Spring forward as I fall back
Calendars are passé, aren’t they?
Didn’t we surrender the entire concept of unique “days” in 2020?
Is there really any reason to “Spring Forward” this weekend?
Am I using too many question marks?
I intended to write a traditional “looking back” column in January, but I’d have no clue what day it is if it wasn’t printed in ink and pixels on every page of our newspapers and websites.
Either way, aren’t we all mentally flipping the calendar on the grim coronaversary this weekend anyway? (Sorry, there’s another one).
So I declare this New Year’s Day. Sober up as I rewind to past columns, and some responses from readers.
Shaken, and stirred: On Sunday, March 15, 2020, I wrote about interviewing Gen. David Petraeus in front of a Ferguson Library audience the previous Tuesday.
“I couldn’t shake the vibe that we were sneaking something in before everything changed,” I wrote. “When it ended, he reached over to shake hands. I knew it was the last time either of us would do that for a while.”
Indeed, the only paw I’ve accepted since then has been my dog’s. I wouldn’t have shaken Petraeus’ hand, but he has the stare of a general, and it would have looked like a snub at the end of a discourse on civility. Still, fellow columnist Carla Wallach emailed immediately to chastise me.
“You shook hands ????
What about the elbow or a bow, or a few words of thanks, and standing six feet away? You have to take better care of yourself.”
Opinion writers get used to being criticized, so it’s always jarring to get positive messages about personal well-being. I got similar ones after describing home projects during the early weeks of social isolation.
“And stay off the roof. Just sayin’,” Lucinda Winslow cautioned.
I didn’t, but it turned out I would have been safer on the roof. Last month, while hunting for vintage clips in the attic about White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki (during a snowstorm, no less), I took a step to the right instead of the left ... and stepped through the ceiling of the room below.
Left him in stitches: A column on New York Mets legend Tom Seaver referenced his road trip promoting baseball art 30 years ago, noting a stop in Houston. Michael Lang, who was there that day, shared a memory of his own.
“I asked him for a signed ball for my nephew Nick, my niece Shannon, and just a plain Tom Seaver.”
The ball came back signed “Plain Tom Seaver.”
Get the point: In his eversubtle way, Colin McEnroe has given me a reputation in his column for hating exclamation points (referring to me as John “I hate exclamation marks” Breunig).
It may be because I once referred to them as “the aluminum bats of expression.” More likely, it’s because I edit his column.
“Trump used eight exclamation points in the letter,” Colin wrote. “John Breunig, who edits this column, hates exclamation points and would probably have impeached Trump for that alone.”
One reader (of Colin’s column, not mine), responded by sending him a Mike Twohy New Yorker cartoon depicting a feline in the editor’s chair making a catty remark to an eager pooch about his doggerel.
“You tend to overuse the exclamation point,” the cat editor purrs.
The sender revealed that her husband, an ESPN writer, also avoids exclamation points. Then she spoiled the whole thing by punctuating her closing “Stay healthy and safe” sentiment with the cursed mark. At least she only used one.
And I feel fine: Curtain Call impresario Lou Ursone reached out April 6 to apologize for not reading the newspaper for the previous three weeks.
“If the world were truly ending, I’m sure (my wife) would let me know.”
It was. She didn’t.
But then, newspapers were hard to come by:
After I wrote about Personto-Person’s Katherine Uchupailla, who postponed grad school to help her four younger siblings through the pandemic, she asked me for print copies to share with her family. I rounded some up from our printing plant in Bridgeport, then delivered them to her at P2P’s Stamford warehouse, where she was helping pack food for the swelling number of hungry families in the area.
I brought The Kid with me, warning him to keep his distance. He ignored me and instantly volunteered to join the assembly line. He scored a bag of chips for his efforts. So yes, my 8-year-old swiped food intended for the hungry during a worldwide pandemic.
Thankfully, they chant his first name: My column on Jerry Springer drew praise ... from his long-time publicist.
“I have added it to my top 25 favorite articles,” she wrote.
I wonder who got bumped. Stamford’s Marlene Springer wrote that “my life was uneventful until Jerry Springer arrived on the scene.”
“Now I’m always asked, ‘Are you related to Jerry Springer?’ ”
It doesn’t help that she has a brother named Jerry, a daughter, Geraldine, and a son, Jerry.
“I’m triple whammied!!” I’d have permitted her three exclamation points.
It’s called a “briefing” for a reason: After I detailed how Connecticut dealt with the 1918 pandemic, Gov. Ned Lamont devoted several minutes of his daily briefing reading from my column.
The recording marked the first time I’ve seen my writing in sign language. My signing is rusty, but I’m pretty sure the interpreter snuck in, “Isn’t there a better way for the governor to spend this time during a pandemic?”
It stood a better chance in hell: I also unearthed a “note to self.” Back on March, in the second chapter of a series of diaries of life’s small moments in the pandemic, I mentioned putting a snowball in my freezer.
“I plan to smack one of the neighborhood coronavirus deniers with it in July.”
Alas, when the ideal opportunity time arrived, I discovered my wife had tossed it, along with other forgotten freezer items.
Maybe it is time to spring forward, and keep spinning those clock hands until we land in a post-COVID world.