B.N. Before Netflix- on our T.V.’s with rabbit ears antennas.

On some “Grey” days we binged as Mc Dreamy took care of Don Draper and diagnosed it as just too much day drinking. We were left confused after Sam Seaborn ( Rob Lowe) exited the West Wing, while salivating over Carmela’s “Sunday Sauce.” Yum to those meat-a -balls. Bada a Bing style. Cannolis from Veniero’s for dessert Please.

And so the story begins when corned beef and pastrami meet on the corner of Potato Knish and Dr. Brown’s Soda. They bump into the Salami on rye with deli mustard sandwich and a pickled tomato from Katz’s deli.

As they all get ready to watch Mr. Ed whisper to Ozzie and Harriet a cute story about (ok who remembers their neighbor?) Thornyp- Played by Don Defore. Yup!
They are meeting over at Donna Reed’s house to watch the Beaver and his brother Wally take on Ken Osmond a.k.a. Eddie Haskell in a game of H-O- R- S-E, in their driveway. After a pot luck dinner, where their luck kicked in with an end cut from the roast beef and bread pudding for dessert they sit around the piano and sing out loud with My Little Margie, Aunt Bee who is getting a ride over with Barney and being escorted by Opie. Oh “kay” then.

Their honored guest is Cosmo Topper. Is the rumbling from behind the curtains coming from George and Marion Kirby Cosmos famed ghosts only he could see? Once we heard a dog bark we knew for certain it was Neil the Kirbys goofy Saint Bernard.

Onto the next after dinner game of Clue which was positioned on top of Monoply in the game closet. We wait for That Girl (Marlo Thomas) to be Bewitched by (Elizabeth Montgomery) all the while Ann Sothern, who came with Don Porter is taking the minutes of the day. Eddie Albert shows up with the fur clad, diamond bearing Eva Gabor from their Green Acres Pad. We all know New York is really where they want to be.

A good time was had by all and they played until they narrowed it down to either Solicitor Peacock or Colonel Mustard being the bad guys who did in Boddy Black. Those were the days…

After sorting through the coats that were pilled on top of the bed in the “master” bedroom they got ready to go home just as Jim Backus announced “I Married Joan,” they all agreed that everyone Loved Lucy.

The category is Sitcoms in the Sixites. We’ll take Columbo for $1000.00 Please. And I quote – “Just one more thing. There’s something that bothers me. One more question from my Wife. What did you pay for those shoes?” Make it a great Saturday and step up your Wheel of Fortune.

Rummaging around the terrace for fruits of our labor. We’ll share a piece or two with our friend and our neighbor. And I quote David Whyte- “the ultimate touchstone of friendship is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”

Hang around someone’s laughter.
Your days will carry a bounty worth the price.
Without much effort, in the absence of strife.
We only live once, not sure about twice.
As adventures roll out 10 for a dollar.
Make them work the the first time, it doesn’t take a scholar.
Visit arcades, take pictures, ice skate galore.
Days filled with penny candy.
You can’t ask for more.
Go bowling, have parties, Dream Big, and sing songs.
Play 9 holes with precision.
Hit the ball straight and long.
As life marches forward add some lyrics to your song.
Pick daises, make wishes, play kick the can.
Have malteds, ice cream sundaes,
Salted pretzels galore.
Kale chips and oat bars are really quite the bore.
Play mah jongg, canasta, bid the Baron
3 clubs.
Be daring, add some lyrics, double down, take a stand.
A Grand Life worth living – Dancing as fast as you can!
Have a Fun Wednesday.

Norman Lear’s sentiments  in Carl Reiner’s documentary on aging “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast,” -exactly! His credo is find your “hammock” and live in the “now.” As he sees it the transition of time in between the “ok it’s over, to what’s next, is when his productivity kicked in. At the end of a writing project, leading with humor and sending a message -he kept hundreds of people in his audience laughing. And I quote- Go Beat that- Happy 100 years yesterday Mr. Lear. 

HBO launched the documentary, catch it if you can. Mel Brooks is hysterical , Dick Van Dyke glides across the dance floor, Norman Lear is brilliant, Carl Reiner orator extraordinare. They were all Nonagenarians -Mr.Reiner RIP -Mr. Lear Happy “100” omg years. 

