Some Perspective About My Past in 1971

 It's Friday morning on what used to be a typical weekday.  55 years ago I would have been showing up in the ninth grade at Nova in Davie as the weather outside was transitioning to a stench of chronic Everglades fire smog.  Lobo's debut hit Me and You and a Dog Named Boo was getting its radio overplay...soon I would tire of hearing it.  I was fourteen and a half, thoroughly tired of having to go to school for  a year. After school I temporarily stood up to a bully leaving the bus one afternoon and go t a little beat down in a fist fight)The esxperience taught me what contemptible ghouls the unwelcome onlookers were who were staring at me in a circle.  The next morning I received some sympathy from busstop classmates for what I went through, and that creep Arnone laid off me, never to be a friend. Later that summer during the early 10th grade I would return to school more serious in my studies.  On prime time sitcom television, some new series like All in the Family and Mary Tyler Moore were starting their runs...my family became good fans.That fall "my" Miami Dolphins, coached by Don Shula, were good enough to make it to the Super Bowl...which they convincingly lost to Dallas. Overall, I was not a happy camper and tended to slip into daydreaming for much of my high school class time.  At home, my father would overdose me with talk of his dog racing betting strategies and philosophies. Still, I appreciated his efforts at weightlifting to the point of getting good at the bench press, pull-up, and standing press (I could lift up my own weight from the ground).   Growing up during this period was a confirmation of me not having an easy life. In my home neighborhood, my neighbors were raucous and out of control, loudly playing music deep into the night.  

My Preferences with NFL Teams Over the Years

A few minutes ago I was watching the Fox Weather Channel, and the two announcers were taking a brief break from their meteorological meanderings to shoot the breeze, so to speak, about their loyalties to different NFL teams.  With them, there was that early support for a team that they grew up around.  But as adults living in other places and following certain players and coaches, their preferences over the years changed with their new situations.  That's me, too.  I grew up in the South Florida area, just a few miles north of Miami, and as such was a big Dolphins fan. Their early seventies' Super Bowl appearances (3) and wins (2)...not to mention that still-unmatched season of 1972...more than likely extended that loyalty for many decades beyond, even long after I had grown up and moved away from the area.  I still like to see them succeed, but feel they blew a golden opportunity for greatness a few years ago when they let go head coach Brian Flores.  And their current "star" quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, although admittedly talented, had established himself as an injury-prone, "fragile" athlete even back when he was taking hikes at the University of Alabama.  But the Fins coach Mike McDaniel...unlike Flores...has insisted on sticking with Tagovailoa, and, frankly, it's been painful watching Miami play, either with Tua in there or on the sidelines while his backup struggles.  No, of late I've tended to be more of a Tampa Bay Bucs fan if geography figures into the equation, although I've just never gotten myself attached to Jacksonville, which is much closer to Gainesville.  But I also now tend to root for certain players and coaches regardless of where they work.  One of these is Pete Carroll, who piloted his Seattle Seahawks to two Super Bowl appearances and one victory...he has an infectious, positive, exuberant sidelines attitude, totally into the game and his players' welfare.  Pete has just been hired as the Las Vegas Raiders new head coach...I guess now I'm a Raiders fan! Oh, and regarding the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, I think they're both pretty cool, too...

NCCA Men's March Madness Hoops Now Down to Final Four

With the completion of today's two games, the NCAA men's basketball championship "March Madness" tournament has now come down to the vaunted Final Four, a great milestone in itself for many schools.  Among them are the Florida Atlantic University Owls, based in south Florida in Boca Raton where my beloved father spent his last days in 2013.  This was their last year in Conference USA...they're jumping later this year to the American Athletic Conference.  Neither conference gets much national attention or respect, so it surprised many to see this team, seeded only #9 in their region, win it to advance to next Saturday's semifinal round with a very close and exciting game against Kansas State, 79-76.  Although I was rooting for the Owls, I don't understand why the Wildcats, down by only three points in the game's closing seconds, had two different possessions but didn't shoot for a three-pointer...that must have really frustrated their fans.  Along with FAU, Connecticut advanced to the final showdown with a complete thrashing of Gonzaga, 82-54...their pinpoint passing and positioning on offense is amazing to behold.  The Huskies to me are the strongest team in this year's tournament although they were only seeded #5 in their region...not remotely even one close game so far in the six they've won to get to this point.  Those were Saturday's games.  Today's contests pitted San Diego State against Creighton and Miami against Texas.  By the way, you might take note that all of the top seeds were eliminated in earlier rounds and Texas was the only #2 seed left with this weekend's games...none of the brackets filled out at the tournament's start came close to predicting this scenario!  In today's games San Diego State somehow managed to outlast Creighton 57-56 although neither seemed to shoot very well. In the other "my" Miami Hurricanes were 13 points well into the second half and didn't seem to have an answer to the Longhorns' offense, but they managed to storm back and win it 88-81.  So half the Final Four is from South Florida.  Florida Atlantic plays San Diego State in one game and it's Miami vs. Connecticut in the other.  Whoever wins that latter contest should be the favorite to win the championship game. I'm looking forward to following the two semifinal games next Saturday, but I'll be at work when the championship game takes place Monday evening.  At this juncture, to me Connecticut should be the strong favorite to win it all, but my heart lies with the Florida teams.  CBS is covering the games on TV...

