Signs of Spring

 Signs of Spring

 

I spent the late afternoon at the end of the week mending the fence around my vegetable garden.  Including, I hope, a break where some deer must have gotten in at the end of last summer.  Vegetative vandals making the most of their end-of-summer incursion and leaving me with nothing to harvest.

 

Afterward, I relaxed on my front steps listening to the calls of recently returned birds. I’d already seen the first robins a week or so earlier, bounce-hopping around the meadow and our lawn. Along with crocus blossoms and daffodils beginning to make their way to sunlight, the robins are the first signal that spring might have serious intentions.  The robins joined a chorus with red-wing blackbirds, and a thrasher or two, assuming I can trust the bird identifier app on my phone. 

 

From roughly Thanksgiving through Saint Patrick’s Day, the meadow, the lawn, the garden – indeed the entire Beaverkill Valley where we wintered  - have been covered with snow. Snow measured this year not in inches, but in feet. Snow accompanied by unwelcome ice underfoot. White on the ground. Grey sky above. A blanket of discontent. It took a week of unseasonably warm weather followed by heavy rain to expose the parade ground the robins use to announce their arrival, and free the front walk as an icy hazard for humans. The birds, the crocus and daffodil tips, and the greening of the meadow are all early reassurance and promise of a robust spring still to come. 

 

Winter doesn’t surrender without a fight. April snow is not a novelty where I live.  A week ago, freezing temperatures and an insistently bitter wind greeted protesters at the No Kings rally in Monticello, New York. Undaunted, protestors lined both sides of Broadway, the main thoroughfare of the town. Passing cars honked in appreciation and support. Chants rang out. Intrepid musicians played despite the finger-numbing cold.  What struck me above all was the number and inventiveness of signs. The cold of winter has not frozen ingenuity. Clever statements. Bold banners. Slogans on shirts. Signs on pets and puppets. Energetic rebukes to ICE and the additional chill ICE and its sponsors brought to this winter, among other statements.

 

As I’ve watched newscasts about the event and followed it on social media, the volume of people demonstrating has been impressive. Signs were a distinguishing feature, no matter the size or the location of a venue. Artistry may have varied, urgency not so. Seeing that sense of urgency, not just to walk alongside, but to openly express a statement, was heartening. The energy of resistance, demanding change, gathered under, or despite winter’s chill, sprang forth.  Not as a hint of better times, but as a forceful insistence. 

 

I was heartened to see the work of one of my clever former students, Zach Levy, among the photos of New York City’s demonstration. It was big, it was bold, it proved what the poet William Carlos Williams wrote: 

 

“The imagination will not down. If it is not a dance, a song, it becomes an outcry, a protest. If it is not flamboyance it becomes deformity; if it is not art, it becomes crime. Men and women cannot be content, any more than children, with the mere facts of a humdrum life—the imagination must adorn and exaggerate life, must give it splendor and grotesqueness, beauty and infinite depth. And the mere acceptance of these things from without is not enough—it is not enough to agree and assert when the imagination demands for satisfaction creative energy. Flamboyance expresses faith in that energy—it is a shout of delight, a declaration of richness. It is at least the beginning of art.”

May the creative energy demonstrated by millions so recently spring to positive change in the months and years ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

   

73 Seconds

 

Fifty-five years ago, I co-founded a children’s theater in Mason, New Hampshire, Andy’s Summer Playhouse.  Children performed for audiences of all ages.

https://www.andyssummerplayhouse.org/mission-history

Andy’s welcomed all comers. From the beginning, young people and adult artists played and created side by side. Andy’s was never founded to be a training program or a conservatory for the young. Nonetheless, early on, there were alumni inspired to play and explore their artistic potential beyond their rural New Hampshire roots.

 

A few days ago, I had the joyful opportunity to see a workshop presentation of a solo show conceived, written, and performed by a former Andy’s “kid”, Jared Mezzocchi. “Kid” is an excellent descriptor for Jared; an inquisitive, playful, imaginative, and inventive nature that has evolved into a distinguished career as a theater artist. His exploration as a theater artist has taken many forms: performer, director, multimedia designer, educator, and artistic director.  You can learn all about his many accomplishments in new and interesting ways to tell a story here: https://www.jaredmezzocchi.com/about

Beginning as a boy of eleven, Jared spent every summer at Andy’s until he was eighteen, acting in one show while working behind the scenes on any show possible, absorbing what adult theater professionals generously demonstrated. 

