Wednesday, December 15, 2021

12 Days of Christmas: New Bridge Landing

The barn at New Bridge Landing is a work of art.

Whenever I've felt the need this past year to escape into another era, I've wandered from my nearby home to Historic New Bridge Landing.

You can read about the park at this Bergen County Historical Society site. As explained there, New Bridge is a collection of historic buildings on a site that served as a battleground, fort, encampment, military headquarters, and intelligence-gathering post in every year of the American Revolution. The historical society lovingly preserves the park.

The society sponsored a virtual event to mark the winter solstice: a balladeer presented prose by Charles Dickens, poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson, and other holiday readings.

It wasn't your average Zoom, but it was in keeping with the unique character of the place.

I love New Bridge Landing because it's not like anything else around its Hackensack/River Edge location. Down a busy street from a strip mall off Route 4, and across the way from apartment buildings, a train stop, and a McDonald's, a distinctive red bar stands magnificently out-of-place, amid a field of cattails.

This is the Ghost of New Jersey Past.





Images from New Bridge Landing in 2021 (from top): the barn in March, a maypole dance in May, "the bridge that saved a nation" in July, and scarecrows in October.

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

12 Days of Christmas: Budd Lake

Nonno's basement workshop, frozen in time.

This Christmas season, I'm looking back at the past year with appreciation for where I live and the people and things that surround my home in New Jersey.

Recently, a daughter asked what time period I would like to visit if granted a wish.

The question surprised me, but when I looked at my wife, she answered without hesitation: "I'm sure you'd want to visit the future."

She was right. I told my daughter, "About 50 years from now" (after I'd surely otherwise be gone).

I don’t fear the Ghost of Christmas Future. I mean, what did Ebenezer Scrooge think was going to happen to him?

I try to view the world with a little optimism, and I’d be interested in seeing the improvements in society and advances in technology.

More than that, visiting the future would help me make sense of my life (and my daughters' lives too).

Steve Jobs once famously noted, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something…”

I’m always looking backwards, trying to connect the dots, trying to gain perspective, and make sense of everything.

Nonna's untended garden.

Visiting my grandparents' old house in Budd Lake, NJ, last month, it felt as if I were walking beside them.

Perhaps I was their Ghost of Christmas Future. We toured Nonna’s now-untended garden and Nonno's suspended-in-time basement workshop.

I took a selfie in the old mirror by the kitchen sink. When I was a boy, I used to watch Nonno shave while standing in his undershirt at that same mirror, stirring a whisk brush into a bowl, contorting his face as he applied lather, and giving me a wink when he saw me watching him from the breakfast table.

During the visit, I trust I showed my grandparents that, even though things had changed, their lives had left an indelible mark on their families.

I still love them.

50 years from now, my daughters can accompany me, and I want to look back on the impact of my own life.

Monday, December 13, 2021

What Happened to All the Books?

Well, this is embarrassing.

Evidently, I took an eight-month lull from reading or listening to books this year... without even realizing it.

Oh, there was plenty of work-related reading; news stories every day; and, I realize now, an obsession with this Audible Original "Words + Music" series...


Pro tip: check out the hour-long podcasts featuring James Taylor and Yo-Yo Ma; I thought they were extraordinary.

After listening to the latest book-book on my list, "Sad Sacked," I vowed to start another.

I picked a book I knew I would finish, "Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty," because of the boxes it checked:
History ✓
New York City ✓
Anderson Cooper ✓

It wasn't terribly long (although I cast a wary eye when I saw it was a "two part" book with an introduction and a prologue before the first chapter). Spoiler alert: the prologue will make you sad.

Still, I gave up on it today. The book was an earnest effort. Everything was as advertised. It simply bored me.

I think nearly two years of COVID-age existence have taken what little was left of my attention span.

Today, at the gym, I randomly listened to music instead of trying to slog through the backstory of another Vanderbilt. I enjoyed hearing Tom Petty sing about Mary Jane's party dress; and there, like an old friend, was an Ingrid Michaelson song I hadn't heard in years.

Then came another piano intro... and Paul McCartney started to sing "Maybe I'm Amazed." I stopped the treadmill to listen intently, and I got goosebumps because the music had stopped time.

I had recently watched every moment of Peter Jackson's marathon three-part documentary on The Beatles. It fascinated me to watch the fragmented creative process of the greatest band of my generation, and I was a bit saddened to see what seemed to be a disintegration of focus.

But now, decades later, I was listening to a jaw-dropping, fully-formed, pop-culture work of art that was written just as the Beatles had collapsed.

