"These are the Times That Try Mens Souls"

"These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

Thomas Paine wrote these remarkable words in December 1776 in Fort Lee, New Jersey. They were published in his pamphlet American Crisis. His previous pamphlet, Common Sense, published a year earlier, was known to have had a powerful influence on the drafters of the Declaration of Independence.

Fort Lee, New Jersey?

For most of us, Fort Lee is the place where traffic backs up for the George Washington Bridge toll.  In fact, the location has been a well used Hudson River crossing since the Revolutionary War when Fort Lee was a supply center for the New York defensive fortifications across the river.  George Washington made his retreat in November 1776 from New York, across the river, and down what is now Main Street in Fort Lee.  It was upon this sight, at our young nation's darkest hour, that Thomas Paine wrote his most remembered line.  

These days, I cross the Hudson River every day by foot.  It is my morning routine.  The sun is just rising, the air is crisp, and the views upstream, downstream, and right in front of my face are amazing.  As readers of this space are aware, I'm particularly fond of the Little Red Lighthouse that protects the shore on the New York side.

The walk over is into the rising sun and affords the best views of midtown Manhattan and the constant maritime traffic below.  

I occasionally think of General Washington and his ragged boats of refugees from the Battle of New York far below who, under cover of darkness, were fleeing for the very life of our country. Other times I look up and marvel at the daring of the steel workers who built this magnificent structure, many of whom gave their lives.  There was no OSHA back then.

Mostly I listen to podcasts on my IPod and gaze blankly at the frantic cell phone caller, manic makeup putter-oner, and the most breathtaking cityscape on earth.

Thanks Thomas.

Thanks George.

Thank you Fort Lee.

And thank you for visiting.

Jack 

"Martha my dear you have always been my inspiration..."

Martha first arrived in New York in the fall of 1999 to attend the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising. 

As the college had neither a campus nor a dormitory, her first room was a ten by sixteen box with one window that she shared with a roommate.  Located in the the Marcle Salvation Army Residence on West 13th Street, it was not the scenario of which we had dreamed for our daughter's first day of college.  As we left our dear child behind, Roz and I tried to reinforce each other that this was for the best, but in fact, it was all we could do not to rush back and grab her. 

There was, however, one feature that I did like about that room.  The window afforded a a tiny sliver view of the Empire State Building. Wow, thought I, here she is in her first New York apartment and she already has a view of the Empire State Building!  To me, it represented all that was possible for Martha over the following four years at college and beyond in her life.  One could do worse that to be inspired by the Empire State Building while brushing your teeth at the beginning of each day.

That moment flashed back to me last Friday morning while standing on the corner of 33rd Street and 8th Avenue.  At Martha's urging, I had enrolled in the Landmark Forum, an intense fifty hour grind over three plus days that we hoped would help achieve a positive transformation for my life.  This was the school where she had dropped me off.  We both knew I needed it.  I knew I was ready for it.

As I glanced down down 33rd Street, I saw the Empire State Building, vividly showcased against a blinding blue October sky.  It took me back to the Marcal Residence in an instant. 

There had been such changes in less than ten years.  

Martha had graduated, successfully worked through several industry jobs, and was now commuting back in forth to London.  She is helping to establish a New York presence for the British brand Top Shop (www.topshop.com)  As she is involved with recruiting, I must also direct you to the following link if you or anyone you know is interested in a terrific NYC (Soho) retail opportunity starting in the spring 2009. (http://arcadia.peoplebank.com/pbank/owa/arcadia.TopshopTopManSearchUS)

So I'm her father...O.K.?

Martha has the kind of job of which I always dreamed.  She also has the self confidence and drive to make certain that I don't just sit back and live her dream.  She is determined to have me become fully self expressed in all that I think and do.  

My personal development is now her missions as hers was once mine.  

Hence, the introduction to Landmark.  

The recent immersion is now coursing through me and bringing illumination to areas of my being that have been dark for years - if not forever.  

Thanks, Martha.

And thank you for visiting.

Jack

What a Wonderful World

I'm back.  

Thank you loyal readers for your patience!

September seemed to be a lost month.  

The move to Ft. Lee was disorienting and I wasn't feeling well.  The reason turned out to be caused by spinal meningitis which put me in the Englewood Hospital for ten days. 

Thanks to a terrific group of doctors and nurses, and family and friends that were WAY over the top, I'm mostly better now and improving.  I'm happily settled back into 5B. 

My spirits have since been lifted by several Loon related events.  

First, as you can see below, the cover is completed!  

The image is of me on a patrol.  The background is my field map of Gio Linh, Vietnam.  If your eyes surpass mine, you'll note the North Vietnamese border above my head, and several circled mortar targets.

