Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Learning to Live with a New Reality

We did it once before. We hope we can do it again. 


After all, my retirement portfolio increased the first time. Sure, under Joe Biden’s watch the increase was greater, but that first gain ain’t nothing to sneeze at. 


So I say to myself: Learn to live with the reality. I must repeatedly tell myself—Think of Number One. Don’t dwell on the fallout to democracy, international relations, the environment, the rule of law, immigration, access to reproductive rights and all aspects of health care, equal rights, the separation of church and state. 


You’re 75. As long as the stock market doesn’t crash and missiles don’t rain down on America, how bad can it be? 


Stop thinking globally, or nationally. Think just of yourself. That’s what a majority of Americans just did. They chose to reward personal fulfillment with little or no thought to the consequences they could unleash on America and the world. 


But, I’m not sure I can stop thinking of others. My upbringing—from my parents, my education, my profession, my spouse, my friends, my religion, my spiritual leaders—instilled in me an ethos that transcends “Me.” 


Can I survive the next four years and the potential transformation of a country for decades to come? Physically? For sure. I’ll play more pickleball. Watch more Netflix. Play more poker. Travel more. And when I cannot sleep through the night, play more solitaire. 


Emotionally? I grieve for the future my children and grandchildren will have to persevere through. I have lived in an America Franklin Delano Roosevelt fashioned 80 years ago, an America that strived to shield its citizens from economic and ideological assaults. 


The safety net FDR spun for America and the world is in jeopardy. 


I am 75. I do not speak Yiddish. I know a smattering of Yiddish words. One sums up my, and possibly your, feelings at this moment:


Oy!!! 

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Non Deletion from My Nonexistent Bucket List

 I was all set to report on my crossing off an item on my nonexistent bucket list when I was surprised. Instead of prescribing my first overnight stay in a hospital after he removed four bladder stones and shrunk my enlarged prostate through green light laser surgery midday Wednesday, my urologist sent me home with a catheter attached to my left leg. 


When she reads this Gilda will admonish me for TMI (too much information). But I am nothing if not open (Gilda says too open) about all my medical conditions. And let’s be honest, as a journalist I rarely would let social sensibilities get in the way of a good  story (good in my mind, that is. I wouldn’t write about anyone else’s medical issues, but this one is mine and it’s near 4 am and I’ve been lying in bed for more than three hours without falling asleep, probably not as long as New York Yankees players will pass the night in wide awake sorrow over the Los Angeles Dodgers’ ability to capitalize on fifth inning Little League mistakes by Aaron Judge, Anthony Volpe and Gerrit Cole that turned a 5-0 lead into a tie game, eventually a World Series championship won by LA).


Getting back to my no revised non-bucket list posting. 


Numerous times during our near 52 years of marriage my business travels domestically and internationally left Gilda alone at night. I cannot tell you how she slept those nights but my slumber during those trips was anything but tranquil. It would take hours before sleep overcame me. Sleep that lasted just for a few hours. Often I would turn on the hotel room TV, hoping to find a movie I could watch. I think one of those times I saw “Mannequin,” a 1987 movie (not worth your time but here’s an IMDB link— https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093493/). 


Just as often I would wake up around 3 am because hotels apparently try to save money by cutting off their HVAC when they believe most people would sleep through the discomfort. I rarely did. 


It’s 6:22 am Thursday. Slept for a little more than two hours. Good thing I was awakened. The catheter bag was near full. In a few minutes I’ll try to return to sleep. 


Some of you may have scratched your head wondering why I have been so open with my “condition.” Think of it as the equivalent of retail therapy, shopping as a means of bolstering one’s feelings during hard times. I’ve done that. Some people drink. Or do drugs. I don’t do either. 


For me, writing has been my primary escape mechanism, whether it be from melancholy recalling relatives or friends that have passed, significant losses by sports teams I follow, or the depression and anxiety of our public discourse. 


This is my third time having stones removed from my bladder. 2016. 2020. 2024. Presidential election years. Years Trump spit his bile. I quiver wondering my state of mind after November 5. 

 

(Thursday afternoon update: Doc removed the catheter. No pickleball for a fortnight.)

