Credit....Where Credit is Due!

Tomorrow is the universal day in which we are supposed to give thanks for all that we have.  However, in our consumer based society, we sometimes forget all the things that we are supposed to be grateful for.  Let's face it, some of us aren't very good at giving thanks, we tend to dwell on the negative.  As my Aunt Sylvia used to say, "If it wasn't for the pain, I wouldn't know I was alive".  However, I feel compelled to point out that it would behoove us as Americans to do a better job of giving credit to those who deserve it.  This seems more substantial than just a generic once-a-year "thanks" to an amorphous higher power who may or may not have interceded on our behalf  while we gorge on canned gelatinous cranberry by-product.  There are many unsung heroes among us, and their contributions need to be recognized.

For openers, how many people know who wrote the Constitution?  It was of course James Madison.  I wonder how many people know the name of the love-child produced by Kanye West and "something" Kardashian compared to those who know the name of the man who literally gave you the "Bill of Rights".   To be fair, Madison was always a "try-hard" who often lacked the respect you would think a man who wrote the Constitution would merit.  One of Madison's problems in my opinion was his stature, or lack thereof.  Madison holds the distinction of being our shortest President, only 5 feet 4 inches tall.  This was despite the fact that men wore those "buckle-shoes" with the little heel on them, in the late 18th century,  sort of like Prince or "&" or whatever sign he goes by today, which allowed Madison to artificially elevate.  The problem was that since all men "elevated", Madison couldn't grab the edge he so desperately needed.
 "Little Jimmy" MadisonThe Purple One...ready to debate the Elastic Clause

It was not lost on the other Founding Fathers that Madison lacked vertical distinctiveness.  George Washington, all 6 feet 2 inches of him would often egg on the other Constitutional Conventioneers in taunting the diminutive one.  Washington recorded this entry in his diary in early 1787:

"February, 1787, me, Patrick Henry, and that old codger Ben Franklin snuck up behind "Tiny Jim" and swiped his "beloved" Constitution from him and proceeded to taunt him by holding it just above his reach over his head, only returning the scribe  when he would admit, that we were indeed, "His Daddy's"!"

It appears that Randy Newman may have been on to something when he stated through the gift of song, that, in fact, "Short People...got no reason, to live"  Madison may have been better served by history if he were to have been perhaps our fattest President.  That distinction went to the "Commander in Cheese-whiz" William Howard Taft.  Taft, of the oversized bathtub, specifically designed for his corpulent stature, tipped the scales at over 350 lbs.  It is said that behind Taft's back, T.R. or Teddy Roosevelt, the avid hunter referred to his protege' as "Big Game".
Ah the Pocket Watch, a lost fashion statement!


Another contributor to the betterment of our society who have often toiled in obscurity is the talented Hibachi Chef.  This creature is often found in your standard issue Japanese Steakhouse.  I deem them praise-worthy since no matter which Japanese Steakhouse restaurant  you go to, and I mean anywhere from California to South Carolina, to Buffalo to Intercourse, Pennsylvania, you get the same show, with the same shtick.  We once went to a Japanese Steakhouse in that famous bastion of Japanese culture... Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where we had a Hibachi Chef who looked like he just resigned from his job as "Pit Crew" chief at Daytona preparing to give us the "stir-frying experience of our lives".  Sadly, there was a lack of legitimacy.  Perhaps, it was when he asked us in a voice that sounded like Gomer Pyle whether we wanted more Saki?  But, in fairness, the guy built a pretty fair fiery onion tower.
Not Legit!
Legit!


Um, well he is building the Onion Tower!

Whichever Japanese Steakhouse you go to, the food tastes the same, they flick the shrimp into your mouth, they shoot Saki at you,  the chef plays with the big knife, catches an egg on his hat, and it costs a fortune.  Remarkable consistency!

My favorite unsung hero shall remain unnamed and uncredited.  It goes out to whomever invented the hat.  The hat is in many ways mankind's greatest accessory.    I'm going to throw a morsel of credit to the "chosen people", the Jews.  They have always believed in keeping their heads covered, but the custom has continued to evolve and grow ever since biblical times.

I believe it was George Carlin, the great comedian and curmudgeon who pointed out that it is hats that separate man from animal, since animals never wear hats, unless a human puts one on them.
Dogs shouldn't be Knick fans since they don't live that long, and the Knicks haven't won anything in 41 years.

I love baseball hats in particular, although if you ever take a good look at them, they're really just Yarmulka's with a brim.  Yarmulka's are good if you suffer from male pattern baldness, they fit right over the bald spot.
Even the Pope knows that.

