Day 104 of Nat'l Emergency: Father's Day Edition

During this time of coronavirus pandemic, Father’s Day is not being celebrated in our household the time honored way with visits with children and grandchildren (for that matter, Mother’s Day fell short as well). Neither is it possible to adhere to our custom of dining out at the preferred restaurant of the honored parent. 

The other day Gilda asked what I would like to do to celebrate. I’d like to be able to play poker with my buddies again, said I. That, too, is not happening anytime soon. 

The silver lining in that is that I have more silver lining my pockets than if the game took place every month. It’s a small consolation.

As for dinner, Gilda is baking fresh hamburger buns to caress her juicy hamburgers. She’s also making fresh potato salad. 

I hope everyone else’s Father’s Day dinner will be as lovingly prepared and delicious as mine.

Down the Rabbit Hole: Stepping outside one morning last week to pick up The New York Times from our driveway, I saw a bit of whimsy I had never witnessed in 36 years in our current home even though our yard is infested with Peters, Flopsies, Mopsies and Cottontails. Four young rabbits were playing a game of tag on our front lawn, scampering this way and that after the leader, not caring at all that I was taking in their playfulness.

The rabbits were clearly family and having fun. Their game of chase was not to be confused with squirrels or chipmunks running after each other. Those pursuits are clashes of territoriality, one animal brusquely shooing off an invader from his or her sphere of influence. 

Farmer McGregor—alias Gilda—spares no love for these creatures. She accuses them of eating her plants just before their flowers are to bloom. She has no proof, of course, though the rabbits do spend lots of time munching grass from our lawn. Guilt by association.

If it were up to me I would snare one and make it a house pet. Before they had kids Dan and Allison had two pet rabbits. Gilda has no intention of humoring my desire.

In case you’re wondering, rabbits are no longer classified as rodents. They are lagomorphs. Has to do with having four incisors compared to two in rodents. 

Promenade: We took a near four mile walk Thursday down Rosedale Avenue. We used to walk before COVID-19 hampered communal activities, but we’ve really picked up the pace since social distancing knocked out most other outdoor pastimes. 

Someone, I’m surmising a young girl and her family, positioned painted rocks on stone fences, at the foot of trees and on the base of a fire hydrant along the way. Each rock had an inspirational message. A turquoise painted rock said, “This will all blow over in time.” A yellow rock with a drawing of a bee intoned, “The bitter comes before the sweet.” Two flower illustrations under a bright yellow sun on a green background accompanied the saying, “Spring has sprung.”

Any passerby could not help but be cheered up. 

Nor could they be anything but dazzled by the life-size moose statue standing guard in the front yard of a recently renovated cottage. 

Camping Ground: Young Judea, our grandkids’ sleepaway summer camp, was cancelled, as most were in New York and New England.

Perfectly understandable given the caution proscribed in this age of coronavirus. Seriously disappointing to anyone who has relished the sleepaway camp experience.

Dagny was to have spent her first such adventure in July, joining Finley for his second season away from home. It also means Dan and Allison will not get to enjoy being empty nesters for an extended period for the first time in 10 years. Ah, well, there will always be next year.

With a little more planning, however, camps could have created a controlled environment, Gilda believes. If campers and staff were tested and screened before arrival in camp, and forbidden to leave the grounds, even for counselor days off, the camp could have been made into a virus sanctuary. Food and other deliveries could be controlled, much the way grocers receive shipments. And there would be no parent visiting day. 

Ah well, it’s too late for this summer, but as sports fans of losing teams are wont to say, “Wait till next year!”

Jon Stewart Should Cover Up

Jon Stewart needs better, that is, higher, socks. 

In a segment Tuesday night, the host of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart lampooned CNN for making its morning anchors “go to the couch” to present some features. During one of his more uproariest tirades, Stewart kicked up his heels, and revealed ... skin of his shin (http://www.deadline.com/2013/11/jon-stewart-embraces-cnn-new-days-couch-sponsorship-news-portunity/). Now, it was only for an instant, but it’s my firm belief that any male worthy of public exposure should not expose his legs, at least while wearing business or formal attire. 

You might recall that one of my first blogs, the tenth one in fact, back on September 21, 2009, excoriated President Obama for displaying his shins during an interview on This Week with George Stephanopoulus of ABC News. Under the title, "Shins of the President," I wrote, “Sitting with his legs crossed, Obama showed viewers several inches of bare skin where his pants leg did not meet the top of his socks. 