Tropical Disturbance Floods Out South Florida

After eastern Pacific tropical storm Agatha crossed Mexico and dissipated into stormy weather after emerging in the Gulf of Mexico, it headed quickly toward South Florida, this morning dumping 6 to 9 inches of rain in just a few hours' span.  The Weather Channel thankfully suspended its usual boring late-night programming to cover the storm...but their repeated warnings didn't prevent locals from driving their vehicles through flooded areas, stranding themselves and most likely ruining their cars.  When you see water on a road, all you're seeing is the surface and not how deep it goes. Even if you've gone down the same street repeatedly, you may not be aware how it dips in elevation from one place to another...and that's causing a lot of the turmoil in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area.  By the way, this storm has no official name because the meteorologists don't detect adequate tropical circulation in it...they simply call it "PTC 1" (Potential Tropical Cyclone 1) in spite of the fact that the Weather Channel routinely gives names to winter frontal storm systems and even heat waves.  As for South Florida, I haven't been back down there since 2013 when my father died, living in the northern part of the state since 1977...even long-established sports franchises like the Miami Heat, Florida/Miami Marlins and the Florida Panthers came into existence long after I had departed the scene.  The last times I was there we walked along Hollywood Beach, but it felt more exotic instead of a homecoming...the numerous Russian-speaking people there probably added to this effect.  I can't think of any compelling reason for a return visit, unless they finally get around to establishing a decent theme park with real roller coasters.  Even the earlier quaintness of the western fringe of the populated area with many rural pockets that I remember when growing up in the 60s and 70s (I lived two blocks from a cow pasture and went to school in a town with horses on the street and rodeos) is largely gone with the unrelenting expansion of urban and suburban sprawl...it's now all just one huge, ugly unnamed city going on for miles north, south, and west....

Old July, 1965 Newspaper Articles Revealing about Vietnam War

The other day I got on my Newspapers.com site to see...through the Fort Lauderdale News, which was my home Broward County's main newspaper back in the 1960s when I was growing up there...whether any mention was made of the new Nova elementary school that was to open in August of 1965.  I switched from Boulevard Heights to Nova that year when I entered the fourth grade...my sister Anita was already going to Nova Junior High, situated right across the field from the new elementary school in Davie on the site of a converted airfield (along with Broward Junior College).  I began by putting on my screen the front page of the paper's July 1, 1965 Main Edition, on which most of the stories were about the escalating Vietnam War with the U.S. increasing its presence in that troubled southeastern Asia country with armed soldiers on the ground increasing from around three thousand in March of '65 to two hundred thousand by year's end.  On July 1 the paper was reporting Viet Cong attacks against the American base in Da Nang, opposition in Congress to President Johnson's war policies, and  there was a piece describing how the Viet Cong operate in guerilla warfare.  In the Senate, Senator Wayne Morse, of the President's own Democratic Party but one of the two voting against his Gulf of Tonkin Resolution the previous August that authorized troop buildup in Vietnam, urged Johnson to end the war and instead go to the United Nations and build up collaborative relationships with other countries to bring about peace.  On the Republican side in the House, their leader, future president Gerald Ford, proposed that the President remove the ground troops and restrict the fighting there to heavy aerial bombardment in strategic locations...needless to say Lyndon Johnson passed on both of these, precipitating one of the most traumatic, divisive periods in our nation's history.  Malcolm W. Browne's article about Viet Cong guerilla warfare was haunting in its prescience as he describes one such warrior, stationed within an echo chamber in a hole in the ground, enabling him to detect distant helicopter sounds before any others: "The man, wriggling through a short tunnel to the surface, can yell an alarm.  Instantly, shadowy men lounging or cooking at the bases of the tall trees are on their feet and moving fast.  The heavy equipment from last night's battle has been stowed for future use in deep, camouflaged holes.  The bodies have been buried.  The men move rapidly, scattering in many directions in twos and threes.  This is their base area, and they know every feature of the dense jungle in the area...the hidden trails, the camouflaged bunkers and tunnels, the gun emplacements, the mines and booby traps."  You can easily see the wisdom from hindsight in reading this article and others and think of what might have been if information in plain sight, as well as alternative options, were taken more seriously by those with the power and authority to properly understand and use them...think of all the lives that could have been spared.  But hindsight it is, and in 1965 the American public was strongly behind Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam escalation policy...I wonder what information today, also in plain view as was the material in July of 1965, is warning us about where we're going...but of course nowadays we have to sift through all the false crap floating around.  As for my then-new little Nova school, I'm continuing to search for any reference to it...

Quote of the Week...from Barry Farber

There is no reward in life without risk.                   ---Barry Farber

Barry Farber...not the motivational expert but rather the older radio talk show host...died Wednesday at the age of 90...reminding me of the passing of Don Shula at the same age just days before.  In the early-to-mid 1970s I used to listen to his shows, which originated on New York City's WOR and were replayed later on Miami Beach's WKAT/1360 "The Talk of Miami", along with Jean Shepherd's monologue program from WOR.  Farber was an independent-thinking conservative who was well-versed in international affairs and history and staunchly anti-communist.  Since his youth he had a strong interest in foreign languages, teaching himself several to varying degrees of proficiency...reminds me a little of myself in that regard.  Barry stood out with his distinctly North Carolinian southern accent and, unlike the talk show hosts of today, about whom he complained of using the forum to extend their own egos, preferred to place himself in the background and allow his guests to express themselves openly. He didn't stack up his show only with people in alignment with his own political views, either...Farber loved rigorous on-the-air debate.  As for the above quote, I happen to agree with it but since Farber's heyday in the business was before the digital age, I'm afraid much of what he had to say has gone by the wayside, so to speak...otherwise I might have a greater selection of quotes to choose from.  As for learning foreign languages, I know it takes a great amount of humility to try to communicate with others when you already know you're probably going to sound pretty silly as you make one mistake after another...that's a sort of risk as well, to your own ego.  But Barry Farber knew that the reward was worth it, and he always came across to me as a class act, respectful of others but at the same time confident enough to assert himself when needed.  And he loved studying history and languages, just like me...

NFL Coaching Great Don Shula, 1930-2020

Don Shula, the Hall of Fame coach of the National Football League's Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins, died yesterday at the age of 90.  During the late 1960s my mother was a big Colts fan...I think mainly because she was an even bigger Johnny Unitas fan...and I found myself from 1967 through 1969 rooting for Baltimore along with her.  But my number one team, starting with the 1968 season when they were in their third year of existence as an expansion American Football League franchise, was the Miami Dolphins...the fact that I suffered along with them during a couple of their early losing seasons only intensified my pleasure when Baltimore's head coach Don Shula jumped ship to join the Dolphins in 1970.  Shula always tailored his coaching emphasis to his players' strengths...with the Colts it was the wide open passing attack of Unitas, while with Miami he used their excellent offensive line to develop a ball control running attack with stars like Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Mercury Morris while Bob Griese did an excellent job as a game managing quarterback, mixing up short passes and occasional bombs. It was interesting that under Shula during the 1968 regular season, Unitas was injured early on and backup QB Earl Morrall brought the team to an unprecedented (for them) 13-1 regular season and into their first Super Bowl, against the New York Jets.  Living at the time near Miami where the Super Bowl was being held, although the stadium was completely sold out the NFL still imposed a television blackout on the area, preventing me from watching the game. Since I was rooting for the Colts, it was probably just as well as the Jets, always Miami's divisional rival, pulled off one of the biggest upsets in football history.  As for Morrall, Shula later brought him over to Miami as Griese's backup, and like in '68, in early 1972 the starter got injured and Morrall stepped in, this time leading the team to its glorious undefeated regular season.  Griese returned to the helm against the Steelers in the playoffs and the team won its first of two straight Super Bowls...

