Focused at Fifty

At the Lodge with my new bartender. 😏 "Christmas in July" events are now becoming pretty popular. Apparently 4 months of Christmas shopping starting in September and leading up to December 25th are not enough so people have to celebrate another month in the middle of the year JUST IN CASE they have forgotten how to be joyously merry. 😒 The Hallmark Channel has totally capitalized on this month long event. As if the constant stream of romance movies weren't enough to drive you over the edge, you will now have 33 Christmas themed movies to look forward to in the coming months. It is nice though to see that certain 80s and 90s actors are gainfully employed again. I'm sure Candace Burrell, Andie MacDowell and James Denton are happy. Several bars in the Allentown area are having events for the faux-holiday. One bar is having entertainment and a costume contest. I hope its an indoor ugly sweater contest. I mean how many fully dressed Santas are gonna show up at a...

"Some days, I feel like a sack of potatoes." GUESS WHAT PEOPLE!! I took a break from my work-outs. I stopped working out on a regular basis during the month of June and .... OMG ... no... don't say it ... don't even think it ... SAY IT AIN'T SO JOE ... I ... GAINED ... WEIGHT!! OK OK OK, everyone take a breath. Breathe deeply and take a sip of water. Don't mind me, I'm gonna just eat this Hershey's Kiss. NO NO! Don't do it!!! (I did and enjoyed it.) I've had a stressful month. I mean I went on vacation!! OK OK it wasn't really a stressful month. But I did eat and drink my way through June 2017. Is that wrong? Is that bad??? I mean, I have been so good for this last year! (By the way.. if you haven't figured it out by now, don't take my ranting too seriously. I'm more harder on myself than anyone ever could be.)  I initially took a break or two due to injury ... possibly a rotator cuff tear which had healed i...

Many fireflies in the yard, Memories of the 4th as a child, Hotdogs by the dozen, dripping mustard, Many t-shirts lost...

Ralph Archbold, the quintessential Benjamin Franklin Back in the late 90s, I worked at the City Tavern as a server. I've mentioned it before. My server/waiting/bartending jobs set the tone for my wild and crazy 20's.  I became extremely close with a group of other servers from the Tavern and remain so to this day. We were a motley crew of twenty somethings:  men, women, black, white, Hispanic, young, old, single, married, gay, straight .. you name it. We worked hard and then played hard, hitting the sack at the crack of dawn, only to get up 5 hours later and do it again for double shifts at the Tavern. Twenty years later, I loved that time, wouldn't repeat, and still thank God I survived some of it. For those who don't know, the City Tavern is an accurate reconstruction of a period colonial tavern in Philadelphia on the exact same spot as the original building where we servers would wear colonial garb and serve tourists traditional American fare with a twist. ...

I won an Emmy for my bullshit work through life. LOL This year has had its share of ups and downs. Rather than relive the past years events, I figured I would share with you some wisdom and observations I have learned, some which I've been reminded of, and some interesting facts I've discovered.  Some old, some new. As always, they are in no particular order. I spout off as things come into my head. OK OK, maybe serious to silly... I often get myself worked up trying to get everything done on my "to do" list. Never happens. I am reminded of this voice in the back of my mind. It is my mother's. We were having a quick conversation one morning the year before she passed away. She asked me what I was doing on such a beautiful Sunday. I said I had a list of so much to do but I had to tackle the dishes. The dishes were the priority. She responded to me, "THE DISHES? Marc, the dishes can always wait. Go out and enjoy yourself today. The dishes will be there ...

Back in Eastern PA where the weather has been more like Seattle, no yard work was to be accomplished on Memorial Day weekend. Although the temp was cool, I just didn't feel like getting my sneaks wet traipsing through overgrown grass or my knees wet from weeding flower beds. Instead, I decided to pick a project which I had been putting off and finally tackle it. I spent the 2nd half of my weekend organizing mismatched sets of antique silver plate, a couple sterling, and various serving pieces, some old, some new,  some good shape, some bad. It was the perfect therapeutic activity to calm my mind on a misty, foggy, drizzly day. I enjoy collecting various serving pieces from the Art Deco and Art Nouveau eras. They really only have value to me but I love 'em. Gracefully feminine and delicate features on certain pieces while others showed classically angular chrome Art Deco lines. Art Deco on the left, Art Nouveau on the right.  I really like things organized...

I grew up with a bunch of nicknames. To my brother and sister, I was Marc the Shark. To my high school friends, I was Marcus. My fraternity name was Schroeder. I was blond, played piano like Schroeder in the Peanuts cartoons, also looked a little like Ricky Schroeder at the time.  During my hotel/bar/restaurant days in Philly in the 90s, I was nicknamed Mitz (long story I will never divulge - unless you buy me a beer or two). LOL These days, the Internet name generator memes are all the rage. Remember the first one though before the Internet took over? Your porn star name? It was infamous! That was the one where your porn star name was the first name of your first pet and your last name was the first street name you grew up on. Hence, I became .... Smokey Maple. Nice, huh? The name game memes are ubiquitous on Facebook and other social media platforms. I come across a new one every holiday or season. They have become as annoying as those stories you see on your feed y...