Forty. 40. Four-oh. Damn. I can't believe I am now four decades old.
Ouch.
Where'd all my youth go? What happened to all of my dreams? And how the hell did I get here? I've been blessed and cursed with one incredible memory-- thus I'll be driving into DC and think about something stupid I did in junior high. Not awesome.
I've also been blessed to share the stage with an incredible group of people in my life... some of them friends-- some adversaries... all have left a footprint on my canvas.
In passing this milestone (or millstone) I have thought long and hard about what I'll say here...as the
Internet is all about lists. 40 best friends? I've met too many people. 40 Greatest Moments? Don't have enough to qualify. 40 Biggest Crushes? Still too much heartbreak. 40 Greatest Lists? Might have something there-- just enough to bare my soul without giving away a thing.
So here are forty moments/people/things...I guess...:
1-- First things first. I am the Prince of Procrastination. Great on ideas and concepts and not so awesome on execution. Thus the novel about the Battle of Britain, the Christmas play that gives the innkeeper a song, the book evaluating Moody Blues albums from 1967 through 72 and the weeds in my mother's garden never quite got the attention they deserved beyond the planning stage.
That's why my "turning 40" blog is still not finished four months after the big day.
2-- Biggest Influences-- My first memories are being dressed up as a bunny for Halloween in 1973 in California.
My parents were larger than life--then and now. Favorite memories include my dad telling the family to "say shit" while posing for a family picture and my mother trying to fix me up with the photographer of my sister's wedding-- at my sister's wedding. "Hey, so what do you do for fun?"--"Excuse me, I'm trying to take pictures... will you leave me alone?"...
3-- Favorite Albums-- I almost ruined my parent's turntable at age four skipping Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow to "Somebody to Love"... while that makes the cut I also got into trouble for pounding the apartment wall to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" at age five (acting out "there's a sign on the wall"). The Cars first album came next... I became a sucker for anything Moody Blues (Seventh Sojourn the leader in the clubhouse) and I wrote a paper in college about the Beatles Revolver. Best recent LP/CD? Franz Ferdinand's You Could do So Much Better...
4-- Favorite Albums by groups that don't exist... Spinal Tap opened a world of possibilities... from Boston not being a college town to helping me learn ' means feet and " means inches...and The Sun Never Sweats reigns supreme. But I can't ignore The Wonders "That Thing You Do!" for pure
catchiness... or Dewey Cox's masterful cover of David Bowie's "
Starman". Of the current
faux-groups... nobody topped 2 +
GETHER and their timeless classic "The Hardest Part 'Bout
Breakin' Up (is getting back your stuff)". Gosh there's a lot of wasted time there.
5-- Best Teacher-- my junior year in high school I was halfway through a massively mediocre/extremely underachieving academic tenure when my Trig teacher Mrs.
Janosz gave me a lifeline from oblivion. I owe the lady everything.
6-- Best and Worst Song-- "Stairway to Heaven" is way too long... and was always the last song played at most of my school dances. Good news if you've found the love of your life--bad news if your heart's desire turns you away. Because you can't leave the auditorium without looking ridiculous-- and you've got to wait for your friends you carpooled with... you've got to listen to every word and look around like you planned not to be dancing with anyone for the last song. Yeah-- everybody buys that.
7-- Best roles-- who wasn't involved in a school/class play? From the Billy Goats Gruff to Oklahoma (man #4 : "three dollars and four bits!") I had my range of roles, the last as Max
Detwiler in Sound of Music when I was 19... "the Von
Trapp Family Singers!? The Family Von
Trapp?!"... it's always cool to foil Nazis.
8-- Favorite Crush-- gosh, I've been into a smattering of smart girls, pretty girls, girls who play with rocks, sane girls, crazy girls-- even girls with chicken pox (trust me- that was one not so awesome situation). I even had a crush on Jennifer Paige precisely because she sang the song (Just a Little) "Crush".
9-- WMD-- a misleading abbreviation. Many thought it stood for "Weapons of Mass Destruction"; I've learned that
WMD also stands for "Woman of My Dreams". In theory
WMD exists... and many will testify to its whereabouts. One turns the world upside down to find
WMD; domestic agendas are tossed aside in pursuing something you think exists but what naysayers claim never was and never will be.
