Go To Town

Hello World, Well, what better greeting on a beautiful crisp fall day like this, than to wish everyone a very happy United Nations Day! And as good a time as any to remember the great statesman and diplomat, Dag Hammarskjold, who once famously observed: "Go west, young man, because there's a sucker born every minute, my little chickadee." There's something even more raucous than usual about the derisive howls of laughter from our old friends the dinosaurs, leading me to question whether that quote completely fulfills the attributes of pinpoint accuracy that we continually strive for around here, and perhaps falling woefully short of perfection. In any case, the UN is still going strong after nearly 70 years, since replacing the ill-starred League of Nations, which started with high hopes in 1920, only to hang up its spurs in 1946, a victim of international non-cooperation on an epic scale, and through no fault of its own. It may have been Dag Hammarskjold who said, "That's the way the cookie crumbles," and that's not just a lot of chocolate chips and rainbow sprinkles, believe me. Meanwhile in the Fall Classic, things certainly didn't turn out the way the odds-makers might have anticipated. The #1 teams in both leagues (the Angels and Nationals) were summarily booted out of the first round, thanks not, while the teams that made it through all rounds of the playoffs, and right into the World Series, were the two Wild Card teams, the Giants and Royals. Go figure. The Cardinals and Dodgers, Orioles and Tigers all had their chances, but alas, their hometown fans were destined to be disappointed this time around, and join the rest of the also-rans on the sidelines of the long cold winter ahead. For the Pride of the Midwest, this would be their first World Series win since way back in 1985, while the Bay Area contingent has already won twice in the previous 4 years. The teams are evenly matched in many ways, and even the usually controversial sports authorities are cautiously expecting the series to go all seven games before a champion is decided. Everyone knows that I'm never one to play it safe, so I'm happy to throw caution to the wind, and say that my money's on Affirmed. Speaking of things not going as expected, I had a plan on Thursday to go to the Post Office, and as plans go, this one was a marvel of simplicity, a veritable surgical strike with no extraneous trappings or tangents to throw it off course from its intended target. In fact, all I needed to do was get in the car and drive to the Post Office - and I don't mind saying, as I have done countless times in the past - and the mission would be accomplished in a model of efficiency and ruthless precision. (Alert readers may have already sensed the impending storm clouds gathering on the horizon this undertaking, and the unmistakable sounds of Daffy Duck yelling, "Shoot me now! Shoot me now!") I can tell you that it didn't take our old friends the dinosaurs in The Peanut Gallery to rise up as one and bellow: "Not so fast!" And they weren't far off the mark, that's for sure. I was only about halfway to my destination when everything in front of me dissolved into a sea of blinking lights, and the whole of North Avenue was shut up tighter than Fort Knox, with police officers every which where. I had no idea what was going on, but it was certain that I didn't want to know, so I high-tailed it down the first side street that I came to, and never looked back. But Friday's local newspaper said it all, in this admirably concise synopsis of the event: ============================= Reports of possible gunshots near New Rochelle High School sent police scrambling Thursday afternoon - but the fusillade turned out to be fireworks. ============================= I was lucky to find another way to the Post Office, skirting around the incident, but it certainly added a whole lot of extra time, inconvenience, and aggravation to the process - not to mention, melodrama - which I never expected when I left the house to begin with, I can assure you. Next time you can be sure that I'm going to check with Daffy Duck first, and not leave it to chance. Also on the local scene, we were at the diner when I bumped into a former coworker, who had retired from the hospital a couple of years ago, and we spent some time catching up on all the news. He mentioned that his son was living in Larchmont, which reminded me that I had just heard about a car accident there, where a runaway vehicle had jumped the curb and slammed into the front of a hardware store where a friend of ours was working. I said most likely, the driver was in a hurry to get to the store and pick up some brake fluid. (Get it?!) Then my colleague's wife recounted the time the same thing happened where she worked, in one of the local medical buildings, which was home to an ophthalmology office and a urology practice. At the time, they reckoned the errant motorist was someone on their way to their eye doctor appointment, and with good reason, since they obviously couldn't see well enough to know where the parking lot stopped and the building started - and which, I don't need to point out, is certainly a cautionary tale that requires no embellishment from me, heaven knows. She said they didn't bother to go see if it was anyone they knew, because they already figured if it was one of their patients coming to see the urologist, they probably would have backed in instead. (OOF!) Elle