Tag Archives: Humor

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“Play us a Christmas Song or else I’ll………….

photophotophoto Well this weekend was the opening day of ski season at our local area Seven Springs, and as I have done for the last 52 years, I made my way to opening day and met up with my ski group with whom I have skied for over 40 years. Some of these guys I see mountain biking and others I don’t reconnect with until the snow flies. But it is always good to see them, ski with them, and find out how the family is, what is new in their lives, and check out the new gear that they have. It is always great to make those first turns with waxed skis and tuned edges. Flex the ankles, push off, pressure the tongues of the boots and make that first carve. Ahh yes! What a great feeling and great to get a break to ski in November.

As I said my goodbyes for the day, I passed the Mountain Club on the way down County Line Road. My mind drifted to all the good times at that club playing the piano during the Christmas season. I will tell you a little more about that but first I need to explain my roots in music. My mother thought it would be a great idea for me to take piano lessons as a young child and as I made my way to Mrs. C’s house, I had some trepidations. I will not divulge Mrs. C’s name for reasons yet to be told. Mrs. C was a demanding Asian lady who knew full well when I did not practice my scales. She was very particular with my finger positions and demanded accuracy as I made my way through the octaves. On occasion, her mother would teach me and she had this interesting habit of passing gas during my scale interpretations. It was a little unnerving as I hit some real clunkers when she would bounce one of those gas bombs off the piano bench. I told my mom when I got home and in typical fashion, my mom gave me some BS by saying that it was acceptable in the Asian culture to pass gas and that I should not think a thing about it and just play my scales. I found that explanation unusual and soldiered my way through the lessons with old lady C as best as I could. I was thankful when I started to take lessons from a new lady down the street named Mrs. Manson. She was equally demanding in all respects but on occasion, her daughter Carlene would teach me. Carlene was a gorgeous grad student with long blonde hair and was a real stunner. As a young teenager with the hormones raging, it was again hard to concentrate during the chromatic progressions with her sitting right next to me. I often tried to get out of my lessons when I was playing football across the street but my dad called me to take a shower and get moving. As I walked down the street with my hair freezing in the wind, I always hoped that Carlene would be filling in. It was a good thing she was not sitting next to me in the recitals because the nerves would surely have detonated my piece and I would have embarrased myself by playing the cracks all during my turn at bat. Her boyfriend showed up one day and as a youthful brat, I was jealous. “I’ll bet he can’t play the Flight of the Bumble Bee as well as me!” I wanted to take him out, but he was a little large for me.

High school was fun with my piano playing moving towards Billy Joel, Elton John, and Leon Russell pieces. I could do them some justice but only in a crude high school manner of getting most of the notes right with the clunkers being ignored by my understanding friends. I really enjoyed playing for my mother whom I accompanied while she sang. My mom had perfect pitch and sang at the Pittsburgh Playhouse for years. It was a treat to accompany her and it gave her great joy to have me play for her. This led to many Christmas carol parties at my parents house but that will be the subject of another post. Suffice to say, I did my fair share of playing in high school.

Moving on to college, I continued to take lessons as electives. I studied under Mrs. Frederick Marantz who was a real professional. Her husband looked and played like Artur Rubenstein and it was a real joy to hear him play that Steinway in their living room. When the both of them played, I should have sold tickets. What a treat to hear those two people play with amazing talent and skill. I felt like such a rube when I arrived fresh from the tennis court in my t-shirt and shorts dripping on the Steinway. Mrs. Marantz was so kind by saying that it didn’t matter how I showed up as long as I had practiced. While her other students were playing classical pieces and preparing to enter Oberlin or Juilliard, I was playing Scott Joplin and ragtime piano. The Marantzes thought it was amusing and I was kind of a novelty at the recitals. But they all knew I was in it for the fun and my talent was limited. No Oberlin or Juilliard for me, but I could still bang out the ragtime or the Christmas carols when needed.

