On The Sly

On Sunday afternoon I spent just over two hours going south on the Northway, good old Route 87. On Monday morning I spent just over two hours going north on that very same highway. All that way to see my two-week-old grandson Ethan, and, okay, his parents, Erik and Sarah.

That's a long way to go for not even one word! I held Ethan for about five minutes, so proud to tell him that I was "Papa Fox" and to talk to him about how we will be going to baseball games and running around the house a few years from now.

All Ethan did was cry. He looked up at me with those little blue eyes and screamed for five minutes. I tried singing my version of a lullaby, but that only made him want to outshout me. Erik, in true like father-like son style, videotaped the five minutes for posterity.

Ethan seemed to listen better when his daddy talked to him, and even grandmother Gail had pretty good luck, telling him what a wonderful grandmother she is going to be. He listened quietly and shut his eyes. And, of course, when mommy offered him lunch and dinner and snack time, little Ethan was happiest and quietest of all.

In the two weeks since Ethan's birth, I seemed to have turned into a lump of silly putty. I find myself carrying around a clipboard with pictures of Ethan and his parents and grandparents. I can't help telling total strangers that I'm a grandfather for the first time, and offering photos to prove it.

In the post office each day, the postal clerks now call me "Grandpa," which is fine, because it gives me the chance to explain to those waiting in line with me why I have such a name. I start in with something about 5am on February 10th and give them the entire story, complete with 8x10 color photos.

Afterwards, I feel silly for having told complete strangers about this grandson of mine, who is looking more and more like some movie star. I can't put my finger on it yet. Maybe he resembles Johnny Depp, like his dad does. Or, maybe he looks more like Justin Timberlake.

Lately, at basketball games I notice that friends veer off towards the concession stand when they see me approaching with my clipboard full of photos. They haven't even seen my newest batch of grandson photos.

Anyway, over four hours is a long way to drive for not even a word from my grandson. But, you know what? It was worth the trip. I'm already checking the calendar for my next trip. And Easter weekend he will make his first trip to the North Country. I'll be sure to have open house so all the Blogoteers came come take a gander at this future Hall of Famer.

But you don't get to hold him. If he's gonna cry it's gonna be with Papa Fox holding him.

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 8:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

I've thought about this for years, and, recently, I've tossed it around the bleachers at high school basketball games. It's now gone from the boiling point to the blogging point. What's up with our high school athletes these days?

Since I played high school sports before the creation of Title IX and the increase of girls playing high school sports, I can only address this issue to boys in sports. But what's up with these guys? It has occured to me that boys don't shower after a sporting event.

When I played for the Our Lady of Victory Foxes, it was standard procedure to strip down after the basketball game, throw your uniform in a pile for the benevolent nuns to wash and head to the showers. A bar of soap, a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of Brylcreem ("a little dab will do ya!") were part of our sports bag. The locker room was a frenzy of jokes, snapping towels and naked guys. We would shampoo, lather up, rinse off and, in most cases, head off to meet the girls at the Altamont Dairy Bar.

We even showered before high school. I can recall playing city recreational basketball over at Monty Street School. For many years the Seymour boys, OLVA graduates Bob and Fudd Seymour, were the coaches. Even though we were headed right home, we would shower after our games. It was the final part of the entire experience.

I know my Mom didn't want me going out all sweaty. "You could catch a cold," she would say. We had instructions to shower, dry off good, make sure our hair was dry and then head for home. And, later, Coach Flynn didn't even have to tell us. We just automatically took a shower after the football or basketball game. There was no second thought about it.

When did all this change? I've noticed that while I'm doing my game wrap-up for television, the guys go to the locker room, meet with the coach, and then put their clothes on and go back out into the gym. Isn't something missing here?

They hug their girlfriends, talk with buddies and get kisses on the cheek from Mom. All the while standing there with sweaty hair, and, worse, perspiration-drenched bodies.

When did all this change? And, why? Look at all the expense we taxpayers go to to provide spacious shower rooms in our new schools. For what? In some schools I've seen the shower rooms used as a storage area for desks and equipment.

I'm pretty upset about all this. I just don't get it. Is there something wrong with showering with your teammates? Were we all wrong back in the Sixties? Are today's athletes all right by not showering? I know that I wouldn't want to go to the Altamont for my hot fudge sundae if I hadn't showered after the game. Who wants to sit there with their honey and have sweat dripping off their neck?

