Big Ski...Big Life

I said goodbye to a good friend on Monday. We lost one of Rutland's special residents last week when Bob Liscinsky passed away. He was known to all of his friends (& there were many) as "Big Ski". Though most knew Bob from his days as the owner of the Carriage Room, I always felt a bit luckier in a way because although the Carriage Room had been closed for a few years by the time I arrived in Rutland, I got to know Ski as a neighbor living just a house away for more than a dozen years. And as anyone who knew Bob can tell you, because of his gift of storytelling I was quickly brought up to speed on the Carriage Room and what it meant to be around that crowd over the years. I'm sorry in a way that I missed those days but had I not, I would've never gotten to hear those stories in the way only Big Ski could tell them.....and that was special to me. A couple of years ago he called me on the phone & asked me to drop by because he had something for me. He knew that I had a pub style room in my house and he brought me into his garage to uncover the mirrors that graced the walls behind the Carriage Room bar for so many years. Today they proudly hang in my home as a reminder of a man who led a rich & colorful life. At his funeral it was said that Big Ski left this world a better place than when he came into it. That, I have no doubt, is true. Mine was made better by knowing him. Big Ski led a Big Life. I will miss one....and thank him forever for a tiny piece of the other.

Veteran's Day 2009

I wanted to write a quick post to honor our men & women in the armed services on this Veteran's Day. To acknowledge all who are serving today everywhere overseas & those who served in years gone by. My grandfather would often talk about his brother Martin who lost his life in WWI while my dad at 92 still talks very little about his experiences in the second world war. I have cousins & friends who served in Vietnam all who thankfully came home safely; and know the families of some who didn't make it home from Iraq. Today take just a moment to think in the very real terms of the sacrifice made by all of those men & women who have served & are serving our country today.

MSJ's Real Tradition

Now that the Halloween parade is over & Thanksgiving is moving up fast, I started thinking about the Rutland-MSJ game and the tradition that could've seen its final match-up on the final day of October. With MSJ moving down to D-III next season the possibility of a Rutland-MSJ game next year is pretty slim. That's sad news when you look at the storied history that this one football match-up has brought to Rutland over more than 75 years. It got me thinking about the once huge football rivalry in my hometown in CT. Every Thanksgiving Day for years New Britain High School would play crosstown rival Pulaski High in the annual game. Like Rutland, New Britain was always the bigger school & favored (most years) to win the annual city classic. But that didn't always happen. Like MSJ there were always those years that Pulaski would give NBHS all they could handle and though unlike MSJ, Pulaski would tie but never win the Thanksgiving game, that would all change during my senior year. The year I started high school in 1969 our team would finish with a record of 7-3-0. They went 8-2-0 my junior year, but the year I graduated in 1971 the Golden Hurricane's record was a lowly 2-7-1 and was the first and (I think) only time we would lose to Pulaski. If I remember right it was a last second field goal that beat us by one point. That annual Connecticut match-up didn't have the long history of a Rutland & MSJ but there were strong similarities between both. I remember my first Rutland-MSJ game in the early 90's thinking about how much it reminded me of those New Britain-Pulaski games of the early 70's. The excitement level at St Peter's Field that day brought back an awful lot of hometown football memories for me. Because of declining enrollment through the 70's Pulaski sadly ended its roll as a high school in 1982 and is now a middle school. Today MSJ is suffering a similar drop in enrollment. Here's hoping that dropping down to Division III will begin attracting more students to play as a member of an historic football program, but more importantly in my view to be part of the real tradition at MSJ; being a student of the school itself.

Wind By The Bagful

Al Frankin called him a Big Fat Idiot....Idiot he is certainly not. Dangerous maybe, but no idiot. To me it's more a dose of wind by the big fat bagful every day!! I like Maureen Dowd. I read her column whenever I can. I don't always agree with what she says, but she's always entertaining. Today however she hit the nail as square on the head as one possibly can. And gave us a bit of insight into the self proclaimed "king of all media".

Here's her column from this morning:


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/opinion/04dowd.html?_r=1

Dark & Stormy Night

"It was a dark & stormy night" ......that's how Charles Shultz always had Snoopy starting his stories. It certainly seems a fit way to start a quick review of the 50th anniversary of the Rutland Halloween Parade! By the time the parade started the weather actually improved a little bit, but let me tell you just how bad the weather was for that hour or so that we stood around waiting for the parade to begin. Two halloween parades in Rutland stand out for me more than the others. My first in 1993.....that was the year I came to Rutland...IT SNOWED FOR GOD's SAKE!! And this year's parade .....not just because of the awful rain & wind, but because it was pretty special being part of the parade on its 50th birthday....dark & stormy night or not.

Oh, & the picture is of me, Uncle Dave & Charlie Murphy stuck in the 60's before the start of the parade on Saturday.

Hand Me Down World

When I was a kid a morning like this with the fairly widespread frost that I saw just about everywhere on my drive in this morning would have our school teachers talking about squirrels scurrying around gathering twigs & leaves to line those huge nests high in the trees for warmth & looking for enough food to get them through the harshest part of the winter. I remember thinking that with my nine brothers & sisters it wasn't so much different than what my mom did to get all of us ready to face the winter ahead. The heavy winter clothes would come out in droves and the "hand me down" wars would begin! I never seemed to get exactly the coat or hat that I had my eyes on for a winter or two before. And I always ended up with the MITTENS!! The gloves were what I wanted....they looked so much better than those mittens! You could tell "guy gloves" but there was no such thing as "guy mittens". They could be hand me downs from one of my sisters for all anyone knew!! And the kids at school would remind you of that OFTEN! That must be why the 60's group The Guess Who sang "don't give me no hand me down world".... But not one of the 10 of us ever went to school cold...So the squirrels would get ready to keep warm for winter just like we did. A few things you don't think about as a kid though is how your mom & dad made sure the house was warm when you got home. In those days as the squirrels were scraping up everything they could find to keep warm, parents were scraping up every dime they could find to keep the house warm; we just either never knew it or never thought about it. Today though I think about it a lot. With the cost of heating oil & other fuels, keeping the home warm today may be even more difficult than during the days of my family "hand me down wars". Here's hoping that while the squirrels are rustling through leaves getting things ready to help them stay warm this winter all of us can rustle up ways to keep our homes warm too.

Give Peace A Chance

It really pisses me off...oh wait...I should try being more civil. It really angers me to hear the reaction of some this morning to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. It's really laughable to hear the reasoning of some people as to why it was not deserved. Well thought out reasoning like "what a joke" or "he's an idiot", "the guys a moron" or "I'm no fan of Obama". Well, fan or not, as Americans we should all be proud of the fact that our president is viewed by the rest of the civilized world as someone who is deserving of the award. It's sad to think that we will hear more anti Obama sentiment over the Nobel prize here than anywhere else in the world. With all of the problems we have here at home & the questionable commitments we've made to other countries we should all take a moment to put aside "the reasoning" of some & think clearly about how important it is to have the world find our leader worthy of such an honor. In today's dangerous world the U.S. should never take its eye off the ball. But for those who want it...... maybe it's finally time to "Give Peace A Chance".