Because Don Shula always presented a competitive team...in his 33 years as an NFL head coach his teams experienced only two losing seasons (winning a respectable six games in each of them)...this noble refusal to ever tank in order to get a high draft pick always placed the Dolphins at a disadvantage.  But although they wouldn't win another Super Bowl under Shula after their two wins in the early 70s, I was always very proud of this team as they usually put on very entertaining performances with many of the great games in NFL history involving them...sometimes they won these classics and sometimes not. My favorite memory was seeing them knock off the dominant, thoroughly arrogant Chicago Bears 38-24 in 1985, preventing them from going undefeated...to me that was almost as good as winning the Super Bowl!  Unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), in the early 1980s the Dolphins had a tenacious defense and questionable offense while after Dan Marino took over at quarterback the offense took off while the defense slid.  Oh, if only they had the defense that got them into the Super Bowl during the '82 season AND the offense that carried them there two years later!  All this took place under the leadership of a great coach, Don Shula...I'll miss him as will many of my fellow South Floridians from that era, whether we still live down there or not...

Finally Got to See the Southern Cross in the Nighttime Sky

Back in the spring of 1964, when I was seven, my father presented to me a star map he had saved from his tattered old boy scout manual as well as the more recent Herbert S. Zim Golden Guide to the Stars...we went outside after sunset and picked out the visible stars and constellations.  Ever since, I have enjoyed star gazing and it's added a special dimension to my life.  Yet being pretty much a homebody and not much of a traveler most of my life, I have missed out viewing a significant section of the night sky, that area between the celestial south pole and around 60 degrees S latitude which contains many smaller constellations and a couple of major ones: Crux (aka the Southern Cross) and Centaurus.  Growing up in Hollywood, Florida at 26 degrees N latitude should have enabled me to see them...they would be visible just above the southern horizon very briefly before setting, with evening during the month of May being the optimum viewing time.  Actually, I've seen the more northern stars in Centaurus but not the major two: Alpha and Beta Centauri, which lie on the celestial map a few degrees east (to the left from my vantagepoint) of Crux.  But the bright Miami city haze of light, as well as buildings, trees and clouds, prevented me from ever seeing them.  Now I live in Gainesville, which is close to 30 degrees N...forget about seeing them from here! I'd like someday to travel south of the Equator and view the entire southern sky, but a couple of weeks ago I was able to take advantage of a special opportunity while on our cruise ship with Melissa...

Our ship was returning from its trip to Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands and was in Bahamian waters, at about the same latitude as the Florida Keys.  I stood at the top deck rail and pinpointed where I would need to look to see Crux...and then we got up a little bit later, a few minutes past 2 on Saturday morning, February 15th and returned to our viewing spot at the rail.  And there they were, the four defining stars of Crux along with that inner star, just above the southern horizon over the open seas with no obscuring city lights in a clear area of the sky bordered on the left and right by clouds.  We couldn't see Alpha or Beta Centauri, but after 55 years of sporadic star gazing I finally got to set my sights on the Southern Cross, pretty cool...

Tuesday's List: Old Drive-In Theaters and Dog Tracks in South Florida

When I was growing up in south Florida...specifically Hollywood...during the 1960s and early 70s, there were two prominent features that no longer figure into the equation in today's world: drive-in movies and greyhound racing.  When my family went out to see a movie, it was always to the drive-in: we never went to indoor theaters.  And although I never wagered at a dog track, my father became quite an enthusiastic, studying the races and visiting the different locations...and he would fill my ears discussing his betting strategies, to my consternation.  Still, I have a soft spot in my heart for these old times, and although its probably a good idea to eliminate pari-mutuel dog race betting (Amendment 13 is on the ballot in November to this effect) due to the abuse of the greyhounds involved in it, it's still yet another relic of my youth fading into obscurity.  As for drive-ins, though, we had to contend with the heat, humidity, scratchy sound from the speakers, annoying people in other cars, mosquitos, and noisy planes passing overhead...it was great!!!  There are movies I sometimes come across that I remember first seeing in a drive-in, films like A Hard Day's Night, The Ipcress File, Modesty Blaise, Psycho, and others.  Well, I no longer live in south Florida and both drive-ins and dog racing have largely sunk into the past.  Here are a couple of very short lists of the drive-in theaters and dog tracks that made an impact on me during my young years...

DRIVE-IN THEATERS
ARROW DRIVE-IN....North 441, Hollywood...probably went here the most often
GOLDEN GLADES DRIVE-IN...near Palmetto Expressway in Miami Shores, twin screens
HI-WAY DRIVE-IN...US 1 in Dania...I actually worked here at the concessions stand in 1969-70
THUNDERBIRD DRIVE-IN...Sunrise Blvd in Ft. Lauderdale...my dad once was part-time manager of both the HI-WAY and THUNDERBIRD: the latter still exists with 14 screens

DOG TRACKS
MIAMI BEACH KENNEL CLUB...I could be wrong, but I think this closed with the area's renovation, I never went there
FLAGLER KENNEL CLUB...closest to downtown Miami, ran its final race a few months ago
BISCAYNE KENNEL CLUB...in Miami Shores, I went there with my dad a few times, but not to bet
HOLLYWOOD KENNEL CLUB...in Hallandale, I went there a couple of times...

