Am I the only one who thinks the leaves have stayed on the trees longer this year? Maybe it’s the relatively warm autumn? Maybe, it’s because there have been few windy rain storms, like the one the other night? Maybe it’s global warming? Whatever, it seems the foliage has stayed with us deeper into this season than in years’ past.
By the way, our Winter King Hawthorn tree held onto a few leaves through Finley Hawthorne Forseter’s first birthday on Tuesday.
I failed to mention last week my mother’s 93rd birthday would have been celebrated last Thursday (she was born Nov. 11, 1917, in Lodz, Poland, arriving in New York about four years later). My mother enjoyed a good adventure yarn, in print or on film. One of her favorites, which she passed down to me, was The Scarlet Pimpernel. She made me read the book and we enjoyed watching the Leslie Howard-Merle Oberson film when it showed up on TV. It did so again this morning and I took the opportunity to spend some time with youthful memories.
My mom would be just slightly older than the women to whom I deliver meals each week. I always ask if they need assistance reaching something on a high shelf. No, they reply. Whether in a single family home or an apartment, they live in a one-dimensional world. Nothing of importance, nothing not needed for everyday life—plates, cups, linens—is stored outside their immediate reach.
One of the stores we frequented when our children were young was Danny’s Cycles. We bought Dan and Ellie their first bikes there. Also my first two-wheeler (a story for another day). We always said hello to Danny, whose father named the store after him and who had given the store to Danny by the time we began patronizing it.
A few weeks ago, in need of new pedals for my exercise bike, I stopped into Danny’s and asked Steve, who had been with the store for about 20 years, since he was a teenager, where Danny was. He was in Florida, retired. I was shocked. Danny couldn’t have been more than 40-45 years old. He’s doing volunteer work there, having been bought out, said Steve. I was pleased to see new ownership had retained Steve. Pleasure turned into satisfaction when Steve told me he was the new owner.
One of my relatives, who shall go nameless lest I embarrass the poor soul, recently sent me some “great literary taunts,” among which comes the following which makes perfect sense when applied to Tea Party members:
"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human
knowledge."
--- Thomas Brackett Reed
No doubt my relative will not be amused, being of the conservative persuasion, to the endless regret of the relative’s spouse. But if you can’t take a joke, what’s the point of sending jokes?
Conservatism creeps up on you. It’s commonly understood that as one ages one becomes more conservative, more set in one’s ways. Probably true. What I used to accept as acceptable college age behavior I now tsk-tsk at. My recent admonition against Four Loko and other alcohol-caffeine drinks might fit into that category if it weren’t for the real danger those mixtures pose. Glad to see the FDA agrees and is forcing the makers of such potables to cease and desist.
Troubling is the reaction of too many (underage) college students to stock up on the brew while it’s still in stores.
Finally, I will not embarrass myself by revealing what infinitesimal percentage of Twitter followers my blog has compared to the 5.3 million who breathlessly await the latest nail-clipping, bra-busting, hair-splitting, pout-mouthed tweet from Kim Kardashian (please, nobody say they don’t know who she is, but just in case, here’s a link from today’s paper: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/fashion/18KIM.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=kim%20kardashian&st=cse).
Kim, if I may be so bold to call her by her first name, might have started her notoriety with a sex tape, but she’s one helluva marketer.
Showing posts with label Four Loko. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Four Loko. Show all posts
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
This Drink's On Me
I vividly remember the time I got totally smashed at college. It was an end of term party attended by many in the Brooklyn College Young Leadership Development Council I had joined as a second semester freshman.
When I arrived around 4 pm at the fraternity house where the party was already in full swing, I was immediately given a tall screwdriver (for those not familiar with that drink, it’s a combination of vodka and orange juice). From the first sip I could tell there was just enough OJ to give the 10 oz. glass a yellowish tinge. Before I knew it, I had downed three such drinks, all, I might add, on an empty stomach. The only thing that saved me from a fourth was my inability to swallow while prone on a couch, a position I had retreated into within an hour. I couldn’t move. I lay there for the next several hours, as every time I attempted to straighten up the room kept spinning. I didn’t throw up, as my friend Paul did, but I definitely, as they say, felt no pain. Around 10 pm I managed to stand up, stumble down three flights without falling, and slowly (stupidly) drove three miles back home.
I recalled that horribly intense and embarrassing feeling when I read earlier this week about the latest liquid craze to infiltrate college life—the consumption of a toxic mix of alcohol and caffeine. The caffeine camouflages the numbing effects of the alcohol, causing the reveler to drink more to get a buzz. More turns out to be near lethal amounts of alcohol, sending many to hospitals (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/us/27drink.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage).
