Fear Or ...

           So I was driving down to my parents’ house in Cape May on Friday, and I had a lot on my mind. First of all, I kept hearing this one guy’s voice in my head. He’s from New York, like I am, but he’s running for president, and he had given a convention speech the night before, which I had heard in part. It kind of freaked me out, because there was so much darkness in his words. He was saying in his speech that “our very way of life” is threatened in America, and that the person he’s running against leaves a legacy of “death, destruction and weakness.” He said these are very difficult days in America, and that we need to take care of our country first. The thing that upset me the most was when he told America, “I am your voice.” I have never lived under a dictator, but when I study them, they usually say things like that, tapping into our fears and convincing us that they know what we need.

            I was wondering what drew people to this guy and his rhetoric of fear and passion. I was wondering if this was the message I’d keep hearing in the days and months ahead. I had music playing on my iPod, and was paying tribute to the late Prince by listening to his tunes. In between songs about little red Corvettes, raspberry berets and purple rain, I listened to the lyrics from the song 7, which is the closest Prince every got to predicting the future when he released it almost 25 years ago. “I saw an angel come down unto me,” he sang. “In her hand she holds the very key / Words of compassion, words of peace.” In his Book of Revelation-type lyrics, Prince sings of a world in which “the young” are “so educated they never grow old.” He even sings of “a voice of many colors” singing a song “that’s so bold.” Well, I thought, that’s a different person with different ideas than the one I’d heard the night before. But I kind of like this vision of a world where compassion and combined voices lead the way, better than I like the sound of footsteps approaching.

            I arrived in Cape May and went down to the beach the next day. Every day, there are teenagers on the beach who sell umbrellas and beach chairs, then pick them up at the end of the afternoon. I’d noticed that the chair seller on our stretch of the beach had a tattoo on his upper chest. I stopped him and asked what the tattoo said. He read it to me: “Fear is nothing more than a mental monster you have created, a negative stream of consciousness.” I looked that up later, and saw that it comes from Robin Sharma, a Canadian writer. This young man, dragging umbrellas and chairs through the soft sand, seemed to have already arrived at a very different way of looking at fear than those words I heard on Thursday night. In fact, he’s so confident in these words that he wears them on his tanned torso.

            As I lay on the beach, I read a book by New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, titled Fire Shut Up in My Bones. In terms of coming-of-age memoirs, they don’t get much better. I read about Blow’s attempts to find inner peace after a childhood incident left him violated and afraid. Earlier in the week, the author’s most recent Times column had spoken of the recent violence against civilians and police with the words, “It’s not either/or, but both/and.” As someone who has lived through tragedy, Blow is well-suited to help guide our country out of the struggles we face. He chooses to do so through words of love.

            After arriving back from the beach, I gathered up my dog and took her for an early-evening walk. Around the corner, I saw several yellow and orange pieces of paper tied to a tree with pieces of string. As I walked closer, I saw a sign in front of the tree, identifying it as a “Poet-Tree,” and inviting passersby to take one. My dog and I stood in front of the tree for a while, reading poems, many of them about nature, lots of them by Robert Frost and Mary Oliver. I took a poem from Oliver titled Wild Geese, whose beautiful lines speak of shared pain, shared progress, and shared tomorrows. “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -- / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.”

            There are strong words of fear in America today. But wherever my wheels and feet seem to take me, I keep hearing reassuring words of grace. There’s a lot to talk about at those presidential conventions – our country has as much room for improvement as any. But we had a president once who said something about fear, something many have echoed in the 83 years since he said it. And it remains as true as the morning sun: The only thing we have to fear, my friends, is fear itself. The rest is today’s challenge, tomorrow’s triumph, and the music of life. 

Choosing Love

            This week, my wife and older daughter have been fixing up houses in eastern Tennessee with a group from our church. As part of the Appalachia Service Project, they’ve been working together to make the world just a little bit better, while also meeting people from a different part of our country. The church group consists of teens and adults – some of them black, some white, some gay, and some straight.

Yesterday morning, I helped my father deliver food to people in need in Cape May, NJ. As we walked through the small housing project that often gets lost in this vacation wonderland, we handed chicken, frozen vegetables and pasta to all kinds of grateful people – some of them black, some white, some older, and some quite young.

