Love Story: John and Carolyn

 

Like most of us, I have been watching Love Story on Netflix. I have found the series interesting and am eagerly awaiting the "death" episode. For some reason, though, my own memories of John Kennedy Jr. seem to be at odds with what I have been enjoying on the screen. 

I remember him on Monday, November 25, 1963. when he saluted. I remember when George came out. I never read it, my library never ordered it but I remember seeing it at the newsstand at airports. I remember it was expensive. 

The next time his name crossed my radar was when he died. I had passed Essex County airport next to the Hangar, an airplane centered bar that featured old airplanes in the dining room. I never remember seeing him on television or in magazine articles. Yet in the series, he is portrayed as this mega celebrity that dominated the tabloids. I don't remember that at all.

One interesting aspect of the series is the depictions of Caroline and Ethel Kennedy. They are both shown as tough cookies. Maybe that is the one thing I have gotten out of the series. 

Old report cards

 

I've been going through my personal archives and I came across my old report cards from when I was in elementary school. My father was a bit of a pack rat and he saved them along with my Iowa test scores. In some ways there is a lot of similarity to my old report cards and the performance reviews I obtained during my working life. In all cases I am generally well-reviewed with one notable exception. Consistently, through my grade school appraisals, the line "keeps desk neat" is not checked. As a fifty-year-old, my performance review also indicated I need help in keeping my work area neat. I never changed. 

My appraisal from my second-grade teacher is of particular interest. Because of my age (as a December baby I was the youngest kid in the class) and my attachment to mother and Arthur Godfrey, I didn't have the social skills consistent with a six-year-old.  While the teacher was going off topic and describing her trip to Atlantic City my mind wandered off to imagining the Maguire sisters in rehearsal. When she asked me if I had ever been to Atlantic City I responded with "what?". The teacher requested that my hearing be checked. After a test with an audiometer by the school nurse (instead of saying yes to hearing the tone I said, "I can hardly hear it"). Mother was called and made an appointment with my pediatrician. 

In a highly rigorous test the pediatrician stood at one end of the office and whispered "cat" and I shouted back at the other end, "cat". Then he whispered "table" and I shouted back "table" and so on. The doctor said I didn't appear to be hard of hearing at all. The problem was that I was a daydreamer, 

People don't really change, Lazy kids become lazy adults. Sneaky kids become sneaky adults. Sadly, poor kids become poor adults. 

The Belmar St. Patrick's Day Parade

 

When I moved to Denver Colorado, I was told that to be a Colorado native I had to own property and go to the Stock Show in January. In New Jersey, to be a New Jersey native you have to march in or attend or have relatives who have marched in the Belmar St. Patrickk's Day Parade. If your grandmother marched in the parade while attending a Catholic high school in Red Bank, you are a native of the state of New Jersey, If your uncle marched in the parade with the Elizabeth Fire Department, you are a New Jersey native. 

Otherwise, you may live in New Jersey, work in New Jersey or even pay property taxes in New Jersey but you can never be a true New Jerseyite. You will always be an outsider unless you have some close connection to the Belmar St. Patrick's Day Parade. There is still time. It on March 28 this year. 

the Hole

 

As we get over the big snowstorms, one feature of my neighborhood that has remained resilient is the hole, After the storm is was covered with snow and forgotten. Then as the snow was removed by the plow it re emerged. First it was a silver color as the snow begat water which begat ice. Now that the ice has melted and we are in the early days of March it has become a brownish water filled color. When the water evaporates it will become a blackish brown. It will become quite hot in the summer, a cauldron of hot tar.  In the fall it will be covered with leaves. 

The hole has its uses. In driving home I know I live two doors past the hole. Visitors are told that I live two parking spaces away from the hole. The hole changes with the seasons, like the flowerpot in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I have become attached to the hole. It acts as a calendar, a weather report, and a signpost. 

Editor's note: With apologies to Wink Martindales's Deck of Cards

They patched the hole. My blog is influential after all. 

ESP Records

ESP Rccords was one of the more esoteric record labels that came about in the sixties. They were New York based and featured a lot of modern jazz and beat writers. I was watching the recent PBS program on Sun Ra when it occurred to me that I had an excerpt of him on my "ESP Records Sampler". As a young man I often ventured in the city and perused record stores and bought cheap jazz records. In Times Square. I discovered this sampler for 99 cents. I brought it back to my college dorm and impressed the Beat generation followers across the hall with the record which featured Ismael Reed, Allen Ginsberg, the Fugs, Gregory Corso, and William S. Burroughs. Each selection was about a minute long so listening to the album was a disjuncted  if interesting experience. 

