Finding solace in the night

BY STEVE JANOSKI

The transition from working blue-collar jobs to working at a desk was a difficult one for me. The language I used had to be mildly cleaner, the aura was more laid back, and I was no longer working with a bunch of cats that can sit around and compare the quality of the Gatorade that's served at the state's various county jails.

The most unexpected part, however, was the gut that I began to get, as instead of doing five miles worth of walking every day while lifting stone or metal, I was sitting around drinking coffee for most of the day.

Without a change in eating habits, this meant that in a year, I was 15 pounds heavier than I wanted to be at too young of an age - I was still lifting weights, but I wasn't getting all of the non-exercise physical activity that I used to.

This could not go on, I decided.

At the time, I had just gotten a lab-mix puppy named Lola that was either born wild or had a secret PCP stash that she didn't let us on to, so I resolved to begin walking the little maniac every night as a way of tiring her out and getting myself moving more.

We only walked at night, because I have always been slightly anti-social and didn't want to have to converse with every wandering soul in my neighborhood. Lola had no problem with that - she's slightly anti-social as well, and feels the same about dogs as I do about people.

Every night, we ambled along in the brutal frigidness of the New Jersey winter, making our way through the gentle hills of my neighborhood, and I began to join the long line of men (and dogs, I'm sure) that found solace walking through the lonely night.

There are many characters throughout history who found that same comfort- the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau was known to take long walks about Paris, and used the time as a respite from the ever-modernizing society he lived in.

“These hours of solitude and meditation are the only ones in the day during which I am fully myself and for myself, without diversion, without obstacle, and during which I can truly claim to be what nature willed,” he wrote in his “Reveries of a Solitary Walker.”

Benjamin Franklin was another who enjoyed the strenuous work of simply moving, saying once in a letter to his son that, “There is more in one mile's walking on foot than in five on horseback.”

Boxers have long known the benefits of walking - an 1825 manual called “The Art and Practice of Boxing” advised walking at least two miles a day in between skill training, while heavyweight legend Rocky Marciano was known to walk for miles at night, regardless of whether he was preparing for a fight or not.

“His idea of a little walk is five miles out and five miles back after a meal. It keeps his legs in shape and, besides, it perks up his appetite,” said Rocky's trainer Charlie Goldman in 1953.

I found this to be true as well, as with a tighter diet and a couple miles a night, I began to drop weight.
Day after day though, I discovered other little nuances that being free of the protective shell of a Ford endowed me.

After a month, I could tell which houses had fireplaces by the thick aroma of burning wood that rolled out into the streets.

I watched as the constellations leisurely rambled across the night sky, and noticed that the water in a nearby reservoir had frozen in the shape of waves. The world truly does fall away at night, and gives us a glimpse of that which we've ignored when we're racing around in the streets.

One night, we stumbled upon a herd of a half-dozen deer - I caught the sight of their glinting eyes in the road first; Lola kept walking in a merry fog until I yanked her leash.

“Aren't you supposed to see them before I do?” I asked her sarcastically. She looked at me dismissively.

Four months and many arctic miles later, I'm back at my fighting weight of 171.

Of course, as the nights get warmer and life gets busy again, it's easy to get lazy.

“We'll go tomorrow…I've got stuff to do,” I say to her…but she won't let me forget, and perks up anytime I put a jacket on after dusk, watching me with her curious ears up.

“Not tonight pup. Tomorrow.”

Her eyes follow me, accusing. Before I leave, I turn to look at her again, sighing. Her eyes are bright, questioning.

“Alright dog. Let's go. A quick one though.”

She's out the door before me every time.

Defending our last bastion

Wednesday, March 24, 2010
By Steve Janoski

Only in Brooklyn could the idea of bringing a baby inside a bar sound anywhere near a good idea — but that's what happening, according to Jessica Ravitz's recent article on CNN.com, "Brooklyn brewhaha: Babies in bars."

Ravitz chronicles the story of one Matt Gross, 35, an editor for the blog DadWagon and the columnist who writes the Frugal Traveler in the New York Times. He's also the stay-at-home father of a 14-month old daughter.

In the article, Gross says that he "longs for adult contact," and that though he has a child, he "doesn't want to be excluded from the adult world," so he brings his daughter with him to the bar.

The craze has apparently caught on in Brooklyn, where bar patrons are forced to put up with middle-aged adolescents who can't tear themselves away from the bottle for long enough to raise a kid.

My objections to this are multilayered. As a 25-year-old pub connoisseur, I am revolted by the idea of sitting in my neighborhood dive surrounded by children.

The guys I know go to bars to be out with other adults. We go to hit on women, or to commiserate about what said women have done to us. We tell stories about other nights drinking, laugh at crude jokes, and, depending on the night of the week and the amount imbibed, other things that the majority of society frowns on.

But it's OK. Why? Because that's our escape from the straight-laced job or the overbearing wife, and our last, great hiding place from the never-ending responsibilities that are heaped on us over the course of life.

Children, however, have the run of the country. Everything is about "the children" — some celebrity has a costume malfunction at the Super Bowl, and it's "What about the children!?" If an athlete gets arrested for some indiscretion, its always, "What does this tell the children!?"

Kids can go to any movie theater or restaurant, and other patrons are expected to put up with any kind of screaming fits or other baby issues they might have. And that's fine — this is the way it is.

But honestly, the bars? Have they no mercy or compassion for this last bastion of true adulthood? We who go to bars do not want to be surrounded by children and strollers and other reminders of either present or future responsibilities…we just want to have a beer after work or enjoy a Friday night.

And on top of that, what does it say about the fathers themselves, putting a little kid in harm's way at a bar because you "long for adult contact?"

Any place where alcohol is served en masse' is going to come with a certain degree of danger, and bars are known for being the place where you…well, get drunk. And when those people get drunk, they act in wholly different ways than they would otherwise.

Alcohol is involved in a good chunk of violent crimes — you don't often hear about the guy who drank too much Gatorade one night and decided to shoot his wife. Why put a little kid in the same spot where a lot of crimes start, and a good amount end?

The danger is not just from a lone drunken basket case, either. What happens if a guy has a couple beers and loses his balance and knocks the kid off the stool, falls on them, or even gets run into while he's standing? While these things can happen anywhere, things tend to end worse when booze is around, and it's the child that will pay the price.

The amount of fights I have seen in bars is also beyond count, and it doesn't matter what time of day you're there, because things happen. Is it worth it for a kid to be around that instead of just springing for a babysitter?

I don't have kids, but what I learned from my father about it is that when you do end up having them, they have to come first. You put their safety above everything else, and you don't do anything to jeopardize it.

I'd like to tell Mr. Gross that when he decided to have kids, he should have understood that his life wasn't going to be about what he wants anymore, but what his daughter needs — and what she doesn't need to be around is the kind of people like me who spend a lot of time at the local pub.

And if he wants some "adult contact"… join a book club.

http://www.northjersey.com/food_dining/89085917_Defending_our_last_bastion.html