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Sunday, December 20, 2015

Goodfellows52: A Christmas walk by the sea and donating historic ...

Goodfellows52: A Christmas walk by the sea and donating historic ...: PORTLAND — The three of us walked along on the beach at the Eastern Promenade thanks to bare ground and a warm sun that made the waters of...

A Christmas walk by the sea and donating historic artifact to the Independence Seaport Museum in Philly

PORTLAND — The three of us walked along on the beach at the Eastern Promenade thanks to bare ground and a warm sun that made the waters of the Atlantic sparkle with Christmas cheer.

I called it our Christmas walk on a cold Sunday afternoon. Runners and speed walkers passed us with a smile and a hello. Playful dogs and their owners roamed the sand. A vintage narrow-gauge train raced by, blasting its ear-splitting steam whistle that was heard clear across the empty bay. We waved to the conductor and marveled at a machine that was nearly a century old.

Was this the beginning of a new Christmas tradition?

I doubt it because Old Man Winter, who appears to have gone West for the holidays, has way of getting back at all of us the next season. This guy knows how to hold a grudge.

But for the moment, the old geezer has concerned himself with creating havoc on the West Coast, and that is just fine with me. The residents on the other side of the country need the water and I could do without the white powder. 

After last year, a warm December has been a real treat for many of us in Maine this holiday season, but whatever you do, don’t share your enthusiasm over the lack of cold temperatures and snow with skiers.

You might get a punch in the nose or be ignored the rest of winter. Whenever I mention this spring-like weather, I get dirty looks from my son — a ski patroller who lives for the white stuff.

I could give a damn about a White Christmas. 

Sorry Bing! 

I am perfectly content standing on cold, clear bare ground. Santa will just have use a helicopter to make his appointed rounds on Christmas Eve. Rudolph and his buddies can take the day off.

The walk in the crisp, cold Canadian air cleared my head and made me appreciate the fact that I can go for a two-mile walk with my wife and son and not get winded. The sea has always been my open-air cathedral where I go to sort out life’s problems.

Traditions fade and new holiday customs suddenly emerge with the passing of time and loved ones whose absence at Christmas dinner is always a heart breaker. Those who have passed on are now a part of Christmas past and a time that seemed so much simpler.

The holidays and depression often go hand and hand, and the absence of a mom and dad makes me acutely aware that all those wonderful people who celebrated the yuletide are gone forever.

But staring out across the chilly waters of East End Beach in a warm, winter sun preempted the deepest feelings of desperation. I was grateful my son was home from the University of Maine at Farmington. His presence makes the holidays that much more meaningful. While we were at work, he decorated the entire house with holiday spirit.

And so a new holiday tradition is born — the homecoming of my son.

By the way, depression and anxiety can find another mind to haunt — mine is occupied with positive thoughts. I miss my parents and all those who were so important to me during the holidays, but if I allow melancholy and the past to pester me, I miss what is going on the present — and that is not going to happen to me.



The gift that keeps on giving

Several days before Christmas, my son did something remarkable — at least in his parents’ eyes. He donated a historic artifact to a world-class museum in Philadelphia, Penn.

My son, a history major and honor student, had spoken with his archeology teacher about owning pieces of American history. The archeologist told him when people have private pieces of the past in their hands, other can’t see and enjoy a relic from the past.

My son took his conversation to heart and decided to donate an 1899 commemorative plate of the USS Olympia that was produced by Macy’s to honor Admiral Dewey’s fighting vessel, which fought in the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War.

On Friday, we spent $60 to carefully pack and send the plate to the Independence Seaport Museum in Philly. We visited this maritime museum in 2013. If you like maritime history, this is to place to tour and learn. The Olympia is moored next to the museum and it is still in fighting shape. We photographed every inch of the naval warship during our last visit.

I am looking forward to seeing my son’s name next to the historic plate the next time we cross the Delaware River and visit the Cradle of Liberty.


My son continues to pleasantly surprise us, but that’s what children do when you love them.

