By Bob Gaydos

    Let’s add party pooper (any way you want to take it) to the list of dubious attributes Donald Trump possesses. In the social consciousness area of not knowing when he’s not wanted and insisting on going where he’s not wanted, he’s clueless. In fact, he appears not to give a damn what the other partygoers think.

     So, Trump is going to New York City Monday night to crash the best garden party the city has known for decades and in the process create a lot of confusion and resentment.

     The New York Knicks are hosting the San Antonio Spurs at Madison Square Garden Monday night for game three of the National Basketball Association championship. The Knicks have won the first two games. The city is energized. It hasn’t had an NBA championship for decades and happy fans who can’t afford the pricey tickets have been celebrating outside Madison Square Garden, watching on a big screen, all season.

       They were there when the Knicks won the first game and it got a bit rowdy. People, including police, were injured. The city first said it would cancel the watch party, but relented.

       Then Trump said he was going, even though he didn’t have a ticket (which isn’t cheap), wasn’t invited and a lot of fans would probably boo him. No bother. He’s going.

       So the city again canceled the outdoor watch party because of serious security concerns with Trump and his entourage in midtown Manhattan. His presence will also make it more cumbersome and slow for ticket holders to get into the game. They are advised to arrive at least two hours before game time for security checks. Oh, and no purses, backpacks or tote bags allowed.

        All because Trump wants to soak in the adoration and glory of others’ accomplishments, thus draining the joy out of Knicks’ fans anticipation of a long-awaited championship. Talk about resentment.There will be boos.

     The truth is, Trump’s such a party pooper that when he announced his own party for June 24 to help celebrate America’s 250th Birthday, virtually all the announced B-list performers said they wouldn’t go because, well, for one thing, no one asked them about performing. Others said they didn’t like Trump. Others said they didn’t like the bad publicity attached to the so-called great American State Fair. Undeterred, Trump says he’ll be the entertainment. 

    He also appointed a group of supplicants to plan America’s 250th birthday party next month, replacing the official party planning group and the results are likely to be similar to the state fair fiasco. Dull, boring and a major disappointment to millions of Americans. And he trashed the White House Lawn for a fighting exhibition June 14, his birthday. Used to be Flag Day, a day of respect. He says he might just leave the ring there. 

     We deserve better.

     I keep hoping for better. In fact, the other day that young black squirrel I wrote about last year that was maybe moving into our neighborhood showed up again. Well, hello, neighbor. As I have noted, this one in 10,000 variety of squirrels is regarded in various cultures as a wise, noble, magic symbol of good fortune and good luck. 

    So far that luck has eluded me. Following my first sighting, Trump got elected. But the black squirrel, a persistent nut gatherer, keeps showing up. So I’m thinking maybe the young squirrel needed to grow into its magic powers. Like right about now. Maybe it can figure out a way to disinvite the party pooper permanently so that America can celebrate its 250th birthday party and more with dignity and gratitude. I don’t think it’s too much to ask.

      If it happens, I’d be happy to supply all the nuts any squirrel could desire for the 251st.

By Bob Gaydos 

Trump tried to steal the name and reputation of JFK.

   Donald Trump is addicted to the Name Game. He loves nothing more than slapping his name on anything, especially things not even remotely connected with his talents or abilities or accomplishments, all of which are virtually non-existent.

  He has made a career of building monuments to his ego by constructing or buying buildings, golf courses, casinos — an airline — and gilding them with tacky gold everywhere before driving most of them into bankruptcy.

  There was Trump University and the Trump charitable foundation, both phony money-grabbing schemes which he was ordered to shut down and repay those he bilked. 

 He also sells the rights to use his name for those foolish enough to want to put it on their buildings. He even managed to bankrupt the historic Plaza Hotel in New York City for Pete’s sake and sully its reputation by gilding it with cheap gold and slapping his name on it before selling it for an $83 million loss.

    It seems he’s not very good at the game. The latest, perhaps most satisfying, example of Trump losing the game came on May 29, the birthday of John F. Kennedy.

     In what I refuse to believe was a coincidence, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper took the occasion of the late president’s birthday to order Trump’s name removed from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The judge said Congress had created the memorial and only Congress could change the name. Trump had no authority to put his name above Kennedy’s on one of the nation’s premier and most revered institutions.

