Month: December 2016

One of the truly great experiences in being a grandfather is getting to attend those performances that captivate grandchildren during their earliest years.

My granddaughter is four this year and for the last two years I have gone to Sesame Street Live and Disney on Ice.

The first one we went to was Sesame Street Live, which was performed at the Landmark Theatre.

I have a special affection for the Landmark because I remember when it was Loews movie theatre, when I was growing up.

In fact, it was one of five movie theatres in downtown Syracuse along with the Paramount, RKO Keith’s, the Eckel and the Cinema.

Every week, my friends and I would take the bus downtown to go to a movie. It really didn’t matter what the movie was or whether it was any good. We had other ways to amuse ourselves.

About a half hour before the movie was to start, we would stop into the pet section of W.T. Grant’s Department Store, which was located in the 400 block of South Salina Street and but a bunch of miniature turtles.

If the movie was boring or we were bored, we would go up in the balcony and drop them on the people sitting below and wait for the reaction. The reaction could, sometimes be pretty loud and dramatic.

On a few occasions, Grant’s was out of miniature turtles and we had to buy chameleons, a small lizard that changes colors. Sort of like some politicians.

Trust me, when I tell you that dropping a small lizard on someone in a darkened movie theatre produces a louder more dramatic reaction.

When I ran for mayor of Syracuse in 1993, we had a fundraiser in the Landmark and I promised my supporters that if won the race, we’d have a celebration in the Landmark and they could drop lizards on people.

My daughter, Kate, who was seven at the time asked me, “Why were you dropping lizards on people?” “Because they were out of turtles that day,” I replied.

But I digress.

There is something magical about watching little ones, who have seen the Sesame Street or Disney characters on television suddenly see them live on stage. The Sesame Street characters would come down off the stage into the aisles and dance with the little ones to their delight.

My daughter, Meghan, bought Claire a helium balloon and tied it to her wrist. For the rest of the performance I held my breath, hoping that the balloon wouldn’t come loose and fly away, breaking Claire’s heart. It didn’t and the afternoon was a delightful one.

We’ve gone to Disney on Ice twice and are scheduled to go again on Saturday.

Last year, Meghan had a college roommate, her husband and little boy, Jack, go with us.

They had a number of toys that spin and gave off colors in the dark.

Claire, who is a big fan of Minnie Mouse, sat on the edge of her seat through the whole performance.

Midway through it, I heard her ask Meghan, “Can I have a snow cone?” “You don’t need a snow cone,” her mother replied. “Please can I have a snow cone?” she begged. No, you’ve already had popcorn.” “But I want a snow cone.”

I, being a complete sucker for anything she wants, leaned over and said to Meghan, “Get her a snow cone.” Meghan said, “I can’t get her a snow cone because Jack will want one too.” “I replied,” So, get Jack a snow cone and I’ll pay for that one too.”

The snow cone had a plastic holder that was a Disney character and couldn’t have cost any more than nine cents to make.

Meghan held up her hand when the snow cone guy came by and handed her two snow cones.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked the snow cone vendor. “Twenty-four dollars,” he replied.

Now I know what the term captive audience really means.

When the show was over both kids left with the empty snow cone holders.

I’m hoping that they’ll leave them to someone in their Last Will and Testaments someday.

We went out for pizza after the show. The waitress in the restaurant overheard us talking about “Disney on Ice” and volunteered that she was taking her little boy to see it the next day.

“Stay away from the snow cones,” I advised her.

This year, Meghan and Claire went to see the show again. Terri and I weren’t able to make it.

“Buy her a snow cone,” I told Meghan, “and I’ll pay you back.”

Last night Meghan texted me a photo of a very satisfied four-year old happily eating a snow cone.

I’m pleased to report the price didn’t go up.

It didn’t go down either.

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act which allowed the United States government to forcibly remove all Native-American tribes from the lands they occupied in Florida, Georgia and other southeastern states.

The Cherokee Nation and members of other tribes brought suit against the removals on the ground that they were sovereign nations to whom the laws of the states did not apply.

The cases went to the United States Supreme Court which, in an opinion signed by Chief Justice John Marshall, agreed with the tribes. This led to Jackson’s infamous observation that “Chief Justice Marshall has rendered his opinion, now let him enforce it.”

Despite the fact that the Indian Removal Act mandated that the government negotiate removal treaties with the tribes, fairly, voluntarily and freely, it was ignored.