I know our beloved high school sport has changed a lot through the years. I mean, knee pads have become antiques. Our basketball trunks have doubled in size, hanging down now below our knees. They've added the three-point shot, and eliminated the three-foot lane all around the court. Heck, we don't even have to raise our hand and admit to the crowd that we were the one who committed the foul!

But, geez, no shower after the game? I'm working up a sweat just writing about it. Enough said! I'm heading to the showers.

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 7:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

I spent 35 years as a classroom teacher and I figured I knew all there is to know about what goes on within my workplace. Even though the name of the place changed -- from Plattsburgh Junior High School to Plattsburgh Middle School to Stafford Middle School -- the site remained the same.

We went from parking in the back of the school to a parking lot in front of the school on Broad Street. We went from an old brick ivy-covered building to a state-of-the-art facility built on the side of a hill. What looks like a one-story building from Broad Street is revealed to be a three-story building when viewed from Pine Street.

I figured I knew this building inside out. I'd been in every classroom, every meeting area and knew every teacher on a friendly basis. I'd been inside the boiler room, the swimming pool and even the home economics room, now called the home and career skills area.

But a few weeks ago, when I was the substitute physical education teacher for a day, I realized that I wasn't so smart, after all. I realized that being a physical education teacher is a whole other world from that of a classroom teacher.

During my classroom teacher years I had a simple rule: "Closed door = quiet." When I was ready to begin teaching for the period, I simply went over to my door and shut it. My students knew that at that point, they had to stop talking -- "mid-sentence, mid-word, mid-syllable," as I used to tell them.

And, of course, when I was speaking to the class, or when another student was addressing the class, no one else would be talking. That worked because, as my students knew, "three strikes and you are out!" It was simple!

No so simple when you are in gym class! You can throw those two rules right out the non-existent window. From the moment the students arrived, they were excited and full of energy. Their voices raised to shouting level and they began running helter-skelter looking for anything to touch, hit, kick or climb on.

With no door to shut to get them quiet, I shouted out. They didn't hear me. A second shout, a bit louder, was just as ineffective. I reached back for a little extra mustard on my third shout, and felt something pop in my vocal cords area.

The planned activity of the day was "dodge ball," but I was quickly corrected by the students who said that it had to be called "fluff ball." For the next thirty minutes the students ran tirelessly from one spot to the next, enjoying the activity and shouting to their heart's content.

I took it all in with an amazed look on my face. Class by class, they played by the rules, for the most part, as I served as monitor and arbiter and thought back to my days of "closed door = quiet."

It's a whole other world, folks! And then they have a period called "stress relief." Just what I needed! But it wasn't for me. It was for the students! They arrived for some time that used to be called "recess" in the old days. And they played soccer or basketball and ran and shouted and had fun, while I supervised as best I could.

I was okay until I was accidentally hit in the face with a rubber ball. How many times a day do phys ed teachers get hit in the head by a flying object? In 35 years as a classroom teacher I never got hit in the head with anything -- not even a spitball. Not even a piece of chalk.

It took just day for me to gain a new sense of respect for physical education teachers around the world. No wonder they all look so young! Take a look at Stafford Middle School's trio of phys ed teachers: Vickie McMillan, Jim Manchester and Pat Goodell. They all look like they just graduated from high school. They are all fit and youthful and smiling. They look like they are in their twenties.

It was obvious to me that I was a stranger in a strange land. My days as a gym teacher are numbered. And that number is "zero." I don't know how they do it. It's another world, I tell you.

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

The call came from my son Erik at 5:05am on Sunday. "This is your baby call, Dad!" he calmly said.

I mumbled, "I'm on my way" and we hung up. Moments later he was hurrying his wife Sarah to the Bellevue Women's Care Center in Schenectady, and I was stumbling around my dark bedroom, throwing things into an overnight bag and trying to wake up.

I later found out that getting Sarah into the car was no easy feat. The passenger's side door of their car was frozen shut, so she had to enter on the driver's side and crawl across to her seat.

When Erik's mom Gail arrived at my house at 6am, we drove off to Schenectady for what would prove to be an amazing experience. When I blogged in June about Erik's announcement that I would be a grandpa for the first time, I received plenty of advice from my band of Blogoteers about what a great thing that is.

At the time I chuckled and wondered, figuring that being a grandpa meant I was really really old, and wondering if I were really ready for such an event. Blogoteers warned me that everything would be okay, and being a grandparent was not the end of the world, but, in many ways, the beginning.

So, as we waited patiently at the hospital from 8:45am on Sunday, and into the afternoon, I had the opportunity to chat with my son and his wife as they prepared for the big event. They both seemed so calm. And that helped me stay calm, I think.

