By: Carol Silva

This is October – Breast Cancer Awareness month. All that pink clothing and jewelry and handbags to remind us. The pink is pretty. But it’s also made a real difference in creating breast cancer “awareness.” We talk about it a lot more.

My mother died of breast cancer 14 years ago. My children were only 1 and 2 years old. They have grown up without a Grandmother because Mom admitted in her final days – she had ignored her breast lump for 7 years. You see my Mom grew up in a generation where women – where a lot of people – were less likely to discuss private or unpleasant things like breast cancer.

You may feel overdone by all this “pink” stuff every October. The pink ribbons. Pink t-shirts. Pink undies. But even my 17-year old daughter is very aware these days. My friend Nancy pestered me to slow my busy “Mommy schedule” long enough to get my annual mammo last year – so I can continue to be a Mommy. Thanks Nance. We’re aware. We’re talking.

In fact, we’ve gotten so much more comfortable with the conversation, I’m still laughing from this mammography reminder I got this week. I was with a great group of friends from my church. Spiritual women who range from their 30’s into their 80’s. Moms and Grandmoms and a Great-Grandmom. My friend Deb reminded us that it’s Breast Cancer Awareness month, and that many of us have been touched by the disease. Then she read this “Mammogram Preparation Sheet” to us. Oh boy!

Mannogram Preparation

Many women are afraid of their first mammograms, but there is no need to worry. By taking a few minutes each day for a week preceding the exam and doing the following practice exercises you will be totally prepared for the test. Best of all, you can do these simple practices right in your own home.

Exercise 1

Open your refrigerator door and insert one breast between the door and the main box. Have one of your strongest friends slam the door as hard as possible and lean on the door for good measure. Hold that position for 5-seconds. Repeat again in case the first time wasn’t effective enough.

Exercise 2

Visit your garage at 3 in the morning when the temperature of the cement floor is just perfect. Take off your clothes and lie comfortably on the floor with one breast wedged under the rear tire of the car. Ask a friend to slowly back the car until your breast is sufficiently flattened and chilled. Turn over and repeat for the other breast.

Exercise 3

Freeze 2 metal bookends overnight. Strip to waist. Invite a stranger into the room. Press the bookends against one of your breasts. Smash the bookends together as hard as you can. Set an appointment with the stranger to meet the same time next year and do it again.

You are now properly prepared for your first mammo!

I hope you’re laughing too. Now if you’re the right age, take a girlfriend and go get a mammogram – or as we call it in our world – a “Mommy-gram!”

By: Carol Silva

I admit it – I’m in love. With rapper Chuck D – front man for “Public Enemy Number One.” Because of what he’s doing this week on Long Island.

Chuck D is coming back to Roosevelt Friday night for a Town Hall Meeting with Roosevelt’s kids. Just them. No one else allowed in. He wants to end confusion over guns, gangs, going to school, sex and what leads to true success.

This is what Chuck D’s people tell us about the message he’s desperate to get out there. “The goal of this event is to stimulate a conversation within the community, among our youth and their elders, as it relates to exploring reasonable, practical and amicable solutions to ending the gunplay, the gratuitous unprotected sex and the misunderstanding of what priorities are needed to be a success in life. Chuck will share how he interprets who, what, when, where, why and how to fight.

Also as a topic of conversation Chuck will try to have the importance of maintaining a true and lasting legacy recognizing who we are and the importance of preparing our youth for secession. These are some of the issues Chuck will speak to as he interacts with the Roosevelt community as a whole on that evening.”

Cool. Very cool. Especially in a school district that was in so much trouble a few years ago, the state took it over. Especially in a community that was on the 2007 list of troubled LI school districts – because more and more of its elementary school kids were failing. Roosevelt’s 2007 School Superintendent Ronald Ross told us at the time – many of their kids there don’t start life with an equal chance. Superinendent Ross said there was more povery, poor diet and unstable family life in Roosevelt than most of us could imagine.