Casinos have taken over organized gambling in south Florida...Flagler and Hollywood dog tracks became only parts of Big Easy Casino and Magic City Casino, respectively.  I never did care for gambling on dog races...like my mother, I just enjoyed watching them chase the "bunny" around the track.  As for drive-in theaters, I think I've become completely spoiled by the lush comfort nowadays in indoor theaters, with their reclining, cushiony seats and all...

Tuesday's List: South Florida Radio & TV Stations, 1968-73

This is one of my quirkier, more personal lists.  I grew up in Hollywood, which lies right in the middle of the heavily populated three southeastern counties of Florida: Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade.  I also had, from 1968 to 1973 when I was going to Nova High School (corresponding to my 7th-11th grade years there) a hobby of listening to radio to pick up distant stations, called "DXing" and now obviously obsolete with the advent of the internet and easy-to-download apps that can pick up just about any station anywhere.  Well, during that time I compiled a listening log as well as lists of the local FM and TV stations.  I'm sure that the TV and radio station lineup looks quite different now than from back then, so I though it might be a sort of contribution of mine to the storehouse of knowledge accruing on the internet to put out a list of these old stations from my old home area.  They are all from either Palm Beach, Broward, or Dade county...my favorite radio stations were WQAM, WFUN, WSRF  (all three with rock n' roll formats), WSHE-FM (album rock), and WKAT (talk radio).  Sometimes WFTL would broadcast local high school football games live and faithfully gave us all the scores late on game night.  In early 1971, WMYQ on 96.3 made the big breakthrough in south Florida with a strong popular music format for the first time on the FM band...others would soon follow in a torrent, quickly converting that once-neglected band into the one most people listen to today...later that decade, as the disco era ensued, the station on 100.7 would reign supreme, while the one on 94.9 renamed itself "Zeta Four" and commanded my listening loyalty with some really good album rock.  Here's the list, with the TV section listing the channels and the AM/FM sections listing the frequencies...

SOUTH FLORIDA TV STATIONS (1968-73)
2 WTHS         Miami  (Educational/Public)
4 WTVJ          Miami  (CBS)
5 WPTV         Palm Beach (NBC)
6 WCIX          Miami  (Independent)
7 WCKT         Miami  (NBC)
10 WLBW/WPLG    Miami   (ABC)
12 WEAT       West Palm Beach (ABC)
17 WSEC        Miami  (Educational)
23 WLTV       Miami  (Spanish)
51 WKID        Fort Lauderdale  (Independent)
61 W61AA      Fort Lauderdale  (Independent)

SOUTH FLORIDA AM RADIO STATIONS (1968-73)
540 WQAM    Miami
610 WIOD      Miami
710 WGBS     Miami
740 WSBR      Boca Raton
790 WFUN     South Miami
850 WEAT      West Palm Beach
900 WSWN     Belle Glade
940 WINZ       Miami
980 WLOD      Pompano Beach
990 WFAB      Miami
1000 WJTS/WRYZ      Jupiter
1080 WVCG    Coral Gables
1140 WMIE/WQBA   Miami
1190 WAVS     Fort Lauderdale
1220 WOAH/WLTO/WCMQ    Miami
1230 WJNP      West Palm Beach
1260 WAME/WWOK    Miami
1290 WIRK      West Palm Beach
1320 WGMA    Hollywood
1340 WQXT     Palm Beach
1360 WKAT     Miami Beach
1400 WFTL      Fort Lauderdale
1420 WDBF     Delray Beach
1430 WIII/WRSD    Homestead
1450 WOCN     Miami
1470 WRBD     Pompano Beach
1490 WMBM    Miami Beach
1520 WIXX/WEXY    Oakland Park
1550 WRIZ       Coral Gables
1580 WSRF      Fort Lauderdale

SOUTH FLORIDA FM RADIO STATIONS (1968-73)
89.7 WMCU      Miami
91.3 WTHS        Miami
92.1 WHMS       Hialeah
93.1 WKAT/WTMI     Miami
93.9 WGOS/WBUS    Miami Beach
94.9 WAEZ/WOCN    Miami Beach
96.3 WGBS/WJHR/WMYQ      Miami
97.3 WIOD/WAIA       Miami
97.9 WWOS       Palm Beach
99.1 WEDR        Miami
99.9 WWOG       Boca Raton
100.7 WMJR       Fort Lauderdale
101.5 WWPB/WLYF   Miami
102.7 WCKO      Pompano Beach
103.5 WSRF/WSHE     Fort Lauderdale
104.5 WEAT       West Palm Beach
105.1 WYOR       Coral Gables
105.9 WFLM/WIXX/WAXY    Fort Lauderdale
106.7 WFTL        Fort Lauderdale
107.9 WIRK/WPBF      West Palm Beach

Just Finished Reading Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen is a south Floridian journalist and novelist, having written several stories set in that area in which I grew up. Although I'd heard his name before, I never did get around to reading anything of his until, once again, I was randomly scanning the shelves of my local public library where I found a copy of one of his recent works, the 2013 crime novel Bad Monkey...

Andrew Yancy is a former Miami area police detective who has been suspended for assaulting the husband of a woman he was having an affair with...not exactly the model of a virtuous hero.  While suspended, he has been assigned as a health inspector in the Florida Keys where he resides, performing routine inspections of the local eateries.  Meanwhile, a tourist out fishing hooks a severed arm, and, before his suspension, Yancy is entrusted with taking it to Miami forensics to attempt an identification.  Ultimately, it turns out that the arm belongs to a Nicholas Stripling, a man who was under investigation for defrauding medicare.  The plot develops and before you know it, the setting shifts to the Bahamas...specifically Andros Island, where new characters, including that "bad monkey", are introduced...

Bad Monkey, with all of its serious issues and violence, was nevertheless a pretty funny novel. Hiaasen, like my favorite author Stephen King, apparently has quite a sense of humor and he infected this work (and I presume his others as well) with it.  Yancy lives on Big Pine Key and is horrified that his next door neighbor is building a high-rise structure that blocks his view of the sunset...so throughout the story he schemes to sabotage the project, with very humorous results.  No, I did not at all like Andrew Yancy, but he filled his role perfectly...Bad Monkey is good escapist literature, and I recommend it with that in mind...
 

