Rain or Shine, Donald J. Trump Takes Control Friday

As surely as the sun will rise Friday morning (though rain is in the midday forecast for Washington, D.C.), Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States of America at noon.

Under Trump’s presidency we’re going to see if the government can be run as a business or like a business. There’s a difference. 

To be run as a business requires a balanced budget (even a surplus), which means tough decisions on how revenues are raised and appropriated. The last president to produce a surplus was Bill Clinton. Generally speaking, Republican dogma has called for lower taxes tied to reduced expenditure allocations to social welfare programs. The GOP also advocates diluted, if not eliminated,  protections for consumers, workers, the environment, civil liberties and voting rights.

To run the government like a business implies leeway in strict adherence to capitalism, layering in programs to help the less fortunate and vulnerable. As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in his second inaugural address in 1937, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

A few months prior, in the acceptance speech for his renomination, FDR said, “Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.” 

Those are compelling thoughts during a time when health care coverage for 20 million people hangs in the balance, when environmental regulations may be stripped away in the name of creating a better business climate, and social service initiatives, such as Medicare and Medicaid, may be severely cut back because Republicans have never been supporters of FDR’s New Deal or Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Great Society programs.

Trump can claim he saved jobs at Carrier (700 or 1,100 depending on whom you believe) and 700 more at Ford, both rescues the result of pressuring those companies to jettison projected job relocations to plants in Mexico. Whether you like Trump or not, you’ve got to be happy for those who will continue to receive paychecks.

But Trump’s bully pulpit to end globalization that kills American jobs, coupled with his determination to Make America Great Again, ignores seismic changes occurring throughout the national and international economies. As much as he might want us to return to a simpler time, progress—the future—will not be stopped.

Take, for example, what is happening in the retail industry. More and more sales are transpiring over the Internet. The industry has known for decades that it is overstored. Macy’s is but one of many chains that will shutter stores. It will close 100 of its 730 units and lay off 10,000 workers. Their jobs are not going south or to some other exotic locale. The jobs are lost to cyberspace. 

King-of-electronic-retailing Amazon says it will hire 100,000 workers, an impressive sum, but hardly as many as the workers at brick and mortar retailers dislocated by the emergence of electronic retailing. 

Retailing is like the taxi/limousine field affected by Uber and Lyft, like the hotel business assaulted by Airbnb, like the newspaper business devastated first by Craig’s List and then by Web news sites, real and fake—it is being intermediated by technology. No amount of jawboning or handwringing will slow the inevitable adaptation of our  economy. 

Going forward we are also going to see how thick is the Trump straw that stirs the drink, or if Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, in concert or separately, can sway Republican control of the government. Trump’s stated views on a replacement for Obamacare, for example, differ markedly from Ryan’s and McConnell’s. 

In addition, we will wait to see which John McCain will show up for what probably is his last term in the Senate. Will it be the maverick straight shooter who charmed the electorate in the mid-2000s, or the sycophantic senator who clutched Trump’s coattails to win reelection last year?

It’s politics as usual down in the swamp. After campaigning he would drain the swamp Trump is the head of a muck mired in self-aggrandizement, ethical challenges and broken campaign promises. 

Throughout his campaign he railed against the influence of Wall Street and specifically Goldman Sachs. Yet since the election he has proposed filling three key financial spots with men affiliated with Goldman Sachs and is in favor of reducing constraints on the financial community. 

Politics will color our interpretation of events during the next four years. But hard facts will provide an objective report card on Trump’s vow to “make America great again.”

Trump will be judged on the state of the country and the world in 2020, so here are markers, financial and global, we should check in September 2020 against September 2016, with specific attention to results in the four swing states that chose him over Hillary Clinton—Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio:

*Annual domestic economic growth rate

*Size of national debt

*Size of annual deficit 

*Size of trade imbalance

*Small business growth rate overall 

*Small business growth rates in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio

*Level of Dow Jones Industrial Averages 

*Unemployment rate overall

*Unemployment rates in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio

*Black/African-American unemployment rate overall

*Black/African-American unemployment rate (16-19 year olds)

*Labor force participation rate overall

*Labor force participation rate among Black/Afro-Americans

*Jobs created last four years nationally

*Civilian jobs in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio

*Number of manufacturing jobs nationally

*Number of manufacturing jobs Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio

