A cat by any other name; Oh deer me; We (Scrooge and I) come a wassailing

"Cats have it all - admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it."

AUBURN, Maine — This holiday season the Blasi family made a momentous decision to change the cat’s name — or at least use several other aliases.

The resolution will affect the household for the coming year. We debated and debated — for five agonizing minutes — at the kitchen table over a bowl of hot punch. After all the haggling, we agreed to a new name for a cat that never ever stops talking.

We will be in court on Monday to make it official after we file papers with several lawyers. The cat will also be summoned by several aliases depending our our moods and how much this hairball bothers me when I am filing a damn story at the kitchen table.

My wonderful, beautiful wife named the cat “Cindy Lou Who,” the sweet kid from Whoville in “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.”  Every time I hear Grinch, I think of a nonsense-filled Washington, D.C. occupied by Li'l Abner and his hillbilly friends.

Terri has also called the Cat — Diva — which has several definitions, including “a self-important person who is temperamental and difficult to please.”

In this case, it is a cat and it owns our hearts — and she knows it. It screeches when it demands to be fed and wanders the house, bellowing “Hello.” It really does sound like that.

The cat, which we bought from an animal shelter the past March, is a drama queen — and we are convinced “Diva” is appropriate. She wakes us out of a sound sleep in the dead of night with her ear-piercing, unbearable screech. She is miserable until she has her morning, stinky food, much like I feel when I suck down my first of cup of coffee.

Diva never stops talking and screeching — and it can be intolerable until you give in and crack open another can of smelly cat food. This is a cat with a hair-trigger temper that will take a swipe at you when she’s having a moment— and there are many.

She’ll steel your chair because Diva is a rascal and an assassin, who knocked off several mice and screamed at the top of her lungs after she committed the bloody deeds.

And so Diva will be the cat’s name — along with several aliases.

To be honest, I don’t think the cat gives a damn so long as it eats — just like a Scrooge acquaintance — who wouldn’t attend “The Old Screw’s” funeral unless he was also fed.

Oh deer me!

I was hustling back from a University of Maine at Farmington men’s basketball game that I covered a couple of Friday’s ago in Farmington.

It was a dark and cold night, my friends. Everybody was at home enjoying their wood stoves while I kept my eyes on a lonely stretch of road in search of danger.

I had to file a story, because that’s what reporters do.

I raced around a hair-pin turn on a hill at about 50 mph on dangerous Route 4 in Livermore when a giant buck leaped in front of my Rondo Kia. 

I had a three-second window to decide if I wanted to live or die on a dimly-lit country road on a freezing Friday night.

I skidded, veered a bit to the right, hit the gas pedal and slammed in the deer’s ass. I hit it hard and it limped off into the woods. I drove off to call it in. I accelerated to lift the hood to prevent the deer from crashing through the window.

I heard the glass cover on the left-front headlight shatter after the impact, which could be heard for miles. I limped home with one headlight and a fear that there were other deer lurking on the side of road ready to pounce on other unsuspecting drivers.

I needed to file my story because that’s what reporters do.

I also needed a stiff drink because that’s what this reporter required after dodging the Grim Reaper.

The Old Screw warmed my heart

I have read just about everything that Charles Dickens published over his lifetime, but I never sat down with “A Christmas Carol.”

I’ve watched several movies called a “Christmas Carol” or “Scrooge.”

So I promised myself that I would read the Dickens’ story about angry old man — like Henry F. Potter — who despises the world and tries to make Bedford Falls a hellhole for young George Bailey.

There’s a real-life versions of Scrooge or Potter in our nation’s capital.

I was enthralled as Dickens took us through Ebenezer’s tumultuous life — with three diligent spirits who slapped around the miser along the way.

He certainly had it coming to him.

The short story is spectacular, especially the way Dickens reveals his characters through sharp dialogue. The book has certainly withstood the test of time, just like Philip Van Doren Stern’s short story, “The Greatest Gift,” which we all know as “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Dickens and Van Doren Stern had it right when they penned two ageless stories about miserly, selfish old men whose only concern is themselves and the bottom line.

Sound familiar?

But “The Old Screw” figured it out in the end when he said: “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”

I leave you with Scrooge’s epiphany and bid you all a happy holiday.

