A New Career: September 2013

Lately, I've been thinking about starting a new career.

While it's true I was a member of the workforce, in some manner or other, from 1961 through 2009, I haven't worked a minute since the beginning of 2010. Maybe it's time I got back in the saddle and started earning my medicare.

The problem is which career path to choose. I mean at this stage of my life the options are rather limited. For example there are quite a few gardening jobs available around these parts; however, I've never been known as having any kind of green thumb except for the time I snagged some of the frosting off a Celtics victory cake.

Although I was pretty good as a teacher, I don't believe I want to go down that road again. To be perfectly honest, I'd rather have live electrodes attached to my nether regions than correct even one more student essay. I know that's irrational but please don't press me on this, people. I still bear scars.

There are many restaurants down here, but I can only cook one thing (a nice grilled ribeye) so the job would have to be ultra-specialized. I did have a brief career as a waiter but the current version of my memory wouldn't allow me to revisit that occupation. I mean I can just imagine the scene:

Customer:  Excuse me, but I've been waiting here for 45 minutes and you haven't even taken my order.
Me: Stop complaining lady. If we can go another 20 minutes, we'll break a record.

Actually, I was almost out of ideas when, luckily, that wacky and adorable junior senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, burst on the national stage and provided me with my next career.

That's right, people. I'm going to be a filibusterer.  I can deliver a filibuster with the best of 'em. You need 10 hours? No problem. For 24 hours, I do require a porta potty and a fruit salad. Actually, first the fruit salad, then the porta potty. Rates are negotiable.

I can travel anywhere at any time to filibuster. My empty date book is waiting to be filled.

There's only one caveat as I see it. I have a limited number of filibusterable topics.

I can't filibuster any serious policy issues like health care, voting rights, or climate change. While having nothing to say about a serious topic didn't stop Sen. Cruz from bloviating for 21 hours, I'm afraid my conscience wouldn't permit me to do the same.

Actually, there are exactly three topics on which I would feel comfortable filibustering:

     1. Robert DeNiro movies
     2. Obscure jazz groups from the 1960's
     3. Fun and unusual uses for kettle corn


I realize that's a very specific list and may not serve anyone's purposes. In my own behalf I would like to point out that unlike Senator Cruz, I feel bound by logic, common sense, good intentions, relevance, effectiveness, intellectual honesty, altruism, and accuracy. I promise not to throw in any gratuitous Nazi comparisons. There would be a surcharge for Dr. Seuss references.

So that's it. Hire me and you'll get a man willing to filibuster the crap out of any of the above topics. I think you'll be pleased with the results and I'm nowhere near as pricey as Ted.

Are you listening, Koch Brothers?

Ain't life grand?
J "Lungs" Getman

My Hole in One: September 2013

2013, AKA "The Year of the Joel" rolls on its merry way.

On the very same day that my brave, inspiring son, Josh, returned to work after more than a year's absence due to stomach cancer, I, outstanding golfer Joel A. Getman, nailed my first hole-in-one.

While the latter achievement pales in comparison to the former, I'd like to rhapsodize a bit more about it, if you don't mind.

Anyway, Josh has his own blog.

I know that some of you reading this have scored several holes-in-one during your golfing careers and will be less than impressed by my remarkable achievement.

To you I say, "Don't be a hater."

I also know that many of you could care less about golf and even less about anything I might accomplish on a golf course.

To you I say, "Thanks for not clogging up the golf courses and leaving open tee times for me!"

Now let me set the stage. The date was Friday, September 20, a day like any other day except that I got a hole-in-one. There was just a hint of fall in the air at the beautiful Santa Rosa Golf Club. Bright sunny skies and a slight wind made it a perfect day to play golf, especially if you were going to get a hole-in-one.

On Fridays, the Roberts group, of which I am a proud member, plays for money. There is very little cheating allowed and many of the rules of golf are strictly enforced. We all put $5.00 on the line. Four dollars goes toward a skins game and one dollar goes toward a closest-to-the-pin competition on the 16th hole, normally a 125-yard par three over water, but today playing a treacherous 138 yards over water, alligators, and a wedding party from Alabama. Whoever was going to win closest to the pin on #16 today was going to have to earn it.

