Eventually, I was called into a meeting with an academic adviser whose name I cannot recall.

“Bill, we need to get you a minor,” he said.

“Ok. How about eligibility?”

The adviser didn’t laugh.

He looked over my academic records for a couple of minutes. He pursed his lips a few times and then sighed.  I sat there, in a small, cramped office, thinking, “Uh-oh. This can’t be good.”

“Well,” he finally said, “Sociology is pretty easy.”

My immediate thought was, “Sociology?”  The “pretty easy” part though caught my attention. It wasn’t a hard sell.
“Alright, sounds good to me,” I told him.  So, that is how ended up with a sociology minor.

It also happened to be the only time I ever met with an academic adviser at Duquesne. And he didn’t lie to me; sociology was “pretty easy.”  Although, looking back, why would the academic adviser suggest an “easy” minor for me?  Just wondering.

A few weeks before my birthday, my mom got a call from my art teacher. I’m a little fuzzy now on the details, but I was in trouble for allegedly throwing wet clay at a classmate. Mom and dad were not pleased. Hence, no bike.  A year later, with no recent art class episodes, I finally got my bike. It was a beautiful blue 10-speed riding machine.  I rode that bike everywhere.

A couple of years later, when all my friends were learning how to drive and ditching their bikes, there I was, still pedaling away. When I got my learner’s permit to drive, I didn’t even bother to take my driving test. A year went by, so I had to retake the test to get a learner’s permit. And when I did eventually take the drivers test I failed for going through a stop sign. Why did I need to drive a car when I had my bicycle?

I would frequently ride my bike to the park to play basketball or baseball. In the nearby parking lot were a bunch of kids I knew from school who were admiring their cars. All through high school those guys and gals would be smoking cigarettes and hanging out in the parking lot with their cars.

On breaks from college, I would ride my bike through the park and those same people from high school were still hanging out in the parking lot. They would wave to me and I’d wave back. I would think, “I can’t believe those guys are still hanging out at the park.”

They were probably thinking, “I can’t believe that guy is still riding his bike.”

Of course I had a car. I had to grow up sometime. But, unlike some people, I never ditched my bike just because I had a car. I still ride my bike as much as I can. Colorado is a wonderful place to ride a bike except for those prickly thorns that periodically give me flat tires.

My current bike is a 12-speed model and I’ve had it for a long time. It still is, and always will be, my favorite form of transportation.

Anyway, I was in Mrs. Mayhew’s 5th grade class and she was the meanest teacher in the school. Time has not softened my view on Mrs. Mayhew. She was intimidating and I truly she believe hated kids. Especially me.  These days teachers have to search students for guns, knives, and drugs. Back then Mrs. Mayhew was on a crusade to eliminate baseball cards from Eldorado Elementary school. That’s right, baseball cards. To her, they were the worst things in the world and she would confiscate them at every opportunity.

On many occasions, she would go into my coat pocket and take away my baseball cards. That’s right, she stole them from my coat pocket! She would rummage through the other kids pockets as well and she would steal our precious cards. Or she would take them out of our desks. Mrs. Mayhew was the baseball card Nazi.

One time she even pulled me off the school bus before it departed the parking lot and looked in my book bag. Yep, baseball cards. She took them.  At recess, she would sneak up behind us and steal our cards. I half expected her to show up at my house, enter my bedroom and take away my cards.  Mrs. Mayhew always took the cards and put them in bags in a big closet in our classroom. Then she would lock the door and our cards were gone forever.

Back to the school chorus. We had our big spring concert on a Friday night. Mom and Dad were there and probably my sister Mary. I can’t definitively recall if Mary was there or not, but she is irrelevant to the story. She’s still pretty much irrelevant. I say that because I hope she reads this story and gets irritated. That’s what brothers do.

The concert went off without a hitch. We were cheered and it actually felt pretty good. I can’t remember any of the songs we sung but it was a nice night. After the concert, I told my parents I had to go to my classroom to get a book. Which was true. Once in the darkened classroom, just for the heck of it, I decided to turn the knob on the closet door. A jolt of excitement ran through my chest when the door actually opened. In the darkness I could see the outline of bags. Four large bags of baseball cards!

