"Fortune and Love befriend the bold" (Ovid)

......Recently, in Tucson, while Congresswoman Gifford lay on the ground after being shot with a bullet that pierced her head, one of her assistants ran to her aid in order to stop the bleeding.  That act apparently saved her life, and this man was hailed as a hero.  No doubt he was--he saved a life.  At the time-- the gunman had been killed-- so it wasn't as if this man ran through a hail of gunfire to get to Ms. Gifford.  Now, who has the right to have earned the title of "hero"?   According to Aristotle, a hero is not one who is fearless in the face of danger, but one who overcomes his sense of fear in the face of danger and meets the the challenge in spite of his fear. The firemen and policemen who entered the towers in 9/11 were certainly not without fear--if not for themselves, then for the people whose lives they were attempting to save.  I'd like to think that my father, Michael, was a hero; he went on a very dangerous mission in WWI. As was I in WWII, he was attached to a flight squadron, the 27 Aero Squadron. Mine was Fleet Air Wing 7.


..... A note written in Nov. 1933 by LtCol Harold E. Hartney, the commander of the 27th Aero Squadron during WWI (my father's commander officer) certified that Michael had contracted a medical problem (poison gas canisters) during a mission behind enemy lines in 1918. This certification allowed my mother to obtain compensation from the Veterans' Administration before my dad's death  in 1933. The pension amounted to $100 a month.


.....My son, Joel, did a little research, and here is where it gets interesting: Hartney, it turns out, was a Canadian who was assigned to train/lead the American squadron after the U.S. entered the war. He eventually became a U.S. citizen. In 1940, he published a memoir, "Up and at 'Em," that details a lot of action during WWI. Anyway, in the letter he had written in 1933, he said that my dad had gone on a mission in July 1918 to locate a few missing pilots, including Capts (or Lt.?) Elliott and Wanamaker. In the book, Hartney says that Elliott was shot down and killed on 2 July 1918. On this exact day, 15 years after coming into contact with the gas, Michael died. Here's something even more interesting, Joel continues, whom do you think shot Elliott down? It was none other than Hermann Goering, who went on to become the head of the Nazi Air Force during WWII ! Wanamaker was shot down that same day by Ernst Udet, Germany's no.2 ace, but he was captured and survived the war. Hartney previously had been shot down and was seriously injured by none other than the original Red Baron himself, Manfred von Richthofen! Now I am the official Red Baron Zorro, and I did some shooting down myself--but this time it was Germans, not Americans. My father lost both of his legs and his left arm as a result of the poison gas in his system. He died when he was 33. He was a hero.

"You can't go home again." (Thomas Wolfe)

.....My bookcase is getting rather crowded.  When I published "Memoirs" I thought that it was the bees knees--as Bonny would say.  Now, however, I have a few more that I had not counted on.  It's just that when The Blog got too big and to the point where I did not want it to be lost if something happened to the computer, I thought it would be a good idea to publish what I had.  Not that I believed anyone would ever buy it; it's just a matter of some history of what it's like to retire to Florida and for posterity. Perhaps one or two of my descendants would be curious about how their gggggrandfather had lived and thought.  And I do believe if someone who never read my blog would read "Pater Noster in Condoland" they would find it quite interesting.  But now I have Vol I, II, III, IV and V!  Not only that, but also The Blog grew like Topsy to "Fires in the Heart" volumes I and II and then the latest, "Condo Credo".  It's really a journal, or call it a diary, dating from August 2007.  They are books that deal with a pot pourri of events in the Baron's life.  I might even start reading the books myself.  So, counting all the books including the book of poetry "Shadows in the Sunset", there are ten on the shelf.   I don't know when it will stop.  I tried to quit writing Homeoftheredbaron.blogspot.com-- but had to continue because my readers were pissed.... Thank you.


.....Speaking of my life, I was stunned to get a call the other day from a very good friend whom I know from my salad days in the Bronx.  His name is Al Oran--changed from Oransky.  Al was one of the Bronx boys in our gang.  We were known as the "Apaches" and we all wore shiny green satiny jackets with the gang's name on the back.  The Apaches used to play stickball against other teams from other neighborhoods.  We also had a cellar club in one of the buildings and Al and I used to bring girls down there where we would dance to the tunes of Glenn Miller and try to get around "the bases".  We just about got to first base...if we were lucky.  And sometimes we were very lucky.
Al was a good looking guy and he married a good looking girl named "Sheina".  Al now lives in Clifton, New Jersey.  The other guys in our gang...er club were Bernie Lerner, Jack Richman, Aaron Fried, Leo Hartman, Normie Davidson, & Billie Lerner.  I believe that Al and I are the only guys left.  Unfortunately, I don't know what became of the cellar club, the green jackets, and stickball.  Those were the days my friend; we thought they'd never end.............

"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius." (Doyle)

.....I've been going to rehearsal for the "in-house" show scheduled for the end of March.  I was supposed to do "Trouble" from "Music Man" and "If I Were a Rich Man" from "Fiddler on the Roof."  However, "Trouble" has been cut from the show, and they are trying to get "Rich Man" down to three minutes. There is no way in hell to get that song down to three minutes without sending Tevye to the Poor House again.  There are several other solos in the show, and I imagine the point is not to let the show go beyond an hour and a half...or perhaps two; I'm not sure.  I've already cut two verses from the song, and it's still decent.  However, if the pianist or the director or whoever insists on cutting more of it, I will have no objections, but the show will have to get along without me.  There are a couple of people doing two songs, and if the idea is to keep the show moving it seems to me that a logical solution would be to take a song away from each one of them.  Then my solo can go the extra mile.
.....And another thing: I don't need to rehearse this song; I know it very well; I sing it in the shower and in the elevator where the acoustics is/are marvelous!  Well, we'll see what happens on Tuesday next. Stay tuned.


.....Speaking of in-house shows, there is a kind of show going on in our house and before it gets good reviews, it is at present getting bad reviews.  RH+ has decided that the "look" we have, after 27 years, is outdated.  So, we've had wood put on the den floor instead of carpeting and it looks very 2011; especially with the white shutters on the window in place of blinds.  Now, the 27 year old green "astroturf" we've had on the terrace is gone and tile has been laid down there.  And she just bought a ceiling fan to cool her off while she is reading from her kindle on a lounge chair.  But at the moment nothing is completed and everything we had on the terrace is now in the living room and it is impossibe to watch TV there.  Tom, the guy who is doing all the work, can do anything at all for a house or apartment.  He's a pure construction genius, no doubt about it.  He carpents, he paints, he tiles, he builds closets, he moves furniture, he electrics...in short he does everything but write a blog.  I don't get paid for writing this blog, but he gets paid very well for whatever he does.  Why couldn't I have his talent instead of mine--which is worthless. I'm just a poet; and RH+ is a Baroness with free Reign--or is it rein?