The Rumors of My Demise........

Growing up, one of my favorite authors (among so very many) was Samuel Clemens, most famously known by his nom de plume, Mark Twain. As anyone who has read much of his prolific output can attest, his had a somewhat rapier wit. Many of my favorite quotes have come from his writings, including the one included in the picture above. I spent two years of my life when I was in middle school (in Georgia of all places) reading as much of his writing as I could get out of the school library and other sundry places. Among some of the other works I read were these;

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

The Innocents Abroad

Roughing It

The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today

Sketches New and Old

Old Times on the Mississippi

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

A Tramp Abroad 

The Prince and the Pauper

Life on the Mississippi

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Pudd'n'head Wilson

How to Tell a Story and other Essays

The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg

The Diary of Adam and Eve

A Dog's Tale

The War Prayer 

Is Shakespeare Dead?

Letters from the Earth

So it's not surprising that in 8th grade I was accused by one teacher of having a "smart mouth".  I couldn't help it, I was influenced by all the sharp witicisms I was consuming from the pages of his work.  Of course, this was Martinez, Georgia in the mid-70's and my English teacher was thrilled that she had a student that was in love with word play and the power of the written word.  Not all of my teachers felt the same.

 

Although Mark Twain died in 1910, on two occasions the writer was incorrectly feared dead. Though only the second case would really be considered as a premature obituary, the first is often erroneously cited as the most famous case of the incorrect report of the passing of an individual:

1. In 1897 a journalist was sent to inquire after Twain's health, thinking he was near to death; in fact it was his cousin who was very ill. Though (contrary to popular belief) no obituary was published, Twain recounted the event in the New York Journal of 2 June 1897, including his famous words "The report of my death was an exaggeration" (which is usually misquoted, e.g. as "The rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated", or "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated", or quite often "The rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated").
2. On 4 May 1907, when people lost track of a yacht he was traveling on, the New York Times published an article saying he might have been lost at sea.  In fact, the yacht had been held up by fog, and Twain had disembarked. Twain read the article, and cleared up the story by writing a humorous account in the New York Times the following day.

And its the first quote that I take as my inspiration for this blog entry. 

 

I have to admit I have never been a very good pen pal or correspondent of any type.   Back in the day (which as you can see below would have been somewhere along the mid spine)

 

 

I really did try to keep a few pen pals as that was before the joys of instantaneous internection connectivity but those brief forays into long range correspondance always faded after six months or so.  Therefore, it should be understandable that my natural proclivity is not able to keep up long term correspondence.  Its not that I don't know how to write.  Since high school I've received compliments on how well I express myself in the written forum.  Its just that given the choice, I would much rather read than write. 

 

There have been two notable exceptions to this natural order.  The first was during the long separations that I had from Amy when we were first together.  As young performers we would take work wherever we could get it and more often than not it meant that we weren't in the same place at the same time while doing it.  As a matter of fact, a month before we got married I was performing West Side Story in Berlin, Germany while Amy was performing Nunsense in Akron, OH USA!  Nevertheless, I would dutifully write her letters and cards to keep alive our connection.  It was part of the reality of that constant separation that caused me to leave "the business" as it became increasingly more clear to me that the only way we could have a family was if we were in the same place at the same time.

 

The other exception was this past summer when I made a concerted effort to try and write every day while on the road to let everyone know how the journey had progressed.  However even that was not a complete success as I have twelve entries in various stages of draft completion.  Although considering we were gone for 74 days, I guess that's not so bad for me.  Added to that I have five other drafts stretching back to 2011 that I started and never finished for a total of 17 unfinished drafts - but I'm working on it.  One idea I have is to collect all of those blog entries and create a book of our travels with each entry being a separate chapter.  For those of you who have followed my blog posts you know they tend to be long and verbose (despite my best efforts, this has been a lifelong "curse" I always write TOO much) so with a little judicious editing and addition they can be chapters unto themselves.

