The Dinosaur Age

Hello World, And so here we find ourselves already at the last weekend in April, believe that or don't, with the merry, merry month of May knocking on the very door next Wednesday, ready or not. April doesn't really have much to boast of, especially when Easter has already happened in March, although the dinosaurs and I certainly don't want overlook Earth Day, which was last Monday, giving us all reasons to be thankful. After all, astrophysicists have long since determined that ours is the only planet in the vast and multitudinous cosmos that is capable of producing chocolate, or as it's known in our house, the building blocks of life itself. Even this late in the month, it has continued to be colder than normal, so much so that all of us in the local area can't help but wonder if perhaps Mother Nature forgot to pay the heating bill, or maybe the downstairs tenants fiddled with the thermostat when nobody was looking. On the other hand, we can all enjoy our chocolate without it melting into a gooey mess, and that's a gift of Mother Earth that has no equal for billions of light-years in any direction. Also on the topic of mothers, when Shirley Temple was a famous child star in her heyday, there was no secret to the fact that she was born in the same year as my mother, singing and tapping her way across movie screens and into the hearts of theater patrons from one end of this great land to the other, from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam. Since she started performing at such an early age, there was no way of hiding when she was born, because it was plain to everybody that a 3-year-old couldn't pretend to be a one-year-old, or a 5-year-old, for that matter - so there was no disguising her actual date of birth. Mysteriously, it didn't take long in little Miss Temple's career before she started losing chronological traction and leaving my mother behind (anyone who knew her can tell you that my mother always was a stickler for accuracy) although I suppose the better definition would be to say that she was leaving my mother ahead, rather than behind, in this case. Every year when the star's birthday would roll around in April, my mother would scoff at whatever irrational number the newspapers would print as her age, which was always several years shy of my mother's age at the time, and she would reiterate belligerently to one and all that they were born in the same year, and anybody could see right through this fast-and-loose numerical subterfuge. Even after leaving the silver screen behind, and embarking on a career of public service and international diplomacy, the times never caught up with the curly-haired wunderkind, and to this day, they're still reporting her age as 85 in the same year that my mother would have been 91. That's some pretty fancy footwork all these years later, and if she keeps up like this, someday soon she'll be famous for making movies before she was even born, and my mother will have the last laugh after all. Apropos of nothing, the dinosaurs have reminded me of a perhaps apocryphal story from the golden age of Hollywood, where the editor at a major movie magazine sent a wire to one of their reporters in Tinseltown, looking for details to round out a column, but failing to elicit the expected response, in blockbuster fashion. Editor: HOW OLD CARY GRANT? Reporter: OLD CARY GRANT FINE, HOW YOU? Meanwhile in the wonderful world of local sports, the plucky Rangers managed to clinch a playoff spot after all, although it was touch-and-go there right up to the end, and required a complex equation of other teams losing in order to achieve the desired result. Somehow they were able to accomplish this end even without Marian Gaborik, while the team he was traded to, the Columbus Bluejackets, have the remotest mathematical chance of just squeaking into the last playoff spot in the very last game, dependent upon a complicated combination of other factors falling into place. But if this is anything like last season, having the best record or winning the division is no guarantee of success in the playoffs, and battle-scarred veterans of many campaigns will attest that the puck takes a whole lot of strange bounces on the path to drinking champagne out of Lord Stanley's Cup, and that's not just a lot of ice-capades, believe me. Speaking of playoffs, the Knicks found a way to win 3 games against the mighty Celtics, although it must be said that Boston's woeful 41-40 regular season record only qualified for the post-season based on the NBA's profligate attitude that allows just about every team in the league to make it into the playoffs - probably including a few college softball teams, jai alai, high school lacrosse, and roller derby tossed in for good measure. The 54-28 Knicks have nothing to be ashamed of, with the second best record in the Eastern Conference, but at some point, they're going to run up against the 66-16 Miami Heat, and that's not going to be a pretty sight, I'm thinking. Frankly, my money's on the roller derby. This week started off with some of the lousiest weather we've had all month, but one thing we've come to count on over the years is that it never rains on Secretary's Day, which was Wednesday, and a more lovely day could not have been hoped for. The Chamber of Commerce worked their magic at the annual luncheon, held at one of the local country clubs as usual, and the hospital cognoscenti were out in force for the occasion, including yours truly. After last year's debacle, I don't take any chances with this event anymore, and I have a note in my calendar good and early to start making inquiries about it way ahead of time, so I don't find myself being left out, while everyone else gets to party hearty. We always have fun at the yearly shindig, but us old-timers can't help but notice how they've really tightened things up since the wild and woolly early days back in the 90's. (No, not THOSE 90's, and I would appreciate if the dinosaurs in the Peanut Gallery would kindly keep their snide comments to themselves.) They have spared no effort to speed the proceedings along, so there are no long and boring speeches by local dignitaries, which years of relentless complaints and scathing criticism could not have accomplished. They also serve a pared-down menu with fewer courses ("No soup for YOU!") with the same entree for everyone, and no choice between fish, chicken or whatever. There's also fewer raffle prizes, and this year at least, not any big expensive prizes like they used to have at the end - travel packages, membership at the club, cars or major appliances - that if nothing else, discouraged people from leaving early. In a virtually unprecedented turn of events, I actually won something valuable, although I didn't keep it, since I was playing for our Mail Room staff at the time, and they were delighted with this unexpected windfall later. Even more out of the ordinary, I didn't even jinx the rest of my seat-mates as I normally do, so that people blanch at the sight of me approaching their table - just about everyone sitting there won something, and several of them, more than one prize. I can't say if it helped or hurt our chances to be seated at a mixed table including 4 hospital employees, a pair from Ridgewood Bank, and another 4 from the New Rochelle Public Library, compared to the other tables beside us, where all 10 places were taken by our hospital coworkers. There's no disputing that a fine time was had by all, with a tasty meal served expeditiously, and a streamlined program that got us all back out on the streets in short order, unlike the interminable confabulations of yesteryear. Which is just as well, because the dinosaurs reminded me that it was time to wish a certain former tap-dancing toddler a very happy 85th birthday, so I'd better hurry up and do that - after all, it's only 6 years too late. Elle