10-- Ridiculous Romantic Analogy #2-- I've learned being single is like being a college basketball coach. You try to find the right fit... and often find the right player but not somebody who can cut it academically. It's easier to recruit if you belong to a power conference as opposed to being an independent. Sometimes they're a bad match for the system you run, while sometimes they go somewhere else because they don't like your uniforms. Sometimes you find the perfect recruit and they bolt before their eligibility is up.
11-- Best team ever covered-- I had the pleasure to follow New Hampshire College basketball from 1992 to 1996... a golden era where the Penmen owned the
NECC and advanced to the Division II Elite Eight three straight years. I once wrote a song about them to the tune of Brandy by Looking Glass "Here we go, Penmen...".
12-- Favorite book... I cut my teeth on the Hardy Boys (favorite in the bunch--"The Mystery of the Spiral Bridge")... read the entire American Bicentennial Series (800-pagers) and the North and South series to boot. I devoured the James Bond novels (
Moneypenny not nearly as flirty as in the films) and fell in love with Catch-22 ("You've got flies in your eyes. It's why you can't see them"). The best book I've read recently?
The Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Everything a book should be--a completely unreal and fascinating journey.
13-- Favorite places that don't exist... I convinced a co-worker that
Tchochkie's from Office Space actually was a real restaurant (on rte 28 near
Centreville) where you could get a
Strappleberry Mocha Swirl. Unfortunately she didn't catch on before other co-workers had helped create an entire corporate world that included "
Pastabilities" (get the Firecracker
Fettucine) ... "Taco Town" (home of the Burrito Boat)... "
Chappers" (try the Chopped Salmon with Creamed Beets) and "Captain
Queeg's Fish Fry".
14-- Favorite Uncles-- as released last year in my ode to the late Bill and Laura Watson... I surmised Bill wasn't even in my top 5 uncle rankings-- which made me think...: #1 Bob-- Marlboro Man with Muttonchops... you tell him he's not in first. #2 Jimmy-- my model for success at work and home. #3 Jeff-- renaissance man extraordinaire. #4 Henry-- hardest working man in show business. #5 cousin once removed Preston Williams (
wildcard qualifier)- funniest in the family-- and he still looks younger than me although he's 40 years older.
15-- Favorite Aunts-- #1 was Aunt Sade. Tremendous heart and had the nickname "Old
Battleaxe"-- even Bob wouldn't dare tell her she wasn't #1. #2--Mimi... because she always referred to herself as "my favorite aunt". But never when Sade was within earshot. #3-- Alice... incredibly kind heart and soul. #4--Dottie and #5 Hazel bring up a hall of fame quintet.
16-- Smartest person I've known-- Neil
Seethaler was my high school valedictorian... and had the nickname "Four-oh" from the get-go. Brilliantly sharp or sharply brilliant? He's a very successful doctor now.
17-- Favorite Single moment-- I had been divorced for about eight months before I even started looking at anyone... and I met a charming woman. Friend of a friend kind of deal. We met up within the group setting for a few weeks and then one night it was just her and I. And my goodness instead of the usual C+ game, I brought my A GAME. She was laughing. I was laughing. I was so on I wanted to bottle myself up and use it at a later date. She turned to me in this loud bar and said, "Dave, I don't mean this the wrong way... but I would like for you to be my boyfriend." How does one respond to that? Given several pints of liquid courage, I played it so cool..."I would love to be your boyfriend!" to which she replied..."Oh, Dave... I said MEET. I want you to MEET my boyfriend." Evidently she thought I'd be a good fit with his company. Meet. I swore she said be. Damn!
18-- Worst Single Moment-- I once met someone through one of my friends "
UConn James" (huge Huskies fan)...and we hit it off greatly... I thought I had found the one until I got the text back "It was such a memorable evening hanging with you Steve...such an unforgettable night". Back to the recruiting trail.
