To Absent Friends - Robert Redford

 

Robert Redford

1936-2025

The Great - and I do mean capital G Great - Robert Redford died yesterday at the age of 89.  A great actor, a talented director, a humanitarian, what can I say about Redford that most people don't already know?

Here are some numbers from IMDB:

• Redford has 82 acting credits.  The first one was for an episode of "Maverick" in 1960.  He also appeared in episodes of "Perry Mason" (1960), "The Naked City" (1961), "Route 66" (1961), and "Dr. Kildare" (1961).  When you scroll through his credits, you see that he did A LOT of work in television in the early 1960's.
• He has 10 credits as a director.  The first was "Ordinary People" in 1980, and he won a Best Director Oscar for that one.  For my money, though, the best of the lot was 1994's "Quiz Show".  If you've never seem that one, stop what you're doing now and watch it.
• He is also listed with 57 credits as a Producer.

It is for being an actor that he is primarily known, and when you scroll through the list of his movies, you realize that you have forgotten just how many really, really good movies he made. I will just highlight three of my particular favorites.

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance"

with Paul Newman

1969

"The Sting"

1973

This movie won that Best Picture Oscar that year.

Also starred Paul Newman.

Great line: "Luther said I could learn something from you.  

I already know how to drink."

"All The President's Men"

with Dustin Hoffman

1976

The best movie about newspapers ever made.

I have watched all of these movies many times over the years, and I can tell you that each of them holds up perfectly over fifty years after they were first made.

Before writing this post, I did a search in The Grandstander archives and came across two lesser known but nonetheless terrific movies from Redford's oeuvre that I had seen and written about in this space.

I stumbled upon this one by accident back in 2013.  It is about a fascinating topic, and I loved it.  

 THIS IS WHAT I WROTE ABOUT IT AT THAT TIME.

This one is from 2018, and I might be the only person in the world who saw it.  It was just a nice, entertaining movie and featured great performances from two "older" actors, Redford and Sissy Spacek.

THIS IS WHAT I WROTE ABOUT IT AT THAT TIME.

You could do a lot worse than watching these two movies.

Redford was 89 years old, and he had one terrific run, but a true giant has left us.

RIP Robert Redford.

The Bionic Grandstander

Interesting headline, isn't it?

It all began back in January, 2024 when I received an partial knee replacement.  However, that's not really a big deal because if those of you reading this haven't had a knee or hip replacement by now, you surely know someone who has.

Then, in March, 2025, I was fitted with hearing aides.  While this has certainly improved the quality of my life (not to mention Linda's quality of life since she no longer has to shout at me to be heard, but also no longer has to sit in a room with the TV set turned up REALLY LOUD), again, it is not that big a deal, since hearing aides have been around forever, right?

What really turned me into Lee Majors (for you kids out there who don't get the reference, Google "six million dollar man") was a transformation that began last December.  

At that time, I went to my opthamalogist, Dr. David DeMarco at the Eye Physicians and Surgeons practice in Wexford, PA with the thought in my mind that I was in need of a stronger prescription and needed new eyeglasses.  Instead, Dr. Dave said that the time had come for us to address the cataracts that he had been keeping track of for several years, and he turned me over to one of his partners in the practice, eye surgeon Dr. Judah Beck.  Okay, I've known a ton of people who've had cataract surgery, so, again, no big deal, right?

What Dr. Beck proceeded to tell me though, was a new breakthrough in the treatment of cataracts, and he suggested that I was a good candidate for it.  It consisted of removing the cataracts, of course, and then implanting in my eye something called a Light Adjustable Lens (LAL).  With this newly approved lens - it has only been being done in Pittsburgh since 2024, and only by Eye Physicians and Surgeons (I think) - the doctor would be able to adjust the lens after it had been implanted in my eyes by using ultra-violet light.

