30 Days

 

 

 

So I’ve been retired for 30 days or abouts and was waiting for what changes I’d see. One thing that took forever was trying to sleep later. I didn’t need an alarm anymore but I kept waking up between 4 to 5AM anyways. My alarm was set it for that time when working to give me some “me time” before going in. Now that I was free of work, I still kept waking up naturally at 5ish.

Today, I rolled over and saw the dawn light in the window instead of the usual blackness. With a quick look at the radio, it said 6AM. OK, some improvement. Took damn long enough to get it though. To be honest as well, if I get up after 7, I feel I’m wasting the day already.

Guess what else hasn’t happened since I left. I have not had a single episode of muscle cramps. I would get them twice or more a week in both thighs, both calves and my left hand for years now, each year increasing in frequency. Now, not a single occurrence. For too many times I would have dropped to the floor, while the muscles in the backs of both thighs could tighten up at the same time for a good 15 minutes while I was gritting my teeth and swearing, on the floor, the front yard lawn or wherever. Once, it was fun when it happened while driving on 95 and my entire right leg locked up...and I was driving manual transmission car. The cramps have disappeared thank God.

Add to that my hips have not bothered me much and less so as time went by. The big test was that big snowstorm we got. I was out there slinging that stuff around and when I went inside, I had just a slight annoyance in my hip that went away in under 20 minutes.

How about that. If I don’t beat the crap out of my body with a job meant for younger men...I manage to heal up some. (The girl who replaced me, “L,” I’m am glad to hear, is totally killing it at her new job! I’m sure being 19 has a lot to do with it! No leg cramps!). Hopefully other physical benefits will arise I have no idea about yet.

I did realize I need some exercise (instead of living on the couch) but of a different sort which I discovered at my first official visit to the senior center. I was all for getting free physical therapy in some of the various classes they had so I tried the arthritis one, as I am sort of afflicted with now.

Holy shit! Did I find out just how tight and bound up my tendons are and never mind the joints! Some of the move they had the class do..I swear some of my tendons wanted to rip themselves off the bone. No, it’s not Olympic stuff, the exercises are all geared to used up, worn out old farts like me and it still, for me at least, was a bitch to do.

I need to keep at this.

There used to be a Tai Chi class I’d see in the park that’s behind me with about 30 people in it, They’d follow the moves of, and this is stereotypical, the Tai Chi Master Qiang who had longish white hair and a goatee. A few days later, with the help of YouTube, I found a Tai Chi instructor you could follow along with.

Tai Chi looks beautiful, graceful...and above all...EASY! But some of those moves put you into positions that require you tense up 2/3 of the muscles in your body while trying not to fall over since your center of gravity has shifted to areas you never had to compensate for.

I will first do the simple kiddy stretching stuff first before I try Tai Chi again.

****

I worried about boredom but it hasn’t happened. There was a lot of shit around this house I was ignoring and I went on a tear fixing it all. Boxes filled with financial statements, paid bills and other stuff I finally sorted and filed away properly. I created spreadsheets to track my spending as I truly need a good idea of what I’m blowing month to month, so far, it’s within what I thought it would be but I like tight numbers to be sure. I also have been tweaking my ears to music I hadn’t sat down and listened to in a while and some nice surprises arose from that. Sugar Ray’s “Fly” had some moments I was clueless about, like a rasping guitar interlude...which I never knew was there before. It’s nice to focus on that once again as that stereo system I have is my altar to worship at.

****

I have not set foot in Quinn’s bar in months, not that I was worried about that but the thought cropped up I might due to boredom. No, my light-weight status regarding alcohol still stands. I doubt I’ll start a career of spending my retirement hours drunk as shit by 1PM on a Tuesday.

I DO have to watch what I eat though. Before that bastard snow storm, I was whipping up a real, bonafied french classical bechamel sauce to dump on potatoes to bake in the oven, a Gratin Dauphinoise. Each spoonful of that is a terrorist calorie bomb. Oh well, moderation I have to keep front and center to avoid ballooning out worse than I am. Though, I’ll probably gain a few as now I can cook at leisure instead of against a clock.

