Thursday, December 20, 2018

December 2018 updates


I’m going to be in the Christmas Alumni Show of A Sketch of New York December 21, 22, and 23, at the Producer’s Club, 358 w 44th St, NYC.  There are three teams every day.  I’m in the *middle* team, which means 7:45 on the 21st and 22nd and 2:45 on the 23rd. 

These are all *new* scripts — and I wrote one of the sketches in my show.

Agents, casting directors, artistic directors, and anyone with casting authority can get in free by leaving a business card.  If you stay for all three shows, you’ll see a lot of actors, who have been selected from the basic show to reappear.

Also here’s a video of me performing in a concert on the 9th


I also completed Musical Improv 101 at UCB.  I've taken this course at the Magnet, but not at UCB before.  Eric Gerson was great.

I'm going to be having an art show in Brooklyn in January

Movies seen recently:

Spiderman: into the multiverse
Aquaman

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Performing with Bronx County Chorus December 2018

Sunday, December 9, 2018, I sang in a concert with the Bronx County Chorus at the First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck  You'll note that they spell "Throggs" differently from the way the name of the Bridge is spelled. I should find out why.

I got to sing a duet.  Here's the YouTube video












We also did an outreach concert at the Kings Harbor Multicare Center .  This was written up in a local paper in the Bronx here: Bronx Times write up of outreach concert

There was also a writeup of our concert 12/9/18 


Thursday, November 29, 2018

Bohemian Rhapsody and Me

I saw Bohemian Rhapsody. 

This was analogous to when I first clicked on Michael Jackson's Thriller video shortly after his death, and got totally hooked on him. I had been vaguely aware of Michael Jackson before, but suddenly I was immersed in him. 

I wasn't even vaguely aware of Queen, tho I recognized some of the songs in the movie. 

What was I doing in the late seventies and early eighties. First, I was at Dartmouth. At th that time, there was no TV there. It was too rural to get more than one very fuzzy channel. Cable hasn't really come in yet. 

I decided I liked being free of video material. I felt it was addictive. I didn't watch TV for twenty or thirty years after that. 

I generally hated popular music on the radio. I still do. I usually turn it off fairly quickly. Classics is not a whole lot better. 

I had magazine and newspaper subscriptions, but popular music was a topic I generally avoided. After all, I hated it. 

I sang classical music in choirs, which I enjoyed. Singing was different from listening. 

I went religious services, usually Quaker. I did volunteer work for some groups, including a suicide prevention hotline and some newsletters. 

Then I went to law school, which was pretty all consuming. Then I worked. Then I got married. Then I had kids. 

I was pretty busy. 

YouTube changed things for me. I was unemployed and on the internet reading news when suddenly links to videos came up. My video addiction was triggered. 

Also, suddenly, music I might have heard once or twice on the radio was suddenly available in video form. I could learn the names of the performers and see them perform.  They stopped being anonymous. 

The short videos were even more addictive than TV, actually. 

I heard the name Queen. I heard of Freddie Mercury, but I didn't watch many of his videos. 

The movie changed that. Mostly, because the movie took me back to a time when I lost at least seven friends and acquaintances to AIDS.  It was such a painful time. I was desperately in love with one of those guys, even though he was gay. His death was shattering. 

I read about Freddie online. There was a Quora post saying he caught aids in NYC around 1982, around the same time and place Freddie got it. Maybe one or more of them had sex with him, who knows?

I relocated the AIDS quilt project online. I searched for my friends. Three of them weren't there. Why? Didn't their families make panels for them? These people were hugely important to me. Weren't they important to others? I guess those other people died or were numb wth shock. 

I've got a homework assignment. 


Wow. I've got to make some panels. Why didn't I notice before? Guilt. 

P.S. I bought some materials for one panel Sunday.  Will I get it done?

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Memorializing a FB discussion about whether abortion is prohibited in the Bible


I just want to memorialize a discussion that I’m having with a fundamentalist Christian about why the Bible does or does not prohibit abortion.  She cites to me Psalm 139 and Jeremiah 1:5

I say:

Abortion is not murder.  That’s your opinion.  The Bible does not say so.

