Preventing The Loss of Hope in Our Present Times

     The world is completely different than when I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. The public and private sector unions, defined pensions, and America's position as a "shining city on a hill" which once sustained our hopes and dreams of a better life for the next generation are all largely irrelevant.

     Whether you site "shining city" quote from Jesus's Sermon On The Mount or from the Puritan John Winthrop of the 17th century, there is always a sense of hope which can be gleaned from its meaning, waiting for you to notice it. It is the "exceptionalism" devoid of any religious or jingoistic tinge which I see, very similarly to how Alexis de Toqueville did in the 18th century, in his remarkable book Democracy in America. The exceptionalism and with it a "can do attitude" is a strength of the American Experiment and not something to be ashamed about. Despite many sad and disgraceful moments this country did free its slaves, give women the vote, and abolish child labor. There was always a sense of momentum that things did get better over time through hard work, enlightened social values, and governmental policies.

     I don't see it that way now.

     Instead of common values it is every person for themselves. Instead of our elites feeling and acting with a sense of generosity to those around them, we have people who took advantage, either through inheritance or financial trickery, flying private, avoiding taxes with a vengeance, and forgetful of those who are disadvantaged. Hard work is no longer a sign you'll get ahead and often is only a debilitating practice which leaves people sad and broken in spirit.

     What is there for a leader or would-be leader to do? Two things:

     1. Look for big ideas and improve upon them, even if only marginally. People who follow you will see the omissions and mistakes. In their turn they will make their own improvements for the next generation to act upon.
     2.  Interact and connect with all five generations of working people and ask that they look for what's common about all of us. The differences are plain to see but our true strength resides in our inclusivity. Once your neighbor, who was once different from you in language and customs, becomes acclimated to living in the US regard them as someone who understands they have rights, privileges, and obligations. These are expected of all of us in return for being an American. Work towards your neighbors being included and praise them for their uniqueness and useful contributions to society.

     If we all do these things we can prevent the loss of hope and re-ignite the spark of creativity. We will promote the example generosity towards all.

Russell Baker 1925-2019

    

     While at college I continued the practice begun at a young age of reading the Sunday newspapers. The New York Times was always around as well as the Ridgewood News. We usually purchased The Bergen Record along with some donuts giving us the trio of northern New Jersey periodicals each Sunday morning. The Record had the comics section where Peanuts and Blondie prominently featured on the first page.

     In the early spring of 1982 I was ensconced one Sunday morning in the Dickinson College library  reading The NY Times Book Review and noticed that one of my favorite columnists, Russell Baker, had written a memoir, Growing Up. Being on good terms with the librarian I suggested that the library purchase the book. She dutifully noted it and told me they would let me know when it arrived.

     Some weeks later a hand written note in my mailbox confirmed that Growing Up had arrived. I hustled over and immediately checked it out. I recall it being both funny and poignant. Later when the soft cover version came out I purchased a copy. It still resides on a bookshelf in my mother's house in Florida. I'll probably grab next time I visit.

When You Are Sixty

     From what I have gathered from friends who have just turned sixty, they now possess a recognition that more events lay behind them than before them. Appears obvious enough. There is less time to harbor grudges, settle old scores, or simply be mad at someone for a reason you both have long forgotten.

     I have had more than one newly minted sixty year old friend contact me in the last few months. No particular reason was offered and none was asked for by me. Something I suppose about round numbers causes us to react this way.

     If you are younger than 60 this may not make much sense. Then again I have been your age and you have not been mine. This puts you at an ironic disadvantage any older adult might readily appreciate.

     The artist Christo was seventy when he completed The Gates project in Central Park in 2005. The planning on been going on for years and the installation along took a year. It was a wonderful exhibition to stroll through and I thankfully did it many times. These excursions caused me to have a Gatsby moment of wonder. Few historians have matched the closing lines of The Great Gatsby, when the narrator reflects on how the land must have struck Dutch sailors’ eyes three hundred years earlier:

     “For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity to wonder.”
 

     We should only be so fortunate to have as much inside us to share as Crhisto did. Even luckier would be to also be capable of leaving a lasting impression much as F. Scott Fitzgerald has surely imparted to me.

Everything Old Is New Again

 

Peter Allen, 1974

     Isn’t it interesting that when Boeing Corporation was having troubles building their 787 Dreamliner, they hired retired, former employees to finish the stalled, over-budget project? Boeing came to realize that outsourcing things like engineering and manufacturing wouldn’t ever be as seamless as outsourcing a call center. 

     They had discovered that ‘everything old is new again’. 

     In my own experience, I’ve seen more than a few companies who have made the same mistake as Boeing. They believe younger contract employees with less experience and little training can produce the same results as older employees, who in the Boeing example had helped create the world’s largest aerospace company. I propose balance. 