Goodfellows52: Giving thanks for some wonderful memories

Goodfellows52: Giving thanks for some wonderful memories: “Traditions are our roots and a profile of who we are as individuals and who we are as a family. They are our roots, which give u...

Goodfellows52: Goodfellows52: Cat and mouse with Cindy-Lou

Goodfellows52: Goodfellows52: Cat and mouse with Cindy-Lou: Goodfellows52: Cat and mouse with Cindy-Lou : "Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function."  — G...

Giving thanks for some wonderful memories

“Traditions are our roots and a profile of who we are as individuals and who we are as a family. They are our roots, which give us stability and a sense of belonging - they ground us.” 

                                                                                        — Lidia Bastianich

AUBURN, Maine — A holiday tradition vanished with the death of my father.

But when you are the survivor, you long for the custom that brought you closer together with a parent.

I was fortunate to be raised in Italian neighborhood with nearly a dozen relatives on one street. Thanksgiving meant a stream of cousins and uncles, a smorgasbord of home-made food and booze — particularly fine wine.

There were traditions within traditions and one was rooting for your high school during Turkey Day football games across the state of Massachusetts. 

For nearly 50 years, you would find my father and me at a wind-blown, frozen football field watching Revere High School confront the Winthrop Vikings on a brisk Thanksgiving morning.

Spending a cold morning at Harry Della Russo Stadium or Winthrop’s ocean-side field was the prelude to a dinner for 20 relatives all vying for sumptuous meals and share a shot of Anisette to take the chill out of those football fans returning from the game.

During the games, we lamented about the cold and spent a couple of bucks on hot chocolate. There were adults who were seen reaching inside their jackets for  their flasks filled with rye or brandy.

I envied them. I found hot chocolate didn’t stop the shivers triggered by the biting cold. But a belt of brandy might be just what the doctor ordered in sub-zero temperatures.

Back in the day, the Div. I teams from the Greater Boston Area drew big crowds. The game gave former RHS football players like me a chance to catch up with former classmates as well as hang around my father — Albert John Blasi.

Big Al coached the Revere Patriots baseball team. He believed in supporting the football team and the game gave him the perfect excuse stay out of my mother’s way in the kitchen. My father did not find slaving over a hot oven a palatable way to spend the morning. Making soup or salad was the extent of his culinary skills.

Those talks in the car before we got to the field were precious to me. I watched my dad flip around the AM dial looking for other high school football scores as we raced home for a round of pasta, fish and Turkey.

Thanksgiving Day mornings watching high school football came to a slow stop when age caught up with my dad and the death of his close friend, Robert Marra. My father and Mr. Marra were fixtures in the stands. Both are no longer with us and a tradition disappeared with them.

The memories are sometimes painful, but I know I was lucky to have those significant moments with a father who loved his family and community. Going to a high school game would not be the same without my dad.

Thanksgiving traditions sometimes fade away with time, but those memories of my father standing in the cold watching a game come alive every holiday.

For that, I am thankful.

Goodfellows52: Cat and mouse with Cindy-Lou

Goodfellows52: Cat and mouse with Cindy-Lou: "Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function."  — Garrison Keillor AUBURN, Maine ...

Cat and mouse with Cindy-Lou

"Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function." 

— Garrison Keillor

AUBURN, Maine  — It has been nearly five months since Cindy-Lou left  “The Upside Down” world — our dark, damp cellar — to hang out with the three of us and enjoy the creature comforts of the rest of our home.

For a while there, we thought Cindy would elude us for all eternity by hiding in every orifice in our three-bedroom home.

There were sightings and brief encounters with her, but for a month or, she preferred the “The Upside Down.” During her stay in the cellar, she chalked up three confirmed kills, ripping up three mice and ending our pest problem.

She was moonlighting as a deadly assassin and I applauded her precision in ridding our home of those vile, disgusting rodents. She was like Max von Sydow — who played an unfeeling G. Jourbert — an assassin for the CIA in “Three Days of the Condor.”

Nature gave her killer instincts and we needed to protect our home. She also kills and eats ants and flies when they covertly slip into our home. The insects are like snacks for the cantankerous Cindy.

