My Life As A Hobby

Recently, a group of us gathered at an empty floor of an office building.  There were people from all walks of life: attorneys, bankers, stockbrokers, teachers, and even an old writer. The secret club we formed in high school still meets regularly. Actually, this sounds a lot more impressive than it is. It is not the Illuminati or Knights Templar - it ain’t even the Shriners. We met on a deserted floor of an office building, not because of secrecy, but because it was the only place we could find. In actuality, our gathering is about as exclusive as members of Sam’s Wholesale Club.  In high school, it wasn’t a group of young scholars meeting to discuss literature, poetry, or current events. Most of us weren’t exactly the Future Leaders of America. In fact, if memory serves, several members of our club spent more time getting in trouble than preparing to become productive citizens. Nevertheless, our organization has a number of distinguished alumni, most of us now in early in ou...

It’s the sound more than the smell that takes me back. Not a loud sizzle like bacon, but quieter, softer. As a kid, when I heard a low hiss from a cast-iron skillet, I knew what it meant: supper was going to be hot dogs.  Hot dogs - also known as tube steaks, franks, weenies, or coneys, is a food that’s so deeply American we practically wrap them in the flag and give them a seat of honor at every Fourth of July barbecue. It’s hard to believe the hot dog, which we rank right up there with baseball and apple pie, actually came from German immigrants. Leave it to us to take another country’s wurst and make it our best.  Hot dogs established themselves as street food in New York City about 150 years ago. At first, it was a quick lunch for working men. Soon, their popularity grew to Coney Island and beyond. Summer officially marks the beginning of hot dog season in America. But growing up, it was a year-round meal in our house. My dad fancied himself a coney connoisseur, so th...

It began innocently enough. Most bad things do. Nobody ever says, “Hey, I’m let’s go to the bowling alley and see if you can suffer an injury in front of your grandchildren.” But there I was, standing under the glow of fluorescent lights and the smell of rented shoes, about to learn yet another important lesson about aging. It wasn’t my intent. I had just stopped by because I knew my son was at the bowling alley with three of my granddaughters. I decided to make a surprise guest appearance and watch them bowl. And that’s when it happened. One of them asked me to bowl a frame. One frame. That’s two rolls of a bowling ball. Two. Not climbing Mount Everest. Not competing in the decathlon. Not wrestling an alligator. It’s bowling - the . sport most commonly associated with pitchers of beer, chili-cheese fries, and men named Earl. In fairness, I used to be a decent bowler back in the day. I even bowled in a league when I was a kid. I owned my own bowling ball at one point in life, which...