            In my high school, I’ve helped run a community service club for 10 years, and the teens who run this club choose our activities. Their favorite job is delivering meals to homeless and low-income individuals in Manhattan. When they do this, I stand to the side and watch our club members interact with the people in need who walk up to their table. Some of the needy are black, some are white, some are Latino, some are Asian. Some are gay, some are straight, and some are transgender. Our own club members also hail from a variety of races and ethnicities.

            The events of this past week in America have been so troubling that it’s difficult to think about it all without feeling afraid for our nation. I’m not a TV guy, so I don’t watch the wall-to-wall coverage that our cable news stations offer. I prefer to read the news. This morning, I came across an opinion article in The New York Times, written by Charles M. Blow, whose meditations on race in America are well worth reading. In his piece, Blow writes about the necessity of choosing love in times of violence. He writes that when we say this, some are likely to accuse us of “meeting hard power with soft,” and of choosing a weaker route.

            But, Blow writes, “That is simply an illusion fostered by those of little faith.” Anger is so easy to access and use recklessly, he writes. “The higher calling — the harder trial — is the belief in the ultimate moral justice and the inevitable victory of righteousness over wrong … When we all can see clearly that the ultimate goal is harmony and not hate, rectification and not retribution, we have a chance to see our way forward.”

            There are so many ways we can address the current racial crisis in America. Perhaps the most important first step is to listen, learn and engage in productive dialogue. A former colleague of mine posted on Facebook yesterday that he had recently taught Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, the National Book Award winner that explains with clarity and historical depth why an African-American individual might doubt that true change will come in American race relations. In my own world, my co-teacher and I showed our high school seniors Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing this past year, and Steve James’ documentary The Interrupters last year. None of our students had seen either film before, and they all had lots to say, think and write about after seeing these important films.

            We all can do more to engage our minds in thinking deeply about race in America. We can pay closer attention to the words of our current president, who has spoken about matters of race in complex and important ways. We can hold discussion groups where we listen and share our experiences. We can think, and wonder, and imagine what it would take to reach a place of equality, understanding and peace.

            Most of all, we can follow the lead of those who have shown us how to do this hard work. More than a year ago, a young white man brought racial violence to a level of cruelty similar to that of this past week. The man visited a church Bible study in Charleston, S.C., then proceeded to kill nine African-American men and women during the Bible study. Two days later, that church modeled forgiveness in a way that might at first seem impossible. “You took something very precious away from me,” the daughter of one of the victims told the shooter during a bond hearing in which he appeared via video link in court. “I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.”

            These words are at the heart of what Charles Blow is talking about, and at the heart of what we sorely need. Bullets cannot move mountains. But faith and fellowship can. Racial anger is real, and it’s grounded in facts. It needs to be heard, and discussed, and addressed with changes in laws and attitudes. The work we do together in areas of race is everyone’s business. It is not something that affects only some. The responsibility is on all of us.

            But we know it can be done because it is being done – by my wife, daughter and their friends in Tennessee this week. By my dad and his friends at the housing project in Cape May. By those service club teens at my school. And in thousands upon thousands of other places, where we choose love over hate, and where we work to build bridges.

Nearly 20 years ago, my wife and I brought a group of teenagers to a national youth gathering for the Lutheran church in New Orleans. Every night, tens of thousands of teens would walk to the Superdome and sing songs together. The emcee of the event was a young woman in her early 40s, a pastor from New Jersey. She was dynamic and inspiring. After the gathering, I wrote to her and she wrote back. She gave me ideas on how to make a difference in the world.

Today, that woman is the pastor of our church. She’s in her 60s now, and my wife and I view the words and themes in her sermons as a map toward the ways in which we can help make positive change. Oh, and she happens to be African-American.

As my pastor makes her way back from Tennessee with the church group this weekend, I know her heart is heavy from the violence and unrest in America. But I also know she will choose the route taken by Charles Blow and Barack Obama and my teacher friend and my service club kids and, of course, the parishioners in Charleston. She will choose love. And she will preach love. And we will hear her, and give it a try. 

Home

            It’s been an exciting Thanksgiving weekend, as my wife’s parents recently moved to the same town where my parents have lived for the past 12 years. After a couple of attempts at retiring up north, my in-laws realized that the Jersey Shore was more their style. So this Thanksgiving, my daughters were able to gather around the turkey with all four grandparents for the first time in their lives. It was wonderful.