     If this isn’t enough to make you groan, while shedding experienced workers many of these same companies state their principles include programs to enhance diversity and inclusion. Though truth be told their bromides explaining these initiatives usually fly in practice as well as Boeing’s Dreamliner, before they brought back their own retirees, to reintroduce bedrock work practices. 

     Employers with negative attitudes towards older workers is endemic across industries and locations. No revenue generating group or occupation is immune. Sometimes it’s blatantly obvious like with online application software which scans resumes for keywords to determine an applicant’s age. Or it appears in less obvious forms: when I’ve appeared for an interview in a respectful jacket and tie, I’m quickly judged by the interviewer in jeans as having a profile for which no position currently exists. No matter that I had already been through two interviews with technical staff and they had given me their endorsement for hiring. A form letter rejection was all that followed. 

     If a necktie can trigger a hiring disqualification, then what other questionable decisions are being made? How about the classic office meeting, which now routinely allows attendees to have their laptops open and cell phones ringers on. All the while the meeting presenters show PowerPoint slides on multiple screens, in an atavistic juxtaposition which only makes me ask, “Why are these people meeting in the first place?” The real question here is one of perspective, or the lack thereof, and how did someone decide that these are all good business practices. Nobody points out the obvious: people’s attention is elsewhere. 

     What’s worse, a closer look reveals a baseless preference by these companies for younger workers, who grew up in this hyperactive milieu. This choice is then combined with a quiet disdain for the very people who invented the Internet, and who can actually recall a time when the world was completely different. 

     Currently, technology’s face has mostly been young, but there are many skilled computer engineers and innovators who can lend value to a ​balanced​ workforce comprised of young, creative geniuses working side by side with these veteran techies. 

     I have lived in an incredibly bountiful age. One in which the fruits of a century’s worth of accomplishments, like giving women the vote and abolishing child labor, offer us a clearer understanding of the across-the-board benefits of being as ​inclusive​ as possible. These truths are self-evident and only a sad, tortured line of reasoning will try to defend these practices. 

     The good news: our times include five generations available to be employed by our companies. Each one with their own unique abilities and talents, all are worthy of our esteem. What we need is to grasp the meaning implicit in Boeing’s Dreamliner. It requires an acceptance by each generation of the other’s strengths, and for each to make allowances for the other’s weaknesses. Then we’ll live and work in a world where neckties are no more a sartorial blunder than a pocket protector.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2019

   
     Sadly it was the assassination of the most prominent civil rights leader of his day, which prompted the declaration of today's national holiday. It was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971; the holiday was enacted at the federal level by legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986.

     Very few will disagree we need a three-day weekend in the middle of January but not if it means we have to sacrifice the leader of a non-violent civil disobedience movement. The tactics he espoused were inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and have left an ever lasting mark on our society.

    The above picture is from the day he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. It is one of his most recognized public speeches that was delivered during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. In it he called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States. Uttered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the speech was a defining moment of the civil rights movement.


    

Rambling With Gambling

We always took radio for granted, whether it was AM or later FM. It was free, though would fade in and out at inconvenient times like in a tunnel or on the lower level of the George Washington Bridge.

We don't take satellite radio for granted mostly because it's new and we pay for it, but we probably will someday. Will we notice when they stop putting AM/FM radios in our automobiles? I wouldn't know because my Mazda was built in 2000 and I have no intention of ever owning another car or truck. I'll rent them for a purpose but never own one again. Not even if its gifted to me. Too much bother and expense. It's a long gone era in which, mostly men, measured their self-worth by the kind of car they drove.

The title of this post is Rambling With Gambling and he was a fixture in our kitchen growing up and on the car radio if my mother was driving. New, Weather, Sports, and Observations was how I would describe it. A less charitable person might say that is how they filled the airtime they had been given. I know better as I was a DJ, or Radio Personality, in college. It was an unpaid job and highly coveted. You didn't want to screw up by having dead air, when no music or PSA (Public Service Announcement) was playing or the news was being read. I used to like when the teletype machine which received news stories would do a three or four ring alarm. That meant it was important and had to be read as soon as possible. I liked these when they occurred in the middle of the night, which was my preferred time slot. After 2AM one of these alarms one time sent me running to the machine only to discover it was a test. If I had read the earlier feeds I would have known in advance. Undoubtably,  I was busy wading throught the stacks and stacks of albums our station owned, WDCV 88.3 on your FM dial in Carlisle, PA. I could do that call in my sleep.

From Wikipedia:
Rambling with Gambling was a news and talk radio program that aired in New York City from 1925 through 2016, almost uninterrupted, with one name change toward the end of its run. It was hosted by three generations of people named John Gambling throughout its entire 90+ year run.

From the Internet

The Apathy of Aging

Writing thoughts in a blog is my way to resist apathy. I look backwards and try to remember what once was and give it a relevance to today's environment. I don't think I always hit the mark but by trying I at least stave off a lethargy I see in myself that didn't used to be present.

