Waking Up The Morning After in a Different Country

I always knew I lived in a different America than the rest of the country, an America perhaps best illustrated by the iconic March 29, 1976, New Yorker magazine cover of how the country west of the Hudson River looks to Manhattanites.

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, forged to the west of the Hudson, I am left to wonder if, in the words of his one-time Republican adversary, Ted Cruz, “Trump has New York values”?

Does he have compassion for the needy? Does he welcome the immigrant striving for a new, better, pluralistic life? Does he respect all religions? Does he value education? Does he recognize the benefits of diversity? Does he favor mass transit alternatives over the stranglehold of the automobile industry? Does he accept climate change and the need to combat its effects? 

The record from his campaign suggests he does not. But Trump’s persona has been shaped by living all his life in New York City. He’s brash, for sure, not afraid to display his emotions on his sleeve, or in his case, through his Twitter feed. As president he will have to learn to reign in his feelings lest he trigger a response that could have national or international repercussions. 

In his victory speech he promised to be the president of all the people. Let’s see if he can stem the violence in the Afro-American community without infringing on constitutional rights, and if he can reduce unemployment among Blacks. He’s promised to repeal and replace Obamacare. But can he do it without reducing the number of people enrolled, for less money, for at least the same level of coverage?

Voting patterns across the country revealed deep chasms. As the Associated Press noted, “Exit polls underscored the fractures: Women nationwide supported Clinton by a double-digit margin, while men were significantly more likely to back Trump. More than half of white voters backed the Republican, while nearly 9 in 10 blacks and two-thirds of Hispanics voted for the Democrat.”

The Trump campaign unleashed dark voices long subdued but never eradicated. Racists. Neo nazis. Anti-Semites. Misogynists. Xenophobes. All now have a president who will enter the White House largely because of their votes.

One wonders if Trump will be able to bridle his natural tendency to lash out at detractors. Nixon had his enemies’ list. Will Trump? Will he follow through on his campaign threat to name a special prosecutor with the ultimate aim of jailing his election opponent? Will he sue the women who asserted he physically invaded their privacy? Will he seek a softening of libel laws to punish the press? Will the voices of late night talk show hosts who lampooned him and editorial boards and columnists be muted?

Of course, not everyone in the country is apoplectic about the election. No doubt, couture designers are ecstatic they will have Melania to drape. She, after all, has more eye appeal than Bill Clinton would have had as first spouse or Hillary as president.

But comparing Melania to Michelle Obama in intellect is laughable. Consider her statement within the last week that she would like to work to eliminate bullying, especially cyber-bullying. Perhaps she might start with her bedmate who ran his whole campaign as a slur-a-thon on stage and on Twitter.

It was nectar to the masses who believe Trump can change market and global forces. Do they really believe, as he does, that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese? Do they believe he truly can revive Rust Belt industries when corporate chieftains shift jobs overseas because lower paid global workers no longer produce shoddy products? They chanted along with him “drain the swamp,” but do they truly want Washington to stop being the watchdog over food and drug safety, worker safety, and water and air quality, to name just a few vital tasks of government?

With Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House the country’s pivot to the right is a given. The Supreme Court will again have a conservative majority, as it has for decades.

Perhaps the most important person in the next four years will be Justice Anthony Kennedy. In several cases on personal freedoms, he has provided a decisive vote in decisions expanding gay rights to the rights of the accused. He’s by no means a sure vote for liberal causes, but he’s not doctrinaire conservative.

I woke up Wednesday morning after barely 90 minutes of stressful sleep to a changed world. During the night I avoided reading post-mortem articles, instead playing solitaire over and over again on my iPhone. Though I did read one article, from Politico, which enraged and convinced me not to read any other (for now).

Entitled “Inside the Loss Clinton Saw Coming,” the article described how her staff knew for weeks the campaign was in trouble (http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-loses-2016-election-214439).

I felt annoyed, annoyed they allowed complacency to set in as the public took for granted that an unqualified Trump would lose to a more seasoned Clinton. 

Trump won because he was perceived as real. Really angry. Really mean. Really for change. Really for the forgotten man and woman. 

Forget the reality. Voters opted for the perception.

Confessions of an Addict

Hello. My name is Murray and I am an addict.

I bite my nails. Actually, just one nail. The one on my left pinky.

I used to bite all my nails. For the first 28 years of my life I was a constant nail biter. My parents threatened to put hot peppers on my nails to discourage the habit. Even after reaching adulthood, even after marriage, I persisted in the pernicious practice.

But the first day on the job at the company where I would work for the next 32 years, I stopped cold turkey. I had gone to lunch with a few of my new co-workers and felt self-conscious they would think lesser of me if they saw my fingers. It’s now 37 years later, and only in the last several weeks has my smallest digit become tasty again.

That’s not quite right. I don’t have a craving for fingernail. I started biting the nail again because I didn’t have my trusty nail clipper with me and I needed to trim it. One bite led to another and before I knew it I had eaten away half my nail. Each time the nail begins to grow back I wind up picking at it and eating it again. I’ve tried wrapping it in band-aids but they fall off, exposing the delicate, delectable nail.

If this all sounds crazy, it is. It’s an addiction, after all, with no equivalent of Alcoholics Anonymous, Odyssey House or 12-step program to counsel me through my compulsion, though I did just google Nail Biters Anonymous and sure enough, other desperate souls have publicly humiliated themselves by revealing their nasty habit. 

I’m confident one of these days I will overcome it. I did, after all, do it once before, for all 10 digits. Until then, if you see me, please don’t stare at my left pinky.

There’s Hope for America: Gilda and I went to Croton Point Park to sit along the Hudson River Saturday afternoon. There was a large gathering of Pakistani families, many of the women dressed in traditional garb. 