    The judge also said Trump couldn’t just shut the center down for “repairs” because no one was going there since Trump’s new appointed board took over and top performers were refusing to appear there.

    The Kennedy family took its turn at the game also, honoring JFK’s memory on his birthday by presenting the annual Profile in Courage awards to Jerome Powell, outgoing chair of the Federal Reserve and the People of the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

    Powell was honored for protecting the independence and stability of the Federal Reserve against a constant  stream of threats and personal insults from Trump. The people of the Twin Cities were honored for risking their lives through peaceful resistance against an onslaught of ICE enforcement agents sent there as part of Trump’s war against America.

     The awards were presented at the JFK Library and are named in honor of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Profiles in Courage,” authored by Kennedy and Ted Sorensen, his speech writer. Kennedy’s wartime heroics were detailed in the book, “PT 109.”

     Trump’s name on a library would be a joke and any book with his name on it was not about heroism and was written entirely by someone else who doesn’t brag about identifying a camel on a cognitive test.

    All in all, May 29 turned out to be a really bad game day for an insecure little man who likes nothing more than the sound of his own name. Well-played, Judge Cooper and Kennedy clan.

(While scrolling through my Facebook feed the other day I spotted a column I had written a year ago. Apparently, a friend had spotted it in his feed in the memories category and had reposted it. Well, how nice I thought. Always good to feel appreciated. I read the column to see what I had written and, wouldn’t you know, since it had to deal with Trump, etc., it still applies, although Susan Collins is now on the fence. Anyway, here it is again. And thanks, Patrick.)

By Bob Gaydos

     Had breakfast with a friend the other day, trying out a new coffee shop in town. Nice addition.

      The conversation touched on the usual stuff. Too much rain. What’s planted in the garden, the hummingbird count, the challenges in living in a house with another person. Living on a planet with certain other people.

      That last proved provocative. With regard to those certain other people, my friend offered that, if he were a praying man, he would pray for The Rapture.

      I got his intent, but I suggested that I thought he had it backwards. Having read “Left Behind,“ I knew it was the good, caring, kind, faithful humans who were transported off the planet to Heaven, I believe, leaving their clothing and loved ones behind.

      The others, the nasty ones, the ones my friend wanted to be rid of, stayed and, through a series of books, fended for and against themselves and other non-believers. So I suggested that, assuming we wanted to remain in whatever state this is for a while longer, what we needed was a Reverse Rapture.

   We needed someplace we could pray for all those You Know Whats to be sent to, without any get-out-of-jail card in the form of an Orpheus, if I may be allowed to mix my miracles.

     Hades. Yes, Hades. The Underworld would do.

     So, who would we want to go? Personally, I’d start with Trump and his immediate family. The whole crew. Every member of his Cabinet and White House staff. Every lawyer who ever worked for him, except for Michael Cohen. Elon Musk. J.D.Vance. Every current Republican member of Congress, except for Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. The authors of Project 2025. Anyone who wears a Maga T-shirt or hat. Anyone who identifies as a journalist but works and lies for Fox News. Putin. Kim. Hamas and all the other terrorists. The pushers of fentanyl. Laura Loomer. (Speaking of Loomer and Kristi Noem and the Barbi press contact and the attorney general and all the other Trumpettes, Hades will come with no cosmetic amenities, including plastic surgeons. Zero. Just saying.)

    Also, all those mask-wearing ICE employees who’ve been enjoying grabbing people off the street, out of their homes, wherever, with no warrants or concern for the people or the law. And Clarence Thomas, to fulfill Hades’ DEI requirements.

     And, really, anyone who voted for Trump three times. What were they thinking? They get a special wing in Hades where The Apprentice plays on big screens constantly. In Spanish. And they have to use their bitcoin to buy English subtitles, but they already gave it all to Trump, who gave it all to the Saudi royal family (they’re there, too), who promised to build a Hades Trump Tower using white South African immigrants for labor. It could take a while, but who really cares?

     Now, all that cosmic deportation would obviously leave behind a whole lot of room, especially in this big, beautiful country, and a lot of available work for good, caring, reliable, nice, talented, decent, tolerant human beings, maybe from Venezuela or Mexico or Greenland or Panama or El Salvador.