*Average weekly earnings manufacturing jobs

*Number of construction jobs nationally

*Number of construction jobs Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio

*Average weekly earnings construction jobs

*Number of mining/logging/oil/gas jobs nationally

*Number of mining/logging/oil/gas jobs Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio

*Average weekly earnings mining/logging/oil/gas jobs

*Number of federal government jobs

*Number of government jobs nationally

*Number of uninsured for health care

*Average tax bill for middle class family

*Average national price of gallon of regular gasoline

*Inflation rate

*30 year mortgage rate

*Number of homicides

*Number of hate crimes

*Number of people living in poverty

*Number of military personnel in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Germany, Japan, South Korea

*Status of wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan

*Status of Iran nuclear deal

*Level of imports from China

*Status of North Korea

*Status of Israel-Palestinian conflict

*Number of police officers killed nationally

*Number of minorities killed by police

Four years is a long time to wait for results. But they need not be filled with cowering. If you want to see how Trump and his advisors, particularly Kellyanne Conway, can be handled politely but appropriately, watch how Seth Meyers interviewed her last week. It’s a seminar in solid interviewing/reporting all journalists and TV/radio talk show hosts should study and learn from: https://youtu.be/U_dv5qAsJMU

That said, there is reason to not be comfortable after 12:01 pm Friday. Take the time to read Politico’s roundtable discussion with three of Trump’s biographers about what to expect from the new president: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/trump-biographers-presidency-legitimate-214655

If you made it through the depths of that article, you might not be criticized for believing this is a time to worry and fret. But do not despair. For encouragement read David Leonhardt’s analysis of President Obama’s impact and the difficulty Republicans will have in trying to knock down his legacy: https://nyti.ms/2jAji0t

Beyond that, take heart in Orphan Annie’s ballad to FDR: “The sun will come out tomorrow …”

Planes and Automobiles Travel Edition

On the plane ride home from Omaha last Sunday, I looked over the paper being studied by the woman sitting next to me. It was a primer on how to fly an airplane. Amused, I asked if she was the “go to” person in case of pilot failure. She smiled back awkwardly, acknowledging my lame joke.

I thought back to the time I sat in the co-pilot’s seat of a single engine plane and wondered if I would be able to save all on board if an emergency disabled the pilot. It was back in 1981. Along with seven New York-based security analysts I had flown to Tulsa to rendezvous with a Walmart air taxi that would ferry us to Bentonville, AR, for the company’s annual meeting weekend.

I was the last to board. The only vacant spot—the seat to the right of the pilot. I was both anxious and exhilarated. I masked my emotions, joking with the pilot I was ready to take over if needed. I was determined to study his every move, just in case.

And then it happened—in the middle of our conversation his voice went soft and he was talking with the tower. We slowly started taxiing. Wait a minute. I didn’t see him touch anything. His hands weren’t on the yoke. How could he be talking and moving the plane so...effortlessly? We just rolled to the top of the runway and zoomed into the air.

I had no pretensions I would be able to take over in an emergency. Instead, I prayed, silently of course, that nothing would happen to the pilot. As I’m here to relate this story, nothing did.

Who said prayer doesn’t work?

Prayer might be needed on the roads this weekend as AAA is predicting 36 million Americans will travel by car through July 4. 

With gas prices at an 11 year low, 40% lower than a year ago, Americans are once again demonstrating they have no memory of the ebb and flow of gas prices and no consideration for the environment. How? By rushing out to buy SUV’s and other gas guzzlers and by abandoning hybrid and electric car alternatives.

The other week at my Ford dealership I asked if they had another C-Max in for service. No, because they weren’t really selling too many of them anymore since gas prices had moderated, the service agent said. His comments were backed up by a recent New York Times article: http://nyti.ms/28UW8gD

Too bad. We’ve driven our C-Max a little more than 60,000 miles in three years. We generally get 50 miles per gallon. It feels good to visit the gas station as little as we do.

Updating another one of efforts to reduce our carbon footprint, our solar panels saved almost 7,000 kilowatts during the first year of operation.