King David, in writing Psalm 139, if he was the author, as you say, did not write verse 13 in a vacuum. It’s part of a longer missive, in which he requests the defeat of his enemies.  He says to God “you covered me in my mother’s womb,” as part of a longer request.  Taking that out of context to relate to US abortion laws runs entirely contrary to the passage.

In Jeremiah 1:5 — God apparently says that the addressee is to be made a prophet and that God knew Jeremiah even before he was conceived. This is not addressed to the general public.  It relates to a particular person and the context was his being appointed prophet.  Certainly the general public is not being appointed prophet.  That would defeat the whole idea of there being special prophets.  Again, expanding the scope of this verse to relate to US abortion laws takes this passage entirely out of context and is contrary to the plain meaning of the passage.

Again, if the Bible intended to prohibit abortion, it would have said so.  It made no bones about kosher dietary laws, for instance. 

She says life begins at conception.  I say

a sweater begins by casting on stitches. That doesn't mean a needle with cast on stitches is a sweater. 

Life may begin at conception, tho the Bible seems to imply before conception, but that doesn't mean an embryo is a human being any more than cast on stitches are a sweater

She says that I’m implying that Jeremiah was more special than any other human being ever born

I say

Yes, he was special.  He was a prophet. God apparently planned for him, according to this story. This doesn't mean that God didn't plan for others.  There were other prophets in the Bible.

It also doesn't mean that abortion is murder. Abortion isn’t mentioned or suggested.  If God planned for the arrival of this particular prophet, presumably He made sure that the guy was going to be born.  There are any number of reasons why a person might or might not be conceived at a particular time.  

At that time, half of all children died before one year of age from disease.  Presumably God planned for that not to happen as well, otherwise the prophet wouldn’t have been able to be a prophet.  


Not all people are fore-ordained to be prophets.  That’s the clear intent of the passage. So, yes, Jeremiah, was special

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

On birthright citizenship and dual nationality

I guess, even though I am a dual national, I don't have to worry about the birthright citizenship problem.  Both my parents were citizens when I was born.

My dad was incredibly lucky, really.  He got into the country on a student visa.  He got into the Manhattan Project.  He got an emergency naturalization in 1943, so that he could work on that project.

That feature of his passport proved troublesome on one occasion when he returned from Mexico, because the officials at the border didn't believe that an enemy alien could have been naturalized in 1943.  Fortunately, he knew people at the FBI who could vouch for him, because of his involvement with the Manhattan Project.

He was imprisoned in Ellis Island when he first arrived. The clerk in the US consulate who did his visa made an error in the date.  Fortunately, he had relatives here, one of whom came and got him out.

My dad wasn't Jewish himself.  He was raised Lutheran.  His father considered himself a Lutheran.  His mother considered herself a Catholic.

His ancestry was Jewish.  He had at least one grandparent who was born Jewish -- and probably all his grandparents were born Jewish or at least were of Jewish ancestry.

Somehow, despite being in Germany for a long time, they were still not considered fully citizens by many people -- and their citizenship was revoked.

I got my citizenship in Germany restored in 2010.  That's why I'm a dual national.

I was born in Madison, Wisconsin.  I haven't been to Germany except for a brief visit when I was 12. I don't speak more than a few words of German -- though I can do a great German accent.

Still, presumably on the census I'll be asked to disclose that I'm a dual national.

I feel threatened.

Throughout the world, lack of birthright citizenship has led to endless human rights violations.  Gypsies traveled through Europe for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years, without ever being able to settle, because they were considered foreigners.  Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria are never considered Lebanese or Syrian.  They are marginalized.  The list goes on and on.

People apparently fear that Mexicans and Central Americans who come here won't become good US citizens.

I live in a school district which is half Hispanic.  I've met these kids who were raised in the USA and went to public schools.  Probably many of their parents or grandparents were illegal.