Happy With New, Detailed Star Atlas

When I was seven, back in the spring of 1964, my father sat with me one evening and opened up his own very ancient, tattered boy scout handbook...showing me a series of star maps of the evening sky and explaining the constellations to me.  He pointed out that the sky, along with the positions of the stars, changes over the course of the day as well as throughout the year. I took it all to heart and have been enamored with star-gazing ever since.  I picked up a couple more star guides, one of them that my father and I saw at an outdoor Miami newsstand off Biscayne Boulevard...that was around '65, I believe.  Nowadays, of course, there are many resources and detailed star maps accessible through the World Wide Web, but there's nothing quite like having the paper maps in my hands.  The other day I was shopping at Publix and lo and behold, in the checkout line there was a special issue of Astronomy magazine titled Atlas of the Stars.  Not only do the maps cover all the celestial sphere from the north to south poles in great detail, but there are plenty of interesting accompanying articles.  It makes me want to pay another visit to my local Gainesville planetarium, located at Sante Fe College...and check to see whether there isn't still an astronomy club at the University of Florida...I remember that years ago they used to regularly hold telescope viewings of the night sky...

Tuesday's List: The First-Magnitude Stars in Order of Brilliance

Way, way back in late 1960 I had just turned four and lived in a small apartment with my parents and sister in Opa-Locka, Florida...a little town just northwest of Miami with a strange penchant for Arabian architecture and street names.  My father worked close by at the Opa-Locka post office as a letter carrier and wanted to move us into a house...so the hunt began.  My parents apparently decided at the outset that our new neighborhood would be a commute a few miles away from Opa-Locka and so we ventured north into southern Broward County to look for a suitable house.  Had they instead gone south of Miami for a new home, I might well have been able to claim to have seen every star on the following list of all twenty-three of the first-magnitude (i.e., the very brightest) stars.  In West Hollywood, where we ended up moving, the latitude was just north enough that, combined with the city lights of Miami and obstructions on the horizon, I could never observe the brilliant southern hemisphere constellations of Centaurus and Crux that cross the meridian in the evening during mid-spring.  But south of Miami, the latitude would have raised them in the southern sky and the city lights would have been less of an interference, leading to a better shot at catching them from time to time.  As it is now, I live some four degrees further north in Gainesville, so forget it from where I am...I just have to get off my butt and travel to a more southern location (with clear skies) to finally get a look at these bright stars.  Crux, also known as the Southern Cross, has two first-magnitude stars and is situated in the sky right next to Centaurus' Hadar (also known as Beta Centauri) and Alpha Centauri.  Alpha Centauri is actually a three-star system, composed of Alpha Centauri A, slightly larger than our sun, Alpha Centauri B, slightly smaller...and Proxima Centauri, much smaller and distant from the other two as well as being the closest star to us besides the sun.  Alpha Centauri A and B are each bright stars in their own right, but are indistinguishable to the naked eye because of their proximity to each other...

Here's my list of the twenty-three brightest stars from the vantage point of Earth.  Their constellations are given in parentheses (our sun naturally traverses the Zodiac over the course of each year) and the numbers are their distances from us in light-years.  In the not-to-distant future I'll examine the nearest stars.  The distances I picked up from Wikipedia...I've noticed that some of them tend to vary from source to source...

1 THE SUN (The Zodiac)..................(.000016)
2 SIRIUS (Canis Major)...........................8.61
3 CANOPUS (Carina).............................312
4 ARCTURUS (Bootes)..........................36.7
5 ALPHA CENTAURI A (Centaurus).....4.40
6 VEGA (Lyra)........................................25.3
7 CAPELLA (Auriga)..............................42.2
8 RIGEL (Orion)......................................773
9 PROCYON (Canis Minor)....................11.4
10 ACHERNAR (Eridanus).....................144
11 BETELGEUSE (Orion).......................427
12 HADAR (Centaurus)...........................525
13 ALTAIR (Aquila)................................16.8
14 ACRUX (Crux)....................................321
15 ALDEBERAN (Taurus).......................65.1
16 SPICA (Virgo).....................................262
17 ANTARES (Scorpius).........................604
18 POLLUX (Gemini)..............................33.7
19 FOMALHAUT (Piscis Austrinis)........25.1
20 BECRUX (Crux)..................................353
21 DENEB (Cygnus).................................3229
22 ALPHA CENTAURI B (Centaurus)....4.40
23 REGULUS (Leo)..................................77.5

Tueday's List: I Rank My Favorite Elvis Presley Songs

The great, late American rock and roll icon Elvis Presley began his explosive rise in fame two years before I was born, in 1954...it wouldn't be until 1963-64, when I began to earnestly listen to the radio, that I would begin to hear many of his biggest hits, played as "golden oldies" on Miami's WQAM/560 "Tiger Radio".  Since that time, Presley continued to come out with new material, usually without the resounding success of his earlier songs.  However, because I was there, living through these later releases, they carried greater personal meaning for me: hence songs like Kentucky Rain, In the Ghetto, and Viva Las Vegas having places at the top of my favorites list... 

And here's that list of my top thirty favorite Elvis Presley tunes.  As usual, I put the song titles in blue capitals followed by their year of release.  What are your favorites of the King?

