Drinking Buddies: The Highest Level of Friendship

     I attended a memorial service earlier this year for one of my son's favorite college professors, a man I knew from a stint working at the school. He died far too young, at 56, and there wasn't a dry eye in Trinity United Methodist Church in Hackettstown, NJ, that day.
    His long time best friend, a fellow professor, gave the most moving eulogy I have ever heard. In it, he discussed the levels of friendship. He was, of course, speaking specifically for guys, who have a different take on friendship than women. We have many more levels of friends: 
     1) The friends we can shop with because they won't lie to us in the fitting room and will say "that outfit makes you look like your mother on a bad day."  
     2) The friends we can watch "My Cousin Vinny" innumerable times with and still collapse on the floor laughing when Marisa Tomei stomps her foot and says "my biological clock is ticking like that!" Or "Dirty Dancing" with absolutely no irony in the fact we would have KILLED him for sleeping with our daughter at 16.  
     3) The friends we don't have to rehash all the family drama with because we grew up together and know each other's quirky (to put it mildly) relatives.
     4) The friends who remember just how awful high school was and how that stayed with us for years.
      5) The friends who remember college and our sketchy taste in boyfriends.
      6) The friends we raised our kids with and feel no embarrassment about how a) we will never learn to put up that damn tent or b) "trading" daughters to French braid their hair because it's just easier or c) the unfortunate incident with the Halloween cupcakes.
     But, I can really relate to Bob's commentary on the highest level of friendship: the Drinking Buddy. 
     Maybe because, as a journalist (or, as I prefer, old newspaper lady) I have had, and lost, some great drinking buddies:  Mike Celizic, Phil Beck, and now, Frances Burns.

Fran and Miriam Ascarelli at a New Jersey Pro Chapter event in Montclair.

     It's not so much that Fran and I drank together often, it's that we had that kind of veteran reporter relationship with comfortable conversations about the papers where we had worked:  "The Hudson Disgrace," "The Daily Wretched," "The Easton Distress."  Or the editors we had (barely) tolerated. Or the sources who tried to lie to us. 
     We both started at newspapers in the good years, before the bean counters got control. And lived through some years of some awful bean counting. 
     Sure, I knew Fran was ill, but, with the damnable cockeyed optimism that I carefully hide behind my reporter's cynicism, I figured we had a lot more time to bitch about a certain rewrite man or laugh about the shenanigans of our fellow newsfolk. When she told me I should take some of her books I might like to have, I said, "next time. We've got plenty of time." 
     There wasn't a next time. 
     And, what I would give for a next time. To another Jack and Ginger with Mike or another Whiskey Rebellion with Phil, I now add another glass of wine or cup of coffee or just plain chat with Fran. 
     Not that most people will listen. Hell, I won't listen and I'm the one giving the advice, but: don't take friendships for granted. Especially the finest kind, the Drinking Buddy. 

Fran and Maureen Nevin at a summer "meeting" at Maureen's house

 

How's Your Faith?

    That’s not a question we ask each other often.

     Maybe we should.

     We accept the need for checkups – eye tests, teeth cleanings. But, we don’t necessarily check on our own, or others’, faith.

    How’s your faith? 

     Is it healthy? Is it left over from your childhood or is it new? Did you create a combination of wht you grew up with and what you’ve learned? Did you take a spiritual journey or stumble into what you believe?

     David Gregory, known for being host of and being fired as host of “Meet the Press,” is a journeyer. Brought up with a Jewish identity but not too much religious education and with a Catholic mother who angrily abandoned her faith, Gregory embarked on a journey to figure our what he believes, how he wants to practice and how he wants to raise his children.

     Being a journalist, he documents that journey in his book, How’s Your Faith?

     He took the title from the question President George W. Bush asked him when he found out Gregory was exploring his beliefs. It may seem strange that the President of the United States would find out a White House correspondent’s private business, but political Washington is like a small town where everyone goes to the Post Office and the bank at specified times and gossips.

    In the book, Gregory traces his own history, including attending a Hollywood synagogue where Red Buttons often read from the Torah. It’s a unique story, but applicable to others, especially his interfaith marriage and their decision to raise their children Jewish, which is a very common scenario. Those not satisfied with where their journeys have taken them so far will find some compelling paths to follow. Gregory didn’t confine his mentors to rabbis but spoke to many people from various faiths.