Thank you, Sir Paul, for filling me with a little optimism today. I have to admit, when I stop to think about my life and appreciate the beauty that surrounds me, it's getting better all the time.

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Here are mini-reviews of books I've read in 2021:

Sad Sacked: A MemoirSad Sacked: A Memoir by Liz Alterman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Cleverly, expertly, written. This is the first book I've read in a few months, so I give the author credit for engaging me through some pretty rough subject matter: being unemployed (not by choice) and middle-aged, living in New Jersey. Raising a family is tough enough, and there's a moral issue (not explored here) about the willfulness of some employers. Also middle-aged and living in New Jersey, I've been lucky in my own career, but this book brought to mind the harsh realities that so many friends have faced, especially journalists. 

Still, this is ultimately a life-affirming memoir, and the author is seemingly effortless at weaving in humor. I say seemingly, because anything this well-written is surely not effortless.

I can't give it 5 stars though. This is a memoir, after all, and some things written about the husband made me cringe. Maybe one night in Jersey her easily-identified husband and I will run into each other, underneath that one stranded star. I'd like to buy him a beer.


Interior ChinatownInterior Chinatown by Charles Yu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Listening to the Audible version, it found it a little disconcerting to follow the narrative at first. It's innovative, not complicated, but still I'd recommend reading the printed version... especially because there were several poetic phrasings here I wanted to save/savor. The author is a wonderful writer, and my wife (who knows me better than anyone) predicted I would love this book. As it turns out, I didn't "love"/love it as much as Nancy thought I would. Which was also disconcerting. 

Making Conversation: Seven Essential Elements of Meaningful CommunicationMaking Conversation: Seven Essential Elements of Meaningful Communication by Fred Dust
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A little long for the content presented... which probably has more to do with my own diminishing ability to focus (and which is one reason I wanted to read this book in the first place!) Anyway, lots of good stuff here: more about designing/planning important conversations than about engaging in conversation itself.

I now know it's ok (and helpful) to doodle while listening to a conversation. And I am inspired by this quote from the author: "The very act of creation is a courageous, generous, and optimistic act."


The Way I Heard ItThe Way I Heard It by Mike Rowe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Highly enjoyable. More of a compendium of podcast episodes than a book. But what's a "book" these days? All I know is, Mike Rowe's storytelling format is engaging, and I kept imagining my grandfather was listening with me. This would have been right up his alley.

I know "right up his alley" isn't great writing... but that's just the point. You don't open or listen to this book for literature. You come here to be entertained, and maybe a bit more informed. And then you remember a loved one, like Nonno, who you know would enjoy this too. 


Post Corona: From Crisis to OpportunityPost Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity by Scott Galloway
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you receive Prof. Galloway's emails or follow him on social media, this will be recent familiar material -- but it's EXCELLENT material nonetheless. Galloway is, perhaps, an acquired taste. If this book were a drinking game and the trigger word was "gangster" as an adjective, you couldn't get past the first two-thirds before passing out.

Still, you'd be entertained along the way by clever quotes ("LinkedIn is the social network we'd always hoped Twitter and Facebook would become") and insights (most university education in 2020 was nothing more than a $50,000 a year streaming subscription service).

Stick around the last part of the book. The word "gangster" disappears, and Galloway has thoughtful observations about income inequality and patriotism, and challenging ideas for positive change in this new year.

Sunday, November 14, 2021

'New Jersey Fan Club' and Churches of the Garden State


25 years ago this past week, Bruce Springsteen returned to Freehold, NJ, to play a concert in the gym where he attended parochial school at St. Rose of Lima parish.

I know this because I'm both a Springsteen fan and a collector of images of New Jersey churches.

I took this photo of St. Rose of Lima Church a few months ago, and posted it on Instagram with the tag #njchurcheverysunday, where it joined about 200 other images of churches that have stopped me in my tracks in my travels over the past few years.

Why do I do this?

That's exactly what I explore in an essay (with photos) that will be published next year as part "New Jersey Fan Club," a Rutgers University Press anthology of artists and writers celebrating the Garden State.

Edited by Kerri Sullivan, founder of the popular Instagram account @jerseycollective, this is "an eclectic anthology featuring personal essays, interviews, and comics from a broad group of established and emerging writers and artists who have something to say about New Jersey. It offers a multifaceted look at the state’s history and significance, told through narrative nonfiction, photographs, and illustrations."

That's the way Kerri describes her labor of love at this site, where you can read more information about the project, access links to pre-order the book, and sign up for the Jersey Collective newsletter.

I'm proud to be associated with the many talented people who contributed to "New Jersey Fan Club." The cover was recently unveiled (see photo above), as well as the list of contributors. I'm already a fan of many of these talented artists, photographers, and writers.