Some Things I Wonder About

Here are a few things I wonder about:

I wonder when restaurant and retail operators will determine the time is right for an increase in the minimum wage. Just as restaurateurs fought smoking bans inside their establishments on the pretext it would drive down sales, only to be proven wrong, they continue to argue that an increase in the minimum wage would hurt business. I cannot remember a time during the last 35 years when merchants and restaurateurs did not lobby against pay hikes, when they did not counsel the time was not propitious.

Yes, some stores and food establishments might suffer, but not because salaries were higher. They’d possibly go out of business because they were inefficient operators, or their locations were marginal, or their service and product were sub-par. 

I wonder when politicians will come to their senses and realize giving a few more cents to workers would benefit the whole economy.

Driving Gilda to and from work since she broke her wrist in mid-August has vastly increased my exposure to Sirius radio. Aside from the near 45 mpg fuel economy we have been enjoying in her Ford C-Max, we get to listen to Sirius. Often, it’s the BBC World News, but when we want music Gilda usually chooses the Pulse station. I sometimes opt for Bridge but she switches the station to one of her favorites. Until she explained the songs on Bridge, such as “Please Come to Boston” and “Dream Weaver,” were too melancholy, I never realized so many indeed were downers, which got me to wondering if the Bridge station wasn’t sending out a subliminal message to would be suicides that jumping off a bridge usually does the trick.

News reports continue to emphasize U.S. and allied aircraft are having limited results blunting the ISIS offensive in Syria and Iraq. Often, it is reported, ISIS has tanks and other heavy artillery while its foes have simpler, less impactful weapons. Which got me to wondering, how is it that with smart bombs and laser-guided drone attacks the allied coalition hasn’t been able to knock out the ISIS ordnance. It’s not as if these big guns are hiding. Newscasts clearly show them. Even if they were inside cities the U.S. (and Israel) previously demonstrated the pinpoint precision of aerial forces. So why the negligible results?

Regardless of political party it seems off-year congressional and senate candidates rarely want to be seen with the president, even if they share the same party affiliation. It’s happening with Obama and previously with George W. Bush. 

But I wonder why almost all political ads on TV, radio, billboards and printed flyers fail to identify party affiliation of the candidate. It’s particularly vexing when the roadway landscape is bedecked with all manner of political signs that leave one scratching one’s head about a candidate’s red or blue color. You’d think all Republicans would want to make sure they are not mistaken for an Obama supporter.

The failure to identify party affiliation can affect even the most tenured of elected pols. My U.S. representative, Nita Lowey, has served in Congress since 1989. She is the ranking minority member on the Committee on Appropriations. She is no slouch. Yet the flyer that arrived at our home over the weekend included absolutely no mention of her Democratic Party affiliation. I couldn’t tell you who is running against her, but, then again, anyone not familiar with Lowey couldn’t tell you her party alignment by looking at her literature. 

I ran this by my good friend Marty who’s okay with my posting this—I wonder why movies and TV shows invariably portray accountants as short guys and architects as tall, mostly sophisticated gentlemen.

Transformative Week: Person of the Year and 50 Years of Mustang

Who would you pick as the Person of the Year? Before you start to rack your brain for a worthy choice, here is Time magazine’s 10 finalists for the declaration it will make Wednesday. Listed alphabetically, they are:

Bashar Assad, President of Syria;

Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder;

Ted Cruz, Texas Senator;

Miley Cyrus, Singer;

Pope Francis, Leader of the Catholic Church;

Barack Obama, President of the United States;

Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran;

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services;

Edward Snowden, N.S.A. Leaker;

Edith Windsor, Gay rights activist.

Keep in mind that to be the Person of the Year a candidate need not be a do-gooder. Evil can win as well, and I’m not referring to Barack Obama in the eyes of too many deranged-thinking folks.

Hands down, in my opinion, the winner will be Pope Francis. I’m not a Catholic, but he has transformed in his short reign the way the Catholic Church is perceived, or should be perceived. True, he retains some of the more rigid dogmas, such as being anti-abortion and against women as priests. But he has instilled a renewed sense of purpose to aid the needy and not be overly materialistic. His influence travels well beyond his papacy. 

My second choice would be Jeff Bezos. Retailing, one of my mentors (David Mahler) taught me, has been a continual evolution in streamlining the distribution of goods, from the individual shop to the five and dime to the mail order house to the department store to the discount store, the specialty store, the shopping mall, the category killer store, to the Internet. With Amazon.com, Bezos has set the gold standard for Web retailing. Amazon won’t destroy store retailing, much as Wal-Mart did not wipe all other stores off the retail landscape. But Bezos has been a transformational thinker in the way product is distributed, not just in the United States but abroad, as well. 