These are delightful people.  They are fully fluent in English, easy to talk to, hard working -- definitely the sort of people who we want around here.  They run businesses.  They are smart.  I like them.

The idea that Hispanics won't assimilate is a myth.  Maybe Puerto Ricans have been reluctant to assimilate, because they want to retain their cultural identity -- but they are US citizens, not immigrants.

My experience with Chinese people who were raised here is similar.  Probably some of their ancestors were illegal, but, if they were born here and went to public schools, they are fine.

Removing these people would definitely damage our local economy

I am strongly opposed to the proposal that birthright citizenship should be brought into question.  I am strongly opposed to the idea that we should ask people whether they are dual nationals on the census.

 WaPo article on this topic

Monday, October 15, 2018

Responding to climate change deniers (or is it deny-ers?)

I was asked to respond to this article.

http://notrickszone.com/2018/09/03/the-arctic-climate-has-now-stabilized-ice-sheet-glacier-sea-ice-losses-are-decelerating-reversing/

I've been wasting a lot of time on it over on FB, so I'm going to document my response.

This website called notrickzone has characterized a bunch of articles as saying that arctic  ice
has stabilized.  I have gone through these articles and find that, in many cases, notrickzone has mischaracterized what the article says.  In any case, none of these articles have concluded that the arctic ice or climate is stabilizing.  Instead, there may have been regions that were cooling -- or parts of years that were cooler.  There is always going to be some variation.  In other cases, notrickzone just completely missed the point of the article or section of the article.

This is my response to what notrickzone said about each article.
  • Just looked at item #1 -- completely mischaracterized. Notrickzone claims that the Lemos article says that ice loss has slowed. That's not what the abtract says at all. It says that the speed of ice movement in the glacier has slowed -- in other words it's under less pressure, possibly due to less ice. The abstract in fact implies just the opposite of what the notrickzone article claims it implies.
  • As to the An et al article, it says that two glaciers have been stable because they have retreated to a position where they are no longer in contact with the warming ocean, which presumably would otherwise be melting them. This describes two glaciers, not a trend.
  • As to the Kelley et al article, the authors completely accept the idea of climate change while explaining why certain individual glaciers remain stable.
  • The Tong et al article again talks about ice velocity slowing. To me that means that there is less ice pressure. To me that does not indicate that there is not warming. Notrickzone does not understand the difference between ice velocity and ice extent.
  • Ding et al totally accepts global warming. They say that a warming slowdown in the early 2000s lagged in reaching this particular arctic region. They don't say that warming has stopped. They say that there was a global slowdown (not stop) for a particular period of time, but warming was faster in this arctic region than in the rest of the world. This article does not support the idea that the arctic has stabilized at all. Notrickzone totally mischaracterizes this article as saying that there is cooling. It absolutely never says that at all.
  • Suvorov and Kitov: this is only an abstract of an article about a tree ring study. I can't see the whole article. The abstract says that summer temperatures have gone down in one region which affects tree growth. However, that does not mean that there is general cooling -- as trees mostly grow in summer. It could perfectly well be warmer in winter and not affect tree rings much.  Moreover an individual region is not dispositive of global warming.
  • With respect to Westergaard-Nielson, they say that the ocean has been warming, but from 2000-2015 there was a cooling away from the coast in Greenland; however, they do not expect that to be permanent. It should be noted that there is a 3 year publication lag here, so we don't know what has happened since.
  • The Kwon et al article again says that there is warming. It's just that there was unexpected cooling during the breeding season for these birds. That doesn't mean that the whole year was cooler -- just certain weeks. Notrickzone is again mischaracterizing the article.
  • Can't look at the Mallory article. It's not letting me in.
  • Levy et al do find cooling in one region. But local cooling does not rebut climate change.
  • Mikkelson et al: It's very hard to understand this article. It does not have an abstract or draw conclusions. It seems to be a research proposal. However, notrickzone adds a horizontal like to Mikkelson's graph to make it look stable, when that might not be the mathematical conclusion at all. 
  • Swart et al: again notrickzone mischaracterizes the article. The article says that the rate of change in the ice may be stable at times. It does not say that ice has stopped declining. Notrickzone does not understand the difference between velocity and position. The velocity of change can stabilize, but that does not mean that position is stabilized.
  • The Ronkainen seems to show that the ice extent of the entire Baltic Sea has decreased, while the thickness of the ice in one bay has been constant. They draw a distinction between extent and thickness. Again this is only one bay. It doesn't relate to the whole Baltic sea. There can always be local variations. Notrickzone is oversimplifying what is said here.
  • Stabeno et al are explaining that they had trouble taking some measurements because of a cooling in the southeast Bering Sea during 2007-2013, with some warming occurring thereafter. They do not conclude that there was not global warming. They are only looking at a small area where they were not able to take measurements.
****