My new favorite web site is www.flipboard.com They call themselves a social-network aggregation, magazine-format mobile app localized in more than 20 languages. What a mouthful! I like the site because it scans the Internet for topics I selected as being interesting and offers suggestions based upon what I have read previously. Today they had an article on The Apathy of Aging and how to find the courage to resist it.

Inspiration... It hits you when you're not looking.

I use my new tool in Flipboard as a way to generate ideas for writing. Sometimes I just like the title of an article and it prompts me to write and other times it is the author's intent which moves me. In any event, I keep moving and that is what I am after. If in the process I accurately record a few moments for posterity then even better. I know all too well that once something is placed on the Internet it is recorded for all time. It's the greatest reference library of all time and one that will be mined for nuggets of wit and wisdom long after I am gone. Just thinking about that inspires me to continue looking for ideas I haven't commented upon. I might repeat myself and not even know it but at least it will be with my own original take on things. It takes courage to write, let along say what you believe. Courage is an unappreciated capability we all have to a degree, and one I find more compelling the older I grow, especially when I see it in others.

Middle Class Dreams

Ridgewood in the 1960s and 1970s was a middle class dream: good schools, safe streets, and plenty of land for children to explore. Moms worked hard in the home and more than a few had side gigs and/or full time jobs. Only a few children had to eat lunch in their elementary school, at least from what I saw at Willard, while everyone else went home. Now all of the schools have cafeterias. I can't say what they are eating or if its anymore questionable than the tuna sandwiches on Pepperridge Farms white bread that I recall. I'll reserve my culinary judgment and just say the teachers got a bit of a breather from their students and we got outside to burn off our excess energy.

While we used to go out and play after school and during lunchtime, many children today are inside all day and rarely inhale a breath of fresh air, unless they have a physical education class scheduled for that day. I know my nephew sometimes children did not get home until 6PM because both of his parents worked. Luckily, there were after school programs available or he might have been a proverbially "latchkey" child.

The middle class of my youth had dreams of their own children living a better life than they had. This came about because we had role models everywhere, from our teachers, to the postal delivery men, to the neighbors on our block. They showed us what hard work and denial of simple pleasures was all about. These traits would allow them to accumulate the funds needed to send their kids to college. College was always equated with earning more money over the course of one's lifetime, and that is what most strove towards.

Cheap gas, strong unions, defined pensions, and an understanding that we were in this together all helped to accommodate middle class dreams. We were not competing in some sort of slapdash race to the lowest wage that can be paid for labor that we see everywhere today, in part due to globalism. There was nobody preaching the virtues of the "gig" economy with it's lack of safety net or worker's rights. It may well have been naive to believe this dream could ever exist, but there it was and people held tight to it.

Ridgewood Public Schools App

An app for your smart phone now exists for the Ridgewood Public Schools. No more waiting around by the terrestrial radio waiting for the announcement of a snow day.

It contains a directory with email addresses of every teacher and administrator. There is a calendar of activities, parent/student handbook, athletics, news, and a button dedicated to notifications. That is, if the Twitter and/or Facebook account for every school is not enough.

No question that with all the information just being collected by Facebook that parents, students, and teachers in Ridgewood will someday see the wisdom contained in these words of Thomas Hardy. He wrote: ‘Since I discovered several years ago, that I was living in a world where nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently, I have troubled myself very little about theories. I am content with tentativeness from day to day.’

No need for me to point out the flaws inherent in the business model of technology companies, as it is indelibly etched into our memories by reports and their own admissions. Though wouldn't it be grand if it wasn't so! If we could be sharing information, be connected, and accomplish great societal feats in rapid fashion, without this very information being collected, analyzed, and used against us. I refer to what used to be called "tact" or the delicate and considerate perception of what is appropriate.

Now that the genie has been let out of the bottle we seemingly are left with what the character from It's A Wonderful Life Mr Potter observed,

"What does that get us? A discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty working class. And all because a few starry-eyed dreamers like (Fill in the blank with your favorite tech CEO) stir them up and fill their heads with a lot of impossible ideas."

Never thought I would see the day when Henry Potter could be considered a sympathetic character, but the amoral technology companies from Silicon Valley sure have made it much easier.

1969 Mets

While I'm no Met fan, I do like this photo from the 1969 World Series. It features the ultimate fan, Karl Erhardt, who crafted his own signs and kept fans in the stadium and on TV entertained. There is also an unnamed Met usher who personified the by-gone custom of showing fans to their seats and making sure each seat was given a quick swipe with a cloth. The first time I saw it done it left me speechless. I asked my father with a look what was going on? He simply nodded and said, "Welcome to the stadium!"

