A Dare to be Great Situation

We are fatigued. We are spirit-worn, afraid, and sore. We have been bloodied and bruised and bloodied again by our own race – the human one, the one in which we all have a stake.

Whether it’s Paris. San Bernadino. Beirut. It hardly matters any more, for we’ve turned against ourselves. On December 1, 2015 the mother of a six month old deliberately shot and killed other mothers. And had there been a six month old nearby, she would have killed an infant as well.

My mind tries to make sense of this and fails because the pains of Sandy Hook and so many other shootings dwell within me, festering again each time another atrocity takes place. Imagine the agony of those who loved these innocents.

This morning, quite by accident, I came upon an old DVD, the Concert for New York, which helped the world get through 9/11, and it occurred to me – the time has come again:  We need another concert – a big one – the biggest ever – the most united ever. We need to stand up and sing together. We need to raise our voices and praise who we are when we’re at our best. We need to show the strength of our hearts and the power of our spirits.

And while the music plays, we need to weep – together – to mourn who some of us have become and to lead the rest of us toward each other. We need to reach out and find ourselves together, offering shoulders upon which to cry and hearts with which to meld. It is the music that will do that.

The concert I produce in my head stars every great voice and instrumentalist of our times. It goes on for days – just blasting music from venues all over the world into the air, filling it with song. Then, at a designated moment, musicians worldwide begin to play “We are the World,” and we all – the world - come out of our homes, with speakers raised to the sky, and voices singing about who we are. 

“There comes a time when we hear a certain call.

When the world must come together as one

There are people dying and it's time to lend a hand

To life the greatest gift of all.”  *

So how’s this going to affect the savage beasts whom music does not soothe? Well, it’s not about them for a change. It’s about us – the good people, the people you and I love – the ones who want love to prevail. We are the world, and we need to stand together and say it.

So that’s my plan.  Any takers? Quincy? Lionel? Bono? Bruce? Beyonce?

Suzanne McLain Rosenwasser is the author of several books:

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*Songwriters

  RICHIE, LIONEL / JACKSON, MICHAEL

  Published by
  Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

Baseball & The Relation between Father & Son: BaseballBlog: 001 ...

Baseball & The Relation between Father & Son: BaseballBlog: 001                                 ...: Baseball Blog: 001                                    By: Chris Rosenwasser Baseball & The Relationship between Father & Son ...

Beltline Beauty: Atlanta's Lantern Parade

Today’s List:

1. You must enter Atlanta's lantern parade into your 2016 calendar immediately.

2. If you won’t be in Atlanta the second Saturday of September 2016, check to see if there is a lantern parade somewhere nearby. Or, start one.

I was at the 2015 Lantern Parade in Atlanta last night, sitting on the last leg of the route. I was cracking neon jewelry for the three pre-k’s I was with and chatting with their parents who were trying to keep the paper lanterns we made on the sticks that held them. Not an easy task because when wielded by a three-year-old these things become weapons. However, since everyone is getting stuck by someone else’s lantern pole, it makes for a merriness.

In fact, the whole night was riddled with glee. Well, not the moment when two of the pre-k’s lost their helium balloons, but certainly the rest of it.

Across the Beltline path from us a small combo played Baby Boomer hits while the night fell. The pre-K’s danced in neon abandon and we all scurried about trying to corral them into a limited space as the crowds arrived. Then the moon came up, the stars came out, and the glow of a community of light surrounding us pulsed with that wonderful hum of a city at play.

And trust me, Atlantans came out to play on the Beltline last night. We saw jellyfish lanterns and Hindenburg lanterns; Minion, Madonna, and makeshift lanterns. We saw people strung up, down, and around with twinkling lights; Segways in neon glory; a group setting off beaming, flying saucers in unison; people tossing glowing Frisbees back and forth from the path to the overpass. We saw neon dreadlocks, neon footwear, neon signs, and neon nonsense. We saw half-naked women walk by painted in body glow wonder.

And then the parade reached us.

It was led by the brightly lit and legendary Atlanta marching band, The Abominables. Twinkling umbrellas twirled, gleaming trombones blared, and a glowing pumpkin head conducted. What followed was a stream of people having a great deal of fun while filling some more people with a great deal of delight.

                                                       

Bravo, Atlanta, what a spectacle of home-made beauty! Families paraded with themed lanterns, pulling neon bedecked kids in red wagons, followed by friends with flashing lasers, and neighbors  in neon hats.  There were two enormous, flowing white birds, so airy their wings kissed our cheeks as they passed to ooohs and ahhhs of every caliber. We applauded, we cheered, and we even got a little teary.

The softness of the lanterns floating on the first crisp wafts of fall was just the right touch for the summer weary and wobegeone among us. We all came to that parade last night with some weight burdening our neon glow – from lost balloons to lost youth; lost hope to lost faith; lost health to lost love. But somehow when the night fell, the pooled light of all that creativity infused us with a profound truth. Together, we can light the way. Together, Atlanta did it last night.


Suzanne McLain Rosenwasser is the author of several books:

Order paperbacks or ebooks at all online sellers or click here for Amazon orders:
http://amazon.com/author/suzannerosenwasser

Visit:  http//:www.suzannerosenwasser.com

My 50th High School Reunion. Seriously.

