DON'T MESS WITH THE MOUSE!

 

Who better represents the will of the American people – the government or corporations? In the last presidential election, 70% of the voting-eligible population was registered to vote and about 61% voted. Almost 9 in 10 registered voters cast a ballot. I’m confident that the percentages are generally lower for state and local elections. But nearly every one of us votes every day with our dollars. Biden vs. Trump – many Americans will abstain on this question, but Coke vs. Pepsi – our cumulative buying power determines the winner!

In a battle of epic proportions, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has taken on “The Most Magical Place on Earth,” aka Walt Disney World, the largest employer in his state. Many in Florida and elsewhere see this tit-for-tat as DeSantis’s retaliation for Disney’s opposition to “Don’t Say Gay” (Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act).

With annual revenues above $82 billion, The Walt Disney Company is one of best-known corporations in the world, ranked number 53 in the Fortune 500 list of the biggest companies in the US. Whichever team (reactionary or woke) in the American culture wars you support, I would not hesitate to assert that Disney, one of America’s and the world’s favorite brands, is likely to outlast the political career of Gov. DeSantis.

I further dare to speculate that among the 58 million or so annual visitors to Disney’s Florida resort, the chances of finding a patron donning a MAGA hat are at least as great as finding one who displays a “Vote Blue” lapel pin or t-shirt.

A UNIQUE NEW YORK EXPERIENCE

“Isn’t everything in New York unique?” you ask. Perhaps a valid question, but in my many decades in this city, this was a new experience for me. The setting was Yankee Stadium. What could be more iconically “New York” than that?

But then reality shifted and I entered what I will call the “Alternate Baseball Universe.” Three friends had persuaded me to join them at a Yankee game. (My arm still aches from the twisting.) Now it’s not that I don’t like baseball, but being a life-long, die-hard Mets fan, this was not easy. That, and the one hundred dollar ticket price. But I later found out that the regular price for these tickets was $150 and it included food and soft drinks, so it was really quite a bargain.

I was told before I arrived at the stadium that this was a luxury suite. I had been in one once at Shea and it was quite lovely. A private room for about 25 people with your own bathroom and covered open seating facing the action. It was a playoff game in 2000 and I had gotten the ticket through my job. (Not the romance writing job, but the rent-paying job.) My co-worker and I seemed to be the only ones interested in the game and I got the feeling that the other “fans” were out-of-town business people just there for the free food. When the score became lopsided – I think the Mets were losing by seven runs – the others retired to the comfortable living-room-style suite and watched a football game (!) on the television screen provided. My friend and I remained outside in the now-empty covered seating section, leaning out of the opening, cheering on our team and trying to capture the feeling that we were actually attending a baseball game – a playoff game, at that!

Though the Mets lost that game (they went on to become the National League Champs that year – we won’t talk about the 2000 World Series) it was a pleasant experience. I enjoyed all the hot dogs, hamburgers, French fries and chicken fingers I wanted and even got a free Mets cap to take home.

But back to the Alternate Baseball Universe. Riding the D train to The Bronx, I pictured a similar setting for our Yankee game – a covered luxury suite with an endless supply of typical baseball-stadium fare and all the bottled water or soda I wanted. We had already been told beer was extra. Bummer. When we got to the stadium we had no idea how to find our seats. A lovely young woman with a pin-stripe-adorned “May I Help You?” sign pointed us toward a guarded glass door. That led to an elevator and we got off at the level for “Audi Yankees Club” – that’s what it said on our tickets.

This was not a luxury suite – it was a restaurant seating some three hundred guests! Instead of French fries and hamburgers we feasted on lobster fritters, pan-fried soft-shell crabs, shrimp cocktail as big as your hand, sautéed asparagus and very rare filet mignon with béarnaise sauce. No kidding. Oh, and there were fries – sweet potato fries. The miniature pastries on the dessert bar were as tempting as any delicacy from the finest bakery. But lest anyone feel deprived (or forget that he was inside a Major League ballpark), hot dogs were provided, along with potato chips and popcorn. The food was wonderful and gracefully dished out buffet-style by servers wearing chef hats inscribed with the famed “NY” logo.

Yet that wasn’t the weirdest part. Our seats were arranged dinner-theater style before long tables all facing the field. But between the “regular” fans and us was a huge glass picture window. Here we were, watching a baseball game from inside a hermetically-sealed, soundproof, climate-controlled restaurant. We couldn’t even hear the National Anthem (we stood anyway since they piped in the soundtrack) or the roar of the crowd. It was like watching the game on a humongous TV screen, and to underscore the TV-like ambiance, the play-by-play telecast of the entire game was piped in, too.