 

It can be safely said the kid never left Andy’s. Indeed, not too long after college, Jared returned to Andy’s to work as a staff member.  A few summers later, he took over as Andy’s next artistic director. He found inventive ways to keep Andy’s alive online during the pandemic. He’s increased the number of children participating in Andy’s each summer to over a hundred, while restoring the tuition-free access that was a hallmark of Andy’s origin.

 

This summer, Jared has moved on to devote more to his own theater making, while still keeping a hand in as Executive Producer of the Playhouse.  

 

Watching Jared’s workshop piece (destined, I predict, for great success), I found myself engaged with it on several levels.  73 Seconds weaves personal loss, past and present, the Challenger Space Shuttle, and memories of Jared’s past.

At a talk back after the show, the question was raised, “What would you say the show is about?”  Aya Ogawa, the show’s director, answered “Grief”.  

 

The tension and revelation that Jared’s narrative builds certainly justify that assessment.  But there is something else going on as well.  I found myself immersed in not only what the story was, but also how it was being told. From the outset, the storytelling space is filled with pieces of analog technology from the 1980s when the Challenger disaster occurred. There is tension, mystery, as to why various objects

populate the playing space and when they will be utilized. 

For me, 73 Seconds could just as easily be characterized as about time.  Or timing.  

 

It was coincidence that brought me to the performance. My home is in the Catskills. A half hour away is the Catskill Art Space. In the late spring, I discovered that Jared would be doing a one-week residency at CAS in collaboration with En Garde Arts, based in New York City.  Here was Jared, with performing credits from all over the place, appearing almost in my backyard.

 

Jared’s performance prompted my own thoughts on the Challenger, including an essay I’d written at the time. I mused on Andy’s past, present, and future. And grief.

 

We got to talk a bit both before and after the show.  Andy’s final show of the summer was having its last performance on the same evening.  Not too long before he went on, Jared had gotten a call that the well at Andy’s had run dry.  The water well, certainly not the creative well.  Not a problem an executive producer in the rural Catskills about to perform his show could solve, no matter how talented he may be. Still, no surprise that people in New Hampshire might think that Jared could fix the problem.  Among those at dehydrated Andy’s that evening was my co-founder, Peg Sawyer. Peg does a good job of keeping tabs on her legacy.  That evening’s show, an original musical about three Greek goddesses, is titled Fated. Fated, a good title for us all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

 

 

 

Resurrecting Piano - Beaverkill Church

 The Beaverkill Community Church (formerly the Beaverkill Methodist Church) holds services regularly during the summer from Memorial Day to Labor Day.  A week ago, my granddaughters Willa and Julia attended for the first time at a Children’s Service.  While there, they learned (or more accurately, their mother learned) that the following Sunday, both the regular piano player and the substitute would be unavailable.  Did anyone know someone who might be able to cover the following Sunday?  Elizabeth suggested me. Mind you, I have not touched a keyboard in years; years that have been less kind to my touch with the development of Parkinson’s.  Folks at the church welcomed anyone who could plunk a few notes, maybe play the melody line, strike a chord for acapella renditions.

 

Encouraged by Elizabeth, I agreed to give it a try, all the while wondering whether coming out of musical retirement with the addition of an infirmity was a wise idea. By midweek, I was in possession of a Methodist hymnal with the SIX selections for the upcoming week’s service duly noted.  First on the docket was Number 127, “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.” If you’re curious, you can find it here:  https://hymnary.org/hymn/UMH/127#:~:text=1.,will%20ever%20give%20to%20thee.

Notes at the bottom of the hymn told me the words were written by William Williams in 1745.  A sign from above?

 

Practice didn’t make perfect, far from it. Like a third-string quarterback hoping to hold things together, I got through the game. True, no cornerbacks were blitzing

the keyboard. Just geriatric hands working hard not to fumble.  The pastor, music director, choir, and congregation were generous, fine examples of Christian charity all. Did Jehovah guide me?  I’ll settle for thinking the day ended on a high note. Hugs from granddaughters will do that for a fellow. 