My 50th high school reunion is this year. 

I'm sure everyone who utters this statement feels the same lack of belief that I do.

      I remember running into a group of 50th reunion revelers when I was in college. I was with some of my Long Island high school friends in a Boston bar on  Commonwealth Avenue. We were surprised to find our hangout was filled with old people whose hangout this had been once. They sought us out, bought us drinks, and told us stories of their student days in Boston, around 1914. Fossils, right? I don't remember any of the stories, but one of the guys I was with started calling our elders "White Rabbits."

(As a refresher the reference is to Lewis Carroll who described the 
White Rabbit as "elderly, feeble, timid, and nervously shillyshallying.")

Fifty years later the White Rabbits of that evening reappear in my mind's eye, but I don't see myself or my high school friends among them - and I'm sure those White Rabbits didn't see us as we saw them.
       I wonder how 50 years will look on the expressions of my school friends when I see them - many for the first time since 1965? The classmates I've seen regularly over the years haven't aged a bit from my perspective. Oh, when I first see them coming towards me, maybe, but five minutes into a conversation and nothing has changed. We've shared youth and energy for so long - some of us since Kindergarten - that it is part of who we are when we're together.
      What amazes me is that same feeling has come through the telephone when I've talked to long-lost friends about our upcoming reunion. I don't know what they look like these days, since we're not on face-time nor are we facebook friends, so it's the voice that triggers the link. There's no "quavering," no "shilly-shallying." It's just as we always were.
    Of course, the changes show through: We aren't discriminatory about who our friends are any more. We suffer deep pauses to honor the trials of our lives. We overuse the phrase: "Remember when...." We recall that since our last reunion in 1997, dear ones have died, long marriages have ended, and a multitude of grandchildren have been born.
       But all of that fades away when we allow ourselves the luxury of settling back into the friendship and fun of high school, turning the sturm and drang of it into humor because we were teenagers then, and we also went to a Catholic school where boys and girls attended classes in separate buildings after 8th grade commencement.
      However, in our town, we are fortunate to have a unifying element: The Tender Bar, made famous in JR Moehringer's memoir of the same title. The bar, now known as Edison's, was called Gino's in our iteration of the same place. Today, the bar hosts nearly every Friday night open house for Manhasset's public and parochial school reunions. The layout is exactly the same, and if the music is right, Baby Boomers will be able to imagine "Gary and the Wombats" playing in the back room while we dance away the years into memories.
        These will comprise:
        Performing at or going to the New York World's Fair; imitating the Rolling Stones for a school review; hearing a gifted classmate sing "Let There Be Peace on Earth."
     

      There will be memories of Mission Day, when the boys got to come to the girls' school, or proms at the Garden City Hotel where nuns and brothers greeted us upon entry, or the Boulevard nightclub in Queens where Dione Warwick entertained us in the wee hours after our senior dance.
          Someone will bring up the trip to Notre Dame University; a religious retreat to eastern Long Island; basketball games followed by sock hops in the boys' gym; cross country; baseball; cheerleading; the Tumbling Team; the Magnificat; the Recordare, and the demerits we got for being "out of uniform."  Oh, and a most important fact: The 1965 Girls' School Sports' Night ended in an unprecedented Blue and White tie.
        So, for full disclosure, I wasn't going to go to this reunion until the other day when a friend since Kindergarten called and said: "How many chances are we going to get to go to a 50th reunion?"
        I realized she was right. I wasn't a huge fan of high school itself, (although I taught in the field for 25 years), but I loved the people in that little micro-cosm of life. The girl in homeroom who sat in front of me from Kindergarten through 12th grade. The boy at my first sock hop who asked me to dance. Al, the crossing guard at Northern Boulevard who joked us across the street ("Yackety-Yak"). George at Town Hall Pharmacy who made us prove we had money before letting us in the door. The parents who let us drive their convertibles under starlit skies from Shore Road to Sands Point and back again. The bouncers who let us into Gaffney's, My Father's Place, the Jaunting Car Pub, and the Scratch. The bartender in Gino's who announced my mother had just called to say: "Come home, now!"
        I've decided I want to remember these things with the Class of 1965, the kids who went off to college in full prep school dress, only to return at Christmas in blue jeans and tie-dyed shirts. The ones who went off to pursue a religious life. The ones who went off to war. The ones who became poets, parents, and professors; lawyers, sales reps, doctors, traders, realtors, and heroes. All of us. For this is a chance to look at who we were then, who we are now, and the distance in between - a view that doesn't come often in life.

*****

Also, the Friday night get-together will be November 6, 2015, beginning at 7:30 (pay as you go) at Edison’s (the old Gino’s). One of the beauties of public or private school in Manhasset is we knew each other through siblings and friends. So if you’re a sibling or friend of the Class of ’65, come to the Tender Bar on November 6^th. It would be so great to see you.

***


Suzanne McLain Rosenwasser is the author of several books:

Order paperbacks or ebooks at all online sellers or click here for Amazon orders:
http://amazon.com/author/suzannerosenwasser

Visit:  http//:www.suzannerosenwasser.com