A Fashionista Four Decades Ahead of the Trend

My mother used to keep clothing in her closet for decades, reasoning that eventually all fashion repeats itself. Of course, she didn't always wait for a particular style to return to vogue, but she was correct that designers revive the past. 

So it was with a little bit of a smirky “been there, done that” attitude that I noticed the lead article of Thursday’s Styles section of The NY Times described how blue is the new black when it comes to tuxedos (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/fashion/for-tuxedos-blue-is-the-new-black.html?_r=0). Yours truly was a fashionista four decades ahead of the trend. My wedding tuxedo back in 1973 was midnight blue, worn with a powder blue ruffled shirt and oversized velvet blue bow tie. 

I wore that tuxedo for more than a dozen years, until the waistline of the pants could be let out no more to accommodate my expanded tummy. I even had midnight blue shoes, a pair of Soldini Italian loafers with tassels I found in Macon, GA, at the opening of an Aim for the Best store. 

You've never heard of Aim for the Best? Not surprising. It was an effort by T.G. & Y. Stores of Oklahoma City, an old-fashioned variety and discount store chain of some 930 units and $1.9 billion in sales, to go upscale in the early 1980s. It was a beautiful store but required more discipline to operate than the good people at T.G. & Y. could muster on a consistent basis. Aim for the Best didn't last too long. For that matter T.G. & Y. didn't last too much longer either, a casualty of Wal-Mart’s conquest of middle America.

I loved those blue loafers even though my boss John made fun of them. After a resoling in the mid-90’s, the shoes felt tight. It broke my heart to give them away. I didn't realize it at the time but my discomfort had nothing to do with the shoes. It was an early warning sign of peripheral neuropathy in my feet.

Getting back to the tuxedo, I found a discrepancy between The Times article and Downton Abbey concerning the timing of when a dinner jacket with black tie and pants supplanted the more formal white tie and tails men of a certain social standing customarily wore in the evening. 

The Times dated the introduction of the tuxedo to no later than 1886, while Downton Abbey implied that a full 30 years later, during World War I, standards of dress became more lax and commonplace (http://blog.blacktieguide.com/2011/11/02/downton/). Personally, my comfort level remains blue, as in blue jeans. Sometimes worn with a casual sports jacket. 

Park Avenue Memories

I wouldn’t swear to it but I’m almost certain The NY Times ran a picture Monday of the office building where I formerly worked on Park Avenue in Manhattan. The picture was large, running across five columns and was 7-1/4 inches deep. It accompanied an article on the legal battle between Major League Baseball and Alex Rodriguez over his alleged use of performance enhancing drugs. My personal office was on the sixth floor, at various times overlooking Park Avenue, or East 55th Street or East 56th (the picture on page three of the online story, by comparison, is postage size: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/sports/baseball/in-rodriguez-arbitration-two-sides-play-hardball.html?pagewanted=3&ref=sports). 

It was a great location for an office building. When you’re walking on Park Avenue north of Grand Central Terminal it’s a different world from the rest of Manhattan. Not as gritty. Often the esplanade in the middle of the avenue is adorned with flowers or works of art. There are few commercial establishments along the way, no hole-in-the-wall delis to grease up the street, though there are some fruit and vegetable carts and hot dog stands along some of the cross streets. Luxury car dealers, such as Mercedes and BMW, located showrooms on the avenue.  

Except for often seeing celebrities on my jaunts to and from the office and Metro North station, or being inconvenienced by the many movie, TV and commercial scenes shot along Park Avenue, especially around St. Bartholomew’s Church or the Seagram Building, nothing too exciting ever happened along the way. Except one year, about three decades ago, during the time the South African embassy was located in our building. At the time my window looked out on Park Avenue. Early one afternoon everyone was told we could not leave the building. There was a bomb scare, a suspicious package at the door of what is now a Staples Express. We were told to stay away from the windows, not to look out, as a bomb blast could send shrapnel and debris as high as the sixth floor, where we were. Of course we ignored that advice. Turned out it was nothing more than an abandoned briefcase. 

Another time, when my office faced East 55th Street toward Lexington Avenue, I missed by a few minutes watching a spectacular fire at the Central Synagogue on the corner of Lex and 55th. It was about 4:30 on a Friday. I left work early. Just minutes later the fire began. Roofers had not properly put away a piece of equipment that set the roof of the historic synagogue on fire. The roof eventually collapsed into the sanctuary which was completely gutted. 

To fight the blaze firemen carrying hoses went into an adjacent apartment building. They entered---that is, they knocked down—the door of an apartment with windows overlooking the burning structure. I tell you this because of the only-in-New York coincidence that this apartment was the home of one of the doctors in Gilda’s medical practice at Beth Israel Hospital.   

My office home for 32 years, 425 Park Avenue, is scheduled to be torn down sometime after April 2015. About 10 years ago an electrical fire fried all the circuitry in the building one weekend. Some tenants were displaced for months until a temporary fix could be wired. 

It should be a lot easier finding new space for my former company. Instead of room for close to 150, just 35-50 spots are needed. It’s been a tough half-dozen years for the publishing industry in general, my company in particular. One of the benefits of early retirement is I don’t have to angst over the relocation process. A creature of habit, I couldn’t imagine commuting to anywhere but 425 Park Avenue.  

Allianz Is Back in My News Views

The latest New York edition of The Jewish Week arrived Thursday. Once more I was thrust—anonymously, but still the party responsible—into the debate on when, if ever, Allianz and its executives should no longer be held accountable for a role in insuring Nazi death camps and for a refusal to issue timely compensation or full compensation to Holocaust survivors or their heirs.

The lead story in The Jewish Week began, “When the German insurance company Allianz bid for the naming rights to the Meadowlands stadium in 2008, there was such an outcry over the company’s past complicity with the Nazis that the talks were called off” (for the full article click on this link: http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/national-news/fresh-outrage-over-plan-honor-allianz-chief).

You might recall it was my Letter to the Editor of The NY Times five years ago that first exposed this controversy which, by week’s end, ended in Allianz withdrawing its bid for naming rights of what is now known as MetLife Stadium, the home field of the NY Giants and Jets.

This time the controversy takes on a human face. It's not a corporate entity seeking to imprint its name (surely, not its history) on the public in our increasingly commercialized, branded world. Rather, it is about a decision by a Jewish organization to honor an individual employed by an Allianz subsidiary.  

Peter Lefkin is a senior vice president of Allianz North America, who, by all accounts, is an upstanding citizen, an American who was not part of Allianz’s ignoble activities undertaken years before he was associated with the financial services and insurance company. Lefkin has been chosen by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous to receive its Recognition of Goodness award on December 3 in New York. 

“The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous provides financial support to more than 600 non-Jews who rescued Jews during the Holocaust and preserves their legacy through a national education program,” according to its Web site. Lefkin is too young to have personally saved lives during World War II. The dinner also will “reunite Czeslaw Polziec, a Righteous Gentile from Poland, with Leon Gersten, the Jewish boy he and his family saved.” 

So the question becomes, is it seemly or unseemly to honor Lefkin for his support of the JFR and other Jewish causes, or does his association with Allianz forever bar him, and any of his colleagues, from positive recognition for their good deeds? 

The linked article provides point/counterpoint arguments, as does The Jewish Week’s editorial (http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial-opinion/editorial/allianz-and-righting-past-wrongs). I won’t go into them here. I’m more absorbed by my personal reaction. 

I consider my revelation of Allianz’s history a cherished accomplishment. Had I not seen a short article about the pending purchase of the naming rights in the marketing section of the sports pages of The Times there is a good possibility the Allianz name would be prominently displayed on the stadium, a visual reminder and affront many Holocaust survivors and their families would see each time they drove along the New Jersey Turnpike past the Meadowlands. The Times article merely referred to Allianz as a German “financial services company.” My Letter to the Editor alerted The Times and other media to the full Allianz story. 

To be fair, Allianz does not hide its sordid past. Its Web site provides details. Yet, it was wrong for the Giants, Jets and Allianz to consider the naming rights proposal without first publicly taking into account the sentiments of Holocaust families. The swift scuttling of the deal was affirmation that not all was kosher with the transaction.

The current conflict has Holocaust survivor community members upset. They were surprised by Lefkin’s selection. They see no difference between the company and the man. Sorry, I cannot agree. Absent a history of prejudice, Peter Lefkin appears to be a worthy recipient of the award to be bestowed by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. 

Parlez-vous Français

Did you see the "Lives" article in last Sunday’s NY Times magazine section, “Those who can't teach”? It recounted the woefully inadequate experience of a budding author trying to tutor a near 40 year old immigrant woman to pass the English section of the GED test so she could become a cosmetician.