So my interlocutor, who raised the notrickzone article as a topic, now points out that sea ice extent appears to be stable.  

Resulting in my wasting more time in the middle of the night reading articles on global warming.  Uggh.  Why do I get into this?  Here's my response.

First a handy page where you can find out about sea ice extent measurements:

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/snow-and-ice/extent/

This page allows you to specify times and locations of sea ice

It appears that Arctic sea ice is decreasing, while Antarctic sea ice is increasing. However, unlike the Arctic, the Antarctic also has land ice. 

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets/ 

Land ice is decreasing, tho apparently there is some controversy as to how to measure this.

 Still the consensus seems to be that total Antarctic ice mass (sea + land) is down. You should realize that the amount of ice in polar areas is not the only factor in sea level rise. Water expands when heated. Sea level rise can occur from heating of water alone. In fact, most predictions of sea level rising come from expansion of the water due to heating, not to melting of polar ice.

There does not appear to be any controversy regarding ocean temperatures rising.

******

My interlocutor also alleges that slowing of movement of glaciers means cooling -- and therefore notrickzone would be vindicated.

My response was:

With respect to speed of glaciers, this issue only affected some of the flaws in the articles cited by notrickzone — not all of the many points I addressed above. 

I just found an article about glacial movement 

http://geomorphology.org.uk/.../files/ice_movement.pdf 

As you will see, there are several factors in glacial movement. Warmer glaciers move faster, but so also do glaciers that are very heavy with new snow. Slowing of a glacier does not necessarily mean cooling. It could also mean less pressure from reduced ice pack.

Sunday, October 7, 2018

Updates Summer 2018

This summer I appeared on The Perfect Murder, "Bizarre Love Triangle," on Investigation Discovery. You can stream the episode here


I hope to excerpt my part soon. I'll let you know when I've got that. In the mean time, I'm in the trailer


I also participated in a story slam. Here's my story


I also once again participated in the annual Randolph Mountain Club Charades


This is a live performance event attended by over a hundred people. I believe that this was the 106th annual charades. 

I got new headshots


I have migrated my website, http://barschall.com to Google. My home page is now part of my blog. 

I also took a lot of took a lot of time away from the city in Northern New Hampshire. Here are some photos from my biggest hike


A more extensive list of vacation photos can be found here


I've also been doing some art and even sold some. Here are some of my drawings.


I also took CLE courses in Diversity and Ethics in IP law

As always, I keep an ongoing blog of my activities here




Friday, September 28, 2018

About Kavanaugh lying

I am copying and pasting a meme here. I hope it doesn't turn out to be fake news

Here's the content about how BK lies.

Citing Stanford University Professor, Joel Beinen, (after Kavanaugh's testimony on 9.27.18, and prior to the delay authorized on Friday, 9.28.18):

"Here are some of the major lies that Kavanaugh has told:

1. He lied about Devil's Triangle. A Devil's Triangle is two different kinds of sexual acts, involving either a threesome, or three types of sexual intercourse with one woman in one night. It is not a drinking game. He lied about this several times and his classmates have called him out.

2. He lied about "bouf," which refers to anal intercourse, and not flatulence. He doubled down on this lie several times during testimony.

