Come Together
So over the last coupla weeks I’ve been yabba-dabba-doing about the town of Newton blowing hot air on Doc Mendel’s front yard skating rink. They shut it down cold.
But in Great Barrington, the opposite just happened. The Railroad Street Youth Project skating rink opened in Memorial Park last week in a team-up with the Parks and Recreation department. The Railroad Street Youth Project helps steer young people away from substance abuse. They did a survey and found out that for the last year it’s been rough going. The survey said that kids want to be outside doing things. Hey, City of Newton, how goddamn hard is that to figure out?
One of the coolest and really upbeat things I’ve seen over these nutball months is a music video put together by Jeff Katz and his wife Eliza Ricordi. Eliza decided to teach herself how to play the drums during this shutdown stretch. Now she plays as good as Ringo. She also has a damn good voice.
So the duo cut this tune and it’s really inspiring for the times. It’s like Buck Norman says, “You gotta try new things, do things that maybe you’ve never done before. That’s what ya gotta do to make it through, Lou.” I’m thinking of taking up the tuba.
Jeff and his father Larry Katz run Arnold ‘s Meats. Great stores. Larry is an old friend of mine from Holyoke and his dad Eddie was one of my father’s best friends. Small world, good people. So as Tug McGraw always used to say, ya gotta believe. And as I always say, keep your dukes up.