The “tutee,” as the writer called her, repeatedly failed the essay portion of the test. Eventually, the tutor moved away. Under a new tutor the tutee passed. Here's how:  

“Together they would construct a vaguely worded essay. My tutee would memorize it, and depending upon the test’s essay question, she would alter it slightly. Weeks after I moved away, she used this method, and it worked; she finally passed.”

As I read that scheme I was reminded of Gilda's experience with college French. As part of its liberal arts degree, Brooklyn College required proficiency in a foreign language. Gilda took French at Erasmus Hall High School. She passed the Regents after her junior year. She took art instead of French as a senior, not realizing she would need to take a language placement exam when she enrolled in Brooklyn College. As luck would have it, she recalled little of her French come test time. It was a mostly multiple choice exam, so Gilda fell back on a tried and true formula—answering questions in sequence, a b c d a b c d a b c d ...

She was flabbergasted when she was ranked at the second highest level. She was assigned to a French literature class. Easy enough to hide out during class but tests were in essay form. What to do?

One of her Russell House (like a sorority) sisters, a French major, volunteered to write a flawless essay for her based on the book the class had read. Gilda would memorize it. Even if it didn't exactly correspond to the teacher’s question, she  was bound to get a passing grade just for form. Indeed, she copped a B in the class.

Gilda was reluctant to disclose this aberration on her stellar academic record but I assured her the statute of limitations had long passed on this transgression. Her diploma would not be rescinded. I hope.

Reading Some Memories

I don’t remember my parents reading to me, though they must have. Or perhaps as their third child my bedtime ritual no longer commanded their intense attention. I do remember lying in bed with my father as he told and retold stories from the Bible, especially the one about Samson and Delilah. He always made the most exciting parts the times when Samson would trick Delilah and the Philistines into thinking his strength had been sapped. 

Though I can’t recall their reading to me, that’s not to say they didn’t encourage reading on my part. We had a wide collection of Thornton W. Burgess books. With illustrations by Harrison Cady, the stories made animals come to life with all the foibles and strengths of humans. Sadly, my parents did not preserve those books for their grandchildren. Like my comic book and baseball card collections, they disappeared from our home by my late teenage years.

I’m thinking about childhood books with more than a little melancholy because of a beautifully written article in Thursday NY Times by Dwight Garner. “Memories of a Bedtime Book Club” evokes the lifetime pleasure of reading to a child and, if you’re fortunate, passing on your mutual love for a particular book to the next generation (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/books/a-splendid-little-book-club-has-ended-its-run.html?_r=0). 

Garner incorporated 15 recommended books into his article. I can’t say any of his suggestions were part of the Forseter home reading list when Dan and Ellie were young and snuggled next to either Gilda or me as we read, and reread, stories to them each night. We read the same books so often the kids memorized the words. Sometimes, I’d start to drift off while reading. In the stupor before sleep I’d say the wrong words. Quickly I’d be startled back to consciousness by a sharp elbow and Ellie admonishing that those weren’t the right words, that I should read the book the way the author intended. 

Like Garner, we had favorites. Of course, they included Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are and other classics like Madeline. But mostly they were books that did not attain cult status, though quite a few, like Wild Things, were Caldecott Medal winners. Here’s a list of 15 Forseter favorites:

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst 

A Special Trade by Sally Wittman 

Boy, Was I Mad by Kathryn Hitte 

Corduroy by Don Freeman 

Could Be Worse by James Stevenson 

Even for a Mouse by Lisl Weil 

Frederick by Leo Lionni 

It Could Always Be Worse by Margot Zemach

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig 

The Horse Who Lived Upstairs by Phyllis McGinley 

The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton 

The Yucky Monster by Arthur Roth

There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon by Jack Kent 

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Who Wants an Old Teddy Bear? By Ginnie Hofmann

Back in 2009 I wrote that our standard gift to newborns and their parents is a collection of our favorite books, some for newborns like Pat the Bunny, but most for when they are toddlers or older. And they’ll come with the following note:

Children outgrow clothing,

They tire of toys,

But the memory of reading 

Books with your parents

Lasts forever.

Memories From the Mail

Oliver Munday had no way of knowing, no way of knowing his illustration accompanying a NY Times Op-Ed piece Tuesday on the meaning behind Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” would evoke memories of the Nazi extermination of my father’s family in the shtetl of Ottynia, a small town in what is now the Ukraine, but back during World War II was part of occupied Poland.

Munday’s illustration portrays air mail delivery of a letter. It depicts a bird with outstretched wings, wings made to look like jail cell doors, a letter carried in its bill (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/opinion/dr-kings-righteous-fury.html?ref=opinion&_r=0). Among the treasures my father left are four postcards from his family that trace Ottynia’s fate during the war. The first three bear stamps from CCCP, the Soviet Union. The intertwined sickle and hammer symbol of the proletariat  is at the top left corner of each postcard. At the start of the war, Ottynia fell into Stalin’s hands as part of his Polish partition pact with Hitler. 

Soviet stamps and symbol are on the fourth and final postcard. Though the black ink is fading, the postmark is from September 21, 1941. In red ink, just below the middle of the front of the postcard, is the imprint of another official insignia, a bird with outstretched wings, a swastika inside a circle in its talons. Fourteen days later, perhaps even before the postcard arrived at my father’s residence at 148 Van Sicklen Street in Brooklyn, the Nazis killed most of the Jews who lived in Ottynia, trucking them to a mass grave before shooting them. Only his brother, Willy, survived from his immediate family. Their parents, their sisters and brother, and Willy’s first wife and son were killed. The Jewish presence in Ottynia, initially recorded in 1635 but perhaps from many years earlier, ended after more than three centuries.

My father left Ottynia when he was 16 to live and work in Danzig (now Gdansk). He emigrated to the United States in January 1939. As many from his village who came before (and after) him did, he joined the First Ottynier Young Men’s Benevolent Association, eventually becoming its president for many years. Two Sundays ago, the association held its 113th annual gathering. About 30 of us met in Mendy’s delicatessen in Manhattan for a luncheon, less than one-twentieth the number that assembled in the Hotel Commodore in 1950 for the jubilee celebration of the society. 

My father and Uncle Willy (who came to the States after the war) rarely talked about Ottynia. Indeed, nostalgia for Ottynia was not an emotion I would associate with any of the men and women I knew growing up who came from the town. That’s not to say they didn’t have memories of life there. It’s just that, like my father, they preferred to look forward, not backward. They lived in the company of their surviving friends, not the ghosts of the departed.

In Ottynia, my father said he ate potatoes every day. He became so fed up with eating spuds that upon arriving in Danzig he vowed never to eat a potato again. He kept that promise to himself for about a decade until one day a waitress coaxed him into trying some potatoes with his meal. Well, the rest, as they say, is history. He was a meat and potatoes man for the rest of his life. He rarely ate any other vegetable. Just potatoes. Hardly anything green ever graced our dinette table in Brooklyn. 

Though he would return now and then to Ottynia—one of my favorite pictures is of him dressed in peasant pants and shirt, almost like pajamas, lying on the fender of a large car in Ottynia—he'd always go back to the city life of Danzig. 

In my father’s house in the 1950s and early 1960s, the telephone was a necessary evil not to be used for prolonged conversation unless it was being used to communicate with his society brethren.

Ottynia had a very personal meaning to my brother Bernie, my sister Lee, and me. It meant a tight knit group of eight couples that formed monthly floating poker games, men in one room, women in another. Nickel, dime, quarter stakes. I learned how to mix highballs for them. When I was around ten, they would let me sit in for a few hands whenever my mother or father would take a break from the game. It was a lot rougher playing with the women. They took their poker very seriously.  The men would coddle me. The women were after my nickels.

Poker aside, what Ottynia meant to Kopel Forseter was continuity. It meant commitment to family and friends. Ottynia meant helping those in need. It meant remembering one’s traditions and roots. For all its simple peasant-like charm, if I might use that word to describe Ottynia, Ottynia must have had qualities that imbued in my father and scores of others a set of values that served them well throughout the four corners of the earth. What my father learned in cheder (Hebrew school) and in the public school he attended through sixth grade in Ottynia laid the foundation for a successful business and personal life that has extended into his children and grandchildren and hopefully will continue for generations.

  

The Domestication of Murray and Other Meshugas

When asked over the years if I cooked, Gilda usually replied, nine times out of ten I could boil water—maybe. I would respond, Gilda and I had a mutual-partition-of-domestic-labor-pact: she would cook, we’d both enjoy the gourmet meals she prepared, I would be in charge of setting the table and cleaning up the dishes and pots and pans. 

The arrangement worked fairly well from my perspective for 40 years, but change is afoot. Given Gilda’s work schedule which includes waking up at 5:18 am, I have been conscripted into the meal preparation corps. Tuesday night was our first dinner at Maison Murray, Cucina Murray, Bistro Murray or just plain Murray’s Kitchen. We dined on broiled salmon, baked potatoes garnished with butter and sour cream, and steamed broccoli. We don’t eat dessert, as a rule, unless you count after-dinner pills as a treat. 

