pt at large

Riding The Rails

Reasons to ride Amtrak Boston to NYC…fleeting vistas of deep woodlands you can almost smell as train heads westward from Boston, stretches of rural Massachusetts and Connecticut with scenes of abandoned and operational farmlands never seen from the highway, pass the burly industrial river port New London on the Thames River, brilliant seascapes along the south coast of Connecticut as the  train heads along the coast. Suddenly the New York City skyline appears with outlying residential areas in foreground... with the ca-chunk-ca-chunk ca-chunk rocking rolling soundscape as the coach speeds then slows to a steady march approaching the city…your imagination anticipating what awaits upon arrival .

Photo by K.B.Jones

Ride To Defeat ALS 2022: Scenes from September 18, 2022

Scenes of the day at The Longfellow Club in Wayland, MA.

September 18, 2022

A contingent of Pete Farricker's Ultimate Frisbee teammates show up for every ride and donate generously. The "Spirit of the Game" award was created to honor Pete Farricker's impact on the sport.

Several teams raised money for friends and relatives

with prompting from WCVB Meterologist Cindy Fitzgibbon the crowd shouts "Good Morning America!" ...she aired it on her "Eye Opener" weather forecast show the next day.

Presentations by Executive Director John Hedstrom and WCVB meteorologist Cindy Fitzgibbon.

Relaxing after the ride

Cheering arrivals...

Returning riders...

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

History of Positive Spin for ALS, Ride to Defeat ALS

Written in December 2022,  a week after Rebecca "Becca" Wertheimer sent me the transcription of our interview at the Ride To Defeat ALS, held at the Longfellow Club in Wayland, MA September 18, 2022.

Becca created "STORIED", a terrific vehicle in a time when social media generally high-jacks authentic story telling.

Great interview by Rebecca "Becca" Wertheimer who created "STORIED". I composed this after she sent sent me the transcription of our interview at the Ride To Defeat ALS, held at the Longfellow Club in Wayland, MA September 18, 2022.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q891r333iefghy2/Paul%20Tamburello%20and%20Myke%20Farricker%20ALS%20ride%202022.wav?dl=0

Consider this a 20 minute podcast in which Becca asks how and why I created the ride, how and why I got the idea to carry the names of Honorary Riders in my bike bag during each ride, and my connection with Myke Farricker over the years. Myke's brother Pete, who succumbed to ALS, a member of a world championship frisbee team, is the red-headed athlete on our T-shirts.

Myke is the co-owner of the Longfellow Clubs in Natick and Wayland, MA where the ride has been held for over 20 years. Myke adds to the story right after I finish.

Riders sat down to share their stories of why they rode in the fund raiser and for whom they were riding. https://www.storiedme.com

Storied is the answer to preserving family history, lore and funny tales. It is a unique way to facilitate sharing what you love, admire, and have learned from those around you."

As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker for over a decade, I have spent hours honing the skills of listening, asking questions, and helping people feel comfortable sharing. With Storied, I use these skills to promote joy and connection

Becca welcomes every interviewee, makes it an easy space for everyone to tell their story. True to her purpose, she promoted joy for me and Myke as we had the opportunity to tell the " creation story" of the ride.

Myke recalled how we met at a personal growth seminar in the 1970s and later joined forces to merge my solo Positive Spin for ALS and a group ALS fund-raiser held at The Longfellow Club into the Positive Spin for ALS and now the current Ride To Defeat ALS.

The Ride To Defeat ALS raised $435,000 in 2022 and $3,555,225 total in the ride from 1995, which includes $300,000 from my solo rides

Riders did the "TALK WITH ME SHARE WITH THEM" process to say why and for whom they were riding. I've never such an opportunity to tell what I call the creation story of the ride that began with a visit to a neurologist at Mass General Hospital in 1975 and continues to this day. Once I began, the words came out in a torrent and in the most appropriate time and place to tell them, the September 18, 2022 Ride To Defeat ALS.

Myke had the shirts and hats made for our first rides in 2003!

This event is the great grandmother of ALS fund raisers. A Positive Spin for ALS that I created in 1995 was the first bike ride in the country dedicated to raise money for research and direct services to ALS patients. Now known as Ride to Defeat ALS, it became the template for rides that now take place in California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington.

As I note in my story with Becca, my solo fund-raising rides before merging to make it a participatory ride were 1995-2004 - I sent appeal letters before every ride and followed with Thank You letters to each contributor within a few weeks of completing the "Spins."

As referenced above, Sue McNichols showing up as I was preparing to get on my bike at Plymouth Rock, handing me an envelope then driving away is one of many amazing stories about my rides.