So, in June (the process of implanting the lenses was delayed for another medical reason that I will not go into here), Dr. Beck performed the surgery and implanted the lenses in my eyes.  There then followed a period of several weeks where I had to follow a strict regimen of eyedrops, but I immediately noticed a difference in my vision.  Trees outside our bedroom window that only appeared as green blobs to me when I awoke in the morning now had thousands of individual leaves that I could discern.  I could watch TV, go to PNC Park and read the scoreboard, and follow a struck golf ball in flight and find it in the fairway, or, more likely, the rough, all without glasses.

After the eye drop course of treatment was completed, I went back to Dr. DeMarco who would give me a regular eye exam ("is it better with 1, or 2", "how many fingers am I holding up", "what line on the chart can you read") to determine a new "prescription" and then turn me over to Dr. Beck, who would shine the ultra-violet light machine into my eyes to adjust the new Light Adjustable Lens.  After two such adjustment, he was able to do a "lock in" adjustment to the new lenses, and I am now seeing 20/20.  

When I have told people about this process, I have used the phrase "It's like something out of a science fiction novel", and so it is.

And here I am today, the guy who has worn glasses since he was in the third grade:

That picture was taken two weeks ago at a Pitt football game at Acrisure Stadium, where I could follow all the action without glasses!

Full disclosure: I still need to use "readers" or "cheaters" with a 1x magnification to read a newspaper or real tiny print on, say, a medicine bottle, but I'm good with that given all that the LAL has done for me otherwise.  I can read a printed book, my Kindle and iPad, and I have typed this post on my iMac desktop without the aid of the "cheaters".

More full disclosure:  The cost of the LAL is not covered by insurance or Medicare, and they are not inexpensive.  I am blessed that I am able to pay for them, and considering the benefit that I have received - 20/20 vision -  it turns out to have been a small price to pay.

I will be happy to talk to anyone about all of this if you are interested, and I absolutely cannot say enough about the care and treatment that I received from Drs. Demarco and Beck and the entire staff at Eye Physicians and Surgeons.

Steelers 34 - Jets 32

The Steelers opened their 2025 season yesterday with a 34-32 win over the New York Jets.  It was exciting and action packed, but it sure wasn't easy.

What I liked about the game....

• Aaron Rodgers.  In his first game as a Steeler, the future Hall of Famer went 22 for 30 for 244 yards, 4 TD's, and 0 interceptions.  HIs four TD passes went to four different receivers.  

Ben Skowronek scores first TD of the season for the Steelers.

• Receptions by DK Metcalf, Calvin Austin, and Ben Skowronek all had significant Yards After Catch numbers, something we haven't seen a lot of in recent years.
• Something else we haven't seen a lot of but saw yesterday were passes downfield and over the middle.
• That hit Jalen Ramsey put on Jets WR Garrett Willson that ended the Jets last possession and sealed the deal for the Steelers.
• And, of course, Chris Boswell drilling a 60 yard game winning FG (a Steelers record) with 1:05 remaining.  This on top of a 56 yarder in the first half.

What I didn't like about the game....

• The Steelers defense being shredded by the Jets for 394 net yards and 32 points.
• The Jets ran the ball 39 times for 182 yards.  
• Justin Fields went 16 for 22 for 244 yards, 3 TD's and 0 interceptions. 
• The Steelers inability to run the ball: 20 attempts for only 53 yards.
• Rodgers getting sacked three times.  Third year man Broderick Jones at LT is starting to look like a first round bust.

And let's face it, the Jets aren't a very good team.  That Steelers defense, the highest paid defense in the NFL, has to improve of the team is going to go anywhere this season.  Let us hope that rookie Derrick Harmon recovers from his injury and makes a difference on the defensive line.

Still a win to start the season is great.  Now bring on the Seahawks for the Home Opener next week.

Oh, and did any of you out there have Ben Skowronek if the "Who Will Score the First Steelers Touchdown of the Season Pool?"  

Didn't think so.