      Too much to ask for, you say? Especially over breakfast? Hell, if you’re going to pray for anything, especially a Reverse Rapture, I say why not go all in?

       Besides, checks and balances seems to be broken.

                                     ***

Additions to the prayer chain are welcome.

(This is a revised version of a column I wrote seven years ago. I’m recognizing my birthday companions.)

By Bob Gaydos

    As a news story, Donald Trump pretending to be president got old for me very fast. Same story, different details every day. For 10 years now.

    A few years back, I wondered how people who still got paid to have opinions dealt with it. Maureen Dowd answered my question. I read her column in The New York Times that carried the headline, “Crazy Is As Crazy Does.” Yes, it was about Trump. It was still in his first term. 

     She began by describing her waking thoughts as another morning arrived. About the talents of an actress and an actor she admired and their TV shows. About a book she had apparently just read or was reading. And then, abruptly, reality set in: “Once I’m completely awake, a gravitational pull takes hold and I am once more bedeviled by our preposterous president,” she wrote.

         “I flip on the TV and gird for the endless stream of vitriol coming from the White House, bracing for another day of overflowing, overlapping, overwrought news stories about Trump. I’m sapped before I arise. …

        “My head hurts, puzzling over whether Trump is just a big blowhard … or a sinister genius …”

         Me too, I sighed. Glad to know I’m not alone. 

         I’m also not alone in my belief in synchronicity.

         Coincidence? I’m with Carl Jung on that. The Swiss psychologist who gave us the word defined synchronicity as “a meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something other than the probability of chance is involved.”

     As in, what are the chances that, after setting aside Dowd’s column and being shamed into participating in a decluttering exercise at home, I would “stumble upon” a slim book I’d never heard of that instantly uncluttered my mind on how to explain what in the world was going on in Donald Trump’s mind.

     It’s “Bullshit.”

     Literally.

     Some explanation is necessary.

     The house decluttering was precipitated by a prevailing notion that I had collected too much stuff (an occupational hazard, I believe) and some of it had to go, but we would find a safe resting place for the stuff that was worth keeping. One of the safe places was a lovely, old cabinet in which other stuff was resting. Old tapes, photos and books. Among the books was the aforementioned slim volume.

      I read the title: “On Bullshit.”

      The decluttering came to a momentary halt. Was this a joke? As it turns out, no. Oh, there is humor in this 67-page essay, but the author, Harry G. Frankfurt, it also turns out, was a distinguished philosopher, professor emeritus at Princeton University, which published the book. This was serious. In fact, the book was a New York Times best-seller in 2005 and Frankfurt discussed it on YouTube, which tells you something about my attention to literary news.

       But the point, and I’m finally getting to it, is that after months of trying to out-pundit everyone else writing about Trump and continuing to wonder why he does what he does, Frankfurt laid it out in a way that anyone, except maybe Trump, can understand — the man is a bullshit artist.

       It dawned on me as I read Frankfurt’s explanation of the difference between liars — which Trump has been crowned champion of all time by those who keep score — and bullshitters. (If the language offends you, I apologize, but Frankfurt says “humbug” is not the same. Also, the times have changed and I’ve been labeled an enemy of the people for treating the truth with respect.)

      As Frankfurt explains, the difference between liars and bullshitters is that liars are acquainted with the truth. They have to be to maintain their lies. There is a discipline involved. Bullshitters don’t care. They make stuff up as they go along, saying whatever seems necessary to them at the time to appear to know what’s going on. It isn’t a matter so much of bullshit being false, Frankfort says, as of it being phony. It’s meant to convey an impression. It’s like bluffing. And too much of it can carry over into a general laxity about how things really are.

        As Frankfurt writes, “The bullshitter is faking things.” It’s not a matter of concealing the truth, because sometimes the bullshitter will speak the truth. It is a matter of concealing “what he is up to.” And, Frankfort says, those who are good at it seem to have no trouble attracting gullible believers. Boy isn’t that the truth. 