19-- Favorite Friend in Phone-- UConn James is not the only sweet moniker in my cell... there's Red
Sox Mike,
Tuaca Josh, the Instigator and Fun Mikey;
Bday Kim and Beth Boat, Scoops and
McLovin. But the ultimate remains Billy "White Shoes"
Wilks. Why? Because never have I had a friend say such wrong things about such a wide variety of topics with a completely straight face: "David Bowie isn't talented"... "Dick
Butkus and John
Havilicek couldn't play today"... "I respect the
Jonus Brothers"... "You Should see Legally
Blonde on Broadway"... and "Seven should be an even number". It's like having an extra TV set in the room at all times.
20-- Favorite Movies--hands-down The Empire Strikes Back and On Her Majesty's Secret Service... both involve snow... and the villain kicking the hero's ass quite a bit... with a downbeat ending. Something about being frozen in
carbonite, having your arm chopped off and your new bride being killed. Still, I had the "scoundrel" sequence down pat-- although I never used it in Junior High. I do say every so often "This never happened to the other fella"... to no reaction whatsoever. In my opinion both films represented high artistic points of the Star Wars and the Bond series... and both movies ruined me for whatever followed.
21-- Best Team-- for four years (1980-83) I was a part of the
Bedford Soccer League juggernaut Granite State Leather. Swiss-born Tony Mayer sponsored our team and we went a composite 27-4-7. We had the dominant duo of Jeff
Goebel and Rick
Yager driving the train... and an iron-clad defense of Josh Morris, Dave
Monesmith and Dave
Proulx shutting the door on opponents. We were innovative-- switching to the "
UConn" and "St. Louis" four fullback defenses in various situations. The biggest victory of those teams wasn't
Bedford Soccer League titles but the fact that most of the kids who played for my dad are coaching in or running leagues now. The Biggest loss was during the mid-80's when the tanning factory was popped for a plethora of environmental violations... who would have thought dumping cow carcasses into the
Merrimac river would be a bad thing?
22-- Favorite co-worker... I've been blessed to work with more than a few interesting characters in various avenues-- from an overnight radio board-op who wore yellow pants and brought equal amounts of pornography and firearms into the station to a temp who held a fax machine hostage when I was unable to place her on another assignment immediately. The late Tom Hammond (not the Betty White-lookalike on NBC) at
WLBC takes top honors in many categories. TH was hardworking beyond belief. He had two great passions:
Muncie South High School sports and the band competition at the State Fair. He had the worst Darth Vader imitation ever--and used it more than once on the air. Tom also wasn't shy about playing air-drums to Third Eye
Blind's "Semi-Charmed Kind of Life"-- even when Rick Duncan was already playing air-drums. Tommy, you left us way too soon.
23-- Best friend. I've moved a lot and have had a great many acquaintances... and a handful of really great friends. Fresh out of college I worked at Shorty's Mexican Roadhouse in
Litchfield NH (home of the Big Bob's Buffalo Burrito) and began a friendship with one of the other new trainees. We'd hash over our respective miserable situations. He'd be shocked I wasn't into this girl we met that he'd never talk to ("Think of it as one less competitor"). We'd destroy
Steakbombs at
Pappy's Pizza. He'd remind me I dated a woman for two months yet never got her name correct (the common "
Leeza/Lisa" misconception). We became roommates. He was best man at my wedding. I was a groomsman at his. He helped me move my stuff when my marriage ended-- including the computer desk that stored heavy bricks. Jim Gregoire--I'm blessed beyond belief by your friendship.
24-- Best worst advice-- I once told a friend she should try to have her heart broken as much as possible. Now I wasn't condoning bad life decisions or trying to get dumped. My thinking was you should risk your heart whenever you can and aim for happiness knowing there very well may be some collateral damage- If you don't have dreams, what's the point?
25-- Best Broadcast Partner... I've worked with more than a few talented people at various tops of my career. From Rich Levine ("the voice of the Penmen") to Morry
Mannies (50+ years announcing Ball State Football and Basketball) to Matt Noble (Maryland
womens' hoops)... I've learned quite a bit. The most fun I had was two winters in
Muncie Indiana working with Dave
Shondell-- not only did we announce high school games together we had the must-ignore weekly basketball feature "Delaware County Full Court Press"-- hands down the most enjoyable three minutes on
WXFN outside of when I accidentally played
BTO's "Let it Ride". We'd always end the feature with "one last shot"... and Dave responded by sinking a
gamewinner every time.