Busy Finish To August

The final week of August was busy one, so this will be a Catch-All Grandstander, covering several topics.

The highlight of the weekend was the Saturday marriage of my great-niece Bridget Pike and Eric Cooper.  It was lovely affair, and Bridget was a most beautiful bride, as were her sisters Monica and Frances as co-maids of honor.  Mother of the Bride Karen Pike, my niece and godchild looked pretty stunning herself, I might add.  As is my custom, it is not my place to post photos of the bride and groom in this forum.  I will leave it up to Bridget and Eric if they choose to do so.  If you see me in person. I'll be glad to show you, though.

One picture I will share is one of Linda and me all gussied up for the wedding.  We clean up well if I say so myself.

The wedding took place at St. Paul's Cathedral, or as Catholic Pittsburghers simply put it, "the Cathedral", and it was beautiful.  It had been many years since I was at a Mass at the Cathedral, and you just can't get used to the beauty of the place.

The reception followed at the Renaissance Hotel in dahntahn Pittsburgh, and while it was a wonderful party in a beautiful place, events taking place simultaneously in the Burgh made for some challenges.  A noon football game between Pitt and Duquesne at Acrisure Stadium (50,000 plus attendance), the annual weekend long Ribfest, also at Acrisure, some sort of festival in town that shut down Liberty Avenue and Stanwix Streets by Gateway Center, and, most of all, a sold out PNC Park hosting the traveling Savannah Bananas baseball game (38,000+), all made for a gridlocked city as we made our way from the church to the reception.  It's a long story, and I will spare you the details, except to say that the Renaissance, where Linda and I stayed that night, knocked seventy-five bucks off of our bill for the valet parking that they were unable to provide to us, even though we paid for it.

It was frustrating, but all frustrations disappeared as we finally got to the reception and had a great time celebrating Bridget and Eric.  And just for shits and giggles, I took this photo from the second floor ballroom where the reception took place.  It shows the mass of humanity leaving PNC Park and headed back into town to their cars that took up all of the parking spaces in the lower part of the City that night.

*********

This past Friday night I did something that I had not done since I was in high school: I went to a high school football game.  Linda and I took ourselves out to Gesling Stadium on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in Oakland (yep, two straight days in Oakland for us) to see the Central Catholic Vikings, my alma mater and a small (enrollment of about 800) private school, play the massive public school, the Pine-Richland Rams.  The reason we went to the game was to see our niece Cameron perform as a Flag Girl as a part of the Pine-Richland Marching Band.

Somewhere among those thirty or so girls wielding 

the yellow flags is Cameron.  She was terrific!

The difference in the relative size of the two schools is evident when you see the bands.  Pine-Richland's band is massive, probably as large as many collegiate marching bands, whereas Central's band consisted of 28 kids, some of whom were girls  from the neighboring all girls school, Oakland Catholic.  The band was never that small when I was a student there, but then again, enrollment then was about twice as much as it is now.  God bless those kids in the band, but I wonder what they think when they have to share a field with competing bands from the big public schools.

As for the game, it started out in a fashion that I had never before seen. A Central player returned the opening kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown.  On the subsequent kickoff, the Pine-Richland player returned it 96 yards for a TD.  The game was twenty-seconds old and it was 7-7.  Have you ever seen something like that?

Central ended up winning the game 34-20.  The tiny private school will, as they usually are, be one of the best teams in Western PA this season.  Central says that they do not "recruit" their football players.  This alumnus is not so sure about that.

We ended up leaving at halftime after the bands performed so as to avoid what would have been an enormous traffic nightmare leaving the CMU parking garage.

********

And on Thursday night, the night before the football game, we took in this movie on Netflix:

This, of course, is based on the best selling novel by Richard Osman, which begat three - and counting - subsequent novels about four colorful crime solving retirees living in the upscale retirement community of Coopers Chase.  This movie is perfectly cast with Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie as the amateur sleuths, and throw in Jonathan Pryce and Mirren's husband to add to the mix.  Having read all of the books and gotten to know all of the characters, I really enjoyed this one.  Trust me though, even if you haven't read the books, but enjoy this type of entertainment, I think that you will like this movie.  