We were in despair that we might only catch glimpses of a cat, which ate her meals while we slept, but suddenly Cindy came out — just like Boo Radley did in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”  

She, and only she, decided that we were worth her time and love.

She is a fussy dame for a five-year-old cat, but we have learned to live with her endless demands. When she screeches for a treat, her bellowing won’t stop until she is fed. We almost always give into her demands for peace of mind.

Cindy likes to swipe at all of us and I never pet her when she is the floor. She will bait you with those big eyes and then strike with her sharp claws. 

But she is always on the prowl for bugs and mice. The premises are safe under the watchful eyes of Cindy-Lou.

She never stops talking and it is funny when she lets out one of those “HELLO” calls in the hallway. 

We will keep her around because she is good company and we enjoy our fireside chats with a cat that just can’t keep quiet.

That’s because cats always have the final say and owners, deep down, know this autonomous animal calls the shots and has no sense of diplomacy.

Goodfellows52: Goodfellows52: A word to the wise from 2 poets and...

Goodfellows52: Goodfellows52: A word to the wise from 2 poets and...: Goodfellows52: A word to the wise from 2 poets and an educator : AUBURN, Maine — I lost two of my favorite New England poets and a brilliant...

Climate change is just warming up

"The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction."

                                                                                                                  — Rachel Carson

AUBURN, Maine — The searing, summer heat and intolerable humidity that you’ve been experiencing in the Pine Tree State is a frightening preview of global warming.

Nature sent us another movie trailer featuring the cataclysmic repercussions of climate change. From California to the Mid West and as far as Maine and Quebec, the high temperatures are killing some of us.

You won’t have to wait for the movie when it premieres. It will be an Oscar winner, but we won’t be around to enjoy this horror film with a harrowing end for generations to come.

The heat wave claimed the lives of 70 people in Quebec and most of Maine feels like Miami at noon in July. In the coming years, certain areas around the globe will become unlivable and rising oceans will gobble up coastlines around the world. Everett, Mass., will end up becoming the new Revere Beach. 

Just ask the good citizens of low-lying south Florida during King Tides. The water gets higher during each event and no pump in the world will keep that part of the state afloat.

The next generation depends on us for their survival! It will be your children who will wake up to a world with no clean water to drink. Food will become scarce because humans have polluted the soil. 

A lack of resources means more wars.

According to a National Public Radio report, the western part of the United States is two degrees hotter and that means the snowpack in the mountains melts quicker leading to longer and more intense fires. 

If you dismiss these dire warnings from Mother Nature, you do so at your own peril. Expect serious consequences from an overpopulated planet that is beginning to look like one giant garbage scow.

The earth is ailing and we are the cancer ravaging our fragile home. We are the most destructive force on the planet and, well, the earth will pay us all back by whittling down the herd through starvation, crop failures, intense heat and polluted air, water and land.

“In nature, nothing exists alone. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.” Rachel Carson, author of “Silent Spring,” said.

Too bad we ignored her when her book was published in 1962. Many tried to silence her even though she was ahead of her time.

One of the latest headlines is from the Washington Post: 

"Temperatures near or pass all-time records in Europe as another heat wave blasts the continent."

A really terrifying report came from CNN about a California fire said: 

Carr Fire in California is so hot it's creating its own weather system

Your children will suffer in the coming decades because the naysayers and uninformed leaders in governments across the globe didn’t act to find cleaner fuels and end the polluting of our drinking water and food-providing oceans.

There is no deity to rescue us from catastrophe or another celestial body that is habitable in the Solar System — unless you have the cash to pay for a space suit, a ticket and a rocket that can ferry you to Mars.

Good luck with that.

Man has yet to step foot on Mars, but if we do, we will probably soil the Red Planet, too. We are indeed a destructive species — and large nations like the United States and China, — two industrial powerhouses — are responsible for most of the pollution.

“There is no Planet B,” French president Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron said several months ago. Our U.S. president just brushed off Macron’s remark, but that’s not surprising from a another careless leader.

As far back as 2014, the Portland Press Herald reported that climate change was indeed hurting the population and its animal life:

“The climate has warmed in Maine and Vermont more than in every other state in the past 30 years, a shift that scientists say is evident in the species of birds and fish that are moving into or out of northern New England.