3. He lied about "Renata Alumnius." That referred to him going on a date with the purported class "slut." It was not about being her friend (and she recently said she was horrified by his yearbook references.) His testimony directly contradicts a poem about Renata written by one of his close friends found in the same yearbook he refers to himself as a Renata Alumnius, portraying Renata as a cheap and sleazy date.

4. He lied that the "Beach Week Ralph Club," which refers to vomiting from drinking at a traditional beach week (which all the schools around here have--we all know the expression). He lied and said it referred to his weak stomach.

5. He lied under oath about not watching Ford's testimony. Today. Witnesses saw him watching it. The Wall Street Journal reported he was watching it with others in the Senate's Dirksen Office Building. There are many press stories on this.

6. He lied about not knowing about stolen emails from the Democratic members of the judicial committee. He knew the emails were stolen and confirmed it in the emails the Judicial Committee republicans tried to suppress. The Washington Post gave him three pinocchios for this lie.

7. He lied about witnesses supporting his claims. They did not support his claims as he characterized their testimony. They generally supplied brief statements through lawyers about not remembering the party. This was no testimony. This was no independent investigation.

8. More specifically, Ford and Kavanaugh's mutual friend Leland Kaiser says while she does not remember that party, but she believes everything her friend Ford said about it. She has stated this to the press and it came up in testimony today.

9. Kavanugh lied about his drinking. He drank a lot in the last year of high school and college (and several witnesses say he drank a lot for years afterwards). Several friends of mine who specialize in alcoholism said he exhibited signs of having drunk before this hearing. He was referred to by his college roommate as a sloppy and belligerent drunk. We saw glimpses of that belligerence today. Dozens of his contemporaries have confirmed how aggressive he becomes with drinking.

10. He lied that never drunk on weekdays in the summer of 1982. In his own calendar, he referred to "skis," which he admitted refer to "brewskis," with Mark and PJ on Thursday July 1 in a calendar entry that matches closely Ford's account. Most of the people in that list were the same mentioned by Ford in her testimony. He drank. On that Thursday night. After working out.

11. He lied about Judge not remembering what happened. Six weeks after the incident, probably mid-August 1982, Ford reported seeing Judge at the Potomac Safeway in River Road near where we live. Local newspapers have confirmed that Judge worked there at the time Ford said. No one has refuted her testimony that Judge was "nervous" and had "turned white." The committee is still refusing to interview or depose or subpoena Judge.

12. He lied that "100 kegs or bust" did not indicate a lot of drinking in 1982-3. He was part of a group endeavoring to drink 100 kegs that year, and his best friend became a serious alcoholic and admitted to sexual assault resembling this assault during that period to his girlfriend. His girlfriend was also not deposed by the committee.

13. He lied about Trump in the first line of his first press conference as nominee. He lied about Trump doing more vetting than for any other Supreme Court nominee in modern history. In fact, Trump vetted much much less than other modern President's, admittedly working from short lists provided by two conservative think tanks, which he announced in advance he would limit his choice to. Several books have confirmed that Trump spent little time on the vetting.

14. He lied that he is "open to any investigation." He is not and is actively participating in blocking the testimony of eye witness Mark Judge, his girlfiend, and other participants. Judge is hiding out in a beach house on the eastern shore and Judge being interviewed by the FBI. Kavanaugh is actively involved in strategizing about evidence suppression, at all day strategy meetings with Trump's lawyers.

15. He lied about the nature of Mark's book. He said that both it was part of his therapy and coming clean as an alcoholic and drug addict, and called the book "fictional." It can't be both a testimonial of a recovering alcoholic and fictional at the same time.

16. He refuses to answer the question again and again about whether or not there should be an investigation and whether or not his friend Mark Judge should be questioned, further belying that he is "open to investigation."

17. He is lying about whether he was the "Bart O'Kavanaugh" in Mark Judge's book. He knows the drunken and vomiting "O'Kavanaugh" is him.