Oh, and there is a great little "easter egg" in this one where Pryce comments on Mirren "looking like the Queen".  It's perfect.

The movie won't win any awards or appear on any top Ten Lists, but it's worth seeing.  The Grandstander gives it Three Stars.

********

So, I've gone on this long, and I haven't even mentioned the delightful trip that we took to Centre County two weeks ago to visit Marilyn's brother George and his wife Ann.  That one deserves its own write up so watch for it later this week.

Catching Up On Some Absent Friends

Some notable people have left us over the last few weeks.  Time to catch up....

James Lovell

Astronaut James Lovell died at the age of 92 earlier this month.  Lovell was a veteran of two Gemini space flights when he, Frank Norman, and Bill Anders were tapped for the Apollo 8 mission and became the first human beings to visit the moon when their Apollo craft orbited the moon in December 1968.  If you were around then, how could you ever forget the trio reading from the Book of Genesis while they orbited the moon on Christmas Eve.

Lovell will be most remembered, however, as the Commander of the Apollo 13 mission, the one that went wrong.  When power and oxygen was lost in the command module, the lunar landing mission had to be aborted and Lovell and his crew of Fred Haise and Rusty Swigert, with the assistance of the NASA engineers and scientists on the ground somehow managed, while the world watched with bated breath, to get the craft in working order and back to earth safely with all three crew members surviving.  I can recall my mother saying at the time that "if they get them back to earth safely it will be a bigger miracle than if they had landed on the moon itself."

Of course, the whole sage of that mission was immortalized back in 1995 with the Ron Howard directed movie, "Apollo 13" that starred Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell.  If you've never seen the movie, you should.  It is great movie about an amazing event in our history.  Lovell himself even has a cameo as one of the ship's naval officers who welcomes the crew on board after they splash down in the ocean.

Ron Turcotte

Hall of Fame Jockey Ron Turcotte died last week at the age of 82.  Turcotte won over 3,000 races in his career including two wins apiece in each of the Triple Crown races, and he is most famous for being in the irons on the great Secretariat when that horse won the Triple Crown of racing, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes in 1973.  Secretariat won each of those races in record times, and those speed records still stand in all three of those races fifty-two years later.  For some reason, 21 year old me was all alone in our Saline Street house on that June afternoon, and I will never forget what I saw on television as Secretariat while "moving like a tremendous machine" won that Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths.  It remains one of the most astonishing events that I have ever witnessed as a sports fan.  (Treat yourself and watch that race HERE).

Five years after that Triple Crown year, Turcotte fell off of a horse during a race and became a paraplegic.  He spent the rest of his life in and around the racing industry, helped raise awareness and funds for injured and retired jockeys, and by all accounts was a positive and terrific person.

The picture above is the famous one of Turcotte looking back at the field in the backstretch of that incredible race at Belmont park in 1973.

Joan Anderson

Joan Anderson

1923-2025

People like Joan Anderson are why I read the news obituaries and write Absent Friends posts.  Anderson died last month at the age of 92, and this was the first paragraph in her obit in the Washington Post:

"On a trip to Sydney in 1956, Joan Anderson was amazed to discover a trend sweeping Australia's beaches and streets. People were 'doing the hoop' - twirling a sturdy circular ring of bamboo around their hips for exercise or just for fun."