       Frankfurt mentions patriotic politicians who, on the Fourth of July, give grand speeches extolling all the wonderful things this country represents, not that those things are false or lies or B.S., but because the speaker wants others to believe he believes in them and is a true patriot. Again, sadly, history has shown this to be true. We can expect more of this on Flag Day, June 14, which happens to be Trump’s birthday. He’s celebrating with a UFC boxing exhibition on the White House lawn because what could be more American. Same old story, different details.

       One last word on synchronicity. Professor Frankfurt, who died in 2023, just happened to share the same birth date with me: May 29. His book, an unexpected gift, rests in a drawer in my bed stand, lest I forget.

(The following is an update of a column I wrote 13 years ago. I am re-posting it today on the birthday of President John F. Kennedy because of its significance in my life and because of the times we live in. Would things have been different if Kennedy had lived to continue serving? I have no way of knowing. I’d like to think the answer is yes. Joe Biden was the oldest elected president this country has ever had. Kennedy was the youngest. They shared the same dedication to protecting our democracy. I continue to celebrate Kennedy on May 29, the birth date I share with him — synchronicity — and I also honor his memory on the anniversary of the day he was taken from us, a day history was altered forever.)

By Bob Gaydos

John F. Kennedy

The first editorial I wrote for the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., appeared on the 20th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I wrote the headline, too: “The measure of the man.”
Trying to “measure” the meaning of the life of a man who was literally loved and idolized by millions of people is no easy task, especially for a rookie editorial writer’s debut effort. But that’s what newspapers do and, in truth, I took it as a good omen that remembering JFK was my first assignment. He was a hero to me as to many young men my age when he was elected president. It was a combination of things: his youth, his wit, his easy-going style, his intelligence, his words, his sense of justice. Plus, we shared the same birthdate: May 29.
     As fate would have it, JFK would come to be remembered, not on his birthday, but on the anniversary of his death. And not so much for what Americans received for having him as president for 1,000 days, but rather for what we lost by not having him much longer.
     That first editorial said, in essence, that it would take more than 20 years to measure the meaning of the man. It acknowledged the things we had learned about JFK in the years since the shooting in Dallas — the flaws that made him human — as well as what I felt were his positive contributions. Thirty years later, no longer a rookie editorial writer — indeed, retired after 23 years of writing editorials — with Nov. 22 approaching, I realized I had to write about JFK 50 years after his death (because that’s what old newspaper guys do). Before I started, I asked one of my reliable sounding boards, my son, Zack, what he knew about JFK. Zack was 19 at the time and better informed than a lot of young people his age, so I figured his answer would provide me with a fair sense of what our education system had been telling kids about Kennedy.

“He was the first Catholic president,” Zack said. Correct. “He had an affair with Marilyn Monroe.” Uh, correct. “There’s still some theories that there was more than one shooter.” Right. “Do you think the Kevin Costner movie (“JFK,” directed by Oliver Stone) was true?” Well, the people portrayed were real. “The Bay of Pigs didn’t go too well.” No, it didn’t. I took the opportunity to point out that Cuba was the site, not only of Kennedy’s biggest failure in global affairs, but also his biggest success.

I was 22 years  old when the world stood at the brink of a nuclear war over the presence of Soviet missile-launching sites in Cuba, aimed at the United States. I was a senior in college and knew full well, as did all my classmates, that no 2-S deferment was going to exempt me from what might happen if the Soviets did not — as Kennedy demanded — remove their missiles. Kennedy ordered the U.S. Navy to blockade Cuba to prevent the shipment of Soviet missiles and equipment. Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet president, who had initially denied the existence of the missile sites, sent a naval fleet to Cuba, loaded with supplies and armed for battle. As the world watched and waited and prayed, Kennedy and Khrushchev exchanged messages. Kennedy prevailed. The Soviet fleet stopped short of Cuba and turned around. I lived to write this remembrance. Kennedy was dead not long after.

So here I am 63 years later, still looking to take the measure of the man and still wondering how that is possible. Kennedy had the gift of engagement. He appeared to be comfortable with whomever he was speaking. He had tremendous appeal to young people, being so different from the older, stodgier presidents who preceded him. He created the Peace Corps — a legacy that, like many others, has been erased by the current administration. He made many Americans — and this is not a small thing — truly proud to be Americans. Not in an arrogant, flag-waving, we-know-better-than-you way. Just proud. And he cheated on his wife and kept his serious health problems a secret from us and sometimes needed to be prodded by his brother, Bobby (another tragic loss) to take the proper (courageous) stand on issues.