A big take away message is if you spend too much time working off disappointments and complications you will be one miserable soul. Excuses hold no water when they are used without discretion. Limiting your “woe is me’s” gives you more time to go for the gold. Give hugs, get attention where the tariff is reciprocal and strong. 

The future might be an assumption but when you “find yourself in times of trouble ,” find your version of Mother Mary and become the ambassador of your estate. One thing the long “livers”had in common, whether or not chopped “liver” and french fries were mainstay’s, is that they fell in love with lots of things. They attached passion to their activities. They honed hobbies and had specific collections. Please pass the salt and pepper shakers -collection strong. Cole Porter, hit it- “The night is young, the skies are clear-So if you want to go walking dear. It’s delightful, it’s de-lovely, it’s delirious.” Make it a good week-end. You have a head start!

Recognize opportunities
somethings only come around once.
Don’t bank on luck alone.

Greta Gerwig, who conceived and directed the buzzy live-action film released this month, told The New York Times that she hopes watching the movie will be a quasi-spiritual activity for its viewers. The feeling she wants to achieve, she said, is the same one she felt as a child when she was a guest at the Shabbat dinners of close family
friends who were observant Jews.
“I remember feeling the sense of, ‘Whatever your wins and losses were for the week, whatever you did or you didn’t do, when you come to this table, your
value has nothing to do with that.!’ Amen!

Nostalgia Needed Mid Summer.

A -my name is Alice and my husband’s name is Al, we come from Alabama and we sell Apples. As I open the cupboard on memories, bouncing a Spaulding as we sang the A my name is Alice rhyme, lifting our leg over the ball with each bounce, was an all time great walk around the corner and under a tree.

A primordial work out and creative singing lesson all in one.
My sister Bettie Ann and I grew up together and hung with the “girls on the block.” At lunchtime we stopped playing and walked home for our tuna sandwich or the treat of salami on rye, only made better with the delicious taste of deli mustard. After lunch we would stroll to the all purpose grocery store. I can vividly see the barrel of pickles prominently sitting next to the left of the front door. We would use part of our allowance to buy candy. Our first go to was a striped pixy stick, a straw filled with lik-m-aid. For those in the know it’s a tasty sugary/sour retrospective in time. The original version of Fun Dip. We would then mosey over to the red licorice and marshmallow peeps. At Halloween the chicks turned into orange faced pumpkins. Fast forward 60 years.

It‘s 6:00 A.M. time to put up the coffee, my turn to “make the donuts.” I woke up salivating for a piece of my past, inside that grocery store. Bettie Ann and I would bring our bag of goodies up to the counter. The familiar face of the man, (whose name we never knew) would take the pencil he harbored behind his ear and tally up our treats.
With our visual bounty in hand we would skip our way home and unveil the contents, perhaps trade a piece or two.
Our afternoons were often consumed through adventures with Dick and Jane, The Bobbsey Twins or figuring out if Nancy Drew was ever going to hook up with one of the Hardy Boys.
As we felt the heat of the oven cooking sweet potatoes we knew they would soon be sitting next to the very well done baby lamb chops and canned peas Sophie was making for dinner.

A welcomed pre-dinner activity was watching Patty Duke and her identical cousin navigate their way through high school. We often tried to distinguish between the subtleties in their looks. Hmmm! I long for those days of innocence when our doctor appointments took place as we sat upon the kitchen table. Say Ah! A Blood test was done through a prick in our finger. The local store that sold glass bottles of milk and farmer cheese made no room on the shelf for ammunition. Dwight D. Eisenhower was President.

Everybody in Grover’s Corners looked into the grocery store and the drugstore once a day in “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder. It is with older eyes and wiser hearts that we live our lives. So, just for today, don‘t skimp on passion, reach for the red licorice after a very sour pickle and make it a good Sunday!

Sing along- make it Simple to last your whole life long.

. Tony, Tony Bo-Bony

You were the Man everyone wanted to be around if “somebody broke our heart.” We would dress in our “blue velvet” garb and know if we were in a “ New York State of Mind.,” listening to you croon a tune- would help us “pick up the pieces.”

You certainly led “ The Good Life. Your certain something felt familiar to us not like a “stranger in paradise. “Because of you,” we knew “ body and soul,” “ the best was yet to come.”