18. He is lying about never having forgot anything about the night after a night of drinking. There are several testimonials from classmates to this effect.

19. He is lying that there is a conspiracy against him and that Ford's charges are trumped up and part of that conspiracy. The best evidence of no conspiracy is how his high school classmate Gorsuch--they were one year about apart at Georgetown Prep--was subject to no such conspiracy, in confirmation hearings just months ago. Gorsuch is honorable. Judge is lying.

20. Kavanaugh supporter Whelan helped concoct the story of other men taking credit for assaulting Ford. Whelan has deleted all of his tweets after being challenged on the completely bogus stories he was advancing by his colleagues. The dissembling tweets are gone.

Senator Blumenthal quoted the legal principle "Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which is a legal principle that dictates jurors can rule a witness to be false in everything if he says one thing that is not true."

If you believe any of the above is correct, you have to come to the conclusion that Kavanaugh is lying and should not be confirmed.

A Supreme Court Justice who can't keep it together during the biggest job interview in his life, and who cannot keep his facts straight and tell the truth shouldn't be hired."

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Animal House and SCOTUS


I am a graduate of Dartmouth College, which was, notoriously, the inspiration for the movie “Animal House.” I went there when it was newly co-ed, when the old contingent was not entirely sold on the presence of women, when alcoholic excess was still the norm in fraternities — the drinking age being 18 at that time.

I was and continue to be repulsed by drunkenness. I avoided fraternities. There was one that was sufficiently sedate that I might have joined, but then there was this story of a former love interest being a member… so that one was out as well. 

It baffled me why people were so attracted to them.  At our fifth reunion, one of the fraternities hosted us at an event. I went.  I told one of my friends, who accompanied me, that I had never set foot in that building previously.  He was quite surprised.  Tho personally very well behaved, he had been a great fan of those drunken jocks.  He couldn’t imagine never going into a frat, never attending a frat party.

What was most distressing to me afterwards, was that those participants in the frat culture, most of whom had gone through drunken and often violent hazing — and inflicted the same on others — ended up profiting economically. They were more likely to end up as highly placed business executives. Their connections helped them in the old boy network.

Those of us who paid attention to our studies, and hung out with others like ourselves, we ended up on the outside looking in.  

And now those same poorly behaved people are asserting their rights to be senators and SCOTUS justices, even after their drunken, violent behavior is exposed.

And people who speak out against this are getting death threats and having to go into hiding. 

I don’t like it.


Sunday, September 16, 2018

Summer 2018 vacation photos

Some of these photos were posted as FB albums.  I've figured out how to embed FB albums.  Unfortunately, tho, I guess you can't really look at these photos unless you have a FB account and can click on the link







My June photos I only have as a google album.  I know how to post a link to a google album, but I don't know how to embed it in the blog so that you get a preview.  These are of Lookout Ledge, Pine Mountain and Mt Crescent

June 2018 hiking photos

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

May and June Updates 2018


This is a clip from my most recent webisode, “Answers to Everything: Episode 2” d Greg Lakhan, Amusement Studios.  It’s dark intentionally, because it’s a late night party.



Got some new headshots.  Feedback appreciated:




Getting back into improv shows, after taking the winter off.

List of performances

Movies I saw recently:
Ocean's 8 (which I was supposed to be background in, but I'm not visible)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (which I liked, tho I gather some hardcore Star Wars fans didn't)

Albums I purchased recently:
Peter Hollens: Legendary Folk Songs
Lucia Micarelli: An Evening with Lucia Micarelli (CD & DVD)

Photos I took recently



Sunday, June 3, 2018

Important: Bystander CPR

IMPORTANT: My kids and I all got bystander CPR lessons at the Tarrytown street fair today. The EMT who trained me said that, sadly, he has never come to a call with a cardiac arrest case and found a bystander attempting CPR. NEVER. Yet even an inept attempt could increase the person's survival chances from 10% (without CPR) to 50% (with CPR).

