Our Greenwich

Remember the man carrying the double billboard, claiming THE END IS NEAR?

People wondered what his message was.

Was he warning us we’d better start behaving, or else?

Did the man himself believe it meant the end of the World?

Or was he being paid to carry the billboard for some secret reason, perhaps even to encourage shoppers to spend their money now, why save when “the end” was near?

Did anyone really believe he knew something the rest of us didn’t?

Whenever someone stopped to talk to him he’d ignore them.

Or so at least I was told, since I never actually saw such a man walking around carrying such a contraption.

Regardless of whether he was a truth sayer, or a mischief-maker, he was right. The end was near. It always is, because none of us know when our “end” might arrive.

I’m sure that most Americans know about the tragic fire in Stamford on Christmas morning when five people, three young sisters, and their grandparents, died in an early morning fire, the result of embers being removed from the fireplace to make it safe for Santa to descend. The embers were put somewhere safe, or so the mother believed when she fulfilled her childrens’ wishes to prepare the chimney for Santa.

She and a male friend (the divorced father of the girls was elsewhere) survived the fire, and neighbors overheard the mother saying, “My whole life is in there.” Not only her children, but her own parents as well died in that fire.

The “end” comes like “a thief in the night,” and no one knows when it’s coming, just that it is.

There isn’t anybody currently on this planet going to be around 100 or so years from now, not one of us, nobody, all 3 billion of us.

Pouf! Gone!

Forever?

We’ll be finding out soon enough. Or maybe not.

If I were God, would I have left everyone in the dark like this?

Would you?

It’s a guessing game, just like the billboard man said it was.

And I, personally, am in no hurry to learn the answer.

Happy New Year.

 Isaiah Clark House, Brewster, Massachusetts

Bed & Breakfast on Cape Cod

Isaiah’s Favorite Crispy Waffles

3 large eggs

1 1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup melted buter

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

2 teaspoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs until thick. Add milk, melted butter, and vanilla. Continue beating mixture for two minutes. Combine dry ingredients, sift into egg mixture and beat well for 2 minutes. If necessary, add more milk. Batter should be the consistancy of pancake batter.

Brush melted butter over the ridges of a hot Belgian style waffle iron. Ladle the batter over the hot iron and bake according to iron manufacturers instructions (usually about two minutes).

Top with your favorite fresh berries or sliced fruit (strawberries, peaches, poached pears, apple with cinnamon, etc.) and whipped cream. Mr. Robben loves only Vermont maple sirup. Just before serving you can sprinkle waffle with powdered sugar.

The yield will be about 6 – 8 waffles, depending on size of waffle iron. (I have used leftovers for pancakes the next day  and I added a little milk to make a thinner consistency.) They were wonderful!

Merry Christmas from Marge Robben and the Isaiah Clark House which we visited in the year 2000. I saved the recipe but didn’t make the waffles until Christmas 2011. I don’t know if the Isaiah Clarke House is still there, but its receipe for the greatest waffles and pancakes lives on………

In, I believe, 2001, the 60th anniversary of the day that will live in infamy, the Daily News asked me to write a column about my recollections of that day. This turned out to be the only column or anything else I ever wrote for the Daily News. I went looking for it today to scan and send to you but the copy I had made on fax paper had pretty much faded out. I could read it more or less because I remembered writing it, but you never would have been able to. So call it lost. I wish I could have sent it to you because I wrote it from Nice (on a computer since thrown away) and no one ever commented on it that I heard from here.

As Kevin will remember, we sat in the Upper Deck, fifty yard line, row B, section 12 possibly still wearing the matching Eton suits my mother favored for “her boys”, directly under the Press Box which in the Polo Grounds hung off the lip of the roof high over our heads. A rather scary Press Box I always thought, once I got much older and began to frequent it. At one end of this Press Box sat the telegraph operators, their machines clicking, their fingers tapping out copy dot-dash-dot, letter by letter, as it was handed to them. They were, of course, in constant contact with their fellow telegraph operators in the Sports Departments of eight NY newspapers. That’s how the news was transmitted in 1941.