     In a way, How’s Your Faith? Is a blueprint for the journey, but more than that it is a reminder to check in on ourselves now and then.

    So, how’s your faith?

Come Together

     Are we losing sight of the community when we focus on smaller special interest groups?

     Sure, all of us belong to some sort of special interest or at least have particular causes that are supremely important, but don’t we have more in common than not?

     It seems to me this is not the time to talk in terms of “us vs. them,” and yet, that’s what a divisive political campaign spawned.

      With the New Year should come some coming together.

      Lots of people are worried about many things, some of those things are significant to tiny segments of the population. Maybe we should concentrate on the ones that impact us all.

       Of course the biggie is the future of the planet. I could kiss Andrew Cuomo for finally getting rid of the Indian Point nuclear power plant – take a look at a geologic map of the Ramapo Fault and I guarantee you’ll get in line behind me. But the possibility of an earthquake sending radiation into the Hudson River pales in comparison to the possibility that an unstable leader of one country could set off the unstable leader of another who possesses nuclear weapons. I think we can all unite behind not wanting another arms race.

     And behind not wanting a quieter but just as deadly consequence for the earth.  Climate change is real and it’s happening really fast. We should be uniting behind the international treaties to stop pollutants; behind alternative energy (and, while we’re at it, behind retraining for the miners who are NOT going to be returning to the coal mines); behind every initiative we can think of to slow the progression of sea level rise (I mean, sure, the thought of Atlantic City permanently under water gives me a moment of giggles, but. . . .).

    How about getting behind infrastructure repairs? Our railroads and roads and bridges are crumbling. People need jobs, there they are. And new projects where necessary: the new Hudson Rail Tunnel, the Gordie Howe Bridge. Makes sense to me.

    How about education? I don’t know one person on the right or left who thinks No Child Left Behind and all the increase in standardized tests makes any sense whatsoever. How about training the best teachers we can (another buss on the cheek to Mr. Cuomo for his tuition plan for New York State) and giving them free rein to do the best job they can, with as little paperwork as possible. People who are good at teaching are almost by definition lousy at filling out silly forms.

    Let’s look ahead at what we can do for the future. I’m not calling for abandoning any group of people, just for concentrating on the issues that impact all of us.

    It’s time to come together. Not splinter apart.

Unplug

      Thoreau said, “we don’t ride on the railroad, it rides on us.”

      And he never experienced the internet.

      Social media weighs more heavily on us than previous generations of innovations.

     We become locked into the routine of checking. Checking email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever. Scrolling a deleting until, eventually, we find something worth reading.

     Of course there is value in communication through social media. Business emails, Twitter posts that are real news and all that. But it is so easy to become trapped by the irrelevant.

    Advertising used to be avoidable. Now it pops up on emails and newsfeeds like dandelions in the spring. Friends used to be people we actually talked to. Now they are people we hardly remember posting photos of their grandchildren and dogs.

      I’m as guilty as anyone of enjoying reconnecting with high school and college friends and keeping up with people who have moved across the country. But, I limit my time on social media. I have always had a feeling it was more than a time suck.

   Now, more intelligent columnists than I have come to the conclusion that too much exposure to social media causes our brains to operate more inefficiently.  Of course it does. For one thing, we are sitting, staring at a screen rather than moving around and keeping our blood circulating.  For another, we are spending time glancing at paragraphs of drivel masquerading as news. Especially after the recent election, many of us are becoming ridiculously enraged at the collective idiocy of those who believe everything they read on Facebook. Or Stalkbook, as the barista at my local coffee shop calls it.

     It’s only natural to use the anonymity of the internet to create an alternate identity. It’s sort of like the boy in A Thousand Clowns who chose various names for himself. I remember he had his library card as Raphael Sabatini. Even under our own names, it is tempting to be that little boy, trying out different personas.

    While that in and of itself isn’t damaging, it isn’t terribly productive.

     I know a number of people who are taking a post-election break from social media. That’s a good thing, but it shouldn’t take a depressing disaster make you realize you have better things to do.

     I also know some people who “unfriended” everyone on their friend’s list who voted for “the other candidate.” That indicates politics is everything. It’s not. It’s possible to still care about someone you don’t always agree with. Trust me on this one.

     And trust me, you’ll be better off with a little less computer time.