Which brings me back to Bruce, who grew up in a house (number 39 1/2, see photo below) behind the St. Rose of Lima school parking lot.

As he wrote in his autobiography, "We live, literally, in the bosom of the Catholic Church, with the priest's rectory, the nuns' convent, the St. Rose of Lima Church and grammar school all just a football's toss away across a field of wild grass." He added, "Though he towers above us, here God is surrounded by man—crazy men, to be exact."

Crazy men, like me, who post images of churches every Sunday on Instagram.

Bruce Springsteen's childhood home, Freehold NJ

Sunday, October 24, 2021

What Did You Admire About Your Father?

Dad died 16 years ago today, and above are 16 images of him.

The one in the middle of the second row is the last photo I have of him. It was taken Oct. 9, 2005, at St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Paterson, NJ, following a Mass for couples celebrating their 50th and 25th wedding anniversaries that year.

Earlier today, Mom told me that during that Mass Dad had whispered in her ear, "You look like you should be sitting on the other side of the aisle" (where everyone was 25 years younger).

For my recent birthday, my daughters purchased a subscription to StoryWorth for me, which provides online prompts to record family stories every week. The question for me to answer a few weeks ago was, "What did you admire about your father?"

I had a lot of material to answer that, some of which I previously published here.

To begin with, I recall three scenes from my life illustrate traits I admired about him.

Scene 1
As much as Dad wanted me — all my life — to attend college at Notre Dame, he didn’t say a word in protest when my initial decision was to attend Holy Cross.

I, of course, changed my mind.

Scene 2
As much as Dad loved our ugly, black Chevrolet Impala, the only thing he said when I called him at work after practically totaling the car following my first job interview after college was, “Are you all right?” “Yes,” I said. He replied, “That’s all that matters.”

My safety was Dad’s only concern.

Scene 3
As much as Dad valued self-reliance, when I was 2nd Grade, I couldn’t convince Dad not to rush out one evening (in the then-new Impala) to St. James Convent in Totowa to confront a nun who had unfairly, and mistakenly, struck me after witnessing someone who looked like me damage school property.

The nun never backed down, even though she was in the wrong. Still, Dad always had my back.

(PS- The classmate who did the damage and never fessed up now boasts of having “a PHD in Beerology at Seton Hall University” on social media. Meanwhile, Dad graduated from Seton Hall with a real business degree, and with honors.)

As I’ve written before about Dad, he threw the first baseball ever thrown to me.

“He probably dropped it,” he’s saying right now to a passing angel.

He’s saying it with a smile, I am sure. He’s joking. He doesn’t think he was a better man than I am.

I think.

In fact, I am only sure of one thing: Dad always, even to this day, supports me.

Of course Dad (aka Bob "Chick" Varettoni) was much better than me at baseball, having pitched against professional athletes — including two head-to-head matchups with New York Yankee Whitey Ford at age 20 — and entering the Passaic Semi-Pro Baseball Hall of Fame based on a career that began at age 13.

When Dad graduated from college (he had qualified for both an academic and sports scholarship at Seton Hall), Nonna bought him a sharkskin suit with money she had saved by hiding it from Nonno. Dad wore it that day... then took off for two years of active duty with the Navy.

He returned from overseas on a Friday, and next wore his sharkskin suit the following Monday on his first day commuting to a job at New York Telephone. He worked the ensuing 34 years there and never took a sick day. He had literally sailed around the world with the Navy (and subsequently hated water), but he figuratively lived and died in New Jersey.

Dad claimed he had no influence in getting me a job at the same company (then called NYNEX) in 1985. I find that hard to believe. I worked 34 years there too, and never took a sick day.

Since we worked for the same company for a time before he retired, for several years after he retired I’d get phone calls at my desk where as soon as I’d identify myself, I’d hear a pause on the other line. Then the person would exclaim, “You’re not Bob Varettoni.”

This was a constant reminder of my existential failings.

Dad drank bourbon. He shared his birthday with his mother. He was a talented calligrapher and artist, and at age 16 drew an intricate and richly flourished rendering of the seven last words of Christ. He wanted to be an architect when he was in high school.

Dad liked to spend money. He invoked fear in house cats. He sometimes had terrible taste in music (witness Aker Bilk, Tom Jones and Trini Lopez), but made up for it by his love of Dixieland and the Mills Brothers.