The public address announcer at Giant games was my father, friend of the Maras who owned the whole team then, not just half like now, particularly Jack Mara, his best friend. He was earning from the Times then $67.50 a week, down ten percent a few years back because of the depression. Or perhaps by then he had been reinstated to his full $75. He was not the columnist, only a sports writer, which is what he always called himself. He got, I think, $15. a game, which helped at home.

My father had a great voice for that stadium, I thought then and now, a great manner too, nothing fancy, just who carried the ball and who tackled him, and soon, every five minutes or so, he began calling out also the name of an Admiral or General, telling the man to report to his command at once. That was all. His voice was everywhere in that stadium: Admiral So-and-So is ordered to return to his base immediately. The crowd began to stir after a while, but no one knew what was going on. In section 12 where all the free tickets sat, players’ wives and reporters’ families (my father got six tickets to every game, and Kevin and I saw every game from 1937 on) we did know, for word came via some reporter kneeling in the aisle reporting to his wife sitting near us, he having got the news from his telegraph operator.

No one else would know what had happened until they got home.

In my column for the Daily News I recounted all this 60 years after the fact, and also (showing off a bit) I put in many of the numbers on the players’ backs, not just the Giant players, but Dodger players too, Not an act of genius but something entirely normal as I explained with a line I have always been proud of, though no one else ever noticed: When you’re 11 years old with an empty head, everything that goes in there sticks, and it sticks forever. The Giant players were easy. Mel Hein No. 7, Ward Cuff No. 14, Jim Lee Howell No. 21, and so on. The Dodgers were led by Ace Parker, a triple threat tailback, No. 7, and I looked him up as I was writing the piece, 90 years old and still alive. One of the Dodger players was an end named Perry Schwartz, No. 98, who that day tried the old sleeper play – he lay down close to the sidelines imagining no one would notice, leaving him uncovered for a possible touchdown pass.

I remember sitting there in Section 12 trying to puzzle out what the momentous news signified and asking my mother if we would win this war. She soothed all my conerns, and assured me it would be easy, and with that quote from her I closed my Daily News column.

On the way home, as Kevin says, we never got to hear the latest adventure of “The Shadow“, whose name was Lamont Cranston. That program always started with a dark voice intoning: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.” It would have started that way that day too. The Shadow was a helluva guy and my principal regret on December 7, 1941 was not getting to hear the show.

Bob

(Robert and Kevin Daley are brothers, and the father they speak of, Arthur Daley, won a Pulitzer Prize for a Sports of The Times column in 1956.  John Robben is their long-time friend from Fordham Prep and University. Robert now lives in Bronxville and Nice, France and formerly lived in Greenwich and New Canaan. Kevin presently lives in Greenwich. John Robben formerly lived in Greenwich now lives in Stamford and works in Old Greenwich) The three men, along with many other friends from the Bronx and other places correspond regularly.)

Bob and I were at the Polo Grounds that day. I think my father was the public address announcer. He announced that all service men, (though it may have been only Officers), report to their military stations immediately. But he didn’t announce that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, ostensibly because it might cause a stampede or something. The game went on.  Adults mumbled among themselves as to what it was all about.

On the way home in our parents car, a 1941 Pontiac, my father had the radio on. At 5:30, Bob and I wanted to listen to “The Shadow“, which we always listened to on the way home from the Giant’s games. But we were shhhushed because they were listening to the war news. Little by little we began to catch on that something really big had happened. It had to be big if the news beat out “The Shadow“.

Bob, what do you remember?

My best,

Kevin

I was 11 years old on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

I had no idea where Pearl Harbor was. Most Americans didn’t. My father knew it was a Navy base on an island in the middle of the Pacific, but not much else.

We had just sat down to our traditional Sunday dinner at midday. There were just four of us: my parents, my grandmother and me. In the center of the table was a roasted chicken stuffed with Pepperidge Farm bread. It smelled good enough to eat, which is what it was intended to do. In smaller serving dishes were mashed potatoes, carrots, string beans and gravy. My grandmother had done the cooking. There wasn’t a better cook on the face of the planet!

We kept a small table model radio in the kitchen to listen to background music while we ate. The music in those days was very calm, slow, and easy-to-listen-to.