26-- Best boss/mentor... let the record show that to avoid favoritism, no current employer could be used. I've worked for shouters... control freaks... Mr.
lackadasicals...
overplanners... relaxed types who made the coach in
Teenwolf look organized... people always 5 moves ahead of everyone else on the board and people who have had no clue whatsoever. In between my junior and senior years of college I interned at Channel Nine in Manchester, NH and had the pleasure of working with then sports anchor Frank
Mallicoat. Winning mustache aside, Frank taught me quite a bit about the business... on and off the air. He made you want to succeed to make him proud. Although I didn't make a dime from
WMUR, I gained so much from that summer. I haven't talked to Frank in about 15 years-- but still hope he'd be proud of my work.
27-- Favorite vacation... in June 2004 I went on a cruise to the Bahamas with five co-workers... a legendary trip that began with one of my friends forgetting his dress shoes at a bar yet remembering to bring 50 pounds of Scuba equipment he would not use on the trip. We had a guy drop $75 worth of chips overboard and another sleep on a pillow-mint. We met a
NASCAR fan who supported
NASCAR by smoking 5 packs of
Winstons each day. We had one cabin freak out when the ship dropped anchor (the anchor chamber was next to their room) and another guy trip over his own feet while trying to impress a J-Lo lookalike. When smoking cigars and enjoying GM as the sun set on the trip... I knew I'd spend some time trying to duplicate three days of serious fun.
28-- Best year-- what makes a good year? There's not some chart or grid like the Jimmy Johnson's Cowboys draft guide... I've had some great times in my life and I can look back to a pair of years in particular that shined above all others. And how do you define "a year?" anyway? From January to December or like a school year? As I'm a college hoops guy, I'll break it down from Labor Day to Memorial Day (with the summer for retooling and firing my staff)... and two such "seasons" stand out: 1995-96 and 2005-06. Both involved greatness personally and professionally and harbored great optimism; spoiling me for anything less than pure awesomeness in the years that immediately followed.
29-- Worst year... there's always the other side of the coin. And I look back to a winter of transition where I was ill-prepared to make the move from youth to adolescence... not just with different rules but a completely game altogether. Unfortunately I did not adapt in time and learned the hard way... and much of my misery was also by my own doing so I was in no way blameless. I was like Poland facing the Wehrmacht with horse-driven cavalry... valiantly going down in defeat but nevertheless getting crushed in legendary time. 1982-83 was the abyss that I would eventually climb out of-- and served as a reminder how things can go ridiculously wrong if one lets them.
30-- Best coaching job-- from Stan
Spirou to Bill Lynch to Brenda
Frese, I've had a front-row seat to some fantastic masters of their craft. Great tacticians... fantastic recruiters... phenomenal anchors and builders of something meant to last longer than a lunchtime. Paul
Lavigne took over a moribund high school program at Manchester High School West that went 4-23 the previous three years... a culture with little success and even less hope. Things did not change immediately as the Blue Knights went 0-10 and 1-8... but in year three they went 5-4 before losing in the Turkey Bowl. Mr.
Lavigne turned Blue Knight football from a laughingstock into something to be respected. He may not have the championship rings, but he authored one incredible West Side Story.
31-- Best Nickname/Catchphrase-- let the record show that for eight months from May 2004 through January 2005 I "sported a goattee". And I use "air quotes" because much like McDonald's "Strawberry Shake" that might not actually carry strawberries, milk or even have been shaken... my goattee was a mystery wrapped inside a riddle with an enigma on the side. It was a bad decison. Being a quarter Norwegian and having blonde facial hair-- it was a disaster waiting to happen. What made things worse was I also gave myself a ridiculous nickname to match the ridiculous goattee--"Cutter". And Cutter was a no-good street hood from NH who didn't take guff from anyone who always referred to himself in the third person (although with it being a crappy nickname nobody knew me by, would that be "the fourth person"?) At the time I had a much more streetwise buddy who almost got into a fight and said he almost "took it to the streets" and "handled things outside". Unfortunately I morphed the two and came up with the "taking it streetside"-- which bombed worse than said goattee or nickname.