Friday, December 11, 2015

Thursday, December 10, 2015

When terrorism strikes, level heads must prevail


"Hatred is corrosive of a person's wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation's spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and block a nation's progress to freedom and democracy."

 — Noam Chomsky




AUBURN — I voted for President Obama, and like many voters, I sometimes disagree with the commander in chief, but his common-sense approach to these inane terror attacks works for me.

How many times do you see politicians employ common sense whenever they open their mouths? We are often treated to nonsensical sound bites from presidential contenders like Donald Trump. Some of our nation's leaders sound just like the rantings and ravings of posters on news web sites. What a bunch of angry people we have become, and you can’t solely blame our negative actions on terrorists.

Was it necessary for the president to take center stage on national television Sunday night?

You bet! 

After what transpired in San Bernardino, Calif., and in Paris, and the frequency of terrorist attacks across the globe, we needed to hear what OUR president had to say.

Look, I never understood why background checks and gun control are an issue. There are people who shouldn’t own a water pistol, never mind high-powered semis which make mince meat out of human beings. I also realize the significance of the second amendment and the fact that this nation was settled with a gun.

At this point, don’t go shopping for a gun just yet even though I have one in the house, too, but owning a rifle doesn’t insure my family’s safety. Every time a deranged individual attacks an abortion clinic, we get a glimpse of our own home-grown terrorists who also use religion to justify homicide — with a rifle, of course.

But terrorism’s roots run deep and there are numerous reasons why people commit nefarious acts. Through the ages, all three monotheism's have experienced radicalism and its violent repercussions.

If hatred prevails and we single out people because of their beliefs, beliefs that I may not share, then chalk one up for terrorists who have succeeded in making a mockery out democracy and fools out of all of us.

I had no problem with law enforcement converting the terrorists’ SUV into the Bonny-and-Clyde death car after police were fired upon by these killers. Police did their job and saved us a costly trial. Anybody of sound mind does not want to hear assassins spouting their warped ideology in an American court of law.

This violent couple presented a clear and present danger to citizens, and law enforcement acted appropriately. Good people were caught in a crossfire of malevolence in San Bernardino, and all I can do is offer my condolences to the families — and my sympathy is not enough to console all those grieving souls — especially during the holidays.

I will never understand a person who claims to be religious, arms himself, chooses a soft target and begins blasting away like a gunman at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Ariz. How can hateful propaganda or a video streamed across the Internet inspire someone, anyone, to commit mayhem? Using a gun to make a point and murder dozens of fellow human beings is a senseless act and their point is lost right after the first shot is fired. 

Martin Luther King and his followers never fired a shot, but his words and devotion inspired a generation of young people, black and white, to act without picking up a pistol. They demonstrated, marched and withstood the water hoses and painful beatings, and they were only armed with the belief that all men are created equal.

We are not a perfect nation and there are several episodes in our history where we failed to live up to the phrase. Slavery, the subjugation of native Americans, the internment of Japanese Americans and exploiting cheap immigrant labor to satisfy a growing nation are a part of our dark past, but every nation has experienced growing pains at the expense of its citizens.

I offer no excuses for our embarrassing past, but we have come a long way thanks to a bitter civil war and a civil rights movement 100 years later that allowed us to turn the corner when it comes to hate and indifference. It was a long moment in history where citizens, black and white, made their point without resorting to violence.

Rounding up Muslims or tossing them out of this country is a nasty step backward, and anybody who understands the U.S. Constitution knows that. Remember, when Italians, Jews, Irish and Asians came here, U.S. corporations had no problems exploiting them for cheap labor. Our new countrymen experienced racism and indifference, and yet they still made their way in a nation that took them for granted and still helped build bustling nation from the ground up.

That is why turning on any group of people is simply wrong and gives every damn terrorists a reason to smile. This kind of thinking triggered the Holocaust and has been the catalyst for all genocides in every generation. There is no justification for murder — and that includes piety.

I’d like think all Americans are smarter than that. If we begin lashing out against a certain group of people, then terrorism wins and all our ideals mean nothing. 

What would our founding fathers say?

Keep that thought in mind during Christmas and Hanukkah this holiday season.