“We interrupt this program,” a voice said from the radio, “to bring you this news bulletin. Pearl Harbor has been attacked. Japanese planes have staged a raid on the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. We repeat, Pearl Harbor has been attacked. As soon as we have more news we’ll be back. Now we are returning you to your regularly scheduled broadcast.”

“That’s impossible!” my father announced. “Pearl Harbor is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from Japan. It’s the most-heavily protected American military base in the world. No one would dare attack it!”

My father switched stations, still believing it was a fictitious announcement, probably another one of Orson Welles’ radio dramas similar to the one on Hallowe’en night in 1938 about Martians landing in Grover’s Falls, New Jersey which frightened half of America.

Additional bulletins kept being announced all that Sunday afternoon. My father switched stations to see if there were other newscasters saying the same thing, but he couldn’t find any. When he found the New York Giants football game being broadcast he stopped searching and we listened to the game. The Giants were playing the Brooklyn Dodgers that Sunday in the Polo Grounds.

One of the football announcers confirmed that Pearl Harbor had been bombed, and announcements were being made over the loudspeakers in the Polo Grounds that “All military personnel are to report to their bases immediately.” Thousands of people were exiting the stadium, most of them young men.

When you’re only 11, like I was, news doesn’t have the same impact that it does on adults, but I could tell that my father was having a hard time believing it. “What does it mean?” my mother asked him.

“It means we’re at war,” he told her. “We can’t allow another nation to attack us without responding. But I still can’t believe it. Planes can’t fly that far, not from Japan to Pearl Harbor. Do you know how large the Pacific Ocean is? They’re thousands of miles apart.”

Later that afternoon I went to the usual Sunday afternoon basketball game at the Church I attended. The gym was packed with spectators. I sat with some friends, preparing to root for our Church’s team. At halftime an official addressed us on the loud speaker system. He confirmed that the news about Japan bombing Pearl Harbor was true, and that much of the Naval Base was on fire and some of our warships had been sunk or were sinking. There were many casualties. He asked us all to rise, take off our hats, and stand while the National Anthem was played to honor those killed or wounded. It may have been the first time “The Star Spangled Banner” was played at a sporting event. That was 70 years ago, and they’re still doing it today.

November 2011 and corruption is rampant!  Every day discouraging news comes out at a fast and furious pace and it is difficult to remain optimistic.

Americans are reeling from the events of the Penn State community scandal.  A retired football coach has been accused by many young boys of rape and sexual abuse for more than a decade. The abuser has been charged with being a serial pedophile of pre-adolescent boys. On first report, it appears the staff at the University knew of the behaviors but they did not report the crimes to the police.

By being silent, Penn State University made a decision to protect the institution and its football program, and not the children.

To make matters worse, the Pennsylvania judge who heard the abuse charges and read the 23 page report by the Grand Jury allowed the suspected child rapist to go free with no ankle bracelet to track his movements and she gave him a minimal unsecured bail.  Until his trial, he is allowed to move about freely in his hometown.  His house is next to a school bus stop. The judge was just removed from the case after it was learned she was a volunteer at “The Second Mile”, the boys club that the alleged abuser founded and that contributed to her campaign for “judge hood”.

**********

Corruption continues…….Yesterday, I became aware of a little piece of information that maybe I should have known. But it was new to me just the same.  I always knew that “insider trading” on Wall Street was illegal.  In fact, Martha Stewart went to prison because she was involved in making a trade based on information the public did not know. What was not known to me, however, was that people in the Senate and House of Representatives could make insider trades on the stock market and it was legal. Apparently Congress gets to know about important events and changes going on through their committees well ahead of it being published for the public and they make stock trades which then make them millionaires.  Congress makes the rules, of course!

**********

“Occupy Wall Street” and the rebellious sit-ins occurring across the country has forced the big banks to rescind the monthly fees they charge for using debit cards. The Wall Street Occupiers put pressure on the banks and the banks responded by eliminating the monthly debit fees. But…….they soon began to create other new banking fees to make up for the money loss.