Of course college kids are going to party to excess. But that should not absolve the makers of Four Loko and other such concoctions from the consequences of their creations. They claim their product is not intended to be abused or sold to underage drinkers. But let’s be serious. What redeeming quality is there for anyone to drink a mixture that masks how smashed you become and therefore wind up drinking more?
How do they sleep at night? How do the providers of these drinks sleep without having visions of their customers lying in emergency rooms, wasted beyond comprehension?
I don’t reserve the same wrath for purveyors of soda and other sugary drinks, though the negative health consequences of consuming too much sweetened water are obvious to anyone who has paid attention to our nation’s expanding waist lines and the number of people tipping into Type II diabetes affliction. While some might decry the Bloomberg administration’s attempt to intrude into people’s life choices, I have no problem agreeing food stamps should not be used to buy sugar-based drinks. Nor do I have any problem with raising sales taxes on these products. Just as cigarette consumption declined when taxes made it too onerous to buy a pack of smokes, so too must we legislate restraint for those who cannot do it on their own.
I’m a reformed regular soda drinker. I eagerly drank Coca-Cola until I was about 45 years old. Even with our children around and impressionable, I drank Coke. Gilda would tell Dan and Ellie, “Daddy has an addiction, a bad habit.” They never developed the sugar habit. To this day they prefer water to soda.
I drank Coke until my blood sugar left me no choice but to change my ways. Diet Coke didn’t taste good at first, so I switched to Crystal Light lemonade for refreshment. Eventually I made peace with the Diet Coke taste. The point is, behavior can be taught and modified. Our children did not learn (from me) to drink soda. I overcame my addiction.
Libertarians would have government stay out of our lives, stay out of our food and drink selections. But like it or not we all pay for the excesses of others. Our insurance rates reflect the cost of obesity in others. I’m tired of paying for their mistakes, their poor life choices.
When I arrived around 4 pm at the fraternity house where the party was already in full swing, I was immediately given a tall screwdriver (for those not familiar with that drink, it’s a combination of vodka and orange juice). From the first sip I could tell there was just enough OJ to give the 10 oz. glass a yellowish tinge. Before I knew it, I had downed three such drinks, all, I might add, on an empty stomach. The only thing that saved me from a fourth was my inability to swallow while prone on a couch, a position I had retreated into within an hour. I couldn’t move. I lay there for the next several hours, as every time I attempted to straighten up the room kept spinning. I didn’t throw up, as my friend Paul did, but I definitely, as they say, felt no pain. Around 10 pm I managed to stand up, stumble down three flights without falling, and slowly (stupidly) drove three miles back home.
I recalled that horribly intense and embarrassing feeling when I read earlier this week about the latest liquid craze to infiltrate college life—the consumption of a toxic mix of alcohol and caffeine. The caffeine camouflages the numbing effects of the alcohol, causing the reveler to drink more to get a buzz. More turns out to be near lethal amounts of alcohol, sending many to hospitals (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/us/27drink.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage).
Of course college kids are going to party to excess. But that should not absolve the makers of Four Loko and other such concoctions from the consequences of their creations. They claim their product is not intended to be abused or sold to underage drinkers. But let’s be serious. What redeeming quality is there for anyone to drink a mixture that masks how smashed you become and therefore wind up drinking more?
How do they sleep at night? How do the providers of these drinks sleep without having visions of their customers lying in emergency rooms, wasted beyond comprehension?
I don’t reserve the same wrath for purveyors of soda and other sugary drinks, though the negative health consequences of consuming too much sweetened water are obvious to anyone who has paid attention to our nation’s expanding waist lines and the number of people tipping into Type II diabetes affliction. While some might decry the Bloomberg administration’s attempt to intrude into people’s life choices, I have no problem agreeing food stamps should not be used to buy sugar-based drinks. Nor do I have any problem with raising sales taxes on these products. Just as cigarette consumption declined when taxes made it too onerous to buy a pack of smokes, so too must we legislate restraint for those who cannot do it on their own.
I’m a reformed regular soda drinker. I eagerly drank Coca-Cola until I was about 45 years old. Even with our children around and impressionable, I drank Coke. Gilda would tell Dan and Ellie, “Daddy has an addiction, a bad habit.” They never developed the sugar habit. To this day they prefer water to soda.
I drank Coke until my blood sugar left me no choice but to change my ways. Diet Coke didn’t taste good at first, so I switched to Crystal Light lemonade for refreshment. Eventually I made peace with the Diet Coke taste. The point is, behavior can be taught and modified. Our children did not learn (from me) to drink soda. I overcame my addiction.
Libertarians would have government stay out of our lives, stay out of our food and drink selections. But like it or not we all pay for the excesses of others. Our insurance rates reflect the cost of obesity in others. I’m tired of paying for their mistakes, their poor life choices.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
