On The Sly

The traditional halfway point of the baseball season is about two weeks away and anyone who knows me knows that somehow or other I get my daily dose of baseball. So far this season I have enjoyed watching the YES Network coverage of Yankees baseball. Even I am starting to feel sorry for Joe Torre, who has to answer the same questions night after night with microphones just inches from his face.

Joe looks like the unhappiest manager in baseball. Managing a baseball team, any baseball team, but especially the Yankees, is supposed to be fun. I like to see a manager smiling and having a good time. You get that sometimes from Ozzie Guillen of the Chicago White Sox or Lou Piniella of the Cubs, although Lou hasn't had much to smile about either this year. Ozzie and Lou are all business, up on the steps of the dugout, but they are not beyond cracking a joke with coaches or players. They seem to enjoy managing.

But Joe Torre has this look on his face like a guy trapped in a house of mirrors. How do I get out of here, he seems to be thinking. Joe's a great manager, many will say, but even John McGraw and Walter Alston wouldn't be able to make Scott Proctor throw strikes. Or make Kyle Farnsworth stop throwing home run pitches. Or Bobby Abreu stroke a single to right field with the bases loaded.

The Yankees corps of broadcasters from Michael Kay and Ken Singleton, a class guy, and John Flaherty and Bobby Murcer and Paul O'Neil and John Sterling and Susan Waldman have spent hours trying to explain why the Yankees keep losing. And whatever happened to Al Leiter? Since he said that Mike Mussina was in the "twilight of his career" we haven't seen much of Al.

I don't think there is any mystery about the Yankees' lackluster first half. I think it boils down to two simple explanations:

Reason # One. The Yankees got old. Jason Giambi gets injured. He was in his early Thirties and admittedly on steroids when he was launching 40 home runs a season. He's 36 and on the disabled list. Bobby Abreu hit in the .300s when he was in his late Twenties. His last .300 season was 2004. It's now 2007 and Abreu is 33 years old. Mike Mussina is 38 years old, and his ERA has been consistently in the fours. His last solid season was 2004. They've got 38-year-old Mike Myers coming out of the bullpen to pitch to one batter and he's allowed 36 baserunners in 30 innings. And they've added Ron Villone, who is only 37.

And then their savior, Roger Clemens, the million-dollar-a-start guy, comes along and goes 1-2 in his first three starts with a 5.09 ERA. He's 44 years old! And will be 45 before the end of the season.

Reason #2: The Yankees superstars are simply not as good as they think they are. Jeter is having another MVP season. I felt he should have been the MVP last year. But even check out A-Rod's stats and you'll see that there is no one better at hitting pitcher's mistakes than Alex Rodriguez. And who makes the most mistakes? Young, inexperienced, career-minor-league pitchers. Check out the list of no-names that A-Rod has used to fatten up his stats.

He's hammered homers off guys like Juan Salas, Tom Mastny, Scott "Can I Pitch Any Worse?" Schoenweiss and Ambiorix Burgos! Don't get me wrong. A-Rod can hit, but compare his stats against pitchers with winning records and pitchers with losing records!

Anyway, maybe the Yankees will win the World Series. If the St. Louis Cardinals can bring back reliever Troy Percival from the dead, then maybe the Yankees have Luis Arroyo and Goose Gossage up their sleeve.

I'd still like to see the Yankees win the American League pennant (can you believe I said that?) so that they can face my Dodgers in a good old-fashioned World Series!

Maybe that would bring a smile to Joe Torre's unhappy face.

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Today, June 24, is Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day in Quebec. I have to admit that until June 24, 1966 I had never heard of the Canadian holiday. But that day so long ago was my introduction to the restaurant business, and I've never forgotten it.

As I was about ready to graduate from high school back in '66, it was agreed in the Gagnon family that it would be the responsible thing if I helped pay some of my way through college at Plattsburgh State. So, I went job searching. My mom noticed there was an opening for a short-order cook at Gus's Red Hots over by the city beach.