The 1969 Mets, if you ever see the recordings of the World Series, were physically inferior to the Baltimore Orioles. They didn't appear as if they belonged on the same field. Though five games later the Orioles had been dispatched and the Amazing Mets, as Casey Stengel called them, were World Champions.

The Bus to NYC

The bus to NYC passed near enough to our home that we could see it from our kitchen window. It costs $.25 to ride it into town or as far as the junior high school, which was when I first started taking it myself.

When the bus first passed our house it had almost completed its run from NYC and simply had to drive 4 blocks, turn around, and return to NYC. If the bus driver smoked and he wasn't too far off schedule there might be time for a cigarette. If he was behind schedule he smoked and drove. Some drivers smoked incessantly and had the overflowing ashtrays to show for it.

Hard to imagine smoking on a bus these days. Though in the days I'm describing, some kids regarded this ride as there chance to "smoke up" before they got to school, especially if they were underage, as were most smokers on the bus. A crowded bus on a rainy day with the windows all closed didn't stop anyone, nor did anybody mention the insanity of the dense plumes of smoke.

In high school I probably could have taken a yellow school bus if I had wanted to break the rules and walk about 1/4 mile. The rules stated loosely that you had to live about 2 miles to qualify for a free yellow bus ride to and from the high school. I never once made use of this service and walked, rode my ten speed bicycle, and bummed rides from friends or parents.

The commercial bus service I rode hundreds of times. The bus mostly had kids because the men who worked mostly took the train. I can't remember more than a few hearty souls ever riding the portion of the trip leading up to the junior and senior high schools. I suppose more than a few got on further down the line but that's just my best guess. I sure wouldn't have wanted to ride with that unruly mob of teenagers.

Greg Kostenbader

During my one and only season of participating in organized tackle football, Greg Kostenbader was a teammate. He played both sides of the ball, meaning running back and linebacker. More than once he was carted away in an ambulance during a game after running with the ball into a gang of tacklers. Probably made him decide that delivering a blow was far easier than taking one, and this helped earn him the distinction of being an all-county linebacker.

I don't watch tackle football anymore because of the shocking hits to the head and bodies that football players endure. This macho "play through pain" just seems out of step with believing we are a civilized nation.

Not saying Greg, who recently passed away at the age of 60, died as a result of brain trauma.  Though there has been plenty of research on football and brain trauma, and it always sounds an alarm in my mind when I hear about athletes dying young.

Maybe it's time for amateur athletes from earlier generations to come forward and donate their brains to science for examination after they die. Sounds contradictory since the jock has always been someone who people would make fun of behind their back for being less than bright. Might be the ultimate irony if athletes did come forward to help produce the research necessary to ban blood sports like tackle football. The game of football is loads of fun when the the gratuitous shots to the heads and bodies are not included. The highlight film hits which make us all groan aren't truly necessary for a competitive game to be played, it's just a crack-brained tradition. One which the athletes suffer for long after their glory years of playing sports have long been forgotten.

Note To My Younger Self

 
While it's impossible to write a note to you younger self, this poem about sums up what a strong effort would resemble. I've felt these words many times recently, even though I am long past my shining days. The older you grow the more you feel the missed opportunites, especially as time teaches you a great many facts about the universe and one's place in it.

 

The Lover Pleads with His Friend for Old Friends

W. B. Yeats, 1865 - 1939

Though you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time’s bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes.

No One Had A Smartphone

 Giving some thought to an Twitter meme from Biajn C. Bayne @bijancbayne

No one had a smartphone. That's as culturally impactful as saying "No one had a car"

This blog could easily be entitled, No One Had A Smartphone. Life was certainly different before we were given a vast amount of computing power we could carry around everywhere with us.

I have often written that I am not blogging to point out how much better life was, only that it was starkly different than it is today. No better reference point than the smartphone versus the rotary phone, ordinarily shared by an entire household and owned by the phone company. No extension cords on these models so you usually had to stand or sit close to the phone. In our house, one was mounted on the wall in the kitchen, and the upstairs had one with a few feet of slack which gave the pretense of portability but just barely. No phone jacks in every room or wireless options in this earlier age.

My memories are of a time before answering machines where the phone could ring for five or ten minutes unless someone answered it or the caller grew tired of waiting. This could turn into a test of wills if someone called during a meal where we might be entertaining guests or carving a turkey or roast beef. Or as I learned later in my freshman dorm in college, where eighteen of us shared a single hall phone which had no long distance option, but could receive long distance calls at all hours, after a certain hour the reservoir of good will we may have had for one another could quickly be used up.

The television remote control qualifies as another key differentiator. We had to sit far enough away from the TV so "we wouldn't strain our eyes" but this was too far to make changes to a channel, let along channel surf or switch between different media. Commercials could not be muted, fast-forwarded through or switched away from. We had to endure commercials, especially if they were being widely used in ad campaigns. Just consider how many beer jingles from the era can be recalled if you heard them repeatedly while watching TV or listening to your favorite baseball team on the radio:

"Schaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one."

