The Hohokus Hill

       My Dad commuted to Wall Street for 17 years from Ridgewood. He usually walked and used the Hohokus Hill to access the train station. It's hard to imagine people still make this 3 hour a day commute.

     This photo is about 80 years old. I don't know if the sidewalk was put in after he started walking this hill twice a day. We used to explore the woods on either side of this feeble excuse for a road. Though my greatest adventure occurred shortly after I began driving. I was driving a stick shift car up the hill and at the turn my engine stalled. To compound the tension of the situation my passenger's Dad was walking up the hill and noticed us sitting in the stalled car. He showed no emotion and might have even offered a silent prayer to the saints for lost causes. I gave him a thumbs up from the driver's seat and gently took my foot off the brake and let out the clutch. We rolled backwards and miracle of miracles the engine turned over before we slid off the hill. I immediately put the car in gear and we both gave him a jolly wave as we sped up the hill. He never commented on that moment until some ten years later when I mentioned it to him. He just gave me a smile and said he knew I would pull through. I'm pretty sure he was fibbing but the smile on his face was priceless and I'm not one for being a know-it-all guest.

Tin Ears

      My Dad taught me a lot of $50 words in his day. Two of the most memorable are Nepotism and Tin Ear. I learned the meaning of nepotism when I told him at the ripe old age of ten that I wanted to work at his law firm. He smiled and sensed what they call today a "Learning Moment" and told me that was impossible. It had nothing to do with my desire only that his firm had strict rules about hiring relatives. I went and looked it up in the dictionary and never forgot it. When I got to college and met the students at the nearby Dickinson School of Law, I was glad for nepotism policies. What a dull lot of people they were and what an equally dull profession they were seeking out. No offense intended towards all my friends who are lawyers and are not dim-witted by any means. I can only speak for myself.

     The second $50 word I recall is Tin Ear. I was explaining the antics of a particularly greedy president of the New York Stock Exchange. My Dad knew him well and wasn't at all surprised by his avarice. He added that the man had a tin ear. I asked him to explain and he simply said that with everything going on around him and all that was being written about him in the papers he had to be completely oblivious. I went to my trusty dictionary again to be sure I understood:

      Insensitivity to the nuances of current situation or subtleties of a craft; indifference to somebody else's attitudes and moods.

 

Yes, that pretty much described the man who was walking a way from a job in disgrace with a huge golden parachute.

 

 

 

      

Checking In

      Last weekend after looking through my Gmail contacts I decided to send an email to every person I hadn't contacted in a while. My family was excluded and anybody I had been on a Zoom call with during the Pandemic. In total I sent 28 versions of the same email. Though I personalized each but mostly wrote about how we were getting along and that if the person had a moment to let me know their status. I kept the note as brief as possible but not so short as to make it appear as a thoughtless exercise.

     The responses to date have been fascinating. The people I have known the longest were among the first to reply. It didn't matter if we hadn't spoken in years the connection was still there and they all appreciated the interruption to what has become a very boring time in our lives.

     I'll likely wait to respond to everyone and see if I can't draw some conclusion to share. Or I'll just respond to them individually and let the email trains go wherever. I realize that letter writing is a lost art but maybe we can improve upon email.

The Dignity of Work

      Yes, I'm quoting an elitist, Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel, in order to make a point about the dignity of work. It seems we have forgotten that most people in this country and in Europe do not receive a college education. The fact that they now need one to earn enough to raise a family is another topic for discussion. When did we get so hung up with credentials? I can recall growing up in a town where most of the women did not have college degrees and a fair number of the men as well. You didn't need a college degree to deliver the mail, teach wood shop, or work in a retail store. These were respected jobs and enabled people to enter the middle class and own their own home.

...."On asking what we can do to make life better for people, whatever their credentials. That, however lustrous, however modest their circumstances, they can live dignified lives and be recognized. Not only rewarded, but recognized for the work they do, for the families they raise, for the communities they serve. Be recognized for contributions to the common good.

 

     We could simply blame globalization and our collective desire for flat-screen TVs which cost less than a $1000 but that would only be scratching the surface. We have to include all the cues we receive every day about having more stuff and why this is better than a life of simplicity. 

     This simpler life I imagine would be one where kids would say, "I'm bored" to their friends and parents. Being bored is fine and is a signal to use one's own mind to create a less boring outlook. I don't think we have the a single boring moment in our lives today. Children have so many choices in which to invest their time, and some activities like video games can take all of their attention and then some.

     Which brings me back to the need for bestowing dignity upon work. I understand that paper routes are never again going to be first jobs. I'd also include leaf raking, snow shoveling, and cutting grass on that list. What's going to take their place?

     First we need to re-establish a trust among neighbors to allow for today's youth to do things like teaching people how to use their technology safely. Or cleaning out an attic or basement; anything involving a bit of lifting and cleaning. But first a trust in one another must exist. In previous eras trust was created by participation in groups like Girl Scouts with their cookies. Unfortunately, this devolved into seeing who could get the most cookies sold by whatever means and the work aspect was completely lost. How much work is it to give your sign-up list to Mom and Dad to take to work? Not much.

