at the MLB level next year.

MLB’s problem is more with the pace of the game, rather than the length of the game. My game took 2 hours and 20 minute, ending at 9:05, thus enabling working parents to bring their kids.

The current MLB game time is 3:04:

https:///mlb.nbcsports.com>mlb-average

Hurlers intimidated by the frequency of HRs spend all too much time stepping off, spitting and rubbing up baseballs.

This pacing problem is compounded by the batters, I’m looking at you David Ortiz, who walk all the way to Newton between pitches while grabbing themselves and spitting.

The pitch clock needs to be accompanied by a regulation limiting batters to stepping out once per appearance unless the umpire permits it.

No, I do not want an official game clock.

It is worth mentioning that AAA does not have the endless commercial “time outs” of MLB. Yes, I am looking at you MLB Network.

Ks at Polar park are accompanied by a PA of “Woo” that many of the fans, 8,913 in 9,500 seat Polar Park; and all of the screaming 10 year-olds take part in.

Fans stuck it out to the end of the Chiefs 5-4 win as the Woo Sox had runners on base in each of the last 3 innings to no avail, leaving 13 stranded for the game.

Friday night is Fireworks Night at Polar Park but with the next train back to Boston at 10:42 and the mercury sliding to 50 F I trotted over to the station as the detonation of fireworks commenced.

A good time. A cool home run, a major boo-boo, screaming 10 year-olds and smart fans sitting next to me.

Polar Park is a fine venue.

I am looking forward to 2023.

AAA is the bestest!

HAIKU 5*7*5* Dying baseball cards

Farewell, Bob Locker

My baseball cards are dying

It is no shocker

RULES OF THE GAME: #3 ?..Forgive..?

?…Why..?

Forgive and forget

when

You

can

Blame and remember

PASSING: Jack Hague, 1949-2022

On Saturday, June 18th; I attended the memorial reception for my boss at Our House and Our House East, Jack Hague.

I first met Jack at Our House in July of 1982…!?!…

I was working at the Landmark Cafe in Quincy Market 2-3 days and 2-3 nights as a waiter, before the current coinage of “server,” and then jumping on the B Line to 1277 Comm. Ave. Allston. This worked for me as the late wait shift at Our House began at 6 P.M.

It was my 2nd or 3rd shift…

Jack was a short guy cooking in short shorts.

This is how we met….

The late waiter’s shift involved taking the chafing dish which contained the buffet from Table 10 into the kitchen, emptying any leftovers and dismantling it for the dishwasher.

“Hey..uh..you.”

“My name is Steve.”

Jack inspected the remnants of the meatballs.

“Steve, you can eat these if you like.”

“I ate at work.”

“You can wrap these up to take home.”

“Actually, I’m a vegetarian.”

“Vegetarians can eat these meatballs.”

I laughed so hard snot bubbled from my nose.

…Jack Hague…

CHANGE 2022: 10 Signs of Aging

1) Your age is 448 in dog years.

2) The toenail of the big toe on your left foot that broke a year ago will not grow back…ever.

3) You understand the Federal budget deficit and the national debt and the difference between the two.

4) You are about to become a ‘great uncle’, at least in the chronological sense.

5) Ibuprofen before a shift is a sound strategy.

6) Cash is your preferred medium of exchange.

7) You remember when the Hynes stop on the Green Line was Auditorium.

8) You are proud of your earnings in the biz.

9) You don’t curse.

10) Let’s Go Mets!

HAIKU 5*7*5* Beer

I sold my first beer

1977

It was cold and clear

TIPS FOR SERVERS #1

“Since you’re not yelling at me or for me I am going to say that everything is okay.”