The banks, like many companies and corporations, want to make money. They think about what their “bottom line” is. It is the “American way”.  If a company can make money by firing employees, or paying them minimum wages, they will. The banks make money by using new technology like “direct deposit” “on-line banking” and ATM machines as they terminate employees they don’t need, and then when customers become dependent on the new technology, the banks start to charge their customers for the new “conveniences”. People are beginning to catch on.

The State of Connecticut just went through two devastating climate catastrophes and the Connecticut Light and Power Company was not prepared. They had no staff ready and waiting to get up the poles to restore electricity. I believe the salaries are never published for the top executives. And now they want to charge the residents of Connecticut higher fees.

When cable companies made their debut back in the 1960s on Long Island, their salespeople went house to house to sell the program.  At that time there were only the regular channels of ABC, CBS, NBC, and a few others.  Home dwellers were told if they bought cable it would cost $12 a month and there would never be commercials.  How wonderful that sounded.

People removed their roof antennas and installed cable wires.  Soon after, the commercials began.  The corruptive rule seems to be that once you establish your dependent customer base, you can do whatever you want. The old “bait and switch” game.

**********

Money in politics is extraordinarily corrupt. Last year the “honorable” Supreme Court determined that every corporation is an “individual”.  They said that corporations could contribute as much money to political causes and candidates as they wanted and that they could do so in secret. The result of this controversial ruling is that presidential candidates are now raising a billion dollars in order to compete with each other. The one with the most money is the one who wins.

Corporations, more than ever before, will now determine who will be candidates for all elected offices. The myth says that we, the people, determine these things. Not so………that is…….. Unless we, the people, begin to protest like the “occupy” groups are doing, and groups in Ohio, Wisconsin, Mississippi, California, banding together, telling the elected officials, “No you don’t” and “You are overstepping your boundaries”.

**********

The political debates for the GOP candidate for President of the United States are being called a “reality show”.  It is clear to many Americans that most of the GOP candidates are not qualified for the job and are in it because they either want to sell books, get a television show, or make money. They all have the same message. They all say “they will make a better President than Barrack Obama” and they all say they “have the perfect solution for the economy” – the economy the present Administration was saddled with when they took over in 2008.  It is embarrassing to watch.

**********

The “media” also has its corruptive aspects.  Some media employ highly paid radio and television commentators who either distort the truth or tell boldface lies. They pander to audiences who believe the lies and who are emotionally stimulated by the hateful accusations they hear.  The emotionally disturbed people in America fall victim to these unscrupulous broadcasters as they pump out their venom. Last spring, a disturbed man shot Gabby Gifford in Arizona and just this week a disturbed 21 year-old Idaho guy drove to Washington and shot two bullets into the White House in an attempted assassination of President Obama. He was convinced the President was the “anti-Christ”. This phrase is commonly heard by some media-broadcasters and right-wing religious groups.

**********

Voting rights in many states are being threatened by bills eliminating many citizens from having the necessary identification the new bill requires. The new state laws have been passed since 2010 and will have the effect of keeping certain people from voting.  In the 1960s people died helping to register southern blacks. The trend is now going backwards, eliminating certain old, young, students, and poor citizens who were able to vote before but who now do not have the identification papers each state demands. The corruptors saying they have to do this because of past “voting fraud”, however, the facts don’t hold on this excuse. The fingerprints of corruption are all over the new voting laws.

**********

There are people across America who now have to fight a new law being proposed to allow people to carry concealed weapons in all 50 States. The National Rifle Association has continually infiltrated our Congress with expansive gun laws, lobbying, and money. More guns make more money for gun manufacturers. More guns also makes more deaths. Bring them to church. Bring them to school. Bring them to the tavern.  End of story.

**********

Speaking of lobbying in the halls of Congress, did you know that Pizza is now called a “vegetable” because of the little bit of tomato paste on the top of all that bread crust and cheese? Congress would rather see unhealthy obese children in school and watch billions of dollars paid to health care and insurance companies rather than disappoint the corporations who want children to have their daily doses of pizza, french fries and soda. The potato and soda lobbies support our Congressional elected official campaigns.

**********

We have a choice in America. We can either deny or ignore the corruption around us or we can participate in getting rid of it.  If we chose not to participate then we have no right to complain afterwards. We will be as complicit in corruption as the Penn State staff who chose to remain silent and protect their University instead of protecting the children.