So, if we were fortunate enough to have snow between Thanksgiving and Christmas,the apres ski was a lot of fun. I was teaching skiing with my group on the weekends in my younger days, and Craig Morris our ringleader got a pickup truck filled with hay and we all would sing Christmas carols all over the mountain on one Saturday night before the holiday. Because of my limited training, I was the musical director and printed out all the song sheets. This became a pretty popular affair and the people on the mountain whose chalets we visited became incensed if we didn’t make a stop at their place to drain all of their beer and booze. It was like a rite of the season for our motly crew to visit and sing off key for their enjoyment. Their penalty was going to the beer distributor the next day to refill their fridges. Craig and I used to always put this show together and it ended up at the Mountain Club. The first year, I was a little shy to play the piano until I suddenly was placed on the piano bench rather abruptly by our skiing pal Joe Scott who in the holiday spirit said,” Play some Christmas carols or I will kick your ass.” We all laughed and I obliged and we drained all the resources from the club including food. We were a roving band of gypsies that’s for sure and as I drove down the mountain on opening day this year, I could still hear those carols as I passed the Mountain Club. It seemed to me that the sounds muffled as I approached the turnpike for the trek back to the burg. But those days will never be forgotten and it all started with the flattulance of an old lady and the beautiful strains of my mother’s perfectly pitched soprano voice. I am happy that I have that skill. I have had a lot of fun expecially during the holidays with it, and although I am no Rubenstein or Fred Marantz, I can play the cracks as well as anybody expecially on a beautufully polished Steinway grand piano. Don’t listen to me too critically and you will enjoy my enthusiasm even though the occasional clunker might resonate. Thanks for listening, er ahh reading. Think Snow!!!

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Get to know an Austrian

From the Best of http://www.chroniclesofmccloskey.com

Trans Can HigwayGoogle Image Result for http--www.flags.net-images-largeflags-AUST0002.GIF (2)photophotophotorodeln01 If you check out my Janury 23rd blog post about my time in Austria called “The Rodelrennen” you will see some funny things that happened along the way there. If you are a skier, at some point you will meet an Austrian. Even if you are not a skier, you will still like the stories of a very passionate and humorous people whose lives revolve around winter sports. As I said in the post, my first experience with the Austrians was on an exchange trip between U.S. and Austrian ski instructors. I was a guest for two weeks in that country and participated in the Rodelrennen(read about it), skied in many areas including the Soelden glacier where the recent World Cup opening races were held, and taught for a week in Kuhtai- a small resort near the Italian border. Witnessing the Hahnnenkamm World Cup Downhill Race, I got to see the passion of the Austrians up close and personal as 100,000+ people line the “Streif” to see their heroes rocket down the slope at nearly 90 MPH into the finish area. This race is like the Super Bowl in Austria and the whole town of Kitzbuhel buzzes with the energy of the world’s greatest ski race.

In my teaching experience over there at Kuhtai, I was reminded that the origin of ski instruction was in St. Anton, Austria. The technique of the Austrians was never questioned and the introduction of the wider stance by the PSIA American Technique was seen with a wary eye by the patrons of the Kuhtai resort. I was trying to teach them the wider, more athletic stance that the racers were using, but the ladies and gentlemen who were taking the mandatory lesson at the time would hear none of that. They wanted me to guide them basically around the resort and not try to teach them anything new especially the current teachings of the PSIA. I drank their plum schnapps and reveled with them as they all enjoyed their time in Kuhtai, but make no mistake, we were in the land of skiing- Austria. Anyone else who thought differently was a usurper to the ultimate degree.

Personally, I have met many Austrians in my skiing adventures and as much as they are a proud people who take their winter sports very seriously, they are a fun lot. Take my friend Max Katzenberger. Max was a pilot for USAirways and was proud of the fact that he was a captain and worked his way up through the Austrian military. He always walked in front of his crew and remarked to me one time that whenever he was in a holding pattern and wanted to land, he just thickened up his accent a bit and they got him down in a hurry. Another time, some guys were ignoring the flight attendants on the plane and their instructions. Max called the security at the gate and had them removed from the plane. He remarked,” I tell you guys to behave, you don’t behave, now you go to the Klink!!!” You don’t mess with an Austrian. Max was fun to ski with and was a very enjoyable host on my honeymoon with Janet. We met Max and his wife Barb in Austria and toured the country with them. They showed us his home town of Moedling and we spent some time in the Austrian wine country in the foothills of the Alps in a town named Gumpleskirchen. Max had that joyous love of life. He passed away a few years ago and he is sorely missed among the local ski community.

Josef Cabe was the ski school director at Hidden Valley Resort here in Pa. for many years. Josef and I would travel to PSIA update clinics and it was so funny to hear his big hearty laugh and his very thick accent. He constantly criticized the clinic leaders and insisted on showing them the right way to ski. He was strong as a bull and could ski most people into the ground, including the clinic leaders. In the evenings, he led the group in song with Austrian anthems and everybody loved Josef on the slope and off the slopes.