            As I’ve aged out of some of the restlessness of youth, I’ve come to see just how much it can mean to feel comfortable and happy with your home. To have that roof and four walls, and to want to be there, is a special feeling. Thanksgiving, and the holidays that follow, are a yearly reminder of this.

            I was thinking about that feeling as I read a poem the other day. It’s titled “Home,” and it was written by Warsan Shire, a writer who was born in Kenya and raised in London to Somali parents. The poem addresses the world’s current refugee crisis, one that sees more people fleeing war and oppression than at any time since World War II, according to The New York Times.

            Shire begins her poem by writing, “no one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark / you only run for the border / when you see the whole city running as well.”

            The next stanza continues, “your neighbors running faster than you / breath bloody in their throats / the boy you went to school with / who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory / is holding a gun bigger than his body / you only leave home / when home won’t let you stay.”

            Since the flurry of recent terrorist attacks in Europe, Asia and Africa, there has been increased conversation about a topic that is as old as history – whether to allow an exodus of people to enter one’s country. There are always complications to this issue, but time has a tendency to align itself with compassion and openness, rather than with resistance and fences. Those who enter a new country, as my great-grandparents did in America, tend to do nothing more than give thanks and start their new life with ambition and devotion to their new home.

            It’s tempting, during times of fear, to think that countless people are out to get us. But in reality, most people just want what my in-laws found this year – a place that feels like home. When we forget this, we run the risk of becoming sharks ourselves.

Creativity's Fate

                Earlier this month, Laura Pappano wrote a story for The New York Times about the increase in creative studies programs at colleges and universities. With the workforce demanding more ingenuity from workers, colleges are teaching students how to think more creatively and seek out resourceful solutions to the problems of an ever-changing world.

            It’s rather stunning, as an educator, to see an article like this. For most of my teaching career, the focus of our national education dialogue has been on standardized testing – on ensuring that no child is left behind in mastering the essential skills. I’ve seen many teachers work very hard at ensuring that those skills are met. I’ve also watched teachers find wonderful ways to teach those skills while also incorporating creativity into their lesson plans. But still, it’s confounding to hear so much talk for so long about mastering the skills, and then hear calls for a shift of sorts.

            Of course, our strongest thinkers offer a balance of critical and creative thinking. They plan ahead, then figure out how to improvise. They analyze the reading or solve the equation, while also imagining new ways to see the text or the equation. To use a baseball analogy, they strive to be the Derek Jeters of the world. The New York Yankees shortstop, who prepares for his final season in 2014, has always worked hard to master the fundamentals. But, at the same time, Jeter has always known when to create – his flip toss in the 2001 Division Series against the Oakland A’s standing as perhaps the best improvisational play in the history of baseball.

            Most educators would suggest that we strive for that balance. But they might also warn us to be careful that we don’t push the concrete so hard that the creativity seems undervalued. It’s a lesson demonstrated beautifully in The LEGO Movie, the latest children’s film to feature a powerful message for kids and adults alike. Without spoiling the plot, let’s just say that the film’s final half-hour makes a very strong case against stifling the creativity of our children. As the film winds to an end, we are reminded of those moments in our early years when we sat with LEGOs or Star Wars figures or Barbie dolls or erector sets, and the world was ours to shape.

Times have changed, and we can talk all we want about the needs of our high-tech world. But we also have a long history in our country of honoring and valuing the innovators. In my classroom, I keep some old Apple publicity posters featuring famous artists and leaders, with that simple slogan “Think Different” next to the photos of Jim Henson, Pablo Picasso, Amelia Earhart, and others. Whether we’re parents, educators, filmmakers, or shortstops, we all share the responsibility to nurture the creativity in our kids. It’s a no-brainer.

Cereal Swinger (One Sixty-Two: Day 109)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One Hundred-Nine: Coco Crisp, Oakland Athletics

So the government is putting some pressure on the food and advertising industries to stop advertising high-sugar and high-fat foods as healthy choices to American children. It’s an interesting dilemma, as very few of us want to see free speech stifled. Yet, on the other hand, it’s kind of hard to say just how much benefit a bowl of Froot Loops provides to the healthy growth of a child.