A hundred yards away from their parents, some two dozen boys played football. No, I do not mean football as Pakistanis normally call soccer. I mean American football. They were playing an intense game of two-hand touch football.

Take that, those of you who predict soccer will supplant the great American sport.

No Lines: One of the pleasures of retirement is my ability to shop stores such as Costco during the week when lines are shorter than on weekends. But two weeks ago, as we were making our way up to Maine for a week-long family vacation, Gilda and I had to stop at the Nashua, NH, Costco Saturday afternoon during peak shopping hours to stock up on supplies. 

The parking lot was pretty full, yet when the time came to check out, we were pleasantly surprised to find two registers completely devoid of customers and just one or two shoppers deep at the other lanes. It was obvious we were not in Westchester.

Freak of Nature: My ophthalmologist basically told me I am a freak of nature. He had no explanation as to why my long distance vision is as good without glasses as with corrective lenses, as I reported to you in mid-July.

He did caution me, however, that if a policeman stopped me I better have my eyeglasses handy.

Another Sign of Our Enlightened Time: Back at Costco in New Rochelle I read the following on a Puma long sleeved, light weight Tee Shirt care label: “Wash this when dirty.” 

65 And Happy For It

I turned 65 today. No cause for concern, though I will admit I stayed under the covers till well past 9 am. By a stroke of work scheduling good fortune, Gilda had off today. She lay under the covers with me. Couldn't ask for a better start to my birthday.

I think my 65th birthday has had a greater impact on my sister. She called this morning to say she's okay with being two years older but it's the thought of having a younger brother who is 65 that is truly mind-rattling.

No deep meanings or messages intended today. No thoughts for eternity. Just an appreciation that life is good. No need to rush to acquire more. And then again more.

Just an enjoyment of little serendipities. I took Gilda's car to the Splash car wash this morning. As I was about to hand over my charge card I noticed a sign proclaiming car washes are free on one’s birthday.

We ate lunch at Harvest on Hudson along the Hudson River in Hastings. Under a bright sun the river sparkled. Did you know, at that point in the river, ice flows north at a fairly rapid clip? I indulged in a dessert because it was my birthday, I told the waiter. It took a long time for the dessert to arrive, but when it did we understood why. The pastry chef had inscribed Happy Birthday in chocolate script across the top of the plate.

The rest of the day we spent shopping. Those who know me well know that's one of my favorite pastimes. I was lucky to work for a magazine on retailing that allowed me to infuse my avocation with my vocation.

The morning I turned 35 I awoke to a pain in my right hip. It lasted several hours, never to return. Perhaps just a subliminal message that I had reached a milestone in my life, no longer young, not yet old. Hard to believe our son Dan is 35. 

Lately, my lower back has bothered me. Gilda says it’s because I don't stretch enough. Guilty. And my feet suffer from peripheral neuropathy, making wearing shoes highly uncomfortable. Today, neither my back nor feet bothered me. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Hava Negila—Let Us Rejoice

I wore socks to Ellie and Donny’s wedding Sunday. 

We danced the hora to Jewish and Israeli music, though not to the traditional melody of Hava Negila. By coincidence, after Gilda and I returned home from the wedding weekend at West Point’s Thayer Hotel, I opened an email from my cousin Herb. It contained a 10-minute video on the history of Hava Negila, a tune that has become a mainstay of many a singer’s repertoire and the background music for ice skaters and gymnasts, the most recent being Olympian Aly Raisman’s gold medal floor exercise program. Give a look, as old Jewish men used to say: http://vimeo.com/43425677

Allowing for an understandable amount of parental pride, believe me the bride was beautiful, the groom was handsome, the ceremony on an embankment overlooking the Hudson River, under a chupah stitched by Donny’s mother, with vows lovingly authored by Ellie and Donny, was joyous, spectacular and spiritual, the food was delicious, the music romantic and sassy, and the feeling of community, from Donny’s family and friends and from our family and friends, palpable. As Gilda referenced Hillary Clinton in her remarks, it truly takes a village to raise a child. We have been fortunate to have had loving helpers craft the woman Ellie has grown into, and that Donny’s family and friends molded him into the mensch he is. 

Hava Negila means "let us rejoice." The afterglow still warms Gilda’s and my heart.

Walking Over Water

Yesterday was a delightful early fall day, a perfect time for a walk in the air. Anyone who has traversed New York City’s High Line vertical linear park along the West Side of Manhattan knows it presents an exhilarating experience. Gilda and I have walked it several times, but Sunday’s stroll took place some 90 miles to the north, across the Walkway Over the Hudson, from Poughkeepsie on the eastern end to Highland and back.

A converted cantilevered and truss railroad bridge opened in 1888 and mostly abandoned after a fire in 1974, the structure now is the world’s longest elevated pedestrian bridge, soaring 212 feet above the Hudson River. The walkway across the river is 1.28 miles. If you combine it with a walk across the nearby Mid-Hudson Bridge, built for cars, trucks and pedestrians in 1930, the entire loop is an invigorating 4.5 miles.

Since it opened in 2009, each year the Walkway Over the Hudson State Historic Park has attracted some 600,000 amblers and bike riders, even dogs on leashes.

Linear parks are all the rage these days, so much so that one Westchester County official is suggesting the Tappan Zee Bridge linking the the county to Rockland County be converted to such a use when a replacement bridge is erected. Of course, even with the project being fast-tracked by the Obama administration it will be years before a new bridge is built. And there are questions about the wisdom of converting the Tappan Zee to pedestrian use given its steep mid-span incline and, equally important, the appeal the bridge has had in the past to people who choose to end their lives by jumping off its superstructure.

The Walkway Over the Hudson did not ignore suicide considerations. At several points along the walkway mental health telephone hotlines were available for use by any troubled soul. While we were there, no one fortunately was using the phone.