I went in one day and I asked to fill out an application. Instead, I was granted an on-the-spot interview with Gus Niforos, one of the restaurant's owners. We sat at the lunch counter and I don't really remember what questions he asked. He must have asked if I had any experience cooking. I didn't want to disappoint him so I'm sure I mentioned that I could make a grilled cheese sandwich without burning it, and I knew how to warm up a can of Campbell's chicken noodle soup.

For some reason I was hired. I always wondered if I was the only one who applied for the job. If I recall correctly, the restaurant opened at 11:45am, and I reported for my first day as short-order cook at 11:30am on June 24, 1966.

I'll never forget it, because Pete Larios, the other owner, told me that it was Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day and I just shrugged my shoulders, not realizing what that meant. I took my position in the cook's area, and I was assigned to cook french fries and onion rings. I looked at my choices: do I put those frozen fries on the grill or in the grease? I'm sure when I asked that question, Pete and Gus looked at each other, thinking, "What kind of dummy did we hire here?"

When the doors opened at 11:45am, I immediately saw what Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day meant. It meant everyone, absolutely everyone, who lived in Quebec came to eat lunch at Gus's Red Hots in Plattsburgh. Within two minutes the restaurant, booths and lunch counter, was full of customers waving that colorful Canadian money.

My job turned out to be easy. Open the bag of frozen fries, grab a few handfuls and put them in the baskets (I had been a basketball star in high school, so maybe that's why they hired me!) and cook those fries. And keep doing that! And dish out a scoop of those fries into each cardboard container. And keep doing that!

My initiation into the restaurant business was fun and easy. Working with Gus and Pete, and Gus's sons, Ernie and George, I had a great time. But the best part was yet to come.
For six hours I cooked fries and onion rings, grease swirling up into my face. Anytime I wanted I could go to the soda dispenser and pour myself a soda. Free soda -- can you imagine that?

As long as they didn't have to wait too long for the fries and rings, I could be a star in this business. But then what I saw happen next, I just couldn't believe. For six hours straight, without a break, the teams of cooks and waitresses worked. For six hours straight, the restaurant was jam-packed, even with customers crowding inside or waiting outside just to get a michigan.

But at exactly 6 o'clock, with the parking lot full, I couldn't believe my eyes when Gus went to the front door and locked it. He was closing! He told the staff to feed the people inside and that the people outside would just have to wait or go without. Maybe some of the customers drove away down the road to the Orange Julep, I don't know.

But Gus told us that we all needed a break! And around 7pm, after every customer had left, we all sat down, ate a michigan and enjoyed some of Foxy's first-day-on-the-job fries. It sure made me realize that Gus and Pete were going to be special kinds of bosses. Who in the world would turn away business so that we could get our break?

Then, around 7:30pm, when Gus unlocked the front door and we were all back at our work stations, the crowds piled in, saying things like, "Boy, are we hungry" in French. In another minute or two the restaurant was packed again, and stayed that way until the midnight closing.

I stayed at Gus's Red Hots during my four years of college. And the same thing happened every June 24, Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. Gus and Pete were great bosses, and, in time, I became almost a part of their family. I even learned a few Greek expressions and danced a few Greek dances in my time as friends of the Niforos and Larios families.

I'm sure that June 24 means a lot more to those living in Quebec, but to this guy in Plattsburgh it always brings back fond memories of my first day in the restaurant business back in 1966.

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Another school year is over. On Friday students will pick up their report cards and wave goodbye to their teachers. Seniors around the area might have graduation rehearsal. There are a lot of plans for a lot of parties this weekend.

This week will mark the second year anniversary of my retirement. In some ways I have missed being an active teacher instead of a retired teacher. In more ways I've missed the people I worked with. Work five times a week for 20 or 30 years in the same hallway with the same people and they become a big part of your life.

Over the last five years or so my teaching roommate was Chris Hartmann. Our paths crossed all day. I was on the committee that hired him and I had no doubts that he would be an outstanding teacher. He inherited "Foxy's Den" when I retired, and he's kind enough to have a picture of me in his classroom.

He had better watch out, though, because, as I found out, the years flash by quickly. Someday "Hartmann's Haven," or whatever he might now call it, will take on a new name.