All the others on the list, except for Obama, are temporary figures on the scene of current events. 

Only Mustang Makes It Happen: Back in 1968, I drove a fire engine red Mustang. It was a 1966 model, but I identified with the snappy advertising lyric hyping the current year model:

Only Mustang makes it happen,

Only Mustang makes life great!

Mustang warms you, and transforms you.

Mustang, Mustang, '68!

The car that transformed the Ford Motor Company under Lee Iacocca will be 50 years old Thursday. Last April I wrote about my red Mustang, so I’ll just provide a link (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/search?q=mustang) and instead tell you about the last time I drove a Mustang, an aquamarine convertible rental on the island of Maui, some 20-plus years ago. 

Gilda and I traveled to Maui for the annual convention of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. Normally, just one editor from my staff, Marianne, covered the event, which alternated between Hawaii and Palm Beach. We’d already been to Palm Beach, but not Maui, so I asserted some executive privilege and we accompanied Marianne. The NACDS, at that time under the direction of Ron Ziegler, President Richard Nixon’s former press secretary, spent lots of money on their annual get-together. The convention feature appearances by William Safire of The New York Times, Benizar Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, Liza Minnelli and Bob Hope.

But I didn’t need a car to see them. The Mustang was to get around the island, especially to drive up the road to Hāna, known for spectacular waterfalls along the 52 mile highway, and beyond Hāna to visit the gravesite of Charles Lindbergh. The climb to Hāna passes through tropical rainforest. Its mostly a switchback single-lane road, with some 620 curves. Without traffic it takes almost three hours to get to Hāna.

Our trip turned out to be an excursion to hell and back. On the way up the mountain we got stuck behind slow moving cars we could not pass because of the numerous curves. Maui had been suffering from a drought. Ergo, there were no waterfalls to behold. There also were no restaurants along the way, no rest stops to relieve ourselves. We finally arrived in Hāna a few minutes before 2 pm. We had hoped to eat lunch in the only sit-down restaurant in Hāna, but discovered it closed sharply at 2. The only open food shop was a greasy spoon shack we reluctantly patronized. 

We had to get back to our hotel for the conference evening event so we had to forego visiting Lindbergh’s grave. On the way down the mountain, Gilda and Marianne got car sick from all the sharp turns mixing with our greasy lunch. On numerous occasions they opted out of the car to walk a half mile or so in the mist that was now swooping in off the coast. We didn’t get stuck behind any cars or trucks, but our pace going down was significantly slower than when we went up to Hāna. Happiness was reaching the straightaway at the bottom of the road and opening up the throttle of the Mustang to whisk us back to our hotel. 

Exercise in Bed (It's Not What You Think)

For days, weeks, months, YEARS, Gilda has been hounding me to exercise, to stretch, so my lower back would not hurt. Naturally, I resisted, for what would any marriage be if a husband submitted without a fight to his wife's entreaties. I finally won a round in this continuous battle of what I say is a bulging disc but Gilda says is merely weak muscles, when Gilda agreed to buy a new bed. The Sleep Number mattress, indeed, has been much better for my back pain than the Tempur-Pedic, but I retained some residual pain. So, Friday night, as Gilda slept next to me, I downloaded three videos of recommended stretching exercises.

I'm nothing if not lazy when it comes to exercise, so the WebMD video I chose to start with had the added bonus of permitting me to stretch without leaving the comfort of my bed. As Gilda showered Saturday morning I started the first of the five stretching routines. Whatd’ya know? My back felt better, so much so that even an afternoon four mile walk across the Bridge over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie didn't bother it. 

The real test would be during sleep Saturday night and then pitching a softball game Sunday morning. I woke up 15 minutes early, slid softly into Ellie's old bedroom, lay down on the relocated Tempur-Pedic and ran through the routines. I had a twinge of pain on the ball field, but nothing to complain about. I pitched nine innings; had four solid hits in five at bats. We won.

