Reconstituting East Shore Trail

After the most incredible Christmas ever experienced, I was floundering around the iTunes site searching for things that would call me back to some of my days gone by, and I came across Railroad Earth. For anyone who is not familiar with the band, they are an eclectic mix of musicians, rooted firmly in the bluegrass tradition. Aside from my father forcing me to endure the annual Waterloo Village Bluegrass Festival when I was a child, I have no affinity for bluegrass. There is one element about this band that lured me in, however; the lead singer is a man named Todd Schaeffer. While I was growing up in northwestern New Jersey, Schaeffer became a local legend as the frontman for a band known as From Good Homes. Several of the musicians were based in and around a town called Sparta, New Jersey.

As it was, I happened to work at a bar in the town of Sparta called Krogh's. Before I worked there, the place had been one of the original starting points for the band as their began their rise from local act with potential to what would become a story I would boastfully tell to my friends in college. The band worked as most bands with talent do, pushing the club and bar scene on college campuses from Augusta, Maine to San Diego State. When their break arrived in the form of a deal with RCA, it happened to coincide with another group of diligent, talent-laden musicians from Charlottesville, Virginia who called themselves the Dave Matthews Band. As the story goes, or more aptly, the one I told and continue to tell (accuracy be damned), there was some trepidation among the execs at RCA as to who to promote on their label as the up and coming mainstream band in the mid 1990's. As the grunge scene was dying and the nation began to turn its attention to more traditional and marketable pop-music, RCA chose to endorse and promote DMB, while leaving FGH to fend for themselves. And, mightily, they did. For a few years, the band endured and pushed forward albums of considerable merit: critical darlings, but popular failures. Eventually the band went their separate ways, thus beginning the creation of my FGH eulogies to various college friends.

In recent years, not only Schaeffer, but other band members have continued to produce and flourish in New Jersey and nationally. However, it is Schaeffer that has transcended the death of FGH and become someone of nationwide merit. Finding Railroad Earth's first album, The Black Bear Sessions on iTunes this evening, I was brought back to evenings behind the bar at Krogh's with the resident bartendresses, as patrons discussed the national whereabouts of the boys who called themselves From Good Homes. Until that point, I had never lived vicariously through a musical group, but after feeling the pride that the patrons felt in being the origin, or at least the hometown of some of the band members, I got caught up in much the same emotion. I wanted them to break through, and was silently heartbroken when they didn't.

Your luggage will arrive shortly, but meanwhile enjoy your stay.

For years I was most enthralled by the aspect of relationships that we call the "falling" part. I found it so enrapturing to be caught up in the newness of someone else, to be spellbound by new possibility untouched by old misdeeds. It was a chance to become new again, much like moving to a new town, or going to a new high school, where any paths you'd strayed onto could be restarted. Any baggage I carried always waited until much later to arrive--thus the title of the posting. And it most certainly arrived, usually after we were firmly entrenched in what would become an apathetic struggle to find out why we were here anymore; neither one of us being courageous enough to ask the difficult questions.

I only bring these collective memories up because of how profoundly different things are now. Jennifer, whose picture you see at the top of this post, is my wife. Luckily for me, the first time she came into my life I was so inconsequential to her that she does not even remember meeting me. Shortly after that initial meeting, with her going her separate way and me mine, I began to do things differently. I was not ready for her to meet me yet, and whether there was some unknown hand guiding that meeting and keeping us separate for a time, I do not know. What I do know is that in short form the months that followed saw me dive in and change the things that I didn't like in my life.

When you tell people that have known you for a good amount of time that you are getting married, they'll often ask you how you knew to do this. For some there is a definitive moment, a stroke of the clock, a lightning flash, or the face of the Virgin Mary in their cheese sandwich, but for others it is an all-encompassing feeling that permeates the relationship from the beginning. With the two of us, it was both, I feel. We were kismet from the inception, taking the initial infatuation with newness to unprecedented heights. Overcome with this, I waited for the baggage to arrive, but I knew it wouldn't matter. And it did arrive, but we went through it, sorted it, and placed it in its appropriate container.

Our life now extends into so many new directions together; we have a beautiful child, and lives that we work very hard at making exceptional. Still, I remember how I felt when we met for the second time. I hadn't known someone like her ever before, and I still don't.