I have missed guys like Hartmann, Cutaiar, Nisoff, Goodell, Lavalley, Rabideau, Gottlob, although sometimes our paths do cross. And the ladies like Gale Carroll, Teresa Niles, Sheila Wilson. I can almost hear their laughter as they all now look forward to summer vacation. Oh, those two months were special. When I was teaching I tried to pack as much as I could into those two months.

I really never thought about retirement during those years of teaching. I was just so happy teaching and having so much fun that I thought I might teach until I was 70 or so. But then I started talking with the retired guys like Sal Righi and Paul Dingman and John Pelkey and Skip Zatonski and I just couldn't believe how relaxed they looked and how happy they were to be "not working."

And how right they were! All my teacher friends that are looking forward to their two months of fun -- just imagine a lifetime of that! 35 years of teaching went by in a hurry. Enjoy July and August, but keep in mind that someday January till December will be all yours!

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 5:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

It's fitting that the phone call came a few days before Father's Day. When the phone rang Thursday evening, I checked the caller ID and the screen showed: "Gagnon, Erik, Cohoes." I thought this a bit unusual since we had already had our weekly Monday night phone call.

My "Hello" was followed by Erik's words: "Do you want to be a grandfather?" What followed was an audible gulp, an effort to get rid of the lump in my throat, and my loud yell, "What?"

Erik went on to explain that his wife Sarah had just brought home the news that there will be a new Gagnon in the family. How can it be that my little kid is going to be a father? Wasn't it just a year or two ago that we were playing "Hall of Fame catches" in the backyard and splashing around in the pool playing "100 Catches" with a spongeball?

Sure, he's 28 years old, but he's not really 28; he's that kid I took to Old Orchard Beach and that kid I led through the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, trying to explain to him why the Dodgers were better than the Yankees. He settled for the Mets.

Now my kid is going to be a father! And, I'm going to be a grandfather! For a guy like me who often thinks he's a 25-year-old instead of a 59-year old, the word "grandfather" can be a bit overwhelming. I mean, I used to have two grandfathers, and now I'll be one? My grandfathers were old, with bald heads, grey whiskers and pot bellies. Is that really me?

There are training manuals out there that might attempt to teach my son about how to be a good father. But the real lessons are already over. I learned about fathering from my own Dad. He was a man who was never too tired after a day of climbing telephone poles to grab a baseball bat and hit me some grounders. He was a man who was mighty good at giving "man-to-man talks" in his bedroom if I ever strayed from the house rules.

I learned lots about being a Dad for Erik from my own Dad. I learned about the importance of a family vacation. Even if money was tight, it was good to get away as a family and have fun. I never saw my Dad take a drink of alcohol until I was out of high school. And as he was growing up, whenever Erik was in my presence, I never drank alcohol in front of him. Erik doesn't drink alcohol today. Being a Dad was always having time for your son, even if that meant giving up that comfortable recliner to go for a ride for ice cream.

Today, Father's Day, I think of my own Dad -- the best! And I reflect on my own days as a father for Erik. And now, my own son, will be a Dad. His Father's Day greeting just arrived and, in part: "I just want to tell you that, since I'm going to be a father now, I hope I can be as good a father as you are to me."

Being a father is something special. But me, a grandfather? Now that's something else. Am I ready for that when I still think I'm 25?

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

I enjoy my daily trip to the Plattsburgh Post Office on Miller Street. It's usually a pretty relaxing event, and a chance to chit-chat with someone while waiting in line for my turn to ship off an armful of eBay packages.

Today's trip, however, was much more exciting than usual. It started off quietly enough, only a few people ahead of me in line and then two guys behind me talking on their cellphones. A lady at the counter receiving a package that she had mailed to herself -- there must be a story there -- and a guy buying a money order.

Beth, Linda and Pat, three of the regular postal clerks, carried out their jobs in business-like fashion, tapping the computer screen constantly and then asking, "Anything liquid, hazardous, perishable or fragile?" All part of a typical day at the post office. Until ...

I approached Pat with my seven envelopes, six bound for various parts of the United States and one to Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, Canada. I saved that one for last. As always Pat and I exchanged friendly greetings, and Pat resumed tapping her computer screen, attempting to find the correct mailing category for my larger-than-business-size envelopes.