People may have watched TV and talked on the phone but they were also compelled to speak to each other for our society to function. There weren't as many ways to hide behind automated technology as we have today. This loss of familiarity I can site as a loss to our society. People could have been shy or at a loss for words but they knew it was still in their hands to make the effort to communicate in a civil manner. We aren't as hard pressed to do this today and the result can be seen in our lack of penmenship (remember learning to write in cursive), our ability to make small talk with strangers we pass on the street, and in our ability to empathize when we encounter someone having a bad day or feeling low in spirits. These are all gestures which need to be practiced or else we forget how to do them well. The smartphone is a rough substitute and rarely conveys our intended feelings.

Ridgewood High Alumni Association

The RHS Alumni Association officially came into being on the first of January 2016.

In the three years of its existence, the events and community-building activities they’ve sponsored have been spot-on. Let me tell you the ways:

They held a 125th RHS anniversary party (1892-2018) with DJ Nick Cannon as guest performer. It was held under a huge tent set up on Veteran's Field. It was truly an inspired idea which honored the collective history of RHS with a joyful outdoor celebration on a beautiful spring evening.

RHSAA President Keith Dawkins and DJ Nick Cannon

They have revived The Distinguished Alumni Awards which was a long set of placks near the main entrance of the high school. Two cohorts of alumni have been added and they set an excellent example for current students by showcasing the multitude of ways they can contribute to society upon graduation.

RHS Distinguished Alumni

The physical enhancements to the RHS campus via the Commemorative Brick Campaign have been stunning both in their visual appeal and the heartfelt meaning etched into each one.

The countless tours for alumni given by the Alumni Trustees during their reunion weekends have gladdened the hearts of every person who has been on one.

The RHS Alumni Association website has also produced a gem of a web site, which stands as a clarion call to action for future Boards of Alumni Trustees. They’ve published and defined in some detail a working framework deserving of imitation for years to come.

Class of 1977 40th Reunion

Here is the link to the videos of the class of 1977 40th reunion during the summer of 2017. There are 130 GB of footage from three cameras to edit. We called it "The Last Waltz" and it featured the RHS Alumni All-Star Band. They reprised the show from our 35th reunion which we forgot to record, let along video. Chris and Cynthia Phillips are the people slow dancing.



https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJWTT9sbtmtf6ZO38VgC0fg/videos

RHS Timeline 1892-2018

This timeline was installed at RHS this year.

RHS Alumni Association Commemorative Bricks

The Ridgewood High School Alumni Association (RHSAA) is officially accepting orders for this year's Spring 2019 installation. They have already received many orders memorializing family members, declaring gratitude towards RHS teachers and coaches, and commemorating significant milestones and reunions.

All orders placed before March 5, 2019 will be installed prior to Graduation 2019.

Orders can be placed at
https://store.rhsalumniassociation.org/

Sears Wish Book

When the Sears Wish Book would arrive in the mail when I was a youngster, it always sparked awe when I would stop to consider the variety of their offerings. It was impossible to look at the entire catalog in one viewing so it tended to linger on the table where we left the mail and in the living room for days after its arrival.

Today it is no big deal, and with the advent of "Drop Shipping" any company can potentially sign enough deals with manufacturers of various sizes and cobble together an online version of Sear's Wish Book. What they can't duplicate is the feeling of anticipation surrounding the catalog's arrival in the mail. This common feeling and the sight of the catalog in neighbor's homes is beyond replication in our modern day where the niche is the goal, not trying to serve everyone, everywhere in these United States, anything their hearts might desire. I especially liked examining the pre-fabricated homes which could be purchased. It gave me a sense of what people in the late 19th century might have been thinking as they turned away for a moment in their minds from shopping at their rural general stores and contemplated what they might have delivered from Sears. Same thing going on today with Amazon, only faster and without all the emotion.

Thanksgiving 2017

Thanksgiving is a holiday that sticks out in my mind and allows me to easily recall occasions going back for almost as long as I have been alive. It's the diversity of the gatherings and the locales which makes for this remembrance. I have also had many different roles: from being the host to being a guest, to being a stray with no where else to go. It truly has made no difference in my mind, these were all Thanksgivings. It's probably part of the reason I like the Peanuts version of Thanksgiving and the subtle lessons it teaches about being a good guest and not caring if your host is serving jellybeans, popcorn, and buttered toast. Being seated at a table with a turkey on it sure is better than working, which I did one year while I was a restaurateur, and infinitely better than having no place at all to go.