Another Austrian that I spent some fun time with was Rolf Sigmund who owned a ski shop in town at the time. Rolf was a solid skier in the Austrian mold and we went heli-skiing one time in British Columbia together. He didn’t like the off piste skiing in the trees, and in the wind packed conditions that you get sometimes before you hit the deep powder that is always shown in the movies for heli-skiing. Sometimes it gets pretty rugged and Rolf always remarked to me on that trip that,” thees is pullsheet McClaaaahskey. We should go to Tahoe. The slopes are smooth and the chicks look at you in da lines and it is way more fun than theeees pullllsheet McClaaahhhhskey.” I laughed as he tried to bribe the helicopter pilot into flying us back to the lodge so we could watch the Super Bowl. Rolf was hilarious as he drank his schnapps and abused some loud obnoxious New Yorkers who were along on the trip.

I got my rear end chewed pretty well one time by a rather intimidating Austrian named Rudi Kuersteiner. I was with a group of guys skiing rather fast through a beginner area at Whiteface in the Adirondacks. We were there for a clinic and Rudi saw us and skied up to us at the bottom of the hill and demanded that we all follow him to the side of the slope. There he told us in no uncertain terms how rude we were and how dangerous it was to ski that fast where beginners are learning to ski. He was right!! We were wrong and were told so by an old pro. Again, you don’t mess with an Austrian. Fun loving people but don’t get on their bad side.

The Austrians are passionate people and if you get the chance to ski with them, talk with them, drink beers with them, you will surely have a good time and you will be told how skiing really is and how you must go to Austria to ski where it all began. I always laugh when I think of their universal famous line to me…………” you don’t know sheeeeet McClaaaahhhskey.” They are right. Thanks for reading.

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The Married Bachelor

IMG00251-20100811-2242NiteRider2IMGP1917 I was out the last two nights on the mountain bike in absolutely beautiful, starlit conditions riding the trails with my new Cree light. Amazing technology for a very low price. But, as I rode along the trails and daydreamed a little bit, I thought about the seasons of my life as the 58 year old kid. I was a bachelor until just about 34 years old, then I was engaged, married to a great gal, became a new father and currently just celebrated 25 years with the bride and 18 years with our son Jack. One of the interesting seasons was when I was first married and Janet still was a flight attendant for USAirways. Jan had to get used to living with the bachelor. For instance, when she spotted my toilet in the bathroom in my townhouse, she wondered what the hanger was sticking out of from under the lid. I said that it was to shim up the float device so that it wouldn’t leak. I said all she had to do was remove the hanger, do her business, and then replace the shimming device. She said,” This isn’t going to fly Mr. Bachelor.” We laughed and I had to figure out how to replace the device with a new device. I became an expert at toilet repair.

When Jan would go out on a trip, I was basically back to my old ways in riding after work and coming home after eating with the boys. My neighbors called me the married bachelor and laughed at my life having it both ways. Night mountain bike riding was a staple and I had several crews. The one group liked urban rides in the city parks of Pittsburgh with an intermediate stop at the Penn Brewery. After a couple of nice micro brews, we ventured to some more parks and over some rather harrowing railroad bridges. The lights are great but sometimes you couldn’t spot the holes in the boards that were the catwalk alongside the tracks. If you were not careful, the front wheel could nosedive and the ultimate over the bars onto the wooded walk was the result. Also, the final uphill at 180 BPM on the heart rate monitor with the beers in you was a little unnerving. But these guys were fun and by the time I came home, I had a good workout, some good comraderie, and my neighbors who were still up marveled at my life.

The other night riding crew was a more non-traditional crew to say the least. Mountain bikers tend to be free spirits and I ended up out in the woods in the eastern part of town later at night than I usually intended. This crew was fun, good riders, but stopped often to light up a few fatties and sit and look at the moon. Being a non-partaker, I liked the company and the ride, but was anxious to get rolling( not the fattie) and get back to my car and back to my house before it became insanely late. Again, the neighbors would laugh as I returned even late at night because from out of their window or out for a late night stroll, they lived vicariously through me as the married bachelor. ” What would Jan say if she knew you were out mountain bike riding at night, on railroad tracks,in city parks or suburban parks, drinking beer and carousing until now?” I laughed and said, ” she knows I ride. She just doesn’t know all the details.”