I approached the 16th hole with great anticipation. If I could win the closest-to-the-pin competition, I'd win a whopping $9.00! That would be enough to put a down payment on the pitcher of beer that the winner of the competition is expected to buy for the group. In other words, it costs you $5 to get in the event; you win $9 minus the $5 which means you win $4; then you have to buy a $10 pitcher of beer which means a net loss of $6.00, which is one dollar more than the poor losers who get free beer and only lose $5.00! This is what passes for logic in the Roberts group.

But I digress. As I was saying, I eagerly anticipated my tee shot on #16; however, my heart sank as I watched playing partner Allen masterfully knock one up toward the back pin location. From the tee it looked as if Allen might only be about four feet away. That's a distance that would win on almost any Friday. Do I possibly have the skill and nerve to pull off a shot that would get inside of Allen's?

The answer to both questions is NO, but it's the Year of the Joel, so all bets are off.

I stepped up to the tee with my trusty Callaway 8-iron. This is a club with which I feel quite comfortable. I use this club often during a round, whether I'm on the fairway with target distance of about 130 yards or i'm nestled in the rough and someone is watching so I can't kick my stupid ball back out onto the fairway. I've also used this particular club when I'm foraging for lost balls in the bush and need to ward off many of the poisonous snakes that adorn the margins of our course. I'll definitely risk instant death for a chance to reclaim a Titleist ProV. This club has earned my trust and I believe the feeling is mutual.

I'm not sure what that sentence meant, but allow me to continue.

As I took my position on the tee box, I noticed the wind freshening a bit. I'm not sure why we golfers refer to the wind freshening. In every other aspect of our lives, we refer to the wind blowing harder, but in golf the wind freshens. Who am I to argue?

At any rate, with the wind freshening from left to right, I knew that a high left-handed draw would have a chance to get close to the hole. Luckily, I happen to be left-handed. I lined up left of the hole and silently prayed for three things: please let me hit this ball crisply with a draw spin; please let there be a special on pitchers of Bud Light today; please let the little hot dog place on my way home be open today.

I watch my ball fly gracefully toward the green, a beautiful high arch, and yes, it has a nice controlled draw spin, and yes, it is going to break Allen's heart, and yes, it's going to be really close to the hole, and...yes...it...rolls...gently...and...perfectly...into...the...freakin'...cup!

While Allen and Steve, my playing partners, were shouting at the thought of free beer, I immediately started thinking of my dear Ada, who had a hole-in-one during her second year of golfing and was so justifiably proud of that for the remainder of her days. Now I will finally have a plaque on the wall next to hers (Mine will be bigger of course).

Luckily, I am a member of the hole-in-one pool at my club, so I should receive a few dollars back when all the accounting is settled. Although my second prayer wasn't answered,  nobody in the Roberts group went home thirsty today, that's for sure.

When I think about 2013, the Year of the Joel, I get positively giddy. This year I met a lovely, wonderful woman who is currently delusional enough to want to share my life, I lost a nice chunk of weight and got healthier in the progress, I watched one son and his family lock arms and tell cancer where it can go, I watched another son become engaged to his wonderful Audrey, I played innumerable rounds of golf on a beautiful golf course in the company of lively, interesting companions, I experienced northern Michigan in all its beauty, I watched my beloved Boston Red Sox resurrect themselves to the point where they may well compete for the World Series, and I tied Miss Ada Getman's lowest ever score on one hole with a freakin' ONE!

Ain't life grand?
J

The Day We Blew Up Al's Ukulele: September 2013

I don't remember everything about the day we blew up Al's ukulele.

For example, I'm not sure if there were two or three co-conspirators. I know Andy and I were there. Of course Al was there. After all, this act of mini-terrorism took place in his house on Gallivan Boulevard, in Dorchester. I'm not sure about anyone else. Morris? Bick? Joey? Somehow, I keep coming back to the notion that it was just Andy and myself.