So if we were going from “rags to riches “ one moment in time” we would get “pennies from heaven, “ if we were standing in the “the shadow of your smile.”

In pied piper fashion, never skimping on passion and “young at heart“ we believed “everyday would be the first day of spring, every heart would have a new song to sing- and we’d sing of the joy every morning would bring- “if you ruled the world.”

Tony, like Sinatra said you were the “Best of the Best.” We’d sacrifice anything come what might. For the sake of having you near.
“ Under our skin”-“Body and Soul.”

There were times – We got no kick from champagne – but we “got a kick out of you.”

In Duet style Lullaby’s on Broadway with Elton, Lady Gaga, Sting, K.D. Lang , Barbra with an A and Billy Joel you left no question in our minds that:

“oh the good life to be free and explore the unknown, like the heartaches when you learn you must face them alone. “For once in our life”-with “the very thought of you” we will put on a happy face and Never kiss the Good Life good bye. “

“Are you having any fun.
What y’gettin out of living?
Who cares for what you got.
If you’re not having any fun!
What a Life!

. A. e I. o. u.
A virtual who knew.
A little siri a lot of algorithms.
What is right or is it true?
Am I writing this, or is it coming from You?
I before E except after C.
Artificial sweetener not good for you.
Not good for me.

That was the week that was.
“And All the News that’s Fit to Print“
Appears on the masthead of our daily read.
Will creativity be abbreviated?
Or replaced by a digital degree?

We write some prose add a lyric or two.
Original thoughts add a concept we construe.
Will our world as we know it.
In the simple and true.
Be usurped by learning techniques wiser than me, bigger than you?

ChatGPT can create an AI text.
But our experiences we behold.
Recalling our adventures a computer code can’t unfold.

Keeping our erasers, our inkwells close by.
Our modus operandi holding our head towards the sky.
Our feelings are our treasures that can’t be taken away.
Regardless of the fact AI is here to stay.

Great American Playwright. Born on the 4th of July.
Reposting- after binging Neil Simon Movies.

Goodbye Eugene- hearing the news of your passing has given us the “Biloxi Blues.”

Whether we were “Barefoot in the Park, while “Lost in Yonkers” or hitching a ride home from “Brighton Beach” we waited to hear Jonathan Schwartz “Playing our Song,” on WQXR American Standard Radio. Marvin Hamlisch played Carole Bayer Sager’s lyrics to his music with his particular Zip-a-dee-doo-dah enthusiasm. We swayed along and knew all the words. Your collaborations with Mike Nicols and Gene Zaks prolifically chronicled our youth. Oh Neil, we got hooked when we read your name amongst the credits as we watched Sgt. Bilko, played with such guile on The Phil Silvers show. We waited to hear your interviews with Joan Hamburg on 77 WABC to learn what play was next to be “Broadway Bound.” Her interviews typically came at the end of her show after the bargain shopping and food segments. (Shout out to Shelly Fireman, my forever friend and his spin on delicious Italian fare.) Even if we left the house to spatzere around our favorite thrift shops we heard your familiar very New Yawkish sounding voice broadcasted live. The two of you had a repartee we so enjoyed, although we considered you quite the “Odd Couple.”

We marveled at the big city duplex apartments with sunken living rooms, and gilded cage appeal that set the stage for many of your playbooks. Was Willy’s (Walter Matthau) apartment at the beaux arts Ansonia really that big? We thought it could possibly the best pad ever to play hide and go seek. Did Jane Fonda actually run around “Barefoot in the Park” as she pleaded with Robert Redford to try again to save their marriage? We wanted to live in her apartment as soon as we moved to the Village. We knew we didn’t want to live uptown and become a “Prisoner on Second Avenue.” We weren’t sure you could top the episode when Felix Unger walked into Oscar Madison’s cluttered apartment to try to get back together with Gloria. You certainly did when you portrayed the classic “Northeast distributor of Guilt,” and had Molly Picon threaten to keep her head in the oven over the troubles with her bachelor sons.

Our take away quote of yours is “ if you can go through life without experiencing pain you probably haven’t been born yet.” RIP Neil Simon- we’re sure you’ll be filling them with laughter in Suite 203-04 during your “Chapter Two.”