The classroom was on the ground floor. I took the bags to the window andset them outside.  Then I went back to my parents. I told them I had to go to the bathroom.  I went back to the classroom, crawled out the window and hid the bags of cards in the nearby woods. I climbed back into the classroom, locked the window, locked the closet door, and then headed to the front of the school and my patient parents.

I forgot the book I was originally was supposed to get but neither Mom or Dad said anything about it.  All night long I was praying it wouldn’t rain. I was also paranoid, waiting for Mrs. Mayhew to knock on the front door with the police demanding my arrest.  Early the next morning, I rode my bike to Eldorado Elementary School and was able to recover two bags of cards. A return trip brought home the rest. I also had to sneak the cards into the house. My mom was a police officer so it wasn’t easy to get away with things.

Finally, the cards were safe and sound in my house. I had all my cards back and all my classmates cards too. I pulled it off, a true caper!  Monday morning, as I entered Mrs. Mayhew’s class, I was sweating profusely. I knew that she knew what I had done. Nervous doesn’t begin to describe how I felt.

When Mrs. Mayhew went into the closet, I expected her to fly off the handle and immediately know it was me who stole the cards.  Much to my surprise and relief, she never said anything about the missing cards. Ever. For the next week I was a wreck, but nothing ever happened. Mrs. Mayhew never brought up the missing cards although she still was on the lookout for any student possessing baseball cards.  What became of the baseball cards in question? I still have them. They’re in my closet safe and sound and Mrs. Mayhew can’t do a thing about it. She’s dead.

Of course, there were clubs that were known strictly for their fantastic music; food and drink were offered, but the main menu was great talent. Chief among these was The Royal Arms, and in the 60s and 70s top name jazz artists played there. When I first started catching these greats, I was underage, so I always made sure to enter with a group of people, keeping my face averted and pretending to be deep in conversation as I extended my hand with a fake ID.

Inside “The Arms” was a magical music land where I listened to Jerry Mulligan and his band (so many players they overflowed the stage with Mulligan and others performing on floor level), and caught the best piano groups including the George Shearing Quintet and the Ramsey Lewis Trio. Local horn players such as Don Menza, Sam Noto, and Joe Romano, who went on to international fame themselves, often worked with headline talent. I loved listening to Lenny Welch sing a ballad, and John Hendricks scat solo, still flying strong even without Lambert and Ross, (or Bavan). Jackie (Cain) and Roy’s (Kral) vocal gymnastics left me breathless, and Astrid Gilberto, while standing almost painfully stiff with shyness, made beautiful music with a voice that gracefully moved throughout the entire room.

There were so many wonderfully talented artists, but my favorite of all was Mark Murphy. To this day, there is no one more distinctive in style, phrasing, and musical interpretation. I went to see him over and over again, and each time his music was as exciting and new as if catching him for the very first time. Since being a hit in my grammar school for singing a song with nonsense lyrics that my Big Band vocalist dad had taught me, I knew I would be a singer. Once I listened to Mark Murphy, I knew that jazz would be my style.

Many Buffalo club owners were passionate about music and generous in giving young musicians a break. At 16, when not off being a regular high school student or hanging out with my friends, I was singing weekends with the house trio at The Park Lane Restaurant, or being given a big break by Harry Altman of the Town Casino to sing a few songs with Ray Anthony’s Band. Lots of clubs would have jam sessions on Sunday afternoons, and I found the musicians to be just as generous in letting me sit in and learn. It was a thrill to meet and sometimes work with some of the best musicians in the business. The one I wanted to meet most, however, remained too big an idol to me, so whenever Mark Murphy was in town, all I did was sit anonymously in the audience.

In my freshman year of college I joined a piano trio out of New York City, took a leave of absence from studies, and began touring the U.S. and Canada. Buffalo remained my home base and The Cloister became my club of choice whenever I returned home. Most artists of all genres playing Buffalo made it into The Cloister, and it was a kick to perform for and meet everyone from Sergio Mendes to Mary Travers to, yes, wonder of wonders, Mark Murphy. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to speak when finally meeting him, but he is the type of person who makes friends the minute he is introduced. In no time we were talking music, recording, clubs, etc.