****

I was curious if I’d be happier in retirement but my mood didn’t go there 24/7. At times I was grateful for the free time and not having to rush and could take all damn day to do something. Another happy moment was that my legs actually felt...good. It’s a wonderful feeling I haven’t felt in years. I could feel the relaxation in them.

What has happened now is that I find I am less disappointed. I have left a lot of that negativity others can bring. I don’t hear lame excuses why you can’t come to work. “You ain’t coming in?” And before I let them finish the excuse I hang up. It got to the point there was no point in knowing why and my courtesy disappeared. Add to that I don’t have to watch them do a shoddy job if they did show up later. I don’t have to step in to fix fuck ups others leave...and fixing those from other departments I had nothing to do with but when something lands in your lap half done and broken, guess who has to repair it?

And this was a huge one for me which ran up my spine since I was sooo OCD about accuracy and safety; being given the wrong information.

“You say it’s for room 269A ? Right?”

“Yeah, 269A….No...I mean 169A….B! It’s B!” And then they hang up fast as I am nearly shouting into the phone...”Don’t You Hang UP yet!”

Click.

“God dammit!” And the kids across the room stop and look at me and wonder why I am shouting.

Already I suspect the request is wrong. I look up the diet for 169B and it’s loaded with restrictions...and what they called down for the patient can never have.

“Sigh...time to play detective again and get the correct info.” I thought to myself. Wrong room? Wrong patient? Wrong everything? Every God Damn day this happens.

This has happened hundreds of times in my time there.

It’s not happening now to me because I am not there.

Without all these people failing me...I am less disappointed now.

****

What I am going to say next will sound mean.

I once opined to my coworkers there, who mainly are from West Warwick, this. I always wondered what happened to those lazy/stupid/idiotic kids I knew in Pawtucket schools who just stubbornly refused to do the work or just enough to graduate. They felt they were smart by doing as little as possible because work was for suckers. While working at that particular facility, I kept having flashbacks to that time when I was in school (I wonder why?).

So I absent mindlessly say this to my West Warwick coworkers.

“Hey, I know where all those lazy kids I knew back then ended up! They all moved to West Warwick and work here!”

Their faces looked like they just sniffed burnt cat fur when I said that.

Whoops! I just insulted their home town.

Oh well. I had to deal with those types of people for too long and I mouthed off. That’s another thing that happens to you when u get older, you don’t care and mouth off more often.

So, in my retirement, I have ran into less lazy moronic fucks...but I won’t be able to escape them altogether. But fewer is definitely better.

We’ll see what else happens now in the coming months.

 

 

Crabby Shack

 

 

The Fun Mafia Story

I never got used to clam flats or it’s mud, they just plain stink. I found that to be true about of wharves where commercial vessels tie up at as well. The water is stagnant, the docks stink of tar and creosote and the first stage of fish processing starts there, which can reek. But guess what, they put restaurants right next to them because those places can be tourist magnets.

The town wharf in Plymouth is no different, it too has long docks and restaurants and Barn and I went to one that’s now called the Crabby Shack next to Cap’n John’s Boats.

“Oh, you’ll get used to the smell. I have.” says he.

“Yeah, you lived here on and off for 60 years...your nostrils are fried from it!”

The waitress comes and Barn whips out his license, shows it to her and we order a couple of beers. I ask “Do they card everyone, no matter what age?” and he tells me he did that so we get townie prices. I find out townie prices are what businesses will charge locals instead of the ‘non-consenting rape prices’ they hit the tourists with.

“I’m just proving to her ‘we’re from here’ and it’ll knock off a good 30-40% on the final bill.”

I get my fave, fried scallops and he his clams w/ bellies (which are killer too) and we dig in. As we eat, I ask him how the hell he ended up in Rhode Island anyway, where I first met him to begin with that long ago.

In 1985 he had just finished up another stint with the 2^nd fleet but this time as a retired civilian (teaching history to the sailors who were advancing their educations while at sea) and that shadowy job he used to do when active as a Commander.