So the question I still ask myself is, what might JFK have done, what might he have meant to America and the world, if he had lived longer? What did we lose at Dealey Plaza? Certainly, whatever innocence we still possessed. The wind was sucked from our sails as a nation and our domestic politics have slowly and steadily deteriorated into such partisanship that it is virtually impossible for any president to speak to the minds and hearts of a majority of Americans the way Kennedy did. Maybe it would have happened even if Kennedy had lived a longer life and gone on to be an ambassador to the world of what America stands for. Or maybe not.

It dawns on me in writing this that it is an ultimately frustrating task to try to take the measure of another man or woman. I know what JFK meant to me personally. I know a lot of others feel similarly and others do not. I know what history has recorded (he was also the youngest man to be elected president) and what the tabloids have told us. I have a sense of what I would like to think Kennedy would ultimately have meant had he not died so young. But it’s only speculation.

The only man I can truly take the measure of is myself. It is nearly 63 years since that morning when I was waiting at home to go to Fort Dix, N.J., to begin six months of active duty training. How do I measure up today? That’s a question I still work on every day. It wasn’t always thus, but the years have a way of insisting on perspective. Maybe the answer will appear in some other writing. I have neither the space nor the inclination to do so here. I will say that, on balance, I’ll probably give myself a passing grade, but there’s still some stuff I’m learning. That’s a lesson in itself. For now, I’m through trying to take the measure of JFK, as man or president. Let the historians have at it. I’m going to try to take his advice and ask not what life can do for me, but what I can continue to contribute to life. And I’m also going to continue to celebrate him not on the date he died, but on the date we both were born.

By Bob Gaydos 

Don Sr., Don Jr. and Bettina, the new Mrs. Trump

RSVP: I regret that I will be unable to attend your wedding because the timing is bad and I have a lot of important stuff to do at home and people would be angry if I took the time away from that stuff.

Love, Dad

       No, he didn’t write that email to his first-born son, named after him. He just said it out loud for the world to hear. At least he didn’t say, “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

        Donald Trump Jr., also known as “Dumb,” from the Dumb and Dumber duo, was married Friday on a small island in the Bahamas. His second marriage. A small, intimate affair. Just 50 family and close friends. Daddy, who once said, “The family is really the foundation of a prosperous and good society,” couldn’t make it. He was, he said, too busy. 

        Trying to wreck the New World Order. There was this annoying war thing in Iran. And, you know, that 30-year-old murder charge to file against Raoul Castro. Maybe even invade Cuba for some reason. And the Congress wasn’t buying his slush fund for the criminals who invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020, trying to overthrow a newly elected government

        Stuff.

        It was simply too much to deal with just for a second marriage of your oldest son. Besides, there wouldn’t really be any voters there to try to impress. And the Bahamas have some kind of silly law about being able to deny entry to anyone convicted of a serious felony. And there was that speaking appearance in the Hudson Valley to support a loyal congressman who was elected by a small group of enthusiastic, well-organized supporters apparently pretending to be Democrats.

       Important stuff.

       Funny coincidence: Don Jr.’s new wife, Bettina Anderson, described as a “sociaIite,” is the daughter of the late Palm Beach banker, Harry Loy Anderson Jr., who had a mutual friend with Trump Senior — Jeffrey Epstein. The banker reportedly socialized with and helped Epstein get major tax breaks for his own special island.

       Talk about synchronicity. It’s too bad Trump had too much important stuff to deal with to attend his son’s wedding. Dad might have had some stories to share with his new daughter-in-law about her father and their fun days with Epstein. 

        Better luck next time.

By Bob Gaydos

There’s a rooster crowing somewhere and a tree groaning in the wind. I know. It sounds like the opening of a poem. It’s not. I have no rhyme. I have no reason. I have frustration, anger, sadness, impatience, embarrassment, outrage, despair, resentment, and, to some degree, utter disgust.