Tonight’s pre-tennis menu includes cheese blintzes and salad. 

Don’t think my cooking exploits know no bounds. I’m very much the neophyte chef in the kitchen, though I’ve put together a list of some dozen meals to rotate into our Monday through Thursday repasts. I’m writing down detailed instructions for each dish, making sure we have a balance of protein, starch and vegetable. 

This is a brave step for me, though not entirely a new world as I cooked for myself while in graduate school at Syracuse University. In my garret of an apartment in an old Victorian-style house on East Genesee Street, I would cook tuna casserole, meat loaf and anything else that would fit into a toaster oven. I also learned to drink beer, really drink beer. My friend and classmate Steve Kreinberg introduced me to Lum’s, a chain of family restaurants whose signature dish was hot dogs cooked in beer. I preferred their basket of fried shrimp, but what made a visit to Lum’s special was the frosted mugs used to serve the beer. To commemorate those days I keep a few mugs frosting away in the freezer. 

This Is Crazy: I'm always amused when gentiles try to speak Yiddish. They never get the intonation right. For example, instead of a guttural, growly “chutzpah” that conveys the indignant reproach of the speaker, it usually comes out as a soft “hutzpah,” a kind of “oh, really” quality to the put down.

Incorporating Yiddish in one’s writing isn't easy, either. Take Maureen Dowd’s attempt in her column last Sunday for The NY Times. Analyzing Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential prospects, Dowd wrote, “Her challenge is to get into the future and stay there, adding fresh people and perspectives and leaving the Clinton mishegoss (italics added) and cheesiness in the past.”

When I first read this I chuckled. I wondered how many non-Jews would realize she meant to say “meshugas,” the Yiddish word for craziness. I was all set to lambaste her for failing to correctly spell meshugas when I decided to do some checking and came across the following 2009 article from The Jewish Daily Forward (http://forward.com/articles/116716/clearing-up-the-meshugas-for-maureen-dowd-and-will/). 

For those not willing to jump on the link, here’s a precis: It seems Dowd had previously used the meshugas spelling but was chastened by Times columnist and wordsmith William Safire that the correct spelling was mishegoss. Safire might have been the only one to believe that, but his stature was sufficient for Dowd to follow his example. 

The lesson to be learned from this—before criticizing, it’s a good idea to check as many facts as possible. Thank you Google and the Internet.

Mr. Lucky: I consider myself fortunate not to be in school these days, not when technology enables teachers to monitor a student’s reading and study habits (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/technology/coursesmart-e-textbooks-track-students-progress-for-teachers.html?ref=education&_r=0). From high school on, I was a lousy student. I received good grades in subjects I was interested in, but not because I read the course material. I was just hard-wired, or lucky enough, to know the answers in subjects ranging from history to English to elementary sciences. 

I’d be in real trouble if my grades depended on whether I was reading the assignments. 

For Shame: There’s no doubt Margaret Thatcher was a polarizing figure, not just in British politics but throughout the world, as well. I find it shameful, however, that while media baron Rupert Murdoch praised the former prime minister for being "undoubtedly one of the most important figures in the 20th century. I found her attitude an inspiration in my business life,” he allowed his British tabloid paper, The Sun, to trumpet her passing with the following headline: “Maggie Dead In Bed At Ritz.” 

How tawdry. How lacking in respect. How shameful.

I'm Really Sick This Time

My wife and friends all think I'm a hypochondriac so there's no additional shame in telling you I feel lousy. I'm sick. No temperature, but I've got a hacking cough, sore throat and a stuffed nose. I've felt this way for about six days now, which means about another four to seven days of misery. I don't even get the benefit of staying home from work since I don't have an every day job anymore.

Tuesday morning around 5:30 I finally succumbed to my hypochondria and looked up strep throat on WebMD.com. I lacked the symptoms. I checked out how to treat a plain sore throat. It advised to take pain killers to relieve the discomfort of swallowing. It worked, so I’ve continued medicating, have gargled with salt water and imbibed cups of tea laced with honey. 

Finley’s not aware of it, but I’m blaming him for this health setback. Come to think of it, Dagny had a running nose when they were here for Passover. Hmmm ... I rarely get sick. I’m more prone to complaining about body aches (which are real, trust me, but are mainly due to my disinterest in exercising, stretching, limbering up). Well, I guess this is a counterpoint to the joys of grandparenthood. 

Colbert Joins the Attack: Move over, Mel Brooks. Stephen Colbert has joined the ranks of those who make fun of my given name.

During Monday night’s Colbert Report, the comedian was riffing on the liberal initiatives of Pope Francis, specifically his washing the feet of two women as part of last Thursday’s pre-Easter celebration. Colbert even went so far as to state, “There were no women in the Gospels. It’s a common mistranslation. Jesus was actually born of the Virgin Murray.”

Then he showed a picture of a cloaked man, which, to be honest, didn’t really look like me but did bear a striking resemblance to Gilda’s brother Carl. 

Five Finger Discounts: Did you see the article in today’s NY Times about retailers using databases to screen out job seekers who might have been involved in stealing from a previous employer? (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/business/retailers-use-databases-to-track-worker-thefts.html?hpw&_r=0)

It’s no secret employee theft is a bigger problem than five-finger discounts perpetrated by customers. So controlling internal theft is a big issue for retailers. 

The Times article dealt with prospective employees. For those already on the payroll, Kmart had a different tactic to thwart theft. I’m not sure if Kmart is still doing this, but years ago its store managers used to monitor the level of purchases made by their store staff. They reasoned that employees could not find merchandise such as paper products or toiletries for less than what they would pay at Kmart. So if someone wasn’t buying such goods at work, they probably were secreting the stuff out the back door. Closer observation of the suspects ensued. 

Brooklyn On My Mind: Next Friday, the movie 42 will premiere. It’s a biopic of Jackie Robinson. From the clips I’ve seen it looks like a winner.

I can’t remember actually seeing Jackie play in person for the Brooklyn Dodgers but I’m sure I did. Growing up in Brooklyn, we had a sweet access to Ebbets Field. If you sent in a quarter plus 10 wrappers from a Borden’s Ice Cream bar, you’d get a general admission ticket for a seat along the left field foul line. I wasn’t a Dodgers fan, but my brother Bernie was, so he took me along to games. 

Bernie has fond memories of visiting Ebbets Field, sitting in box seats behind first base with our mother, courtesy of tickets provided by one of our father’s sales representatives, Mr. Schaenman, who had an office in the Empire State Building. I can remember going to his office, riding the ear-popping elevators up to the sky to his office to pick up tickets for games, to Yankee Stadium for me, to Ebbets Field for Bernie, until they moved to Los Angeles, that is. After that Bernie would take me to Yankee games, though he didn’t become a fan. We’d always have box seats at Yankee Stadium, low enough that after the game we’d be close to the field and able to walk out on the outfield grass to the massive exit doors in center field (it was a different time back in the 1950s and early 1960s.) 

Anyway, Bernie remembers a game at Ebbets Field when he arrived early to watch batting practice. Though he tried to get a baseball hit into the stands, he couldn’t. At the end of batting practice a policeman suggested he go after a ball headed for the seats, but he got there too late. The ball dribbled back down onto the field. However, Billy Loes, a Dodger pitcher, retrieved it and handed it to Bernie. I don’t remember us ever having a baseball, but I must have been less than seven years old when Loes played in Brooklyn, and I never played catch with a real baseball. Too dangerous. You miss catching a baseball and it could knock your front teeth out. That’s what happened to a friend one year at summer camp where they specifically told us not to play with a baseball. Too dangerous. They were right. 

Bernie says he lost the ball a year or two later while playing on the street, probably down a storm sewer. Sewers were a real hazard when playing in the street or even on the sidewalk in Brooklyn. We’d lose at least one ball each time we played, until our arms were long enough to fish the sphere out of the sewer. No, we didn’t actually reach the bottom of the pit with our fingers. We’d elongate a wire clothes hanger, fashion one end into a loop, then go fishing for the ball down the sewer. Most times we’d reel in our lost balls, though they were usually Spaldeens or Pensie Pinkies—lightweight pink bouncers. Baseballs, being far more dense, were difficult to raise up. In case you suspect I’m making up this sewer fishing, here’s a corroborating post from another blogger: http://stillabrooklynkid.blogspot.com/2011/08/games-we-played-spaldeens-and-sewers.html. 

Super Bowl Forecast, Shopping with Kids, Container Ships, Gerrymander Blues

Want to know how the Super Bowl will turn out so you can spend your time concentrating on the commercials? Read on ...