So he’s back home for a few months, gets bored and starts applying for positions as a professor of history around New England. He gets hired by two places, Bryant U and Rhode Island College.

“So a month before classes start, I look for and find a really cheap apartment on Penn St in Providence, in it’s Little Italy off Atwells Ave...you know where.”

He tells me he gets moved in and starts exploring the neighborhood on foot.

“I made the best decision! I got an apartment for nothing and if I walk a few streets down...all the best Italian stores and restaurants are there!”

About a block down from his place, Barn sees a very small bar that has all it’s windows and doors wide open to the street. He walks by it, thinks and then goes back to get a beer and maybe meet some of the neighbors that live there.

As he goes in, there’s a bartender and in the corner, a group of guys drinking and playing cards at a table. He sallies up to the bar and orders a beer.

“Uh...I can’t really serve you.” the bartender says.

“Why? Barn asks surprised. “You’re open, wide open for everyone to see….you served THOSE guys there in the corner.” The guys in the corner stop playing and look up.

The bartender is nervous and then says, “We’re not that kind of bar here...perhaps you should try another place.”

Barn was undeterred and didn’t quite understand why the place, wide open to the street, isn’t serving him.

The bartender then says, “Look, don’t take this personal but this is a private club...you have to be a member to drink here.”

To which Barn says..”Ohhhh, I get it. OK, fine….can I Join?”

Once Barn says that the guys in the corner start laughing.

He goes on. “They all started laughing at what I said but not a loud as this big fat guy that was there. He was wearing black pants, white shoes and a white shirt opened so low that his fat man titties were nearly out.”

The fat one, laughing had also said: “Huh! Huh! Huh! You hear that! He wants to join our club!”

Another one at the table tells Barn, “Youze don’ understand..this a real special club for special guys!”

Out of curiosity, the fat one asks Barn his name.

“Barn Barufaldi” He tells them.

The guys stop laughing and fat man asks, “Where’s your family from in Italy?”

“Cento, north of Bologna...nearing the Italian Alps.” Barn tells him.

After hearing this the fat one says. “Hey Luca, get this guy a beer! It’s on us!”

So Barn drinks it and talks to the guys. After that he thanks them and leaves.

A day or so later, he tells his landlord who lives on the first floor the same story about that bar.

“Do you anything about the Patriarca family?” the landlord asks.

“I have heard of them…” Barn says.

The landlord tells Barn he had walked into one of their little neighborhood hang outs and the fat one ran gambling operations.

“Ohhhhhh…” sez Barn “that sort of explains things.”

But Barn isn’t scared not shooed off when he returns to it.

After a few more visits to that bar, fat man finds out Barn is a professor at RIC and is teaching a class his daughter is in. She’s is having a great time at RIC and loves Barn’s class because Barn was helping her get along as she had trouble at times, scholastically. He hadn’t known prior that she was the daughter of anyone of merit.

The guy, taking a liking to Barn tells him, “Look, youze is new here..youze need anything, have any problems, youze come to me. I can help. OK?”

****

By the time I graduated RIC, the history department head had changed from Norman Smith to George Kellner, whom Barn detested. Apparently Kellner couldn’t stand Barn either, but Kellner was the Dept head and/or “boss” now.

Barn would show up to his classes dressed head to toe in sweat pants, shirts. Sometimes in some real Guido white pants and flashy shirts and many times in his tennis get up, sweating like a pig from whacking a ball around on the college’s courts. To look at him you’d never guess he was a professor and certainly not dressed like the staid conservative history profs that populated the history department, some looking like they taught at stuffy Cambridge.

“Once Kellner got the department head job, I knew he was going to use it to push me out. He never liked me one bit.” Barn had liked to do things, ‘his way’ but at the same time uphold classes/college’s reputation.

“I can prove to the Dean, that all of my exams, fully satisfy validity and reliability scores..can Kellner claim the same? I’d love to know!”

