Running Out The Clock

Running Out The Clock - Awaiting the golden elixir

By Charles E. Kraus

At first, we were elated.  My wife and I had managed to remain covid free.  Vaccines were being manufactured and distributed.  And now we'd reached Tier 1 of Phase 1B with its head-of-the-line privileges.  We were home safe.  Or, more to the point, we would receive our vaccinations and become away-from-home safe.  Our daughters, both members of California's helping professions, had already gotten their initial inoculations.  We'd reunite.  Then, before long, the rest of the family would join a parade of the immunized.  A family reunion was on the horizon, grandchildren leading the way!  

However, it has turned out there is no head-of-the-line.  Actually, there is no line.  Not here in Seattle.  Just more uncertainty.  Evidently, no vaccine is currently available.  No appointments are being scheduled.  Seniors have been asked to pause.   My wife and I (we are in our mid 70s) seem to be walking an endless tightrope.  Continuing our balancing act.  Attempting to stay safe until safety is no longer an issue.  Eleven months and counting of hiding from the enemy, waiting for the cavalry to rescue us, to make it to Seattle, saddlebags filled with the golden elixir. Their horses must be tired.

My feelings are multifaceted. A mixture of fear, anger at the Trump administration's poor handling of the pandemic response, upset with my own state and county.  Disappointment. Astonishment.  Quite a system you folks have put in place.  

I've developed an ambivalent sense of marvel and jealousy because some of our out of town friends have received their vaccinations without much difficulty .  Why is it, I wonder, that Hal and Carolyn visited their local Walgreens, be it in Reno, and walked out inoculated, while Linda and I sit here in sophisticated big city Seattle doing our best to navigate a 'figure it out yourself,' hit and miss hodge-podge of a delivery system whose main feature is gridlock?  

I've been making daily, occasionally hourly, internet searches hoping to happen upon a set of available appointments.   I've heard the rumors.  There are some spots, or maybe not.  We do this by rumor, yes?  Or we can stick to the internet instructions, lots of them.  Simply follow the prompts down each web-trail until you reach the 'sorry no appointments at this time” “awaiting vaccine, check back” “closed” “visit our calendar for future dates” (doing so leads to aspirational calendar pages upon which dates cannot (yet) be selected).

My wife and I have been spending a great deal of time discussing strategy.  Is it feasible, is it realistic, to drive a few hundred miles inland?   Seems as if vaccines are readily available in less populated areas.  Assuming that is so, I wonder why.  And what is more dangerous, me behind the wheel of our ten-year-old Kia in wet winter weather, or waiting it out in Seattle?  

I received my polio vaccine when I was eight.  Each class was escorted to the playground where kids took part in the extremely successful mass inoculation.  At the moment, the concept, 'successful mass inoculation,' seems archaic.  

Will the cure be relevant by the time someone somewhere is ready to stick my wife and me with the needles?   Basically, the two of us are running out the clock.

My plan for the new year

 My plan for the new year | Opinion

Updated 8:05 AM; Today 8:05 AM

This January 1 will be different than the previous ones, author Charles Kraus says. It will come crashing through pent up and exhausted emotions, smashing disappointments, ennui, and feelings of hopelessness. A course correction offering concreteness to objectives that have been elusive.

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By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist

By Charles E. Kraus

Typically, my New Year’s resolutions are performa. An annual recommitment to eating healthy, behaving well, improving my outlook. And always, my final resolve is to stick to my resolutions. But as we end the disastrous current year, I’m not inclined to plagiarize from my previous self-deceptive goals.

January 1st is usually symbolic. A reset. A chance to start over. Of course, like many on this New Year’s Day, we turn the page only to discover a continuation of things already in play. More of the same with an adjusted date stamp. Obviously, 2021 is going to be different. It will come crashing through pent up and exhausted emotions, smashing disappointments, ennui, and feelings of hopelessness. A course correction offering concreteness to objectives that have been elusive.

I understand a great deal of heartbreak is still in the mix. One of the top items on my list is to find out where, when and how my family will be getting vaccinated. But simply writing the word VACCINATED improves my frame of mind.

Here’s more of what I’m up to, and this time, I’m determined to stick to my plan:

My emphasis will be on my family. Grandchildren, children, friends. You’d have to scroll way down to find any entries involving commerce. Since March, I’ve refreshed Amazon so often Bezos cited me in the annual report. One exception: I might be purchasing a lot of airline tickets.