They've really simplified CPR now. Things that have been eliminated:
- rescue breathing -- hence you don't have to worry about their germs or their vomiting in your mouth
- tilting the head back

- checking for pulse
-
 putting glasses in front of the person's nose to check for breathing (instead you only look visually to see if the chest is rising and falling)


So the sequence is:
1. You see someone is down & seems non-responsive

2. You call 911 and you say you see someone down and you're going to start CPR. You give the location

3. You tap their shoulder and see if they will respond

4. if no, check to see if their chest or stomach is rising and falling

5. if no to 3 & 4, you start chest compressions. You do them 100/minute without stopping until the ambulance arrives. The correct timing is illustrated by the beat in the famous popular song "Staying Alive," which they played for us to help us see how fast to do this.


If you get tired and if someone else is around, you ask for their help. 

Again:no rescue breathing. The compressions cause the lungs to exhale and inhale.

If you start chest compressions promptly, in case of cardiac arrest, the individual will have a 50% chance of survival. If you just leave the person lying there, they have only a 10% chance of survival, by the time the ambulance comes.

They said that you can't hurt the heart by giving them chest compressions when their heart is still breathing. The heart adjusts.

Good Samaritan laws (at least in NY) protect you in case you injure someone. You don't have to worry about breaking their ribs, because that will heal, whereas the brain injuries from lack of oxygen will not.

Saturday, May 12, 2018

Nostalgia -- New Haven

I've always associated Connecticut with my mother's family.  My maternal grandmother was born in Bridgeport.  She also retired there --in Old Lyme -- after the death of her husband.  My aunt Charlotte and uncle Hank lived in Old Saybrook during most of my childhood.  My Aunt Clare has a home in Guilford.  I actually lived in New Haven for a semester when my dad was a visiting professor at Yale. My 2nd cousin, uncle, grandfather, and great grandfather all attended Yale.  My father's former student, Bob Adair, was provost there. 

On 5/11/18 I had an audition in New Haven, so I decided to look up my old neighborhood.  

I remembered it was near a big red bluff.  I didn't remember how very close it was.  This is a view of East Rock, very close to my old house.





I didn't find the house using the bluff, though, I found it by searching for my old school, Worthington Hooker, in google maps. That's what led me there




As I approached the school, I crossed Whitney way.  That immediately rang a bell.  That was the large busy street nearby that I wasn't allowed to cross.

The school looked cheerier and better maintained than I remembered.  It looks like the bricks were recently cleaned and pointed and the windows look new.

I remember thinking it was a large school, but now it looks like it has about 8 classrooms, which seems small to me.  

When I was there, I was in second semester of 4th grade.  This meant that I missed learning Wisconsin geography back home in Wisconsin.  I seem to recall, though, that the math course was slightly more advanced than the one in Wisconsin -- that they were doing long division, which wasn't started until 5th grade back home.

There was a lady working in the garden there.  She said it's now a k-2 school and 4th graders are in an "upper school," whatever that is.

I couldn't remember the name of the street where I lived, but I did remember what the walk was like to get there, so I think I found it.  I think this was it, 165 Cold Spring St.:




It's a corner house.  I didn't remember that part, but it is the same color as it was.  I also remember that one of my schoolmates said it looked like a cuckoo clock because of the double doors out onto the roof over the front porch.  I don't think we ever went out those doors, though, because there was no railing around balcony.

It seemed like a very exciting house when I was a kid, because the whole third floor was a play area, with toys still in it, from the family that normally lived there.  In my home back in Wisconsin, the top floor was an unfinished attic, without a floor -- except for a very small area.  You couldn't really go up there.  It was dark, filthy, and dangerous -- as you could step through the ceiling below.

I guess going up to the third floor seemed like a huge adventure, because I seemingly never explored the neighborhood to discover the huge park only a block away.  More about that later.

I remember thinking that I lived 2 blocks from school, but if I went two blocks away I got to a very long block that I just didn't remember at all, so I think, when I said 2 blocks, I meant that I had to walk a very short distance along Canner St to get to the school.  I was very literal minded. Now I would say it was one block -- really very close.