Barn liked too blow off departmental meetings or show up very late to them. When Norman Smith ran the place, he was pretty liberal, easy going and would just tell Barn what was discussed later on or a week later. It was no big deal. Kellner however…

“Nice of you to join us Mr. Barufaldi.” Kellner told him one time, as Barn came in late to the meeting, looking like a pig from playing tennis.

Kellner then wants Barn to run a summer session course as no one else seems to want to do.

“No.” Barn tells him.

“NO?! I need YOU to take over this course!” Kellner tells him, getting visibly pissed as Barn tells me.

Barney sits down at the table, clacking his tennis racket on it and says, “I won’t be here. In a week, I’ll be flying to Brisbane...I’m spending the entire summer in Australia...why don’t YOU pick up that course.”

“Ron” Barn says, “His face got beet red! Kellner wanted to kill me!”

“Mr. Barufaldi, I feel your heart isn’t really ‘with’ our department, I would like to see more cooperation! We need someone to fill that spot.”

To which Barn gets up, picks up his racket and as he is leaving the room, turns around to tell Kellner “No” again and that he already planned and paid for his trip there. Now being a bit miffed, he fires a shot at him as he asks Kellner when was the last time he was published in a a major journal. As a professor, “Publish or Perish” is a real thing. Along with your teaching job, you have to keep researching and publishing articles to keep adding to that body of knowledge. It’s a sort of unwritten law with professors and that culture.

As Barney waited for an answer from Kellner, he says, “I’ll answer that for you...you HAVEN’T published anything in over five years….know when I did last? 13 months ago in the Contemporary European History journal!”

****

Later on Barn tells that same story to fat man from the bar to which he suggests he can, with a few friends, “Slap Kellner around a bit..just to send a message.”

“You were going to have Kellner put under a contract?” I ask.

“You know...I thought of it..for a bit..but decided it wasn’t worth it, Kellner was a prick and I was going to quit RIC and Bryant U anyways after I came back from Australia. I knew I wanted to keep traveling, do that old Navy job again...but still...fat man was going to do this w/o payment and it did sound fun! God, Kellner was this close to motivating me.”

***

The waitress arrives with the bill it was was surprisingly cheap for what we ordered after all. I was expecting it to be much higher but townie prices do work, if you’re a local. Every time I had gone to Plymouth, I’d gas up the car, do some food shopping here at home instead of being overcharged there.

It’s nice to have connections at times.

 

 

Siasconset

 

 

If you know me, I lovvve to tell stories. I probably have a few hundred of them and some of them I would tell only to a certain trusted few who would understand. Who would get it? Anyone who gets sick, black humor and had to have lived with silly absurdity at some point in their lives...and knows that a certain kind of humor can make ludicrousness tolerable. Mainly my audience were the late teens I would work with and I’d entertain them with what growing up in the 70s was like. And how we got away with stuff that would get us arrested today, or at least sent to a psychiatric hospital. Topics I won’t elaborate on here just yet would include: murdering gerbils, beating the crap out of a Hasbro Inch Worm rider toy, spitting in Johnny’s mouth (not me but an older boy at the time), RJ’s bold joke of whipping his dick out in class when he was 13 or ramming a goat’s heads into a cement pillar. Bet that last one piqued your curiosity.

And no, I wasn’t the lead star in all of these stories, but I did witness them.

****

Also, I love to hear stories, if they’re good enough. An old friend, who was lucky enough to travel the world had grown up in Plymouth and the Cape and he had plenty of stories. Probably the most eye opening one to me was his time he spent in Berkeley CA living next door to the Peking Man House and w/o knowing that a cell of the Symbionese Liberation Army commune was living there. They’re the ones who kidnapped Patty Hearst.

Barn held various jobs as a teen and one at his aunt’s general store in downtown Plymouth. This gave him some experience in retail and then he was sent to another aunt’s store for one summer in Nantucket.

“I didn’t want to go.” he tells me. “Nantucket in the 50’s was a desert, nothing happened there at all, but I was a nephew in a traditional Italian family and you go where you are sent to help out relatives.”