It’s 95 degrees and I’m sitting by the pond, not feeling poetic. Not really energetic. Sorry for the rhyme. It’s sometimes automatic. Helps to dull the static.

See what I mean?

This is going to be short and not at all sweet. You know the drill. Different day, different insult. No need to repeat. Trump sued himself, in effect, over taxes. His returns were leaked along with thousands of others. His hand puppet attorney general “negotiated” a deal. Trump and his family never have to go through a tax audit ever in their lifetimes. Oh, and the criminals who attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2020 will have a $1.7 billion slush fund from which they can try to claim “damages“ for trying to overthrow the government.

Republicans in Congress, of course, think this is all just fine. Cowards toeing the line. (Sorry).

It gives me no great joy to repeat that I wrote a column in 2016 predicting that Trump would be the death of the Republican Party. It’s been proven many times over by now and reinforced on a daily basis with every embarrassing “speech“ he delivers. Each one is testament to his ego and ignorance and increasing mental instability. But the real MAGAS don’t care and the Republican politicians know they’re stuck with it now. No guts, no glory. Same sad story.

I’m coming up on 85 and still glad to be alive. But the America I grew up in and lived through most of my life has been raped and pillaged by Trump and his henchmen and women and, yes, it is depressing. Writing relieves the stressing.

It also nourishes hope. Hope that the Epstein files will soon indict every co-conspirator. That Clarence Thomas will receive the justice due him. That the millions of Americans who don’t bother to vote will realize what their apathy has done. That the mainstream media regains its spine and its voice. That future generations will be able to read the true history of this dark chapter.

There’s more, but you get the drift. Keep fighting. I’ll keep writing. If this were a poem, it would be an elegy, if not a dirge. I will continue to resist the urge.

(Note: The little red marks on my forearms attracted attention and questions, so I thought it was time to explain, again. An afternoon of weeding and pruning left the garden looking more approachable. Me not so much. The pruning included gooseberry bushes, notorious for thorns. I wrote about the not so common berry a couple of years back and it appears to be the appropriate time for a refresher on tasty gooseberries. Enjoy.)

                                      ***
By Bob Gaydos

Almost ripe gooseberries. RJ Photography

  Change is inevitable, they say, so the best course is to try to learn from it. For example, moving from an urban environment, which I lived in for most of my life, to a rural one required learning some new skills.

     Some are more important than others. Pruning and harvesting gooseberry bushes without getting cut up by thorns is one of the more esoteric ones.

     I’m learning.

    “How’d you get those scratches on your arms?”

     “It’s gooseberry season.”

     “Huh?”

     “Thorns.”

     That was a recent conversation. With temperatures in the high 90’s, I went after the spreading bushes while wearing a T-shirt. Good thing the berries are juicy.

        But not just that. They also have history. I’d never heard of gooseberries before becoming countrified and I imagine a few of you haven’t either. That’s because they were banned in America for decades.

      Early in the 20th century, federal and state governments banned the growing of currants and gooseberries to stop the spread of white pine blister rust. Basically, the fungus was killing white pine trees, which were vital to the construction industry in the country.

     It seems the blister rust fungus completes its life cycle only when gooseberries or currants and pine trees are living in close proximity to each other. Rather than cut down all the pine trees to save the gooseberry bushes, the decision was made to stop growing gooseberries to save the pine trees. Hard to argue with that.

      Yet here we are with seven very healthy gooseberry bushes waiting to be harvested. What happened? Are they illegal? Not anymore.

       Science saved the gooseberries as well as the pine trees. By mid-century, cross-breeding programs had been developed using remaining pine trees to develop varieties resistant to the rust. That meant gooseberries could be living safely in the neighborhood with the pine trees.

    The federal ban was lifted in 1966, although some states still have restrictions on cultivating or shipping gooseberries.

      But not ours. 

     In 2003, New York state passed a law to allow commercial growers and home gardeners to legally grow red currants, gooseberries and immune or resistant cultivars of black currants throughout the state. We’re legal.

     For the record, according to info I gleaned from the Cornell Cooperative Extension, the berries I’ll soon be picking are the “Pixwell” variety developed in North Dakota in 1932. They are “easy to propagate, commonly sold three-foot bushes with small thorns … that bear medium-sized fruit that starts out green and turns purple upon ripening.”

