This is from a long, long time ago about this time of year. If there was a lesson in it then, it didn’t survive until this now, but between us, I’m pretty sure I was just enjoying from moot point. Anyway, that said...
We were a loud and large family when I was a child. My parents had heeded the Biblical injunction at least in part-my dad always had a garden though how fruitful it was, it's hard to say now-but we were many so they were good at math, at least at multiplication.
Birthdays usually involved grandparents, Mom's, who were much closer geographically, living in Elechester in what’s now called Pomonok (we called it Flushing), Queens, than were Dad's, someplace out in Illinois (I learned many years later, Taylorsville (maybe without the 's'). Sightings of Grandma Kenny were rarer than Elvis, the live Elvis, who's not nearly as successful as the dead one, so we always called Grandma Kelly, Grandma.
It was of her I thought yesterday morning when reading the saga of Nicholas Trabakoulos versus Sue Handy, actually Judge Susan B. Handy, in a courtroom in New London, Connecticut, Thursday.
Birthdays usually involved grandparents, Mom's, who were much closer geographically, living in Elechester in what’s now called Pomonok (we called it Flushing), Queens, than were Dad's, someplace out in Illinois (I learned many years later, Taylorsville (maybe without the 's'). Sightings of Grandma Kenny were rarer than Elvis, the live Elvis, who's not nearly as successful as the dead one, so we always called Grandma Kelly, Grandma.
It was of her I thought yesterday morning when reading the saga of Nicholas Trabakoulos versus Sue Handy, actually Judge Susan B. Handy, in a courtroom in New London, Connecticut, Thursday.
Our grandma had, when her children were our ages, she told us, started a birthday tradition of gently smacking the birthday child on the bottom once for every natal anniversary topped at the conclusion by a pinch, 'to grow an inch' by your next birthday.
In the ensuing decades, the notion gentle was lost. Reading that now helps explain why, usually for our tenth birthday, most of us received a set of Esso road maps as a gift so we wouldn't get lost when we ran away from home.
Anyway, Nicholas wasn't ever at those gatherings which is just as well as Nicholas comes across as a bad man when you read the news report. I couldn't help but wonder if he'd built up his stamina if Lance Armstrong couldn't have used him on his Tour de France Astana team. But that was not to be. Nicholas had other ideas and when a boy and his bike (and his sawed-off shotgun hidden under a pink blanket) have their mind set on something, that's all there is to it.
Nicholas, says the news story, was in Groton visiting from New York when he robbed someone of $140, making his getaway by bicycle. The idea of a bike race where you commit armed robbery along the way probably hasn't yet been broached to anyone in the Connecticut Offices of Culture and Tourism.
Anyway, Nicholas wasn't ever at those gatherings which is just as well as Nicholas comes across as a bad man when you read the news report. I couldn't help but wonder if he'd built up his stamina if Lance Armstrong couldn't have used him on his Tour de France Astana team. But that was not to be. Nicholas had other ideas and when a boy and his bike (and his sawed-off shotgun hidden under a pink blanket) have their mind set on something, that's all there is to it.
Nicholas, says the news story, was in Groton visiting from New York when he robbed someone of $140, making his getaway by bicycle. The idea of a bike race where you commit armed robbery along the way probably hasn't yet been broached to anyone in the Connecticut Offices of Culture and Tourism.
In my mind’s eye I can see swarms of competitors, pedaling furiously with ski masks on, in a line stretching to the horizon with satellite TV uplink vans and bloggers, twitters, and 'live right now on facebook!' as far as the eye can see, along a getaway route lined with tourists who come just for these races. I just hope when they go with it that we don't owe Nicholas royalties on the intellectual property rights.
Back to Grandma. Nicholas the Biker had not been Mr. Congeniality during his incarceration says the story, from the time of his arrest, through his trial to his sentencing, where he was awarded fourteen years for both robbery and weapons possession (I wonder what became of the bike?). As they say in the infomercials, 'but wait there's more!'.
Back to Grandma. Nicholas the Biker had not been Mr. Congeniality during his incarceration says the story, from the time of his arrest, through his trial to his sentencing, where he was awarded fourteen years for both robbery and weapons possession (I wonder what became of the bike?). As they say in the infomercials, 'but wait there's more!'.
Apparently not fully appreciating the right to remain silent might be for his own good, Nick "unleashed a stream of obscenities... when Handy asked Trabakoulos if he had anything to say. His responses are unprintable." Johnny, why don't you tell us what Mr. Trabakoulos has won?
The judge ordered Nicholas removed from the courtroom, gave him two hours to mull over his actions and then brought him back to ask if he wished to apologize. Nicholas had a number of wishes, but apologizing didn't make the list. Judge Handy, like Grandma, then gave him six additional months on top of the fourteen years, for contempt of court.
It would have been too much, I suppose, as part of his sentence had Nicholas also been transported to the pokey riding on the handlebars of a bicycle pedaled by a corrections officer, though I'm unsure the officer could have reached the bell.
-bill kenny
The judge ordered Nicholas removed from the courtroom, gave him two hours to mull over his actions and then brought him back to ask if he wished to apologize. Nicholas had a number of wishes, but apologizing didn't make the list. Judge Handy, like Grandma, then gave him six additional months on top of the fourteen years, for contempt of court.
It would have been too much, I suppose, as part of his sentence had Nicholas also been transported to the pokey riding on the handlebars of a bicycle pedaled by a corrections officer, though I'm unsure the officer could have reached the bell.
-bill kenny
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