Bob strolled into Pat's work area and grinned, "Did you see that?" I looked up. Bob's grin was a healthy one. He knows his colleague Pat pretty well. Bob looked at me and pointed to the lobby area behind me. "I just saw a bat," he said.

Pat dropped my Canada-bound envelope and yelled, "What?" Within a few seconds I heard a lady scream behind me. I turned around just in time to see a bat, a flying black ugly bat, swooping towards my head. I ducked and when I turned around, Pat was gone. She pulled a Harry Houdini disappearing act like the Plattsburgh Post Office has never seen before!

About a dozen postal customers ducked and dodged as the bat circled around the lobby. There were customers of all shapes and sizes and they were twisting and turning and jumping in awesome fashion. I thought it was Saturday night at Tabu Night Club.

As for myself, I feigned bravery and swatted at the bat whenever he came near, using my hat for self-defense. Then I remembered something about these bats. I remembered when I was a kid somebody told me how they land in your hair and lay eggs and you go crazy. I quickly put my hat back on my bald scalp.

But I didn't feel safe. Looming large down the back of my neck was my new fashion statement, the ponytail! What a landing strip that would make for the world's only flying mammal. I cursed to myself for growing my hair long.

Meanwhile, the bat took a breather, perching near the ceiling on a window curtain to assess the havoc he had caused thus far. That gave me time to realize that here I was, waiting for Pat to return, standing in the post office lobby in my shorts.

I never wear shorts in public. The only time I have ever been caught in public in shorts is when I was visiting California and no one knew me, or on the beach in Maine. Otherwise, no matter how high the temperature, I'm a blue jeans guy year round.

But, in the past two weeks, through the encouragement of a certain someone, I've decided that vanity goes out the window. I'm going to be comfortable in shorts. So there I was, hairy legs exposed to provide a perfect spot for this ugly bat to land and lay eggs and make me go crazy.

Finally, someone came to rescue the customers in distress. Scurrying into the lobby, trash basket in hand, was Bryan. The one and only Bryan who gets the call whenever there is an emergency at the post office. And, definitely, this was an emergency. I knew that bat, flying helter-skelter in the lobby, stood no chance with Bryan in pursuit.

This is Bryan Foster, the same Bryan Foster who became a legend in the Empire Football League for his one-handed catches. Bryan could turn an uncatchable pass into a touchdown. Within a minute, Bryan had trapped that lobby-wrecking bat in his basket.

Other would-be bat-killers suddenly arrived on the scene. Linda, who is known for her fear of spiders, apparantly doesn't fear bats. She arrived on the scene with a broom -- a huge broom -- a broom the size of Nebraska. But Plattsburgh's "Bat-Man" had already finished the job. Suddenly, Dennis and Gene, a couple of the head-honchos, arrived, ready to yell, "Hey, cut that out" to that pesky bat. But Plattsburgh's "Bat-Man" had already finished the job.

Amidst it all, the calmest person in the building was a little old lady in a wheelchair. She never batted an eyelash. She just watched all the customers doing the Bristol Stomp, the Mashed Potatoes and the Macarena. It sure was quite a scene in the lobby of the post office.

Don't ask me what family this bat was from. I don't know if it was a Horseshoe Bat or a Moustached Bat or a Vampire Bat or a Sucker-footed Bat. I just know that Plattsburgh has a Bat Hero. Get him a tee-shirt with a big "B" on the chest. Our own Bat-Man, Bryan Foster!

Meanwhile, has anyone seen Pat?

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

In case you haven't heard about it, there will be one gigantic reunion this summer. It's the return of the Stowaways, the high school rock band we loved to dance to back in the 1960s. In conjunction with the 40th Reunion of Plattsburgh High School's Class of 1967, the boys from the Stowaways will return and entertain young and old.