“It is inexcusable, it’s a fashion faux pas, especially considering his wife’s keen fashion sense, that the commander-in-chief of the United States does not wear knee-high socks when he is dressed up.

“Indeed, anyone, anyone who is in politics, in business or in any way in a public situation, should wear knee-high socks. There is nothing appealing or sexy about seeing a man’s shin-bone skin.”

Someone in the White House, perhaps his fashion-conscious wife, must have noticed because Obama has been more properly attired since that faux pas. Stewart would do well to follow the president’s lead. Buy the knee-highs. Cover up, please. 

(For those wondering how a journalist writing under a no-socks-needed-anymore banner could demand proper hosiery, let me point out that one, going sockless is a sign I no longer need to dress corporately, and two, I really hate not wearing socks.) 

As long as we’re talking about The Daily Show, have you noticed the Mass Mutual ad that runs on the program picturing a father and son eating out. When the bill comes there’s an awkward moment when each contemplates who is the proper person to pay. I had such a moment with my father.

It was back before our children were born. It was Father’s Day, so Gilda and I took my parents to a restaurant in Greenwich Village. When the bill came I reached for the check. My father said he would pay. I said it was Father’s Day, let me pay. He reiterated he would pay. I said no. My father reached across the table ... and grabbed the tie I was wearing, choking me. Okay, Dad, if you want to pay that much, be my guest.  

Now that Bill de Blasio has been elected mayor of New York City, we’re in for non-stop pictures of his son Dante and his Afro, which I must say, is quite impressive.

Each morning as I coif my hair, I reach into a bathroom drawer to take out a Black Power steel hair pick I bought back in 1974 in New Haven when Gilda convinced me to shed my old-fashioned hairdo in favor of a more modern look. For years I had been trying to deal with my naturally curly hair by brushing it to the left while wet and then violently brushing it to the right. My barber in Brooklyn gave me razor cuts to weed out the curls, which, according to my recollection, showed up when I was about three years old after letting my sister Lee play hairdresser on my locks. I’ve never forgiven her. 

Anyway, Gilda importuned me to change. We had just moved into New Haven from nearby Seymour. Walking around the Westville neighborhood, we passed a unisex hair salon. It took all of her persuasive powers to get me inside, especially when I discovered a woman would be cutting my hair (remember, this was almost 40 years ago when I was but 25, so cut me some slack, please. For the record, my haircutter for the last 30 or so years has been a woman, Rosie.). 

To get back to the story, from the get-go I liked my Afro. One of Gilda’s favorite pictures of me was taken shortly thereafter in the newsroom of The New Haven Register. I’m sitting, my left knee akimbo atop the plane of the desktop, my head flush with a bushy Afro. Not as well-cropped and rounded as Dante’s, but as much a statement of my liberation from my childhood years as any I could make. 

Father's Day (plus one) Edition

Did you get one of those kitchy SodaStream carbonated water makers for Father’s Day? 

I didn’t. Not that I was pining for one, despite my friend Lloyd’s rave review (actually, I think Lloyd would give anything from Israel a rave review, but that’s between him and the maker). Anyway, hearing all those recent ads for SodaStream evoked memories of Brooklyn in the early 1950s.

Back then, during my pre-school days, vendors stopping by our attached row house on Avenue W were a big deal. The truck of the knife and scissors sharpener would clang its way through the neighborhood about once a month. Every two weeks or so the blue-uniformed man from Brighton Laundry arrived with clean, starched sheets, pillow cases and tablecloths wrapped in a blue paper package. Before heading back to his truck he’d tie our soiled linens in a bundle and throw it over his shoulder.  

No visitor was more welcomed to our home than the seltzer man, with six or more bottles in a wooden crate leveraged on a shoulder. Clear glass bottles, or blue glass, green glass, even the occasional red glass bottle. Inside, vacuum-packed carbonated water, with a nickel-colored metal push lever at the top to discharge soda water for wine spritzers (a standard Friday night libation), scotch and sodas and home-made egg creams made with U-Bet chocolate syrup and milk (for the uninformed, an egg cream has no egg content). 

Whether true or not, I always thought his name was Mr. Seltzer. My brother says it was Chesler, which to a toddler could easily be construed as Seltzer. Anyway, Mr. Seltzer/Chesler was a wiry man, usually unshaven, with a bent to his frame no doubt a condition from always toting heavy cases of seltzer on his shoulders. He was a genial man, usually stopping to gossip a little with my mother.

