All About BJ's

"I like BJ's!"

You're never supposed to begin a story with a quote, but who cares, when we're talking about the BlogWorld, right?

The quote has nothing to do with porn. My little nephew, James (not Vanishing James), a few years ago. You see, my brother and sister-in-law are (were?) frequent shoppers at a place called BJ's Wholesale Club.

The wife and I went there this morning. A little low on water, we bought six cases of 2.5-liter thingies (2 per case, so 5 gallons x 6 cases = 30 gallons). That'll last us a few weeks, for sure. It's not like we're in the middle of the desert; we just like to remain hydrated.

We got some other crap there, like Skippy and canola oil.

Did you know the B and the J in BJ's stand, respectively, for Berkley and Jensen? (I don't give a sh!t, either.)

Speaking of sh!t, I always remember that time in kindergarten when David Isaac sh!t his pants. Mrs. Halpern was so diplomatic about it.

"David had a little accident, and he had to go home," she said after we wondered why he got to tip out after a potty stop.

After that, everyone wanted to sh!t their pants, if they wanted to go home. Not me, though. I had some great kindergarten friends, especially Keith Blumenstock. He was cool, and I think I had like a 5-year-old's crush on his sister, Karen, who was a year behind us.

The Blumenstocks lived right near the school -- much closer than me, in terms of a kindergartener's view of the world map -- and had the forest leading to the fields right behind their house. Back then, you were allowed to play in the woods, and I fondly recall going through their backyard gate, walking the path, and hanging out at the field and talking about how David Isaac sh!t his pants.

That was the one year of my life spent in public school. The next year, I was in Catholic grammar school, and I subsequently went to an all-boys Catholic high school and a Jesuit university. I still love Jesus to this day. He is (was) an extremely cool dude. We should forget about Berkley and Jensen and have BJ's stand for Big Jesus' or something. Actually, that might be a little over the top.

Oh yeah. So Keith Blumenstock remained in public school. As such, even in our small town, we rarely saw one another, although we always recognized each other. To my amazement, he appeared later in life, I think in college for a time. But I just checked the records and he did not graduate with me at any level post-kindergarten. Weird how the memory just does not seem to work as well after time passes. Maybe I just imagined the whole thing.

In checking said records, I took a few moments to check through my college yearbook. It was the total opposite of my high school yearbook in that there are next-to-no pictures of me. In the college yearbook, there is my graduation photo, of course, and only one other -- of the top of my graduation cap.

How, you are wondering, can I tell the top of my cap from everyone else's? Well, I used white tape and spelled "It's Done!" on the top of mine to be unique (sort of), stealing the idea from something contemporary to the times. I am pretty sure I still have that cap there.

"It's Done!" came from a saying that we had back in the day. The San Francisco Giants were storming the National League with the 3-4 combo of Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell. With the game at an important juncture, Mitchell would engage Clark before the later would head to the batter's box.

"Let's do it," Mitchell would say.

"It's done!" was Clark's response.

Being testosterone-driven, Strat-O-Matic-crazed 21-year-olds at the time, these words were like the gold standard for us. They might come up at any time, like when it was time to chug a pitcher at the Lantern or to approach a cute girl. If you needed that extra boost of confidence or adrenaline, you hoped one of the boys would give you a "Let's do it," so you could go into battle with an "It's done!"

The Bachelor of Arts in Communications, of course, was secondary.

Speaking of secondary, it recently was the Second of February, which is Groundhog's Day. That made it the 14-year anniversary of Jerry M's cockblock of my efforts to woo the H-Bomb, Heather Donlon.

I had the worst crush on this girl; maybe I was a little star-struck. She was on the basketball team but she was short, and if you saw her you would never mistake her for a baller. Well, Jerry used his Sports Information Department hook to get her and some of the other ballers, who happened to be an especially good-looking bunch for basketball players, to come to our Groundhog's Day bash.

There I am, sitting on our couch, and I have the H-Bomb as my captive audience. It's starting to go well. I am thinking this could be it. It continues to get better.

Then, out of nowhere, Jerry pops over, sits right between us, and just dominates the conversation.

Of course, he knew her very well. I knew her only a little, just from going to the games all the time and doing their radio broadcasts. See, although I am generally an outgoing person, I am shy when it comes to these things. My moment had passed. I was never able to get myself in the right position ever again. My life was changed.

I remind Jerry about it every year, although now I thank him for helping my life take this course.

By the way, the H-Bomb earned her nickname because she was a great 3-point shooter. In her freshman season of 1989-90, she set the NCAA Division I single-season 3-point shooting percentage record (57.5). It still stands today.

As more than a PR stunt, Jerry, who was the SID for the women's team, got us to go to the games with pictures of bombs (the ones that look like bowling balls with a fuse attached) drawn up by Russ, the artist and future priest.

Everytime Heather hit a 3-pointer, the Bomb Squad would get up and raucously cheer, then hang a bomb for all to see. Considering there usually were a couple of hundred people attending the games, we stood out. It helped her get some local and even national exposure.

