Orange and Blue

When this writer was thirteen, in 1969, there was nothing more important than sports. Knowing my limited genetic luck I poured my eyes over numbers and names that fill up the box scores. In previous generations I may have been studying Torah passages. Instead my father brought home the New York Post and the New York Daily News every night. He wanted me to be an American. That gave me time and copy to know every player, number and statistic. There was competition at the lunch table and might as well be most knowledgeable. When you are the little guy at the table you gotta get your edge somewhere.

That was a special year. We had a knock out bar mitzvah party at the Short Hills Caterers. That was a big deal in 1969. The party feels incomprehensible. My parents survived the Shoah. They followed fellow survivors to America and began to rebuild their own castles. That night was like orange and blue lights casting on the Empire State Building. Thirty million people can all feel the joy that they must have felt that night. That was a special year for New York metropolitan fans. The New York Knicks, dressed in orange and blue, won the World Championship with a legendary group of players. Number 22, Number 24, Number 12. Number 10 and the captain Number 19. Frazier and Reed. You SHOULD know the names.

New York teams were the emotional relief and distraction from a crazy planet that year. The underdog Mets won the World Series. The New York Jets won Super Bowl III. Woodstock drew 500,000 people to a farm one hundred miles from NYC to celebrate the music of our time. On July 20,1969 we landed three humans on the Moon. Those were the gifts. The rest was political and social upheaval. Richard Nixon assumed the Presidency. It was the year of the Stonewall riots for gay rights. The Chicago 8 went on trial for inciting violent demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Bobby Seales, a black defendant, was gagged and chained to his chair during the trial. The Weather Underground, or Antifa with brains, carried out eight political bombings in Manhattan in 1969. The Viet Nam War was raging and the country was too.

Growing up in Clark, New Jersey none of that chaotic stuff mattered. We grew up in the most idyllic way in a town with a notorious racist history, yet I never experienced a single anti semitic incident. All we knew is the time of the next game or the time we were going to meet at Andy’s house. No one cared about what you were or where you came from. Many of us spent our entire lives in one town and knew each other since elementary school. I would imagine that most people who spent most of their young life in the same hometown have hometown friendships long after high school. There is a level of trust that is hard to explain.

As the Wake and Bake bus drives around the last bend in life, I want to see people who played an important part in my early life. We spent more time together than we did with anyone else, except our own family. There was competition in high school, between all of us, but we helped each other because it was for the common good. We graduated future doctors and writers. We have lawyers and police officers. The meritocracy has worked and the American dream has been fulfilled. Last week I had donuts and croissants with my Hebrew school brother and high school classmate. This morning The Mad Bomber and I hiked four miles on Ramapo mountain. We have known each other since the third grade. The Mad Bomber was always shorter than me. He would always say he was funnier. The conversations are psychiatric medication. That and the Animal Face doobie.

The best part of these moments is the perfect spontaneity of the interaction. We pick up where we left off. There is no forced confessions of history or accomplishment. We speak of family and friends as easily as remembering how to ride a bike. There is refreshing honesty born of humility and common experience. We speak about fears of growing old or revealing the wounds we may have taken along the way. Is there any other choice but to believe in living well!

That journey may seem impossible when you are standing at the bottom of Ramapo mountain. All those giant stones and rooted paths seems a hard way to go. The key is to keep moving. Movement is essential to a well lived life. And then, like anything else, you put one foot in front of the other. One hour later and you are at the top of the mountain. “Watch out for the trap doors” is something the writer is fond of saying. When you are on the mountain you better pay attention to the trap doors.

This amazing ability to live in the moment is something to cherish. We did not have to impress the other. We wanted to talk about what is next for our lives. What is the best way to live a well lived old age? How much work should we take on? Who told the kids that we were on call for babysitting? What the F is this President doing? Does anyone know? The two hours that were spent drinking coffee or climbing steep gnarly paths are the moments to live for. Moments like those do not come often unless you make them happen.

If you have been a Knick fan and basketball you know that these moments do not come often. There are only so many opportunities. It will be 53 years since the last championship. That would be 29 years since the loss in the 1999 championship to the same San Antonio Spurs. The 1990’s were nothing but thrills and heartbreak. Before that, Jordan, Olajuwon and Reggie Miller cut out our hearts. Knick fans are hopeful again and have good reasons to believe this team has the grit and talent to get it done.

The box score never lies. There is no television in my house. That is another Wake and Bake story. The advantage is that I know more about these teams by reading the box score than watching the game. There is less emotion. The Knicks are sharing the ball more than they have all season. Each player is great defensively and efficiently offensive. They play unselfishly like the former championship team. The center Karl Towns has become Willis Reed, serious and tough, like an old school sixties big man. And Jalen Brunson, the point guard, has the heart and killer instinct of Walt Frazier. They have won two games on the road and their best player has shot 19-56. Thirty Four percent. It does not matter because defense wins and Towns has been better than the Spurs best player, and future champion, Victor Wembanyama.

There was a young boy listening to the voice of Marv Albert in 1969 on WNBC radio. The excitement poured through the small transistor as the announcer counted down the final seconds. That moment of joy is special because you share that joy with many other people. It is something that lasts past one evening and stretches for days. It is a time when we all feel part of something bigger than ourselves. This is the moment a young boy’s dreams and an old man’s hopes can be reunited. Life can bring incomprehensible joy and brutal disappointment. This coming week may bring us that elusive joy. Let’s Go Orange and Blue…

Peace to Everyone

Sly and the Family Stone. Everyday People. #1 song in 1969..

.