Appeal letter and Honorary Rider inserts that were in each appeal letter that I sent for my ride in 2020. The recording of  "my story" in the link above explains how I was inspired to create "Honorary Riders,"  the "connective tissue" between me and the ALS community over the years.

FACTOID #1: While pedaling through Myles Standish State Forest south of Plymouth, MA in 1995, I said to self, "You're putting a positive spin on how you're dealing with this life change...if I do this ride again, that's what I'm going to name it...A Positive Spin for ALS"...and so it became!

FACTOID #2: During my June 14, 1997 ride, I was interviewed on air by Matt Pitta, WQRC Hyannis, MA. I had borrowed one of the first mobile phones from a friend so he could reach me and conduct the interview while I was pedaling through through Myles Standish Park. Way cool.

Arctic Parking

January 23, 2023

54 days before Spring...

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr,

 

A Christmas Tradition: Read-aloud of Dylan Thomas "A Child's Christmas in Wales"

December 25, 2022

"A Child’s Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas

For decades, On Christmas Eve or Christmas Day I've read aloud my battered copy of "A Child’s Christmas in Wales," copyright 1954 by New Directions, illustrations copyright 1969 by Fritz Eichenberg

FIRST PAGE OF THE BOOK

Recounted in the voice of a man recounting his memories of Christmas in his home town in Wales.

"One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was 12 or whether it snowed for 12 days and 12 nights when I was six.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two -tongued sea, like a cold and head long moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays, resting at the rim of the carol singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen."

THEN THIS PAGE the young narrator says...

“But that was not the same as snow,” I say. “Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam, and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses  like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely white, ivied the walls and settled on top of the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunderstorm of white, torn Christmas cards.”.

Stop. Take a minute ro read this aloud. Right now. Read it a couple of times till you get the rhythm. I wonder if you can picture it as your mouth,  tongue and lips wrap themselves around the postcard description.

The words came naturally to Thomas. Everyone around him spoke in the Welch tongue, rich with simile, metaphor and descriptive language as thick as the white smoke from the peat turf drifting from chimneys in his neighborhood.

The language, the imagery,  the words... beg to be read aloud. And capture the wonder of a lad with Christmas Day unfolding during December in Wales. I am old enough and lucky enough to have fond memories of sitting on the cushioned  piano bench at the end of my grandmother and grandfather's dining room table, aunt and uncles along each side, my grandmother at the head of the table and my grandfatber to her left, where he would carve the turkey.

I read to my fourth graders every year of my 34 year career. I have a gift for language, speak functional French and  Hindi. I feel the rhythm of Thomas's prose, revel in the way they roll off my tongue with a Welsh lilt.

I've listened to Thomas's  version, It is heresy and self aggrandizing but I read it with the pace and flair of a natural born reader of stories. And that the bard would buy me a Guinness after listening to my version.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_Thomas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Child's_Christmas_in_Wales

 

January 7, 2023, Democacy Struggles

January 7, 2023

I do not  usually post political essays...but after watching about 14 hours of congress electing a Republican Speaker of the House, this is an exception...raw and not much edited.

Dangerous, Destabilizing, Detrimental

All played a role in the 14 rounds of choosing a Republican Speaker of the House

The impact of venal behavior by members of the house and the senate put our institution of democracy at risk.

Collegiality? Compromise?

No.

A clown-car masquerading as democracy.

Third-world countries have had smoother transitions.

 

For right wing idealogues, the opportunity to get print and TV air time and preen to their constituents appeared to be their goal. They met the moment.

 

In the past, debate, disagreement, discussion have been followed by forms of reconciliation that all can live with. Not today. 

 

Country first?

Kicked by the wayside by politicians whose only interest is self interest. Peacemakers were overtaken by chest thumping ideologues eager to feed a ready made audience. The tumult  around the election of the speaker of the house set the house on fire. 

 

An open question… Will functional democracy survive?

 

Where were the voices in the house and the senate who aim to resuscitate the democracy we have known for over 200 years? 

 

Job-seeking speaker of the house, Republican Kevin McCarthy, in his struggle to maintain power , gave away so many concessions to the right wing so called  “rebels” that the inherent authority of his office has been diluted to the point of functional impracticality.

 

All  to secure his lifelong dream , a dream for which he has been a sycophant to President Trump and others in order to attain.What will survive after this high stakes political food fight. 

 

I was witnessing a bunch of adults behaving like an unsupervised group of high school students on a field trip. Kevin McCarthy brought most of this upon himself in his lifelong dream to become speaker of the house. His dream became a nightmare for civility, for democracy, and for the country. 

Country first?

How quaint.

 

We are in political quicksand.

 

McCarthy’s longtime ambition was nipped at the heels by egomaniacal politicians drunk on the desire to gain time on television and print to nurture their own ill-defined aspirations.