Moral of the story: Looks like stretching exercise works. It's going to be real hard admitting this to Gilda. Even harder keeping up the regimen every day. Anyway, for those wondering which exercises worked for me, here's a link to the video: http://www.webmd.com/back-pain/living-with-low-back-pain-11/five-back-pain-stretches

Car Update: Like any new car, the Ford C-Max is prone to recalls. First, the tail lift gate needed refinement. Sometimes, when you waved your foot under the back carriage of the car, the lift gate would unlock but not automatically rise. A simple correction. 

Then, we got two notices on the same day about a week ago. Ford needed to add more interior head protection in case of an accident. I’m cool with that.

The other notice was a real shocker. Right now, for the first 6,000 miles, our hybrid car is getting a little over 43 miles per gallon vs. an EPA/DOT rating of 47. Gilda gets better mileage when she’s driving to and from work. When I drive on weekends, I get lower mileage as I’m usually on the highway exceeding 65 mph and the C-Max switches from battery to gas engine at speeds exceeding 62 mph. But Ford told us in that second notice that, free of charge, it will recalibrate the powertrain control module to operate electrically up to 85 mph! Better gas mileage, here we come.

I Plead Youthful Ignorance: While transferring VHS family videos to DVDs, I came across some film of my parents and their three children at the beach. But what's that on my head? Looks like a blue baseball hat with a capital B. A Brooklyn Dodgers cap! Sacré bleu! All I can say to my NY Yankees friends is that I appear to be about four-years-old at the time and was clearly under the influence of my eight-year-old brother. By the time I was 7 it looks like I was wearing a Yankees cap at a school outing. Phew.

The old family films also showed I disdained water from an early age. Some film of a family vacation at Takanassee, a hotel in Fleishmanns, NY, where we’d spend several weeks each summer before we were sent off to sleepaway camp when I was seven, shows me resisting my mother’s urging to get into the pool. The video shows her dragging me into the water, me holding her tightly once we are in the pool. Other footage at what I believe was Rockaway Beach has me clinging to the neck of a family friend who thought he could persuade me to test the waters on my own. 

My friend Ken still thinks he can teach me to swim. Who am I to disagree with him? But as sportscaster Warner Wolf used to say when he was on television, “Let’s go to the videotape” to see the truth of the matter.

A Pair of Classics: Westerns and Drinking

TCM Turns into the NRA Channel: I’d like to think there was nothing political about the programming decision Turner Classic Movies made for Monday, one day before the Senate starts debate on a bi-partisan amendment to expand background checks for purchases of firearms at gun shows and over the Internet. 

After a morning and afternoon of Clint Eastwood-Sergio Leone westerns, TCM got down to business—movies with names that would make even National Rifle Association head Wayne LaPierre mist over in delight: Winchester ‘73, Colt .45, Springfield Rifle, The Gun That Won The West, The Fastest Gun Alive and The Quick Gun. I’m a big fan of westerns, but really, all these shoot-em-ups on the eve of the Senate debate was a little bit of overkill.

By the way, I’m a little confused or maybe just in the dark about the NRA’s objections to background checks and forms of gun registries. I understand opposition to any lists that could be compiled of people who purchase guns. But I wonder, do purchasers pay cash for their weapons or do they use credit cards? Some of these pistols and assault rifles are expensive, so I presume credit cards are used. If that’s the case, data houses such as Acxiom, probably have in their information warehouses the names and addresses of gun buyers along with all the other bits and bytes collected when a transaction is processed electronically with a credit or debit card. If I’m wrong about this, let me know. 

I Used To Be Able To Run Fast, fast enough to beat out ground balls chopped to the infield in our temple softball league. But that was many seasons ago. The new season began Sunday. Despite not practicing during the pre-season, I pitched five strong innings. But when I hit two ground balls I easily could have beat out in my younger days, I barely made it down the first base line. No explosiveness at all, unless you count the pain in my back. 

For the record, we had one bad inning (not while I was pitching). We lost, 9-3, but it was fun, the guys are a good bunch and some have shown marked improvement over a year ago. 

Hey, Get Yer Cold One Here: My desire for ice cold drinks, especially when traveling abroad, apparently has some ancient pedigree. Reading A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage, I discovered that Romans around the year 70 CE liked to chill their white wine during the summer with snow brought down from the mountains, a taste for cold drinks Pliny the Elder found detestable. No doubt Italians who sneered at my request for ice for my Coca-Cola are soul mates of Pliny the Elder.