Too many people have suffered and died for the American way of life and the security, freedom and liberty we enjoy, and we must all keep vigil.

November 19, 2011

Empathic Women With Hangers

From what I have seen, the people who are the “right to life-ers” are good people with a good cause, but they are not able to expand their belief in a realistic context.

Yes, protecting life is a worthy cause.

Yes, it would be great if every fertilized egg could get to be a healthy baby.

Yes, it would be wonderful if every man who deposits his sperm into the plumbing of a receptive woman’s body is responsible enough to be around to see the baby born and grow up

Most of us know this is not reality.

This morning I was on my deck watering the fall flowers and removing the hundreds of polynoses from the dirt of my six planters.  I knew that if I didn’t remove them they would wiggle their way into the soil and by Spring I would have hundreds of maple seedlings.

This is how it is for women. The guys spill their seeds morning, noon, and night, 24/7. If the seed happens to meet with the egg and embeds itself in the good rich soil of the female uterus, low and behold, in nine months, a baby is born.

Women instinctively know how much stress they can take at any one time. If they are too young they know they can’t tolerate a nine-months process and a life devoted to mothering. The same goes for a woman who is too old, or one who is at her wits end bringing up other children. Then there are those women going to college or who have just entered the work force and who have no intention of birthing a child. Finally, there are the women who do not want to get married, do not want to have children, or who just want to have a wonderful sexual experience, like many men want.

The “right to life-ers” say, Let them have the child and put it up for adoption!  Make them look at an ultra-sound of their uterus! They want to criminalize all women who do not think as they think. They want to outlaw some birth control methods like IUDs and the “morning after pill”. They want to make sure that every sperm-fertilized egg is implanted in the uterus of the woman and grows to be a full-term baby.

If nature fertilizes the egg and it is implanted in the wrong place like in the fallopian tube and if it continues to grow, the tube will burst, and the woman will lose her life. If a doctor tries to save the woman’s life, makes no difference, they call it “murder” of the potential baby. If the fertilized egg comes from a rape or incest it doesn’t matter either. The “life-ers” make no concessions and no exceptions. That baby will be born, they say.

If the “life-ers” could just walk in the shoes of the young girl, mother, or woman who does not want to give birth to a child,  I am sure they would be more empathic. Women are naturally nurturing. They know intuitively when they can or cannot birth a child. They don’t need other people telling them what they should do. They don’t need other people to lobby the government and try to make new laws and criminalize them for doing what they have to do to save their own lives.

Women must have the freedom and liberty to make their own choices. The “life-ers”  must have compassion and empathy for those in a difficult circumstance. There are some people on the fringe of sanity, with a self-deception of care and love for the unborn, who are willing to criminalize pregnant women and kill or destroy the very doctors who want to help them in their time of need.

In Mississippi, on November 8th, voters will be voting on an amendment that says a fertilized human egg is a legal person and also says that abortion and some forms of birth control is “murder”.  If Amendment #26 is passed you will see many of our young girls and women take to the back alleys, asking the little old lady, dressed in black, to come visit their home, bringing with them a sterilized hanger just like they did when my Mother was a young woman.

October 26, 2011

(mbrobben@aol.com)

A MID-WATCH BECOMES ELECTRIFYING

by John Robben

One night I walked through the barracks when everyone else was sleeping. The deck was made of wood and creaked when I stepped on it. I tried to walk softly so as not to wake anyone up. I had the first half of the mid-watch, from 2400 to 0200 hours. At either end of the barracks there were red battle lanterns. They gave off just enough light so you could see where you were going in the dark.

It was pretty quiet except for one sailor who was snoring, and another who was cursing in his sleep. The sailor in the bunk under his yelled at him to shut up. “It’s OK,” I said, as I passed their bunks, “he’s just having a bad dream.”

The last thing I wanted on my watch was a fight. Fights like that start out with two people swinging at each other and before you know it the entire barracks gets involved. Breaking up fights wasn’t my job, but I’d still have to try. My watch was mostly a fire watch, making sure nobody set the barracks on fire accidently or on purpose. There were a lot of crazy, young kids in boot camp, and some of them were capable of torching the entire camp if they could.