As I read with interest a recent New York Times article on this subject, I agreed with those who believe that an ideal solution would be one in which food companies police themselves, and agree to promote Cheerios instead of Lucky Charms. In a nation teeming with childhood obesity, it would be nice to see a collective movement toward healthier options. This, of course, will not happen without someone giving the companies a little push. Hence, the government muscle.

Which brings us, of course, to Coco Crisp. If we’re going to clean up our childhood cereal choices, we’ve got to start with the baseball player who sports a cereal-box name. Crisp, the veteran center fielder now with the Oakland Athletics, has been full of snap, crackle and pop lately. He’s hitting over .300 these past two weeks, and has reached base nearly 40 percent of the time. Coco has been smacking honey bunches of hits this month, and has even stolen a half-dozen frosted bases. His A’s, in the meantime, have crept up to second place in the American League West.

But when Coco comes to bat, or when his face appears on the video screen at stadiums across America, isn’t his name yet another threat to childhood obesity? I can’t help but think of a bowl of sugar cereal when I hear his name, and that’s not good. So in the name of 21st-century health consciousness, I would like to propose a new nickname for this man of centerfield speed and alliteration.

How about Oat-Bran Crisp? Or Mini-Wheat Crisp? Maybe even Grape-Nut Crisp? The lines are open, and we’re taking your suggestions. As for the baseball team in Oakland, they’ll take the man whether you’re calling him Coco or Kashi. It’s the results that matter, and right now Crisp’s bowl is full.

A-Rod Gaga (One Sixty-Two: Day 101)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One Hundred-One: Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees

In last Sunday’s New York Times, Jon Caramanica wrote a thoughtful essay on the proliferation of spectacle in modern women’s pop music. The essay, titled “Pure Gaga,” contrasts the ubiquitous Lady Gaga of 2010 with the equally popular Madonna of the 1980s and ‘90s. While both singers loved to dress up and shake up pop society, Caramanica writes that there is a difference: Madonna, he says, “was a savvy pop trickster, using outrageous imagery as a distraction while smuggling ideas about religion and social politics into her music.” In contrast, he writes, Lady Gaga and her contemporaries are “interested in distraction as an end in itself.”

I happen to enjoy Lady Gaga’s music, but I, too, am waiting to see if there’s any substance behind the Mardi Gras outfits. Is Gaga going to use the images in her videos to deliver messages that push the boundaries of society in exciting, progressive ways? Or will she focus first and foremost on creating just enough dazzle to impact the Billboard charts, without an attempt at using her status to make us think?

The great ones always give us more than the art. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Marvin Gaye, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley – all took the initiative to bring thoughtful ideas into their music. It’s the same way with athletes. There have been thousands of brilliant athletes in the history of sports, but the truly great ones used their popularity as an opportunity to speak out or act out on issues extending beyond the sports arena – Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, Roberto Clemente, Jim Brown, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Martina Navratilova, to name a few.

The coverage in New York this past week has focused around the pending 600th home run of Alex Rodriguez. The Yankees’ third baseman will eventually hit his 600th homer, although it’s taking awhile. A few years after that, he will hit his 700th, and perhaps a few years later he’ll break all the records en route to No. 800. That will be interesting to see.

But it won’t bring tears to the eyes of this writer. I am always fascinated by the magnificence of Rodriguez’s skills. But there are a lot of magnificent athletes out there. What brings you to your knees is watching an athlete combine his or her talents with a thoughtful entry into society’s conversations. It’s one thing to help build a three-run lead; it’s quite another to help build a better world. When Curtis Granderson belts a home run in Yankee Stadium, I watch him round the bases with the knowledge that he is also using his success and notoriety to benefit the lives of young people throughout the nation through his own community-service activities.

So I will watch Alex Rodriguez’s 600th home run when it happens, and it will be nice to see him smile about it. But I am still waiting, patiently, to see if there’s more to Alex Rodriguez than the long fly balls and the throws to first base. I’m looking for more to A-Rod than a splash of Gaga. The clock is ticking.

What a Tangled Web We Weave (One Sixty-Two: Day 47)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Forty-Seven: Brad Lincoln, Pittsburgh Pirates

I was tempted to turn on my laptop at 6:45 this morning to check my e-mail, my fantasy baseball, and anything else the Internet brought my way. But I decided I needed a simpler, quieter breakfast with a backdrop of birds chirping rather than electronics humming.