I’m going to take a timeout from “Breaking News,” “Open Immediately,” “Urgent,” “This Just In” — from all the onslaught of shocking, existential, political, moral and constitutional-crisis events and pseudo-events that have been etched into my screens. The initial batch of information about a political scandal caused outrage and concern. Then, over time, as the numbing adjusted my tolerance levels, my main reaction became disgust.

I certainly won’t ignore useful news. I hope to learn more and more about less and less COVID-19. I”m anxious to find out when my stimulus check will be arriving and when my favorite restaurant can reopen without restrictions. I long for the day restrictions once again become self-imposed, discretionary considerations, similar to the advisability of ordering a second slice of cake.

I think about the joys that will be coming my way in 2021. Hold on. That’s wrong. They won’t be coming my way at all. “Coming my way” suggests yet another delivery person misplacing yet another bubble wrapped package in front of my neighbor’s door. “Coming my way” means another tepid pizza showing up with the wrong toppings, handed over by someone who looks exhausted and in need of a fresh mask. I don’t want things coming my way. I want to go out into the world and retrieve them.

I’ll get in my car, walk down the street, enter a crowded store, visit a theater and marvel at the sensations running up and down my spine. Sensate activity switched on with a new, as well as renewed, appreciation of and for what lays on 2021′s horizon.

Charles Kraus is the author of “You’ll Never Work Again In Teaneck, NJ,” a memoir.

So Many Santas

So Many Santas

Published in the Orlando Sentinel and associated newspapers 
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/guest-commentary/os-op-my-time-with-santa-claus-20201223-uu5uxjvnfbcvxhynhsyqntjpju-story.html

By CHARLES KRAUS    

GUEST COLUMNIST 

DEC 23, 2020 AT 8:47 AM

Fortunately, Santa Claus has spent all of his time leading up to Christmas close to home in a COVID-19 bubble with his wife and two dozen elves. He was actually set to receive the very first inoculation. It makes sense because he is potentially the ultimate super spreader.

As a long-haul children’s entertainer, I’ve had the opportunity to spend many a December appearing with an endless assortment of individuals dressed in red suits. We’ve appeared in department stores, Christmaslands, VFW halls, recreation centers, schools, festivals .... it’s a long list. But, of course, this holiday season things will be different. In more typical times, they go like this ....

“Is this the line for cheeseburgers?”

“No! It’s for Santa!”

That’s a kid responding to my question. I’ve been Charles The Clowning my way through life — including hundreds and hundreds of Christmas events. That means I’ve introduced, worked with, and/or helped to sober up hundreds and hundreds of Santa Clauses. Evidently kids are not particular about who is wearing the outfit.

I finish my show, making the final extra-gigantic balloon reindeer. My puppet and I are saying goodbye when suddenly we hear something.

“Hold on, kids.” I look up.

Could it be …

“I think Santa might be up there.”

Puppet: “Santa Monica?”

“No … that’s to the south.”

Puppet: “Santa Barbara?”

“To the sorth.”

Puppet: “Santa Who?”

“Santa Claus!”

I point to the door, the prearranged door, for the prearranged entrance. I’ve said my line … now Santa is supposed to come rushing in. Not yet?Where is he?

“OK, kids, maybe he’s having trouble finding a parking spot for the sleigh. Perhaps his GPS isn’t working and he can’t find us. Why don’t we shout ‘Hello, Santa!’”

“HELLO, SANTA!”

Eventually, when he, or she, is ready, has gotten up the nerve, refastened the beard, and figured out the cue has been given … and given ... out pops Santa. The person in the red suit is young, or old. He’s fat or skinny. He’s Black, Hispanic, Vietnamese, Asian, Filipino. Might be Mrs. Santa. Might be in a wheelchair. I’ve worked with gay Santas, with lesbian Santas, and in retrospect, possibly with transgender Santas.

One of my jobs is to travel the line, keep the kids entertained while they wait for a turn to tell The Claus what they would like for Christmas.

“I’ve got my list,” I tell them, waving it around. I start to read …

“Bread, milk, Swiss cheese … hold on, that’s my shopping list.”

Sometimes I ask children what is on their Christmas list. Occasionally, having sized up the Santa they are about to meet, I’m thinking the best thing the kids could ask for would be a change of venue.