Saturday, November 14, 2015

Goodfellows52: Our condolence to people of France

Goodfellows52: Our condolence to people of France: “ They were singing in French, but the melody was freedom and any American could understand that. ” Audie Murphy , American World War II...

Our condolence to people of France

Audie Murphy, American World War II hero





To the proud and good people of France,

You gave us the Statue of Liberty, helped our ancestors win their freedom in 1783 and you remain the devout caretakers of our American war dead in pristine cemeteries across your great nation.

I can’t speak for all of my countrymen, but my family stands by the French and we offer our condolences to the families who lost loved ones in another inane act of terrorism in your country.

What fanatics did was solidify the bonds between free nations and brought worldwide condemnation from all of us. Each terrorist act brings us all together and it accomplishes nothing except to continue a war without end.

There will be blood, but it will ebb from the veins of terrorists whose misguided beliefs and nefarious ways continue to unite those who believe in the greater good.

War is like a street fight — somebody’s not getting up, and our survival depends our decisive actions.

The fanatic doesn’t understand an open and free society, which fosters ideas, ideals and the advancement of its people. France and its open-minded people have always enjoyed the fine arts and their culinary delights have been the talk of Europe.

Flip through the pages of history and there are centuries of proof that terrorizing a civilian population will bring only doom upon the perpetrators of violence.

The French fought against Hitler, whose V-2 rockets terrorized London. But all those missiles did was strengthen the resolve of the British as they huddled in underground subway tunnels. The French Underground was responsible for numerous historic acts of bravery during the D-Day invasion of France in 1944.

In World War I, the Germans used giant artillery pieces such the Paris Gun to instill fear in the French population. It is obviously those massive guns failed after the Allies won the war in 1918.

When the World Trade Towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001 in the United States, France supported us and the Canadians allowed American passenger planes to land after the United States ordered all civilian aircraft to stand down. The Holocaust united the Jewish people and Israel was born in 1948. America was the first to recognize this new nation.

Grand ideas like our U.S. constitution, which includes the phrase: “All men are created equal,” inspired a new nation. Nobody ever wrote a sentence like that in the history of mankind. That one bold stroke of a pen set the bar for all humanity, started our Civil War that put an end to slavery and sparked the civil rights movement in this country 100 years later. Gays can no longer be discriminated and are allowed to marry without retribution or harrassment thanks to our just laws.

The terrorist, with their warped views and unjust laws, will never comprehend a free state, but they know we will never back down or retreat.

So no matter what these bastards do, liberty and the greater good will prevail. But if we allow paranoia and hatred to seize us, these miscreants will have the upper hand.

At this moment, our skyscrapers are displaying the colors of the French flag and an unscheduled rendition of your country’s national anthem was performed at the New York Metropolitan Opera.


We feel your pain, but you are not alone.

Sunday, November 8, 2015

Goodfellows52: Missing in action — forever

Goodfellows52: Missing in action — forever: Albert John Blasi through the years "He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me w...

Missing in action — forever


Albert John Blasi through the years















"He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it."
                                   ~Clarence Budington Kelland


CAPE ELIZABETH — Lingering grief is like being buried alive in a shallow grave.

Melancholy is grief’s best friend, and if you immerse yourself in endless desolation, you will be consumed by your own sorrow — like a rotting corpse resting in the deep earth.

I won’t allow that kind of emptiness to rule my life. My father wouldn’t tolerate it, either. And I don’t have a choice — I have a family that still needs me despite my sadness.

My father, Albert John Blasi, died this weekend on Nov. 8, 2014 — another casualty of a cruel disease known as Alzheimer’s. He was buried with full military honors after serving a tour of duty during the occupation of Germany in 1954. Actually, he played baseball for the U.S. Army’s post teams. It was a good gig, and instead of lugging around an M-1 Garand rifle, he carried a bat and donned a glove on a baseball diamond somewhere in Europe.

I have this great picture of him playing catch at Zepplin Field where Hitler’s Nazis rallied during World War II. Behind my father is a destroyed, concrete swastika — remnants of the Third Reich.