The Married Bachelor also went on ski trips when the bride was working. We had no children at the time and if she was working, sometimes I would get a wild hair and use my airline pass and book a flight to see some of my skiing buddies. I would run into some of her flight attendant friends who would ask where Janet was and I said…..”working.” They would laugh and say “nice life you have because of her labor, McCloskey.” I said,” Marry me, fly for free.” Only sometimes I took it to the extreme. But all in all, the neighbors would see me packing my ski bag and just shake their head and say, “what are you going to do when you have kids?” I said, ” I will cross that road when I come to it” and headed to the airport. Lots of powder, groomed trails, and fun with the ski buddies.

I was always dilligent in keeping in touch with my flying bride and oftentimes it was from somewhere out on a trail or in some watering hole with the dirtheads. But the transition from bachelor to married life was a little easier than most guys have it. Looking back, poor Jan had it worse than me. Gone during the week and coming back to a leaking toilet, or surprises in the basement because of the hole in the foundation that allowed visitors into the basement unattended. In my usual bachelor ways, I promised my bride that I would have that fixed and while she was away, I got an old 8 track tape box and jammed it up against the hole with some cement blocks behind it. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t much to the dismay of the bride doing wash in the basement and being greeted by either a living species or a dead one in a trap. She was a trooper and the married bachelor slowly came around to being a respectable human being.

When Jack came along, things changed a bit. Jan was no longer flying and my riding was confined to the butt crack of dawn during the week before work and on the weekends. The skiing was altered in the same manner but married life was wonderful especially with the new boy in the house. Lots of adventures since then that included skiing, riding, baseball, basketball, and now the boy is 18 and off to college next year. We all wonder what happened to the time and as we look back at the seasons of our life, Janet and I have a lot of laughs about the married bachelor days and the transition to fatherhood and settling in with the bride. I am so glad I did it. I had a lot of fun in the single days but nothing compares to being married with a son. Now the rides are in the evenings again because the time constraints have eased a bit. As I make my way through the leaves and the cooler weather on the trails, I enjoy them with friends, or by myself, or better yet………with the bride who saved the married bachelor. Thanks for reading and …………..think snow!!!

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The Happiest Guy in the Whole World

downsized_0715091352richard-dix-2-sizedphoto John E. Reynolds- born August 8, 1899. Heads used to turn when nurses at the doctors office asked my grandfather his date of birth. Not many people had met someone who was still living a vibrant life and had been born at the turn of the 20th century. I spent a lot of time with my grandpap and the picture you see above is of me and my grandpap deep sea fishing off of Oregon Inlet, North Carolina. More on that in a minute.

John E was a character. Apparently in the days of prohibition, my grandpap had a key to every speakeasy in Pittsburgh. He liked a party and no government regulation was going to stop him from making gin in his bathtub upstairs or frequenting the joints that had music playing and liquor flowing. The other picture above is of Richard Dix the famous silent film star. My grandmother was friends with Alice Mills who was a silent film heroine and it was not unusual for Alice to visit Pittsburgh from California and bring other stars with her like Richard Dix. The reason they came was not only to see the Mills family but to get together with John Reynolds at the speakeasies and have a good old party in the middle of prohibition. My grandfather was actually pretty well known in the Hollywood circles and more and more stars came to Pittsburgh. They wanted to take my mother back to Hollywood and get her started as a child star but my grandmother would have no part of that. So Hollywood came to the North Side and had much revelrie with John E. Reynolds. The Feds came to my grandpap’s house one time and asked him if they could look out from his pantry to see the illegal wine making operation happening with the neighbor. Apprently there was some wine trafficking and the Feds wanted to use my grandparent’s house as a lookout. Well obviously when they told John E when they would be back, he immediately called old man Volpe and tipped him off. The day the Feds came back, there was no activity and they gave my grandpap a quizical look. Needless to say, the wine always flowed at 2815 Stayton Street courtesy of Volpe the bootlegger.