Plus I had the reassurance of their morning nurse, Sheila, who told me, "You are going to do fine." The grandmothers-in-waiting, Gail and Kathy, were not so calm. They were talkative, excited and downright anxious for Sarah to bring this grandchild into our world.

At 9am Sarah was dilated three centimeters, so the moms were speculating that we might be in for a five-to-seven hours wait. It gave me plenty of time to assess Bellevue.
At this small facility, which specializes in women's care, Sarah was the only expectant mother. Room 9, the Gagnon's birthing room, was large and private, and the four of us had plenty of room to sit, read, talk or watch television.

Sarah was enjoying the movie "Blazing Saddles." At 11:30am, as some of us began to think about lunch, Sarah said, "I'd love a Big Mac." That would have to wait. She was limited to crushed ice and jello.

By 12:30pm she was at six centimeters and anticipation grew. The monitor announced each heartbeat of their baby, my grandchild. Birthing the old-fashioned way, Erik and Sarah did not know if they were having a boy or a girl.

As I sat in the room, waiting and waiting, Gail and Kathy and Gail's cousin Jill talked about the experience of having babies. I heard words like forceps, labor, epideral, pushing, sweating -- as they each relived the deliveries of their own children.

They played guessing games, like "Do you think the baby will have curly or straight hair?" or "Will the baby be dark or light complexioned?" And don't try telling women about having babies. When I tossed in a few cents here or there, I found out quickly that this is a topic for women only. I left to take a nap in the general waiting room.

The hours wore on. At 3:15pm Sarah was at nine centimeters and everyone started to move around the room nervously. At 4pm everyone was told to exit the room and leave Sarah and Erik to their mission. Dr. Clarissa Westney arrived. Nurse Leanne and other staff arrived as the Gagnon baby began its entrance.

Each minute in the waiting room seemed like ten. At 4:45pm Gail began hallucinating. "Did I hear a baby cry?" she asked excitedly. At that Kathy jumped up and headed towards Room 9 illegally. She returned moments later with no news. That was the first of several visits she would make to the doorway of Room 9, only to be turned away.

By 6pm the conversation topics reached a low point when Gail resorted to talking about the shape of John McCain's arms, and we all enjoyed Hostess Cup Cakes from the vending machine. Getting a bid giddy, the moms were even cheering, "Push it out, push it out, way out!" The only thing missing were pom-poms.

Finally, at 6:10pm, I saw Erik walking down the hallway towards the waiting room. As he opened the doors he calmly said, "It's a boy!" I jumped off the floor at least four feet and started yelling as I hugged him. Everyone started jumping into each other's arms, a scene out of some maternity ward comedy. There were high fives and kisses and tears all around the hallway.

It took only about a minute for it to hit me. My son, my little kid, the kid I used to play nerfball with in his bedroom, the kid I taught to hit tennis ball line drives, the kid I used to read "Farmer Jones" storybook to, was now a father. A rush of emotion overwhelmed me. I went to a corner and cried.

I must have looked stupid. A 59-year-old macho man like me, crying spots onto my glasses at the birth of my grandson. My grandson.

Born at 5:44pm on Sunday, February 10th, Ethan William Wilson Gagnon weighed 7 pounds and 10 ounces and was 19 inches in length.

Erik led us down the hallway to Room 9. Sarah looked wonderful, a beautiful mother, indeed. I am so proud of my son and daughter-in-law. I don't mind saying Ethan is the most handsome baby I have ever seen!

And he took to his Grandpa Fox right away. I know he smiled at me. Even though some claimed it was a burp or a fart.

The next day Sarah said to us, "Life's never going to be the same now." She's right. Not for her, not for Erik, and not for Grandpa Fox. Alright. Now I will admit it. All those Blogoteers, especially miss d, were right way back in June when they told me that being a grandparent is something special.

I can feel it. I've only been a grandfather one day, but I can tell. My life is never going to be the same.

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (29)

When the Press-Republican editorial staff hired me to write the newspaper's first blog, I asked Bob Grady, "What will I write about?"

He smiled and said, "Foxy, just write what's on your mind." Little did he realize, that sometimes that could get me in trouble. But, otherwise, during the course of a typical day a lot of little things wander across my mind. So, in keeping with what the boss ordered, I'll let you in on a few things that are on my mind today:

How many fair-weather New York Giants' football fans put on their Giants sweatshirt or dusted off the Giants cap on Monday morning? I saw more Giants attire on Monday than I had seen during the regular season.