Perhaps in an economy mood, or because of something he saw on one of his trips to Israel, my father in the late 1950s or early 1960s decided to buy a re-usable water carbonator. The cylinder had a metallic outer layer, with a space at the top for a carbon dioxide canister that was screwed into the dispenser. It was a novelty he showed off a few times to friends. By the time he lost interest in it, Mr. Seltzer/Chesler had retired. From then on we bought bottled seltzer. 

Gilda sent along a link to a story about birth photography in the delivery room (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/us/now-in-the-delivery-room-forceps-camera-action.html?_r=1). As she pointed out, we were 30 years ahead of the curve.

When Dan was born 33 years ago we were too dazzled to give much thought to taking pictures. We had gone through Lamaze classes for natural childbirth, but were really unprepared for secondary preoccupations. Three years later, however, when Ellie arrived, we were pros and ready for action. I took some great shots of Ellie’s first moments outside the womb. They’re not for the squeamish to see, but they did capture the thrill. 

For those who didn’t get Father’s Day cards, or received some mushy, sentimental card, here are two I opened. The first paid tribute to my nightly sound machine: “It’s Father’s Day. Time to ponder that immortal, philosophical question ... If a dad falls asleep in the woods, does he drive all the woodland creatures insane with his snoring?”

Gilda gave me this card: Happy Father’s Day, Honey! Today belongs to you. No, really. 364 days are plenty for me.”

Nepotism and Consumer Facts

The last episode of this season’s Mad Men ended with Don Draper employing nepotism to secure his wife a featured spot in a television shoe commercial. During my tenure as an editor and publisher I practiced nepotism four times, placing Dan when he was three years old in a Pac-Man sweatshirt for a picture accompanying a story we did on licensed merchandise, a second time 10 months later later dressing Dan and 13-month-old Ellie in kids’ overalls for an article on childrenswear, a third time five months later posing Ellie in a stretchie for an advertising supplement for Gerber baby products, and the last time enlisting Gilda’s sister’s family for an advertising supplement on activewear.

That last bit of nepotism turned out to be part of a cruel exchange of modeling time for a few pieces of apparel. The supplement was going to run in early spring, so we needed to shoot in January. Outdoors. By the ocean. Barbara’s family at the time lived in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn. We agreed to photograph them one sunny day. 

Sunny it was. But with the wind chill it was below 20 degrees on the beach. The activewear tops and bottoms provided scant protection to the biting cold for Barbara, her husband and their three children, ages 5, 10 and 12. I know because I was out there on the beach as well. Bundled up in my winter coat, hat, earmuffs and gloves. Freezing my bejeezus off. We had to stop shooting after about 45 minutes. The photographer’s camera froze. 

As long as we’re talking media and advertising, here are some interesting “facts” culled from several press releases and articles:

According to Buyology, Inc., a market research firm that studies “the deeper, non-conscious, 85% of human decision-making that drives customer preference for brands,” the political differences between Democrats and Republicans extend to the consumer brands they prefer. For example, in the category of most desired coffee shop, Democrats favor Starbucks; Republicans savor Dunkin’ Donuts. 

Among the 200 brands studied by Buyology, here’s how the parties split on seven other categories: 

Most desired car—Jeep for Dems, BMW for GOP

Most desired insurance—Progressive for Dems (could they have been influenced by the name?), Allstate for GOP

Most desired electronics—Sony for Democrats, Sharp for GOP

Most desired TV channel—Animal Planet for Dems, History Channel for GOP (figures)

Most desired restaurant—Wendy’s for Dems, Subway for GOP

Most desired gaming system—Wii for Dems, Xbox for GOP

Democrats and Republicans found common ground on the following: Coca-Cola as their favorite beverage, Visa their most desired financial service, Google their most desired Internet brand, Apple the most desired technology and Olay the most desired beauty brand.

Here’s what passes as startling news these days: A survey by Harris Interactive of 2,212 U.S. adults ages 18 and older, done on behalf of CouponCabin.com, found nearly three-in-four (72%) would be more likely to buy organic food items if they were less expensive than regular grocery items. 

Duh! How’s that for discovering consumers would buy something if it cost less?

By the way, according to Grocery Headquarters magazine, 52% of dads say they are the primary food shopper in their households. I’ve been part of that majority for years, even before retirement.