I was 15 years old, one of the younger members of the Aardvarks, a club of like-minded Jewish kids from Boston who would congregate at the YMHA Hecht House in Dorchester. There were a number of boys' clubs at the Y. They all had more traditional, expected teenage boys club names like The Knights, The Sultans, or The Imperials. The fact that we called ourselves The Aardvarks tells you most of what you need to know about us. We were...ahhh...different. Almost all of us attended Boston Latin School. We were more likely to be preppy or "collegiate" than "greasy" or dangerous. What we lacked in black leather or studded boots we made up for with wit. We dug Lenny Bruce or Pete Seeger much more than Elvis. Was there a nerdy, slide rule aspect to the Aardvarks? Of course, to some degree. But we could field a very respectable basketball team and we somehow had no shortage of dates. Several of us even married those dates, who were themselves members of girls' clubs at the same Y. Their clubs had girl-group names like The Emanuelles or The Crescendos. As it turned out, I met the woman who would be my wife at an Aardvark-Crescendo social.

Becoming an Aardvark was mostly a matter of knowing one of the established members and being "sponsored" for membership. In this respect, it was not that far removed from the mafia. If one of us stood before the assembled Aardvarks and introduced someone as "a friend," there was a very good chance that he would be approved for membership.

It was in just such a manner that I began my years as an Aardvark, having been sponsored by Andy and Bick, two of the club's original members. To say that the three years I spent as an Aardvark helped mold me into whatever I am today would be an absolute truth. The Aardvarks influenced me much more than my parents, my teachers, my non-Aardvark friends, or my younger brother ever could. My primary identity, the way I saw myself was not as a Jew or a Bostonian or an American. I was an Aardvark. Period.

Al was an established Aardvark by the time I came along. I immediately took a liking to him. Somehow he seemed older than his years, more mature and responsible. Others must have felt the same way because I remember at some point Al was elected President of the Aardvarks. He ran the meetings with a parliamentary flair that was not lost on this young acolyte. It wasn't that Al was above some of the  sophomoric high jinks that helped all of us bond as Aardvarks. I seem to remember Al being involved in the great laundromat rock wash caper on Blue Hill Avenue and I am quite sure that Al served as the "reaction man" in our mooning escapades on summer evenings in Dorchester. (In case you're wondering, the reaction man watched carefully for the shocked reactions of those being mooned while the rest of us performed other duties in this Navy Seal-worthy operation. Also, in case you're wondering, it was I who very willingly provided the buttocks portion of this activity.) Al was a perfect reaction man. His descriptions were accurate and thorough. He was our Walter Cronkite, and we trusted him implicitly.

As I mentioned earlier, I very much looked up to and respected Al, even though we were only one year apart in school. So how did it come to pass that on the day in question in, say, 1962, Andy and I decided that we would blow up Al's ukulele?

I've been asking myself that lately.

Was it because Al was one of the only Aardvarks who lived in a single family home instead of an apartment? That hardly seems like a reason to blow up someone's beloved stringed instrument.

Was it simply a case of ukulele-envy that prompted Andy and myself to stuff a bunch of firecrackers into the sound chamber of the poor thing and laugh hysterically as the cheap wood was ripped apart by the force of the ensuing explosion? I hardly think so. I'm sure if there had been no ukulele handy, we would have blown something else up.

Did we not like Al at that moment in time for some reason? To the contrary, all of us loved Al. He was a young man you could count on. He was bright. He was funny. He was honest. He had ideas. He was a leader. He was even kind. Can you imagine? Here was a teenager who was not afraid or ashamed to show kindness to his peers?

No, the only reason I can think of 50+ years after the deed is that Andy and I instinctively knew that Al would appreciate the irony and randomness of the act. We knew that after an initial angry and shocked reaction, Al would see his two good friends rolling around the floor laughing uncontrollably among the shards of Hawaiian wood and smokey firecracker residue and he would shake his head, smack us on our shoulders, and join in the laughter.

And that's exactly what he did.

My wonderful friend Al (pictured on the right above) passed away suddenly last week while taking a walk with his beautiful wife, Gerri. Soon others will speak of him glowingly with regards to his professional life as a professor, a therapist, an author, and a counselor. His heartbroken wife and children will praise him lovingly as a husband, father and grandfather. Al was a remarkable person and deserves all these and more accolades.

But I will always remember Al laughing along with Andy and me on the day we blew up his ukulele.

He was the best of all of us.
J