1 KENTUCKY RAIN [70]
2 CAN'T HELP FALLING IN LOVE [61]
3 IN THE GHETTO [69]
4 (MARIE'S THE NAME) HIS LATEST FLAME [61]
5 VIVA LAS VEGAS [64]
6 DON'T BE CRUEL [56]
7 JAILHOUSE ROCK [57]
8 HOUND DOG [56]
9 (LET ME BE YOUR) TEDDY BEAR [57]
10 RETURN TO SENDER [62]
11 THAT'S ALL RIGHT [54]
12 LITTLE SISTER [61]
13 MYSTERY TRAIN [55]
14 I'M LEAVING [71]
15 SUSPICIOUS MINDS [69]
16 BOSSA NOVA BABY [63]
17 HEARTBREAK HOTEL [55]
18 BLUE MOON [56]
19 ALL SHOOK UP [57]
20 GOOD LUCK CHARM [62]
21 BLUE SUEDE SHOES [56]
22 LOVE ME TENDER [56]
23 IT'S NOW OR NEVER [60]
24 BURNING LOVE [72]
25 CRYING IN THE CHAPEL [65]
26 ARE YOU LONESOME TONIGHT? [60]
27 KISSIN' COUSINS [64]
28 I WANT YOU, I NEED YOU, I LOVE YOU [56]
29 (YOU'RE) THE DEVIL IN DISGUISE [63]
30 HARD HEADED WOMAN [58]

Just Finished Reading Gone Again by James Grippando

James Grippando is a novelist who, like John Grisham, specializes in the legal fiction genre.  His Jack Swyteck series is about a defense attorney residing in South Florida, where I grew up.  So when I selected book #12 in the series, titled Gone Again, I was looking forward to some familiar hometown landmarks.  Although these turned out to be few and far between, I was intrigued by the story...skipping to the twelfth volume in the series was no problem as the main story was self-contained within the book, a story about a man on death row who Jack increasingly believes is innocent of his first-degree murder conviction of a teen-age girl.  Sashi was adopted from Russia (before Putin banned American adoptions of Russians) along with her younger brother into an American family...she had some serious psychological and behavioral issues, and the idea of sending her "back" to Russia had floated around between the adoptive parents.  Although her body was never found following her disappearance one day, she was assumed murdered through circumstantial evidence by the aforementioned convict, a serious felon and all-around "bad guy" before this case ever came up.  His execution is coming up soon, but now the adoptive mother has come out with her belief that he is innocent...on the basis that she is getting calls...with the caller always silent...from Sashi's cell phone number.  As Jack takes on the case, he discovers that there is much more to Sashi's disappearance and that organized crime, particularly with regard to human trafficking, may play a big role before it's all over.  But you'll have to read this book for yourself to see how it all plays out...

The last couple of times I visited Hollywood, where I grew up, Melissa and I would walk in the evening along the "Broadwalk" on Hollywood Beach, where there were eating places and live music performances.  As we strolled along, I would pick up bits of conversations from the other visitors, eerily noting that an unusual percentage of them were going on in Russian, not English or Spanish as I would have expected in South Florida.  I suspected that this area had become something of an ethnic enclave for Russians...Grippando confirmed this notion in Gone Again as he described the coastal area in northeastern Dade County...especially in Sunny Isles...north to Hallandale in southeastern Broward, just south of Hollywood Beach, as "Little Moscow".  In this area reside many from Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and other East European countries.  It reminds me of the Indian "zone" south of Archer Road along SW 34th Street in my current hometown of Gainesville.  I think it would be fun to see if there isn't a street down there that is full of Russian restaurants and shops and where Russian is the predominant language spoken...

I enjoyed this first James Grippando novel of mine and am receptive to reading more.  But I'm unlikely to pick up another book of his anytime soon as I have several others to read first...

Ran in Gainesville's Three-Mile Melon Run This Morning

Five years ago, during one of my trips to Hollywood in south Florida to visit my father, I decided to go for a run around my old subdivision of Boulevard Heights.  I had it all mapped out with the mileage I was going to run, using a computer application to accomplish this.  I checked out the local temperature and humidity just before I set out on my run: 80 degrees, 82%.  I ran the unpleasant four miles and, after a few minutes back in the house, regurgitated all of the Gatorade I had drunk.  I felt bad the rest of the day and promised myself never to run when both temperature and humidity were 80 or above...and I never had a similar incident since then.  For when it is both hot and very humid, the body is prevented from cooling itself through perspiration by the intensity of moisture in the air...and can overheat to dangerous levels... 

Fast forward to this morning and Gainesville's annual Fourth of July race, the three-mile Melon Run...organized by the Florida Track Club and held at Westside Park.  I could feel that it was warm and muggy, but not how much so.  Anyway, I was going to take the race easy, running at a comfortable pace for me.  I also knew that the course had a long, challenging upwardly sloping section...well, challenging at least for a lifelong Floridian as myself, used to running on flat surfaces.  What I didn't know, until I was halfway through the race, was that they had drastically changed the racecourse from the times I had run it in 2010 and 2012.  Instead of having sections of it going east down NW 8th Avenue, cutting northward through Loblolly Woods Park, and then returning to the park via NW 16th Avenue, the organizers simply repeated the first half of the course...which meant having to trudge back up that torturous stretch of gradually ascending pavement northward along NW 31st Drive a second time. Ugh...

I won't mince words: it was an ordeal for me to finish what should have been a simple jog...especially with my final time (by my own watch) of 28:22, just a 9:27 per mile pace.  Of course, the relative hilliness of the terrain was a factor in my difficulty, but it wasn't until I got hold of my cellphone and checked the current weather readings that I fully understood what had happened: 80 degrees, 89% humidity! The conditions ended up being substantially more hazardous than what I had experienced before in south Florida...

After all of this, I have to come away from my experience this morning feeling that I'm in better shape than I initially had thought, having successfully withstood some very challenging circumstances with no adverse effects to show for it all.  Now to begin working to return to a higher level of running endurance...

Some 1965-66 Nova Elementary School Memories, Part 6

Well, it's time once again for me to explore some of my memories of my fourth grade experiences at Nova Elementary School in Davie, Florida during 1965-66.  And it will also be my last entry in this series, which for many of you has to feel like an exercise in irrelevance.  Nevertheless, here I go again, this time discussing a few of the "social" trends taking place then within the student body.  Remember, we're talking about 9-10 year-olds...

--There seemed to be an ongoing competition among the boys as to who could play the drum beat to the song "Wipeout" with their hands on their desks the fastest.  It was a very common occurrence to be sitting in a classroom and hear some kid performing a session.  I even tried it myself with poor results...

--Also, mainly a "boy" activity, was the game of "Split", where the two opponents would face off standing close opposite each other on a grassy or dirt surface.  They would then take turns throwing a pencil into the ground on one side or the other.  If it stuck, the other player would have to move whatever foot the pencil fell closest to alongside the pencil and pick it up...and then take his turn throwing it.  Whoever was first to either make a throw that didn't stick or couldn't stretch enough to reach the other's throw lost the round.  This game was an obsession with many for a while that year...