With Father’s Day approaching this Sunday, another coupon Web site, RetailMeNot.com, is out with a survey claiming 77% of adults feel moms receive more attention on Mother’s Day than dads do on Father’s Day. Moreover, just 54% of the 1,005 adults surveyed jointly with Ipsos Public Affairs typically purchase a gift for dad, compared with 71% of survey respondents who tend to buy Mother's Day gifts for mom. 

The numbers sound reasonable to me. The preferred Father’s Day gift, said 40% of the men surveyed, was quality time with the family, such as an outing or dinner. I guess I’m normal—when Gilda asked me earlier today what I wanted to do on Father’s Day I suggested eating out. And that’s from someone fortunate enough to be married to a gourmet cook.

  

Father's Day, Baseball Edition

It’s Father’s Day. Great day to go to a ball game. Gilda, Ellie, Donny and I are off to Coney Island to see the Brooklyn Cyclones take on the Staten Island Yankees. It can hardly get any better than that, unless, of course, Finley and parents would be with us. Alas, they’re up in New Hampshire at a Mixter family reunion.


Speaking of Finley, I was happy to see Finley is the name of Brian Gordon’s 4-year-old son. Who’s Brian Gordon? Why, he’s the Aaron Small of 2011, we hope.

NY Yankee fans will remember in 2005 the perennial minor leaguer Aaron Small was called up to fill a pitching gap and wound up winning his first 10 decisions, helping the Bronx Bombers finish first in the American League East. Gordon is somewhat like Small, a long-term minor leaguer who relies on deception rather than fastballs to retire batters. Gordon pitched well in his debut last Wednesday, without getting a decision. His next outing will be in Cincinnati Tuesday. Here’s hoping lightning strikes again for the Yanks, and Gordon.


During Derek Jeter’s stay on the 15-day disabled list, can we please have a moratorium on TV ads starring the Yankee captain? I know it’s asking too much, but really, do we need to be constantly reminded he’s not in the lineup pursuing his 3,000th hit?

Is it too soon to think of Jeter as the modern-day version of Wally Pipp, the Yankee star first baseman who sat himself down because of a headache in 1925 and never got his job back because Lou Gehrig replaced him and played the next 2,130 consecutive games? I’m exaggerating, of course, but Eduardo Nunez is taking full advantage of his playing time during Jeter’s leg injury layoff. Nunez drove in the winning run Saturday. He is seven for 18 (.388) since replacing Jeter, including a home run on his 24th birthday Wednesday. On the negative side, he still is prone to mistakes in the field. He has committed eight errors, mostly errant throws, in 14 games.

Jeter will get his position back once he’s physically fit, but barring a trade or a career-ending injury, Nunez is showing he’s the Yankee shortstop of the future.


Is it my imagination or is Robinson Cano, underachieving at the plate, also underperforming in the field? He just seems to be a step slower this season after his Gold Glove year, not paying enough attention to the ball, not keeping it in his mitt, not throwing with the same accuracy. He’s already made six errors in 68 games compared to just three in 158 games during the full 2010 season.

Cano is a hard player to gauge. He’s so naturally talented and smooth, what in other players might appear to be indifference is just his normal style. Still, I think something is not right with him overall. (I can’t be too critical as he’s Allison’s favorite Yankee.)


I’m still waiting for baseballdom to adopt my idea about tracking a pitcher’s statistics when confronted with the bases loaded. Hitters already are evaluated in such situations but you never hear an announcer tell you how a pitcher has fared when the bags are full. I’d measure their efficiency with no out, one out and two out.


And now a word from a sponsor who doesn’t know baseball. Or at least its copywriter doesn’t. Riding around Friday listening to the Yankee pre-game show, AT&T ran an ad themed around a character named Sam who always wanted to be a Yankee and was on his way as a standout high school pitcher. He went on to become...an IT technician, and so, in the words of the ad, “would never bat lead-off for the Yankees.”

Duh! No kidding. Pitchers don’t bat lead-off. Indeed, unless the Yanks are playing interleague ball in a National League ballpark, as they’re doing today against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, Yankee pitchers never come to bat.

Someone should take that copywriter, and his supervisor, to a Yankee game so they can see first hand the error of their ways.


Record Time: For those keeping score, today is the two-year anniversary of my last day of work for Chain Store Age and Lebhar-Friedman. The time has gone swiftly by, Gilda and I both agree, not the least because of this blog. This entry will be the 333rd I’ve posted to No Socks Needed Anymore since I began blogging September 8, 2009. Thank you for indulging me with your readership.