The Baltimore Ravens will get off to a fast start. At the end of the first quarter they will be leading the San Francisco 49ers 13-3. San Francisco will score a touchdown midway through the second quarter, but the Ravens will counter with a TD in the closing seconds of the quarter to take a 20-10 halftime lead.

The 49ers will score at the start of the second half, but Baltimore again will show its resiliency by scoring a touchdown. It will be 28-17 at the start of the fourth quarter. San Francisco will close the gap to 28-24 with slightly under 10 minutes to play. Neither team will be productive for the next five minutes, then San Francisco will recover a Baltimore fumble, leading to a go-ahead touchdown with just under two minutes to play. The Ravens' next drive will stall on their own 35 yard line, forcing quarterback Joe Flacco to show his arm strength by heaving the ball more than 70 yards to the goal line as time expires. In a jump ball for either the winning touchdown reception or a successful pass defense, San Francisco will intercept, Flacco’s first interception of the post-season. Final score, San Francisco 31, Baltimore 28.

Knowing my devotion to Costco, Allison sent me several cute pictures of our grandchildren seated in a shopping cart at their local Costco (if you want to see for yourself, here’s a link: http://www.findingfinley.blogspot.com/). 

The picture of the kids in the shopping cart reminded me of a play group friend's mother when Dan was very young. She brought her two kids to the supermarket. Her baby was about three months old, so she put her in her car seat inside the shopping cart and sat her three-year-old boy up front. 

As they went through the store she would hand stuff to the toddler to put into the cart. All went well till they visited the canned goods aisle. It was like incoming missiles on the baby as the boy kept chucking cans over his shoulder onto his young sibling. When the mother finally realized why her baby was screaming, she freaked out and started running away from the cart. She eventually regained her composure, never again to make the mistake of putting the baby in the shopping cart basket area. 

News came Saturday that a potentially crippling strike in ports along the Eastern Seaboard had been averted. Container ships would continue to be loaded and unloaded. 

Not earth-shattering news to most, if not all, of you, but of interest to me because of a tour of a cargo ship I had arranged for a conference on supply chain logistics back in 2007. The Port of Oakland is not the most active on the West Coast, but it did provide a working backdrop for those on the tour. 

Forget your memories of cargo ships and longshoremen’s activities from the Marlon Brando movie, On the Waterfront. Loading and unloading ships is a highly mechanized activity today. Cargo is shipped in containers, stacked high on deck and deep below deck. 

We toured the APL (American President Lines) Thailand, built in 1995. The ship traversed the ocean between Asia and North America on a 35-day sequence that included a nine-and-a-half day voyage to Asia and a 10-day return trip. Ports of call included stops in Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Usually, each stop was less than 24 hours. The 276 meter x 40 meter APL Thailand, with gross tonnage of 64,502, had a 23-person crew which at the time included three women and two cadets from the Merchant Marine Academy. 

As we watched from the bridge, containers would be hoisted and moved into place. It looked like a giant Jenga game was being played as containers were stacked tightly together, with everyone hoping nothing would be done to make the pile tilt over and crumble. The efficiency was mesmerizing. As captivating as any example of human and robotic efforts to maximize the use of every square inch possible while knowing that on the open ocean an incorrect consolidation of containers could impact the seaworthiness of the vessel.

Sunday’s NY Times carried a submission from Sam Wang, an associate professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton and the founder of the Princeton Election Consortium. It’s another warning about the evils of gerrymandering and how Republicans, for the most part, are trying to steal elections by altering the significance of the popular vote (Democrats, so far, have not been as open in their pursuit of hegemony). 

I bring Wang’s opinion to your attention (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/the-great-gerrymander-of-2012.html?ref=opinion&_r=0) chiefly to get you to look back at the last map among the ones I posted last week that displayed the sliver of Democratic congressional districts, even in states where President Obama garnered enough votes to color them blue (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/24/republican-vote-rigging-electoral-college_n_2546010.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=012513&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeatureTitle&utm_term=Daily%20Brief). 

For sure there are progressives living in the rest of the country. But when you see the stark reality of the  Democratic districts versus the enormous land mass of the Republican districts, as currently drawn up, one cannot fail to understand how divided our country truly is. 

An Arresting Experience

I almost got arrested inside a retail store, hardly proper behavior for an editor and publisher of a retail industry magazine. This was nearly 28 winters ago when I ventured out one snowy February to purchase a Toro snow shovel from a home center chain now defunct but whose name I will not abuse again.

I say “again” because I exacted revenge for a less than optimal shopping experience. I recounted the deficiencies of the retailer and its store manager, by their respective names, in an editorial column in my magazine the following month. Shortly, I will relate details of the incident, but I bring this matter to your attention today because of an Op-Ed piece in The NY Times the day before Christmas and a Letter to the Editor in response that appeared this morning. 

Like many of you who read Delia Ephron’s commentary, I identified with her hellish online shopping experience (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/opinion/the-hell-of-online-shopping.html?_r=0). Yours and mine might not have come at the hands of overburdened and doubtless underappreciated J. Crew order fulfillment workers, but we’ve probably all been disappointed when the online purchase we made failed to deliver the desired result, whether it be because of late arrival, improper packaging, wrong product, a missing or incorrect note, or some other blunder. Given the volume of non-store retailing these days—nearly $100 billion—mistakes are bound to happen. It’s human nature to want to get even, but when you have a bully pulpit, as Ephron had via The Times, and I had in Chain Store Age, you possess retaliatory power that may be disproportionate to the offense incurred.

That was a central point of the response from Millard Drexler, chairman and CEO of J. Crew. His first sentence said it all—”I was more than surprised that a customer complaint was elevated to an indictment of online retailing on your Op-Ed page” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/opinion/rating-the-online-shopping-experience.html). 

I am not against citing retailers, by name, if their strategic practices warrant criticism. But public exposure must be commensurate with the crime. Specificity is desired in journalism, yet singling out one retailer for misdeeds common to the industry is a little too heavy-handed, especially when they are not germane to the overall viability of that retailer. 

Now, on to details of my near-arrest but nevertheless arresting experience. I arrived at the home center at 12:30 pm on a Saturday. I quickly found the Toro snow shovel, got in line and waited my turn. And waited my turn. And waited my turn. By 1:20, my patience had been exhausted. For some reason the store manager had scheduled half of his cashiers for their lunch break at the same hour, during prime shopping time. Lines at the open registers were 10 deep, and growing. From his perch in the office near the front of the store the manager looked on without shifting into overdrive. Customers were getting militant. They were demanding action. Open more registers, they cried. I was caught up in the revolt. 

The store must have expected such behavior because it employed a burly security guard, an off-duty patrolman from the town, which too shall go nameless lest I find myself once more face-to-face with a officer of the law from that community. The policeman-cum-security guard confronted me. He asked if I had a problem. I said I did. He inched closer. He repeated his question. I quickly realized several things. First, he was much bigger than I. Second, he was a policeman and could easily arrest me on any number of pretenses (that town was notorious for its aggressive policing). Third, the 20% discount on the snow shovel wasn’t worth an arrest. Fourth, it was a short walk to the Caldor in the same shopping center where I could buy the same product, albeit at full price. Fifth, actually, there was no fifth. By that number I had determined the wiser course of action was to hand the snow shovel to the guard and walk out of the store. 

In case you’re wondering, the retailer exacted a printed apology from me two issues later for overstepping my “editorial privilege” for extrapolating one incident into a chain-wide defect. I never went back to that store or chain. Several years later the company went out of business, partly because Home Depot had arrived in its trading area, partly because the lack of service throughout its store network failed to provide a reason customers would remain loyal to it. I gleefully noted its demise. But not in print. 

(By the way, as long as I'm admitting to being less than perfect, I have been advised by my wife I would not make a good scientist. Seems my disdain Wednesday for research into the effect air conditioning might have on lowering the death rate during times of excessive heat was ill-placed. Gilda says it is quite useful to study what might seem to be common sense as it could be discovered just the opposite effect transpires. In the case at hand, it might have shown people better tolerated extreme heat before the widespread placement of air conditioning in homes, offices and public buildings. Mea culpa.)  

End of the World Edition. Maybe.

It’s the end of the world, according to those who believe the Mayans were onto something a millennium ago. Their calendar is believed to end Friday, which might pose a problem for those planning to make Saturday the busiest shopping day of this year’s holiday season. With not a moment to spare, here are some tidbits to keep your mind off the inevitable:

Did You Know? 22% of Americans believe the world will end during their lifetime? That’s according to a Reuters/Ipsos Global survey earlier this year of 16,262 adults in 21 countries. The global average for world destruction in our lifetime was just 14%, which means Americans are a pretty pessimistic bunch. Europeans, on the other hand, see the world through rosier glasses. Only 6% in France, 7% in Belgium, 8% in Great Britain and 11% in Sweden believe the world will end in their lifetimes. Perhaps Republicans should reconsider their constant bashing of Europe. 