So what has all of this got to do with Mark Twain's quote?  I've been far to silent for far too long and I do know that I have followers who are interested in some of what I say as evidenced from the almost 30,000 views this blog has received.  I'm sure some of you who read my blogs somewhat regularly over the summer have probably wondered what the hell happened to me and what is going on?  To be sure, a lot has happened in my life both good and bad, most recently we had a scare of sorts with William but we just received word this past week that he is "clean" and healthy and that the likelihood of his tumor returning is pretty nil.  To be honest this has consumed most of our life here in the month of February.  The news has really brought us all back to life, pretty much the way this guy feels;
 

 

As you can imagine our lives are incredibly happy now because our little boy is healthy and clean. 

 

Another thing that has been going on is my incredible lack of motivation to ride.  I've chalked up my riding log and I've realized that I've only ridden five days since the first of the year.  I've had many colleagues at school ask me if I'm still riding and I've been incredibly embarassed to admit that I haven't.  Now I can justify a lot of the last eight weeks away by talking about how I'm just getting over the flu, how the roads were really bad because of Winter Storm Nemo, how I've been unable to ride on the weekends because I'm a member of the Northport Fire Department and I want to be able to go on calls, my nagging knee injury that made bending my leg near impossible for two weeks (which I treated myself, shhh don't tell my orthopedist), etc.

 

But in reality the answer is simply I SUCK!  I have allowed myself to fall into the post "I HAVE  ACHIEVED MY DREAM" doldrums.  Last year I logged the most miles that I have ever ridden in my life on the road (7746.26) and I've just been feeling worn out and unmotivated to get back out there.  I've been forgetting the reasons I started riding in the first place;

 

It's fun!

It's freedom!

I can make a difference!

 

So I'm happy to say I'm back and I'm getting back in the saddle and starting to pedal again to help those who need it.  For starters, I'm going to be part of the Bicycle Rescue Squad for the Doug Wood 5K Cross Country Run on April 13!  Its one of the reasons I wanted to join the Rescue Squad in the first place - to combine my passion for helping others with my passion for cycling.  Its my hope that by next year I'll be a fully certified EMT and I can really be even more of a help to folks.

 

Secondly, I'm joining my wife, daughter and one of my sons in shaving our heads for the annual St. Baldrick's event.  Amy and Sarah have formed a team called Bald and Beautiful and although they are beautiful, I'm just going to be bald.  The only problem is as of yet I haven't raised any money towards my $500 goal.  If any of you would like to help me get there, you can contribute to funding children's cancer research by clicking here.  C'mon, whose going to be the first?

 

Oh, and I got back on the bike today and rode in to work.  And that was fun.

 

So, I'm not dead yet, I'm coming back to life and I hope you'll all join me for the ride!

 

And to make sure I don't really die, at least I'm not dumb enough to do this on my commute;

Stay well and I'll see you on the road!

State of the (Connor's) Army - The Impossible (?) Dream!

In honor of President Obama's recent State of the Union address (here it is below in case you didn't catch it);



I have decided to do my own State of the (Connor's) Army.  Its not so much of an address as an update.  Of course in thinking about this post, I wondered who even started the whole concept of a "State of the Union Address".  Well as with most things that made sense, it started with our founding fathers and with our very first President, George Washington.  He gave us the very first State of the Union address and if you want to read the full text you can find it here.

I have a feeling that it was much shorter than one hour and five minutes and he probably was not interrupted by angry shouts of "liar" from members of Congress as our current President has been.  I am going to go on a bit of an off topic rant here and it's really not about politics per se.  I have my political beliefs and you, dear reader have yours.   I have endeavored to come by mine through reading and listening to what politicians have to say as I'm sure you have.  However, it does seem that a vast majority of Americans (politicians included) don't think for themselves and are merely following the party dogma.  Mark Twain had this to say about politics;

In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

And I do believe that is often the case and that people demonize a President simply becuase he is from the other party.  And why?  Because the leaders of their party told them to, not because the really know (or maybe even deep down) disagree with the man.  It is the most thankless job in the world and as our 33rd President once said;

"All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking peopel to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway."

While our 36th President had this to say;

"Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm.  There is nothign to do but stand there and take it."

I think it is unfortunate that people from the Republican/Tea Parties seem to think that is what is expected of President Obama - just stand there and take it, we're going to kick you out anyway.  Despite your feelings about Republican or Democratic parties, the man deserve respect for trying to do the most difficult and thankless job in the world - I don't even think Mike Rowe would seriously want this job, despite his Poo Party Platform;



I know I certainly wouldn't want the job - being a teacher is hard enough.