     I don't have any good answers. I can only see that we have a great many lonely people who have the means to hire youngsters for their first paid jobs. Maybe it could be expanded to include hiring any under-employed adult. People would have to get over stigma of being under-employed and having to do manual labor. It's not an impossible suggestion though first there would have to be a confidence in the character, ability and truth in the people making the transaction. We've spent a lot of time denigrating manual labor by underpaying and not giving it the respect it deserves. A college education is not a lifetime pass from doing manual labor. Just ask all the former service workers who lost their jobs and now have student loans to repay.

Thanksgiving 2020

      We can all reminisce about memorable Thanksgivings and those which were not so notable. The older I get the more of these events I have to recall and some of these stand out for reasons I didn't appreciate at the time. For instance, the only time I saw the NYC Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in person was when I wasn't old enough to see above the crowds. It was cold and we didn't stay too long. Instead, we went to my grandmother's apartment in Stuyvesant Town for an early dinner. 

     This year the parade is "virtual" a term so overused I can't imagine what they are going to do. To me, it would have been better just to tell people that a broadcast of a parade from the 1960s would be shown. Even better would have been to allow all the previous parades to be streamed on NetFlix and Amazon. A virtual parade has none of the entertainment value of watching it in person or even on TV. Let's simply add the loss of the parade to the long list of indignities which 2020 has imposed upon us all.

Kim Ng

      The Miami Marlins are expected to hire Kim Ng as general manager, a source tells The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, making her the first woman to hold a GM position in Major League Baseball history. Jon Heyman of MLB Network was first to report the news of the hire.

     

      About time this RHS Distinguished Alumna received her chance. Bravo to Derek Jeter and the Miami Marlins for this long overdue hire.

My Problem

      
      How's this for a mantra: "The burden of citizenship is recognizing that what is not your fault may be your problem."

      Which leaves us all with the 72 million people who voted for the republican presidential candidate. As Anand Giridharadas wrote recently: "These voters are not our fault. It's certainly not my fault. But it is my problem." Yes, spot on.

     I'm not sure when the subject of Civics became Social Studies in the Ridgewood School system. Probably would have been wise in hindsight to leave the name alone. We certainly were taught Civics in our Social Studies classes but it wasn't the main emphasis. To tell you the truth I don't know what "Social Studies" means. I remember history being taught and some world events. If I were to guess about what is being taught today in Social Studies, it would be a far cry from the subjects which made up my cozy little world.

     This leaves us with the issue of Citizenship and why so many people believe that we can't trust our government to do anything right. There is ample evidence of government being more than capable to handle well defined tasks. Look at our interstate highway system and our National Parks as two of America's better ideas that couldn't have been accomplished by private enterprise alone.

     I know we can't convince everyone of the virtues of government but maybe we can gain a few more converts.  You would think with record unemployment and a bridge/tunnel/mass transit system in need of repairs it would be obvious where we might place our emphasis. If collapsing bridges don't capture your attention how about the forest fires in California and Colorado, or the annual flooding of the southeastern US?

     Part of being a citizen is knowing that we are all in this together and improvements in one part of the country do not take anything away from the rest of the country. I'm not saying these sort of decisions will be easy or should be done at the expense of our place in the world. Our global problems also belong to everyone and an "America First" opinion is not going to be enough. 

     You can argue with me about the details of what ought to happen first. Though please don't tell me that if we leave well enough alone our problems will take care of themselves. They won't.

     

      

The Rules of American Democracy

        We require profound simplicity at this moment in the history of our country. The rules of presidential succession are spelled out in detail. We don't need to make up any procedures, what's more, the incoming president is well informed in how the process works. Age does have its advantages in cases like this.

 

     Unfortunately, we as a nation have never had such a sore loser before in a presidential campaign. Yes, it hurts to come in second but the lifetime perks he will receive remain. It's time to set the wheels of a new government in motion using Federal money. Currently, we are waiting for the GSA (General Services Administration) to authorize money for office space for the incoming administration as well as hundreds of details that need to be addressed during the transition from one ruling party to another. All we need is for the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to give the go ahead, as everyone of his predecessors have been obligated to do. 

 

      The confusion he is promulgating does nothing for his legacy and will without question never allow him to stay in office. He and his supporters may believe an overthrow of our Democracy is possible but they are overplaying a bad hand. The armed forces of our country have designated the airspace over Joe Biden's home as restricted airspace. In other words, they believe the election has been decided. Better luck in 2024.

It Can’t Happen Here!

      But it did. Maybe not like the Sinclair Lewis novel of 1935 though just as scary. If the numbers are to be believed 71 million people voted for the incumbent. This was America at rock bottom. We have no choice but to do better. We face a global pandemic, record income inequality, and an economic prospect of a country that spent the last four years growing by a minuscule 1%. That's not enough to create the jobs which pay people a living wage. Please don't confuse this with the stock market which is not the economy. The economy is comprised of the majority of people in America who buy things and offer their services for hire. Mostly, people are finding low paying jobs without benefits in the Gig Economy. 