As for the immediate danger at hand, 12% of Americans agreed the Mayans had it right about the end of the world. One in five Chinese agreed, while 13% of residents of Turkey, Russia, Mexico South Korea and Japan thought so as well. 

Stop the Presses? Not to be too cynical, but did we really believe Wal-Mart, and for that matter other companies expanding abroad, did not at times resort to bribery to get their plans approved? I’m not condoning any alleged action, but I’m not going to be surprised if it is confirmed either by the company or independent panels. Heck, bribing local officials happens here in the United States, so why should we be blind-sided if allegations prove true in Mexico, as reported in The NY Times, or in India or other countries where American companies have financial interests? By all means, let’s report the improprieties, but let’s not be too sanctimonious about it.

There’s Nothing New Under the Sun: That was my reaction to an article in Wednesday’s Times about Internet retailers like Piperlime and Bonobos deciding to open physical stores, units that carry limited inventory for customers to feel and try on merchandise but not purchase and take home on the spot. Goods are ordered online at the store and delivered the next day, usually (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/business/shopping-sites-open-brick-and-mortar-stores.html?_r=0). 

Thirty years ago I reported on a concept developed by retail guru Alton Doody called Investment Clothiers based in Columbus, Ohio (fyi, Doody was one of the brains behind the look that differentiated Target from other discount stores). Here’s one of the key paragraphs from that story which parallels The Times article:

“What Doody has devised is a chain of stores that leapfrogged the catalog book stage. He has relied instead on a visual catalog—the store—wherein customers can get a tactile appreciation of the goods and be stimulated through point of sale material and knowledgeable sales personnel to trade up in price points and purchase additional merchandise.” 

I’d like to report Investment Clothiers was a success, but it wasn’t. Like so many underperforming retailers, it picked lousy store locations. If you haven’t heard it before, the three keys to successful retail and restaurant operations are: Location. Location. Location.

Fiscal Cliff: Definitely not a great location, being on a fiscal cliff. Perhaps, like me, you had a tinge of optimism earlier this week when House Speaker John Boehner seemed to finally agree to a tax hike on the wealthy, albeit just for those making more than $1 million a year. My optimism was enhanced by the following sentence in a Times article: “The two sides are now dickering over price, not philosophical differences, and the numbers are very close.”

As I considered further the state of negotiations to resolve the fiscal cliff crisis, I was reminded of a classic Winston Churchill story. I won’t vouch for its veracity, but as the anecdote goes, the old codger and former British prime minister was seated at a dinner party next to a socialite not to his liking. The conversation was said to go thusly:

“Churchill: "Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?" 

Socialite: "My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course... "

Churchill: "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?"

Socialite: "Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!" 

Churchill: "Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.” 

Having seemingly agreed to higher taxes for the rich, Boehner should stop haggling and start thinking about the greater good of the country. Accept, already, the president’s revised $400,000 threshold for a tax increase. 

Speaking of Sex: In my quest to bring you all the news that's fit to print, or at least all the news that's useful, here's a morsel from Down Under—for those of you who travel for work, know that in Australia, injury during sex while on a business trip qualifies you for worker’s compensation benefits.

The Federal Court ruled a government worker traveling on business was entitled to compensation for physical and psychological injuries after she was struck in the face by a falling glass light fitting in her motel room while having sex. According to the Associated Press,  “The government's views on the woman having sex in her motel room were irrelevant.” The court compared injury during sex to injury while playing cards in a motel room. The former has as much right to be covered as the latter.

Before you rush off to Sydney for your next business trip, be aware Comcare, the government’s insurer, is considering an appeal. 

I was particularly fascinated by this story because of my own unusual worker’s comp story, first reported to you last December. Here’s a quick recap (that’s a great pun which you’ll understand once you finish reading my story):

On a trip to Los Angeles to meet the president of Vons Supermarkets at a new Hispanic concept store, Tiengas, I was induced by him to try some rancho huevos, essentially scrambled eggs, despite my claims of high cholesterol. On my first bite I felt a crunch. I had cracked my tooth on the softest of foods. How embarrassing! How upsetting that I might incur a $550 dental bill for a crown, the going rate at the time.

Talking over my predicament several days later with the head of our company’s human resources department, we agreed I would submit a worker’s compensation claim. After all, the only reason I put the eggs into my mouth was because the Vons president insisted. It was clearly a work-related claim, we reasoned.

The compensation board agreed. I received full reimbursement for the crown.

The moral of both stories is, file a claim. You’ll never know what might result. Even if you don’t succeed, remember, it’s not the end of the world.

Losing Weight, Religion, Raising Taxes, Baking Bread

I understand a new season of The Biggest Loser will start next month. Never watched the show but if you need any more evidence Americans are overweight and looking mostly for short-term solutions to their bulges, here’s a news flash: Spanx, the company whose body-slimming products have been available only through department and specialty stores or online, will be opening stores (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-30/can-spanx-stores-fit-into-americas-malls#r=hpt-fs). In other words, there are enough fatties out there to make the cost of store construction and staffing worthwhile. When, oh when, will we stop eating ourselves to shortened lives ...

Hard to think such a thing could occur during this season of gluttony. Not just turkeys and stuffing and marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes and glazed hams and you-name-it, but also sugar plums and caramel popcorn and cookies galore. But then, anything can happen. Consider this—last week Fox News star entertainer-cum-newscaster Bill O’Reilly opined, “It is a fact that Christianity is not a religion. It is a philosophy.”  

I apologize for being late in reporting this mind-blowing news. I don’t make it a habit of watching Fox News. I rely on Jon Stewart for my daily dose of Fox News absurdities. The O’Reilly revelation was broadcast last Thursday. I had to wait until Monday night for Stewart to alert the masses O’Reilly had downgraded them from religious adherents to philosophy groupies. 

Perhaps, and this is just a prayer, O’Reilly’s pomposity will finally be visible to the Fox News nation and this could be the beginning of his end ...

As long as we’re wishing on a star, here’s another person worthy of downgrading—Grover Norquist, he of the “no tax increase” pledge that has cowed many a Republican elected official into abandoning the principle of working for his or her country in favor of working to stay in office and avoid a Tea Party primary challenge. 

I’m always amused to read creative ways Republicans could get around abandoning the pledge. Monday’s NY Times carried a letter to the editor from the former chairman of the American Bar Association’s Taxation Section. Peter L. Faber argued “there’s a loophole in the pledge. Under its literal language, a signer agrees to ‘oppose’ any efforts to increase taxes but does not irrevocably commit to voting against them. A signer could vigorously ‘oppose’ a tax increase and yet vote for it as part of a compromise solution.”

Written like a true lawyer, parsing every word. But such a rational approach to an irrational situation would not work. Tea Party extremists are not rational. They will primary anyone who votes for a tax increase. The Republicans’ only hope—nay, the country’s only hope—is that reasonable, patriotic elected representatives will display profiles of courage and agree to a tax increase for the wealthy elite, even if it means a primary challenge. Mainstream Republicans must take their party back from the extremists. 

I know. I don’t think it will happen either, but it’s nice to dream of life and politics the way they could be ...

Which brings me back to a food item. Last week I heard a story on NPR about a process to bake bread that resists mold for two months without the use of preservatives. It’s done by bombarding loaves with microwaves no stronger than those emitted by your everyday kitchen appliance. It’s just done more comprehensively. 

Trust me on this. I’m no scientist, but the researchers in Lubbock, Texas, were, and they explained how it could be done. Only it probably won’t be done because bread companies would lose a fortune in repeat sales if bread actually lasted that long. It’s like car fuel economy. Do you really believe we don’t have the wherewithal to produce cars that get 100 miles per gallon? We put a man on the moon 43 years ago, for God’s sake. Only the political might of the oil and car companies has stymied development of fuel efficient, safe cars.

Holiday Notes: Shopping, Woody Allen, Huckabee

Were you one of the 247 million Americans who trudged down to the mall over the 4-day Thanksgiving holiday to celebrate our collective good fortune by spending a record $59.1 billion? I wasn’t. Not that I don’t have lots to be thankful for, but I make it a point to abstain from the in-store frenzy. I didn’t even participate in the $1.5 billion Cyber Monday buy-fest. 

Perhaps because for 32 years I had to report on this ultra-patriotic shopping activity I developed a certain disdain for Black Friday, followed by Saturday and Sunday at the shopping center. Coverage of consumers fighting over Xboxes or big screen TVs or Ugg boots was all too predictable. Also predictable was the supposition that strong Thanksgiving weekend sales presaged an overall strong holiday shopping season. Yes, that could happen. But what usually transpired was a lull in spending that picked up only in the last 10 days before Christmas. Meanwhile, newspapers and electronic media wondered who would win the game of chicken between retailers who did not want to reduce prices and hurt their profit margins and consumers who wanted to wait until extreme discounts opened up their tight hold on their wallets. I’ll be very surprised if such stories don’t start appearing in about a week.

