I saw this video by Bethenny Frankel online somewhere. She keeps popping up on my social media apps and she is engaging at times. She eats a lot of strange and new things and reviews them in real time, which I find interesting. But the other day she was talking about how we get cheated out of summers – especially kids. An interesting thing to think about as summer winds down.
Bethenny who calls it a “summer disruption,” was saying that schools, camps, clubs and sports chip into summer months and kids have to practice for these things – mostly football team, baseball, band, cheerleading, etc.
And this affects the whole family – people have to shuttle the kids and cancel vacations and things like that.
I used to own a company that printed school newspapers. I remember many times the school wanted that year’s first newspaper out on the first day of school, so it had to be prepared and done during part of the summer. The kids had to get the stories, write the stories and put the newspaper together.
I had to meet with them, discuss the project and have the job printed and delivered, so it affected me, too. I canceled so many Thanksgiving trips due to this, too, but that’s another story.
To be honest, I needed the money and since there wasn’t much business in the summer, I appreciated the jobs coming in, even in the summer, but still, what if I wanted to travel and go away for that part of the summer? I couldn’t, and neither could the teacher (the newspaper sponsor), the kids and their families. We were all being cheated out of part of the short summer which was being chipped away.
It’s just something to think about. So many things can wait – including the school newspaper on the first day of school.
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The Lake House was the best part of the whole trip. A dream realized.
I haven’t been writing here because it’s been a slow second half of the summer. I’m grateful for that.
Was all over New York State from late June into July – flew into Albany, then ended up at a wedding in Hudson, NY; was at a lake house across the Hudson River in Athens (on Tommy Trail!), which my brother obtained through Airbnb, then we all drove down to NYC and spent time in The Hamptons, too. Sort of a letter “L” shape for the early summer.
The letter “L” was how we traveled.
I felt sick at the wedding, not sure why, I think it was the heat – it was brutal from upstate all the way to the Hamptons – hot and humid.
One of my cousins feels that I was making it up because I didn’t want to be there – at the wedding – which makes no sense. I took two planes to get there, took an hour Uber ride to the house from the Albany airport, sent in two RSVPs (paper and online), made a special trip to get a gift card at Macy’s before I left home, had to lose a couple of pounds to fit into my suit pants, which was a joke with my friends and me for a month or so until I actually fit into the pants.
Wedding at the Basilica
I bought a train ticket down to the city – arranged to be in the lake house with my family, originally I was going to get a hotel room and at the wedding, I did not touch any food or drink, until the end of the night when I had some ice cream, because who can pass u a big set-up of desserts anchored by a bar of ice cream sundaes?
I never ended up taking the train down the city, because I drove down with another couple of cousins, so that worked out well.
The Hamptons
The wedding ceremony upstate in Hudson, was on the Hudson River and then across the street at the Basilica, an old factory that is an event venue now. I do regret not spending time on the river – I didn’t notice, but I am sure some of the guests grabbed a drink and took it across to the river and spent time there, where it looked like they had docks and boats – right there on the Hudson. Something I love.
I thought the Basilica was an old train station/depot, but I read that it was a factory in the late 1800s. Either way, a very impressive structure.
Just that should prove I was sick, for me to miss the Hudson River, which is right out my window, is a non-starter. That’s one of my favorite places.
Coney Island
Seeing Madame X, almost seeing Manhattanhenge (it was a bit cloudy), Mister Softee, MOMA, Brooklyn adventures and so much more. We did a lot.
Now I’m home, where it’s quiet – easing into autumn, which is my favorite season – where we will visit the Hudson Valley again, for pumpkin and apple picking! And ComicCon, can’t forget NY ComicCon!
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It’s the 50th anniversary of Jaws this weekend. 50 years!
It’s one of my favorite movies. I think I’ve seen it over 50 times. I can repeat all the dialogue as they are saying it. NBC had a showing on Friday night, but they screwed up the whole thing by having a commercial every five minutes – totally annoying and not worth it.
You can see Jaws all over the place if you want to, so you don’t have to deal with NBC’s commercialization.
AMC or one of those channels is always showing it, mostly in summer months, but I’ve already seen it twice in the last month or so.
I grew up in Miami, so I was at the beach almost daily. Sometimes for an hour, sometimes for three or five hours. Sometimes with a lot of people, sometimes alone. And I’ve always been in the water – the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, and I’m happy to say in all those years, I have never come across a shark, not that I know of.
I’ve had stingrays, fly over my head, and I’ve had schools of hundreds of small fish swim around my body in shallow water – it’s very ticklish – but never sharks.
The thing about the movie is the town – Martha’s Vineyard, which is the town of Amity, in the movie. I am not so much into the climax secenes, the last part of the movie when they are out in the boat going after the shark. But of course the most famous line come from that, which I used in the cartoon above, “You’re going to need a bigger boat!”
That line was apparently adlibed at the moment by Roy Scheider, police chief, Martin Brody. He had tried using it in other scenes, but this time it was perfect. The line was actually used by the cast and crew throughout the filming of water scenes. The crew boat – the boat that was used for the cameras and film crew was too small and always a problem while shooting.
Every time something didn’t fit or there wasn’t room, an inside joke on the set, or rather out in the water, was, ‘”You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
Roy thought it was funny and would slip it in during takes at various parts of the movie, which of course were not used in the finished cut of the film, but the part where it did fit and was funny and added levity to the scene was just perfect and to this day, it is one of the most famous movie lines.
Another thing that I love, which I have never seen in other movies, is that in almost every scene, you hear the people speaking in the background – when they are on the beach or in town hall or wherever, or even in the kitchen in the house, you hear the background people speaking, along with the dialogue spoken by the main characters up front in the scene. Ever notice that?
I saw the Jaws animatronic used in the movie some years back at a Universal tour in Hollywood. It’s still so popular today. I think it was in the Gilligan’s Island lagoon, of all places.
I love the small town life. New England is one of my favorite places. I always think of moving there or near there for part of the year. Every time I tell someone that, I get, “But the winter! But the cold!” And that comes mostly from Miami people, who bundle up when it hits 70 degrees.
I would like to be up north for three seasons, and down in Miami for winters.
In a week I will be in Hudson New York for a cousin’s wedding. That’s some place I might consider. It’s almost New England, it’s a few miles from three New England states – Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut. At home, I often watch the NBC Connecticut 6 pm news on Roku, and I like it up there. One thing – I had to look up spelling for Massachusetts and Connecticut, so I guess it’s best that I learn how to spell the places before I consider moving there.
I go upstate pumpkin and apple picking every fall, but New York state people will tell you that where I go – Poughkeepsie (had to look that spelling up, too), Sleepy Hollow, etc. are not considered upstate, Upstate is further up the Hudson River, apparently.
So I’ll check out Hudson with my family next week and we may go to the Berkshires in Massachusetts, which I always wanted to see.
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