Country first. 

How quaint. 

 

Predictions by Ben Franklin…

“It’s a democracy if you can keep it.”

 

Abraham Lioncoln.

In a January 1838 speech to a group in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln stated: "At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." 

Perhaps most appropriate at the moment…

In the words of the immortal Pogo, “I have seen the enemy and he is us.”

Here we are.

 

In his effort to become speaker McCarthy agreed to give away powers that used to make the Speaker’s office authoritative and an axis, for better or worse, around which Congress revolves.

 

The speaker of the house? More likely a bunker striving to torment Democrats with allegations about Afghanistan and Hunter Biden.

Is that a legislative program?  

 

He has brought this upon himself. His visit to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring of Donald Trump in order to secure his path to the house was shameless an affront to the men and women who tried to defend the Capitol from the January 6 marauders who sought to overturn the election.

His act to weasel into the job he coveted rivals Faust’s deal with the devil…giving away his soul for his ambition.

 

This is about not about Republican and Democrat. This is about power and the cost of grasping it and holding on to it.

 

Ambition has driven men and women to great heights and great losses.

 

Will Democracy be a casualty to ambition?

 

Even odds.

January 7, 2023, Democacy Struggles

January 7, 2023

I do not usually post political essays...but after watching about 14 hours of congress electing a Republican Speaker of the House, this is an exception...raw and not much edited.

Dangerous, Destabilizing, Detrimental

All played a role in the 14 rounds of choosing a Republican Speaker of the House

The impact of venal behavior by members of the house and the senate put our institution of democracy at risk.

Collegiality? Compromise?

No.

A clown-car masquerading as democracy.

Third world powers have had smoother transitions.

 

For right wing idealogues, the opportunity to get print and TV air time and preen to their constituents appeared to be their goal. They met the moment.

 

In the past, debate, disagreement, discussion have been followed by forms of reconciliation that all can live with. Not today. 

 

Country first?

Kicked by the wayside by politicians whose only interest is self interest. Peacemakers were overtaken by chest thumping ideologues eager to feed a ready made audience. The tumult  around the election of the speaker of the house set the house on fire. 

 

An open question… Will functional democracy survive?

 

Where were the voices in the house and the senate who aim to resuscitate the democracy we have known for over 200 years? 

Job-seeking speaker of the house, Republican Kevin McCarthy, in his struggle to maintain power , gave away so many concessions to the right wing so called  “rebels” that the inherent authority of his office has been diluted to the point of functional impracticality.

 

All  to secure his lifelong dream , a dream for which he has been a sycophant to President Trump and others in order to attain.What will survive after this high stakes political food fight. 

 

I was I witnessing a bunch of adults behaving like an unsupervised group of high school students on a field trip. Kevin McCarthy brought most of this upon himself in his lifelong dream to become speaker of the house. His dream became a nightmare for civility, for democracy, and for the country. 

Country first?

How quaint.

 

We are in political quicksand.

 

McCarthy’s longtime ambition was nipped at the heels by egomaniacal politicians drunk on the desire to gain time on television and print to nurture their own ill-defined aspirations.

Country first. 

How quaint. 

 

Predictions by Ben Franklin…

“It’s a democracy if you can keep it.”

 

Abraham Lioncoln.

In a January 1838 speech to a group in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln stated: "At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." 

Perhaps most appropriate at the moment…

In the words of the immortal Pogo, “I have seen the enemy and he is us.”

Here we are.

 

In his effort to become speaker McCarthy agreed to give away powers that used to make the Speaker’s office authoritative and an axis, for better or worse, around which Congress revolves.

 

The speaker of the house? More likely a bunker striving to torment Democrats with allegations about Afghanistan and Hunter Biden.

Is that a legislative program?  

 

He has brought this upon himself. His visit to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring of Donald Trump in order to secure his path to the house was shameless an affront to the men and women who tried to defend the Capitol from the January 6 marauders who sought to overturn the election.

His act to weasel into the job he coveted rivals Faust’s deal with the devil…giving away his soul for his ambition.

 

This is about not about Republican and Democrat. This is about power and the cost of grasping it and holding on to it.

 

Ambition has driven men and women to great heights and great losses.

 

Will Democracy be a casualty to ambition?

 

Even odds.

Thursday December 29, 2022

The overhead canopy of the cosmos has been so extremely clear that it feels like I'm standing in an open air planetarium. Jupiter rules every night. Mars and Saturn are frequent sights. Amazing that I can capture a tiny sense of their grandeur with my iPhone.

Thursday December 29. 2022, Jupiter, mighty in the solar system, is the tiny dot to the          right of a crescent moon.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.