Dad loved crossword puzzles (pictured above is the one that was left uncompleted the day before he died). And he kept a copy of “The Prayer of St. Francis” taped to the back of the medicine cabinet mirror in his tiny downstairs bathroom in Totowa.
At his best, like all of us, Dad had the soul of a poet. He often quoted Shakespeare when he was drunk. While cleaning out the garage last summer, I found a folder of long, badly-rhymed “odes” that Dad had written for work and Navy Reserve colleagues as anniversary or retirement gifts.

I found no “Ode to Dad” in that folder. I have only a dozen fragmented images of him, from memory, that will have to do:

1.    Sharkskin suits and Navy dress whites
2.    A 13-year-old sandlot pitcher snapping off a tightly spun sinker
3.    A 16-year-old’s calligraphy drawing of Christ’s last words
4.    The smell of Old Spice and hair gel
5.    Cigarette smoke (Kents)
6.    Eggs over easy, bacon and rye toast (his favorite breakfast... I always order this at a diner, to remember him)
7.    A round stain of bourbon on the counter of a bar
8.    Crafting a too-perfect Pinewood Derby car for his son
9.    A 32-year-old storming a convent to defend his son
10.    The intricate paint job on a precision plastic model of the U.S.S. Midway
11.    Mills Brother records (he’d also sing “You Never Miss the Water Till the Well Runs Dry” when drunk)
12.    Sentimental tears

And, finally, here are three lessons I learned from his life…

Lesson 1: Above all, be of service to others.
I recently found a single-page, single-spaced typewritten copy of Dad’s eulogy for his best friend at work, Eileen Vodola.

Dad gave me this piece of paper 36 years ago precisely because he knew I would keep it. I am the Varettoni family’s version of a Griot, the storyteller of an African tribe whose life’s purpose is to pass on ancestral history.

Here’s what Dad wrote:

“To those who believe, as I do, that the soul is eternal and that death is merely the passing to a higher plane of existence, Eileen’s spirit is here, she is with us now, and she is saying to us: ‘Don’t grieve for me, because I am free, I am at peace, and I will be waiting to greet you when it is your time to pass through the veil.’

“As some of you know, Eileen was a very special friend to me, and we often spoke about the meaning of life and what was really important. And if Eileen’s view of the purpose of her earthly existence could be summed up in a single thought, it would be this: to use wisely and well the gifts and talents God has given you, and to fulfill yourself in helping others.”

I remember attending Eileen’s funeral 36 years ago. I remember the day Dad publicly professed his belief that the soul is eternal, and that death is merely the passing to a higher plane… and that we only fulfill our destinies by helping others.

Lesson 2: Work hard.
Here’s a photo of Dad behind his desk at 1095 Ave. of the Americas, many years before it was called Salesforce Tower. I still wander past this building on walks to or from my current job. Each side of the building’s plaza near Bryant Park is now guarded by a 13-foot metal statue of a superhero, and I think of Dad every time I walk by.

You may think, by his Don Draper good looks and jacket, that Dad was an advertising executive. He was creative enough to be one. But no, he was head of the customer service department… the executive appeals branch… in charge of handling all the especially tough complaints.

Dad was, for all his noble qualities, possibly the most impatient man in the world. So you’d think this would be a horrible job for him. The last thing any sane person, his son included, would ever want to do would be complain to my father.

But instead of channeling his impatience at customers, he channeled it at silly processes and ineffective management… and he had a long and successful career.

Lesson 3: Love is made manifest by self-discipline and loyalty.

No one was ever a more loyal friend than my father. When he died, I heard this from many of his friends dating back to high school and, especially, from his service in the Navy.

Dad was a Navy reservist. It was a side job he held for decades while working at the telephone company. He achieved the rank of captain in the Intelligence division. He loved it. He valued the discipline he found in the Navy – which probably accounts for why he was so good at his day job at the phone company.

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In his whole life, just like Superman, there was only one thing Dad was defenseless against.

His kryptonite was a pack of Kent cigarettes. Until his 60s, he could never give up his three-pack-a-day smoking habit. I saw him try to quit, and fail, several times while I was growing up. Never did he look so defeated than when he’d relapse and start smoking again.

And yet after a second heart attack... after his doctor warned him that he would never live to see my newborn daughter grow up unless he stopped smoking... Dad quit that very day and never smoked again. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been.
Because Dad devoted his life to his family, I can tell you that even though today marks 16 years since he died, his wife and children have remembered him every day since. Mom dreams of him often, and his memory also still impacts the lives of his grandchildren.

In the end, this is what I admire most about Dad. He was bigger than life. He has lived on at least 16 years after his death.

To this day, the memory of him haunts me, and inspires me, and drives me to try to be a better person.

Laurel Grove Cemetery, today in Totowa.