The house also came with a white parakeet named Julius.  We left our own canary at home.  I don't remember the name of our canary, but I do remember Julius's name.  He was allowed to fly around the house -- or at least he sometimes managed to.  I remember him getting into my dad's hair.  He had quite a personality. Birds have always been my most successful pets. I have one now too.

On the way to my house, I think I noticed a significant house



I think this was Susan Pollack's house.  I wasn't a very social kid. I had a hard time making friends, but I wanted to be friends with her.  I remember thinking that she lived in a very large house indeed.  That made me feel she was important, I guess -- but, as I was driving around the neighborhood, I saw some amazing mansions not far away, across from the park that I apparently wasn't adventurous enough to walk to.

The other thing about Susan Pollack was that she had a microscope.

One afternoon, I managed to get in to see the microscope. I was really excited about finally getting to visit this possible friend. I forgot to call my mom and tell her where I was.  

That turned out to be the afternoon that my grandmother, my mom's mom, had a massive heart attack while visiting my mom.  My mom was frantic to find me and very upset that I hadn't told her where I was -- so my adventure turned into a major disaster.  I never visited Susan again.  This was before the days of cell phones. I would have had to ask Susan's mom if I could call my mom to say where I was and I was too shy to make that request.  

One of my reasons for posting this blog is to try to find Susan.  I wonder if somehow she'll hear about me through this. I've found that blogs sometimes do lead to finding people.

Later, though, the family we were renting from came back and we rented Susan's house.  I was disappointed that the microscope case was still out, but not the microscope.  I guess they were afraid that we would break it.  

Given that I was so fascinated with that microscope, I'm surprised I never got one.  My parents were normally pretty good about getting educational stuff like that for me.  I probably wasn't assertive enough to keep asking for it.  Maybe I would be a biologist or doctor now if I had been more assertive as a kid.

Anyway, now I am adventurous enough to go explore a park and I had a car with me, so I drove around and found a parking lot where you could hike up to the top of "East Rock," the big red bluff that I remembered. 

This was a copper beech, just getting its leaves in, near the parking lot.  


Copper beeches were a big deal to me coming from Wisconsin, because we didn't have them.  My mom said she had investigated getting one for our yard, but was told that Wisconsin was too cold for them. I wonder now, with global warming, whether you could get away with having one there.  They're magnificent trees.

There was actually a road to the top of East Rock, but I was in the mood for a walk







I'm usually in the mood for a walk.  

There were also trails, but I was wearing sandals that were only suitable for a road -- plus I had bare legs, which makes me worry about ticks, so I stayed on the road even though it was longer.  I didn't take one of the water bottles from my car, because I figured there would be a bathroom with water at the top. Also someone told me it would be only 20 minutes to the top. Mistake.

Well, there were chemical toilets at the top, which was some relief, but no water.  Also it was longer than 20 minutes, because I took the long way, and I couldn't walk very fast in those sandals,  They were slightly dressy.  I ended up very thirsty, but fortunately didn't pass out.

It was really a lovely day.  Here are some photos and videos from the top













And still photos




In the photo on the left, you can see the bridge over Mill River, that led to the parking lot where I parked.  Some of this stuff did look familiar, so I'm thinking my parents did take me to this park when I was in 4th grade.  Now, though, given that this was all walking distance from my house, I would have been going up on my own frequently on foot.

At the top was a civil war memorial



It looks like you used to be able to go to the top of this tower, but now it's gated off. Presumably it's too dangerous, or possibly they're afraid of vandalism. I think it may have been open when I was in 4th grade.  The view would be even better from the top of the tower.

So this little trip has turned into a rather long blog -- as if this was important or something.  I guess because New Haven is near Old Saybrook, and when we lived there we saw Uncle Hank, who just died,  and aunt Charlotte, and their children, more often -- it suddenly seems very relevant.  I've been to New Haven for an audition before and not gone to hunt up the old house.

My cousin Kate said she recognized the house.

All in all, it was a very short part of my life, but I reconnected.