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.

Words To Live By

     And in the end

     The love you take

     Is equal to the love you make

Women's Suffrage in the United States

      The one hundred year anniversary of women receiving the right to vote is August 18th 2020. It marks progress in our society just like abolishing Slavery and outlawing Child Labor. We need a holiday in August and this would be my choice. 

      June 19th has been proposed as a holiday to commemorate the end of Slavery. This year marks the 155th anniversary of that day.

     Maybe we could begin by allowing people to take the either Women's Suffrage day or Juneteenth off without pay. Or put it in a pool of paid holidays and allow people to make the choice at the beginning of each year just like we do with health insurance plans. With remote work being the new normal it might make sense to allow people to work when they want and making it part of business planning. Not everyone drinks on New Year's Eve or even goes out. They could plan to work on January 1st and take another day as a holiday. 

     We are growing less similar in our interests and cultures. This might be a way of creating a new work culture that takes into consideration what workers find most important. One holiday is just as valid as another.

     As long as the element of planning remains it would be a plus for everyone. Times have changed. We all don't shop on the day after Thanksgiving. The added flexibility in my opinion would be viewed as an important perk.

Try A Little Tenderness

      Social distancing is hard. I won't offer any comparative analysis to previous troubled times as this is what we have now and we don't know when it will end. Everything we can compare it to has ended and been categorized and analyzed. This Covid-19 pandemic looks endless.

     Like the last pandemic 100 years ago the suffering is being felt disproportionately by people at the lower end of the economic scale, who can't work at home, don't have savings, and can't afford not to risk their lives going to work.

     I am sure there will come a time when we will be able to laugh together, hug one another, and generally be able to have a good time in a large group. No guarantees about when this might be and if I will be able to partake. I take nothing for granted these days and my optimistic nature has been severely chastened. I'm going to keep taking things one day at a time and when the mood supports it, "I'll try a little bit of tenderness."

 

Absentee Ballots

      I downloaded the application for an absentee ballot today. I filled it out and mailed it to another part of Queens, when in due course I will be sent a ballot for the upcoming General Election. I have never voted absentee before and the school where I vote is a short walk away. 

     Covid changed my mind about waiting on line and voting in person this year. School are used as polling places and they were never designed with social distancing in mind, which is fine in normal times. Too bad these are not normal times. If these were anything close to normal times we wouldn't all be worrying about viruses without cures or a feckless president threatening to de-fund the Post Office.

Arthur Ashe

     "Arthur Ashe was dying of AIDS. This was in the early 1990s. And he told an interviewer that being black was harder than having AIDS." This story is told by my pal the music critic and editor of the National Review, Jay Nordlinger: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-heaviest-burden/

 

 

     Mr Ashe called being black the heaviest burden he had, not his heart attack or contracting AIDs long before medicine caught up to it.

     When I used to watch Tennis on TV in the 1970s it was a sport played by gentlemen and women. They were required to wear white, though I now appreciate the current trends toward individual sports wear. They didn't try to "game" the refs by stopping a match to question calls, or like those who came after Arthur Ashe, to berate the refs with foul language. There wasn't as much money at stake and coincidentally there were far fewer commercials. Yes, the sport was largely segregated and the women earned less money than men. No era is perfect and this time I fondly recall was far from it. 

     In my mind what I liked about watching the tennis matches was the old school nature of the contest: Wooden rackets and quickly played matches. But I can also recall rooting for Arthur Ashe to win. Not that he needed my help, he was an extraordinary tennis player who matches up well with the all-time greats of any era. It felt appropriate to cheer for Arthur Ashe. He was playing for everyone and his victories meant one more nail in the coffin or racism in America. He didn't call it that though I imagine he thought it sometimes.

RHS Hybrid Approach to Opening Schools

      I sent Tim Monahan this note after he posted an update on LinkedIn regarding the re-opening of schools in September. Here is the original post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/assessment-remote-teaching-arena-timothy-b-monahan/?trackingId=Pi56zc7MSVqTTr9maTN0%2Fw%3D%3D

     

     Tim, Thank you for the update! You and your fellow teachers are working in a brand new world. Your challenges are immense and I hope that everyone in the RHS community understands the pressures both teachers and students are working under.

     If we had the wherewithal, I would suggest asking for 3-5 minute videos from RHS alumni to help supplement classroom materials. No teacher would be obligated to use them but they might contain a nugget or two worth sharing.

     Might be something to bring up to the RHS Alumni Association. Quite a few subject matter experts are now working from home, out-of-work, retired, or otherwise have time on their hands. They might welcome the opportunity to contribute to their alma mater.

    #LovingKindness

Crowded Hallways

      This picture was all too true when I was growing up.

     When the subject of opening up schools is raised I have to admit I see the reasons why we have to do it. Children need to socialize with their peers, they need to be instructed in person, and they have to learn the difference between right and wrong. 

     I also look at this picture and see why we can't. Crowded hallways are a certainty, unless we create doors going outside for every classroom on every floor of a school.

     The scene below is repeated at least 10 times a day at a high school. A couple of minutes each time the bell rings to prompt students to got to their next class. It starts to add up when you figure the exposure in a single week. And when you are trying to contain the spread of an infectious disease like Covid-19, this is counter productive.

     When need a serious reset of expectations regarding when it will be safe for teachers and students to return to classrooms.

     When need a serious effort to provide Internet access to all students. The Internet is a utility just like water. We cannot live without it, let alone try to educate our young people. 

