A Salute to Dave Spinelli

Shhhhhhh.....

It doesn’t matter where you put the accent, but it does matter how you tilt your hat.  Everyone is a Berliner.  Everyone is a pilgrim.  Tying a bow tie is like tying a shoe.

An orca can devour a giant squid.  I saw it in a diorama in a museum.  I saw it in a movie.  I saw it in a dream.

If you are going to walk like a man, come out swinging.  If you are going to talk like a man, make it good.  If you get better than you give, the taste of a split lip is worth it.  War is a kind of poetry, and, needless to say, war is hell.  When a howling commando fights the good fight, he or she earns a medal forged from the alloy of a nation's gratitude.

When you’re bowling candlepins in a private, automated, basement bowling alley on State Street, the champagne factor can go to your head.  When you are rolling the bones on the bar at the veterans' club, the commotion at the shuffleboard table drowns out everything else.  This is what it sounds like when gulls cry.  


You can count bats in the jungle, but you can’t do it after dark.  Sometimes, home ways is best ways, even when the drinks are on the house and you have two on the bar.  Home is where the heart is.

A whale swims deep.  A pilgrim travels far.  Both play for keeps, doubling down on themselves, collecting the winnings, sharing the wealth.  

Fairfield County is one part of Connecticut.  New London County is its opposite.  The geographic center of the Constitution State is in Berlin, Hartford County, Connecticut, USA, the Provision State.  Ever heard of it? 

Whatever swamp or jungle a pilgrim finds himself or herself in, there is a way to go about things.  It is easy.  It isn’t a secret.  It is as easy as tying a shoe.  

Qui Transtulit Sustinet.  Who Transplants Sustains.  Everyone goes where they come from.