 

     The Middle Class of America has been eviscerated by mountains of student loan and credit card debts. They have known this is happening for years and their despair can bre seen in rising rates of suicide and opioid use. The Middle Class can't do much about it. This realization is contributing to a mental health crisis which was already bad because of Covid-19.

         

      It's easy to see and acknowledge our mistakes of the last few decades. How we have squandered our wealth on foreign wars and trying to be the world's policeman. How we have under-funded our schools, our infrastructure (roads, bridges, and tunnels) has been left to rot, and trust in one another is at an all-time low. 

     I'm not calling for a new isolationism. The world is too connected for that. What we do need is a new humility. America was a great country and could be again. Though it will need a lot of help from a great many sources. We can start by taking better care of the planet. Here in America, California is still on fire and the eastern part of the country is being overwhelmed by unprecedented storms which tax our abilities to recover. The kind of people we need are those like the ones who run into raging forest fires or violent storms. Our problems will require tremendous amounts of sacrifice and a kind, empathetic souls to solve them. Be part of the solution.

   

The End Of A Civic Nightmare

       I only wish my friend Laura Fleming had lived to see this day. She voted but died before the results were finalized.

     This is the end of our Civic nightmare. I don't want to go through this ever again and will be on the watch for the tell-tale signs of authoritarians in our midst. We have to do a better job of considering all of society. Our future actions whether they be in business of politics must reflect the ideal that we are all in this together.

     I am very grateful for the record number of people who turned out to vote this month, and the early voters too. Though it would be less stressful if all the states adopted some sort of uniform way of counting the votes. Some states counted them as they came in and others life Pennsylvania didn't start counting the mail-in votes until 7AM on Election Day.

    I called this post "The End Of A Civic Nightmare" to highlight the fact we can now begin again doing those activities which bring us together, which speak to the better angels of our nature. This will be long, deliberate process because we didn't forsake our duties all at one time and we won't acquire the new Civic habits that we require overnight. Though we can become more focused on those small activities which help to make our society a better place for everyone. I recall some of my earliest lessons in Civics were participatory and not so much a lecture from one of my fellow citizens. By these I mean my own engagement with our elementary school's Safety Patrol and the yearly bicycle inspections which were conducted by the police. Some and seemingly insignificant examples add up when everyone is doing something. My hope is that we will all find ideas big and small to pursue and contribute to so we never are in this sort of situation again.

 

 

Bad Apple

       It was recently announced that the three best Charlie Brown TV specials would no longer be presented via linear TV, instead they would only be seen on Apple TV. Linear TV is the original concept of one to many TV featuring the broadcast of the signal over the public airwaves. Apple TV is just another cable channel.

      This news trended on the Internet all day, and then like most news was forgotten the next. Nothing illegal was done and in Apple's defense you can watch these classics for free on designated days.

     What irks people, I believe, is the indescribable loss of something they might have hoped would never change. Maybe the estate of Charles Schulz could have stated that these shows would forever be shown on public access airwaves, meaning you could stick an antenna out the window and watch them. I doubt this even crossed their minds given the immediate production of Peanuts balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade right after "Sparky's death in February 2000.

      It's just another example of a huge corporation desperately trying to maximize their quarterly profit numbers with little regard for how their efforts will look. I own Apple products and consider them very good, though a company's management is not the same as they products they sell. Management decisions can cast products in an unfavorable light. This is one of those instances. We may not notice in the short run but in the long run when we have one less commonality to discuss, especially when we gather around the holidays, we'll probably notice the silence. Even if we figure out what's missing it will be hard to explain the timeless essence of these excellent TV programs to a younger generation. Maybe technology will come to the rescue and our future "Smart TV" will have the Apple TV app built-in. Then this loss of something special will be placed into the category of the vent window on the side of automobiles or the introduction of the DH in Baseball. Both created minor furors but then the next sound you heard was that of the crickets breaking the silence.

School Bake Sales

     I always liked the Election Day Bake Sales which were held in the hallways of elementary schools doing double duty as polling venues. It was common for stay-at-home Moms to bake sweets and also sell the goods which were baked. This contribution never found its way into Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers or was written about in history books as an example of civic pride. 

     Growing up not many people voted absentee and there wasn't any early voting. This year will be complicated by the fact Republican like to vote in person and Democrats are leaning towards voting by mail. It will make for a long election night and maybe even an election week or two. Neither candidate will gracefully bow out of the race before all the ballots have been counted. No doubt some ballots will be recounted to verify the integrity of the process.

 

      It's all over the news how armed men will in some states like Michigan will be legally patrolling voting places. The law might indicate that they must be thirty feet away but that still is close enough to intimidate. I don't know any reason why they feel compelled to dress up in broad daylight in camouflage meant for hiding in woods. Maybe it gives them courage like the masks they will use to hide their faces. I can't imagine how that must look to a child who really would be better off dreaming about what they plan to buy at the bake sale.

Libby

       Libby is an app and it can be accessed via your web browser. If you have a library card you enter the number and then are digitally transported to the confines of your favorite branch. I am lucky to live in Queens New York which has 63 branches and a huge selection of online books.