We were attending a baseball game…but it didn’t feel like it to me. During particularly exhilarating moments – the scoring of a “go ahead” run or a breathtaking defensive play – excited fans are often moved to high-five the complete strangers seated near them. Yet this would have felt unseemly within the sophisticated milieu of the Audi Yankees Club. We were there at a ballpark, but not really there. All the action unfolded before us but we were removed from it. Part of the experience and much of the fun of attending a baseball game is to be among the other fans, not separated from them by glass. Fans are collectively referred to as the “tenth man”. We are part of the game and our “root, root, rooting” for the home team helps spur them to action. Sequestered within our opulent isolation booth, we became observers, not participants.

I don’t regret my expedition into the Alternate Baseball Universe of the Audi Yankees Club. (Yes, there were brochures hawking the luxury autos on a discreet rack near the exit.) The food was wonderful and the company agreeable. It just wasn’t an authentic baseball experience.

Now, this is where I usually make some obscure connection from my blog post to my upcoming World War II romance novel. Hmm…. World War II… war…. Well baseball is a little like war…. Ok, that’s a stretch. So I’ll just refer you to my website at www.lisbetheng.com for more info about In the Arms of the Enemy, coming October 1 from The Wild Rose Press. See, I can write a blog post without gratuitous, blatant self-promotion!

Oh, and in case you’re interested, the Yankees lost.

***

Note: This is a repost of a piece I had written over 12 years ago for a joint blog, "Four Horsewomen of the Metropolis," http://4horsewomen.blogspot.com/ which I created along with three other New York City romance writers. That blog is currently dormant, but please peruse the posts at your leisure, especially the ones I wrote. 

You are also invited to visit my other blog, "World War II...with a German accent," at www.lisbetheng.blogspot.com, is filled with wit, wisdom and historical exploration, if I may (not-so-humbly) describe it as such.

ISLAND No. 10

Sometimes when we memorialize a war, we highlight the battles. I did quite a bit of research for my first novel, In the Arms of the Enemy, a romance set during World War II. Though mainly focused on the European Theater of Operations – Monte Cassino, Anzio, Normandy, the Bulge – I am familiar with some battles in the Pacific as well, such as Midway, Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Having begun a second novel, set during the American Revolutionary War, I’m becoming conversant in Lexington and Concord, Saratoga, Cowpens and Yorktown.

In Manhattan at Riverside Drive and 89^th Street (about a block from where I live) is the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, commemorating those who sacrificed for the Union, at such fabled places as Fort Sumter, Shiloh and Gettysburg.

In January 1900, the laying of the first stone of the monument, an elegant, temple-like structure, was officiated by New York State Governor Theodore Roosevelt. A parade of Civil War veterans up Riverside Drive preceded the unveiling on Memorial Day 1902 (then called “Decoration Day”).

I frequently visit the Park and often begin my walk at 89^th and Riverside, the entrance closest to my home. The grandeur of scale, graceful white marble and classical simplicity of the monument never fails to attract my notice, though I’ve passed by it countless times. Commissioned in 1893 by the City of New York and the Memorial Committee of the Grand Army of the Republic, the structure evokes a Corinthian temple, and bears the noble inscription: "To the Memory of the Brave Soldiers and Sailors Who Saved the Union."

Two solemn plinths, rising like sentinels, frame the entrance to the plaza in front of the monument. These are inscribed with the names of the New York volunteer regiments, Union generals and the battles in which they staked life and limb.

As I pay due respect to the fallen heroes of my country, I try to imagine the scene some 121 years ago, when the monument was first unveiled. Bold and stalwart veterans, withered by battles decades past, march proudly up Riverside Drive. Lining the avenue assemble widows and orphans and mothers, cheering and waving small flags to commemorate those enshrined at this hallowed place. Now, I wonder as I pass, whether the children noisily playing, or embellishing the plaza with colored chalk, the nannies and dog walkers, the teenagers on skateboards, give any thought to the soldiers and sailors long gone, on either side of the conflict.

One plinth bears the name of Sherman, and most of the battles cited are familiar to me: Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Cold Harbor, Atlanta. The opposite plinth celebrates Grant, and lists such battles as Bull Run and Port Royal. The last battle inscribed on this plinth is one I do not recognize, and whose name seems almost out of place: Island No. 10. Relying on Wikipedia, I discover that this engagement at the Kentucky Bend on the Mississippi River lasted from February 28 to April 8, 1862. The Union causalities were relatively light, with 23 killed, 50 wounded and 5 missing, while some 7,000 Confederate troops surrendered and 30 were killed or wounded.

Perhaps one of those fifty, in his faded blue uniform, marched up Riverside Drive on Decoration Day in May of 1902. And perhaps the grieving widow or bereft mother of one of the twenty-three, from whom “Island No. 10” demands eternal reverence, wept and waved the stars and stripes that day.

Let us remember them.