Rowdy fraternity parties draw condemnation from most even-keeled modern adults, but Standage pointed out that getting together for wine parties was acceptable behavior for ancient Greeks. Indeed, being a teetotaler was frowned upon, according to Standage. Just as today, drinking parties, called symposia, could get out of hand. 

“As one krater (a large, urn-shaped bowl) succeeded another, some symposia descended into orgies, and others into violence, as drinkers issued challenges to each other to demonstrate loyalty to their drinking group, or hetaireia. The symposion was sometimes followed by the komos, a form of ritual exhibitionism in which members of the hetaireia would course through the streets in nocturnal revelry to emphasize the strength and unity of their group. The komos could be good-natured but could also lead to violence or vandalism, depending on the state of the participants,” Standage reported. Sounds a lot like Animal House, no?

Of course, Greek symposia revolved around wine, not beer. Beer was considered too déclassé for anyone of any stature, though at one time in ancient civilizations beer was the preferred drink of kings; the quality of one’s beer reflected a person’s wealth. Beer often was part of one’s wages. For example, written records show the Egyptians who built the pyramids were state employees whose wages included rations of beer. Sorry, fellow Hebrews, our ancestors did not build the pyramids.

Bertha 2: Gilda’s named her new car Bertha 2. She let me drive it over the weekend. I must say, I was impressed. We’ve put on more than 100 miles since picking up the Ford C-Max Thursday and have used perhaps two gallons of gas. Not bad. Not bad at all. 

Car Talk

Barring any last minute complications, we’re picking up Gilda’s new car early this evening, a ruby red Ford C-Max hybrid. It will be my third red car, Gilda’s second.

My first was a used, fire engine red, 1966 Mustang, bought in the fall of 1967. I shared it with my sister but considered it more mine than hers. We kept it for two years, long enough for it to be rear-ended twice while I was behind the wheel, once even while stopped at a red light, both times resulting in a broken trunk lock. Though I liked the Mustang it clearly had bad karma. It also had a front end bang-up before we bought it, something we found out only when a mechanic asked my sister when the collision happened.

My favorite memories of that car included stuffing 10 of my house plan (like a fraternity) brothers into the front and back seats as I drove from one party to another. As the driver, I didn’t have to share a seat so I was indifferent to the squeezed bodies surrounding me. 

The second memory also involved my Knight House friends. We were trying to find Lenny David one school night. Several cars descended on the Brooklyn College campus. We thought he might be in the library. I jumped out to search for him, then returned to my car to go to the next possible spot where he might be. In my haste, I didn’t notice the car had been moved from its original parking spot. 

You might ask, how could it have been moved? Surely your friends had not become supermen, lifted it up and moved it some 100 feet? By some quirk of manufacturing, the key to my 1966 Mustang exactly matched the key to Brian Berman’s 1965 Mustang. As a practical joke he moved my car, assuming I’d realize the shift when I didn’t find it parked where I left it. 

Okay, the story doesn’t end there. My Mustang had a slight mechanical problem. The gas gauge always read “empty.” My sister and I agreed we’d always fill the car with gas whenever we used it to avoid unsuspectingly running out of fuel. We also agreed we’d never engage the emergency parking brake because no red light appeared on the dashboard when it was on. When I got back into the driver’s seat and started to pull away from the curb I was jolted by the bucking bronco motion of the Mustang. I figured Lee had failed to refill the gas tank earlier that day and this was the car’s way of belching out its near-emptiness. The car kicked and fought for the two blocks to the nearest gas station. I told the attendant to fill ‘er up. 39 cents. Roughly two gallons back in 1968. I was flabbergasted, unable to comprehend why the car was behaving in such an uncharacteristic manner when I noticed the emergency brake had been deployed. I realized Brian had been inside my car but it was not until I confronted him that I was apprised he had also moved it to a different parking space. Total embarrassment. 