Too Awed to Ask: I’m a little behind in my reading, so I finally looked at a NY Times conversation with Robert De Niro printed November 18 in the magazine section. Written by the film critic A.O. Scott, the article highlighted a challenge many journalists confront when interviewing a famous person. Scott wrote, “I confess, however, that it took all my professional discipline to resist squandering the time I spent with De Niro on a recent Saturday afternoon in a slack-jawed fanboy recitation of his greatest hits. Oh, my God, you’re Jake Lamotta! You’re Johnny Boy! Your Travis Bickle! I’m talking to you.”

That paragraph reminded me of my year at Syracuse University earning a master’s degree in newspaper journalism. One of my classmates and best friends, Steve Kreinberg, got a freelance gig as a movie critic on the Syracuse New Times, an alternative lifestyle newspaper launched just two years earlier in 1969 (and still around today). After we laughed our way through Woody Allen’s Bananas in a suburban Syracuse movie theater—there is nothing that makes you feel more Jewish, and alone in the world, than guffawing at Woody Allen shtick when the rest of the audience is sitting cold, stone silent—Steve announced in the parking lot that he landed an interview with Allen the following week in New York City. Though Allen was in the middle of editing Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask, he agreed to meet Steve at his studio.

He drove down to Manhattan. When Steve returned he was uncharacteristically quiet. When the next edition did not run his interview I demanded an explanation. Sheepishly he admitted he lost all professional composure in the presence of the great man. He just kept gushing, “You’re Woody Allen. I love your work.” There’s only so many times he could say that before Woody determined this interview was going nowhere. 

Steve eventually recovered his moxie and went on to become one of the five question writers for the old Hollywood Squares show (the one that featured Paul Lynde in the center square). He was expected to write 50 acceptable questions per day, and yes, celebrities were counseled before each show on topics they would be asked. After Hollywood Squares Steve and his writing partner Andy became staff writers for Archie Bunker’s Place (Carroll O’Connor’s successor show to All in the Family) as well as for Herman’s Head, Saved by the Bell, Head of the Class, Nine to Five and Mork & Mindy. 

Funny, He Doesn’t Look Jewish: I’m always amused when out of left field a famous person has it revealed that deep in their past a Jewish gene lurks. Think former secretary of state Madeleine Albright (though how an intelligent woman like she could not figure out her parents chose to flee Prague in 1938 because of their Jewish origins is beyond my ken). 

Anyway, I was reading this week’s NY Times magazine when I came across this response from Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, also-ran 2008 Republican presidential primary candidate, Southern Baptist minister and Fox News Channel talk show host. Asked how to celebrate the holidays, Huckabee said, “On Christmas Eve, we go to the service at our church, and when it’s over, we go out for Chinese food.” 

Funny, I didn’t know Huckabee was Jewish (for my non-Jewish readers, ask a Jewish friend why it's funny). 

I Never Really Liked Halloween

Just five kids braved our cul de sac to trick or treat last night. Can’t really blame them or their parents who tagged along. I wouldn’t have gone out last night, either. Then again, I never really liked Halloween. I don't remember dressing up in a costume to go trick or treating as a youngster. My antipathy toward Halloween carried over to my parenting. I reasoned that since Halloween really was All Saints Day it was a Christian holiday, one good Jewish children shouldn't celebrate. Besides Gilda and I didn't want Dan and Ellie eating candy. I'm also not into scary movies, especially ones wherein a haunted house plays a central role. 

Perhaps my aversion to haunted houses goes back to my early childhood. Across the street from our brick row house on Avenue W in Brooklyn in the early 1950s stood a dirty grey, two or three story clapboard structure recessed back from the road. I say dirty grey, but in truth the house started off white. Years of neglect turned it dirty grey. The small plot of lawn in front of the house was overgrown with weeds.

No children lived there. The only person we ever saw going into and out of the house was a wizened geezer. He walked stooped over, his grey suit jacket draping a skeletal body. His cheeks appeared sallow and shallow, as if he had no teeth to keep them from caving in on his gums. A stub of a cigarette dangled from his lips. His grey hair ran wild. He was, to a young boy and his friends with furtive imaginations, a most scary fellow, the type of shadowy figure Scout and Jem envisioned of Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. Even his name made us squirm—Pupkis. 

My friends, Lenny and Richie, and I weren’t old enough to cross Avenue W by ourselves, so we never threw rocks or fuzz balls at Mr. Pupkis or his home. One day, maybe when I was eight or nine, Pupkis and his home were gone. In short order they were replaced by side-by-side adjoining brick homes. Into one of them moved a family with a daughter, Sherry, who became one of my sister’s best friends. The most memorable aspect of Sherry’s home was her living room furniture. Her mother encased the sofa and chairs in protective plastic. People did that back in the 1950s and early 1960s. 

One other noteworthy event occurred on Avenue W between East 18th and East 19th Street. A few years later on a Friday evening in the spring, just as our family was sitting down to Sabbath dinner, we heard sharp popping sounds—gunfire— from across the street, followed by a man’s anguished cry. We looked out the dinette window to see police detectives stuff a portly man handcuffed from behind into an unmarked car. Turned out he was a drug dealer. The detectives had pursued him down his driveway into his back yard, firing their pistols in the air to get him to stop fleeing. We didn’t know the family. I don’t think they would have been the type of folks my parents would have had as friends. 

More Sandy Fallout: Wednesday’s NY Times carried a letter from Joseph McCaffrey of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., arguing for early voting legislation in all 50 states so that future disasters, wherever they may occur, don’t limit suffrage opportunities. “Mother Nature is nonpartisan and could take out red or blue states in the future and severely affect national elections,” he wrote.

McCaffrey must be a Democrat as he tagged Mother Nature (another euphemism for God) as being nonpartisan. No self-respecting Republican, at least in this time of Akins, Santorum, Bachmann and Mourdock, would declare God to be anything but a card carrying member of the Grand Old Party. 

My Mistake: Another example of why it’s very hard to copy edit yourself. In Wednesday’s post I wrote Hurricane “Sally,” not Sandy (since corrected). My apologies. To those who wrote in, thank you. To everyone else, this is another example of seeing what you want to see, not what the reality is. 

Losing It

I’m losing stuff around the house, and I’m not talking about the normal things one can’t find, such as a single sock in the laundry. I actually solved that problem several years ago by safety pinning pairs of socks together. My current laundry loss is one of those plastic dryer balls that replace the chemical dryer sheets like Bounce we used to put in with the laundry. The spiked dryer balls tend to hide in the folds of fitted sheets, but I searched all my bed linens to no avail. Weird.

Also strange are the nearly empty water jugs I kept in the basement following last year’s storms that cut power in many areas. Survival experts suggested you keep several gallons of water on hand, so I dutifully bought a couple of two-gallon plastic containers of water to store in the basement. Last week I noticed they were almost empty. No telltale puddles or water marks around them. So much for disaster preparedness. 

If Mitt Romney wins the election he’s expressed a commitment to eliminate funding for Public Broadcasting Service, including Sesame Street and its signature character, Big Bird. Putting aside the left-wing mind-control argument Republicans have postulated about Sesame Street, the now 43-year-old children’s educational program has been a fount of early learning.

When one of our nephews was a toddler, his mother sat him in front of the television to watch the then new show. Some months later, he stunned her by reading the label of a cereal box. As she and her husband had not practiced reading with him, the only explanation was Sesame Street. 

Gilda and I employed Sesame Street when our kids were young. Saturday mornings we’d let Dan and Ellie watch Sesame Street and Electric Company as we lounged in bed. We, along with tens of thousands of other parents, protested when PBS changed its Saturday morning programming from kid-friendly to politics and business shows. I think we might have stopped sending money to PBS for a while.

Over the Columbus Day weekend Gilda and I visited Dan, Allison, Finley and Dagny in their new home in Acton, Mass. They live in the Fifth Congressional District represented by Niki Tsongas, widow of Paul Tsongas, the former U.S. Senator and one-time Democratic presidential hopeful. I met both of them during a business trip to New Hampshire in early 1992.

Before boarding the shuttle flight to Boston from LaGuardia, I recognized Tsongas. As luck would have it, I sat across the aisle from him. But he never looked my way during our time waiting for takeoff. His body was shifted toward his wife’s window seat. I’m notorious for falling asleep on airplanes even before getting airborne, so I fretted about missing an opportunity to talk with him.

I tried to stay awake by reading The NY Times. I was midway through the first section of the paper when I saw my opportunity. After finishing an article on Tsongas’ chances in the upcoming New Hampshire primary, I tapped him on the shoulder and said I couldn’t resist talking to the man profiled in the article I had just read. He was most gracious. We chatted for several minutes. When I told him I was headed to New Hampshire, he joked he had spent some time there himself. 

