What’s Left Behind To Shoulder Grows Weightless
Sometimes, tragedy brings good things in its wake.
On Saturday afternoon, drummer Ryan's Vaughn's girlfriend Kasey's family vehicle was struck by a drunk driver on South Carolina Interstate 26. Kasey's father was killed. Her little sister, Allie, was thrown from the vehicle. Her mother, niece and friend sustained minor injuries. The Williams were on their way home to Tennessee after a family vacation in Hilton Head. The drunk driver was later found hours later hiding in some local woods a few dozen feet from the stolen and battered ...
The 2009 Brickyard 400 (Or, Speedway Nights: The Ballad Of Jimmie Johnson)
First rule of Nascar is you don't talk about Nascar.
It's not that facts, statistics, cultural judgments, stereotypes or general biographical data aren't valuable. They are.
Of course (like you), I knew nothing of Nascar until last year's Brickyard 400. This (now seasonal) confab was born of a conversation at my bachelor party and the desire to a) in Indianapolis (a city, sorry dad, with few other event-oriented justifications for visitation) and b) spend more time with dudes.
Before last year, I couldn't fathom why someone would sit ...
Panic At Funland
There is no panic for a seventeen-year-old like the panic incurred by hoisting and spinning a dozen toddlers eight feet in the air, then leaving them there for so long that they began to cry for their parents and attempt to leap from their seats.
That seventeen-year-old was me twenty years ago this month.
I was mere moments into my first day at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware's famed family amusement park, Funland. I'd been issued my official uniform (white and green t-shirt for the week, red polo shirt for the weekends), instructed that all ...
Strong Island
When I went there, anyway, ninety percent of Syracuse University students were from New Jersey, New York City ("The City," as they presumptuously called it), or Long Island.
Now, by 1989, I'd been to New York City to see a few Broadway plays, which -- coming from suburban Philadelphia -- meant I'd at least been through New Jersey, but I didn't know a thing about Long Island (which didn't prohibit me from making out with a black-haired, red-nailed, gum-popping beauty on my first night at college, but that's a different story for a ...
The Hagley Fireworks (Or, In Consideration Of Teflon, Kevlar & The Apollo Space Program)
All I knew was that Abbi signed us up for "The Fireworks" back home in Wilmington, Delaware, and that the tailgating started early so I had to catch an early train out of the city and wear nice pants.
"The Fireworks," it ends up, are an annual tradition at The Hagley Museum in Greenville, Delaware, birthplace of the now-behemoth chemical corporation, DuPont.
Growing up in nearby Valley Forge, Pennsylvania (just thirty miles north on Route 202), the Brandywine was a placid, almost mythic place reserved for revolutionary history ...
The Barking Crab
It seems to me that the best experiences in life come at a cost. As uber-rare, stomach churning, temple-throbbing, cold and clammy, cotton-mouthed, bloodshot and dizzy hangovers go, then, Sunday's was well worth it.
Imagine...
A dull gray morning yields to a summer afternoon exploring the heron-strewn edges of the Mystic River with dear friends. You pass Bunker Hill and Old Ironsides, then break into the expanse of Boston Harbor, pausing an instant at the end of Logan Airport's southern approach, scraping the bottom of 747s passing just ...
All Stars
I'm pretty sure it's the oldest thing I own: a tattered, No. 80, nine-inch, horsehide-covered, cork and rubber-centered regulation baseball with with seven faded words written in capital letters: 1981 Pinto North All-Star Ben Wagner.
I hit the first RBI in that all-star game, a triple. It was a scorching-hot July Fourth at Ridgeland Common in Oak Park, Illinois. There was red, white and blue bunting and everything. Of course, it was tee ball, so that triple didn't add up to much of a baseball career, and doesn't mean much now. But it ...
Soft-Rock Sunday
For months, I'd been trying to get my Rockwood Music Hall pals together in an amplifier-free environment.
It's not that I don't like amplifiers. My recent bout with tinnitus notwithstanding, there are few places I'd rather be than standing between a few of 'em creating a beautiful racket. They're just conducive to bona fide conversation. Add in lice drums, a hundred people talking, the ambient rumble of traffic and trains and it's tough to say anything at all. Factor in that I record, rehearse and perform roughly 75% less than five ...
The Great Easter Train Wreck
It's a recipe for disaster: a five and three-year-old boys, plastic railroad tracks, a wind-up diesel engine, and two fists full of chocolate eggs.
Hollywood blockbuster and dime store novel alike are rife with the plot line. Aunt, uncles, grandparents, nieces and nephews gather around the holiday table and chaos ensues. The nephew kicks the leg out from under the table. The holiday meal slides onto the hardwood floor. The dog steals the turkey. The niece throws up. The brother-in-law announces he's gay. The sister announces that ...
My Intrepid Nephews
Can you imagine New York's $44M, 66-year-old gray behemoth, USS Intrepid, through my pint-sized, toe-headed nephews' wide eyes?
This thing's 900-feet-long and 190-feet-wide and loaded with thirty aircraft, including a Navy F-14 Tomcat (as in, "I feel the need, the need for speed!), Harrier Jump Jet, F-4 Phantom, Israeli Kfir, French Etendard, Russian MiG-15, 17 and 21, "Huey" helicopter ("I spent over 3000 hours in these things," one elder gentlemen said) plus the freakin' Concorde. The Intrepid weighs 27,000 tons, and contains 20,000 ...