Funniest Thanksgiving was being a guest and the host knowing I was good in the kitchen so for some reason she put green food coloring in the mashed potatoes. I simply smiled and said they were delicious. Still makes me some smile over twenty years later. Most poignant Thanksgiving was on Plum Island in Massachusetts, north of Boston, having dinner with a family I knew nothing about and would never see again. They were working class with young children but had room at the table for two more strays. To me, this will always be my touchstone for the true spirit of Thanksgiving. No hesitation on their part about asking us to join them and no regrets on anyone's part for the pleasant time we spent together.

The Jet Age

It began as a time where men wore suits and ties, and the few women who did fly wore gloves.

In my mind this era reached its architectural zenith with the TWA terminal at JFK. Terminal 5 as it was known had gates close to the street. Years later with the advent of Jumbo Jets, this made centralized ticketing and security checkpoints difficult. "Likened to a bird taking off, the TWA Flight Center at New York’s Kennedy airport comprises four vaulted concrete shells perched lightly on the ground. There are few walls; instead, the exterior is dominated by canted banks of windows."

The TWA terminal at JFK airport has been called an icon of mid-century cool. Now it’s being reincarnated as a hotel.

Let's not forget the architect of this late 1950s project: Eero Saarinen.

Frost On The Pumpkins

The phrase was first given wide use by James Whitcomb Riley,  the "Hoosier Poet." He lived 1846-1916.

I had to look it up because tonight we are expecting frost and we have a pumpkin on our front stoop. I also like the notion it belies, one of autumn and the first feel of winter. No matter that the days are growing shorter, there is still light enough for morning commutes, but not enough for the 5:30 AM walk with the dog. We usually walk with impunity down the middle of the street guided by street lights, with only the rare early morning commuter or late night reveler returning home to demand we share the road.

As hard as the early walk can be it remains my favorite time of day. It's a good moment for planning the day and mulling over the first ideas which pop into my mind. Today I reflected upon the forty years I have been gone from Ridgewood. I count the time from when I left for college in the fall and not from the time our house was sold the following spring. Might just be a fascination with round numbers or the actual realization of being in a new environment.  I come upon this feeling while sitting in the college library reading a book and marveling at the foliage. Yes, I was in a new residence and there was no going back to the old one. It was the same day I started formulating an idea that took me years to articulate: You can go home again, but only for as long as it takes you to remember why you left in the first place.

I make no apologies for holding a contrary view to that of Thomas Wolfe, the author of You Can't Go Home Again.  I can go home each and every time I make a blog post. When the post is done then I am gently reminded, in my own words, as to why I left. It's very straight forward in retrospect. It follows what I was taught in the Ridgewood Public Schools about how important education is to the public good and humanity as a whole.

If this sounds like a lofty ideal, then you are right. We were explicitly taught in school, at home and by the people in our community that we are better together and that is how we attain the most good for the most people. Sadly, there is less emphasis on community these days and more on the gains we ought to achieve as individuals. At least that is what I see, hear, and read about in Ridgewood.

Maybe the recent furor over bullying in Ridgewood represents a watershed, a moment we cannot turn back from and one which certainly nobody wishes a return to. That's how I am hoping it will turn out. It remains to be seen what the outcome will be. With any luck on my next visit home, either literally or figuratively, I'll have some answers and an observation for use in this blog.

Trick or Treat

As a youth I believed it was better to be on the receiving end of the Trick or Treat equation. Now that I move to the door upon hearing the doorbell ring and dispense candy, I believe it is better to give than to receive.

The giving of candy is more rewarding, even if the candy not one of the five major food groups. It makes me forget my aches and pains, and gives me pause for some reflection.

As I watch the troops of kids and their adult chaperones make their way through the neighborhood, I vividly recall doing the same, except I don't remember any adults. I could have a faulty memory, but it was Ridgewood circa 1960s/1970s, and as children we did go outside and make our own mistakes sometimes. Gathering as much candy as we could certainly qualifies as a youthful transgression. No doubt we were gladdened by the hunt and the competition to keep up the pace of acquisition. For days on end afterwards we got to decide what to eat and what to throw/give away. I know parents around town who secreted some of the candy themselves, mostly so kids wouldn't have belly aches from eating too much candy and to many chips.

Now I am left only with the aches of age and the pains of reminiscing too much about times which occurred well over forty years ago. I recall that after the eighth grade the charm of roaming on Halloween had lost its charm. Most kids stopped around this time. Probable it became just too easy and we also didn't want to be seen around little kids. Either way I am heartened by the giving and won't ruminate too much about the easy pickings of days gone by. The well worn phrase: "Trick or Treat!" still makes me smile.

A Better Place

We all want the world we live in to be a better place.

It doesn't take a love of the Beatles or an incessant nostalgia for 1960's and 1970's to understand where this comes from. Even when there are days you don't understand what people are going through, you still can be compassionate.