     Now if this wasn't the era of Covid I would simply search for what I wanted and then walk over to pick it up when they said it was available. Living in the times of Covid I am less likely to want to visit any place for very long. Unfortunately, a library is a place I tend to visit for hours.

     With this new free access I have a limited selection of electronic books which I can increase the type size of to make them more readable. Reading a book digitally takes some getting used to but it's worth it. I missed the selection the library has to offer just as I miss going to book stores. This is a compromise which I am willing to live with, as should anyone who is a reader at heart.

     Depending upon your library and the title you want to read there might be a wait. Though that is explained in detail. Authors have to earn money so they can't have all the books of the world in unlimited copies. I view this as more than fair. It also makes you hunt for books and you might possible read something new and not your usual style. Well worth the effort.

Laura Fleming

      I got to know Laura long after we graduated in a class of over 550 students. She was a tireless worker for so many causes. I feel lucky to worked with her on a couple of class reunions. One of her former students, Sanjana Rajagopal, gave her a eulogy better than I ever could:

 

Woke up today morning to the news that my AP Euro teacher, History Bowl chaperone, and all around one of the sweetest people I knew passed away. I still vividly remember her encouraging my love for Russian history and taking a giant group of us to DC for History Bowl Nationals not once but twice. Even recently she told me she was so happy to see me teaching, and to see my research headed in a direction very much related to her class. Our last face to face conversation was in the library of RHS, where I was telling her about my plans to do the PhD.

When I see my students today on Zoom, I’ll keep your wonderful heart, patience, and care in mind, Mrs. Fleming. You touched the lives of so many at Ridgewood High School. 

 

Medical Mathematics

      I saw the term "Medical Mathematics" today in reference to our president. People are justifiably concerned with his health, especially less than 4 weeks to an election. They want some numbers with which to compare his health. These numbers have been around according to Fabrizio Bigotti since at least "the early 1600s, when a professor of medicine, Santorio Santori, helped perfect devices to measure body temperature and pulse rate." 

     The precision of our numbers today and the vast amount of literature available to analyze them with has led to a cottage industry of people making a medical diagnosis via the Internet. It's not the best method and we ought to be provided with the president's results if only to stem the conspiracy theories. This withholding of information is nothing new. Leaders of many countries have long done this so we're probably not going to know for years how the president is doing.

     What fascinates me with this term is the number of devices which will soon be relied upon to help determine our vital signs. I like wearable technology though the privacy and security of the wearable will require a lot of scrutiny. The hacking of driver-less cars is concerning but the hacking of medical devices raises my anxiety to a new peak! I'll still be testing them out though as a backup to my routine visits to the doctor. 

     The lesson from all our working from home is some human interaction can and will be replaced by automation. I am not in favor of everything being automated and in person medical care is a prime example. I am all for removing the headache of paperwork via automation from our medical professionals. This will soon be the norm as the insurance industry can't justify their inconsistency and often times incompetence for much longer. The clamor to replace outmoded practices from doctors and patients is going to be too much, not to mention the waste of time and money. I can only hope the additions to the corporate bottom line will be tempered by the realization that we are all in this thing called life together. The pandemic has also taught us that viruses do not respect gated communities or Secret Service agents willing to take a bullet. We have to steward our medical resources better in the future and automation is going to help.

     

The End of Our Monoculture

      I'm not sure exactly when our single culture ceased being and our current multi-culture began but it happened in my lifetime so I'll try to give it the consideration it deserves. Truth be told I am only able to blog because the single set of circumstances which made up my youth are easy to remember. This makes my comparisons to today all the more stark. Like I always say and tell my nephews it is not that my childhood was better, only that it was different than what you can expect today. The starkest example:

• CBS, NBC, ABC were the major networks throughout the country. You could travel around, flip on the TV, and easily find them. That is, if your antenna was positioned correctly. 
• Today we have so many channels in so many different combinations that it is fair to say most TVs do not have the same channels.
  

     

     I think it's great we have more choice and wouldn't wish the summer TV rerun seasons we endured on anyone. This could be said about a lot of things like our music, choices of food, telephones... The list is long and hurrah for the difference. 

     My sole observation is; Can we somehow regain some semblance of coherence, a common ground which will help us work together to tackle the issues of the day? I'm not sure we can reach resolutions to issues of Income Equality, Climate, Racism, Ageism and many others if we don't begin with an agreed upon set of facts and cultural touchstones. Maybe we can and I'm just misinformed.

     My suggestion is to enjoy the vast amount of cultural choices and get comfortable with all the confusion. Figure out as best you can where you can find more of what you like. We all seem to be looking so take a friend or two along in your search.

Gettysburg Address

      It was once a part of every school's curriculum, the Gettysburg Address. Students had to memorize it. I had to do this fifth grade. Some students learned it earlier, some later. All recognized it as a moving tribute to an idea written into our Constitution in 1776. 

     
      According to Wikipedia: the Gettysburg Address is a world-famous speech delivered by U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln at the dedication (November 19, 1863) of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the site of one of the decisive battles of the American Civil War (July 1–3, 1863).

     The speech only took a little over three minutes to deliver and consisted of ten lines. It was over so quickly that the photographer assigned to capture the moment missed it entirely.

