Hiatus

 Taking a Hiatus from Blogging.

Visit: https://paulmccubbin.substack.com

and

Https://maroonsonline.com

https://maroonshistory.com

The Buddy Bench

      Who can't recall a time when they were odd person out? Nobody.

     My favorite moment was a time when I was 7 or 8. Mr. Jay Van Kempen, a sixth grade teacher  at Willard School, was involved in an after school touch football game with mostly sixth graders on each team.

     By the time I got to the field the game was well underway. I was carrying my baseball glove and a tennis ball. I watched the game passively for a while then I started throwing the ball into the air and then catching it. My tosses went higher and higher with no drops.

     I think Mr. Van, as he was known, must have been watching me out of the corner of his eye. I say this because he eventually stopped the game and invited me to be on his team. There wasn't much I could do except hike the ball but that didn't seem to bother anyone. The game went on like before with one extra player on Mr. Van's side. I couldn't have been more pleased or surprised when I was asked to join the game. We didn't have a Buddy Bench but we did have somebody who understood what these games we play are truly all about.

     Mr Van I am happy to say still lives in the area and remains married to the lady he met on The Dating Game over 50 years ago.

 

 

The Calm of Childhood Memories

     It often calms me to recall childhood memories, which is likely why I have written this blog for so long. I am a high strung person by nature who needs the occasional non-caloric, non-pharmacological relief to sooth my everyday anxieties. A pleasant memory, however much it might have been changed by my recall, is a grand tonic that is sold in no store or mixed by any mixologist.

     The picture below is not one of the pleasant memories that serves to sooth. This particular Kodak is of a scorching hot Memorial Day in 1978. With the sunning beating down and the temperature in the 90s, the lead participants ran the first mile in under 5 minutes. For some reason beyond the kin of my recollection I was in that lead group. Considering the fact we had 5 more miles to run our initial burst of optimistic speed was an ominous sign. People who ran more slowly also felt the stress and one of my teachers at RHS literally collapsed and was taken to the hospital. Needless to say, the appeal of running races was lost on me forever after.  The number 909 finished well out of the race and I never competed with an "R" on my chest again.

 

Asking For Directions

      Asking a complete stranger for help, or being asked by a complete stranger for help with directions used to be a normal occurrence. Sometime you knew and you gave good instructions. Sometimes you met someone who knew and they gave you good instructions.

     Nowadays we have the use of Global Positioning Satellites on our phone, watches, and laptops. Unless the satellites are malfunctioning you can be fairly certain about the information you receive. In fact, the information is so good and the use of GPS is so pervasive, it is quite extraordinary to be asked for directions by a stranger.

 

 

 

     Maps. At one time they were given away by gas stations and people gladly kept them in their cars for the security hidden inside them. People still needed to know how to read a map for them to be useful and then be able to fold them correctly if they were ever going to use them again. At any rate, every car seemingly had one or ten of them stashed into a glove compartment or strewn under a seat. Some people actually used to read them before they got in the car to drive, but from my viewpoint they were mostly used by a car in motion, and sometimes by the driver. It's probable a very good thing that cars are now equipped with GPS systems, even if they sound a little bit pushy when they are offering their directions. You really need to know when to turn them off or they will bombard you with useful and sometimes inaccurate instructions to places you have visited often and for which you require no assistance.

     

     Lastly, I have to admit that women have always been better about seeing the need to ask for directions. Now it can be said they are quicker to bring out a GPS of some sort when a general feeling of being lost pervades a group. I might go as far as to say that some things never change.

Long Distance Telephone Calls

      One of the many things which distinguishes my generation from the current one is the solemnity with which we used to bestow upon long distance telephone calls. If we received one at the house everyone was told to be quiet because "it's long distance!" The cost of the call was foremost in our minds. The fact sometimes the connection might be less than stellar was another good reason we had to listen carefully and everyone nearby had to be quiet as church mice.

 

 

 

 

     It similar to what a friend of mine from college days told me about his children. He is fascinated by stereo components, as we all were at one time. His ear for music demands that he have a high fidelity option in his life. His sons cannot conceive of why he wants this, as opposed to relying upon ear buds connected via wireless to their smartphones. I suppose if you've never heard music on the best equipment you just don't know what you're missing and simply accept the convenience which the smartphone offers.

 

     From my long experience working on and helping build the Internet one Cisco router at a time, I'm usually partial to the whole experience simply working! The times the traffic didn't flow as expected were always fraught with a bit of terror as to what the customers would think. Now that we have perfected the transmission of sound between two stations we expect sound so good you can hear a pin drop, from anywhere in the world. What's more, we have basically reduced the cost to nothing. Times have certainly changed, but  to tell the truth, I still am a little awestruck by a long distance call, and think to myself what it must be costing. Then I come to my senses and simply enjoy the convenience with we know to be so commonplace.