--"Cat's Cradle" was an activity that both girls and boys seemed to enjoy.  There would be a pattern in a closed string that the players would take turns transferring, preserving it and then enhancing it.  I played it a little, too...a strange game...

--Among the girls, I saw many playing "Patty-Cake", a mutual hand-clapping activity that thoroughly intimidated me.  I never did see how they could remember how to synchronize their hands to meet each other for such long stretches of time...

--Among some of the boys developed an voluntary, informal "fight club" that reminded me a little of the same-titled movie (although without the blood).  I participated in it for a while, but due to my scrawniness then I had to bow out after a while for the sake of survival...

--That year, the Batman TV series would come on ABC Tuesdays and Thursdays ("same bat-time, same bat-channel").  Along with it came Batman comic books and trading cards.  I was heavily into both, and idolized Catwoman (played then by Julie Newmar of My Favorite Doll fame).  Often I'd go to school and hear the highlights of the previous evening's show...

--Toward the end of the school year, some of the boys discovered that by rubbing a smooth-edged coin like a nickel on their forearm for a minute or two, they would temporarily get a pleasant sensation before the pain kicked in.  Totally boneheaded.  One of the dumber of this group came into class one day with his arm bandaged and in a sling: he had bloodied it up and needed  to go to the nurse's station after using a dime instead!  Unbelievable...

--I don't rightly know why, but among some of us it was a status symbol to have possession of blocks of wax.  Maybe some of the kids ate it for all I know (most likely the ones rubbing coins on their arms).  The way to get some wax was to go to the Practical Arts Room down the hallway and ask Mr. Mielock for some wax.  Apparently, he would always hand some over to anyone who requested it, no questions asked.  I even went there and procured some myself, just to get into the experience...which ultimately made no sense whatsoever to me...

--I'm not much for the gossip of those times...let's see...Paige and Doug were an item, Hope hated the Beatles, Terry once made Mr. Johnston cry.  Sorry, that's the best I could do...

Well, I enjoyed going down memory lane and touching upon some of the things that stuck with me over the decades about the first year I spent in the Nova School system.  I wish I could remember other years as well as this one...

Some 1965-66 Nova Elementary School Memories, Part 5

Yes, it's time again for another installment of my personal recollections of my fourth grade experiences at Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School, in Davie, Florida (near where the Miami Dolphins currently have their training camp) in the mid sixties.  Once again, I'll list them in no particular order of importance or chronology...

--For social studies, our "suite" of five classrooms that comprised fourth and fifth graders had areas that the students could elect to study according to their interests...Mrs. Hernandez had the Seminole Indians, Mrs. Jenkins had jobs, Mr. Drew had government, Mr. Johnston had climatology (social studies ???), and Miss Kidder...I can't for the life of me remember what her class was about.  By far the most popular of the groups was the Seminole Indians...I picked jobs under Jenkins, a decision I soon regretted.  In retrospect, government or weather would have been a better fit for me.  I spent most of my time with this class in Room 9 either daydreaming or intensely studying the large, detailed map of Broward County posted on the wall to the left of the blackboard...I got to know just about every community in the county and exactly where they were located...

--Later in the school year, I was in a class devoted to the study of the state of Florida, including its history and geography.  We were issued a textbook on the topic and told to work the questions at the end of each chapter in our notebooks...at our own pace on our own...Jenkins, who had a nasty, short temper, was again my so-called "teacher".  I took advantage of this class to often just get up, walk out, and wander around the school, with the great library they had being my favorite haunt...

--There was a series of interesting science movies out in schools, made by the Bell Telephone Company in the late 1950s as a Cold War response to the Soviet bloc's science achievements (like Sputnik), .  They were hosted by a genial, paternal bald man with glasses by the name of Dr. Frank Baxter.  The movies, which according to the available technology of the time, we watched using rolling film projectors (which often jammed up) and screens, ranged in subjects covering the weather (Unchained Goddess), the sun (Our Mr. Sun), astrophysics (The Strange Case of the Cosmic Ray), language (The Alphabet Conspiracy), genetics (The Thread of Life), the circulatory system (Hemo the Magnificent), the five senses (Gateways to the Mind), and time (About Time).  I loved them all, with the one about cosmic rays being my favorite (I still have a soft spot in my heart for mu and pi mesons). I watched every movie, some several times, over the course of my three years at Nova Elementary.  I enjoyed them so much, as a matter of fact, that I would sneak out of my class and hide in the back of another if I found out they were showing a Bell Science film.  In the fourth grade, I saw the films about the sun and the weather. A few years ago I was able to check out a couple of the Bell Science movies from my public library and watch them again.  Needless to say, they weren't exactly cutting-edge science anymore...

--Late during the school year, we read a book that had a chapter on secret codes.  Suddenly, there sprung up a war of espionage among groups of classmates (including myself) that involved us devising intricate codes and trying to crack those of the "enemy"...

--Also late in the school year, the faculty created a "table of honor" during lunchtime for the well-behaved model students.  Starting at one table, the "table of honor" gradually increased in number to where it comprised more than two-thirds of the cafeteria (or "multi-purpose room" as they called it).  I had been selected for it, but got kicked off one day when a teacher/monitor saw me clowning around at the table with a friend.  As I sat there shame-faced in the section that lacked honor, a whole group of my friends suddenly came over, also just unceremoniously evicted from their exalted table.  Apparently, good-natured, harmless fun is a dishonorable activity...

Well, I think I've filled up enough on this page about my 1965-66 Nova Elementary School memories.  More to come...

Some 1965-66 Nova Elementary School Memories, Part 4

Here are some more memories, in no particular order, that I've somehow kept of my fourth grade experiences at Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School in 1965-66, the first year of its existence...