 

     These days the final words inspire me the most: "and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." I mention this because our democracy is not guaranteed to survive the coming election. Our democracy is a fragile construct held together with people's best intentions, or as Lincoln liked to say, the better angels of our nature. This appeared in the final paragraph of Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address in 1861. He certainly had a way with words. I am going to put his address to memory again as I watch the events unfold around our forthcoming election and the all important count of votes which will occur afterwards.

 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

 

 

Bi-partisan Get Well Soon

      I would not wish Covid on anyone, even someone who misled our country about its potential harm. Though given Trump's bad luck in business as demonstrated by his numerous bankruptcies and never ending audit by the IRS, it's simple in hindsight to state that we could have seen this coming.

     The math, which by itself ought to frighten anybody from going to large gatherings of people without a mask, is too clear: the larger the group of people, the better your chances of contracting Covid. End of story.

Wisdom Workers

      Try Googling "people at work" and you will mostly receive pictures of people working inside and office environment. I guess the search engines will all have to do some house cleaning with the trend being towards WFH (working from home) for the foreseeable future.

     I miss very little about offices and cubicles. During my younger years when I traveled extensively as a consultant, all I saw were offices and people none too happy to be working in them. Hopefully, our Covid travail will teach us a few things. One being the necessity to take people into account when designing workplaces. Another would be a thorough questioning for the need to be in one location during a set period of hours, the old 9 to 5. All I am really suggesting is flexibility in our attitudes as to what constitutes work.We all need to be Wisdom Workers because the term Knowledge Worker doesn't make sense any more. Anyone with a smart phone is carrying most all the knowledge they need. More important is an idea of how and when to apply it. That is what Wisdom Workers do for us.

Tomato Plants in Autumn

      Nothing sadder than tomato plants in Autumn, even on a warm sunny day. Our garden this year had plenty of cherry tomatoes but the other, larger varieties were less productive. The herbs and flowers as usual were the most spectacular. The mulberry trees even with a pruning gave the birds and people walking by a consistent snack for the better part of three weeks.

     Now I have to compost the dying plants and turn over the soil. These jobs I like and they take my mind off the knuckleheads not wearing masks in my borough of NYC. A second wave of infections is coming and we are prepared to stay inside until Spring. Then I'll be able to plant some tomatoes and the whole process will begin again.

 

Critical Self-Reflection

    After being an advocate for technology, beginning in the early 1990s,  I now ask myself, "Is this technology really of any use?" The Smart Phone is a great invention. It is the fictional device used for voice communication from the television series Star Trek brought to life. But what about all the people now who stare at it incessantly while walking through traffic or on our pre-Covid-19 crowded streets? This use of the phone is annoying to say the least and dangerous a fair part of the time as people must move aside to make way for these distracted people.

 

     Another technology which I'll be holding my judgement on involves Artificial Intelligence (AI). I say involves because AI is a means a lot of things from chess-playing computers to self-driving cars. If you want to begin to understand AI go back and re-learn your junior high school and high school math because the basis of AI is Machine Learning. The study of the math behind AI answers that long ago questions often posed to Math teachers, "What is all this Math good for?" Take a look at the Introduction to Machine Learning from the Online school Udemy and you'll quickly find out!

     Back to my rant. I'm worried about Deep Fakes. These are videos and pictures created to give the impression of an individual saying something they never have said before. These are Fakes but created with the latest editing techniques available. They can make self-reflection look stunning---so that we believe our politicians have our best interests in mind. Deep Fakes can move people to action so they they make room for others in their lives, so they believe it is the highest form of humanity to have a publicly funded safety net for those unlucky enough to not carefully choose their parents.

      Deep Fakes can also be used to create phony evidence which might land people in jail for crimes they didn't commit. Or make people believe that certain politicians appear drunk in public. The list is staggering and a bit frightening. 

     We all need to understand that Deep Fakes are a part of our current reality and to make allowances for them by being less quick to anger or to judge. It is truly the challenge of our technological age.

 

  

Air Quality Index

       Here's something to check out if you are noticing all the clouds on the East Coast. The AQI or Air Quality Index is a service of the EPA Environmental Protection Agency. Our tax dollars at work and a good reason to support the idea of government programs. Knowing if the air outside is unhealthy is to state the obvious a good thing.

https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/

     Your friends and family in Los Angeles are currently breathing unhealthy air from all the forest fires.

     I am way past trying to figure out who is to blame. One side says it's because the forest floors need to be swept of dry debris. The other side says that the Federal Government owns 55% percent of these forests. I don't care who is most correct. I just want some institution to put the fires out! It doesn't appear to be a good case for market incentives but it does scream out for a coordinated government effort. We are all in this together. Where are you going to go if the smoke is drifting 3000 miles from the west coast?

     I learned today that the national parks in LA begin directly against the outer rings of the city. This means you go from Urban to forest very fast and is the reason why homes are being destroyed so easily.

The Man or Woman In the Arena

      Teddy Roosevelt was a man of 19th ideals. They hunted, they fished and thought nothing of making trophies out of their conquests. Teddy also collected nature. "His lifelong passion for the natural world set the stage for America’s wildlife conservation movement and  determined his legacy as a founding father of today’s museum naturalism."