The forcible removal of the tribes began with the Choctaw Nation. The United States Army threatened to invade and members of the Nation were forced to walk, some in chains, through the winter weather of 1831 without food, supplies or other assistance from the government to the lands set aside for them in Oklahoma. Thousands died along the way and one of the tribal leaders gave the journey the name, “the Trail of Tears and Death.”

The next tribe to be removed was the Creek Nation. On their forced march, 3,500 of the 15,000 people perished due to the conditions.

The Cherokee Nation was divided over whether to negotiate a treaty for compensation for their lands or to resist. By 1838, only 2,000 members had moved and the Van Buren Administration dispatched 7,000 Army troops to force the removal. The members of the tribe were forced into stockades at gunpoint while white settlers looted their homes.

During the course of this forced march of 1,200 miles, disease and starvation took the lives of 5,000 Cherokee people.

During the past four months the Standing Rock Sioux, members of other tribes and supporters have been camped in North Dakota protesting the Dakota Access pipeline which threatens their water supply and ancestral burial grounds.

Hundreds have been arrested and law enforcement have used rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray and water cannons in sub-freezing temperatures in an effort to break up the protests and drive them from their encampment.

Last week, the protesters appeared to win a victory when the Army Corp of Engineers announced they would not approve an easement to complete the pipeline under the Missouri River and requiring the pipeline to be rerouted.

The decision by the Corp of Engineers was criticized immediately by Speaker of the House of Representative and human amoeba, Paul Ryan, who tweeted that it was “big government decision making at its worst” and that he was looking forward “to putting the anti-energy presidency behind us.”

The Company building the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, immediately went to court in Washington, D.C. to challenge the decision.

I suspect this victory will prove to be a pyrrhic one and short-lived.

Until very recently the President-Elect, Donald Trump, was an investor in Energy Transfer Partners.

The Company’s Chief Executive, Kelcey Warren, donated over $ 100,000 to Trump’s campaign.

Next month, as President, Trump will be able to order the Corp of Engineers to reverse its decision and allow the pipeline to be completed.

As I write this, I can’t help but ponder what America’s reaction would be if Energy Tranfer Partners proposed constructing a pipeline through Arlington National Cemetery or the battlefield at Gettysburg?

How would we react, locally, if they proposed building one that ran under Skaneateles Lake or through St. Agnes or Oakwood Cemeteries?

The sound and the fury of the protests would be deafening.

We would be demanding that our elected officials, at all levels, reverse this outrage.

And we don’t even have a treaty that protects us.

Shakespeare, once wrote; “What is past is prologue.”

I fear that we are about to witness that again.

I never cease to be amazed at how much amusement I must be providing my neighbors since I moved out of Syracuse to a rural area in our county.

We moved ten years ago and my first memory of being here in the winter was in January 2007.

We had our first blizzard.

Now, I’m used to Central New York winters and even had a job between college and law school in which I was a night supervisor for the City Department of Public Works. My job was to monitor snow plows in a certain section of the city to make sure that they plowed the area they were dispatched to.

The job was a nightmare for a single guy, twenty-two years old, since we had to report at 6:00 p.m. and work until 7:00 A.M.

That winter, as I recall, every blizzard started on Friday night at 6:00 P.M. and ended on Monday morning at 7:00 A.M. We had 133 inches of snow that year. I thought I had seen it all.

The first blizzard of 2007 dropped about five feet of blowing and drifting snow in our driveway in front of the garage door.

I, being prepared like a Boy Scout, stepped outside with a shovel and began to dig my way out so I could go to work. I probably would have been able to reach the road by April.

Fortunately, my next door neighbor, Kevin, who is a good friend and Samaritan, drove by with his plow on the front of his pick-up truck and glanced to his right. He made a U-turn and a short time later I was able to leave for work. As he was leaving he commented, “You’re never going to get anywhere with that shovel.” For the next eight years I made seasonal snow plowing arrangements and all was right with the world.

Three years ago, Terri bought a Ford F-250 pick-up truck so she could tow a horse trailer with the other three jackasses that she lives with and trail ride with her friends. It’s like riding in a Humvee.

I should have seen it coming and one day she said, “We should get a plow for my truck so we can plow ourselves out.” Against my better judgement, I signed off on it.

We bought a seven foot plow with a joy stick that allows you to turn the plow in any direction you need. That’s the good news.

Hooking the plow up is like implanting a Jarvik heart. If you don’t do it perfectly, nothing happens and I am mechanically challenged.

Last winter, despite having 500 pounds of sand in the back of the truck, I kept repeatedly getting hung up on snow drifts.

After calling Kevin too many times to pull me out, he remarked, “You really should get some snow tires for this truck.” Terri replied, “When I bought the truck, the dealer told me I wouldn’t need them.” “He didn’t know where you lived or the kind of winters we get,” Kevin answered.