Last night while watching the Yankees-Orioles playoff baseball game, I believe I heard John Smoltz, one of the announcers, say he wanted to get a ride on one of the blimps providing overhead shots of the game and surroundings. I can empathize with him.

Back in 1972, as part of a graduate journalism program at the Newhouse School of Public Communications of Syracuse University, my class covered the Florida presidential primary. We were stationed in Miami. I was assigned to follow the campaign of John Ashbrook, a conservative Republican congressman from Ohio. He had little chance of winning, especially in the Miami area, so I had lots of free time. Two of my classmates and I came upon the Goodyear blimp moored at a field. The blimp was there for coverage of a sporting event some days later. We talked up the crew who promised us a free ride the next day. When we arrived Tuesday morning at the mooring site, the blimp was not there. Seems Walter Cronkite’s crew had been ordered to film Miami vistas for that evening’s election coverage. I never forgave Cronkite for pre-empting my chance to float in air.

There’s a truism in sports—never let a weaker opponent stick around. Score points early and often, so they’ll be discouraged and give up. If you let them hang around, they could surprise you and win. What’s true of sports is also true of politics. Barack Obama, an avid sports fan, has just learned the truth of that aphorism with his lackadaisical performance during last week’s debate with Romney. 

What possessed him to breathe new life into his opponent’s chances is beyond anyone’s analytic powers. Perhaps he himself can’t explain why he played the debate the way he did. I can’t explain it any more than I can explain where my dryer ball disappeared to or why there was no telltale sign of my stored water. I can replace the dryer ball and the water. The question is, can Obama replace the lost affection and momentum among his supporters and undecided voters? 

Clutter, Clutter Everywhere

If you took the time to read the voluminous obituary of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger in Sunday’s NY Times, you'd have come across this description deep inside the story of his life and work as publisher of The Times:

“By nature, he was fastidiously neat. The habitual clutter on reporters’ desks drove him to distraction.”

As a former reporter, I can vouchsafe a cluttered desk is part of a journalist’s DNA. Our desks could be, should be, condemned by fire marshals as potential fire traps. But as seemingly disheveled as it appears, a reporter’s desk is unique to him or her in its self-ordered filing system. With a deft hand, a reporter could sift through the mess on his desk and surrounding floor space to produce the report or notebook containing the exact quote or citation needed for the story approaching deadline.

One of my favorite Abbott & Costello routines was their take on efficiency experts. Abbott upbraided Costello for the mess on his rolltop desk. Papers were strewn every which way. Calmly, Costello reassured Abbott everything was in order, in its proper place. Anything Abbott would want could be easily retrieved. Go ahead, test my system, Costello challenged him. Sure enough, whichever contract Abbott requested, no matter how deeply it was buried under mounds of paper, Costello pulled it out from the pile with a pair of scissors. Duly impressed, Abbott raced off to tell their boss and invite him to a demonstration of Costello’s efficiency. Costello’s triumph was aborted by a sudden gust of wind when the door to their office was opened by their supervisor, sending all the papers flying across the office. They were fired on the spot.

I carried the reporter’s prototype desk well into my days as an editor and publisher. It would exasperate my superiors who forever were urging me to clean up my surroundings. I'd reply with the time honored line, “A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind.”

During one of my vacations, our company president demanded my office be cleaned up. My boss's assistant dutifully straightened up all my papers. Barbara didn't throw any out, she made neat piles of loose papers, magazines, newspapers, and assorted reports. But when I returned to work I was unable to find anything for more than a week. I threatened to have her fired if she ever touched any of my stuff again. She never did (shortly thereafter I promoted her to an editorial position; she’s been reading and editing copy for the last 15 years). 

My desk resembling the aftermath of a typhoon blowing through a stationery store, I had to advise my staff they should never put anything they want me to see on my desk if I wasn’t sitting before them. Always, I told them, put papers on my chair. I always looked at my chair before sitting down.

Much to Gilda’s chagrin, now that I'm retired, my desk in the home office we share remains messy. She has a hard time concentrating at her desk amidst the clutter on mine. Why my desk should bother her is beyond my ken. She's always promoting the virtues of a neat desk. Sometimes, even I find it necessary to clear the decks and throw out really old newspapers with stories I had tagged for blog posts but never got around to writing. Try as I might, I revert to old pack-rat ways. My clutter is habitual. I guess that will always confirm I’m a reporter at heart and in mind. 

Seeking Consistency

Predictably, my softball team lost its playoff game Sunday. The season is over, a season of consistency if you consider lack of hitting, lack of fielding, lack of smart baserunning, lack of solid pitching and, most importantly, lack of sound baseball sense, traits to applaud for their game in-game out consistency. But was it fun losing 14 of 17 games? Overall, I’d say it was worth the effort and enjoyable enough to get out of bed early Sunday mornings from April through September. 

It wasn’t pretty watching a reincarnation of the 1962 NY Mets (or the 2012 Mets), but I can’t say my teammates didn’t try. After all, if they tried their hardest, isn’t that all you can ask for? My only real regret is that somehow, in one of the few games we won early in the season, somehow I twisted my left knee and it now pops and cracks every time I exert myself (I’ve self-diagnosed it as a medial collateral ligament sprain). Softball season might be over but last night my indoor tennis season began and I immediately felt constrained by my inability to pivot on my left leg. 

For months Gilda has been telling me I needed to exercise to strengthen the quad muscles surrounding the knee. She’s right, of course. She’s consistently right about the need to exercise and I, unfortunately, consistently resist. Well, I’ve gotten to the point where it’s either exercise or stop playing tennis. I think my exercise program begins the day after Yom Kippur, a day in which I will atone for not listening to her sooner.

Chutzpah: Not sure how many of you read the business section of the NY Times, but if you’d like a real-world example of chutzpah, read this article about the choice of Tim Pawlenty to be the new president of an influential Wall Street lobbying organization: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/about-face-for-bankers-new-lobbyist/?ref=business

It’s the latest example of a politician’s lack of principles, in this case, how the former governor of Minnesota, who for years consistently criticized the financial industry during his erstwhile run for the Republican presidential nomination, has decided to go for the big bucks and become his supposed arch-enemy’s mouthpiece. We’ve often seen ex-senators and congressmen from both parties become lobbyists, so it’s not a head-spinner that Pawlenty has turned to the dark side. What is news is that almost all his predecessors to the lobbying trough had experience dealing with their new clients through Senate or House committee assignments. Pawlenty has no background in the financial industry. Another example of how politicians consistently never fail to amaze.

Football Frenzy: For years I consistently avoided wasting my money on football pools. I prefer losing money the old fashioned way, in a poker game where I have direct involvement, rather than letting ballplayers or game officials determine the outcome. Nevertheless, this year I joined a Football Frenzy pool, the object of which is to pick as many winners each week as possible. Through three weeks I can say I have been consistent, picking seven winners each week. That record of accomplishment has placed me 20th out of 22 participants. I’m only seven points behind the leader (shout-out to Gregg), but there are 14 more weeks of play so there’s still time to recoup my investment.

Don’t look to me for a definitive call on the last second touchdown or interception on the final play of the Packers-Seahawks game Monday night. I’ve seen videotape of the play and heard numerous interpretations of the rule book. Suffice to say, the replacement refs are consistently challenged to work up to the standards set by the regular officials who are on strike. But like my softball teammates, they are trying, they just don’t have the experience or skill sets to police a game that whizzes by their competence levels. Let’s be honest, however. In the past there have been plenty of controversial calls from regular officials. It’s just easier to complain, and more visible, when replacement refs blow a call.

A Pet Peeve: I consider myself a fairly well educated person, with good vocabulary skills. I wonder, however, why some writers purposely include words that the average, nay, even the elite, would never deem to use in normal prose. Here’s an example from a recent NY Times Book Review by Mark Lewis of “The Fish That Ate the Whale”: “At times, (Rich) Cohen waxes almost Kiplingesque as he celebrates the man and his myrmidons.” 

What the hell are mymidons? Was it the Lewis’ intention to have me put down his review and open a dictionary to ascertain that a myrmidon is “a faithful follower who obeys orders unquestioningly”? After gaining that knowledge, am I supposed to include myrmidon in my next conversation or blog about Assad or the Ayatollah? 

I’d say it is a certain consistent conceit that infuses the literature of some writers. By the way, The Fish That Ate the Whale sounds like an interesting book. It’s about Samuel Zemurray, his leadership of the United Fruit Company, and how “Sam the Banana Man” affected American foreign policy in Central America as much as any elected official.