These details will be more apparent on the cover of the actual book which is now available pre-order from Amazon.com.  The link follows:

http://www.amazon.com/Loon-Marine-Story-Jack-Mclean/dp/0345510151/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223082251&sr=8-1

Thank you for visiting

Jack

"I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride it where I like."

Bike paths abound in the Nation's Capital.

My favorite took me from Georgetown, along the Potomac under the Kennedy Center, up over the Memorial Bridge to Arlington, down the Virginia side of the river to National Airport, then home via Roosevelt Island and the Key Bridge.


The loop is 12 miles with breathtaking vistas of the monuments and river at every turn. Riding across bridges is especially cool.

Knotts Island is flat and ideal for biking. I'd ride from the garage, to the ferry landing, past the elementary school and the winery, to Donald's house on the tiny northern tip that is in the state of Virginia. I'd return via the market


post office, police substation, and MacKay Wildlife Preserve.


This loop in 16 miles with stunning vistas of Currituck Sound, Back Bay, and a thousand acres of wetlands. Occasionally, I'd ride across the causeway to the mainland. Riding across bridges is especially cool, even weeny ones!


Now the big one.

Looming outside of my window is the top of the west tower of the George Washington Bridge.

I am told that, if I can find the entrance, one can ride all the way across the bridge and (presumed) back.

The breathtaking view from the GW Bridge.

Thank you for visiting.

Jack

"Sunday will never be the same."

Last night was my first alone in 5B.

Wonderful.

Yesterday, before leaving Knotts Island, I enjoyed a final walk through the Mackay Wildlife Preserve which I will miss.

I bid a fond farewell to Nancy Tillery (landlady) and her sister Barbara (next door neighbor and pool proprietress.) Nancy's husband Terry was off to the mountains on his Harley, so the ladies were headed on a Thelma & Louise like assault on Target and Wal-Mart (28 miles away.)

It's been a wonderful year of writing, new friends, and GREAT food!!

I brought up another car-load of stuff from Knotts Island yesterday leaving one final fall trip for books and CDs.

Over a life time of back and forth, I have spent countless Sunday afternoons trying to negotiate the George Washington Bridge. Today, while walking around Fort Lee, I was, at last, the happy object of :

"if you lived here...

you'd be home now."

Very cool.

My Sunday routine is now forever changed.

Most notably, my excursion to get the NY Times has been reduced by 25 1/2 miles (each way!) I also now have a stove so I can cook the few Sunday morning things that my diet permits. Oh well, it's just nice to know that I could cook bacon, eggs and pancakes if I wanted to.

I will miss the grill which, you readers may recall, was my one capital purchase on Knotts, but I'm a city slicker now. 

Fittingly, my one major capital purchase here was a 37 inch Sony 1080 LCD TV. It will arrive any day. All of NY is abuzz about Bret Farve's arrival to the Jets from Green Bay. I won't need to miss a snap! Redskins?! Yesterday's gone.

The noises here differ from Knotts Island. Daybreak there brings the rooster, followed by birds of every variety, followed by turbocharged ride-on lawn mowers, industrial grade weed wackers, ginormous supercharged pick-up trucks, and two 6 year old girls (one, actually, is 5) roaring all over creation on their ATVs.

Daybreak here brings the pulsing plaint of air horns from the 18 wheelers jockeying for a slot at the toll booth overlaid by the soothing sound of the 13 air conditioning units atop of the Walgreens strip mall five floors below.

Fort Lee is a tidy little town. The library and hardware store are down the street, and little shops and restaurants abound.

This is going to be fun.

Thank you for visiting.

Jack

"Oh, hail to New Jersey, it's the best in 48."

Our mother occasionally sang during long car trips. It was years before I understood that she made up these songs as she went. Over time they became as embedded as if they had been written by George M. Cohan himself. Who were we to doubt her?

One of her favorites was O Hail to New Jersey, a tribute to my father's birthplace and adopted home for the rest of us (but for sister Barby who was, in fact, born there.) She would present it with all the gravitas of an anthem:

O hail to New Jersey, its the fresh and Garden Staaaayaaate
O hail to New Jersey, it's the best in fourty eight.

She also concocted songs that tied in the names of the states that we were passing through at the time:

What did Della wear, boys, what did Della wear?
Well, she wore an old New Jersey, yeah to wore an old NJ.
We were all proud to be from New Jersey because, well, for most of our young lives, that's where we were from. Mom was from Quebec Canada and, had she ever felt unfairly exiled, she never expressed it to us. She was the drinker of the New Jersey Kool Aid in our family.