We drove to a tire dealer the next day and bought snow tires. The rest of the winter was uneventful.

This year, I was on track to be fully prepared for winter.

Two weeks ago, the weekend weather was in the 60’s and Terri decided to power wash the inside of her trailer and put it away for the season.

I made the mistake of walking outside as she was getting started. “Can you get the power washer started?” she asked. I pulled on the chord ten or twelve times and nothing happened.

“Let’s call our neighbor Joe’s son, George,” I suggested, “he got it started last time.”

I called George and explained the problem. He told me, “I can’t come now, I’m in a tree stand in Cutler but my dad is home.”

I called his father, a good friend and neighbor and he agreed to come and help.

On his second tug on the starter rope the power washer motor sprang to life.

“What did you do?” I asked. “Just got lucky,” he answered.

Then we noticed that there was no water coming out of the nozzle despite the fact there was a hose hooked to it.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Joe observed. Since he is a graduate of Clarkson University’s Engineering School, I deferred to him. He started to tug on the hose connected to the power washer and quickly discovered that it was not the hose connected to the water faucet. “You people are killing me,” he said with a laugh.

“If you think that’s funny,” I told him, “you ought to see us hook up the snow plow.”

“Let’s do it,” he replied.

We waited for Terri to finish power washing the trailer and she drove her truck into the garage where the plow was on the ground. After some maneuvering we got the plow onto the front of her truck and connected all the cables.

With Terri behind the wheel, Joe said, “Raise it up.” Nothing happened.

We examined all the connections and Joe said, “Try it again.” Still nothing.

Joe said, “I’m going to get my tools.”

He returned shortly and took the cover off the plow and began to test it to see if it was getting power to it. Everything checked out positive. He scratched his head and said, “Try it again.” Still nothing.” At that point, Terri was getting cold and went into the house to get a jacket.

While she was gone, I said to Joe, “Why don’t you take a look inside the cab and see that the joy stick is properly connected.” Joe went to the driver side and reached inside and raised the plow.

When Terri returned I told he Joe had the plow working.

“What did you do?” she asked. He pulled the joy stick out and hit the power button and raised the plow. “Oh,” she said, “I was pushing this button,” pointing to the down pressure on the joy stick.

“Oh my God,” Joe said, “you people are killing me.”

“We shouldn’t be living out here,” I told him, “I’d have pushed the same button too.”

As he packed up his tools I thanked him several times and said, “Joe, I promise to never call you again about the power washer.” He laughed and left.

That night, the snow started to fall and we would get 4 feet of drifting and blowing snow.

We were prepared for everything but that, since I hadn’t put the snow tires on Terri’s truck yet.

Still, being ever the optimist, I thought I could plow it and maybe stay ahead of it before it got too deep. It didn’t take long before the truck was mired in a snow drift.

I went in the house and called Kevin and said, “I’m hung up in a snow drift. If you’re going to plow later today, could you pull me out?”

“I’m working all day and won’t be home until after dark,” he replied, but Joe is working at home today, give him a call.”

I hung up and dialed Joe’s number.

When he picked up, I said, “Joe, you know how I promised that I’d never call you again?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Well, I lied,” I told him, “I’m hung up on a snow drift.”

“I’ll be right over,” he said.

He arrived shortly and pulled me out of a good size snow bank but when he when to leave, he got hung up on a snow drift.

After trying to extricate himself a few times, he walked home and got a giant earth mover. He returned and pulled his truck out and cleared out a huge snow drift from the driveway.

While he was gone, I managed to get hung up on a drift which he pulled me off with the earth mover.

The snow continued to fall, blow and drift, by the second day all of the progress that had been made the previous day was gone.

My friend and neighbor, Jake, came over. He’s a mechanic and services the many vehicles we own but don’t operate well. He got chains on the front loader tractor and proceeded to move a lot of snow out of the driveway.

I continued to plow but with no snow tires managed to get hung up on the drifts three more times. Jake alternately pulled me out with the tractor and his truck. I asked him whether someone who managed to get hung up five times in three days didn’t qualify for some type of award. I don’t think I got an answer.

By the end of the week, after the snow stopped, I was able to get the snow tires put on the truck.

As I write this, I can gaze out the window and see the truck and plow. It has four snow tires on it and almost five hundred pounds of tube sand in the back of it.

The temperature is close to fifty and the lawn is green.

Still, a little voice inside me keeps asking; “Are you sure you should be living here?”

“Hell, yes,” I reply.