One night I was awakened by a sudden commotion and sitting up I saw that half the sailors in the barracks were standing at the shadeless windows looking out. The windows were about 8 feet tall. Everyone was perfectly still, looking at whatever was happening outside. Across the roof of the washhouse on the other side of the woods that bordered our barracks I could see the very tall metal stanchions which supported the high tension wires that carried electricity from the power station into the camp. High-powered searchlights were sweeping one of these stanchions, illuminating a small figure halfway up the pole.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“It’s Jamie,” I was told.

“Jamie?” I repeated. “That’s Jamie up the pole?”

Jamie was a sailor from our company. The Navy should never have let him join up. He was clearly not cut out for the Navy. The poor kid couldn’t march, couldn’t do the Manual of Arms, couldn’t wash his own clothes, couldn’t even make his own bunk. Now he was climbing this very tall pole in the middle of the night heading for the high tension wires.

“They’re going up after him!” someone shouted.

Another figure was rapidly climbing the pole after Jamie, gaining on him. None of us knew if Jamie would get to the wires before he was stopped. The searchlights were on both of them. A cheer went up in the barracks when the rescuer reached him.

Everyone started talking all at once. It was a little after 0200, and in a couple of hours we’d all have to resume another day of basic training. A few days later we heard that Jamie was being sent home.

Whenever I had a mid-watch after that night I’d walk through the dark and silent barracks not only keeping an eye out for fires, but I’d also look out those shadeless windows at the night sky and at snow if it were falling or at the stars and the moon if there was one. The high tension wires were still there, but Jamie wasn’t.

It was always lonely being the only one up and awake at that hour walking from one end of the barracks to the other with only the dim glow of those red battle lanterns lighting the way and remembering the night poor Jamie tried to climb up to where those deadly wires were.

He never reached them, but they did set him free. Maybe he wasn’t so crazy after all.

(johnrobben99@aol.com)

KEEPING SECRETS, TELLING STORIES

by John Robben

“Wherever men have lived,” wrote Thoreau, “there is a story to be told, and it depends on the storyteller whether that is interesting or not. You are simply a witness…to tell what you know about your neighbors and neighborhood.”

******

When I finished reading ARCH OF TRIUMPH, I called Erich Maria Remarque. He was living in Manhattan then and I looked him up in the telephone directory. A woman answered the phone. I think it was Paulette Goddard, with whom Remarque was either living, or to whom he was married. She didn’t ask me who was calling when I asked for Remarque and the next thing I knew he was on the phone and I was talking to him. Our conversation lasted about twenty minutes. I told him that ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT was my favorite novel, and I wanted to thank him for writing it. He was glad to know I was a writer, too, or at least trying to become one and he wished me luck. He sounded happy I’d called. I suppose no one did in those days. His books somehow gave the impression that he’d died a long time ago.

******

Ran into Sharon in the local supermarket today. Her hair wasn’t combed, and her eyes had a faraway look in them. I wondered if she was still dabbling in the occult? When Janice, to whom I’d confessed my interest in visiting a past-life hypnotist, asked me recently if I’d gone to see one yet, she might just as well have asked if I’d be booking passage on the next space shuttle. I don’t understand why my interest wanes like this, but at the moment reincarnation, karma, astral-projection, UFOs and communication with the spiritual world all seem like science fiction to me. Of course, even at the height of my fascination with these subjects I was always a bit skeptical. Actually, if it’s kept in moderation there’s nothing wrong with skepticism. It keeps one from running off blindly after every new fad, providing it doesn’t also keep one blindly following every old one.