Perhaps we should just all vote for this guy;



At least he wouldn't be afraid to tell Congress to shut up and get to work!

But I do enjoy my job and I have the pleasure of being surrounded by students who (for the most part) are passionate about dancing and acting and who want to be better.  The occasional speed bumps aside, I do get to spend my days, during and after school, with the best kids at Syosset High School.  They are witty, creative, passionate, caring, energetic and I learn from them every day.  The occasional drama from casting aside, mine is certainly not a Dirty Job!

The other "jobs" I truly enjoy are those of; husband (especially being married to my best friend), father, friend, son, brother, occasional little league coach, and chief cycist of Connor's Army.  As chief cyclist, I am required by our constitution to give a yearly State of the (Connor's) Army message to let you all know how things have gone in the past year;

This year has been one of unprecedented growth for Connor's Army.  Although we had received familial support in our earlier campaigns, 2011 saw us reaching far and wide via social networks to spread the word about our mission.  Of course, much of the time our statement of what we were intending to do in the summer of 2012 met with expressions of disbelief;

(You're doing WHAAAAATTTTT??????)



This was especially true of the campers and counselors I worked with at Sunrise Day Camp.  At least twice a week (if not more often) I would ride my bike to camp and many of them would ask me why I was doing this.  Once I started telling them they were somewhat incredulous and grateful that I would want to do such a thing.  But as I started talking more and more about this being a reality, people have been so supportive.  But there is so much more to do - more about that later.  But for now, the state of our own union;

2011 started out rather inauspiciously for Connor's Army as we really didn't have much of a presence.  We had received some wonderful sponsorship in November from the incredible folks at Smiles for Scott and they have since become our major sponsor.  Their donation really made us realize that we could actually do this.  Although we had originally hoped to do the cross country in the summer of 2011, we realized that we just didn't have enough in sponsorship to cover the costs of gas and accomodations for me and a driver.  At this point we weren't sure if I would be doing it alone or with a friend.  We realized this would be too much of an undertaking for me to do solo in the time available so a driver would be needed.  Unfortunately, I don't have any friends who could give up their entire summer to drive cross country with me (where is Benji Taylor when I need her?  Riding across the south in a Volkswagen Rabbit convertible to go to ballet company auditions becuase there was a Greyhound Bus strike that spring!) so we came to the conclusion in January that it would have to be my family going along as my support team.

Now this of course raises all kinds of questions since many people would be assuming that sponsorship would mean paying for my family.  I have had to reiterated (and I do it here again) that the cost of my family to go along would be born by us.  The only thing that sponsor dollars will pay for is costs of the transportation (gas, tolls, oil change, maintenance) and accomodations for me and a driver (anything over that would be born by us) and parts that I'll need to purchase for the trip (brake pads, cables, extra chain, extra spokes, tires, tubes, etc.). 

So in January/February we received some more sponsor dollars from Alan Rosenberg at Coinland.com and some smaller sponsor donations from Spectacular Smiles.  Things began to look up and it appeared that we would be able to meet our sponsorship goal of $15,000 by June 2012!  But now the sponsorship has somewhat dried up.  I began a program of reconditioning bicycles and selling them by posting them on Craigslist and placing them in front of my home for passersby to see.  We've raised almost $1,000 through that project so we are moving forward but the State of Connor's Army is still seeming short by $2,000 of our sponsorship goals.  We have also gotten lots of support from various alumni who have done fundraisers on their own campuses.  This past fall Jaime Blanch, who is attending The University of New Orleans co-founded a group called "UNO Fights Cancer" and they raised $100 for Connor's Army to help us.  In the spring we also had Sooner Printing and Merelis Productions join us as sponsors.  Peter Haughwout and Damon Tommolino (colleagues of mine at SHS) put on a show April 9, with their group Art Studio 85 at the Walt Whitman Birthplace Museum and in so doing became another of our sponsors.  It was an incredible evening of art and music with part of the proceeds going to help us in our mission.  