There were hundreds of mourners at his wake and a police escort accompanied the hearse to the cemetery where he was buried in Peabody, Mass.

I still have the flag which was draped over his coffin on that cold day. It sits in a case that rests on top of a curio cabinet that I bought for my parents long ago. Call it a shrine, if you like, but it doesn’t alleviate the pain that goes along with my father’s loss.

That takes time, sometimes counseling, and a begrudging acceptance, and there is no closure — just a deep wound that never heals.

He was a teacher, coach and father whose integrity, loyalty and compassion made him a respected member in a city just outside Boston, and his reputation as the Revere High baseball skipper for 42 years extended well beyond the borders of the Greater Boston area. Boston Globe writer Martin Pave did a wonderful job with his half-page article about my dad.

It is an anniversary that no one in our family cares to celebrate. The memories are painful and his permanent absence has left us all with a sense of longing and sadness.

The new normal is impossible to get used to, and there is not a day I don’t think about him or my mother. The house at 17 McClure Street has been sold, and that’s a different kind of sadness.

I knew hanging around my home recalling his last moments on earth would trigger paralyzing grief and a strong bout of depression.

That wasn’t going to happen. I did that for four years as I watched his beautiful mind and precious memories slip away as the Alzheimer’s slowly progressed.

So I spent this weekend visiting the ocean and walking trails along the coast with my son who came home from college for the weekend. He made these past few days bearable.

I grew up in a seaside community and I have always found the turbulent waters of the Atlantic a calming force in my life. We are all connected to the sea. 

The late President John F Kennedy said, “We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea — whether it is to sail or to watch it we are going back from whence we came.”

Maybe that is why we headed south to visit one of our old stomping grounds — Fort Williams in Cape Elizabeth. It offers stunning views of the coastline and made me feel a helluva lot better to see the cold salt water lap against the shoreline and breath in the sea air on a chilly, windy November day.

For the next hour, I thought about my father, but in a positive way, avoiding the misery that accompanies grief.

Somedays are harder than others, but I have come to terms with his death, and although I miss him every day, I feel I was lucky to have parents who gave a damn about their four kids and put them first in their lives.

That feeling of loss never goes away as my grief subsides and acceptance takes a firm hold.

I see my father in my son and in my sisters’ children, too.

He lives on in all of us, but I still miss the man who stood for something good.


That will never change.





Sunday, October 25, 2015

Goodfellows52: A tale of the macabre that jars a loving memory lo...

Goodfellows52: A tale of the macabre that jars a loving memory lo...: The Blasi family gets spooked by a lurid tale told by Ira Glassman on National Public Radio's "This American Life." W...

A tale of the macabre that jars a loving memory loose

The Blasi family gets spooked by a lurid tale told by Ira Glassman on National Public Radio's "This American Life."


Where there is no imagination there is no horror.

~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.


AUBURN — A spooky story told over a radio is more terrifying than a slice-and-dice movie on the big screen.

Don’t believe me!

Orson Welles' broadcast of H.G. Wells’ "War of the Worlds,” which is a tale of a Martian invasion on Earth, drove the residents of New Jersey mad with fear on Oct. 30, 1938.

Listen to a story of the macabre over the radio and your mind wanders when an adept narrator scares the living crap out of you. Weird and horrifying images pop into to your mind when you hear about two kids who were nearly kidnapped by a bunch of psychos near a cemetery — or the guy who used foxhole humor to describe his working environment in a morgue. The narrator cracked jokes about mangled corpses and organs kept in glass jars. 

I couldn’t stop laughing.

TV just doesn’t cut it when it makes a sorry attempt to frighten us with ridiculous images of a guy with chain saw dissecting another human being. It’s all fake or worse — computer generated crap.

The mind is a scary place to be when tales of terror are spun over the radio. There are more horrible thoughts or weird incidents stored in a human mind than can be recreated on television. Real-life horror stories abound in the deep recesses of our fragile brain.

The three of us gathered around the dinner table as dark skies gave way to a warm sun on a quiet, chilly, autumn Sunday afternoon.

