Are You Ripped About Taxes? Plus: Meet The Mayor, Saluting Jeter, And My Tie

Hey, did you all pay Uncle Sam on Wednesday? Hopefully, some of you received a refund, glory knows our favorite uncle takes enough from us. Shoot, I thought uncles were supposed to take care of us.

Or did you join the tea party protests around the state on filing deadline day? Why do I get the feeling Wondering was somewhere in the mix, if not there physically, then in spirit.

And I just cannot wait until the Dems in the Connecticut Legislature rub their hands together to pass additional tax increases. Why? Because that’s what they do best. But when you’re supported by the unions, progressives, and serial primary voters that’s the thing to do. Gotta support the peeps.

Mayor Bill Finch is hoping that his Democratic pals in the legislature do something nice for the city before the final mil rate is set by the City Council in June. 

If you want to catch up to the mayor and staff to share questions and concerns, the mayor will host Mayor’s Night Out today 5:30 p.m. at the Bridgeport Area Youth Ministry, 506 Logan St., corner of Connecticut Avenue.

Stop in, say hello, and fire away.

So Long, Mr. Jeter

If I haven’t been at the top of my game this week it’s because I had to put down my boy Jeter the other day. Jeter was a vizsla, a Hungarian pointer, that kept me company when I was banging phones for information, punching my keyboard, leaping for joy when I grabbed his collar for a run. That thing about a man and his dog is real. I named him after Derek Jeter.

It came so quick. Jeter was coughing on Good Friday and lost his appetite, and on Saturday he could hardly walk. I rushed him to the 24-hour emergency vet for x-rays and an ultrasound. The good doctor poised me for the news. “It’s not good.” Cancer had suffocated his lungs. It was a matter of days.

For my father, who is 84 and lives in an accessory apartment to us with my mom, Jeter was an earth angel, his best bud, Jeter’s head forever resting on dad’s lap. My dad, a Sicilian immigrant, is as emotional as they come and the bond between my dad and his companion was a life-extending magic carpet ride. “I have to go before Jeter,” he’d tell me so often.

Jeter didn’t have much left at the vet. He collapsed at my side. How could I leave him there without a goodbye from dad? The vet had a suggestion: I can give Jeter an injection to provide comfort for a day or two, it will not last long, just enough for your dad to enjoy him and say goodbye for a day or so.

I brought Jeter home Saturday night and on Easter Sunday he was like his old self: happy, engaged, energized by the dinner company. All the guests said goodbye to Jeter on Easter Sunday. On Monday morning it was time. Jeter had collapsed again, and Dad shared a final embrace.

I took Jeter to his regular vet with the x-rays and ultrasound results hopeful she’d see something different. She did not. I stood by Jeter as he went peacefully Monday morning.

On Wednesday when Derek Jeter knocked in the winning run for my dad’s beloved Yankees (me too), dad did the only proper thing to do. He raised a glass of his homemade wine and delivered a toast to Jeter.

Tie One On

Okay,  call me a nonconformist. From today’s Hartford Courant. Thank you MaryEllen.

It’s Bow Ties, Everywhere, At Club Meeting
Java: MaryEllen Fillo

It was bow tie pasta, bow tie-shaped cookies and bow tie neckwear all around for the crowd that gathered at The Hartford Club Tuesday because, well, the Greater Hartford Bow Tie Club is made up of a dapper group of men with a sense of style and allegiance to their neckwear.

And wear it they did. Following the fashion of Theodore Roosevelt, Malcolm X, John Houseman in “The Paper Chase,” Groucho Marx, Pee-wee Herman and George Burns, they showed their stylish stuff in neck wraps of silk, crepe de chine ties and taffeta at the club’s first of two meetings in 2009.

“It was my trademark; I always wear a bow tie,” said David Carson, former president of People’s Bank and the subject of a 2008 book titled “Bow Tie Banker” by Lennie Grimaldi. Carson, who was raised in England and immigrated to New York, earned the nickname “Bow Tie” during his days as a celebrated Bridgeport exec.

Grimaldi, by the way was also at the event and the only person to dare wear a more traditional long tie.

“The only time I wore a bow tie was when I got married,” said the renegade author, defending his fashion faux pas for the night.