the New Yorker

 

Today I got my New Yorker 100 year anniversary issue. I first started reading the New Yorker in college when it was 50 cents and now the cover of the new issue which has $10 on the cover. It went up twice the consumer price index. Still I have been reading it for years.

I remember I was homesick in Denver when I first subscribed in the early 80s, I remember reading about the childhood of Zed Mehta during my Denver sojourn. Back then there were no photographs in the magazine, only line drawings and cartoons. The photographs came later during the reign of Tina Brown in 1992. 

I always liked the slightly tweedy feel of the thing. I pictured the reader as an academic or wanna be academic or intellectual living in a dusty apartment on the West Side of Manhattan, Today its readers are all over the world and probably can't afford Manhattan rents. 

The major change with the New Yorker is that it is now a multi media product. The weekend show partnered with WNYC New York has become part of my Saturday routine. Even the New Yorker magazine table of contents mentions a few articles that are in the on line version only. I hate to admit but I often prefer to read the articles on line because I can magnify the print for my aged eyes. 

I suppose the Algonquin round table would be a zoom call if they were to meet today. Sometimes the old ways are the best ways. 

The Required Minimum Distribution

 

There are many milestones one has as one gets older. They include retirement, children's weddings and graduations, as well as the death of one's friends. Of course, there is signing up for Social Security and Medicare. Many of us don't realize that there is another milestone awaiting the senior.  This kicks in on the year you turn 73. If you have a traditional IRA, that is when you have to start paying your accumulated taxes on the IRA. It is a simple proceeding really; the morbid part is when you have to look at the table that tells you when you are likely to leave this earth, at least according to the IRS.  

Looking at my number I thought "How much money and worrying I do about my health. Going to the doctor when he tells me, and doing all the procedures when, no matter what I do, the age of my demise has already been spelled out by Uncle Sam."

Memories of a cold January in 1961

Here is an old blog I wrote about the election of 1960, On Inauguration Day we were off because of a snowstorm in New Jersey, I can still remember seeing Eisenhower and Nixon in top hats. It was a joyous day for Democrats. Tomorrow feels like embarking on a storm filled Interstate in order to get home on time for work the next day. You check your tires, put on your warmest coat and hope for the best. 

Drinking age in America

 

Last week I was sitting in a bar and a young lady waltzed in wearing a sash saying "No more fake id's". Apparently it was her 21st birthday and she was celebrating her independence with her inebriated friends. This must be a great day, a day, sadly, I never got to experience.

I had to share this special day with everyone in the country (except New York) who came of drinking age on the same day, The day was January 1, 1973. On this day 18 year olds got to vote and drink.

The first week of January I had no idea this had transpired. Perhaps my parents knew but decided no good would come with their adored child traipsing into bars. He would find out soon enough when he got back to school.

As soon as I got back to my dorm room there was a knock on my door. "Let's hit the bars!" one of my classmates was shouting, The whole world of bars in New Brunswick had opened up to 3/4 of the Rutgers undergraduates on the same day. 

Within three weeks I had sampled the experiences of several local watering holes, The Corner Tavern, or CT's, was the main place we went to. Further afield my friend took me to a Hungarian bar where men in white shirts spoke Hungarian and imbibed. Some of the more adventurous ladies in the crowd started hanging out in Manny's Den, the gay bar.

Within a few weeks I had a girlfriend and was having sex on the campus of Douglass College, A whole universe, hitherto only available for adults, had now opened for me. Sadly, my grades suffered by my attention to extracurricular activities and for the first time in my life I failed a course at Rutgers. 

Editor's Note: To be technically true, New York had always had the drinking age set at 18 and as a youth I had experienced the pleasures of MacSorley's and other New York institutions.