Nabisco Factory

      The factory in Fair Lawn opened in 1958, and the 110-foot building is the tallest structure in the borough. You couldn't drive by it without smelling the Oreos or whatever was in the ovens that day. Though recently I have driven by and haven't been able to smell anything. Likely this is due to the car fumes on route 208, but I could have sworn we used to be able to smell the factory anytime we went by it. Maybe the ovens have a better filter system. I always thought it was great advertising to let all the smells out so as to encourage consumption.

 

 

     Just like many things of this era, once we figure out a more cost-effective way of doing something we discard our old ways. This iconic building with its ability to provide a pleasing aroma for miles around is so unlike factories built in 1958 or before. or those built today with no aromas at all. Wouldn't it be so incongruous with modern day Capitalism if they had kept this factory where it was and had marketed themselves as being a company known for "polluting the air" with a sense of nostalgia as well as the ever popular confections? I realize there is no chance of the money counters who work at the Brazilian hedge fund which owns Mondelez of having a change of mind. Sadly, they will trot out the old line about share holder value being paramount and forget entirely about the community and customers they serve. My favorite response to people who believe share holder value is the prime objective of a corporation is to ask, "How many executives have ever been prosecuted for failure to enhance the share holder value of the company which employs them?" The answer is none, but go try and convince them of anything else!

A Place We Don't Want To Lose

      On those rare occasions someone writes me personally about the blog I always sit up and take notice. In my world I never know when someone will provide me with food for thought, or even better, with some fully fleshed out, professionally crafted articles.

     This morning a local MD encouraged me to "keep on writing and bringing us to a place we don't want to lose." This person couldn't have been more spot on. The world which I briefly describe in this blog, and which is fleeing from my memory faster than I might like, is precisely a place I don't want to ever forget. I may not write about all the difficult times but they are all part and parcel of the era.

     When I am drawn to describe today's world in comparison to the one I knew, there is always a part of me which marvels at the simplicity of the times I can recall. In comparison to our new world which I find increasingly more complicated. At times I find life above and beyond my capacity for understanding. When these moments overwhelm I simply recall how my grandfather, an Eye Doctor in Fulton, Missouri might have described it from his window on main Street. Just imagine: He got paid sometimes with chickens and wrote a weekly column for the local paper describing the comings and goings outside the confines of his office. Looking at today's events I believe he would have come down on the side of mask wearing, social distancing, and getting a vaccination. He had been through World War I and knew too well the horrors of a pandemic. He also raised a family during the Great Depression so I think it would have some insights to keep us calm on our current economic calamity. Lastly, he saw the better days when his sons had returned largely unscathed from World War II, became professionals, and settled down to raise families just as he had done.

     The world may well be beyond my capacity to comprehend, but this fact has troubled better people with more worthy minds than mine so I usually can calm myself down these days by recollecting this simple but true observation. No doubt it might be the prescription my grandfather followed during a period of history fraught with the same kind of perils we see today.

     The Kingdom of Callaway County, circa 1944.
 

Snow Day 2021 (Updated)

     I wrote this post before checking to see whether or not schools were closed. Good old Ridgewood closed them and gave every student enduring online schooling a break for a day.

   

 

 

     Just when I couldn't think of another thing which the Internet hasn't disrupted, we had a snow day. In the NYC area we ought to receive between 12 and 18 inches of snow. This was plenty good enough for a snow day when I was growing up but now with people working from home and schools online, there is no stopping to admire the flakes. I think we learned as much sometimes on a snow day as we did when we were sitting in classrooms. 

      It wasn't just sledding, snowball fights, and shoveling snow. Though those were the best parts. There was the waiting by the radio for your town's school system to announce they were closing. In our house it was always the radio, not the TV which we used as proof of no school for the day. I guess we could have walked next door and knocked on the door of Willard School and asked but they didn't have the drama of waiting by the radio. The TV wasn't fast enough and was playing to a much wider audience than the radio stations were.

      When the good news finally presented itself there was the rush to get dressed and go see who else in the neighborhood was up and active. Usually we cleared our sidewalks first then maybe some sledding on the hill at Willard. Depending on the type of snow there might be a snowball fight or a snow fort built. Lots of things to keep young minds active, just like being in school but with better choices.

     I realize the pandemic will likely be over by next winter and in-school instruction  will return. But I can't help but feel sad for the kids who have been robbed of a snow day. Who's to say they won't eliminate snow days entirely, now that at home schooling is possible on those days when the roads are made unusable by an arctic blast and a foot of snow.  That would certainly be a loss.