In retrospect, it could not have been easy. Her mother-in-law (my grandma) was a force. Her family had come to Parsippany several years after the Mayflower landing. Mom's father-in-law (my grandpa) was three generations removed from Scotland. His grandfather came to Patterson to lay the bricks that were needed to house the industrial revolution. They still lived in the same house in Elizabeth, not far from our new home in suburban Summit.

Grandpa had served six terms as a Congressman from the state's 6th District before I was born. He was a Republican whose tenure exactly overlaid those of President Franklin Roosevelt. I often wonder what it must have been like to be a Congressional Republican facing the tsunami of New Deal legislation during that period (not to mention WWII.)

Grandma's claim to fame was that she had created the New Jersey state flag (which is to say she put the state seal on a flag and got the state legislature to adopt it.)

So mom would sing away while trying to instill some piece of historical fiber into the back-seat brats (only on car trips) that were her four children.

New Jersey was a great place to grow up, but once I arrived in Massachusetts for prep school, it became a liability ("you're from the armpit of the nation??!!) Fortunately for me (at that moment) my family moved from New Jersey to Brookline Massachusetts. I never looked back. To the world and anyone else that was curious, I was theretofore from Boston.

My prep school friend Ford Fraker is from New Jersey and proud of it (Ford gave as good as he got when taunted about his home state.) Upon hearing about my move to Fort Lee, he sent a note welcoming me back home. At first I bristled, but then I smiled. Thanks Ford. It is good to be back!

AND, for you faithful blog readers who joined me at whatknotts.blogspot.com, you will be delighted to know that, within three months, I will have to register a vehicle and get a New Jersey driver's license.

The best in 48? I sure hope so!

Thanks for visiting.

Jack

"Welcome back, your dreams were your ticket out."

I first crossed the George Washington Bridge in the fall of 1947. I was less than 6 months old. Our family of five was moving from Northport Long Island, where I was born, to Summit, New Jersey, where I grew up. That also constituted my first trip to (through) Ft. Lee and my first (subliminal) awareness of the little red light house that sits proudly under the bridge on the Manhattan shoreline.

My mother was an illustrator of children's books and had a particular fondness for The Little Red Lighthouse and the Big Grey Bridge written in 1927 by Hildegarde Swift and Lynd Ward. The lighthouse reminds us, according to it's website, that "all things big or small have a significant place in our world." It was mom's kind of story - consistent with all that she went on to teach us throughout the years.

Ironically, the lighthouse was in the process of being decommissioned at the very time that we were soaring high above it that fall afternoon. The enormous popularity of the children's book, however, played a role in saving the lighthouse from demolition in the years to come.

In subsequent years, our family would cross the George Washington Bridge at least twice a year as we made the annual summer trek to our mother's childhood home in Quebec. On the way north, barely an hour out of Summit in our laden Ford Country Squire station wagon, she would begin lilting as we approached the bridge in a voice filled with the joy and optimism of a new day, "Here we come, children, let's all keep our eyes peeled for the little red lighthouse...it's right down there", she'd say craning her neck out of the front passenger window.

Right down where?!

I was too young to know that it was impossible to see that which was directly under the bridge, but we always tried.

"Oh there's the spot, " she'd say as we wound off the ramp onto the Henry Hudson Parkway. The little red light house was mom's deal and we all bought into it. We didn't have to actually see it to know that it was there.

Several months later, our loaded car would again approach the bridge - this time from the north - as we returned having spent 12 hot miserable hours in the car, vacation over, school about to start, traffic barely inching along, and still an hour from home.

A frazzed dad hung over the wheel while an overwrought mom tried to hang on just a little longer. "If you children don't be quiet and behave, I'm going to ask dad to stop the car right now and let you out." That, of course, was the ultimate threat and lead me into momentary horror. After several moments of imagining what I'd do, however, I'd remember the lighthouse below and know that, within a short walk, I'd find the safe haven that had so captured my imagination since earliest memory. Score one for the lighthouse.

My first actual sighting of the lighthouse came during my first visit to Ft. Lee several years ago. My daughter Sarah, then a graduate student at Columbia, brought me over to see the wonderful waterside park that spreads splendidly below the soaring bridge above. Weeks earlier, her fiancee John had proposed marriage to her at this very spot, yards from the flowing Hudson River, below the bridge, and directly across from and within easy sight of...the little red lighthouse on the far shore.

Wow.

Occasionally we say things like, "I don't ask for much in this world, but..." This was one of these moments. My daughter's life ahead, my life behind and all brought together by this magnificent little structure.

"There it is, mom. Right over there. See it?!"

Thank you for visiting.

Jack