The meet-and-greet is a rite of passage that most kids take in stride. Some may be fearful, but I’ve heard few complaints regarding authenticity. It does strike me that most Santa impersonators have been cajoled into donning the suit. There is a reluctance. Perhaps an embarrassment aspect.

A little “Ho ho ho” starts things off. The official questions: “Been good? And what do you want for Christmas?” Not a demanding script.

The trick is to listen to the answers.

The better Santas help children put the gift thing into perspective.

“I’ll try to get you that, Harriet, but if the elves don’t have time to make one, I promise to get you something else you’ll enjoy.”

Say it like you mean it, Santa. And, oh …. pull down that sleeve. Your Grateful Dead tattoo is showing.

Charles Kraus has performed around the country as Charles the Clown. During the pandemic, he has performed virtually from his home in Seattle.

I Joined the Navy

 https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/opinion/2020/11/i-joined-the-navy-it-was-an-obligation-to-participate-accepted-by-all-opinion.html

I joined the Navy. It was an obligation to participate accepted by all | Opinion

Updated 11:09 AM; Today 11:09 AM

U.S. Navy op-ed

Published in Newark Star Ledger and Associate publications

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By Express-Times guest columnist

By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist

By Charles E. Kraus

On Veteran’s Day, I think back to 1966. This is how I happened to enlist.

You eat because you are hungry, or because it is mealtime, or your grandmother went to all the trouble to bake the cake and even though you hate carrot cake, you love her. You enlist during times of war because you are patriotic, or – you’ve seen too many movies that glorify war, depicting battle as a thrill.

Or maybe you’ve had an argument with your girlfriend, accumulated insurmountable debts, have been living an appalling life – in rural Nowhere, or in Urban Hell, and you need a correction. Perhaps, granddad and dad had distinguished military careers and tradition demands that you wear the uniform. Maybe you are trying to become a witness – to war, to peace, to various approaches to being alive.

Only that last one rings a few bells in my profile, though I’ll probably never truly understand why, as my sophomore college year concluded, I went to visit the Navy recruiter.

My military intentions, or more accurately, fantasies had little to do with battle. Unlike my father, I’d never been a party to, nor would I ever participate in a brawl or any form of animosity requiring more than attitude and language. Most of the authors I’d read came out of the Second World War. The military helped form some of them.

The “Adventures of Wesley Jackson,” “The Naked and the Dead,” “Catch 22,” “From Here to Eternity,” “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “The Caine Mutiny,” as well as the play I’d done in summer stock, “Mister Roberts,” were versions of military life filed away in my head.

No one I read or knew liked being in uniform, but the obligation to participate was accepted by all. My uncles told amusing tales of their active service days. Dad, turned down by the Navy because he was half an inch too short, walked next door and enlisted in the Merchant Marines. Being an adult male meant you had polished a few war stories and incorporated them into your repertoire to be repeated again and again around the dinner table, generally told with a twinge of nostalgia.

My decision to enlist was made easier because the recruiters offered attractive extras. I’d had two years of college. That meant I qualified for a rank of Seaman First Class, two bumps up from lowly Seaman Recruit. In addition, the Navy had a wonderful enlistment option. I could sign the papers now, but postpone induction for three months.

To qualify for the three-month deal, I’d need to agree to a four-year hitch rather than the usual three-year commitment. Hell, four was just another number. Two, three, I was young and life felt endless. Endless minus four years was still endless. Agreeing to this deal meant the consequences of my rash decision to join the military wouldn’t go into effect until the end of the summer. Three months only took three months, and as the next scene opened, there I was on a train heading from New York City to Navy 101 Boot Camp, Michigan.

My four-year military career was divided into three duty stations. A tour in Nam attached to a CB unit, complete with my very own M16, a year in Virginia with an outfit called Inshore Undersea Warfare Group Two, and finally life aboard a ship. In this case, the USS Fulton, a submarine tender that remained tied up to the pier most of the time, heading for open seas only to dump nuclear waste and to cause me extreme seasickness.

In each case, I was out of my element, living with guys from Alaska, the deep south, Guam, Harlem – Blacks, Filipinos, Hillbillies, as well as cosmopolitans. Because of and despite regulations and traditions, we figured it out, got along, developed friendships, or at least comfortable relationships. Learned from one another. You could say we bonded. We saved one another, had each other’s backs, shared our frustrations and united to gripe and laugh at our predicaments.