I glanced at Monday’s New York Times while starting my bowl of cereal, and there on Page One was a headline that seemed quite fitting to the decision I’d just made: It read “Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price.” The story, by Matt Richtel, focused on technology overload, and the ways in which our attempts to multitask with computers, e-mail, phone calls, iPads, iPods and other assorted media have altered the way we think and behave. In addition, Richtel reports, scientists are finding that the media multitaskers among us struggle to focus.

It’s an article that any adult would do well to read. I was particularly taken by Tara Parker-Pope’s sidebar, titled “Warning Signs of Tech Overload,” when I noticed how many of the signs applied to me. As I think about the degree to which my girls watch and emulate my behavior, this concerned me even more.

But the thrill of information everywhere is so difficult to discard. It is the most tantalizing byproduct of this technological revolution – if we want it, we can find it. And the fact that we can find so much leads us to want to find much more than we would’ve ever thought to look for in generations past. And I’m not sure that helps us in the long run.

So the Pittsburgh Pirates apparently are considering a promotion for their top pitching prospect, a young man named Brad Lincoln. With all the hype over Stephen Strasburg’s debut with the Washington Nationals tonight, you might think that Mr. Lincoln would be overshadowed, with little information about him as the team considers starting him tomorrow.

But oh, how wrong you’d be. Just a quick Google search brings us the following: News stories on Brad Lincoln from ESPN.com, MLB.com, The Associated Press, USA Today and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; scouting reports and statistics from Baseball-Reference.com, Yahoo! Sports, CBS Sports and Rotoworld.com; blurbs from Pirates fan sites (“Raise the Jolly Roger” and “Bucco Fans,” to name a couple); Lincoln’s biography on the University of Houston athletics department’s site; and, of course, a Wikipedia entry.

So if you were somehow addicted to both baseball and technology (a combination that I’ve heard something about), you could literally spend hours reading stories about a 25-year-old man who has not yet thrown a single pitch in the major leagues. Hours.

He’s supposed to be a good one, it’s true. And it’s cool to have the opportunity to read about him. But, as Richtel’s story tells us, there are an awful lot of us reading an awful lot of things these days on-line – and we’re having trouble looking away.

Yet those birds, man – they’re chirping. They sounded beautiful this morning. I gave them 15 minutes, felt at ease, and then rushed off to work. The computer went on, and here it is still, 15 hours later.

Tonight, I‘ve gained more knowledge about Brad Lincoln. But what have I lost along the way?

Remember Paris (One Sixty-Two: Day 15)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Fifteen: Kerry Wood, Cleveland Indians

I’m not sure why I remember the article; maybe it just represented the world in which I felt comfort, just as I was heading out of my comfort zone. I sat next to my wife, Amy, on an airplane en route to Paris. Before taking out the French-English dictionary so that je peux me souvenir le francais, I flipped through my copy of The New York Times. There in the paper was a photo of a 20-year-old Chicago Cubs pitcher, who had shocked the baseball world the day before with a record-tying 20 strikeouts in one game.

His name was Kerry Wood, and he was fast becoming the next great thing among baseball’s pitchers. The next Roger Clemens, they said. In 166 innings during that 1998 rookie season, Wood would strike out 233 batters and help lead his team to the playoffs for the first time in nearly a decade. By June, half the fans at Wrigley Field were showing up with blue No. 34 jerseys featuring Wood’s last name at the top.

A few hours after our plane departed, Amy and I would find ourselves immersed in French culture and attractions, walking alongside the River Seine and picnicking beneath the Eiffel Tower. Only occasionally that week would we be carried back into American culture, such as when we saw subway vendors selling Leonardo DiCaprio posters, or when we spotted a shocking headline in Le Monde reading: “Sinatra est Mort.”

The Paris vacation took place 12 years ago this week, and while we haven’t returned to France yet, Amy and I still have some photos from that trip on the walls of our house. A lot has happened in those dozen years – we’ve moved twice, switched careers, earned master’s degrees, had two children, lost three grandparents, and witnessed history-changing events.