The Bachelor

Here’s a line that could just as easily have been said back in 1633 by the Vatican to Galileo as it was to CBS News correspondent Alan Pizzi in Rome Wednesday when he sought comment on the possibility Jesus was married: “Let the scholars say and think what they like, the Church stands by its doctrine which goes back to the earliest Christians,” a Papal spokesman said, which Pizzi said translated to, “Jesus was a bachelor.” 

It’s been a rather fascinating several days, what with the leaking of Mitt Romney’s secretly taped 47% speech and the revelation of a fragment of Coptic Church literature that puts into question two of Catholicism’s central tenets—celibacy of Jesus (and clerics) plus the male-only church hierarchy.

It’s always dicey chiming in on someone else’s religion, but I can’t help but being fascinated by the married or not married status of Jesus (I also find it rather humorous that this subject comes up the same week as Romney’s travails, Romney, of course, being the scion of a religion that for many years advocated polygamy). 

To understand the rest of this post you’ll have to take a few minutes to read the Op-Ed piece at the end of this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/opinion/mr-and-mrs-jesus-christ.html?ref=opinion

Okay, now that you have The Rev. James Martin’s opinion, let me chime in with some thoughts on his analysis. First, Rev. Martin claims the four familiar Gospels were written much earlier than the Coptic manuscript which he dates from either the second or fourth century (the Gospels were written in the late first, early second century). Therefore, he gives them more credence. But there are inconsistencies even among those Gospels, so their complete credibility is open to question.

Second, he asks why there is no mention of Jesus's wife among family members who make a surprise visit to him in Capernaum. The simple answer is, she already was with him when he left Nazareth. Third, he suggests that since no wife was mentioned during Jesus’s public ministry days, ergo he had no wife. But we know the story of Jesus in many ways paralleled that of Moses. From the time Moses arrived back in Egypt to free the slaves and begin his ministry, his relationship with his wife Zipporah is barely mentioned in the Bible.

Fourth, Rev. Martin cites the Rev. John P. Meier’s hypothesis that Jesus “remained celibate on religious grounds.” But Jesus was Jewish; religious Jews and prophets were not required to be celibate. Only the prophet Jeremiah, among all Jewish leaders, is believed to have been a bachelor. Since we know celibacy among Catholic priests was not a strictly enforced canon requirement until the  second millennia, and some say only then mandated to circumvent any inheritance claims against church property, perhaps the male church leadership of today doth protest too much about the egalitarian view of its leader and his marital status.

Of course, all these comments are the views of a fascinated outsider. But if Jesus was indeed married, did his wife get along with her mother-in-law? Since Mary remains a central part of the religion, perhaps they didn’t see eye to eye on all things Jesus and she influenced the writers of the Gospels to keep his wife out of the sacred texts. Far-fetched, you say? Not if you’ve heard as many stories as I have about Jewish mothers-in-law. 

Brook(s) No Evil

To the list of one-issue voters (e.g., supporters of Israel, pro-choice or anti-abortion champions, environmental advocates), David Brooks of The NY Times wants to add another—Medicare cost containers. He wants you to cast a vote for the candidate who “can slow the explosion of entitlement spending (Medicare) so we can devote more resources toward our future.” He reluctantly, it seemed to me, believes it would be Mitt Romney, unless Barack Obama can come up with a credible alternative plan (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/opinion/brooks-guide-for-the-perplexed.html?_r=1&hp).

I applaud his willingness to cross party lines in the latter case, but regret his narrow-minded argument. Though it’s true spending on Medicare (Medicaid and Social Security, as well) must be contained, Republican budgets with their no-new-taxes foundation fail to balance for at least 10 years, during which time Romney-Ryan and their acolytes will have gutted all investment in our future—investments in education, in infrastructure, in the arts, in parks and recreation, in support for the disadvantaged, in women’s health, in the environment. In short, in everything but the military (perhaps they realize they’ll need a strong armed forces not to defend us from outside attack but from a revolt from within. Just kidding, I hope.)

Simply put, a vote for Romney-Ryan is a vote into the past, a vote to solidify the polarization of our society economically, socially and educationally, though not politically, as that has already been achieved (a rather ignominious, but nevertheless accurate, descriptor). 

Obama is not the perfect candidate, but at least he plausibly addresses our needs for the future. By focusing just on Medicare, Brooks fails to see the dangers lurking in a Romney presidency. He’s like the Naderites who cast an absurd ballot for Ralph Nader in 2000, thereby condemning the country to the tragedy of George W. Bush, whose mess Obama has had to clean up, with no assistance from Bush’s Republican mates. 

The headline of Brooks’ column was “Guide for the Perplexed.” What is perplexing is how a normally astute and reasoned commentator could be so narrow-focused when Medicare is but one challenge facing the country.

Akin for More: Speaking of one challenge, it’s easy to focus on and deplore Todd Akin’s misguided and ill-informed views of rape, women and their reproductive systems. It’s easy to dismiss them as an aberration, not just by Akin but also by any other Republican who shares those ideas. 

The true measure of Akin and the problem or benefit Republicans have being associated with him, depending on one’s political point of view, is his advocacy of other extreme positions including, according to Sean Sullivan of The Washington Post, an end to federal support for the National School Lunch Program, his comparing federal student loans to stage 3 cancer, and his belief that civil rights should be re-litigated. 

Akin is a deeply religious man. That appeals to many Missouri voters. But his reactionary positions on social welfare issues, not just abortion, demonstrate he has very little compassion for his fellow man, woman or child. 

Money Votes: Campaign finance is one of the big stories this election season, what with all the “soft” money going into funds, especially conservative leaning ones, that do not have to disclose their donors. Coupled with Romney out-muscling Obama for the third month in a row in raking in millions of dollars in disclosed campaign contributions, the GOP looks like it is winning the vote among those willing to put their money on the line. 

But for those who missed an intriguing story in Tuesday’s NY Times, here’s a different read of the political winds. Under the headline, “Investors in Health Care Seem to Bet on Incumbent,” the article revealed how companies with a stake in the future of Obamacare have made acquisitions based on their belief the president would be re-elected 

(http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/investors-in-health-care-seem-to-bet-on-incumbent/).

Countdown to Sunday

The countdown has begun. One week until Ellie’s wedding. I’ve lost about a pound and a half in the last week, though I must admit I didn’t follow the diet I said I would. I ate pasta and other carbs, but no bread. I got my pre-wedding haircut, my suit’s all cleaned and pressed, haven’t decided on the shoes yet, and Ellie still has to hand me her pre-selected tie. I’m not sure who will be more relieved when this is all over, me or the UPS man who seems to be making daily deliveries to our porch. 

Last time one of our children married, wedding attire was more casual. Six years ago, Dan and Allison left it to everyone’s sensibilities how to dress. I seem to recall one of Dan’s friends came in shorts (in his defense, it was 90+ degrees and 90+% humidity). Most people, including yours truly, wore a shirt and slacks. No tie. Anyway, I bring this up because of an article in today’s NY Times Styles section about men wearing shorts, not just to bum around in but also in more formal situations, such as work (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/fashion/mens-shorts-regain-fashion-status.html?ref=style). 

I love wearing shorts, usually cargo shorts with a 7” inseam. But let me state unequivocally, short of being on Bermuda where knee high socks are part of the outfit, there is no way wearing shorts to the office, or a formal wedding, is acceptable, no matter how many designers include them in their runway shows. I have legs people would die for, that is, if you’re a woman. Few men have legs skinnier than mine. They may be acceptably revealed on the ball field, or some other casual venue, but not anywhere formal. 

On the subject of acceptable public displays, another Styles section article commented on celebrity and non-celebrity moms working off their baby fat (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/fashion/in-celebrity-climate-from-bump-to-paunch-pudgy-moms-cant-get-a-break.html?ref=style). 

Way back when Dan was born almost 34 years ago, we had a friend whose doctor advised her she would get pregnant only if she added five pounds to her zero-size frame. Reluctantly, she followed his prescription. She delivered a boy, decided to keep the weight on to conceive again, and after the second delivery crunched her way back to size zero within weeks. She proudly told Gilda she was doing 100 sit-ups within a week of the second baby’s arrival. 

We lost track of that family over the years, though I did run into them in Manhattan several years ago. Though now middle age, she was still sporting that zero figure.

Lest you think all I do is read The Times, here’s an interesting piece from The Washington Post on Janesville, Wis., home to the would-be vice president, Rep. Paul Ryan. Would he be good for his home town? Read and see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/could-paul-ryans-ideas-help-his-struggling-home-town/2012/08/17/5a857dea-e729-11e1-a3d2-2a05679928ef_story.html/?wprss=rss_MobileOpinionsSectionFront&wpmk=MK0000200.

Here’s another Washington Post article on the controversy surrounding President Obama’s comments on who is responsible for building a business: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-i-built--with-government-help/2012/08/17/ecc86b24-e885-11e1-936a-b801f1abab19_story.html.