32-- Greatest game attended as a fan-- March 1990... Syracuse-Georgetown for the Big East regular season championship. John Thompson gets ejected. SU completes a ten point play. The Orange waste a double-digit lead before rallying... and Sam Jefferson inexplicable fouls Billy Owens. #30 sinks a pair of free throws... SU wins in OT... and I spend 45 minutes washing a blue S and orange U off my face. Perhaps that's why I had so much trouble growing the goattee? Well worth it.
33-- Best game broadcast-- 1995 Division II Regional Semifinals... New Hampshire College hosting the College of St Rose and 7-footer Garth Joseph (in D-II most post players are 6-5 or 6-6, so this guy was the equivalent of a bulky 7-foot-7 behemoth). The Penmen's David (5 foot 9 Rob Paternostro) had one heck of a slingshot... scoring 44 points as NHC outlasted the Golden Knights 110-107 in double overtime. The announcers were worn out as much as the players.
34-- Finest sporting moment-- 2004 the Boston Red Sox won the World Series. I was working at CBS radio at the time and handled early-morning updates, so I had to be up at 3am. I went to bed after a disappointing 7th inning in Game Four of the ALCS as I didn't want to see the Pinstripes complete a humiliating sweep at Fenway. When I drove into work the next morning I listened for a final score and the longer I was in my car I realized that somehow they had won somehow. My hope was then for the series to just get out of Fenway. Somehow the magic continued with Papi production, bloody socks and a game seven beatdown. It's hard to imagine the World Series being anti-climactic, but the sweep of St Louis was a snooze. At the end of Game Four my friend RED SOX MIKE and I sprayed beer over each other as though we were in the locker room. 86 years of frustration and heartbreak now in the rear-view mirror. And I didn't even have to see Jimmy Fallon or Drew Barrymore.
35-- Best Summer-- It was the year of possibilities. The Empire Strikes Back had Han hooking up with the Princess just as I was getting into girls. Dallas presented epic storytelling with the classic Whodunit. Both Republican and Democratic primary races grabbed my interest... and neither was frontloaded to today's 3-week period in January. My family had a reunion to end all reunions on Cape Cod. 1980, you were something special.
36-- Most Frustrating Moment-- If you've read this far you've dealt with intermittent gaps between entries. I've tried to keep each gap equal in length to allow each favorite a chance to stand on its own but have the next best item just around the corner. In seeing the overblown spacing I realize one more thing: I've yet to recognize my limiations managing this program. Damn!
37-- Roads not taken-- I was told often when I was in my 20's I should have been a teacher... and I guess somewhere out there I'm teaching high school history while coaching soccer to 7-5-2 records with departures in the second round of the State Tournaments. I wanted to become President when I was in junior high-- and proceded to tell everyone about it although I couldn't get elected Dog-Catcher (really; Dog-Catcher's a very specialized field that is highly competitive)... so somewhere out there I'm probably a low-ranking member of New Hampshire's General Assembly (Putting the "Oo" back in Coos County!). Or maybe I wound up studying overseas in college and joined Oasis as their bassist before gettin beaten up by the Gallagher brothers.
38-- My reach often exceeds my grasp-- in school, sports, work, love and life I've always dreamt and strived for greatness... and more than once have crashed and burned. But in those rare moments when everything comes together-- it's pretty awesome. Better to travel hopefully than actually arrive, indeed.
39-- Where the hell do I go from here? The last 40 years were nothing like I hoped and dreamed they would be... and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I've lived, learned, laughed and loved... and owe more than a few people heartfelt thanks as well as sincere apologies. To those I've met-- I thank you for letting me share the stage with you... you've each made this journey something special. I'll continue to be a consistenly uneven finished work in progress... and avidly attack the road ahead with the joy of not knowing exactly what's next.
40--