He looks at me, “To you..Nantucket is a paradise, a destination, billionaires live there. It was never like that in the 50s...it was a lonely outpost no one knew about...and because of that, many Hollywood stars would vacation there. You could disappear there and the locals left you alone.”

“But with every cool place where artists, stars, actors and writers live, it gets exposed when word gets out and then everybody wants to go there and fucks up forever, the vibe.”

His aunt had a general store in Siasconsett, on the southeastern side of Nantucket. Barn lived with her and every morning, would ride his bike to the store which was all of 40 yards from the beach there. He would clean it, stock shelves and occasionally run the register as people came in and out during the day.

“My aunt told me when I started that certain people would come in and if I recognized them, to shut up, act like I didn’t know them.” To tell the truth, there were Hollywood stars who came in I never recognized at all.”

“Then one day, as I ran the register, this guy comes in, buys milk, eggs and bread an I rung him up and off he went”

“My aunt then asks from one of the aisles with a mile wide grin, ‘You know who THAT was?’”

“Who?” says Barn.

“Ray Bolger” his aunt tells him.

“Who’s Ray Bolger?” asks Barn.

Hearing this I say...“Yeah, who’s Ray Bolger?” as I am just as clueless.

Barn goes on. “Ever see the Wizard of Oz?”

“Yeah, prob 50 times.” I say.

“Ray Bolger was the Scarecrow...look it up one day!” he says.

He explains…

“Ray Bolger, I found out quick, did summer stock theater on the Cape and at Priscilla Beach Theater in Plymouth back then. When he wasn’t on stage, he hid out on Nantucket but was close enough to head back to do shows.”

“There were a bunch of others who came through that store but they have no relevance to you, just old 30’s and 40’s actors and actresses...but I know you KNOW that one!”

 **** 

After a bit I chime in about an autobiography I had read, The Summer of ‘42 that was set in Nantucket in those older times.

“Herman Raucher?” says Barn. Raucher was the author.

“What...you meet HIM too there?” I ask.

“No, but the oldsters on that island know that story well, once it came out and putting two and two together, they figured out who the protagonists were.”

Summer of ‘42 was an autobiography of a 15 year old Raucher when he was vacationing there with his parents. He recounts how he became enamored with a young married women, Dorothy. She was in her 20s who was vacationing there, alone, as her husband was overseas fighting in WW2. The two eventually meet and struck up an innocent friendship. One day, she receives a telegram telling her that her husband was killed when his plane was shot down over France. That night, she seduces Raucher and sleeps with him.

Within a day or so, she had left the island but left note behind for the young Raucher which I will paraphrase.

“I’m sorry...I can’t explain why I did what I did with you. When I got that telegram, I needed someone...anyone..to be with..I was so struck with loneliness. I hope I didn’t harm you. When you are older, maybe you will understand.”

Raucher never did have bad feelings about her or the event. In fact, he looked back on it with happiness as any teen boy would feel at first being laid. It was such a perfect memory he wrote that book about it and it hit hard on the NY Times best seller list.

Raucher never did see her again and I mention that to Barn too.

“Oh! But he DID meet her again, in a way.” Barn tells me.

“Over the decades and because the book was a bestseller, Raucher got letters saying she was the real Dorothy that he had known. But the letters were so vauge or full of blatant inaccuracies that he dismissed them...until he got a letter one day that stunned him. Raucher said it was so full of detail of her summer home, the times and their very quick relationship that he knew this was THE Dorothy.”

She had moved on. Got married again grew old and had grankids when she finally wrote to him because she was fully aware that it was HER in that book. She finally reached out to him.

“I peddled my bike by that summer house many times when I worked in that store and had no idea of it, or what it would represent one day.” Barn says.

I might tell the story of Barn and the Patriarca family when he lived on Penn St that was by Atwells Ave when he taught at RIC.

Or I could explain how a goat’s hardened head was used as hammer by a friend once. If I feel safe about it, perhaps I will.

Jeez, did I grow up with some pretty bizarro types then. Well, the mafia story will be funny and...more normal than some of the other tales I was witness too.