I'm talking about Bentley Austin, Mike O'Connell, Spencer Bosworth, Jim Wells, Geoff Jones and Kenny Phillips. In those days they were baby-faced kids with long hair and plenty of girlfriends. If you remember these guys from their music days at Saturday night YMCA dances or the Lake View Pavilion near Rouses Point, you will know that they were not just musicians, they were entertainers. They had fun, and their following had fun as well.

After interviewing four of the guys for a "Fox on the Run" cable-access show, I've got a feeling some things haven't changed. Maybe their hair styles have changed, but that youthful exuberance is still there. It took about thirty seconds talking with Bentley Austin to clue me in that these guys haven't forgotten how to have fun.

The Stowaways are scattered around the country from Plattsburgh to California, but they'll all be together on stage for the first time since the late Sixties. There's already a buzz about it around the North Country, so you can bet by showtime there will be a packed house ready to rock like the Sixties.

Will their voices hold out? Will their legs keep them up? Will their chord-pickin' fingers keep pluckin'? We'll see!

And in the crowd there will be former classmates, grads from St. John's, MAI and OLVA, and all the surrounding high schools. There will be old hippies and their kids, the new preppies. There will be girls we used to flirt with at high school hops and football stars who used to run over us. Maybe they'll even roll in a few former teachers!

I can't wait! The Class of 1967 will meet on Friday, July 13, at the Naked Turtle. It's not cheating if grads from other PHS classes or other schools crash the party. Then on Saturday, July 14, there will be a private party for the PHS Class of '67 at 6pm at Jim's Place.

Then the main event! At 7:30pm Saturday, doors open at Jim's Place for the long-awaited Stowaways Reunion Concert. Everybody who's anybody will be there! They'll sing the oldies that they used to do back in the Sixties. I'm sure there'll be some Beatles tunes and maybe the Kinks and we might even get the real version of "Louie, Louie."

If you want to see the "Fox on the Run" interview with the Stowaways, it will be on Charter Communications' public-access channel (Channel 15) on Friday, June 22 at 2:45pm and 8:45pm. It will be replayed on Saturday, June 23, and Sunday, June 24, at the same times.

All the info about reunion weekend is at an interesting website: www.phsreunion.info

Mark your calendar! See you there!

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

I used to be seventeen. And at midnight tonight you can make that exactly 42 years ago that I was seventeen. In June of 1965 I was a pretty happy guy. I was the starting first baseman for the OLVA Foxes and I'd just been teamed up with my Valentine's Day Kindergarten Queen Sue as King and Queen of the Junior Prom, themed "Shangri-La." Gee, what more could a guy ask for?

I knew more about baseball than girls and knew more about the Bible than the planets. I was thinking about a career as a priest or a career as an English teacher. A curser was somebody who was good at swearing, not something on a computer, and a monitor was Sister Anthony of Jesus during study hall, not something I looked at several times a day.

Times sure were different when I was seventeen. Which made it all the more shocking recently when I noticed a stack of recent Seventeen magazines on the back counter at the Stafford Middle School library. You see, being a substitute librarian for a day or two gave me an opportunity to peruse the reading material available to young readers.

I checked books in and out, a procedure taught to me by SMS's library assistant Colleen Hynes. I kept everyone relatively quiet during library hours, and just because I have missed saying it, I occasionally bellowed, "Hey, cut that out!" No one was really doing anything wrong, but the students don't know that. If you say that occasionally, they think you're watching their every move closely.

In between the loaning and returning of books and the occasional "Hey, cut that out!" I found time to examine the covers of the last four months of Seventeen magazine, the most popular magazine in the country for young girls.

The first thing that amazed me was the pretty face on the cover. All celebrities. And with a magazine called Seventeen, you might expect someone around seventeen years old on the cover. Not even close. The March cover girl was singer/actress Mandy Moore. She's 23 years old. The April cover girl was singer Avril Lavigne, a 22-year-old, as is May's cover girl, actress Scarlett Johansson. The real shocker came this month with Seventeen magazine's cover girl singer Fergie, who was born in 1975. She's 32 years old! Who's next? Will July's cover girl be Cher?

The cover girl bit made me more curious about the contents, but I had to look no further than the cover. There it was in big letters in March: "473 ways to look pretty!" No headline about studying, preparing for college or sports. Am I expecting too much?

