Loss, Destruction and Idiocy - Excerpts

                                                 

                                                          

     The Death of Winnie the Pooh's Friend Christopher Robin, age 75, April 1996.
     ". . . Owl says that immediately beyond our garden TIME begins, and that it is an awfully deep well. If you fall in you go down and down very quickly and no one knows what happens to you next. I was a bit worried about Christopher Robin falling in but he came back and then I asked him about the well. 'Old bear' - he answered - 'I was in it and I was falling and I was changing as I fell. My legs became long. I  was a big person. I wore trousers down to the ground, I had a grey beard, then I grew old, hunched, and I walked with a cane, then I died. It was probably just a dream, it was quite unreal. The only real thing was you, old bear and our shared fun. Now I won't  go anywhere, even if I am called for an afternoon snack."  
     Czeslaw Milosz  NYRB 2/6/1997.  PX - Winnie and friends at New York City Public Library. _____________

"Almighty Father, Strong to Save,
  Whose arm has bound the restless wave,
  Who bidd'st the mighty Ocean deep
  Its own appointed limits keep,
  Oh hear us when we cry to thee,
  For those in peril on the sea."
      U.S. Episcopal Church - 1940 - (Wikipedia) PX  USS Newport News ____________________

"Day is done. Gone the sun. From the lakes, From the hills, From the sky.
  Rest in peace, Sol jer brave. God is nigh."
      From Horace Lorenzo Trim.  (Wikipedia)___________________________________________

" ' The destruction of the natural world is not the result of global capitalism, industrialization, Western Civilization, or any
   flaw in human institutions. It is a consequence of the evolutionary success of an exceptionally rapacious primate. ' "
       John Gray  The Soul of the Marionette . . .  David Bromwich, NYRB  11/5/2015 ______________

  "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a   tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
     William Shakespeare  Macbeth - Act V; Scene V. __________________________________________

  "I know more about ISIS than the generals do, believe me."
  "I'm really good with war. I love war in a certain way."
     Donald Trump - See The Hill June 19, 2016. _______________________________________________
   

Utica, N.Y. - the old "Sin City"

                                                   

                                          "The Cardsharps" Caravaggio  - 1594
   
      Utica's branding by a New York city newspaper with the epithet "Sin City" in the 1950's made many youthful residents quite proud. In 1957, roughly a hundred men, America's Mafia elite met to discuss the nation's criminal business in Apalachin, New York. The site was a well appointed stone house owned by Joseph Barbara - a local soft drink distributor. During a late afternoon barbecue the conference was abruptly terminated by raiding New York State Troopers. The Applachin Gangland Conference with hindsight seems an act of remarkable Mafiosi hubris remembered today mostly as comedy. Nevertheless, three participants, the brothers Salvatore and Joseph Falcone and Rosario Mancuso attended representing the Utica region and thus solidified Utica's bona fides as a "Sin City" - at least in our memories.
     "Sin" at that time included all forms of gambling, (games, slots, ponies, lottery) prostitution, loansharking, and bribery. Illegal drug sales and extortion were still deeper underground. But gambling was ubiquitous. The first barber shop I was allowed to visit by myself - "Paul's" across the street from the massive Bossert plant - had a back room with a round table, five chairs and three slot machines.
     Most summer days for several years in the 1950's, Addison Miller playground unofficially hosted
a pitch game in the shade of enormous elms. It was cutthroat pitch, seven hands dealt with pots beginning at $3.00 in early afternoon and rising to $40 - $50 by dusk. The patrons were of high school and college age with some individuals from the neighborhood. Pete Pazik, a proprietor of the Downtown Billiards pool room was a player of note for a few memorable evenings.
     More serious gambling opportunities were always available. My former father-in-law Louie Nicotera, as good a man as I'll ever know, had in youth run his own "joint" and was the dealer - at least until he lost two fingers on one hand in a shotgun accident. A friend of his "Joe the Turk" reported once of a singular experience he had at a game in the 1960's. Twenty plus players were seriously engaged in games of chance at a Bleecker Street location, when three armed individuals - one with a Thompson - swept up the doorkeeper and broke into the room. Players were ordered to line up against the wall and lower their pants. As they did their cash, wallets, belts (some with secret compartments), and a few watches were collected. In spite of the great stress a few began laughing -
one of the players, somewhat obese, was wearing a woman's silk bloomers. The laughter spread throughout the room, including the gangster with the now shaking machine gun. He pointed the muzzle at the nose of the humiliated victim. "I ought a blast you!" and then broke out laughing again. The stickup was rapidly concluded without injury. Three months later the body of one of the alleged thieves was found deceased - drifting in the Mohawk River. The other two gunmen were never seen again - most probably escaping gangland retribution and living to enjoy and squander their ill-gotten swag - perhaps.
     In the 1980's I wrote a piece about Utica that mentioned the widespread illegal gambling of it's past. Days later I was stopped on Main Street in Oneonta, N.Y. by one of that town's leading citizens and proprietor of a downtown restaurant. His face radiated a complete smile - "John, you'll never know how much I miss those games up in Utica."