There are many good memories of subsequent years, when Mark (yes, I even got comfortable calling him by his first name), and I would be playing clubs down the street from each other in Buffalo, and we would run in to see each other on our breaks. One of these times, Mark came to see me at Gabriel’s Gate and was suffering from a bad cold. We started sharing sore throat remedies, and it hit me that I was actually friends with my idol.

A few years later, when disco was queen, I “quit” music. Mark came to Buffalo and I, naturally, went to hear him. He wouldn’t accept my career move, and simply said that I had to get back to music. He kept nudging me toward sitting in and singing a couple of songs with his group. He knew that once I did, I’d get the passion back, and he was right. Music has undergone many changes in my life since then; today it’s songwriting.

Buffalo and music have also changed greatly, with a only a few places to catch jazz in the city these days. The good news, however, is there are still so many great jazz musicians in Buffalo. In fact, musicians of all styles seem to grow there. The other good news: wherever he sings, Mark Murphy just gets better and better.

Yet, despite the many – many! – floors of my first private residence, I loved it. I went from living with my parents in a quiet suburb, in a five-bedroom house that was only a couple of years old, to living in a rough area in an apartment that had so much mold it irritated my asthma. Yet I still loved it, and one of the crowning moments of glory was when the first bill arrived.

Like most kids, I’d had arguments with my father about the amount of time I spent on the phone or watching TV. He always used to shout at me that when I was paying the bills, I could do whatever I wanted, but until then I’d be a bit more careful. I naturally resented this in my early teenage years, and even when I was 18, I still wasn’t quite over it. Hence the excitement when my first electricity bill arrived.

I remember opening it, a massive grin on my face, because now I was paying the bills and I could do what I wanted. I’d reveled in the freedom of not living with my – admittedly fairly strict – parents, but that first bill was the cherry on the top. I studied the bill and was shocked at how low it was; in my naivity I’d assumed the bill would be the same size as the ones my father had waved angrily in my face years before. I gleefully wrote a check and mailed it the same day, brimming with a sense of survival and feeling more adult than ever before.

That night, I was turning the lamps out in the apartment when I realised I could do what I wanted with them. There was no one to yell at me to turn them off; that hadn’t really hit home until I’d had and paid that first bill. I toyed with the idea of leaving them on all night… just because I could. Although I didn’t, the knowledge I could was wonderful, and the memory of that moment still makes me smile.

Wait a minute. Actually, I have hunted before. Not deer or elk or anything like that. I’m a former hunter of…rats.

When I was a kid in New York, my friends and I would grab our BB guns and ride our bikes to the Bronx River. We would head down a dirt path, through all sorts of overgrown weeds and garbage to a clearing across the water from a sewer pipe. We would then throw eggs and tomatoes across the 40-foot wide stream towards the sewer pipe. Then we would wait.

It didn’t take long for some giant New York sewer rats to emerge. They would be sniffing around the debris and the new food items that had recently arrived.  Then four or five of us knuckleheads would pick out a specific rat, aim and shoot at the same time. The rat that was hit would usually jump in the air and then scamper back into the sewer pipe. We would be joyous and laugh hysterically at hitting the rat. Unfortunately, we rarely killed any rats. Those things are tougher than a $3 dollar steak. Or Mrs. Mayhew, my fifth grade teacher.

My rat hunting career came to a close one overcast summer day. As usual, we targeted a rat to pepper with BB’s. We shot a particularly large rat and it barely moved. The angry rat made direct eye contact with me. For a few seconds I was paralyzed by fear. Nothing on this planet scares me more than rats. After locking eyes, the rat dove into the water. It was coming after me. I jumped on my bike and raced out of there. Lance Armstrong would have been proud.

Lessons were learned that day. If you shoot a rat use something more powerful than a BB gun. And always have a getaway plan.

Located on the corner of Poydras and Tchoupitoulas (Chop-a-TOO-lis) street, Mother’s is nestled in the heart of the Central Business District a few blocks from the mighty Mississippi River. Originally established in 1938, few things about Mother’s have changed. You don’t go to Mother’s for the ambiance, and you certainly don’t go there for a dining experience. In fact, Mother’s only has a handful of crowded tables and bar stools. You do go there, however, for the food. Patrons eagerly gobble down shrimp Po-boys and jambalaya and wash them down with ice cold Barq’s root beer (or Dixie beer if there’s a Saints game at the Superdome). If you linger a little too long over your plate, you are bound to have new guests breathing over your shoulder, waiting to take your place and begin their meal.