Fast forward, I came on the scene right before my grandparents stopped drinking. They had had enough and decided to quit cold turkey. The Abbot Beer Distributor was never the same without my grandpap and his cases of Duquesne Beer. But, all was well and they embarked on a mission to educate their grandson on the weekends. On Friday nights, they would always take me to dinner as a young lad and then we would make a beeline to Wheeling, West Virginia to take in the horse races at Waterford Park. My grandparents were purists. No trotters for them. They liked the flat races and taught me how to read a tip sheet, how to look at the horses and the jockeys, how to wait until the last minute to see the odds before placing a bet. My grandfather always swung for the fences and placed money to win. My grandmother was much more conservative and placed show bets. In her mind she would win if she hit either a winner a second place or a third place. But not John E. He went for the gusto and made me go to the window to place all bets. The people behind the windows got to know me and allowed me to place my grandparents bets even though I was woefully underage. My grandpap smiled and laughed no matter what happened. He just liked to watch them race. They took me to Hollywood in Florida, Pimlico, Churchill Downs, and all the other major tracks on the east coast. We had a ball and my grandpap smiled the whole time.

My grandpap always took me fishing as a young guy and to this day, I still use all of his tackle and rods. His cronies were Bill Marcus(an attorney), and Judge Bill Miller. Both of these gentlemen loved to fish and we went everywhere together. They had quite a racket. My grandfather was a real estate appraiser and bankruptcy referee. When Interstate 279 was going to be built, all the houses in the East Street Valley had to be appraised so that the government could pay people to leave their houses to make way for the new road. The three amigos did all the appraisal and legal work and it was years of work due to the scope of the project. They would work from April to November, take December off for the holidays and then spend the next three months in Florida fishing and playing golf. I would visit and fishing became second nature to me. When I could drive, it got better for the three amigos because they could sleep in the car while I drove to Canada, North Carolina or Florida. Lots of miles logged, lots of Canadian fresh water fishing with little to do for a teenager at night after those guys went to bed at 8:00PM. But at 4:30 AM they were ready to rock. They always let me drive the boat and run the outboard. It got a little dicey when we were in the Everglades and my grandpap thought it was funny to sneak up on an alligator and poke him with the fishing rod. Their mouths would always open in a menacing smile and as a cherubic young lad, I was in shock as my grandfather laughed hysterically. I dinged the propeller a few times in Canada on hidden rocks and almost tipped the skiff in the Everglades due to some jerky operation of the outboard motor, but the kind and patient instructions from the three amigos was always reassuring.

After my grandmother had passed, my grandpap lived alone in their new condo in the north of Pittsburgh. I say new because my grandpap almost burned the house down on the Northside when he had about 3 adapters and 9 plugs in the wall with his new computer and other electrical devices that overloaded the circuits. As the house smoked and the firemen put out the flames, they took it as a sign to move and they bought the condo. My mother would always look out for my grandpap on the Access bus every day, feed him his dinner, and then watch him return on the bus. I helped her by cooking dinner at the condo from time to time and taking John E. out after my run or bike riding. We always laughed about the old days, the fishing, the horse races and life on the Northside. My grandfather always wore a coat and tie as was the custom of the old time Irishmen. In fact, he was the only guy to walk every day down at North Park lake with the coat and tie and hat. He always bought a new car every year and one year when he was 89, he decided to buy a Honda. As a died in the wool Buick guy, this was surely a departure but when he accidentally drove it over the hill and into the woods at my folks house, he climbed out of the Honda and looked at me and said,” Ooh- I guess it is time for the Access bus.” Again we laughed, but deep down we were relieved that he was ok and he was no longer driving. When he turned 90, we sat him in the back of my dad’s vintage Buick convertable with a sign that read, ” John Reynolds is 90 Today”. One smart ass yelled to him ” Are you still getting any John?” And quick as a shot, he hollered back,” Yea- more than you sonny.” We all howled at that one.

The best part about all of this and my wonderful memories of him will always be his persistent smile and good humor. Now I am not a geneticist and I don’t know about traits that are passed down. But I like to think that I am a positive person. I love life and all the interesting, funny and adventurous times that come about in one’s lifetime. I believe my joie de vivre came from my grandpap. My mother always said that I took after him with his humor, his traits, and his quirky way of living. I am definitely a Reynolds and I can say that I am proud of that. Not that there is anything wrong with the McCloskey side of the family, but John E. Reynolds was a great role model and wonderful guy to know and love. Everyone should have a grandpap like I had. Everytime I throw a line in the water and try to land the big one, I think of him. Everytime I watch the Derby and the Preakness, I think about him betting the farm on the big win and my grandmother harrassing him the whole time. Everytime I see a white Buick with black interior( he was color blind), I think of him. The guy was hilarious. I can’t wait to see him again in glory!! Thanks for reading.