Side One on YouTube     Side Two on You Tube

Tariffs

 

Here is a brief history of tariffs in the United States. An update on yesterday's NPR Marketplace,

There is a rumour that everyone is going to get thousands of dollars as a refund on the Trump tariffs. I am divided on renting a summer place in Rehoboth and getting a new car. 

Cheap toilet paper is better for your plumbing

 

Cheap toilet paper is better for plumbing, at least according to this article. It's nice to find out about something that is cheaper and better at the same time. Does not happen often. Personally I like the nice scratchiness of cheaper bathroom tissue. 

Retirement in bad weather

 

When you have a job, a snowstorm might mean a day off. Unfortunately, the next day means back to work. You get up early, do some last minute shoveling, then scrape ice off of your windshield. Then you drive to work, After a few swear words you are at work and walk in the doors of the office (or in my case, the library). Life at the office begins. Unless you up to a brisk walk at lunchtime you are in the world of work, work tasks, work gossip, and you forget about the weather. 

When you are retired, you are preoccupied with the weather. You check the temperature every hour. You check the weather report every hour. You are engrossed with news stories about the storm. You methodically plan a trip to the supermercado. You run to the window every time you think you hear the snow plow. Alas no snow plow. You watch the local news to see how other cities are doing. You think, "Boy I'm glad I don't live in Reading."

When you are retired, you are constantly preoccupied with the weather. You become your parents.  Just like in that insurance commercial.

Uncle Floyd died

 

In 1974 I graduated from college with no job awaiting. It was the recession and I had been an English major and I moved back home. I got a job selling hot dogs at Two Guys, traveled to California, eventually through family connections got a CETA job. During all this time I got in the habit of  watching Uncle Floyd on UHF channel 68. At that time UHF was known for its less than perfect reception. I could get ghosty images for channel 31, WNYC television and channel 68 which featured Uncle Floyd. Similar to Soupy Sales, Uncle Floyd was a local live tv show ostensibly for children but was picked up by older kids and adults who should have known better. I even have his big hit single, Deep in the Heart of Jersey. 

Over the years he migrated from station to station, from format to format. I remember he did a show where he showcased different main streets in the state. When I was a librarian in Bloomfield, the public cable station, also located in the library, featured him in a benefit show. I got to see him by sneaking into the Little Theatre during coffee break. 

Uncle Floyd had a varied career, but will always be remembered as the one New Jersey celebrity more precious in a way because unlike Frank or Bruce, you can identify yourself as a New Jersey native by your knowledge of this great New Jersey icon. Flags should be at half-staff tomorrow to commemorate Uncle Floyd. 

Predictions for 2026

 

                                      My predictions from a year ago for end of year, 2025:

                                       Dow Jones          45169

                                       S and P                6275

                                       NASDAQ           22530

                                       Unemployed        5.2%

                                       Microsoft             440

                                       Texas Crude Oil    90

                                       CPI                       3%

                                         

                                         Actual numbers for end of 2025:

                                                          

                                        Dow Jones          48063

                                        S and P                6845.5

                                        NASDAQ            23242

                                        Unemployed        4.6%

                                        Microsoft      483.62

                                        Texas Crude Oil   57.46

                                         CPI                      2.7%

                                     Predicted numbers for end of 2026:

                                                          

                                        Dow Jones         50000

                                        S and P               7200

                                        NASDAQ           25000

                                        Unemployed       5%

                                        Microsoft            500

                                        Texas Crude Oil   70

                                        CPI                     4%

This coming year, I predict a downturn in the market due to reappraisal of AI in the spring, followed by a mild revival by the end of the year. Trump will have a bad year, first with the Supreme Court, then with overwhelming victories by the Democratic party in both houses of Congress. As the year concludes, Trump will have resigned, ostensibly for health reasons, and the president will be JD Vance. The Ukraine war will continue. 

The Eagles will be in the playoffs but not the Superbowl. Tariffs will stay with us as the Democrats discover in future years that it provides income for programs they want without the political consequences of having to increase the regular income tax. 

Happy New Year!

I have swag

 

Today was a cold and windy day and I came to the supermarket dressed for the weather. I was waltzing through the aisles looking for lemon in a squeeze bottle. A young lady came up to me and exclaimed, "I love your swag! You are so perfectly put together. If you were in New York photographers would want to take your picture!"

I said, "But this coat is thirty years old".  

I have photographed what I was wearing. A crummy wool cap. A scarf I bought in Goodwill Industries forty years ago. A stained Field and Stream ski jacket from the eighties. I also was wearing a Levi pair of dad jeans, white socks, and sneakers. I had no idea I was wearing the latest in hipster fashion. 