******

Laurens van der Post, author of THE LOST WORLD OF THE KALAHARI, died at the age of 90. Reading his books always gave me a feeling that I was about to learn something astonishing, and often, just as van der Post would bring me to the very edge of mystery, he’d leave me there, perplexed and bewildered. He wrote with such broad, beautiful strokes that I felt almost ashamed of my own skimpy little scribblings. Moreover, he lived as he wrote, adventuring into Africa in search of Bushmen and encountering along the way lions, elephants, buffalo, crocodiles, spiders and tsetse flies. I’m inclined to admit that I lack his courage, but my inability to do what he did is at least partly due to lack of opportunity. Van der Post didn’t just walk out of the city one day and go into the jungle, he was born and raised on the edge of it and moved gradually toward the interior. This is not said to diminish his accomplishment, but only to explain why his world and mine are so different. I’m really not interested in living a great outdoor adventure, especially one crowded with difficult-to-see insects and other crawling, flying things that get into yours eyes and ears and nose and burrow themselves under your skin and cause you to itch and swell and become feverish, but I am interested in reading about one. Maybe this is only a new variation of an old interest of mine: survival; and whether one’s ability is put to the test in a jungle or in a concentration camp or under the scrutinizing glare of a psychoanalyst doesn’t really matter.

******

We’re very lucky to be living in Greenwich. We don’t have to carry passports to go into Portchester. We can travel from State to State without having to declare ourselves and our intentions. When we cross State lines border guards aren’t waiting to pounce on us. Freedom to travel is only one of the things we take for granted in America. But that doesn’t mean we can do anything we want. We still have to be considerate of our neighbors, whether they live across the street from us, or across a State line.

******

I’m sitting outside the judge’s chambers, waiting to plead my case. I feel like a criminal, even though I haven’t done anything. I’m convinced the judge has heard every excuse a human being can fabricate and that mine will be as insufficient and unconvincing as all the others. I’m trying to remind myself that I’m an innocent man and have no reason to fear confinement, but I also know that judges are powerful people and have an almost insurmountable authority in determining our fate.

What recourse do I have if the judge rejects my plea? Will I be able to argue in a satisfactory manner? I make my living convincing others to behave in ways favorable to me, why do I now doubt my ability to convince this judge? The judge is a small man, but he looms large in his black robes When he was sitting on the bench looking down on us he appeared to be seven feet tall, but in reality he’s probably no more than 5’3″. Reflecting on his height, however, doesn’t ease my fears. The authority vested in him by the State endows him with a size that rivals LeBron James. In my mind he can dunk a ball from half court.

The clerk suddenly appears at the door. “The judge will see you now,” he announces. As I enter the judge’s chambers I’m rehearsing my opening sentence. “Your Honor, the reason I’m unable to perform my jury duty is….”

******

Mark’s 12-year old son wants to be a writer. I told him he should start keeping a diary.

“I can’t,” he said. “I could never do that.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Part of my life’s secret,” he explained, “and the other part’s nothing.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Then just write down the secrets.”

Letter To A Would-Be Writer

by John Robben

I know you are serious about wanting to write well, and I think you are well on your way to doing so, but it takes time and courage. You can’t just “want to.” You have to “do it, and do it, and do it.” You will know without anyone telling you when you are doing it right. You will actually feel it as it’s happening, and it will still feel good the next day and then the day after that. As you said yesterday, it makes you feel good the day you’re writing it, but when you reread it the next day it doesn’t. That’s usually a pretty reliable sign it still needs working on. I can still read stuff now that I wrote ten or more years ago and tell that it’s as good now as it originally was. There are things that I’ve written that I know are as good as anyone has written, now or ever, and then there are the things that I thought were good that haven’t lasted. Ernest Hemingway once called that his “shit detector.” If you reread something that has a smell to it you can be pretty sure you didn’t get it.

Hemingway once wrote to a reader about how he had to be ruthless to his reading public or they’d steal all his time from him.

“I have a lot of good work to do, “he wrote, “and I have to be ruthless about people. They have swarmed in here, climbed the fences, looked in the windows, pled poverty, pilgrimage, and you owe it to your readers. Also many have come down to learn The Secret (There is none) Except work and paying all debts. And not being spooked.”

You seem to be serious about it, and if you truly are you will continue doing it regardless of the time it takes or the disappointments you experience.

I never feel more alive than when I’m writing. I never regret the amount of time I give to doing it. And I can pretty much tell the day I’m writing whether I’m going to be satisfied with it the next day, and the one after that.

October 21, 2011

direct response to John Robben – johnrobben99@aol.com