       

Auf Wiedersehen, Elon

 

5/31/25

 

I spent time yesterday in the studio at WJFF 90.5 FM, the radio station where I host a monthly half-hour broadcast and a longer podcast about addiction issues, The Kingfisher Project – Information Against Addiction.  https://wjffradio.org/thekingfisherproject/.  WJFF is an NPR station, now threatened by cuts in funding from the Trump administration.  The president has issued an executive order that would strip federal funding from CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting), totaling $545 million for fiscal year 2025. Those funds are distributed to local public radio and television stations, with a focus on community service and content development. CPB is the largest single source of funding for many public media stations, supporting local and national programming. WJFF is one of the multitude of stations so affected. The concern at the station is palpable. It has filtered down to this producer/host, causing me to contemplate an interruption, or worse, an end to the message I help bring to a listening area that includes Sullivan County. Sullivan County recently had the highest per capita overdose fatality rate of every county in New York State, New York City included. There is a need for the Kingfisher Project’s message, as there is for the many other public service messages the station provides.

 

I recorded an interview with the Board Chair and the Executive Director of an organization called Community In Crisis.  www.communityincrisis.org.  CIC’s mission is to “combat substance use disorder through youth and family education and recovery support, building a healthier, more connected community.”  Begun in 2014, CIC has grown to become a model of what a grassroots organization can achieve.  In 2024, they were honored with the prestigious White House Blue Ribbon Award for excellence in youth prevention education. They, too, receive federal funding.  They, too, are holding their breath over continued funding.  

 

While discussing the many good things CIC does, I heard the story of a young man in their community who had recently been saved from overdose by naloxone, the lifesaving overdose reversal drug, also known as Narcan.  Saved, referred, placed in treatment, and hopefully beginning his journey to recovery.  Absent education, prevention, harm reduction, and peer recovery support, to name a few services CIC provides, this young man would be but a statistic. Another cut the Trump administration has proposed is a $56 million grant that teaches first responders how to use naloxone. The recent significant drop in overdose deaths can be attributed in part to naloxone. With approximately 90,000 overdose fatalities still lost annually in the U.S., now hardly seems like an appropriate time to cut naloxone funding. Quite the opposite would cut into that 90,000 figure even more.

 

I had not left the studio when I came across the news report of Elon Musk’s drug use. I was not surprised.  The symbiotic derangement Musk shares with our president – financial gluttony, manipulating the law, evading the law, compulsive lying, and distortion of fact - are all of a piece we’re all too familiar with in a Trump administration. The drug issue simply gilds the lily on the malignancy we know as the Trump presidency.

 

Nor was this the first report I’d heard of drug use among Trump aides and advisors. Easy access to Xanax and Provigil to help staffers work under stressful conditions has reportedly been the norm. Who knows what we don’t know?  The Musk news led me to think about drug use in Hitler’s Germany.

 

Norman Ohler’s book, Blitzed – Drugs in the Third Reich, could be a cautionary manual for a wannabe authoritarian regime. Methamphetamines for the military. Methamphetamine chocolates for housewives. Thanks to advertising (Think Purdue Pharma), meth to help spark the entire population’s productivity. Development of Eukodol – an early version of oxycodone. Hitler’s right-hand man, Goering, was morphine dependent, if not morphine addicted. Hitler himself, ever more reliant upon a quack doctor, Theodore Morell. The parallels ought to be instructive. Trump could do himself a favor and read it. Given his notoriously scant engagement with the printed word, perhaps he could find the time to view this documentary based on Ohler’s book. You can too. Go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DtR-CNZN44&t=732s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Revenge Murder?

 

In early September, during the election campaign, President Biden and Vice President/Candidate Harris announced a “historic final rule that will ensure mental health care coverage for 175 million Americans is on par with their physical health care coverage.” The announcement received scant attention during the remainder of the campaign.  Indeed, The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA), a federal law that generally prevents group health plans and health insurance issuers that provide mental health or substance use disorder (MH/SUD) benefits from imposing less favorable benefit limitations on those benefits than on medical/surgical benefits has been routinely flouted by insurers in the years since its passage. The Biden/Harris “historic final rule” is but the last in a long line of state and federal rulings intended to bring parity to substance use and mental health care.

 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/09/09/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-lowers-mental-health-care-costs-by-improving-access-to-mental-health-and-substance-use-care/

 

My awareness of the law came about when my 23-year-old son went to a Manhattan hospital with his bag packed seeking admittance to inpatient detox.  He had struggled with substance use for two years, more particularly heroin, benzodiazepines, cannabis, and alcohol. He knew what kind of help he was asking for. It took less than an hour for his insurer to deny him inpatient treatment as “not medically necessary.” Despondent, he left the hospital, returned to our Upper West Side neighborhood, overdosed in a Starbucks bathroom, and was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital where he was treated and released on the same day, all without our knowledge. He returned home that evening. We knew nothing about the details of his day until after his death due to an accidental overdose four days following his detox request. Six weeks of hospitalization followed before it was undeniably clear that he was consigned to a permanent vegetative state.  We made the grievous decision to remove him from life support.  His body became an anatomical donation to Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. 