It turned out to be formative, at least for me. It was a difficult period but more rewarding than much of my life. I received my honorable discharge in 1970, just in time to get caught up in a rapidly changing world. Been a veteran ever since.

—

Charles Kraus received a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam. His memoir, “You’ll Never Work Again In Teaneck, NJ” includes several chapters about his military career.

An Appreciation of the Amazing Randi

An Appreciation of the Amazing Randi

By Charles Kraus

Jame Randi died a few days ago at the age of 92.  According to his New York Times obit, which ran 25 paragraphs, he was a debunker, an author, MacArthur award-winning magician and then some.  At a personal level, he was someone I knew and appreciated when I was a teen.

====

We ran into Randi constantly.  It was the 1960's.  

We were teen magicians in a New York City Parks & Rec group called FAME (this is long before the television show).  Our acronym stood for Future American Magical Entertainers.  The Amazing Randi was a regular within the New York magician's social scene.

FAME would meet on Saturday mornings, then once adjourned, members made their way to 42nd street, took the elevator to the 14th floor of the Wurlitzer Building and entered Tannens, the city's premier magician's supply store.  The shop would be crowded with dozens of prestidigitators.  Perhaps an act that was starring on Ed Sullivan's TV show that week, locals like Harry Lorayne and Dia Vernon.  The crowd often included Randi.  He was always encouraging to our club members.  Friendly, informal, informative, and very funny.

When the shop closed at 3pm, the crowd descended to the 42nd Street automat.   Here, leading magicians sat for hours performing and out performing one another.  As teens, we were allowed to watch and appreciate.  Randi was much more than an escape artist, though that was his speciality within the magic trade.  He was equally good with a deck of cards or a piece of rope.

There were endless gatherings and magic shows in the city, as well as an annual Catskill Mountain Jubilee sponsored by Tannens.  You'd find Randi at many of these events.  I recall one of his shows in particular because it demonstrated his quick thinking and showmanship.  Randi was performing a trick that required him to secretly place a large wooden block into a hat.  For some reason he'd failed to situate the prop in that location, a mistake he only realized while in the midst of presenting the routine. Some magicians would have put the effect aside and gone on to another, Randi was too quick and talented to abandon the effect in front of this audience of fellow magicians.

The hat was on his stand; the cube resting behind another effect.  He had to find a way to move it into the hat without anyone noticing.

"God, look at her!" he shouted, an expression of astonishment on his face.   Simultaneously, he thrusted out his arm, pointing his finger towards the back of the auditorium.  What he was doing is called misdirection.  Heads turned.  Eyes searched for the woman Randi had spotted.  There was no one there, but while attention was diverted, he'd secured the cube in the hat.  He was not only amazing and resourceful.  He was also pretty nervy.

"That was my sister," he explained, as he continued with his routine.

During the 1964 World's Fair, White Owl Cigars featured magicians in their pavilion. Randi was a regular.  I'd taken a date to the fair and was doing my best to impress her.  When we reached the pavilion, I managed to convince the house manager I was a friend of Randi's and that if he knew I was there, he'd let me in -- for free, of course.   Randi was summoned.  He recognized me as one of the FAME boys, and not only invited us to see the show, but talked me up to my companion.

Decades later, Randi made an appearance on a television program I was watching, and  I decided to email and say how much I'd enjoyed seeing him.  You probably don't remember me, I said.  I was a FAME boy. You got me into your White Owl show at the World's Fair.

"Ah ... he replied.  I've been searching for you for years.  You own me five bucks for the tickets."

He was kind.  Helpful and as I say, a very funny guy.

Making America Americian Again

Making America American Again

By Charles E. Kraus

My father rarely voted.  Once for Kennedy.  Once for Regan.  Once for anybody but Regan.  He was a contrarian with strongly held political beliefs that shifted.  Were he alive today, he'd be sealing the envelope right now, pounding the stamp into place and marching his ballot, his message of dissatisfaction, to the postal box.  If he could locate a postal box.

My generation really does want to make America great again.  Great meaning normal.  These past four years have been anything but that.  When you've been around for decades (I've been handicapping Presidents since 1968; prior to that I was allowed to share my father's opinions with anybody who would listen), you've obviously developed a sense of the American process.  