We can also be aware that the traditional practices of social interaction which have brought us to 2017 probable will be replaced in the coming years as more people come to understand that currently our society values corporations more than people or the environment we inhabit. Ironically, corporations were created by people and later given standing so that their continued profits, no matter the social cost in pollution and ruined lives, were not to be disputed. Please remember this is not a Socialist or Capitalist position, only an observation that our world hungers for community as opposed to unbridled individualism.

Yes, a new theory of value will displace our current outmoded ones. For instance, clean air, clean water, friendship, and community are all working their way into the popular vernacular. These are examples of real wealth, not the phony MBA theories being taught in our graduate schools and the arcane metrics they espouse.

When the time comes and you feel the processes you engage in and undertake, and the results you achieve are more important than meeting an arbitrary monetary target then you will have created a better place for yourself and those around you. Imagine that.

There's More To Life Than Being Happy

The title of this post was inspired by a recent TED Talk I watched by Emily Esfahani Smith

She says Life is about belonging. To me this rings true. It's like when I first went into our local Italian butcher shop. The owner was waiting on me and plying me with samples to entice me to buy. I had ordered $80 of delicious looking food and had pulled out my credit card to pay. The owner then had to put an end to our bonhomie and tell me that he only accepted cash. I was a little flustered but the owner saved the day by telling me I could pay him next time.

Imagine that, "Next Time."

I regained my composure after he said this and told him I would be back. He insisted I take everything and to not rush on his account. This made us both very happy. He had graciously offered his delectables and I had accepted. We both tacitly had agreed that we belonged with one another and to one another, and had cemented this bond over his fresh mozzarella.

It's often the trivial things which offer to me the best explanations of what Life ultimately means.  I don't doubt for a minute that there is more to Life than being happy. I also don't think we ought to be made miserable by our surroundings if we can help it.

I have had this sort of courtesy which I just detailed extended to me by other people in my neighborhood. Each and every time I have gone with my gut and accepted their kindness. Usually it's nothing more than a trifle or a platitude, though every instance has momentarily lightened my heart and helped me to forget the aches that come with Life's late-in-life storms. It's the feeling of affiliation that's driving these interactions. We don't necessarily stop and chat just to make ourselves feel happy, but that is often the end result; the unintended consequence of acting human and finding a bit of happiness for our trouble.

The Gig Economy

The "Gig Economy" originated with the first child who walked across the street after a snow storm and rang the doorbell of their neighbor to inquire whether they wanted their sidewalk shoveled. Or maybe it was raking the leaves from their lawn or cutting the grass and bagging the clippings.

According to The Atlantic magazine: "In the late 1970s, 77 percent of high-school seniors worked for pay during the school year; by the mid-2010s, only 55 percent did. The number of eighth-graders who work for pay has been cut in half." 

To hear people talk today about the Gig Economy it's if the rise of contractors in society is something new. Kids were the original contractors, negotiating for their jobs and manner of payment. The fact that this is now a term for describing adults and not children is what is novel. When it involved children there was still a safety net for the children, namely, they had a home to return to and a school they were required to attend. Now that this term has been appropriated and celebrated by corporations it is something else for us all to ponder.

When as children we worked outside the home we were not contemplating our retirements or how we would pay for our healthcare. Today as adults we all have to consider the issues around the "defined retirement" plans being replaced by 401k accounts and the variety and complexity of healthcare options. When you add the need for contractors to be constantly selling their services it can be overwhelming for the average person. No small wonder we have a huge segment of society,  according to the U.S. Census Bureau, opting out and having a doctor declare them disabled. This government bureau goes on to state that as of 2017 there were nearly 40 million Americans with a disability in 2015, representing 12.6% of the civilian non-institutionalized population.

Coincidence, maybe. This is not to disparage anybody with a disability, only to point out that given the alternatives of being an adult contractor in a brutally competitive global economy, this is a course of action that many people consider.

Landlines Versus Phubbing

40 years ago teenagers would monopolize their family's landline telephone with endless one-to-one conversations. While today with the 10th year anniversary of the Smartphone's preeminence in our culture, a new method for teenagers to communicate with one another has emerged: Phubbing.

According to reliable sources on the Internet:

phubbing. (PHone snUBBING) The constant use of smartphones and lack of human interaction. For example, "phubbers" are people in the company of others who are endlessly texting or checking e-mail.

I have seen this firsthand with my nephew and with a slew of co-workers who believe that being available to an incessant barrage of tweets and messages makes them more valuable employees. In both cases I feel there is cause for worry. This is not my nostalgia for a simpler age. It is more like the declaration of the news anchor from the 1976 American satirical film written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, Network:

"I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

I can't say that I will ever reach this level of hysteria though it is disturbing and contrary to all I hold to be good and true. How we ever got to this sorry state of affairs is something I will have to give some more thought to and comment in another post. For now, simply ask yourself if you know a Phubber or are one yourself. If the thought of leaving your home without your smartphone leaves you feeling somewhat disconcerted you might be contributing to this problem.