But the State of things now is that we still need to find a few more sponsors - we're almost there but we're still working on it.  On the positive side, Amy and I are pretty good at being frugal (she has what she calls her Five Year Plans - I sometimes jokingly refer to our home as the Gulag) so chances are we will be able to take a good chunk of sponsorship monies that have been unused and give them to Sunrise.  So in the end the kids will benefit.

The other part of the State of Connor's Army has been the support.  Here we have grown amazingly, mostly due to ACT students past and present.  I cannot tell you how much they have given of their support on the social networks and helping us get the word out.  To give you an idea of our growth, on January 2, 2011 we had 250 likes on our facebook page (if you're reading this and you've not "liked" our page, do me a favor and like it now!) and now we have 1,336!!!!!  Much of that happened this past fall.  At the beginning of September we had 850 likes so we have gained 486 likes in the last five months alone!!!!  So now, to dream the impossible dream - WE NOW HAVE A GOAL OF 3600 LIKES on our Facebook page! Every good State of the Union address needs to list some goals and this is one of ours! The idea is to have one "like" for each of the miles I am going to ride this summer! If I can get my self together, I'd like to be able to list on my blog every day the people that I "rode for" that day.  If I can figure it out, I'll just go to my list of people that like my page and I'll start listing people on my blog at the end of each day and say who I've ridden for.  That's the plan, not sure if its feasible or if I'll just choose a group of "likers" at random.  Either way, I hope you continue to follow this blog becuase once June 24th rolls around, I'll be posting EVERY day on my way back to Wheatley Heights and Sunrise Day Camp.  If you have a specific area of the country you want to be "virtually riding" with me, let me know and I'll try to accomodate you!  Just so you know, here is a ROUGH approximation of the route;

(C'mon pick a mile, any mile!)

So what you would do is say post to me - "Can you ride a mile from Four Corners to Pueblo, CO for me??" and I will do my best to do so!  I'm hoping to have a small video camera that I can film portions of the ride from the saddle so I can possible post YOUR mile on this blog as part of your virtual ride!  But you have to be a "liker" to know what's going on and follow this blog to see your name in cyberprint!

And speaking of this blog, that is another incredible thing that has happened this year!  As of the end of 2010 this page only had 6,752 total views since I began blogging in June 2009.  Since that day, we have shot up to over 12,786 views!!!!  In the last year alone we have doubled our viewership!!!!!!!  That means people are reading our message (or at least clicking on our videos) but I hope this means the word is getting out!!!!  Again, if you are reading this, even if it just means you're looking for pictures and videos of Brian Stokes Mitchell, Mike Rowe, or King Julian please take a moment and add our facebook page to your likes.  Because of your curiosity, you could see your name listed in this blog as one of the people I ride for this summer.

So those are some of the wonderful things that have happened this year and that is the State of the (Connor's) Army!  We've had our ups and our downs.  We've had incredible examples of support and belief in what we're trying to accomplish for the kids of Sunrise and we've had defeats that have left us spiritually battered and bruised to the core of our beings.  Yet we have some great fundraising opportunities coming up which makes us (okay me) very optimistic about the possibility of climbing out of this dark morass and being able to accomplish our mission of sending eight kids to Sunrise Day Camp.  I'll be writing about those soon but so many of my friends and former students are coming together to help us reach our goal that we know it can happen.

What can YOU do?  Its simple - SPREAD THE WORD!!!!  
1) Invite EVERY person you know to like us on facebook!  They can get their name in this blog!
2) Spread the word about our Ride Across America (also affectionately known as CARAAM - Connor's Army Ride Across America) to your friends and family (you can say things like, "I know this crazy %$#%@# who is going to ride a bicycle from San Diego to Long Island to help a bunch of kids" and then answer their questions). 
3)  If you know someone who might be able to help us with a sponsorship (either financial or in-kind donations) PLEASE get us in contact with them!  Whatever we don't use or spend will be given to the kids of Sunrise.  If its supplies, we'll sell what we don't use and give the money to Sunrise!

Let us be able to pull together to say YES, WE CAN!  Together we can Dream the Impossible dream and together we can make a difference!

And now your dessert for staying with me this far.  The incomparable Brian Stokes Mitchell singing "The Impossible Dream" (and by the way, if any of you know him, please invite him to like our page too! - Stephen Mosher, hint, hint!);


Stay well my friends and I'll See You on the Road!