It has been over 5000 days and likely more than a half million words. I have emptied my brain on your plate probably greater than 2000 times. By huffing and puffing far more often than I ever should have, and you should have been compelled to endure, it has led to this extremely round number: 100.
Maybe.
Yesterday, I think I reached the century mark in the number of occasions my words have appeared in print somewhere in the friggin New York Times.
Maybe.
Stuck in the far right corner of the top shelf of my closet in my bedroom is a file folder inside a briefcase of sorts. Therein lays a copy of every letter that this paper has placed in the acceptance pile.
Almost.
Scribbled on the outside of the bulging folder containing a decade and a half of nouns, verbs, adjectives and assorted phrases, sentences and paragraphs, is a list of dates and terms setting forth the when's and why's of what spilled from my head onto the pages of the friggin New York Times.
But, like Nixon and Watergate, I have my 18 minute gap. There is a period of fifteen months, commencing in mid-2021, where a hole has formed and my thoughts have leaked out. Nothing but a void. Empty as my promise to do my homework right after the next commercial.
For part of that time this folder and I resided over 100 miles apart as the pandemic separated me from this closet. But why the gap is so large remains a mystery, albeit one that I alone give a moment to contemplating.
In using my fingers and toes a bunch of times, there are, to the best of my knowledge, 93 ripped out pages of the New York Times now yellowing in that folder, in that briefcase, on that shelf.
But, using my advanced mathematical skills and dividing 15 months by 2 (2 being the average number of months between my begging and pleading with the editors and capitulation on their part), it leads to the inescapable (ok, escapable) conclusion that I have been full of hot air for a long time.
I am sure there are far more sophisticated methods of calculating the actual number of occasions on which I added to the pile of papers in that folder: a Google search perhaps, or even contacting the newspaper itself and asking for their assistance in this endeavor.
But then I might discover 100 was not that at all but only 99 or even 98. And do you really think that song would have been such a mega hit if it began with 98 bottles of beer on the wall, 98 bottles of beer?
So, now I give myself a large pat on the back and wait for the congratulations to pour in from far and wide, amazed by my act of prestidigitation. Making something appear out of the thinnest of air, my brain.
Really, it will and should be met with a shake of the head and a "hasn't he anything better to do with his time?" For it remains but a parlor trick, a game of three card Monte I have been playing so long even I get fooled into believing I have the correct answer every now and then.
The world is tilting on its axis right now and we are desperately clinging on, trying not to screw this up any worse than we already have. There are problems that weigh most heavy on all of us. And what I have accomplished has no part being in any conversation when there are matters that matter strewn about the landscape.
But it has happened, maybe, and so I thought I should let you know. No, that is not being honest. I wanted to let you know.
100 is just a number. But, at least today, it is mine.
Maybe.
P.S. - I made the terrible mistake of forwarding this piece to my “friends” at the Times - the following was the response I received
According to a quick search in TimesPast:
As Robert S. Nussbaum: 91
As Robert Nussbaum: 2
93
Six more, and you'll be . . . Aaron Judge!
P.P. S. - Oops!!
P.P.P.S. - I think I am going to appeal their ruling
100
if you factor in the other publications that have chosen to print your words, you are truly a home-run hitter. Especially with your readers.--RE
All I can say is, BRAVO ‼️