Kenneth Humiston RIP

Mr Humiston was my Math teacher senior year at RHS. His deadpan humor made the lessons easier to understand and remember. He was also a well-known soccer and basketball referee. Here's part of the obituary. I substituted a picture of him from our Class of 1977 yearbook. It's better to remember him in his prime, especially since I hardly recognized his more recent photo. Forty years away from his classroom will do that.

Kenneth W. Humiston, 87, of Saratoga Springs and Chateaugay, New York and formerly of Oradell, New Jersey, died peacefully at home October 2, 2017.

Born in Chateaugay, New York, he was the son of the late Kathleen (Harvey) and Clarence Humiston.

He graduated from Plattsburgh State University and received his Masters Degree from Pennsylvania State University. He taught mathematics for 35 years at Ridgewood High School in Ridgewood, New Jersey. During those years he officiated soccer, basketball, baseball, and softball. He was past president of the Bergen County Soccer Officials Association and past president of the Bergen County Umpires Association. He was a member of the International Association of Approved Basketball Officials.

He proudly served for two years in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Toul, France.

Do Americans Still Read?

Back in the halcyon days of youth my we read to our parents. This was after they decided that they had been reading to us for long enough so it had became our turn.

Reading became a habit for me after I learned to piece together words into sentences in the first grade. Not long after this I began to dutifully go outside, no matter the weather, and retrieve the NY Times from the driveway. I may have only read the Sports pages, after a cursory glance at the front page, but it was reading and sports writers like Leonard Koppett and Dan Daniel were very literate and would be called bibliophiles today. Later in my life I would read Sam Lacy, W.C. Heinz, Ring Lardner, and Dick Young.

Leonard Koppett, New York Times

Sam Lacy, Washington Post

W.C. Heinz

By the time I reached High School I would read the Wall Street Journal my father brought home each night, after he had read it on the train from NYC. Vermont Royster wrote for the WSJ Editorial page in those days. he had studied Latin and Greek. He received two Pulitzer Prizes and his Christmas and Thanksgiving editorials were reprinted every years since he wrote them. 

Funny how no female sports writers are on my list. Mostly because they weren't allowed and when they were the treatment they endured was nothing short of a travesty.

I have often wondered what kind of journalism requires one to navigate the sweaty, smelly confines of a locker room? I guess that would be the definition of a Sports Writer.

Now we live in a more visual society as opposed to the tactile one of my youth, where the ink from the newspaper remained on your hands as a reminder of your reading endeavors. Children might still read to their parents today but it's probable from a tablet or phone. I'm not sure this is an improvement. What's more, at this risk of being labeled an incurable nostalgic, I would also say the quality of the writing isn't the same either. Whoever heard of a Sports Writer today who had studied Latin and Greek? No writers come to mind with this sort of pedigree, male or female. Though I am sure I could be proven wrong in maybe one or two instances nationwide. That's saying quite a bit as New York City area has 11 major sports team, including the Liberty of the Women's National Basketball Association.

The Truth Resonates

You usually know the truth when you hear it. Maybe not initially but a few hours or days later it dawns on you that what you heard, you saw, or you read was the truth. Call this striking a chord, or an idea or phenomenon which repeats itself in your mind, that is what we call the truth.

Here is a famous photo of someone telling the truth. It pained him mightily to tell us the President Kennedy had been mortally shot in Dealey Plaza in Texas. This is as apparent today as it was over 50 years ago.

Once he reported the news it checked the clock to make sure he had got it right.

 

 This is how it felt this mornig after hearing about the passing of a Rock n Roll Hall of Famer named Tom Petty. He was only 66 and had been with the same band for 40 years. Often times we think people will be around forever, that is, until they aren't. 

Music writer Bob Lefsetz gave the following as part of a eulogy for Tom Petty:

Once upon a time music was art.

Tom Petty made art.

Today I was in Reseda.

Tonight I drove down Mulholland.

But one thing's for sure, I'm free fallin'. Out into nothin'.

But tonight Tom Petty didn't leave this world for a while, but for all time.

And I just don't want to accept that.

But I have to.

We all have to. Plus, try to recall the sweet memories, though tinged with sadness, that these musicians left us with.

October Gardens

It's hard for me to believe but it had been 25 years since I last had a hand in a garden. Not that I had many opportunities living in the NYC area and other urban settings. Though this last spring I knew it would happen as our new place already had a working garden and could easily handle an extra set of hands or two.

Now it is October and we are picking the last of the tomatoes and peppers. The herbs and medical plants are still with us too. During the summer we had an abundance of mulberries, black and white. It's funny how so few people appreciate the taste of mulberries and there were countless yards with trees filled with berries that nobody picked. This goes hand in hand with the fact there are countless streets throughout America named Mulberry. As James Thurber once wrote, " You could look it up!"