     Teddy was also a Trustbuster. We don't even know the term anymore and nobody claims the mantle which TR established. Today's Trusts or companies with monopoly power include

Amazon, FaceBook, Google, Microsoft, Comcast, National Football League to name a few.

 

     On April 23, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt gave what would become one of the most widely quoted speeches of his career. I read this in high school and copied it to a piece of paper so I could carry it around for inspiration. I later traded it for sources of inspiration which I instead committed to memory, especially poets like Yeats,  and Keats.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Mr Harmon

      We cannot talk too much about this saint of a man who taught at GW for over 30 years. Here is an article from the student newspaper circa 1974.

Broadband For All

      As children we all pretty much had the same choices of TV channels. There were the big three networks ABC, NBC, CBS. A PBS station and if you lived in a big market like the NYC area there were local stations like WOR, WPIX, WNEW. There was only antenna-based reception and if your antenna wasn't tuned right or there was a huge storm you reception could b pretty lousy.

     With the coming of the 21st century the idea of everyone having similar TV experiences and opportunities is incomprehensible. What was once a highly regulated (think Phone and Electric companies) has become a free-for-all.

     People talk about Broadband For All and how it would increase economic opportunities by giving high-speed Internet access to everyone. There is no doubt in my mind this is true. It is also a certainty that the Cable companies are very happy with the current arrangement where they can charge what they like. Cable is not a regulated government monopoly like the electric and water companies. It ought to be because Internet access is a necessity. If this pandemic has taught us anything it is that we are all in this together and we will co-exist much more peacefully if everyone can obtain inexpensive access to Tele-Health, Bill Paying, and Government services. And yes, Voting.

     Until we come to our senses and realize that everyone needs Internet access we will continue to see the damaging effects of income inequality, distrust of institutions, and an ever debilitating public health crisis. 

     All we need is some stop gap measures like running coaxial cable to homes where it is feasible, using Cellular signals and WiFi where it is not. This is the kind of public works projects our country used to undertake, like when we created the National Highway System. Broadband, in all its different forms, is simply the much ballyhooed "Information Superhighway."  Our Federal government is capable of constructing it, but currently lacks the will. Time will only tell when we will wise up and do the right thing.

Labor Day 2020

      Labor Day was always the last holiday weekend before we went back to school. More and more lately I have felt a sense of outrage whenever I saw a school district or college opening their doors in August. I can't believe someone would think it a good idea to take a holiday away that we all once understood. 

    Labor Day meant the summer vacation was truly over. It meant we were resuming a well honed routine where we began the education year for younger generations. Starting school in August and then taking a long Labor Day weekend makes no sense. Summer is an all or nothing proposition. It can't be stopped and started easily.

     Today in our Covid-19 world the stopping and starting is much easier because most students, if they are lucky, are being educated online. It is certainly not an ideal situation. The students are missing the valuable lessons they can learn only in the company of others, be they teachers or fellow classmates.      

     Labor Day has less significance this year. It seems all we hear about the students going back to school is the number of them contracting Covid. The pictures of parties with no social distancing or masks are disturbing. common sense appears to be on holiday, not just the usual party goers. 

     There is no vaccine. These matters take time, unless we are very fortunate and the first trials are overwhelmingly successful. I hold out hope for this to happen. It will mean we can start again to develop ordinary, unremarkable habits, instead of living in fear of one another. Labor Day could resume being the last summer holiday. A holiday where we might reflect upon our lives and attempt to think about ourselves in a more positive manner. 

 

First Day Of School

      Glad to see the folks in Ridgewood are ready. (The temperature check is a long overdue idea.) 

     We never needed a reason to be nervous on the first day of school so I guess being greeting by someone wearing a mask and wanting to take your temperature isn't any worse than usual.

Gap Year

      The term "Gap Year" didn't exist when I was growing up. You were either going to college or you were not. Now we have a situation where, and I'll paraphrase Seth Godin, a "gap year filled with intention ought to be viewed as a way to engage with the world... and to think about what we’re actually buying when we buy a degree from a famous college." The Gap Year now is the most logical choice in my mind for teenagers considering whether to attend a college or a university. There are too many less expensive options in the area of online learning to explore, many being offered by the same colleges who want to charge full price for a degree without the promise of any social interaction. Let's be frank, and  understand that the best learning goes on outside of the classroom. It's the friends you make, the connections you will tap later on in business or for your career. It's the nuggets of wisdom you gain when walking through the common areas and talking with another educated individual. These are what you pay for with tuition. If they are not available then you might as well take a Gap Year or two.

 

Kindness Eases Change

     This is quoted from the excellent weekly digest by Maria Popova:

This is the weekly email digest of the daily online journal Brain Pickings by Maria Popova.