Monday, October 28, 2024

Thoughts on the Election and Baseball

Speaking with more than a slight degree of immodesty, you might have noticed I have been surprisingly silent of late, what with the election just days away, the New York Yankees in pursuit of their 28th World Series title, the New York Football Giants demonstrating annual futility, and Israel seemingly taking on the entire Mideast. 


Did you really need me to tell you the presidential race is a cliffhanger? That every vote counts? That control of the House and Senate are up for grabs, as well? That if a certain elephant in the room sweeps into power this great country will be diminished by the resulting extremism? 


If you did, then you obviously are the reality incarnation of Rip Van Winkle. 


I admit to being disillusioned about the American people. How easy it appears to be able to con them. That half of the country believes Donald Grump (that’s not a typo, though when I wrote it I too thought it was a typo until I liked how it looked and sounded) cares about them—and not just about himself—is mind boggling. 


I don’t spend my days or evenings riveted to the screen watching CNN, MSNBC, Fox, or reading news, analysis and opinion pieces parsing who and why is ahead or behind in the race to be the most powerful 

person in the world. 


I do watch Bill Maher on HBO and last Friday Van Jones, a CNN commentator, chided black men for allowing themselves to be conned by Trump. 


While others try to link Trump to Project 2025, which Trump claims (falsely, in my opinion) he knows nothing about, Jones cited Agenda 47 which is part of Trump’s web site. 


According to Jones, Agenda 47 would require local law enforcement to do “stop and frisk,” which targets 80% black people, he said; instruct the Department of Justice to dismantle street gangs which Jones said means the Feds would be in black neighborhoods to figure out which one of their kids should go to federal prison; and Trump would indemnify all cops, so you can’t sue cops.  


Jones asserted, “Basically, black men are about to be conned, those who support Trump, by someone who says he will lift you up but really will lock you up. He’s going to lock you up for the stuff Kamala Harris is trying to decriminalize, he is trying to recriminalize.”


If, like me, you donated to any candidate, your email mailbox has become prime destination for any and all politicians and their fundraisers. Clicking the Unsubscribe link does no good. At least one can hope that after November 5 there will be a respite. 


Except, with challenges to the results expected from both sides, requests to fund or defend these challenges will clutter your inbox. 


And, on the subject of vote challenges, if Trump is ahead at any time next Tuesday night, expect him to declare victory as he did four years ago. Only this time if he cries victory his minions will be ready to confront election officials and interfere with the full counting of all ballots, particularly absentee ballots. Mayhem will ensue, all in the name of discrediting votes for Kamala Harris.  


Okay, enough politics. Time to watch the Yankees try to make a series out of this battle with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yes, the Yanks lost the first two games in Los Angeles, but I am reminded of the 1996 World Series against the Atlanta Braves. The Bronx Bombers lost the first two games in Atlanta but came back to win the next four (three at Yankee Stadium, then the clincher back in Atlanta) for their first championship in 16 years. Stealing a line from the NY Mets of yore, “Ya Gotta Believe.” 

Monday, October 21, 2024

Study in Contrast: Kemo Sabe vs. Tonto

The crossword puzzle clue asked for the Spanish word for “foolish.” Beyond “gracias,” “por favor,” and “arroz con pollo,” I am mostly ignorant of the language that one in five of the American population speaks or has at least a casual familiarity with. My high school taught French, and Hebrew, both languages that I have forgotten more than I remember. 


As I filled in the words surrounding the “foolish” clue, it became evident the answer was “Tonto.” 


Whoa, Kemo Sabe! Was the Lone Ranger calling Tonto a fool all those years? Did Jay Silverheels, the Tonto of the 1950s television series, know his character’s name had a meaning hidden to most Americans back then? Did Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger know he was perpetuating a decades old slur of Native Americans, albeit a benign defamation to a mostly unaware audience? 


(Meanwhile, Tonto’s term of endearment for The Lone Ranger—Kemo Sabe—is said to mean “trusty scout.”)


To be sure, some authorities believe Tonto means “wild one” in Native American language. But the deprecatory meaning of Tonto was not lost on “The Lone Ranger’s” producers. As Wikipedia notes, “Because Tonto means “stupid” or “ignorant” in Spanish, the character is renamed “Toro” (Spanish for “bull”) or “Ponto” (sea or ocean) in Spanish-speaking countries.