My uncle Lawrence used to wear a tweed suit he probably bought after World War 2 ended. My mother said he wore clothing so out of date that it became fashionable again.  As we get older, we become like our relatives. 

Christmas letters, revisited

 Just got a Christmas letter! Here's an oldie I wrote about the genre. Yes the plant is still alive. 

Divorce

 

Lately I have been wondering if the norm for the middle class international family has changed. When I was a kid, the norm was Mother, Father, and the kids. TV situation comedies reflected this. Now I notice when watching network tv, Netflix and Hulu, that the norm is divorced couples trying to raise kids with the help or hindrance of grandma and grandpa. Mother and Father both have important jobs, or at least Mother does. Father is more likely to be unemployed. The conflict involves trying to maintain highly demanding kids along with highly demanding workplaces.  

Teachers are also much more likely to voice opinions about the kids than when I was a child. Back then, the parents talked to the parents during back-to-school night and perhaps when the children did something really bad.

I guess television is trying to depict family life as it exists today. First comes baby carriage, then comes marriage, then comes divorce. I've always felt left out socially since I've never been divorced.  I've been told its not as much fun as it seems on tv.

Thanksgiving dinner and why my father spitted gas into the kitchen sink.

Since the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is almost over, I have been ruminating over my personal favorite Thanksgiving, It was back in Hackensack in the old house. My father had invited some of his family over for dinner. There was Uncle Joe and my cousin Philip, Uncle Bill, Aunt Kay, the daughters, and Aunt Helen and Uncle Charley.  

My big bother was driving down from Boston but had yet to arrive. At about twelve thirty he called the house. He called to say that he was parked a block away but that he had run out of gas. Between him and the house was a steep hill and could somebody come down with some gasoline so he could get up the hill. 

Our house was open bar and by then the brothers had all had a beer or two or an old fashioned. My father yelled to them that Jim needed us to come down with a filled gas can. My father had an empty gas can in the garage. The mission became to siphon gas out of one of the cars. The art of siphoning seemed to be a skill they all possessed, a skill learned during their youths in the Bronx. 

First they tried Uncle Bill's car. His car didn't have any gas. Uncle Joe had gas and my father siphoned gas but ended up with mouth full of Shell Regular in his mouth. He ran into the house and spitted it into the kitchen sink, in full view of Mother. Mother was not pleased.

With the gas can full, the six men ran down the hill together and located Jim's car.  I wonder if any of the neighbors questioned why six men were galloping down Kaplan Avenue. At the car there was a brief debate on whether to pour the gas down the carburetor or not. The decision obtained was that we would just pour the gas into the usual receptacle.  

Mission accomplished. The older men got to ride back to the house with Jim with the now gassed up car while the boys walked back. For a moment the men were teenagers doing a weekly chore, rescuing one of the family cars. The rest of the day went well but the turkey was a little overcooked. 

 

 Here is one of my favorite posts on Thanksgiving and the family. 

Me and Joe

I am currently reading one of my two favorite travel writers, Bill Bryson (the other being Paul Theroux) on his second book about Britain, the Road to Little Dribbling. The theme seems to be that Britain is not as good a place to visit as it used to be. In one tangent he criticized the constant use he hears of the phrase, "Me and other person". He believes that we should say "Other person and I" when referring to a compound subject performing an action. 

Once, in my early days as a reference librarian, I used the phrase, "Me and Joe" in answer to the question by the department head concerning who had closed up the building the night before. I was scolded for not saying 'Joe and I closed the building", I blamed the indiscretion on my recent return from the great American West, "I guess I picked up some bad habits from living in Denver."

Today I am defending the term "Me and other person". It rolls off the tongue. Saying "Joe and I closed the building" sounds awkward to me. Like suddenly stopping before making a right turn on red when you notice a police car in the neighborhood. 'Me and Joe paid for the pizza" sounds perfectly fine to me. Grammar rules should be flexible and reflect actual use. Hopefully, me and you can agree on that one. 

Being a poll worker

 In early 2021 there was a slew of advertising encouraging people to become poll workers in New Jersey. It seems like a lot of the recent poll workers had left the calling or died. I remember going to the polls in 2019 and being bewildered by the array of post 80-year-old election workers. Hence, it was not surprisingly that covid, the fear of covid, or the rumors that computers were coming to the voting booths had diminished the ranks of the poll workers,

Having decided not to work for the Census bureau after all, I felt that at least here was something I could do with my spare time. Plus, the pay was not bad for a one-off day twice a year. I became a poll worker, starting with the primary election of 2021 and have been doing it ever since. 