       Right. Funny how they kind of just glided through that “small thorns” item.

                           ***

(Note: “The word ‘gooseberry’ comes from the old German name for the berries, Kräuselbeere, which means ‘curled or crimped berries.’ This name became grossularia in Medieval Latin, then groseille in French, and finally ‘gooseberry’ in English. The ‘r’ may have been dropped at some point during the transition.” 

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping stand together as they tour the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China,

By Bob Gaydos

   Donald Trump cut his trip to China short, returning to America with his planeload of billionaires, family and sycophants with no obvious “deals” on the war in Iran or commercial trade while also saying he had not made any commitments on Taiwan one way or the other in his private talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which surely worried residents of that independent island who have received guaranteed U.S. military support for more than seven decades, all of which made most Americans wonder what the heck was the purpose of the surprise trip in the first place other than for Trump to marvel at the number of Chinese restaurants in America and be impressed by China’s great hall (See?) which all took place while the Justice Department back home was talking about indicting Castro — Castro!? — no not that one, the brother, Raul, former Cuban leader who is 94 years old, for his supposed role as defense minister at the time in shooting down two civilian U.S. planes carrying a humanitarian group, over Cuba in 1996, the murder indictment to serve as a warning to the communist country (like China, by the way) that the U.S. might just have to take over control of the energy-starved Caribbean island, apparently because Greenland is too big and well-defended and China is really strong and still lusts for Taiwan and the U.S. might consider not stopping all the oil tankers from Venezuela from making deliveries to Cuba, which depends on those shipments to function, or just taking over the island, if Cuba would accept $100 million in humanitarian aid and allow U.S. economic and security investments in the island, a mixed message delivered to Cuban leaders personally by whomever is now head of the CIA, all of which happened as Rudy Giuliani, yes that Rudy Giuliani, was having “a very serious spiritual experience” while in a coma due to pneumonia, in which he said he was in a line leading to a “trial by St. Peter” but was saved when his friend and former deputy NYC mayor Peter Powers intervened, saying some “very significant words,” thereby apparently saving Rudy’s soul, allowing him to survive to talk about his ”miracle” on his broadcast show, which few people knew existed until now, and which apparently is not housed off the parking lot at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping business in Philadelphia, where Giuliani, now 81, previously was in a coma but didn’t know it … all of which happened in a couple of days and is proof positive that the world is totally out of sync.

   I needed the break.

(I had a moment of clarity last year and realized how my mom in her own subtle way had profoundly influenced my life. The column below was the result of that moment and I am happy to share it again this year.)

By Bob Gaydos

Anne Sokol Gaydos

I generally didn’t post something on Facebook on Mothers Day because my mom has been gone a while now and I always have trouble finding old photos. But as I read posts a few years ago, and looked at photos of other mothers, I started thinking about what Anne Sokol Gaydos, a typical, post-war, stay-at-home mom in Bayonne, N.J., gave me that had a significant influence on my life.

As I scrolled, nothing unusual came to mind until, suddenly, there it was, staring me in the face and sitting in a neat pile on the end chair of the kitchen table back in Bayonne. Each and every morning: The Bayonne Times, The Jersey Journal, The Newark Star-Ledger, The Daily News, The Mirror. The routine morning reading.

As I got older, I added to the pile: The Herald Tribune, The New York Post, The Journal-American.

With this constant immersion in the news of the day, I naturally went to college to study electrical engineering. For one semester at Cornell. Then mom’s influence came into play.

A wise counselor suggested that I major in English. At another college. Something about low grades and no attendance.

Me, Max, Mom and Zack. Mid ‘90s.

Long story short, I did. I went to Adelphi College (now a university) and majored in English. Specifically, writing. After college, I got a job at The Bayonne Facts, a weekly, then worked as a journalist for daily newspapers in Binghamton, Annapolis and Middletown for more than 50 years. Obviously, I still write and I still identify as a journalist.

So, in brief, that’s it. Basically, that stay-at-home mom who taught me how to play 500 rummy also gave me my entire career, which I have thoroughly enjoyed and still do.

Thanks, Mom, happy Mothers Day and happy birthday coming up May 17.

Love, Bob