Now — kids are kids. And think their own parents don’t know anything. But they’ll listen to other folks. Especially a hot stuff rapper. And so this Friday night, my new BFF Chuck D is coming to the rescue – trying to start some great conversation. His Town Hall Meeting is only open to Roosevelt students. Because he wants to speak directly to them. And Chuck knows from whence he speaks. He was born Carlton Douglas Ridenhour on August 1, 1960 and went through Roosevelt’s schools. He graduated from Roosevelt Middle and High School, on his way to getting a graphics arts degree from Adelphi University. He’s worked with DMC, Janet Jackson, and the Dope Poet Society. The politically active, multi-platnium rapper has been the subject of books, and even loaned his voice to video games including Grand Theft Auto and NBA Ballers.

I can’t vouch for every decision he’s made his whole life, but I do know this. He’s doing the right thing, right now. Bringing home the message he’s had out there for a long time – put the guns down, stop the fighting and take responsibility. It’s time to work things out a better way. And he believes the kids can do it — like he says – or raps – in “Brothers Gonna Work It Out.”

You got it … what it takes
Go get it… where you want it?
Come get it…get involved
‘Cause the brothers in the street
Are willing to work it out
Let’s get it on… we are willin’
Let’s get it on, let’s get it on … we are willin’
Let’s get it on, let’s get it on, let’s get it on … we are willin’

You know you can buy “Brothers Gonna Work it Out” as a ring tone for your phone. Hey Chuck, I might. I just might.

By: Carol Silva

Eight years ago today. Eight  long years ago our world was rocked – not by one – but by four planes that crashed into the heart, the comfort, and the security that was our America.
And yet some days the memory is as clear as those brilliant blue skies of Sept. 11, 2001.

Doug Geed and I were anchoring – closing in on the end of the 8 o’clock hour. Doug had just left the studio to go outside to the crystal clear day and interview a physical fitness team that was going to perform before that weekend’s Jets game. I was still sitting at the anchor desk just moments after 8:45 that morning when my director Kevin Benjamin told me, “Ummm. Carol we’re getting word some kind of small plane may have hit the World Trade Center.”

There was that “holy crap” moment where you can’t believe it. You wonder if the pilot had a passenger on the small plane – and whether they were probably both killed. And what about the poor people inside the office where it struck.

Then all hell broke lose.

News 12 Long Island “archives” or “saves” our scripts from all of our stories. But there were none for the next few hours. Nothing was written. Life – history were happening at breakneck speed.

It wasn’t a small plane. It was one, then two, then four huge, hijacked commercial jetliners that left a gaping hole in our lives.

First, American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. It left a huge hole in the side and set that Twin Tower on fire. When the North Tower was compromised, so were the communications towers of America’s major communications networks, including New York City based television and radio networks. There was little or no news coming from those outlets in those first moments until the networks could get on back-up systems. Most of the news Long Islanders were getting was coming from News 12 Long Island.

At first we wondered if it was a terrible “accident.” True, it would have been incredible for any major jet to be flying so low over Manhattan. But no one wanted to consider the alternative.

(more…)

By Carol Silva

No matter how you slice it, Labor Day is just about 2 weeks away. Even if the weather stays balmy, there’s a psychological thing that happens as the days grow shorter and the kids go back to school.

Orient to New London, Conn. Ferry

Now is the time to make the best of what “summer vacation” you have left. So take a cruise. Today. Right now. Seriously. It doesn’t have to start with months of planning for a big, expensive cruise “across the pond” to Europe or even to Bermuda. I’m talking about a short, afternoon, round trip cruise on one of Long Island’s ferries. No need to book far in advance or worry whether  to take weather insurance. For a LI ferry ride you just get up in the morning, check the weather and then drive to one of Long Island’s ferry terminals.

You board a giant iron lady out of  Orient, or Greenport or Sag Harbor. Or how about going out of Port Jefferson, Bay Shore or Glen Cove?  You can head for a Fire Island beach day – or a downtown lunch or dinner – even in Connecticut. They’ve even got sandwiches, salads and pretzels on board in the ferries concessions. Or – if you really want to cut costs or go gourmet, BYO.  Bring your own lunch.

And go up top! Sit on the outside deck and watch the lighthouses and the sailboats go by.  Remember – you picked the weather.  It’s just right!  A day on the water.  It’ll remind you why so many people want to live here.  A day on the water. Some of the best therapy around.