I was a regular viewer of standard 1970s and 1980s television serials – sitcoms like the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family (or “The Poopridge Fartilee, as my big sister dubbed it) – as well as hourlong dramas like Emergency and Starsky and Hutch.

And occasionally I’d watch shows like the hip urban high-school drama Room 222, or the cop/detective drama The Mod Squad.

The Mod Squad were mod because they had diversity: Pete, the white cop with a mop of hair and sideburns; Linc, the black cop with an afro and a gap between his front teeth; Julie, the “girl” as we used to call adult women back in those days, played by Peggy Lipton, who would later appear in Twins Peaks.

In the opening credits, this squad of mod cops (as the creators may have called them in pitch meetings, or maybe when one of them was writing the first line of a haiku) individually emerge into view, where they are fleeing some unseen menace in a dank, urban tunnel. The camera freezes each in a closeup; the second one frozen is Clarence Williams III, who played Linc. Once together and in full view, Pete and Linc take Julie by the arms and they run off, suggesting that she’s not strong enough to keep up.

I remember almost none of the Mod Squad episodes, but somehow one scene was seared into my memory from the moment I saw it. As I recall it, some strange malady (or maybe poison, or drug) is afflicting people, causing intense headaches and paranoia. Maybe Pete is suffering from it as well. Linc is trying to save someone – maybe Pete? (can’t remember that detail) – who is in the throes of the malady, but when he approaches, the ailing victim doesn’t believe this black dude with an afro is actually a cop, until Link pulls out his badge and flings it across the room yelling, “Believe it man!” That line – “Believe it man!” – is one that I somehow can’t shake from my memory, many decades later.

As we are about to go to press, I ask my band of editors for a few extra minutes so I can scan the Mod Squad episode list on Wikipedia (I know, you hate Wikipedia; so do I, except almost every time I call upon it to give me information like this). Very likely, the episode in question is "Find Tara Chapman!" The summary of this episode is that the mod cops are trying to track down a "dying girl on the run" who may unwittingly spark a "meningitis epidemic." Hmm. That makes some sense. Meningitis affects the brain and can make people incoherent.  

Alas, we lost Clarence Williams III in early June. Believe it man.

Years ago, I found myself in Hawaii -- never a bad place in which to find oneself -- and as often happens when you’re in Hawaii, I soon found myself on a beach. Well, wouldn’t you know it, suddenly there were waves, so I got in the water to give those waves a piece of my mind, and the next thing I knew I was wet. Great! Now what?

It seemed like a good time to body surf, which I consider myself to be a master of. Body surfing is great because you don’t need any of the fancy accessories that surfers and boogie boarders require, just your own blubbery ol’ naked body. (Full disclosure: it's not really legal to body surf naked at this juncture in human history).

And, in my case, that was pre-COVID blubber (so don’t ask what I look like now). Anyway, there I was, all wet, riding the waves with my hot (and yet blubbery) body, totally sans equipment, and the next thing I know a bodysurfer is coming at me at the speed of a large Hawaiian wave (which is very fast!). Except this particular body surfer was employing surfboards strapped to both hands. No kidding!

OK, they were mini surfboards, about the size of dinner plates, and had a name: “hand planes”! (Not to be confused with the kind of hand plane used to smooth out wood). Suddenly, here was yet another device I could purchase. Not quite as ridiculously expensive as getting a surfboard, but ridiculous enough to cost $150. So, really, is this the kind of dust-collecting device that I should spend yet more of my hard-earned money on, knowing that I’ll only use it when I’m in Hawaii, once in a blue moon?

Um, yes.

You kids don’t know about rock shows because you were too little when rock shows were suddenly made illegal, but now they are legal again, and I have an actual ticket to one of these.

I should have plotted my family’s summer vacation well before these early hours of May. What the hell was I thinking? Now all the vacation spots are taken. Every resort booked; every campground full; every friend’s couch occupied (yes I checked). It’s like the latest crisis is that there’s nowhere to go. Maybe it’s a CDC plot to keep me from leaving New England. I’m under house arrest in these six states!

OK, slight exaggeration. But the CDC is well aware that spending 16 months straight in New England is harmful to one’s psychological health, if for the weather alone. Even Rochelle Walensky, the head of the CDC herself, has been granted leave from the region; surely I can leave town for a week or 10 days too.

But where to go? My many years in Catholic school taught me that angels have a penchant for coming to people in dreams and visions to provide useful information, such as announcing the birth of a savior. So there’s a chance that an angel with some time on his hands might pop into one of my frequent dreams to suggest vacation places for my family, with star ratings and user reviews. I like to know what kitchen implements are provided when I rent someone’s space. I’ve stayed in one or two places that had no wire whisk on the premises, confounding plans and diminishing the vacation’s karma. So it’s important that the angels be transparent, providing all the necessary pros and cons of each vacation opportunity. Of course, they are angelic, so one should be prepared for them to be somewhat cryptic in their messaging.

Also, I’m hoping they take into consideration cost. We don’t have wings so we’ll have to book seats on commercial airlines to get from here to there, which isn’t necessarily cheap.