As rumored, the polling sites have become computerized. Gone are the huge books that voters and the poll workers had to peruse to find a name. Now the modified I Pad could find the name and party. Party affiliation being necessary for primary voting. 

The most fascinating part of being a poll worker is the social dynamic. Here is a relative cross section of people who, for the most part, are complete strangers. This group is expected to engineer the complicated process of getting the machines working, herding the voters through the process and ending the day with the necessary colored tags and engineered the minutiae of the process. Surprisingly, for the most part, the group works as a team with only occasional testiness.

At the ungodly hour of 5 am the assembled group starts the day. There's not even a coffee urn. The leaders and the followers soon emerge. Some people gravitate to the check in computers. Some people gravitate to the machines on the floor. Electricity can be a problem.  Surprisingly, every plug in a firehouse is not functional. Occasionally someone from the county shows up to supervise things and people discreetly put their cell phones in their pockets.

Extacted from the voting machine at the end of the day is a small disc, the size of a disc in an old digital camera. This tiny hard drive contains the voting data.  

One of the highlights of my experience occurred on a very slow primary election. I got to learn about how a woman lost her husband, first to illness and then to another woman. Then the group opened up about everybody's children. I am so glad I travel. It gives me something to talk about on election day. 

Editor's note: There is training given before each election day and now they have online training. 

Mr. Mustache Goes to the Movies

 

Today we are going to talk about the new Bruce Springsteen movie and the recent Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. A decent review of the Springsteen film,  Deliver Me From Nowhere is in Slate. 

In some ways the films are similar. Two white singer songwriters recording for Columbia want to change streams. Dylan wanted to take up the electric guitar, a departure from the acoustic instrument, and Springsteen, famous for his electric guitar work, wanted to make an acoustic album. Both caused consternation among the powers that be.  

The Springsteen film is about the making of the Nebraska album. After a long tour, the boss wanted to spend time in a small house on the Jersey shore and record songs on a cassette recorder. The album that later became Nebraska was an underproduced attempt of singing melancholic songs in a sparse setting. He also took up with a hometown girl. 

The Dylan movie has a broader swath, not only documenting Bob Dylan, but other people in the folk revival movement, including Joan Baez and Pete Seeger. In general, I thought the Dylan movie was stronger, partially because of the quality of the music.

I'm sure the Springsteen film will be available on one of the screening services. For a diehard fan, see the movie. For second tier fans they can wait for it to come to their homes. 

The Earl of the Garter

 

Recently I was confronted by the disturbing news that Prince Andrew was relinquishing his title as Earl of the Garter. This ominous news led me to a search on the Order of the Garter. 

At my nephew's wedding, I was thrown a garter and caught it. Apparently, it meant that I would soon marry. It didn't happen, although the garter itself has an exalted position on my living room tchotchkes table. How proud I am to possess this object and how horrible it must be to have to leave the sacred order that goes back to the fourteenth century. 

Traditionally a garter was needed to keep a stocking or sock attached properly to the leg, in effect to keep the object from drooping. Modern clothing includes cuffs that keep the stocking or sock upright on the leg, leaving the use of a garter to be unnecessary. 

Being stripped of one's garterhood seems maudlin. Sarah is no longer the Duchess of York. The tragedies that befall the British monarchy. 

My day at the Whitney

 

One of the problems with being older is that you don't have hip friends who are up on things. For example I suspect no one I know has heard of the most important artist of the 21st century. People my age who knew all about Pollack, Picasso and Andy Warhol have never heard of Basquiat. However, thanks to Slate Money I now know about Basquiat. Yesterday I even saw one of his paintings at the Whitney.

I enjoy my annual trip to the Whitney. Yesterday was a nice day and I could walk there from the Highline.  It's a nice walk although I cannot recommend the twelve-dollar tacos. 

The best part of the visit was the rebellion. The Whitney has these huge elevators, and I got in one going down. There was an elevator operator who put his hand out and said "That's it, it's filled now so no more passengers." 

One woman outside the entrance said, "Nonsense, there's plenty of room". The next thing I knew thirty people defiantly walked past the employee and entered the elevator.

The elevator operator said "Don't blame me if the elevator stops!" The full elevator then safely made it to the lobby. I was impressed. I feel sorry for the soldiers if our president sends troops to New York. They won't have to worry about the inner city habitues. They'll have to worry about fighting emboldened New York intellectuals. 

Editor's note: The newly reopened  Princeton Art Museum has two Basquiat paintings.