As for Kerry Wood, he’s now 32 years old, and plenty has happened to his career since ’98. He returned today from his 13th trip to the disabled list, finally ready to throw his first pitch of the season. It’s been a difficult career for Wood, as his brilliant pitching has constantly been beset by injuries. After a 13-win season in his rookie year, Wood has won just 67 games ever since.

But he is still standing. And he’s only 32 years old. As Wood suits up for the Cleveland Indians now as their closer, he seeks to save games rather than win them. He wants three strikeouts in the ninth, rather than 20 over the course of a game. He hopes that his arm, and the rest of his body, will hold up this time.

Amy and I have to watch our neighbors’ cat this coming week. The young couple is headed to Paris for a week. They’ve got their camera, as well as their dictionary. And who knows? Maybe on their flight over the pond, they’ll flip through a newspaper and find a story about the comeback closer in Cleveland. C’est possible, non?

Steve Jobs, Willie Mays & My Bathtub

So tomorrow, when Steve Jobs slips on his black turtleneck and steps onstage in San Francisco, the information revolution will kick into yet another gear. The CEO of Apple will apparently be holding some sort of 10-inch tablet device in his hands – a device that might just take computers in a whole new direction, perhaps somewhere in between a laptop and an iPhone. Millions will surely flock to Apple stores, some to play with the thing, and many others to buy it. Countless companies will compete to promote their applications for downloading onto the new tablets.

It’s exciting, and a bit daunting, to see the extraordinary leaps that companies such as Apple and Google keep taking. What’s next? And how does what’s next change the world I’ve come to know? Will I be ready and willing to keep up? Or will I start to feel like my grandparents did when they were watching Bob Hope specials while I was tooling around with my Commodore 64?

I still subscribe to home delivery of two daily newspapers. I know it’s a lot of paper, and I know I could read the stuff on-line. But I like the feel of newsprint in my hands, and I like to turn the pages and find new stories on my own. We have seven bookshelves in our house, filled from top to bottom with hardcovers and paperbacks. I guess I could buy a Kindle or a Sony Reader and just download all those books. But I like attaching my little reading light onto the last 30 pages of my novel, and holding the book in my hands while I read at night. I don’t want my eyes to scan another screen in order to follow Christopher’s adventures as I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I want the kid’s journey in ink and paper, with a publisher’s logo on the back cover.

That’s not to say I can’t embrace technology; I am, after all, writing a blog. But life is always about balance, and I’d prefer to welcome the technology on my own terms. If I want Apps, I’ll get Apps. If I still want to clip my coupons from the Sunday paper, I’ll do that, too.

I think that Mr. Jobs and all the tablet-buyers would appreciate the newspaper we found today. It was uncovered while our bathroom was being demolished in advance of a much-overdue renovation. Somewhere beneath the old, cast-iron tub were a few pages of newsprint: One from the May 27, 1951 New York Times and the other from the May 25, 1951 Plainfield (N.J.) Courier-News. Both bear a yellowish-brown tint, and both are ripped all over.

But oh, there are some gems. We begin with The Times. A headline reads: “Chicken Now Vies with Beef as Food.” Reporter John Stuart tells us that the poultry industry has leapt into “fierce competition” with the beef industry for a place at American dinner tables. “The growth of chicken as such a factor can be illustrated by a few simple statements,” Stuart writes. “Sirloin steak was selling last week in New York retail markets, such as the nationwide chains, at $1.05 a pound. Chicken was 45 cents a pound for fat five-pound birds only twelve weeks old, tender enough to broil or fry and big enough to roast.”

The Times classifieds have some ads that Mr. Jobs might appreciate. One features the headline: “Electronics?” The rest reads: “To investor or organization now in allied field wishing to establish electronics business, we offer experienced technical and managerial personnel and fully developed product with civilian and military applications.” A different kind of app, perhaps, but still looking forward nonetheless.

We move on to the Courier-News. The headline “Bitten by Dog” follows with a brief telling us that “Ten-year-old Carol Adams … was bitten by a dog owned by Michael Lavelle … yesterday afternoon, it was reported to police.” Another brief tells us of a bicycle theft. Beside the brief, an ad encourages readers to convert their 10-inch television sets to 14-, 16- or 19-inch sets at “amazing low cost.”