I, of course, wanted to do more, since I was smitten. I'm pretty sure he had a crush on her, too, but we always just laugh when we talk about it now. I never actually have asked him.

Like a little kid, I cannot let a Groundhog's Day pass without somehow bringing up the story to Jerry, the same way that when my nephew James is old enough to understand, he'll be reminded of his most famous quote everytime he passes BJ's.

For Richer or ... Muller?

What a shock. Another story that involves Vanishing James (VJ).

So there we were, at the Meadowlands Arena sometime in the early 1990s for a Devils-Canadiens game.

I had on my usual game attire, the Christmassy-style away Devils jersey of Kirk Muller, number 9. VJ came equipped with the Candiens No. 44 away jersey of Stephane Richer.

Well, just days before, in what was a pretty earth-shattering deal at that time, Muller and Richer were dealt for one another.

In the first period, VJ and I wore our own clothes. For the second period, we switched jerseys. We swapped back for the third period.

A few years later, when I was covering a Devils game, I was talking to Richer in the locker room. He was in a good mood after an easy New Jersey victory, and there was no one around. I told him the story about the jerseys and the swap. We actually got a good laugh out of the whole deal.

Umm, the end.

Fake Reporter Should Cover Wiffle Ball

It does not take politics or religion to make a great friend. It takes Wiffle Ball.

The Beltway buzz is about a so-called "fake" reporter in the White House. Somehow, this made me wonder how I have such a great friend who is on the opposite side of the political fence. Then I figured it out.

Many years ago, on a beautiful spring afternoon in Poughkeepsie, left-hander Vanishing James threw a meatball to yours truly. The rest is history.

A lifelong Yankees fan and right-handed hitter, on this day I happened to be imitating the swing of the Mets' biggest gun at the time, Darryl Strawberry. Straw had the look of one of the great left-handed sluggers of all time (and his 1988 Strat-O-Matic card was an absolute home-run monster).

There we were, Vanishing James and I, on the front lawn of his parents' house on Van Siclen Drive. I stood at the far end of the house in my lefty Straw stance, Van Siclen in front of me if I pointed the Wiffle bat toward the imagined right-handed batters box. My butt was pointing at his house.

About 30 feet away, in pitching position on the imaginary mound, was Vanishing James, a lefty throwing with his left hand, the trees lining Van Siclen at his back during delivery.

The hurler winds up and grooves the Wiffle Ball toward me; actually, in my mind I was Strawberry. I (Straw) have the left elbow up, and the right elbow pointing down and sitting just near my lowest rib.

As the pitch comes in, the left elbow cocks up, the right elbow thrusts down, and the bat instantly wags from its straight-up position toward the incoming ball and in front of my left ear.

Then the right knee kicks up to the belt line (which was significantly more visible back then).

As the ball sails closer, the right leg uncoils, the left leg stiffens and the left foot pivots; the right foot finds terra firma. Next, the hips begin to turn, but the right shoulder remains intact. The hands, gripping the plastic bat that looks like a super-duper-sized McDonald's french fry, begin their journey toward the hitting zone.

Looking more and more like a beach ball, the white Wiffle moves closer.

The wrists begin their turn; the hands dart toward the zone. The shoulders are square to the imaginary plate. Everything is perfect.

The Wiffle Ball arrives and is greeted by the smoothest, most powerful and balanced stroke possible without ruining the plastic bat. At the moment of impact, bat meets ball on the solid end -- a Wiffle Ball has air holes through one side.

A new journey begins.

Rocketing on a parabola that mocks a power alley in right-center field, the violent whack has changed the direction of the Wiffle Ball -- and our lives -- in a most spectacular way.

First, it finds its way through some of the branches that hang most near to the house, facing the sun and away from Van Siclen. Next, the ball makes its way further up and out of the shadows of the house. The two players' visual hammerlocks are set dead on the ball.

The next milestone to clear is the driveway, and that is done with ease. As the plastic missile continues its ascent, pitcher and batter realize they are witnesses to history, and their respective places in it.

Will it clear the roof gutter of the next-door-neighbors' house? Affirmative. And still rising. This is a plastic Wiffle Ball, for God's sake!

How about the break in the roof? Done.

There is little time for descent. The ball touches down just past the halfway point of the roof, pitcher and batter gawking in stunned disbelief.

"Was that the furthest shot ever," I asked Vanishing James, after a pregnant pause and large gulp.

His look told me that nothing remotely like this had ever happened in his many years of Wiffle Balling parallel to Van Siclen.

Our place in history was firmly secure, even if it was just the two of us bearing witness. We might as well have seen a UFO together, because if anyone saw the setup, they simply would not believe it was possible.

To this day, we still hark back to that magical moment. Whenever opinions about the world we live in and life in general go awry, we can always go back to that place, to that moment on Van Siclen, and it makes everything right.

"Can you believe this stuff about the fake reporter in the White House?" Vanishing James said. And, of course, two strongly opinionated blokes began to spew about their differences in philosophy.

But, like always, we found our way back to the happy place.

"Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck,"he said, to which I replied, "right there with the Darryl Strawberry Wiffle Ball."