To replace the Mustang several months later my father bought me a Buick Skylark, red with a black vinyl top. Gilda learned to drive in that car which she named Bertha. Just recently I became aware of the significance of the name Bertha to automotive history. Seems Karl Benz was a better inventor than promoter. He was reluctant to show off his car-making handiwork. His wife Bertha, however, was no shrinking violet. Without asking his permission, on August 5, 1888, accompanied by their two teenage sons, she took Benz’s creation out for a spin, a 66-mile spin from Mannheim to Pforzheim. As explained in her Wikipedia biography, the trip, aside from being the maiden long distance trip in any automobile, achieved several other firsts:

“On the way, she solved numerous problems. She had to find ligroin as a fuel; this was available only at apothecary shops, so she stopped in Wiesloch at the city pharmacy to purchase the fuel. A blacksmith had to help mend a chain at one point. The brakes needed to be repaired and, in doing so, Bertha Benz invented brake lining. She also had to use a long, straight hatpin to clean a fuel pipe, which had become blocked, and to insulate a wire with a garter. She left Mannheim around dawn and reached Pforzheim somewhat after dusk, notifying her husband of her successful journey by telegram. She drove back to Mannheim the next day.”

Gilda hasn’t indicated what she might call the Ford C-Max. Perhaps she’ll name it Thrifty or some other name to connote the savings the hybrid will provide. Its rated at 47 miles per gallon, city and highway, an important factor given Gilda’s 50-mile daily commute to and from Manhattan. Even if we get 20% less efficiency, at 37 mpg it would be three times more than what we managed from the Jeep Grand Cherokee we are replacing. 

We could have had a C-Max almost two months ago if we wanted any color but red. But when in a parking lot Gilda did not want to be lost amidst a sea of white, black, grey and blue cars. Ruby red will stand out. 

It’s supposed to rain in a short while. It rained when I picked up my Buick Skylark. My father used to say rain is a sign of good luck. 

The Bosch Affair

For how many years did Helen Thomas harbor an antipathy—let’s give her the benefit of the doubt and not call it a prejudice—toward Jews? A dedicated UPI reporter for 57 years upholding the profession’s ideal of objectivity, Thomas at long last was free, more or less, to say what she really felt as a columnist for Hearst during the last 10 years. She weighed in against George Bush, Dick Cheney and Israel, among others. Controversial comments were no stranger to her dialogue.

The soon to be 90-year-old daughter of Lebanese Christian immigrants, Thomas’ anti-Israel and anti-Jewish remarks may be explained away, but not condoned, as an outgrowth of her background. She wouldn’t be the first person to expose long dormant and repressed true colors given the opportunity.

I’ve got my own narrow-minded prejudices that express themselves in unusual ways. Take, for instance, my patchwork prejudice against anything German. Like many post-World War II Jews, I avoided buying German products, especially German autos, even though Israel welcomed Mercedes Benz cars and many of my friends drive them. I opted for Japanese cars. My avoidance of anything overtly German was sketchy, at best: I wouldn’t buy a Krups coffee maker, but Braun made its way into our household. At least one of our china patterns came from Germany. Overall, my prejudice against anything German had no rational design.

My biased-based boycott extended beyond German automakers. Henry Ford’s well-known anti-semitism prompted me to studiously avoid Fords as well, that is, after two years behind the wheel of a 1965 fire-engine red Mustang during my college years.

Ten years ago when we were remodeling our kitchen, Gilda wanted Bosch dishwashers (we were getting two). They were highly rated, among the quietest units on the market because of their steel interiors. I vetoed the idea. No way was I going to put a German name so prominently in our kitchen. Gilda was caught off guard. I explained that during World War I a nickname for the German army was “the Bosch.” Of course, during WWI, Germany did not persecute Jews. Indeed, Jews fought proudly for "Der Fatherland." That didn’t matter to me—my bias was set. We “settled” on steel-lined KitchenAid dishwashers.

Time now to replace our washing machine and dryer. The salesman at the local appliance store touted Bosch as the best value. I wasn’t up for another argument. I steered Gilda toward the Bosch units. To the rescue rode that All-American company, Sears. Its Kenmore brand washer and dryer rated better than Bosch, according to Consumer Reports (let’s not dwell on the fact that LG, a Korean company, makes the Kenmore appliances. I already expressed my leanings toward Asian manufacturing).

I’ll never know if I could have gone through with it, seeing Bosch-next-to-Bosch every day in the mud room leading in from the garage. The new washer and dryer arrived Friday. Kenmore sure does make a good product. Gilda loves them. So do I, for reasons beyond their cleaning power.