Henry Aaron

     Henry Louis Aaron, nicknamed "Hammer" or "Hammerin' Hank", was an American professional baseball right fielder who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball, from 1954 through 1976. He spent 21 seasons with the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves in the National League and two seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League.

     I watched the game on TV when Hank Aaron hit the home run to surpass the record of Babe Ruth. What wasn't emphasized was the hostility he faced from fans who didn't want to see the record broken and sent him all sorts of hate mail and shouted unspeakable epithets at him during the games.

 

     

     The record breaking had had to wait all winter as Aaron hadn't hit enough homers during the previous year in 1973. He spent the off-season thinking about it and hearing about it from everyone and their brother. It must of come as a relief when the season finally started. 

     When the season did finally begin, Aaron played three games in Cincinnati and didn't hit any homers. He returned back to Atlanta where a nation wide TV audience was watching.

     It was rumored that the pitcher on that historic day, Al Downing, a former 20 game winner and World Series star for the Yankees in the previous decade, was going to "groove one" to Aaron in his first plate appearance.

    Now I mentioned that I was watching the game on TV. I had no doubts that Al Downing had seen better days, but there he was starting for the Dodgers in this all important 4th game of the 1974 season. He walked him the first time he batted. The second time up Downing threw a fastball on Aaron's fists which would have broken the bat of a less accomplished hitter. The pitch was not "grooved" so that Aaron could hit the homer to break the record. I have watched the replay to many times to think otherwise.

    When it was all said and done Aaron had just the right words for fans and foes a like:

     He said. ‘I don’t want you to forget Babe Ruth. I just want you to remember Hank Aaron."

President Biden

      There is a palpable feeling of lightness in the air. It feels for the first time in a long time that there is a quiet in the public realm. No reporting of what the president said today on Twitter makes for a much needed calm. Perhaps journalism will return to its roots and simply describe what is going on, instead of taking sides and reporting the outlandish statements coming out of our federal government.

     We have a chance for a new beginning. Our 46th President was sworn in without a hitch, as was our first female Vice-President. This is a time for looking forward with hope and not backward with a longing for a past that wasn't so great as it might have seemed.

    

 

     Let's give the new administration the benefit of the doubt at first. Our problems are greater than they can solve on their own. We must all do our part to contain the virus, get the vaccination when it becomes available, and, above all, remain hopeful. Believe in the truth that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

 

Democracy In Action

      We always had elections in for Student Council in Junior High School and High School. There was never a moment when the students were not represented by students. The elections for the following year’s officers were held in June and they officially assumed command the following September. It’s quite a stark contrast to the way we do things in our presidential elections.

      We can easily understand the history behind the date for an orderly succession because of constraints on travel and communications in the early days of our country. We probably all see why the need for speed and action was so pressing that the 20th Amendment to the constitution moved the inauguration by 43 days from March to January. Though what about our next election in 2024?

      The speed of the Internet would enable us to shave a couple of months off the time of presidential succession. Maybe November 20th. It would really give people something to talk about at Thanksgiving and would still allow time for recounts and challenges.

 

Elks Club

      The Elks Club is gone from the Village of Ridgewood. Though I learned today we have them to thank for the Ridgewood Borough Hall. I was doing a search through the Ridgewood Library https://www.ridgewoodlibrary.org/localhistory   and found this priceless picture:

 

      Notice the Elk in the foreground. Makes sense after all these years. They sold their building to the town and moved into a much smaller place next store. They were able to keep an eye on their old haunt while hoisting a cold one at their much less expensive new digs.

     I'm not quite sure when the move occurred. The following picture is from the 1933 Chamber of Commerce Dinner. November 20th 1933

 

Maroons Online

      Yes, the new year brought new insights. Today I launched an Ezine dedicated to RHS Alumni and a web site to support it. 

https://paul44b.substack.com/p/coming-soon?r=exxr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy

     The web site is https://maroonsonline.com

A Brand New Year

      Can't imagine a soul who can come up with something good to say about 2020. I'll try.

     Lot's of good TV.

     No end to the amount of music one can stream.

     No office Christmas parties.

     More software and tech gadgets than we have uses for.

     Well, my list is decidedly shabby and short. I admit defeat. I really can't think of anything about the year I will recall fondly. Let's look ahead to the New Year. Let's share what we know. Above all, let's build back better. By this I mean, let's use this opportunity, this reset, to try and get things right in terms of the environment, income equality, and racial/gender/age injustices. This is quite a bit to ponder, but since our quarantine will be in place much longer than anyone anticipated we do have the time to think of some new ways of living, working, and getting along with each other. Have at it. Happy New Year!