And the Yankees now take a back seat to the Giants, who earned their championship the hard way -- rising from the dead after more than a few Giants' fans had buried them after the first few weeks of the season.

Now that the Super Bowl is over, Blogoteer LaPoint commented yesterday that baseball spring training is only a few days away. Indeed, there are only 53 days until Opening Day. Baseball fans will surely enjoy a website that I've been using for a few years. It houses total baseball history and up-to-date records of all current players, and many many more categories: http://www.baseball-reference.com.

As happy as I am that baseball season is around the snowy corner, I have to admit I cringed the other way -- February 1st, to be exact -- when WIRY Radio began its promotions for New York Yankees baseball coverage. I get sick when I hear John Sterling's bombastic home run call of "another A-Bomb -- by A Rod!" Calm down, John. You haven't won a World Series title since 2000. I just can't imagine the great Vin Scully rattling the microphone like that.

Recently, Blogoteers The Carver and Miney agreed that Mr. O'Connor, Mike's Dad, was the Civil Defense Director. An e-mail from my pal Sal concurs. Sal's been around longer than all of us, and he writes, "Jim O'Connor was the Civil Defense Director for the City of Plattsburgh for many years. His offices were located on the third floor at City Hall. Each shelter in the city had dry food supplies, canned water and it was Jim's job to maintain them. When I started teaching at Monty Street School in 1959, Civil Defense had supplies locked in the furnace room."

The Stowaways Reunion 2007 was a musical extravaganza and a ride aboard the Nostalgia Train. In the middle of plans for the 2008 Re-Reunion of the Stowaways, the group has hit a stumbling block. The site of last summer's concert is no longer available. Some have suggested the renting of the Crete Center. There are always complications involving insurance and a liquor license and vending fees, and all the other business essentials that I wouldn't know about.

Can we close off Saratoga Court? Is that legal? Can we party all night on my front lawn? Hey, doesn't the Mayor have a big backyard?

After watching The Beverly Hillbillies for over forty years, something just occured to me yesterday. Several episodes showed Jed's unbelievable skills with a rifle, able to hit a bug 200 yards away. Word was he was the supreme sharpshooter. However, the whole premise of Jed striking oil was that he missed his quail a few yards away and the bullet struck the ground, delivering millions in oil. On that day he was a klutz with a rifle.

Makes me question everything there is about that television show now, including Elly May's ability to effectively use her bra as a slingshot.

Remember the Spice Girls? Remember New Kids on the Block? Remember 'N Sync? Or, Britney Spears? Hey, we had Elvis or the Beatles. Since then every once in awhile some young singing stars come along and become not only musical successes, but commercial successes as well. Oh, if only I had saved my Beatles school binder or my Elvis plastic guitar.

Now we have Hannah Montana! Or, Miley Cyrus, the 15-year-old televsion and music star who portrays Hannah Montana. The daughter of "Achy-Breaky Heart" singer Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley has become a Disney Channel phenom. Have you joined Miley World yet? At WalMart you can buy Hannah Montana clothing, books, blankets, watches, purses, toothbrushes, wigs, song cards, collector trading cards, blankets, napkins, paper plates and even Hannah Montana cakes.

Guess there will never be a Foxy Gagnon bobblehead or a Foxy Gagnon microphone or a Foxy Gagnon fake ponytail cap. Anyone want to join Foxy World?

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 2:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

There will be a lot of unhappy Giants fans around on Monday morning when they wake up and realize that Eli Manning's looping pass to Plaxico Burress with 35 seconds left in the game actually fell right through Burress' arms and bounced to the turf.

Fighting off their Monday morning hangovers, thousands of Giants fans will read the newspaper reports and listen to the ESPN SportsCenter recap. They will find out that the Patriots actually won the game 14-10 and wrapped up a perfect 19-0 season. They will try to shake out the cobwebs as they watch Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady holding the Lombardi Trophy aloft amidst the confetti celebrations.

It had to be so. Otherwise, it would all be a dream. Only in a dream would the Giants go for a fourth and one late in the game and actually get the needed yardage. Only in a dream would Eli Manning rip himself away from five Patriots linemen who had him trapped and all but sacked. Only in a dream would David Tyree leap high into the air and catch a Manning pass with two hands and his helmet while falling backwards into the arms of a Patriot defender.

There is no way that the New York Giants could possibly have won the Super Bowl on Sunday. Sure, they were the self-proclaimed "Road Warriors," winning time after time away from the Meadowlands, their New Jersey home. But they were playing the undefeated Bill Belichick-coached Tom Brady-led Patriots, the pride and joy of New England.

