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The Cats, a Dog, and a Regret: Me and Nyshia C ats and Dogs are the most common household pets and they are both used in a number of our idioms. The literal English translation for Los Gatos is “The Cats”. That name may make you think of the animal but for me because I read it as “The Cats” and not just plain “Cats” I think of the expression “The Cats” that Barney Fife, from the Andy Griffith show, used to describe his girlfriend Thelma Lou. “The Cats” is a sort of 50's truncated version of the “Cat's Pajamas” from the '20's or possibly from another like kind expression like “The Cat's Meow”. I had always liked Los Gatos and thought of it as being a pretty “cool” place. Tucked up against the east side of the Santa Cruz Mountains next to the highway that heads over to Santa Cruz it has a bit of a Bohemian vibe. Maybe not compared to places like Boulder Creek or Ben Lomond, but there's a clear difference when compared to the nearby Silicon Valley towns Ca...

  I Couldn't Make it as a Punker: T hat's the last line in a 1982 song by The Vandals, a punk rock band, entitled “Urban Struggle”. OK, I was not really trying to be a punker and there did not seem to be a lot of people from the 60's in the punk crowd but I was into punk music. The back half of the 70's for me were to rock what the early 60's were to rock-n-roll. For me, in the mid and late 70's much of the rock music I was hearing had became bloated, more self indulgent, and rather boring. Sure there was still some edgier good music coming out of the rock world but there was an awful lot of music acts like Foreigner, Styx, Eddie Money, Boston, Hall and Oates, Captain and Tennilie and Journey, not to mention all the disco music. There were certainly some good songs but in general their music was not particularly interesting to me. There was still music from the likes of Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Doobie Brothers, Elton John, the Lindsey Buckingham-Stevie N...

  Long Island – My Home Town My Family's home in the Township of Huntington Summer/Winter H olidays are upon us and it's the time of year where one thinks about family. As an adult, I have rarely seen my family on holidays as we live on separate coasts. Even though I have not been a huge fan of the holidays I have to admit that I do reflect back on my family back east and growing up on Long Island around this time of year. So with that in mind below are a few thoughts on my old home, Long Island. L ong Island lies just east of Manhattan and it stretches for about 118 miles. It sits below Connecticut and Rhode Island on the south side of the Long Island Sound. Long Island is long but it's thin as it is just 23 miles wide at it's widest point. The island's peak elevation is only about 400 feet above sea-level and the house I mostly grew up in sits at the base of that hill. Long Island has 4 counties on it – Queens, Kings (AKA Brooklyn), Nassau, and Suffol...

The Scheffleras Part 1 I t was either late '81 or early '82 when I joined a group of co-workers on a company co-ed softball team. We weren't a very good team and as proof I was one of the better players on the team. I enjoyed getting to play ball again, as I hadn't played since I left Eugene in the summer of '78. I only remember playing one season and as I recall, we were a middle of the pack type team. There are three things that stick out to me about playing on that team. T he first one is we had a guy from the Operations Division named Frank. Frank could hit the ball a long way. He was older than me, maybe by 5 or so years. I was coaching 3 rd the first time he hit the ball well over the outfielder's head. He took off and as he was coming into third the ball was still in the outfield so I waved him home but he stopped at 3 rd , bent over, and put his hands on his knees. He was too winded to continue to home.  I don't think he ever hit a hom...

A Foray Into Golf Me hitting my 5-iron I first played golf with my father when I was 13 or 14 years old. I am left handed but the only clubs available were my father's and he was right handed so I learned to play right handed and played with his We went to a course called “Hill and Tree”. My memory of playing the course is there were some small bumps that maybe a 3 year old might call hills and hardly any trees at all. It was a rather short course making it good for hackers and beginners and the course was populated with exactly those types of golfers. The holes were close together with the fairways right next to each. That combination of bad golfers and holes on top of each other resulted in golf balls flying every which way. You had to continuously be watching for balls flying your way from other fairways. As a result my father dubbed the course “Hit and Duck”. We felt lucky to escape unscathed and, not wanting to press our luck, we resolved to not play there again. ...

  My Mom Mom and Me 1987 M y Mom turned 96 earlier this year. She was still living in her home, the home I grew up in, on Long Island in the New York city suburbs when COVID-19 hit New York. At that point my sister, who now lives in North Carolina, got her out of New York and took her down to North Carolina. She was only 95 at that time. She didn't know it then but the move out of New York, where she had lived her entire life would be permanent. She would only return a couple of times for short visits. She lived at my sister's house for a year or so and shortly after she turned 96 she decided she was ready to move into a senior facility. With the help of my brother and sister she found one she liked and moved in. She has her own room and meals are provided. It's in North Carolina, close to my sister's place. She tells me she is happy there. E veryone is unique in their own way, but there are those people who we all run into during our life that are just a little more...

Back on the Block B y September of '81 Kathy and I separated. I completed and filed our divorce papers that October. Kathy had moved out of the house on Selo Drive in Sunnyvale and my brother Pete and his friend Frank had moved in. I now felt I was free to move around the world again – re-establish a more normal and enjoyable social life. I had met a few women and even went on a date, but nothing came of it. Pete and I, along with some friends would frequent a few clubs and bars but I was never very good at meeting women at those venues and as a result the more common way for me to meet women was through work. There were women to meet at Tymshare, where I worked. The ones I knew mostly knew me as a married man. It wasn't like I was going to hold a press conference to announce my new status and I didn't see how I could comfortably fit in something like “Oh by the way, I am now available.” into a casual conversation. I am not the forward type. In fact, I'm more...

  Connect ion and the Accident on 80 S ometimes you can know someone for a long time but never have much of a feeling for them and then there are other occasions where for whatever reason you quickly feel a bond.  Sometimes it's more of a kindred spirit type of thing other times I don't know what it is. Sometimes it's due to a shared experience. If that experience is very intense that bond can even be instant. W hen I was young I loved to drive and I used to drive a lot. I live in California but I grew up on the East coast and all my side of the family still lives there. There was a time where I drove across the country and back at least once a year. In the 70's I put over 30,000 miles a year on my cars, all me. It wasn't until the 80s when I had higher paying jobs that I started taking planes to travel back East. For all this driving I've only had a few accidents. The worst one occurred in the early 90s on Highway 80. O ne a late night in January...

  Divorce Part 2 Just me and my dog Nyshia in the backyard after Kathy moved out K athy and I had agreed to divorce. The following Monday I went down to the Santa Clara County offices and pick up all the required forms to start the process. Having been through this process before I had a good idea as to what was required. Of course the last time I had a lawyer do all this for me but I had paid attention and still had the final papers for a reference. I completed all the paperwork and then Kathy came over so we could go over everything and both sign-off on them. It was a sad, tough afternoon. T here's a song called “Breakfast at Tiffany's” (not the movie) by Deep Blue. It's about a breakup and I think it captures it well. The song is sung by the guy. It starts with him questioning the woman who is breaking up with him about her reasons. Her reasons for the breakup: they have nothing in common, going in different directions, that kind of stuff. As he sings he...