     These are huge changes I am proposing, but I don't see any other way. Until we have a vaccine for Covid-19 that a majority of people will take, it does not appear we have much choice other than to social distance. It would be much easier to provide Internet access. Fortunately, 5G speeds exist and would do a great service if everyone had access to equipment and the bandwidth. We have encountered problems like this before if you recall World War II. America was able to muster the resources and build the equipment we needed. Can we do it again?

Make Lying Wrong Again

      Children lie. We expect it because they are afraid of what would happen if they uttered the truth.

     Adults lie. This we don't expect and it unsettles us no end when we discover that we have been lied to. Not the little white lies like, "I am running late" when the fact is we have over slept. The disturbing lies are those which are corroborated by others and thus made more hurtful.

     I remember organizing a high school reunion and group of my classmates decided to have a "free" party for 60 to 100 invited guests. I had put a lot of time into organizing the event, along with a committee of volunteers working in the Cloud. We used Social Media before it had become a dirty word and expected a great turnout by our classmates.

     Sad to say that other classmates with less lofty ambitions also noticed all our work.  Their plan was clever in that they timed their party so it would roughly end when the actual reunion was set to begin. Unfortunately, many of the invitees got so drunk on the "free" food and drink they were either late or didn't show. The smart ones only bought one ticket and left me wondering if they had recently gotten a divorce. 

      The not so amusing feature of the story was I could tell something was wrong by the names of those electing not to come or cancelling at the last minute. I was a restaurateur for a long time so I was very familiar with reservation patterns. I figured it out for certain on the day before the party. I decided on the spot not to mention it to anyone.

      You might ask yourself like I did, "Why would they do such a thing?" and lie to my face about it? The best answer I could ever come up with was, "They did it because they could." It likely didn't cost anything because the hosts were rich and could easily bury it somewhere in their taxes as a business expense.

      You might also ask yourself , "Why is he writing about it now?" The answer is simply because I can. I also don't every want to seeing lying on such as epic scale again. It's bad enough our Federal Government has been corrupted to no end. No need for it to trickle down to the local level. It will be at the local level we will begin to rebuild our economy. It will initially take thousands of people trusting one another. The thousands of transactions and network connections will have to grow into millions before we start to feel good about ourselves again. This is all predicated on our not lying to ourselves or to our friends and neighbors. It might be too late to rectify the damage from eight summers ago. The instigators a long time ago moved into hiding behind their gated communities. Maybe someday they might feel some remorse and try to make amends. All I can offer is the words of Dr. Martin Luther King:

     The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

 

TikTok

     The president of these United States wants to shut down TikTok. TikTok is a community. Of youngsters. It is loaded with people who don't like the current president. Not sure shutting it down will change any minds. Not sure letting Microsoft buy it will achieve his goal of silencing dissent.

     TikTok/Douyin is a Chinese video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based Internet technology company founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming. It is used to create short dance, lip-sync, comedy and talent videos. ByteDance first launched Douyin for the Chinese market in September 2016.Wikipedia

     https://www.tiktok.com/

     The clips I've seen on TikTok are short and sometimes very witty. I see no reason to close the service in the vain attempt to make the president look better. That is impossible. He has committed enough atrocious acts for one lifetime and it will take years to undo the damage. Leave the kids alone.

Jury Duty

     I have served my fair share of jury duty in my life. It is interesting to see the machinations of justice from the jury room, even if you are mostly watching movies. Today the Federal Court in Brooklyn sent me a summons. This time I had to pause and ask myself if this was a good idea.

    My household has been inside since the beginning of March. We work from home, wear masks in public, and socially distance. This is nowhere near the sacrifice that previous generations of Americans have endured. It hasn't been easy, there have been misunderstandings to be sure.

     To make a long story short, I filled out the jury questionnaire online. At the end of the form there was a box for remarks. I used it state that I was afraid, yes afraid, of bringing the virus home to my immune-compromised spouse. No idea if this will matter or if I'll be chosen, but at least I have said my peace.

George Washington Junior High School circa 1960s

     This is how I remember GW. It was before a group of citizens, including my father and many of his friends and neighbors bought the land across the street and created Citizen's Park. There was a stone placed around 1970 in the driveway with a plaque which contains the names of all the donors.

     As of late there has been quite a bit of building at GW, and at all the schools in the Ridgewood Public School system. With all this building they had to eliminate Home Economics, Wood Shop, Electrical Shop, and Body Shop. Who knew these pedestrian skills would come back into vogue during the pandemic of the 21st century? I wasn't much for Wood or Body shop but I did develop an interest in cooking that has come in very handy through the years.

     Given my way I would close all the computer labs and bring back some of the trades that used to be taught. I am not a Luddite by any means. I just believe we have enough computers and the Ridgewood school system doesn't need to be providing them. Students can use their own and the ones that are in the library. The computer labs are overkill, unless they are tied to trades which can be used to rebuild America's infrastructure. I don't believe we need to teach to the test anymore, or teach so that students can go to college. College is an expensive frill for an eighteen year old, that more often than not buries students under a pile of debt. I am all for gap years where high school graduates travel, work in the Peace Corps, or learn a trade. There will be nothing special about attending a residential college for quite a few years. In the meantime, learn something about a topic you will use the rest of your life or at least during your first career. My first career as a restaurateur didn't earn me much cash but it did teach me a lot about people and how to operate, organize and lead a kitchen.