Jennifer reminds me that passion, like the kind that exists for all reasons light and dark at the beginning, takes many forms throughout your life. It meanders on some days, trying to take you away from the monotony of a long-term plan or goal and into thrilling avenues that lead you nowhere. On others, it shows you the awe in your child's face as he pokes at the lights on a Christmas tree. The passion that only existed in the first few months of my youthful acquaintances, has grown up and is teaching me a few things about living.

The Caveman

The headlines are dominated today by the Yankees' acquisition of centerfielder Johnny Damon, formerly of the Boston Red Sox. Aside from the obvious warning signs about agreeing to a contract that will keep in a Yankee uniform until the useless age of 36, there are less sabremetric aspects of this deal that make me wary. Perhaps it could be the onset of an early bout of mid-life spirituality, but I think there are deeper forces at work bringing Damon to the Yankees.

Jason Caple of ESPN.com writes that Damon has committed a grave personal error in signing with the Yankees. To quote: "No, the problem is not that Damon left the Red Sox. The problem is he signed with a team that's all wrong for him. The problem is the dress code." Damon is not a conservative in the mold of DiMaggio, a Yankee hero who was so Puritan that he would not even dive in for a ball because it showed that he had initially misplayed it off the bat, or the current stalwart of Yankee straight and narrow, Derek Jeter, a player who still, at 31, reacts unconditionally to Steinbrenner's requests to "jump" with a dutiful "how high, sir?" Damon will be miserable as a Yankee, as Giambi has been for the few years that he's been here.

What he brings then, is a cloud. The karmic boomerang has finally returned to the Bronx after 84 years of swirling around the New England states. Fight it if you will, but there is something ominous about the signing of Damon. The glimmer of hope that alighted in the eyes of Bostonians during the fabulous run in 2004, is not contained in the personage of Johnny Damon. He carries with him none of the magic or the mythology of a world series run. Rather, the dubious distinction of being a turncoat, and one that has taken the money and run to the highest bidder.

What's Ailing You

I have been trying to summon the necessary forces within me to get on the road to full recovery and training again. It's been nearly a year and half of yo-yo between injured and semi-recovered since I was fully healthy and training at a high level. It's now become a foregone conclusion that I will have knee surgery in the coming months, only I don't know exactly what's going on in there.

Last year, I had the following diagnoses: strained MCL, possible meniscus tear, beginnings of arthritis, and pes anserine bursitis. Treatment consisted of physical therapy on two separate occasions, specialized orthotics, anti-inflammatory meds, and rest. I did all of that religiously and began training only when I felt pain-free. It always comes back. The pain is interesting in that it is not debilitating, just sharp and annoying enough for me to know that it's here to stay. When I run, it appears when my hamstring is flexed and my knee bent at the top of th gait cycle. When I ride, I feel it when I am in the 12-5 o'clock positions. Both are bad for any athlete planning on higher performance.

The self-diagnosis: Medial Synovial Plica irritation. It makes sense. What I have read tells me that it masks itself as all of the above mentioned diagnoses, and cannot be diagnosed until all of those are ruled out. The band must be rubbing on my femoral chondyle as I flex the knee. Good news is that I can live without it, bad news is that in order to get rid of it, I have to have a scope done. I wonder if I can insist that my meniscus and articular cartilage are not touched unnecessarily?

Inaugural

Lost among the headlines in today's sports sections across the New York Metropolitan area today, amid the celebratory headlines of the Giants win over the Chiefs yesterday, is another, non-publicized part of their recent upsurge. What this year's team has done for the region is undoubtable. The cast of characters the Giants have this year is the rare combination of good character and formidable talent, which stands out amid a league of chest-thumping self-promoters.

What strikes me personally about the Giants is their rise in the face of the failure of every other New York team this winter. No faith can be vested in the Knicks, the Nets, the god-awful Jets, or even that other sport that has just resurrected itself from its frozen exile. Casual fans like myself find ourselves roused from our weekend routines of family, work and play to watch, to feel the heartache of poor play, the triumph of Big Blue's success; all this while suffering through the inexorably sluggish pace of an NFL game. Whether it's Manning, the emergence of Tiki Barber as a complete back that the nation recognizes, a defense that breaks your heart one or two plays short of ruining the game, or the emotional component added to the season by the loss of both owners, this season has played itself out much differently than any other in recent memory, including the Super Bowl season of 2000. This team is eminently likable, warts and all, and that is enough to pull the casual fans into the fracas that is professional football fandom.