 

Though we’d had skirmishes over insurance coverage for our family before, this event brought us to an unhealthy frustration with insurers. I am well aware that a family in Minnesota rightly grieves the loss of their insurance executive husband and father. I am equally aware of the impacted anger of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of families like us who have suffered because of unfavorable insurance reviews and denials. The inhumanity of insurers has created a mental health problem, a revenge-seeking urge that manifests itself in the population insurers purportedly serve.  That urge has seemingly lain dormant until it ruptured open with the murder of an insurance executive. That murder has exposed at least some of the toxins that prompted the shooting. The shooter has become a folk hero. 

 

 I have not celebrated the murderer’s success, nor do I find him a folk hero in any way, but I do understand the depth of the rage that drove him to act the way he did.  His is but the most advanced case of a disease so many of us suffer from. In my quiet fury, I have fantasized about horrible acts. In my case, acts are directed at the lawyers who defend the violations and abuses insurers practice.  I have often said that there must be a special Circle in Hell for these insurance lawyers. I haven’t marked bullet casings, but based on personal experience I have frequently employed the words dodge, delay, dissemble, and deny to describe insurance practice. The congruent vocabulary I share with the shooter does not surprise me. “Depose” is a threat insurers use to intimidate, shame, and stigmatize the conditions of those who would challenge a claim denial. A deposition seldom goes the other way. Bringing a case against an insurer requires financial and emotional resources and the stamina to stay the course. Insurers know and count on very few having this combination to achieve a favorable determination.  Potential plaintiffs die daily. Insurance companies have time on their side. 

 

What remains to be seen is how this revenge disease develops.  Will more who feel aggrieved take up arms or engage in destructive acts?  Will it flare up and then flare out? It is and will continue to be a mental health issue. Will it become an epidemic?  Where will the leadership come from to help find a cure? Do we as a nation care?  Care enough to drive politicians to act? Action that is more than a dying ember in a political campaign? We can’t afford sixteen more years to dither with insurance malpractice while a disease that malpractice spawned becomes an epidemic becomes a plague. 

 

   

Election Chicken

 In mid-April of 2023, I wrote on my blog about my granddaughters and their newly acquired chickens.  You can read the entire piece “Spring Chicken” here:  https://bit.ly/3AtQ90B.  I was apprehensive and perhaps overprotective about my granddaughter, Josephine, and her younger sisters. Would avian mortality break young human hearts? I wrote: “I began to catalog problems. Where on the family property sloping down to the Beaverkill River could they locate a henhouse?  Would a moveable henhouse be a good idea?  What would Archie’s (the family dog) role in all this be? Guard dog or predator?  There is no lack of natural predators in the neighborhood: coyotes, foxes, bobcats, weasels, mink, raccoons, opossums, skunks, rodents, and snakes. Not to mention aerial attacks from hawks, owls, and the bald eagles that patrol up and down the river”. 

 

My brother, Harrison, with his own flock of chickens, shared some useful wisdom, reminding me “…of potential lessons that could be learned in this venture.  Some good, some perhaps painful. Raising chickens, like the vegetable gardens we have in common comes with a mix of success, frustration, and failure. He suggested to me that the potential for learning was far more important than trying to protect Josephine from emotional upset. The value of experience over being sheltered”.

 

The chicken venture moved forward.  A creative housing solution was found. Ten chicks grew, matured, and in due course began laying eggs in abundance.  They thrived throughout the seasons and in their second summer could be found clucking behind the rhododendrons in front of the house, parading in the driveway, or roaming further afield while always returning for nighttime roll call. All was well until a midsummer nighttime count yielded eight instead of ten. There was no sign of a chicken massacre, neither corpses nor even feathers in the vicinity of the house, but clearly, two were gone.

 

A more recent mortality showed clear indications of a culprit.  One poor bird had its head bitten off, typical of the murderous ways of a mink or a fisher.  Not long after the killer returned to feed on the corpse.  Video evidence showed the perpetrator hanging upside down from a fence while gnawing on the body of his victim.  The likely guess, given the river nearby and habitat preference, is that a mink was the culprit. If you like, you can view the video here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TXkofku5fY-qMTV-RbD1kSjMBHfdsjct/view

 

  

 

It was time to get the remaining flock (while it remained a flock) to safety.  Josephine has a classmate, Mia, whose family lives nearby and has a fenced-in chicken run that could easily accommodate immigrant newcomers.  Mia’s father arrived one evening, gathered the birds, and transported them to safety.