I should hardly be surprised by the subtle cultural assault on a Native American, even one dedicated to the greater good. For decades Hollywood cast minorities and white men as comic foils for the white man hero. 


To my recollection Tonto in the TV series never was ridiculed or played the comic. Unlike slapstick sidekicks for Roy Rogers (Pat Brady), “The Cisco Kid” (Pancho), or Andy Devine’s Jingles character on “The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok,” Jay Silverheels portrayed a thoughtful, loyal and brave partner to the Lone Ranger. 


Growing up I religiously watched “The Lone Ranger.” I simply assumed Tonto’s name had no hidden meaning. Ah, the naivety of youth. I was swept up by the thrilling William Tell Overture at the show’s beginning as The Long Ranger rode Silver up a mountain crest, bucked him onto his hind legs and shouted, “Hi-Yo Silver.” 


I don’t believe I was brainwashed through repeated exposure to the name Tonto. But with the wisdom, let’s call it the sensitivity, of advanced years, I am disappointed the producers of “The Lone Ranger” did not choose a more appropriate name for Tonto. 

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

A Long Awaited Melancholy Goodbye to Kmart

Until I went to Syracuse for graduate school in 1971, I had never stepped inside a Kmart. For that matter, in 1977 when I moved back to the New York area to join Lebhar-Friedman’s Nation’s Restaurant News as a field editor, no one on staff had been inside a Wendy’s, much less had eaten one of its juicy square hamburgers or enjoyed a Frosty, despite the company being McDonald’s most dramatic challenger for fast food supremacy back in the 1970s. Let’s call it the Big Apple Bubble. While the rest of the country patronized chain retail and foodservice stores, New York City residents were clueless to first hand experience of the mass market consumerism sweeping the nation half a century ago. 


October 1978 was a milestone month for me. I started writing about Kmart that month after I was transferred to Chain Store Age General Merchandise Edition. For the next three decades, as chief editor and then publisher, Chain Store Age would be my professional link to Kmart and all forms of retailing. 


More importantly, on October 20, 1978, our son Dan was born. 


Now, 46 years later, in the swanky resort area of the Long Island Hamptons where millionaires and billionaires, and wannabe minions, flock every summer, the last domestic full-line United States Kmart store, in Bridgehampton, will close—wait for it—October 20! 


Indulge me a little nostalgic look back on the fortunes and misfortunes of the polyester and plastic palace that was Kmart, at one time the second largest retailer in the world behind only Sears, Roebuck and Co., it, too, now just a shell of its once glorious prominence. 


Kmart was an offshoot of the S.S. Kresge Corporation, second to Woolworth in the variety store field. It was the brainchild of Harry Cunningham. Harry opened the first Kmart in 1962 in Garden City, Michigan, outside Detroit. 


1962 was a gestational year for discount stores. Among other chains started that year as retailers scurried to capitalize on consumer interest in the self-serve discount format were Woolco, an offshoot of Woolworth; Target, conceived by Dayton Hudson department stores; and Walmart, the progeny of Sam Walton, at the time the largest Ben Franklin variety store franchisee who foresaw diminishing prospects for his existing holdings. 


Of all the emerging discount store companies Kmart invested most aggressively in growth for growth’s sake. Through new construction and the purchase of competitors, even if their locations were less than optimum, Kmart became the first national discount store chain. Its “blue light” specials mesmerized shoppers. It ran national ad campaigns. It was ubiquitous. So much so that when the 1988 “Rain Man” film needed a foil understood by all Americans, it was Kmart that Dustin Hoffman’s Raymond character disparaged. Keep in mind, in 1988, Walmart had yet to penetrate many major markets. 


Kmart’s sales in 1987 totaled $25.6 billion. Walmart’s were $16.0 billion. Kmart had 2,307 stores, Walmart 1,381. Kmart’s net income was $692 million. Walmart’s $628 million.


Unbridled growth meant more sales but not maximum profits. Let me do the math for you: Walmart’s profit margin was 3.9% of sales, while Kmart’s was a mere 2.7%. 