What makes Mother’s so unique is their resistance to change, even in today’s fast-paced society. One would naturally assume that as their popularity grew, so would their establishment, but Mother’s refuses to change, expand, and compromise the very sandwiches that made them famous. They continue to do things the way they’ve always done things and really, you can’t argue with the results.

In every town there is a restaurant like Mother’s—an establishment dedicated to good food and tradition. Most of them are hole in the wall places that are legendary to locals and a few observant tourists. But if you are ever in a city (New Orleans included) and you see a line curling around a rundown restaurant, take my advice–that is where you should eat.

That was a time when red PF Flyers were the footwear of choice that insured that any race you were running in would deliver victory. It was standard fare on a kid infested street in East Meadow, NY, to see six street urchins standing in a line getting ready-set to go. On Eighth Street were no less than 150 children between the ages of two and twelve. We spent the summers performing in self-produced plays, riding rusty bikes with baseball cards clothes pinned to the spokes, swinging like Tarzan from the branches of large oak trees, playing kick-ball, ring-a-levio, and tag from when the sun came up, until the night-cap round of Pied Piper ice cream at 9:00 pm. Our block was a world unto its own; going around the corner could be likened to traveling from Staten Island to Brooklyn today. If you ventured to Lancaster Street for instance, the territory was as unfamiliar as being in a foreign country.

The ethnicity of the tribe was mainly Irish Catholic and Italian.  Those nationalities made up the bulk of the herd, sprinkled with an occasional German here and there. I remember the oddity of a British family that moved in, which caused quite a stir for days. The family from Liverpool became instant celebrities. In our crowd, they were the nearest thing to an actual Beatle that any of us would ever encounter; in fact, in our eyes their oldest son became our own personal Paul McCartney.

Most of us had moved to the area from either Queens or Brooklyn. East Meadow wasn’t only considered suburbia, but at that time to us it was considered the country. My yard in particular had a feature that was considered an attraction to the whole block, a water fountain. The water was warm, rusty and metallic in flavor, but that didn’t stop the influx of thirsty pilgrims that stopped by daily to partake of libation from our rickety fount.

We didn’t have time to stop and eat; when we did it was usually Skippy peanut butter and grape jelly on partially stale Wonder bread. We would eat outside on picnic tables that were usually too hot to sit on and were infamous for delivering large, dry splinters in our bottoms that needed to be fished out by the only nurse that lived on the street. The highlight of any week was having one of your best pals “eat over.” What could be better than sharing dry meatloaf and a lump of boxed macaroni and cheese with someone who could make you laugh to the point of having Tang shoot out your nose?

Usually we knew the daily festivities were winding down when our parents, equipped with their aluminum, webbed lawn chairs, Tareyton cigarettes and coffee started setting up in groups on some of the lawns. It was usually around dusk, because all the doors and windows were open, and you could usually hear the clanking of the pots and pans after dinner. When the clang ceased, the mass migration to the front lawn began. This meant that our activities needed to change location based on the parental positioning on the street. Usually we could find a thinner area mid-block to exercise our streetlight version of tag. No one knew for sure if we would be called in for the day, based on the general mood, so obscurity and scarcity helped our cause. We knew things were going well if the Good Humor man showed up and our mother’s bought themselves ice cream. A cigarette and a Toasted Almond meant we had a reprieve of at least 45 minutes.

Every summer there were at least one or two serious romances taking place in our group. Romance at that time would mean so and so “liked” so and so. It usually entailed a lot of giggling, arm punching, and playful pushing, and by the end of the summer could progress to hand holding, an event that would circulate like wildfire and be discussed in hushed tones at secretive meetings.

Life on Eighth Street was an adventure, filled with memories that remain until today as each one of us grew and went on our way to establish ourselves in life. Memories of that time are replete with sounds, smells, and sentimentality. What went on inside our homes did not always contribute to the best of memories from that period of our lives, but when we stepped outside our doors into the morning sun and melded into our play pack, all of our concerns melted away and a day of carefree fun and frivolity awaited our young impressionable lives.