 

This past weekend Josephine had a sleepover at Mia’s house.  As it happened, I was helping to care for my granddaughter flock over the weekend.  I drove Josephine – 10, and her sisters (Willa – 6, and Julia – 5) to the drop-off at Mia’s. The girls got a chance to visit their chickens.  The pickup the next day provided another opportunity to visit.  Mia’s father assured me that the newcomers had settled in nicely and after a day off had begun laying eggs again.  Indeed, they had a dozen eggs for us to take home, along with two kinds of winter squash from their garden.  Their easy generosity toward birds and humans alike is much appreciated. The girls are welcome to visit their chickens again.

 

Sunday evening provided a grim reminder that more than chickens are vulnerable to predators.  Mia Rodriguez and her family are Mexicans. They own their home.  They pay taxes. They are good neighbors.  They are not the only good neighbors to be found in the Catskills to be sure. But Sunday’s Trump rally reminded me of disparaging remarks I’ve heard about Mexicans in the years we’ve had a home in the Catskills. A prejudice Trump plays to. Worse, of course, is the fact that there are those who would happily remove a family such as this simply due to their ethnicity

 

Sunday reminded me that there are good people who are vulnerable to the racist whims of Donald Trump. I have kept my political inclinations largely to myself and those I know to be of a similar persuasion. That is a luxury I can no longer award myself in this election.  My silence and a vote are not enough.  I can no longer fear who will disagree with my opinion and my stance. I can’t pretend to be a chicken naively hoping to live safely when I’m all too aware of the danger that might attack my freedom and that of my neighbors.   

 

    

 

From Beethoven to Looney Tunes

On a beautiful fall Catskill Saturday morning, I waited patiently outdoors with a small group at a car dealership where people who had recently purchased vehicles at the dealership were able to get car keys duplicated. For free. On a Saturday morning.  Once a month. People were relaxed and cordial even as time dragged on. I engaged in a most pleasant discussion with a gentleman who is a classical pianist. He could trace a direct line of piano teachers from his mentor to Beethoven.   

 

Our mood modulated when the group’s attention was turned to Helene and the devastation it has wrought in rural Appalachia. Speaking to any who would listen and with no apparent prompting, the lone female in the group voiced her conviction that emergency aid was not getting delivered to isolated communities.  More particularly, no government helicopters were flying in necessary aid. FEMA was a failure. Worse, private helicopters were being prevented from any form of assistance. The pianist and I asked each other where she might get this information. Silly me, I thought Republican governors were thanking the president for a swift and extensive response. 

 

No surprise, it was the fault of the Biden administration we were told, the chief offender being KA…Mala (She used the Trump bastardization of Ms. Harris’s name.). Knowing well that argument was futile, I nonetheless interjected that the proper pronunciation was Kama…la.  She looked at me, smiled, and continued. 

 

What came next was a call and response between the speaker and a veteran willing to chime in.  He wasn’t pleased at the prospect of losing his guns. She reminded him that the Constitution is “just a piece of paper. WE are the Constitution”. Even so, he didn’t think much of Trump. Trump was no friend of veterans. Surprisingly, she announced she didn’t like Trump either.  She simply would not vote in this election.  The aggrieved veteran opined that “they” are looking for one authoritarian to rule the world. That’s where we are headed. The speaker jumped all over this unification theory. Netanyahu and Don Jr. are in league for this world takeover.  Further, they are aliens, planted here for just such a takeover. Yes, I heard that right…ALIENS!   

 

The forum ended, abruptly and blessedly, when it was Cassandra’s turn to get her key duplicated. I don’t think the key man fixed loose screws. The group returned to quiet and small pleasantries. Unfortunately, the key duplicator did not have the proper piece for my key copy.  I have to come back again in a month when he reappears. I’ll be back unless I’m abducted or erased by aliens now that I’m privy to their plan.

 

I drove home to re-check what I thought were facts from the New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/us/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-misinformation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.QU4.s2_o.UVgATBCYgJwY&smid=url-share

 

Is that photo of helicopters in the article photoshopped?  Maybe people in western North Carolina have had helicopter sightings.  Who knows?