Kmart failed to renovate and modernize stores. It lacked inventory discipline and store personnel and housekeeping standards. It failed to offer a compelling reason to shop for apparel which could generate more profit margins than hards goods like housewares and electronics. 


Gradually, regional discount stores led by Target in metropolitan markets and Walmart, first in rural areas and then in suburbia, outclassed Kmart with newer, sleeker stores, better inventory control, more dedicated store personnel, sharper product assortments. 


From 1978, when our son was born, through the turn of the 21st century, I met all of Kmart’s chief executives. They were nice men. They tried innovative programs, like inaugurating a female apparel line featuring original “Charlie’s Angel” Jaclyn Smith, setting up an exclusive household lines with Martha Stewart, starting Designer Depot, an off-price retail chain, and emulating Walmart’s entry into the supercenter format combining a full-line discount store with a full-size supermarket. The company also tried diversifying, buying or opening other formats including Sports Authority, Builders Square, Borders, and Waldenbooks.  


Sometimes the profit needle pointed up. In December 1980 Chain Store Age devoted a full issue to Kmart’s past, present and future. The American Society of Magazine Editors in association with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism cited our December report as one of the five best single topic issues of the year of any American magazine, trade or consumer. 


Nothing, however, could reverse Kmart’s downward spiral as Target and most prominently Walmart outmuscled it. 


Eventually, Wall Street financier Eddie Lampert bought Kmart and another retail giant turned weakling, Sears. He promised resurrection but really reaped revenues only by selling off real estate locations. 


I retired 15 years ago. Sadly, at least from my perspective, many of the retail companies and shopping centers they inhabited that I followed daily no longer exist. Those that are still around open fewer doors. With each passing week more announcements herald closings and layoffs. 


I never regularly patronized Kmart as an active shopper. But its presence was part of my professional life. I walked its stores in most cities I visited. I don’t travel throughout America as I did before retirement. I will miss Kmart in the abstract. 


For a report on how Long Islanders are reacting to the Bridgehampton store closing, click on the link to this New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/business/kmart-closing-long-island.html?smid=url-share



 

Monday, October 7, 2024

Some Cheer on an Otherwise Somber Day

On this saddest of days, October 7, some lighthearted September Facebook posts from my sister Lee, some entertaining, some political, but always worth sharing:


It will never not be hilarious that over 300 insurrectionists have been turned in by their ex-wives.


***


Kamala will be the first Democratic president in DECADES to not have to start by rescuing the American economy from a Republican recession.

LET THAT SINK IN!


***


I’m at the age where I appreciate a nice handrail. 


***


I read somewhere that being sarcastic on a regular basis can add up to three years to your life. If that’s true I’m gonna live forever.


***


I’m not sure how many cookies it takes to be happy, but so far it is not 27. 


***


A little girl asked her brother, “What is love?”

He replied, “Love is when you steal my chocolate from my lunch bag every day … and I still hide it in the same place.”


***


Not all relationships will lead to marriage. Some will help you discover new restaurants. 


***


Sign at a Grace Methodist Church 

New Commandment: Thou shall not use your religion to take away other people’s rights


***


The reason your grandmother didn’t leave your grandfather has LESS to do with some moral compass or love than you think. Until 1964 an employer could REFUSE to hire you because you were a WOMAN. Until 1974 REFUSING to sell a WOMAN a home was LEGAL … Until 1988 you could REFUSE to rent to a woman with CHILDREN. Contrary to what people believe, women didn’t stay because relationships were better, they stayed because SOCIETY wasn’t designed for their independence.


***


If you can’t secure your own golf course, don’t claim you can secure our borders!!!


***


Wife: “Do you have a plan for clearing out the garage?”

Husband: “I have concepts of a plan.”


***


Not to brag, but I can forget a new password before I’ve finished creating it. 


***


Volkswagen should bring back the Beetle as an electric vehicle and call it the Lightning Bug.


***

 

“This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong.

And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want.”

- Hannah Arendt


Saturday, October 5, 2024

D-E-T-H-R-O-N-E-D !!!

All hail Finley, newly crowned tallest of the Forseter clan!!!