“The six New England states, along with three of their neighbors in the Northeast, accounted for nine of the 10 states that have had the largest increase in annual average temperature since 1984, according to an Associated Press analysis of temperature records from the federal government’s National Climatic Data Center.”

I was listening to Maine Public Broadcasting the other day about climate change and how this seemingly endless heat is affecting Mainers. Experts agree that heat waves come and go, but this scorcher has intensified due to global warming.

One caller said his tomatoes were not turning quickly because of the hot temperatures at night.

This is true because my tomatoes remain green despite the warm sun. I have been gardening for nearly 20 years and I have noticed that frogs have disappeared and bees are scarce. 

Our planet is being stripped of its natural resources by greed, ignorance and neglect.

Think about that every time you refuse to put out a recycle bin or look your child in the eye.

Goodfellows52: A word to the wise from 2 poets and an educator

Goodfellows52: A word to the wise from 2 poets and an educator: AUBURN, Maine — I lost two of my favorite New England poets and a brilliant junior high science teacher over the past three months. Al...

A word to the wise from 2 poets and an educator

AUBURN, Maine — I lost two of my favorite New England poets and a brilliant junior high science teacher over the past three months.

All three contributed to the greater good and gave us insight into life’s travails and achievements in our brief lives. Gifted poets and teachers have the aptitude to get inside our heads with their life-changing works and their flair in a classroom.

Eileen Merullo, 95, served in the classroom and her country during World War II.

According to her obituary in the Revere Journal:

“She graduated from Revere High School in 1940 and received her B.S. from Boston University’s Sargent College in 1944. Immediately upon graduation, she enlisted in the United States Army and served as a registered physical therapist in the Army Medical Corps, working with wound- ed soldiers in the Amputation Center at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. Always proud of her military service, she was a lifetime member of the Revere chapter of the Disabled American Veterans, and a charter member of Women in Military Service of America, as well as other veterans’ organizations.”

Mrs. Merullo inspired her students, sparked my curiosity about the natural world and is the reason why I have never lost interest in science.

I will miss her and the way she handled herself in the classroom. She didn’t take any guff, but her compassion for her students came shining through during each lesson.

Diana Der-Hovanessian, who died in March, wrote a poem entitle “Shifting The Sun.” I read this poem to mourners at St. Anthony’s Church in Revere, Mass., when my father, Albert John Blasi, passed away from Alzheimer's in 2014.

SHIFTING THE SUN

When your father dies, say the Irish

you lose your umbrella against bad weather.

May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Welsh

you sink a foot deeper into the earth.

May you inherit his light, say the Armenians

When your father dies, say the Canadians

you run out of excuses.

May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Indians

he comes back as the thunder.

May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Russians,

he takes your childhood with him.

May you inherit his light say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the British,

you join his club you vowed you wouldn’t.

May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Armenians,

your sun shifts forever

and you walk in his light.

Losing any parent is an ordeal and it is easy to get lost in a maze of grief. I am just fortunate I can still walk in his light. Der-Hovenessian’s poem is a powerful look at how people around the globe deal with the death of a patriarch.

I heard Donald Hall’s poem “Affirmation” on National Public Radio.

Those tender words about aging stuck with me and I began to read other poems by Hall and discovered he was a former Poet Laureate. He passed away at 89, but “Affirmation” has never left me.

Affirmation

To grow old is to lose everything. 

Aging, everybody knows it. 

Even when we are young, 

we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads 

when a grandfather dies.

Then we row for years on the midsummer 

pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,

that began without harm, scatters 

into debris on the shore, 

and a friend from school drops 

cold on a rocky strand.

If a new love carries us 

past middle age, our wife will die 

at her strongest and most beautiful. 

New women come and go. All go. 

The pretty lover who announces 

that she is temporary

is temporary. The bold woman,

middle-aged against our old age,

sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand. 

Another friend of decades estranges himself 

in words that pollute thirty years. 

Let us stifle under mud at the pond’s edge 

and affirm that it is fitting

and delicious to lose everything.

“Affirmation” is blunt and doesn’t shy away from aging as life slowly slips away from all of us. But it was privilege to know them through their inspirational poems and in a classroom.