The movie listings advertise “Kiddie Show” Saturday matinees as well as more adult films, such as “Where Danger Lives” with Robert Mitchum, or “The Bullfighter and the Lady” with Robert Stack. My personal preference is the Walter Reade Theatre, where, in person, “Bonomo’s Magic Clown and His TV Pal Laffy” will be appearing at 10 a.m. tomorrow. And, after the show, why not get something to eat? “Have You Tried Snuffy’s?” an ad asks us. “Tasty! Tempting! Shrimp ‘Caught from Snuffy’s Boat’ Try Them Fried or in a Cocktail.”

It was a different world, all right. And perhaps no story illustrates that better than a short piece in the Courier-News sports section. The headline reads: “Giants Call Up Mays.” It begins: “Willie Mays, 20-year-old Negro centerfielder, is slated to make his big league debut with the New York Giants tonight at Philadelphia. Alarmed by lack of power in his lineup, Manager Leo Durocher brought up Mays from Minneapolis in the American Association where he was hitting .477.” The article explains that Mays had 29 extra-base hits in 35 games at Minneapolis, including eight home runs and eight steals. Mays is, the article says, “reported to be a top flight speedster.”

Surely, issues of race led many sports fans of 1951 to overlook prospects such as Willie Mays, who would go on to become one of the best ballplayers in the history of the sport. But beyond that, it is amazing to see, six decades later, a news report so fuzzy on the details of a rookie who was hitting .477 in the minor leagues! In our world today, if a minor-league player were hitting for that average he’d be drafted in every fantasy baseball league imaginable, and he’d be blogged about and tweeted about every minute of every day.

But that was a different era, one old enough to sit beneath a New Jersey bathtub for three generations. My older daughter says she wants to take the newspapers with her to school tomorrow. I hope she does. And as she grows up and buys her Kindles and iPhones and – yes, Mr. Jobs – her tablets, I hope she’ll also remember the road that led her there. It's a Wi-Fi road now, but it was paved with newsprint.

Fantasy Farmers

For 30 minutes each day during the baseball season, I sit in front of a computer and completely lose myself in a world of make-believe. I set my lineups, add and drop players, make trade offers. I read up on baseball-player news, and I strategize. All of this, of course, involves an imaginary, fantasy-baseball team that exists solely on the Internet. The players are real, of course, but they don’t really play for me. I’m trying to craft a team that will perform better than the teams run by a dozen other grown adults, who are also giving a half-hour of their life to this child’s play.

When I do this, I experience an odd mixture of glee and guilt. I’m excited because this is genuinely fun for me, as it is for the many millions of fans worldwide who are quickly turning fantasy sports into the real sports pastime. And yet, I also feel some pronounced guilt, since there are obviously a billion more productive things I could be doing with my life during that half-hour. Sure, we all need some time to decompress, and many of us do so on-line. But I could be on freerice.com, or reading important news stories, or e-mailing a friend.

The strongest guilt, though, has always come from the other adult who lives in this household. My wife has perfected the look – head cocked to the side, eyebrows pursed, a half-smile on her lips. “What are you doing?” she asks while I click and type furiously over my cereal bowl. “Didn’t we say we were going to church together this morning?”

“Um-hum,” I mumble. “Just give me a second, and I’ll be right there.”

Now the arms are folded in front of her, and she’s giving me the nod. “Sure,” she says. “Whatever you say.”

We get to church late, and now I’m really feeling guilty. She doesn’t say a word, making it even worse.

So this is how it’s gone for five years. Every winter I tell her that I’m going to quit the fantasy baseball scene next year, and she assures me that I won’t. March comes, and she’s right. It all begins again, and that odd mixture of feelings comes back to me while I peer at my lineup over that cereal bowl.

But no more. Next year, without question, will be different. I say this not because I plan to cease playing fantasy baseball. Quite the opposite. What I’m saying is that I’ve finally been relieved of the marital guilt.

The reason is simple: My wife raises fantasy livestock. She’s planting make-believe sunflowers. She’s up to level 25.

We’ve had some odd crazes in the history of American pop culture, but FarmVille is definitely up there among the best of them. According to a New York Times article a few weeks ago, more than 62 million people have signed up to play this Facebook application, which allows its players to tend to a virtual farm all their own. Zynga, the company that created FarmVille, told the Times that 22 million people log into their FarmVille account at least once a day.