Perhaps the dream began with Jordin Sparks, the daughter of former New York Giant Phillipi Sparks, singing the National Anthem. I have to admit I had goosebumps even before I'd had my first beverage of the day. As she sang, the camera shots of our soldiers in Iraq and Brady, the guy with movie star looks, standing proudly with his hand over his heart were enough to make me feel like a patriot.

And then the flyover -- by the Blue Angels, no less! Get it? Blue! As in the Giants, the Big Blue! Maybe that's when the dream began.

Or maybe it was when NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott tossed the Super Bowl coin and the Giants won the toss. Maybe that's when the dream began.

And then the Giants hogged the football for ten minutes, while Tom Brady waited on the sidelines, sitting alone on the bench, considering his first move. Only in a dream would Brady spend most of the first quarter on the bench. That's a place from where it's pretty darn hard to throw a touchdown pass.

Or maybe the dream began when countless Giants fans just happened to be sitting at their computers when the GoDaddy.com commercial came on. If they were like me, it took them about five seconds to hit the website to watch the video of Danica Patrick unzipping her top and talking about some animal who builds dams.

What Super Bowl? I missed most of the second quarter because of that darn GoDaddy.com commercial.

Only in a dream would Tom Brady see nothing but white Giants jerseys every time he dropped back to pass. Never before had he felt such pressure. It had to be a dream. And when he did find time to look downfield, he saw nothing but red numbers.

I feel bad for my brother and all those Giants fans who went to bed, or passed out, thinking the Giants had won the Super Bowl. They sure will be surprised this morning. It was all a dream. Or -- was it a Patriots' nightmare?

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

It all started with Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999. Since then it's been spreading across America -- from Heritage High School in Georgia to Buell Elementary School in MIchigan to Santana High School and Granite Hills High School in California to Pine Middle School in Nevada -- and on and on.

Without explanation, suddenly, tragedy in what used to be a safe place -- the classroom. And since Columbine there have been countless meetings in school districts around the country. Steps have been taken to make our schools safer and to protect those who work and study there.

My old school, Stafford Middle School, is not unlike all the rest. In the past five years several changes have taken place. School doors are locked during the day, requiring a visitor, even a substitute teacher, to buzz the office for admittance. Teachers and other school personnel wear identification cards. Cameras have been placed in certain areas of the school with monitors in the main office.

A few days ago while I was the substitute teacher for eighth grade Spanish, Stafford Middle School held a lockdown drill. With the announcement at 1:34pm all lights were turned off, window shades pulled down and classroom doors were locked. All students and teachers went to a corner of the classroom and sat on the floor quietly.

During the time of the lockdown drill there was complete silence. The only sound I heard was when someone suddenly moved the doorknob of my classroom. For over ten minutes we sat in the darkness. The quiet time gave me the opportunity to recall further how times have changed.

When I was in eighth grade we weren't having lockdown drills. But we were having air raid drills. I remember that during our air raid drills we would get under our school desk, an easy feat in those days. On other days, the nuns would lead us down the stairs to the school's basement, a place we seldom roamed. We would crouch along the walls, and cover our head with our arms.

There would be complete silence. Except for the clattering of rosary beads as the nuns walked by, making sure we were protecting ourselves properly from the Russians who might be dropping bombs overhead.

As the sisters clattered by us, we could see their black shoes. It was easy to forget that they wore shoes, since their black habits reached nearly to the floor. We took our air raid drills seriously. Some of us had seen Rod Serling's episode of The Twilight Zone called "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street." If it weren't Russians then it might be martians who were out to get us.

My Dad took it seriously. We had a fallout shelter in our basement. It was actually my Dad's photography darkroom, but it doubled as a place of refuge in case of an attack on the city of Plattsburgh. It was well-stocked with canned goods and other supplies that we would need in case we had to isolate ourselves for weeks. He even had a can opener so that we would be able to get into those cans of creamed corn, peas and carrots.

The five Gagnons could barely fit into the little room, but my Dad felt good that he was prepared and protecting our family in case of some sort of invasion. We used to practice walking down the basement stairs single-file and going into the fallout shelter. My Dad would be the last one in and he would lock the door and turn off the lights. Somehow we survived such experiences without too many nightmares.

From air raid drills to lockdown drills -- we have always tried to be prepared for the unexpected. We have been fortunate in the North Country. Here's hoping that our lucky streak continues for a long long time.

Posted by Foxy Gagnon at 3:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)