      Kindness eases change are the words of  

 

      "Octavia Butler (June 22, 1947–February 24, 2006) — another rare visionary — offered a glimmer of guidance in her sibylline two-part series set in the 2020s: Parable of the Sower (public library) and Parable of the Talents (public library) — a set of cautionary allegories, cautionary and future-protective in their keen prescription for course-correctives, about the struggle of a twenty-first-century society, Earthseed, to survive the ecological collapse, political corruption, corporate greed, and socioeconomic inequality it has inherited from the previous generations and their heedless choices."

 

 

1980 Teacher Contract

      Among all the people who shared the local athletic fields with me growing up were Robert Sullivan and Jim Stroker. They occupied the low paying and highly important positions of coach/umpire. Mr. Sullivan was a baseball coach of mine and also turned up as a basketball referee all over town. Jim Stroker was a baseball umpire during my time in the Ridgewood Recreation summer softball league. If the contract below is any guide they likely received very little in monetary remuneration for their efforts. Though I remain very grateful for all the energy they put into their jobs.

      By being coaches, umpires, and referees they assured us of a fair game, which meant our efforts would be judged honestly. They both recognized that many life lessons can be learned through participation in athletics.

     Robert Sullivan hired many of the teachers who made my journey through K-12 memorable. His namesake son attended K-12 with me. Bob was a chip off the old block as the saying goes. He knew he was being watched by all the teachers. If he made one slip up his Dad's home number was in the phone book and his work number was the Ridgewood Board of Education. As far as I know nobody ever needed to call attention to Bob being insubordinate. On the contrary, he made it easier on the teachers. I can recall being in the sixth grade together and we had a new teacher Miss Jensen. Of course, she was hired by Bob's Dad. On the first day of class she was tasked with forming a Safety Patrol squad. Bob helped her out by telling her that I had been a Safety Patrol Captain the previous year. I'll never forget how her face lit up in a smile, then she asked me if this was true and if I would be Captain again. I didn't let her down and her first day on the job was made less burdensome by Bob's quick thinking. He intuitively knew that she would have at least one successful outcome on her first day of teaching at a new school.

     Jim Stroker was from the east side of town and graduated RHS in 1970. He taught at Benjamin Franklin Junior High School for over 35 years. Here is the contract he signed in 1980.

    

   

    

Ridgewood Police Brutality

      When is 2020 going to be over? It can't happen soon enough for me.

     Upon a casual web search of Ridgewood, NJ the following story appeared about a group of bike riders from a nearby town. These were bicycle riders, not motorcyclists.

     "Ridgewood police officers on July 26, 2020. Video of the detainment has caused backlash from local groups, who say the police officers used excessive force when they detained a Latino minor."

     

      The boy was issued four motor vehicle summonses and was later freed when his parents signed a juvenile release form, police said.

     All I can tell from the video is that the boy was riding without a helmet and that he was barely 5 feet tall.

     I also know from my own experience that kids can be very disrespectful of laws we find unacceptable. I remember having my name taken by a police officer while riding my bicycle on the rail station underpass. This was long before helmet laws. The cop stopped me and warned me that if he ever saw me riding, as opposed to walking my bicycle,  there would be consequences. He never touched me or my bicycle and the entire encounter lasted less than 5 minutes. I never again rode my bicycle in this manner,  so never worried about the consequences which might have awaited me. 

     I suppose three police officers was a bit much and that some re-training is in order. I wouldn't fire these police officers but instead would make examples of them. Just like they tried to make an example of this young LatinX teenager. 

     Probably would have been smarter to let the kid ride away but hindsight is always 20/20. The teenager likely uttered an insult or tried to belittle the police in some manner. Egos were bruised in the process and all the policemen forget the old saying about "Stick and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me."

Huffman's Pond

      I won't venture into the debate about the sale of the property to the Village of Ridgewood. My memories of the skating on the pond during the winter and of admiring the horses is really more important to me. It always amazed me that we could walk down the Huffman's driveway and past the stables to explore the pond and take one of the two paths that led down to the Hohokus Brook. These were the Devil's path and the Angel's path. You can probable guess that the upper one called Angel was much safer than the one further down called Devil. Never a word of protest from the Huffmans or from anybody who stabled their horses in their barns. I suppose we knew it was a special place and didn't want to jinx it by reflecting upon it too much. I think when someone finally did give the entire operation some careful consideration, the money was too much to turn down.

     Though while researching this post I did come across a letter from the son of the owner who puts his 2 cents in and is as close as we'll probably ever come to the truth. Do read the comments as they establish the fact that this too good to be true place really existed and that the Huffmans allowed our explorations of their property with such grace that 50 years later people are still commenting upon their generosity.

https://theridgewoodblog.net/a-little-history-on-the-property-that-is-now-known-as-the-habernickel-family-park/

 

    

A Little history on the property that is now known as the Habernickel Family Park

My name is Richard Huffman and I am writing to give a little history on the property that is now known as the Habernickel Family Park. I lived on the farm from 1950 until 1977.

My dad, Arthur C. Huffman, bought it in disrepair from a doctor who had previously bought it years before to become a recuperative home for his sickly child who suffered from breathing problems. The doctor spent a huge amount of money and time planting many of the beautiful trees that now grace the property, hoping that they would help his child,s breathing problems, but, unfortunately, the child died before the project was completed, We named the property Sweetbriar Farms. My dad founded Huffman & Boyle Furniture (later Huffman-Koos) and was a prominent member of the community.

