A Midsummer Day's Nightmare

(Originally published 7/30/13)

The waning days of July have a knack for resurrecting old memories, and not always the most pleasant ones. Like clockwork at this time of year in the late 1970s, an unwelcome packet arrived in my mailbox. Amidst all the fun and frolic that I was experiencing in those summers of my youth, these manila envelopes underscored that the good times wouldn’t last forever—that their days were surely numbered. The fun and games would soon be over, because new school years were right around the corner.

“Once again I am writing to you in the middle of the summer with materials and information concerning the opening of school in September,” the packets' cover letters invariably began. They were actually addressed “Dear Parents,” because the first order of business was establishing what the monthly tuition bills would be for the coming school years. For those of us who attended Catholic high school, this was no small matter. In 1978, Cardinal Spellman High School’s tuition was $730, and that sum covered ten months through June 1979. Today, the tuition at my alma mater is $7,250—a tenfold increase. I suspect that the “Once again I am writing to you in the middle of the summer” packets are crammed with even more apprehension than in the past. The $3 monthly tuition raise that occurred in the 1978-79 school year was probably not a budget buster for too many parents. The necessary tuition raises nowadays are, I suspect, packed with a more substantial wallop.

Honestly, I didn’t concern myself with high school tuition back then. The folks picked up the entire tab. College tuition was another story. But it was the “Once again I am writing to you in the middle of summer” packets’ detailing the school opening dates and various orientations that faithfully got me down. It always seemed a little too early to have this information in my possession and, worse than that, permanently lodged in my brain. The packets, too, highlighted how fleeting summer vacations really were. If the middles of summers could come around so awfully fast, the ends of summers could, logically, come around just as quickly—and they always did, including in 1978. In fact, thirty-four summers have come and gone since then, with a thirty-fifth one soon to be in the history books.

Happily, I don’t receive anymore “Once again I am writing to you in the middle of the summer” envelopes in the mail, although now I don’t mourn a summer’s passing like I once did. And that’s for a whole host of reasons, with the foremost being that I don’t have to return to high school in September. It cannot be denied that these annual summer reminders were bona fide bummers for those of us who loathed school. And I'd hazard a guess we were in the majority.

A neighbor of mine, who attended another Catholic high school in the Bronx, received similar materials in the mail at around the same time as I did. And from that day onward, he would incessantly intone that “summer’s almost over” and marvel about the speedy passage of time. In retrospect, time really didn’t fly by in my youth. The high school years seemed interminable. Now, four years go by in a heartbeat, and summers even faster than that. Thank you for reading this blog of mine—in the noble tradition of my old principal Monsignor White—in the middle of the summer.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

August Body

(Originally published 8/13/14)

Among my favorite scenes in the musical 1776 is when the Second Continental Congress debates the verbiage of Thomas Jefferson’s just completed “Declaration of Independence.” Suggestions for changes and deletions are bandied about in rapid fire. One member suggests eliminating a line that he feels unnecessarily takes to task the esteemed British Parliament. “Do you think it wise to alienate such an august body?” he asks. To which John Adams replies: “This is a revolution, dammit! We’re going to have to offend somebody!”

Anyway, this is my August body in blog form—reflections on happenings this month and in prior Augusts. Looking on the bright side of things, the summertime weather for both July and August has been as tolerable as I’ve ever experienced. Largely bearable temperatures and reasonable levels of humidity have ruled. Often New York City summers are brutal with seemingly endless dog days of disagreeable heat, humidity, and stagnant greenish-yellow air.

This year, a historical August anniversary was duly noted. Forty years ago, President Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal. I was a mere lad when he exited the Washington scene—eleven years old—but I remember where I was on the night of his resignation speech. I was in Bangor, Pennsylvania. While my grandmother was away visiting relatives, my mother looked after my grandfather. After our new president, Gerald Ford, was sworn in, my mom informed her dad that the pair resembled one another. There was a bit of resemblance, I suppose. In August 1974, my grandfather also tasted lentil soup for the first time—my mother’s homemade version—and offered his opinion on the fare. “I’ve tasted worser soups,” he said.

Suffice it to say, August 1974 was a tad different than its progeny: August 2014. I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but kids don’t seem to play much anymore. My every youthful waking hour was spent outdoors in those bygone summers. Now, who’s playing Wiffle ball, which I loved doing more than anything else as a young boy? Though there was no such thing, I think I imagined one day being a professional Wiffle ball player. Then stickball came along. In fact, we played every conceivable version of baseball from box baseball to punch ball to curb ball. The boxes on the concrete sidewalks and the curbsides are still around, but one would be hard-pressed to find a solitary soul utilizing them for sport anymore.

We’ve become a zombie-like society. I see mothers pushing their children in strollers who are completely preoccupied with their iPhones, even when crossing busy streets. Fathers are equally oblivious. What, pray tell, are these folks checking out every single moment in time? That’s what I’d like to know. It’s at once creepy and dispiriting. Exactly how is this sort of behavior going to impact the future? Despite having lived through a “national nightmare,” as newly sworn in President Ford dubbed it in his first speech to the nation, I had a lot of fun in August 1974. I didn't get sidetracked—even for a minute—during that protracted nightmare and afterwards. I was too busy playing Wiffle ball.

(Photo 1 from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)