Anderson was a native Australian who in 1945 married an American soldier and moved to the United States after WW II.  After her return to the States from that 1956 vacation, she had her mother send her one of those hoops.  Long story short, Anderson met with a guy from the Wham-O toy company, and made a handshake agreement to allow Wham-O to manufacture and market the hoops, now called Hula Hoops, and give the Andersons a penny for each hoop sold.  Well, if your my age, you no doubt had a hula hoop when you were a kid, and all of your neighborhood friends did too.  Four months after the Hula Hoop hit the market in 1958, over 25 million of them were sold, which would have meant 250 thousand 1958 dollars for the Andersons, but guess what?  Wham-O reneged on that handshake deal. The Andersons had to go to court and ended up settling for $6,000 and "tried to cast the hula hoop from their minds" according to the Post obituary. 

In 2018, a documentary film called "Hula Girl" was made about Joan Anderson and this story.  I have tried to find it on several streaming platforms but have not been able to find it as yet.  In it, Joan was quoted as saying, "The world isn't fair, but life goes on" and according to her family, she and her husband did just that.

So now you know about that goofy toy you had back there in the 1958-61 era.  My late sister, Patty, by the way, was a whiz at the hula hoop.

RIP Jim Lovell, Ron Turcotte, and Joan Anderson

In Praise of Etsy

Take  one authentic but now outdated Steelers replica jersey.

Find an expert craftsperson on Etsy, in this case, someone who goes by the name "Patch Planet".

Iron on the new name plate over the old one.

Now, I am ready for some football!!

FYI, the "Rodgers" patch from Patch Planet will cost you twenty-four bucks, plus shipping.  A whole lot less than what a new A-A-Ron jersey would set you back.

Billy Joel - And So It Goes

 

If you are a fan of the music of Billy Joel, and honestly, who isn't, I cannot recommend to you highly enough the documentary film about the singer now showing on HBO Max.  It is presented in two parts, each about two and a half hours long, and it tells everything about Billy Joel, and it tells the story in many different layers, from his growing up in Hicksville, Long Island, NY, and complicated family life, his not graduating from high school, how he kicked it around in various bands as a teenager, his career as a solo performer singer/songwriter, how he got ripped off by his management, his four marriages, his problems with alcohol.  Nothing is left out or  glossed over, but what always comes through is the absolutely amazing talent of the man.

Joel's grandparents escaped Europe as Hitler's genocidal programs were sweeping through Germany and central Europe. His father was a classical pianist who left the family when Billy was 7 years old, an act with which Joel was never quite able to come to terms.  It was only as he was older and successful that he was able to track his father down in Vienna and discover that he had a half-brother.  I am skimming over this spect of the film, but it is remarkable.  (That half-brother is a classical symphony conductor in Austria.  Talk about music being in the genes.)

Joel speaks on camera throughout the movie, and is frank and honest about all aspects of his life.  This is great, of course, but the cast of characters who pop up throughout the movie talking about Joel and his talent and influence is positively eye-popping.  Jackson Brown, Don Henley, Garth Brooks, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, and even Itzhak Perlman, for God's sake.  Their testimonies to Billy Joel just makes your jaw drop.  Example:  McCartney tells us this - "People often ask me Is there a song out there that you wish that you would have written, and I tell them 'Just The Way You Are'."

I am constantly amazed at the genius of musical superstars.  Time and again throughout the movie, Joel will tell the story about how an idea came to him while he was driving somewhere, and that by the time he reaches his destination, he can sit at a piano and produce a song that becomes a classic.  How these people can do that  is so far beyond my grasp as to be positively unimaginable.

Best of all, though, beyond everything else the film contains clips of Billy Joel singing and performing all of those songs that have become the music of our lives.  I consider myself fortunate to have seen Billy Joel live twice in my life.  The first time was at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena in 1986 or -87.  The second time was in August 2022 at PNC Park (read The Piano Man In Concert) in what was truly one of the greatest concert experiences that I have ever had.

As I reread what I have just written about this movie, I can tell you that this write up is hardly doing "And So It Goes" justice.  If you don't have HBO Max available to you, find a friend who does and see this documentary film.  You will not be disappointed.

A full Four Stars from The Grandstander.