This weekend Andy Golebiowski interviewed me about my new memoir on his delightful Polish American Radio Program. You can listen to the entire show, and hear some good music, or you can go to minute 42 and just listen to us: https://soundcloud.com/webrradio/sets/the-polish-american-program
At lunch the other day I asked my friend Dave, who is knowledgeable about the game of basketball, what he thought of Caitlin Clark. He had his criticisms: she doesn’t like to shoot once she gets inside the 3-point line, and she doesn’t play defense. But he was impressed by her passing, and the way she filled arenas that had previously been practically empty. Jordan, he said, couldn’t even take credit for that, as people watched the NBA before his arrival on the scene.
And Dave had asked himself if anyone else in sport had ever done that, and he thought of one person: Mia Hamm. And she did it in a sport that was so unpopular in America that no one paid much attention when it was played by men.
Now, I didn’t hear or read all the commentary about the phenomenon of Clark, yet what I did hear and read didn’t include any mention of Hamm. The human tendency is to believe that one’s age is exceptional – it’s why athletes are continually given the label GOAT – and the conviction is infinitely aided by an ignorance of history. Today, when we are bombarded with so much news and information, it’s easier than ever to lose sight of the past, and think that our times are unprecedented. When in fact they’re simply self-absorbed.
Perfect Days has less dialogue than any film I've seen in decades and it has stayed with me longer than most of them. It's about a man who cleans public toilets in Tokyo and lives a very contented life. And it's made me appreciate life’s everyday beauty - while inspiring me to clean my bathroom. The other day, seeing the cleaning woman in our corridor, I found my reflexive pity tempered, slightly, but the thought, the hope, that she may take pleasure in her work.
We had a small but very attentive group at PRIME Expo on Saturday. People nodded in recognition and laughed at my jokes. During the Q&A, a man stood up and, leaning on his walker, said that he had worked with the U.S. Embassy in Poland in the mid-70s. Then he told a story about one of his colleagues, on his morning jog through Krakow, stumbling across a man kneeling at a shrine. He apologized profusely, and the man not only brushed off the collision but asked him to stay and chat. In introduction, the American said that he worked at the American consulate. The Pole said that he worked at the cathedral. He didn’t mention that he was the archbishop, Karol Wojtyła – the man who in a few years would become pope.
And now what? No eclipse. No Curb. No Masters.
Oh, yes - the Trump trial!
Tomorrow I will be speaking about my memoir with Ann Bocock at the Sun Sentinel’s PRIME Expo. It is a day of talks and seminars for people over the age of 50, which is to say: my typical audience. Even though my book is a coming-of-age story, about a young man’s quest to become a travel writer, most of the people who come to hear me talk about it are Boomers like myself. Even when I attend readings by other, younger writers, the audience is usually made up of seniors. They are, to a large extent, keeping book readings, bookstores, the book business alive.