There aren’t too many things that I loved as a child that I still love today, but there is one thing that comes quickly to mind, and that is baseball.  My entire life has revolved around baseball, and each long winter day that passes brings me closer to another season.  This season will be different for me though. The Yankees will be playing in a brand spanking new billion-dollar stadium.  It is said all good things must pass and that is certainly true in this case.  Some of my fondest memories in life took place in the big ballpark in the Bronx.  Maybe my fondest Yankee Stadium memory occurred in the early 70’s when my dad took me to a game.

Back then, I used to bring my glove to each game hoping against hope to catch a baseball. This particular afternoon we were sitting, as usual, in the lower level of the right field stands.  In the latter innings, my favorite player, Bobby Murcer, came up for the Yankees in a key spot.  My dad told me, “Get ready, he’s gonna hit one out here.”

Sure enough, on the very first pitch Bobby ripped a liner to right. It was a long drive that sailed over the right fielder’s head and kept going. The ball banged off a wooden chair about five rows in front of me. I scampered as fast as I could after the ball, heart pounding with excitement. I would love to say I grabbed the ball and it is sitting on a shelf in my home. But that wasn’t the case. An older guy beat me to the home run ball, and my disappointment has lasted a lifetime.

To this day I can close my eyes and remember how big and colorful Yankee Stadium was. I can vividly remember the chills that ran through my body when my dad would ask, “Want to go to the game today?” I never said no.

My final trip to Yankee Stadium was last July, a couple of days after my mom’s funeral. I thought about all the times I was in Yankee Stadium with my mom and dad. Both are gone now. So is Bobby Murcer, who passed just a couple of weeks after my mom. Yankee Stadium is awaiting the wrecking ball.

Baseball is about memories of not just the games, but the people you care about most. It is about family, friends, and the players on the field. It truly is a beautiful, time-tested sport that is more than just a game. It is life. At least for me it is.

I’m looking forward to the upcoming season and watching games on TV from the new Yankee Stadium. I’m also anxious to visit the new park. Maybe I’ll even like it. But it can never replace the original stadium..

When I read these words in the California Guide Book, I was hooked. This is exactly the kind of experience I dreamt about when I first moved to California. I knew that my friends back in Alabama would be so impressed, as if my experience would earn me some long coveted Girl Scout badge.

Regardless of my reasons, my husband and I drove down towards Bear Valley and prepared for our adventure. When we first arrived, I was excited and trembling with anticipation, but that quickly turned to fear as I browsed the long list of injuries they were not responsible for–broken extremities, paralysis, death. I began to scrutinize the gear, the ropes and the staff with the intensity of an operating room nurse. How diligent were they at testing this material? Were there ever any injuries? Is the guy securing my harness stoned or do his eyes always look that way?

I pushed my fear down into a small cavity inside of my gut and began my decent into the small dark tunnel. At first it was a bit claustrophobic, but soon I began to ease up. This wasn’t so bad, I told myself and then I saw the light. Moaning Caverns suddenly opened before me and my fear turned to panic. As I backed over the ledge, I realized that I would have to dangle on my harness a full 165 ft in the air. My feet were frozen, glued to the tunnel floor. The line started to back up as I sat motionless, but try as I might I couldn’t make my feet budge. The tourists on the ground were like small ants and a paralyzing fear shot up my legs and spine.As scared as I was, I had no choice but to take the plunge. I would never get down to safety unless I did, and several angry spelunkers were beginning to make their case in my direction. So against the better judgment of thousands of years of evolution, I let go and closed my eyes. Inch by inch I worked my way down with my heart thumping in my chest the entire time. As I got closer to the ground, I began to get a bit braver and allowed myself to look around. The cavern was beautiful with amazing limestone patterns and stalagmites and stalactites.

When we were through, we handed in our gear and headed back to the surface via the spiral staircase. As we drove away, neither one of us said a word–there was nothing to say–fear has a way of rendering you speechless. As the miles passed by, we began to grow comfortable in our safety and started to talk about our adventure.

I wasn’t as brave or adventurous as I originally thought, but I was proud of myself for accomplishing it. And now, the woman I am in my thirties is incredibly grateful to that brave twenty five year old for taking the plunge. There are moments in life when we all must defy gravity and let go once in a while. After all, they are the moments that life is made of.

When have you defied gravity lately?