I tuned into WBUR, Boston’s National Public Radio station, on my Mac. I love radio, and my MacBook Air offers dozens of radio stations. I really hate TV where pathetic reality shows or 24-hour news stations like FOX, which features unfair and unbalanced reporting about all the crazies from the Republican Party, permeate the air waves.

We got lucky and found Ira Glassman, the host of NPR’s “This American Life,” airing a bunch of old horror stores. After all, the devil’s night is upon us — Halloween which is a bunch of bull, but Beelzebub's favorite holiday gives retailers a chance to fatten their wallets.

I don’t believe in ghosts, and when you die, you are dead as door nail, to quote Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” You are not coming back to haunt a house or scare some poor bastard in a cemetery. You are worm food unless you decide to be cremated.

We sat like the “The Waltons” as we listened to one horror story after another, but instead of an old Philco radio, we listened to a computer. I wonder what Johnboy would think?

The first story was about a woman who was attacked by a rabid raccoon outside her home, and her nightmares when she tried to get treatment for rabies.

But the next vignette of horror was a story I heard before with my 10-year-old son in 2006.

Ten years ago, Anthony and I sat on the bed to listen to Glassman’s tales of horror. The story was about two brothers who hitched a ride with people who resembled members of “The Adams Family.” All I could think about a group of drugged-out, disfigured, dastardly people in the front seat.

It is a true story

As the two boys traveled with the occupants of the car, they began to realize these adults were up to no good and they wanted out. The boys plotted their escape and bailed out of a running car as as those crazies drove up and down a cemetery in the dead of the night looking for their escaped prey.

My son would leave the room as this tale of an abduction grew more terrifying by the minute. The boys in the car opened the door and leaped out and ran for their lives. They raced to a house lit up in the distance where somebody was having a keg party. The car and its ghoulish occupants followed in hot pursuit through the graveyard.

When they got to the home, partygoers heard the boys’ story and saw the spooky car off in the distance in the cemetery. A few brave souls from the party tried to get the car’s license number before the ghouls disappeared into the darkness.

Anthony is now a 19-year-old college freshman who sat at the table to hear the entire story. He was amused and no longer afraid.

But what is more frightening to me than this lurid tale of abduction was where did nine wonderful years with my son go.


Now that’s terrifying to parents who adore their son.

Friday, October 9, 2015

Goodfellows52: Walking for a cure and my father

Goodfellows52: Walking for a cure and my father: “It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers th...

Walking for a cure and my father

“It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” 





LEWISTON — We took a long walk for a good cause on a chilly Sunday morning.

A couple of hundred people tagged along to raise money for “The Long Goodbye,” also know as Alzheimer’s — the devastating disease of the brain.

It is the scourge of the elderly and the bastard killed my father. For me, this murderer is the enemy of the state and needs to be put down with a powerful drug. The medical community has declared war on this SOB, but so far, there is no cure or a way to slow its progression despite all the research.

For four years, I was helpless as Albert John Blasi’s mind faded away. He raised four good kids, and was a compassionate teacher and coach. He succumbed to Alzheimer's on on Nov. 8, 2014. Those last hours of his life were enough to trigger depression in all of us.

So my wife and I walked through New Auburn and along the the Androscoggin River as a chilly autumn wind gave us a head’s-up that winter would be making a return engagement in the Pine Tree State. We walked with people who either lost a loved one to the disease or were in the midst of taking care of a stricken family member.

There’s not much you can do when Alzheimer’s targets a loved one. You experience the horrible pain as a loved one slowly disappears into the night. There is no cure for this malevolent killer, which robs victims of their cherished memories.

Alzheimer’s, like every killer disease, is simply cruel. I watched my father struggle to remember or speak and eventually he forgot how to eat — and there is not damn thing I could do except watch him die.

So we walked, talked and traded memories of my father during our three-mile trek. Terri and I had insightful conversations about Big Al. I thought him with each step I took and found the grief still lingers and impossible to shake.

We donated money, listen to people speak about loved ones battling the disease and then followed the course mapped out by dedicated volunteers. Donors were given flower pinwheels and were planted in the park.