Over the years, the farm was always open to the public. Ice skating on the pond all winter, fishing in the summer, Boy Scout camp outs in the lower fields, and hiking through the woods. The Kuiphers (Habernickel) family bought the farm part of the the property from my dad in the late 1970s and, in 1986, bought the last 2 acres where our house was located after my father had passed away.

I am surprised that the that the town chose to name the park after the prior owners since, at $7.4 million, it was in no way a charitable donation by the Habernickel family. They made a very handsome profit on the sale to the town. A more appropriate name for the park would have been Hillcrest Park.

The Fireplace

      Many a child growing up in northern NJ had their first restaurant experience at The Fireplace in Paramus. The speed with which orders were prepared, the wooden tables and chairs, and the unlimited pickles all made for an experience etched into many people's memories.

     Times have changed and Covid-19 has put The Fireplace out of business for the time being. I know that during every one of my class reunions there have been tables of revelers munching on hamburgers and swapping stories while sitting around the Fireplace. It was timeless in its appearance and the rapid fire pace of the service. It had what most knowledgeable restaurateurs would call an excellent location next to an off-ramp on Route 17, with a huge parking lot in the back. 

     The line cooks who withstood the heat to prepare our orders were stellar examples of what hard working Americans looked and acted like. They were not maligned or looked down upon. It was a job and while not an easy one, it did satisfy the need to give Mom a break from the kitchen once in a while. It also catered to the people who took to the road and needed a place to rest for a moment and have a meal. Yes, the auto made The Fireplace possible. Much later they did the logical thing and held auto shows in their parking lot. It was a natural combination which celebrated the nostalgia inherent in classic automobiles and drive-in eateries. 

     The Fireplace was almost like the movie American Graffiti brought from the big screen into our daily lives. Of course, The Fireplace was East Coast and the setting of American Graffiti was southern California. No neon at The Fireplace, it was more old world brick. Plus there were no waitresses on rolling skates to bring you your food. You had to stand and wait. The men taking orders could always give you an estimate as to how long your order would take and we accepted their word as bond. Where else would we have gone? Our world had not yet been taken over by fast food chains with outlets clustered around every off-ramp. The only other restaurant in the area was for serious drinkers and was named the Orange Lantern. It is still around but gave up being a relic from the past and now is a Sports Bar.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC)

      Thanks to Paul Chisholm class of 1975 for posting this on FB. It rings so true and explains so much of what write about. Proud to say I live in her district.

    

Q: "What does an America with defunded police look like to you?"

A: "The good news is that it actually doesn't take a ton of imagination.

"It looks like a suburb. Affluent white communities already live in a world where the choose to fund youth, health, housing etc more than they fund police. These communities have lower crime rates not because they have more police, but bc they have more resources to support healthy society in a way that reduces crime.

"When a teenager or preteen does something harmful in a suburb (I say teen bc this is often where lifelong carceral cycles begin for Black and Brown communities), White communities bend over backwards to find alternatives to incarceration for their loved ones to "protect their future," like community service or rehab or restorative measures. Why don't we treat Black and Brown people the same way? Why doesn't the criminal system care about Black teens' futures the way they care for White teens' futures? Why doesn't the news use Black people's graduation or family photos in stories the way they do when they cover White people (eg Brock Turner) who commit harmful crimes? Affluent White suburbs also design their own lives so that they walk through the world without having much interruption or interaction with police at all aside from community events and speeding tickets (and many of these communities try to reduce those, too!)

"Just starting THERE would be a dramatically and radically different world than what we are experiencing now."

Source: https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/a32849383/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-defund-the-police/

Ali Stroker

 Nothing keeps Ali down!

Before The Deluge

      Once they cancelled the Yankees and Mets baseball series this weekend I got the sense we hadn't seen the last of the Covid-19 in the New York metro area. I was truly amazed they had played baseball this long.

"Before The Deluge"

Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature

And in the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in the moment they were swept before the deluge

      I have been streaming music daily to keep my spirits up. Too many complaints for me to list. Though my biggest is how little we have been able to come together and act as one to contain Covid and get the economy rolling. I fear too much damage has been done to the economy. Businesses don't just appear. People have to have some hope of success and the ability to see far enough into the future to make a prediction as to what consumers might buy. For even an optimist like me, there is not much hope that I can see or feel. 

     I know a lot of people who can work from home but that is not the majority. The majority of people risk their lives going to jobs they don't like to begin with, but need to keep their health insurance. I'm sure the irony is not lost on them though they might not call it irony to have to risk their health in order to preserve the option to get medical treatment.

     I do like the field of robotics. These often maligned smart machines will one day be celebrated for their ability to help us do our jobs better. One of the best applications of robotics has been with the painting of automobiles. The rework rate when cars were hand painted was 25%. That meant 1 out of 4 cars had to be pulled from the assembly line and be repainted. With robots this is almost unheard of and the robots are fearless and tireless in doing one of the most dangerous jobs in an auto plant. That's what I call a celebration.