--Individualized study was the norm at Nova, at least in the five-classroom section called "Suite C".  They had SRA (Science Research Associates) study lab kits that we were all supposed to be engaged with...there were Reading Lab, Spelling Lab, and Math Lab, if memory serves me correctly.  I tended to avoid SRA, though, which although a required activity, never got me into trouble with my teachers...convincing me that the faculty was detached from the students they were entrusted with teaching.  But later in the school year, I undertook to do another, more advanced SRA program, called Study Skills, which, unlike the other SRA kits, required library visits to do and which involved reading essays and stories...and then answering comprehension questions following them.  I did all of Study Skills, which had quite a few lessons and was a feat that very few students accomplished, and then turned in my folder to my teacher showing my completion.  I never got acknowledgement for my efforts and found my folder a few weeks later lying on a counter without any teacher's notes on it...as if no one had even bothered to look at it...

--We did have field trips that year.  One was a combination trip to Port Everglades and the Broward County Courthouse.  I think the teachers conducting it had in mind all of us boarding a ship as part of the excursion, but weren't able to swing it.  My highlight with the courthouse visit was standing on the high roof overlooking downtown Fort Lauderdale and seeing how close to the edge I would dare myself to stand. I think we also may have, at another time, visited the Seminole Indian Village on US 441 in Dania, but if we did my memory eludes me...

--In preparation for our school-wide Christmas assembly, each suite came up with a show.  Suites, A, B, and D each had skits they performed.  Our suite, though did something I thought was pretty cool: a Mexican dance, completely choreographed with partners, kicking and swirling, on an enormous scale.  I was paired with Eleanor, another student who would complete the Nova program all the way through senior graduation.  That dance, which the whole suite had practiced and practiced to a numbing degree, easily stole the show...

--Speaking of Christmas, many students at Nova Elementary were Jewish and celebrated Hanukkah in December.  Students were encouraged to bring in items pertaining to how they celebrated  the holidays, and I heard Jewish holiday songs and became acquainted with the dreidel, a top with the sides inscribed with Hebrew letters.   Another totally cool experience...

--I have some memory of Spanish being taught in the context of the story Goldilocks.  I also remember Marjorie getting the role of Goldilocks in the subsequent performance because of her ability to ham it up...

--Speaking of acting, later in that year we assembled in the cafeteria (officially called the "Multi-Purpose Room") to watch some other skits, one of which featured Paige, a classmate whose stage presence even at that early age indicated a promising future in entertainment, as confirmed by her role many years later as the voice of Belle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast...

More memories to come...

Some 1965-66 Nova Elementary School Memories, Part 3

As I continue on with memories of my fourth grade experiences at Nova Elementary (in Davie, Florida) in 1965-66, I'll present the rest of them anecdotally, in no particular order of chronology or importance...

--My first physical education class at Nova was unforgettable...most likely because it was one of my first classes there with a teacher actually teaching something.  My teacher/coach was Mr. Tilton, an amiable jock type who, for some reason known only to himself, decided to take advantage of this groundbreaking event to give the class a clinic on how to punt a football.  I took his lesson to heart and am still a pretty damned good punter.  Only a couple of things, though...(1) He didn't bother to actually explain the rules of football, which in 1965 I didn't know, and (2) To this day, I have NEVER punted a football in any game on any level...

--One of our first science projects was to take seeds of a plant and grow them under different conditions and observe and record the results.  My assigned plant was given the adequate water and soil...only it was kept in darkness, in one of the lab's cabinets...and grew wildly with a sickly pale color...

--In that same lab, led by Mrs. Bethune, I went though the fifth grade textbook and performed experiments.  For much of the time I worked with Jill (who, like me, went all the way through the Nova system) as a lab partner.  We had lab report sheets we had to fill out for each experiment, with spaces for PURPOSE, MATERIALS, PROCEDURE, OBSERVATIONS, and CONCLUSIONS.  At the time, I felt that filling these sheets was tedious, to say the least, but now I realize their value, and not just for science.  When you undertake anything, you need to determine why you're doing it, what you need in order to do it, how to do it, what happened when you did it, and what are you going to do with what happened...

--At the beginning of the school day, we would meet in our respective home "bases" where students could order supplies they needed (there was a designated student who would then go down to the "bookstore" down the hallway to get them).  One item always in great demand was a box of "gummed reinforcements", those doughnut-shaped stickers we'd lick and then place on papers so that they wouldn't rip out of notebooks.  Back then they were necessary because we'd have to poke papers without holes punched into them  into binders, and the gummed reinforcements would keep them from ripping apart. But ever since the Nova Elementary School experience, I have never used a gummed reinforcement...

--The five classrooms in our Suite C were connected to each other by movable partitions, a new innovation in schools that would quickly spread throughout the school system and become a standard feature.  This way, the teachers could at times hold assemblies just by pulling back the walls.  I never could get the knack of closing them...

--Since Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School in 1965-66 was the debut of elementary education into the experimental Nova system (there was already Nova Junior and Senior High School, which my sister Anita attended), from time to time during certain school days we could look out of our classroom windows into the hallway (our school was completely enclosed in one building) and see well-dressed visitors looking in on us, apparently being on tours as part of whatever educational, business, or political groups they were associated with.  These visitors always made me feel a bit uneasy, as if I were some kind of zoo animal on exhibit...

--There was musical instruction given this year in Suite C, first for those wanting to learn how to play the recorder, and then, with the acquisition of an electric organ (with headphones) for those wishing to play that instrument.  I never did take to either of these, although I loved music and have always had a high degree of manual dexterity...

--In Nova, they were very proud of the innovation they introduced as the "LAP", an acronym for "learning activity package"...in common parlance, you and I would call it a "lesson" or "unit"...always in the form of some papers stapled together and handed out to the students by the teacher.  We would get these LAPs, which always seemed to be overly pretentious as to what exactly they were trying to say, and then be expected to just automatically take off on our own initiative in doing them.  Although LAPs were a common feature of Nova, I cannot, to this day, remember any of them, in any subject.  In my judgment, looking back more objectively on it all, they were designed to replace the teacher as the driving force in our education...in fact, it was uncommon to have classes then where teachers actually stood up in front of the class and taught lessons.  In all of my years at Nova, I cannot remember one single time when any teacher ever took it upon his or herself to sit down with me and discuss a LAP.  The burden of communication was always on the student, as if we kids automatically knew how to educate ourselves.  What folly...

Stay tuned, there are plenty more random memories of this period in my student life to come...