When I check my Facebook page, I see these bulky animal and crop drawings, with messages stating that friends of mine are looking for lost cows, or have found wild turkeys, or just discovered mystery eggs, or simply want to say “Thank You” to all their FarmVille friends. It is agricultural madness. It is Atari meets Facebook meets Amish Country.

We should have seen it coming, of course. Many of the adults who are playing this game grew up with such odd passions as Cabbage Patch Kids, Q*bert and the Smurfs. We know that strange fads make life more fun. We’ve kept our Rubik’s Cubes and our Tickle Me Elmo’s, thank you, and we’re on the lookout for the next strangely obsessive thing.

It would be fine if only Amy checked her farm once a day. I would be totally cool with that. However, it’s become a challenge just to talk with her once the girls are asleep. Really, how could you bother to converse with your husband when there are blueberries to harvest, and animals to feed, and hay bales to arrange in the design of a Christmas tree?

You could say that this is karma, and that I’m getting what I deserve after all those hours of fantasy baseball. You’d be right, of course, but I see it differently. I envision a conversation this April, when I’m on the computer one Saturday, and she gives me that look again.

“Honey, are you checking your fantasy baseball?” she’ll ask.

“Yup,” I’ll say.

“Can you get off the computer? We’ve got things to do.”

“Nope.”

“Are you serious? You’re really going to play that all day?”

“As long as I want to.”

“Come on – let’s get a move on.”

“Sorry, babe,” I’ll say. “But you buy fantasy pigs in your spare time. You harvest fantasy corn. You earn fantasy money when your fantasy chickens lay fantasy eggs. You inform your friends that fantasy ugly ducklings have shown up on your fantasy farm.

“So if you don’t mind, I’m going to take just a few more minutes with my little fantasy baseball, where at least the players are real.”

She’ll stare at me for a minute. “Are you done?” she’ll ask.

“I am,” I’ll say, smiling to myself. Patting myself on the back. Little fist-pump beneath the desk.

She’ll continue: “Let’s go.”

I’ll lower my head, and click hibernate. “OK,” I’ll mumble.

The guilt again. Damn farmers.

You Say It's Your Birthday

As I turned 38 this past weekend, I was asked the usual question: “How does it feel?” My answer is always simple, that you’re as young as you feel. I’m grateful to be in good physical shape, and hope to keep that up in the year ahead. I like this number, 38 – it’s a reminder that I’m still plenty young, yet also old enough to have some of what we like to call experience. If I were a lawyer, I’d probably have just made partner. If I were a baseball player, I’d probably have just retired.

I think that birthdays are also a good time for thinking about our own development as individuals, and whether we’re moving in the right direction, toward the people we want to be. I am very proud of the fact that I’ve made service toward others a priority in my life so far. I’m proud of myself for being there for family, friends and students, and also for succeeding in two different careers. I think my heart is in the right place, and that is probably the most important thing I need in life.

But I do see room for improvement. I see a need for greater confidence, as I wonder sometimes whether I’m selling myself short with what I can accomplish in my career and in life itself. I also see a need for less stress, as I tend to let the smaller things eat me up inside and lose the ability to roll with the punches. I know that worrying has never actually made my life better, yet I still struggle with the temptation to fret over far too much.

I look forward to working on these pieces during the months ahead, and to build upon my own experiences and emotions to lead a life of fulfillment, hope and happiness. As I do so, I can find many notable role models among those who were born on the same day as me. January 17th is a crowded day among the notable birthdays. We have Ben Franklin and Anton Chekhov. We have Muhammad Ali and James Earl Jones. We have Michelle Obama.

The famous birthday web sites don’t list my name. Kid Rock has got January 17th, 1971 locked up. My alter ego. As I think about why Kid Rock is a famous man and I’m not, and as I scan through the New York Times Magazine photo spread of Obama staff appointees and see so many who are younger than me, I am tempted to feel deflated.

But that’s missing the point. I don’t need fame to be successful. I just need to know deep inside that I have done what I should, what I can, for the purposes I find most important – my God, my family, my fellow man, myself.

This weekend, as we await this new moment of hope in America, I look within and see a man who is a making his way quite nicely through life, but who can – and will – do even more. Sounds like a pretty good 38 to me.