In April we get "635 fashion and beauty tips." But, alas, no tips for studying or successfully writing a research paper. May improved on the "pretty" idea by upgrading to "526 ways to look beautiful." How about "One way to relax before a speech in front of class"? Am I expecting too much of Seventeen magazine, the magazine teen girls read more than any other?

Now that June is here, Seventeen brings "725 ways to look HOT and have fun" -- complete with exclamation points and underscores. I used to look hot. It was after I played a double-header against Beekmantown in 80-degree weather, wearing those picky old wool baseball pants and jersey. Most of the guys on my team said, "Wow, you look hot!"

I wasn't so hot after gulping down a big bottle of RC Cola.

Gee, what more do girls need to know about how to live a good life as a teenager? But Seventeen doesn't stop there! Also headlined on the March cover was "Sexy Legs Workout." Important, I guess. But not so important to the girl who plays softball and doesn't mind a black-and-blue leg from taking a line drive off the shins or a bleeding knee from sliding into third with a triple.

April helps girls "Get Your Best Butt" and May helps them "Get Flat Abs." Now that summer vacation is almost here, the June edition advises, "Get Your Best Beach Body."

Call me naive for thinking that the magazine Seventeen might offer something a little more intellectual for our teen girls. When I was Seventeen I had a subscription to SPORT magazine. All I cared about was the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Giants and Philadelphia 76ers.

But I wasn't a girl. What were Sue and Betty and Ginny and Linda and Mary and Valerie reading back in 1965?

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Sometimes I just like a quiet evening at home alone. Doesn't always happen, and, in fact, I'm happy about that. But sometimes it's just nice to sit at home alone, wear out the remote control batteries and just think about the crazy things that go on in the world.

No phone. No important baseball games. No rings of the doorbell. No drama to deal with. It's those nights when I have time to consider what other topics I might throw out into the blogosphere. Sometimes I might have too much time to think.

Isn't it crazy that Martha Stewart and Paris Hilton will have served jail time and bad ol' OJ Simpson hasn't?

I have always enjoyed talk shows, and nowadays, if I'm home, I like to check on Bill O'Reilly and Hannity and Colmes and Geraldo Rivera, just to see what topics have them cranked up for the night. Do you remember the days of Morton Downey, Jr. ? He surely disappeared in a hurry. And where are Phil Donohue and Sally Jessy Raphael?

Remember when Nat Lash sat in that big chair shaped like a hand in the Town & Country Furniture television ads?

And remember Channel 3's Tony Adams saying, "Good night and good sports"? Or was it, "Be a good sport"? Whatever ... I miss him! He was inducted into the Vermont Broadcasters Hall of Fame and in that group I found the names of several Hall of Famers that I'd almost forgotten about. Do you remember George Cameron of WVMT Radio, and Mickey Gallagher, Ken Greene and Stuart Hall, also from WCAX-TV Channel 3? Our beloved Bird Berdan was also inducted into the Vermont Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

I'd like to see a comeback reunion by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. I wonder if he can still "Wooly Bully" and "Ring Dang Do."

Owning a cat can be a pleasure. But my cute little kitten Lily has grown into a more-than-one-year-old cat. A long-haired cat, leaving clumps of cat hair for me to pull off my carpet and furniture. Am I breathing in all that excess cat hair? If cats get hair balls, are the owners also in danger of that malady?

Shouldn't kidney beans be re-named? I figure too many kids think that the vegetable is made from some animal's kidneys, instead of being named for the shape. Call that darned thing "funny bean" and kids will eat it by the can.

Remember the days of Happy Herbie's and the Crest and the Tradewinds? The go-go girls and dancers? Plattsburgh sure was a wild town in those days.

Not that I care, but 90% of practicing nudists are over 35 years old. I don't even go out in public in summertime shorts, so you can bet I'm not in that group.

How come whenever I drink wine, I want to marry everyone? Oh, well, it's nothing that a pound of shrimp and a bottle of Ken's Cocktail Sauce won't cure.

Yes, indeed, sometimes I just have too much time to sit and think.

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 9:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)