Wasn't there a time when politicians avoided scandal, or at least the appearance of scandal?  Didn't we go for long stretches without news events so riveting that they competed with one another for headline prominence and space in our heads?   Weren't there clear cut ways of doing things?  Holding elections, for example?  Yes, the world had dangerous rough edges.  We knew this.  We were working on it.

Seniors have the kind of perspective that allows them to understand how off course we've gone.  We are veterans of history.  Of wars and depressions, recessions, polio epidemics and assassinations.  Of Presidential elections that were landslides and others that were squeakers. In each instance, the country found itself on solid footing and was able to absorb the dilemma.

We've benefited from Social Security.  Medicare.  Civil Rights.  Healthier foods, better medicines, safer cars.  A sense of advancing.   Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson,  even Nixon.  Left, right and center. 

Living in Washington State, where voting has been accomplished exclusively by mail for many years, it is easy for me to urge distant friends to cast ballots.  

        In the oldest of jokes, the wealthy matron hears a beggar say, "I haven't eaten in days," and responds, "My good man, you should force yourself."  Sure friends, I can advise you to stand in your Covid infested lines, in the rain, in the snow, with vigilantes stalking, pardon me, closely observing the voting process.  Or, if you live in California, urge you to do your best when it comes to distinguishing between real collection boxes and actual collection boxes.  

Fortunately, I don't have to rally seniors to turn out the vote. The necessary energy and stamina is being accessed from the same well that feeds fight or flight responses.  Everyone I know is angry.  Real angry.  And that is leading to action.  They are upset enough to withstand the discomforts and dangers, submitting their ballots as a kind of scream.  A demand for common sense.

We are seniors.  We look back and see what the current administration has dismantled.  Seems to me there are competing approaches to making American Great Again.  One is fake.  One is not.  We know the difference, and we'll vote accordingly.

.

My History with Bad Air

Take a Deep Breath - my history with bad air

By Charles E. Kraus

Seattle --      

Excuse me while I step inside for a breath of fresh air.  That joke has been making the rounds.  So has the smoke.  From time to time throughout the day I become obsessed with checking the air quality.  Ironically, my computer screen defaults to accuweather.com and all I have to do to find out the current status of unbreathability is "refresh" the page.   Something ironic about that.

I live just north of Seattle in a place called Lake Forest Park.  The signs welcome you to “Tree City USA.”  I hope forest fires can’t read.   I’m old enough to have experienced four bouts of pneumonia plus an assortment of other respiratory ailments.   This is not the first time I’ve found it uncomfortable to inhale.  But it's been a while since I could trace such problems to proximate conditions in the wide wide world.  

The bad air of my distant past had "due in part to human irresponsibility" stamped on pockets of atmosphere so thick and polluted you could carve your initials in them.

A month or two after moving to 1970s Los Angeles, I looked out my kitchen window and was startled to see mountains.  They'd simply materialized.  Beautiful, majestic mountains.  It was as if Disney had assembled them in the middle of the night.  But, no.  The explanation turned out to be that the smog had lifted revealing natural beautiful generally hidden by the unintended consequences of a highly mobile industrialized society.   

My eyes are burning today.  Sadly, I’m out of Systane.  I’d go get a refill, but am not supposed to leave the house.  The dirty air would choke me.  And besides, I'm old, and adhere to pandemic restrictions that keep me from entering stores.  

My eyes know all about the pitfalls of corrosive air.  LA was not my only California address.  I am also a surviver of Pasadena air so foul that there was a constant sting awaiting your every breath. Your eyes burned and your skin itched.  Know that mountain I had trouble seeing from my Los Angeles kitchen window?  Now I was living on it, and I still couldn't see it.

Worse than any of this was the year I spent, part of my Vietnam Era Naval career, when I was assigned a desk three decks down in a converted storage space on the USS Fulton.  The room had no ventilation system.  By the end of each day, the eight sailors who worked there, seven smoking cigarettes plus me, could not look across the florescent lighting and actually locate the bulkhead.  Pulling my undershirt off in the evening as I prepared to shower, the fabric stank so badly that I developed a habit of holding my breath as I lifted it over my head.  

The Fulton was an ancient submarine tender that only left port twice during the year I spent onboard.  Twice and for very short durations.  Out to sea to dump nuclear waste.

Respect for the environment?  Not then.  Not yet.  Air today, air tomorrow.  I hope it's better by then.