But instead of being consumed by depression, we decided to take active steps to do something — anything — about this mind robber.

Sometimes, you think all the fundraising and goodwill are just futile attempts to stamp out the disease and make us feel good. But once you get involved, you feel like you are taking evasive action and no longer a bystander watching the suffering.

Participating in fundraising events might help families avoid this long ordeal, but time is of the essence for all those slipping away.


So open your wallets, take a long walk with caring people and go the distance for a cure for Alzheimer’s. Being involved is one way to battle grief, helplessness and an opportunity to eliminate this disease.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Goodfellows52: Mouths will runneth over in politics

Goodfellows52: Mouths will runneth over in politics: " Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself."  —  Mark Twai n We’ve dumbed...

Mouths will runneth over in politics

"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself."
 — Mark Twain

We’ve dumbed down television, made reading a good book a Herculean task, and the Internet has become a hodgepodge of the inane and a home for narcissi.

So why not continue to make a farce out of the next presidential election where a lengthy roll call of pathetic candidates offer empty promises to voters who have little interest in their own future.

Like all kids who are taught that the United States presidency is where men of honor and intellect run for office for the greater good, I believed that the best and brightest, with the highest regard for their fellow man, belonged in the Oval Office.

But any voter, who has common sense has seen the current crop of self-righteous, presidential wannabes, is probably thinking about voting for their cat or staying at home on election day to watch a reruns of “Seinfeld.”

The Grand Old Party is loaded with paranoid characters who rant and rave about illegal immigrants, the elderly (because they have lived too long), global warming lies and their greatest nemesis — the government — also known as the Evil Empire to many republicans.

Many of them resemble the “Seinfeld” character “Crazy Joe Devola.”

Answer me this!

Why do candidates run for election even though they hate our government? They see evil everywhere in Washington D.C. They tell us our greatest fear is the establishment and believe it is ruining our lives. And yet, they have no problem making money working within the government.

Funny how that works.

So why do they want be government employee? Of course, the obvious answer is to collect a big paycheck, endless benefits, and satisfy their ego.

They are masters of doublespeak — deliberately euphemistic, ambiguous, or obscure language. That’s the textbook definition of political language that is used as ammunition by career politicians who can’t possible provide a voter with reasonable answers to today’s complicated problems.

Right now, and I am not naming names, but there is a GOP contender who wants to bomb oil wells to put an end to endless terrorism emanating from the Middle East.

Does this uniformed presidential candidate understand the environmental consequences of blowing up oil wells, which would make Americans wince when petroleum prices rise like Mount Everest?

And while he spews blanket statements about our dismal future and evil, illegal immigrants, hoping to frighten Americans into voting for him, there are others like him who tout their “my country, right or wrong” attitude.

I cringe when I hear someone say, “I am voting for him because he speaks his mind.”

What the hell does that mean, anyway?

To me, it is another candidate spewing outlandish remarks to alienate a constituency already divided by party lines. Making rude comments pulls a nation apart. There are millions of supporters clapping their hands for a candidate who shouldn’t be running for the school board, never mind the White House.

I will never understand why half the middle class votes against its best interests when they cast their ballots for the GOP.

The guy, who wants to carpet bomb oil wells, jail illegal immigrants and switch Denali (the high one) back to Mount McKinley if he is elected president, just got a ringing endorsement from a former vice presidential contender from Alaska.

That should tell you something about the lowest common denominator in American politics. He should have asked Moe, Larry, Shemp or Curley to join his political campaign.

By the way, the top GOP contender, who speaks his warped mind, just went with the flow when he promised to support the Republican party.

So much for being a maverick in politics. In the end, they all go with the flow and a nation suffers thanks to a lack of leadership and vision.


Remember that when you vote!

Out and about

Take a walk on the wild side around New England's outdoors. Come walk with my son and I as we explore state parks, historic sites, and creepy cemeteries. This is the good stuff in life, and there is nothing worth watching on television, anyway. Join us as we take advantage of Maine's beaches and pristine forests. In between our sojourns through the Pine Tree State, look for political insight and a few well-written opinion pieces as well.