Hats can define our moods as well as explain our careers.  A top hat means you're going out for a night on the town....or a chimney sweep.  A bowler means you're a card player, or the fat guy in a comedy team:
         

Santa needs a hat for his costume to be complete, as do Pirates, Police Officers, Firemen, and Choo-Choo Engineers.   So do maids, Chauffeurs, farmers, (Vietnamese or American), and Communists:
 Workers of the world can't unite...unless they have a stylish chapeau

I'm still partial to the baseball hat.  You can support any cause or team you want, and people don't necessarily assume you're bald.  And, if it worked for the immortal Oscar Gamble, then it's suitable for anybody.
Whew, talk about "Hat-Head"!

Thanksgiving....Turkey, Stuffing, Potatoes......Kugel??

If you watch cable news, or read almost any website that's not about quilting, (Although some of those "quilters" can be regular bullies) you'd think we are a deeply divided society.  However, there are a few things that we still share as a nation.  No, it's not obesity, (I always secretly fear that when they show fat people in news features about fat people, that they were actually filming me, but just putting that little black stripe across my eyes to protect my anonymity)

I'm almost positive I don't have a coat like that...almost.

it's Thanksgiving...of course!  It is probably the most shared and celebrated holiday in America.  It really is the perfect holiday.  It combines all of the things I hold dear.

1. Well of course first there's the food.  So, so much of it.  I have a really large pair of jeans all picked out already.  Belt...Optional!! (To be said in a flamboyant way)
2. Football!! (Not to be said in a flamboyant way)  The Lions, the Cowboys, and whoever plays at night.  
3. No Gifts!  Other than bringing a bottle of wine or something to somebodies' house, you don't owe anybody a damn thing.
4. No Religious Obligation - You can give thanks, but you can do it from the comfort of the dining room table.  And if you don't feel like saying grace, you can start eye-balling the good pieces of turkey, or the crispy piece with the most marsh-mellows of the sweet-potato pie while everybody else is genuflecting, or self-flagellating, 
5. Oh, and a family, yeah, yeah, that goes without saying...right?

My memories of Thanksgiving take me back to good old North Massapequa, where as a child I would wake up and out of some form of guilt, I would watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Unlike most kids, I hated parades.  Maybe it's because they showed us all of those scary Nazi parades in Hebrew School, but I've always found them grossly overrated.   It was here where I would watch Broadway stars lip-sing and dance to whatever horrible show-tune that was sweeping the "Great white-way", all the time waiting for one of those damn floats to go by so Willard Scott could say with faux enthusiasm, "Look everybody, it's Underdog, bad guys everywhere take heed"!

Eventually I would tire of this and turn to Channel 11, WPIX and watch "King Kong", the original!  It just wasn't Thanksgiving until the "big guy" fondled Fay Wray, the little hussy.

Easy....big fella

When that ended, (Spoiler alert, the ape loses) it was "March of the Wooden Soldiers" with Laurel and Hardy. Silas Barnaby, the Boogiemen, scary stuff.  By this time it was almost noon, and it was  time to watch the hapless Lions lose another meaningless game.

Sometimes we would have to drive into the "city" to see my aunts and uncles, or  head off to Queens to see my brother who had moved out and gotten married by what seemed like the age of 15.  Traffic was to my father as "Tic-Tacs" are to ballet dancers. (A caloric splurge they simply can't afford)  He would do anything possible and perhaps a few things humanly impossible to avoid it.  My father's theory about defeating traffic was simple.  "As long as you're moving".  "But Dad, we are going to Queens, and we just past a sign for Niagara Falls".  Didn't matter, we were moving.  If you've ever taken Merrick Road to Queens....well then you're out of your gourd, just like my father.

When you get a little older, you learn that one of the best parts of Thanksgiving is the Wednesday night before, especially when you are returning home from college.  It's the first time you get to come home and see your High School friends, and hang out at your old watering holes.  It also means that you don't necessarily wake up in time for the "Parade" unless you want to have a pounding headache all day.

I didn't really hang out there 'cause I would have probably gotten my ass-kicked!

As an adult, I figured that my Thanksgiving Day Parade watching days were over.  Little did I know I'd have children who'd want to go.  We actually got to see some celebrities up close.  We saw Hannah Montana, (I told that Judge that a 100 yard restraining order wouldn't stop me) and "Steve" from "Blue's Clues".  In fact, due to parade traffic, his float got stuck right in front of us.  He waved for a while, and then he seemed to tire of the whole thing.  Mostly it was cold and there was no where to pee.  From now on, the only parades I'm going to watch are the North Korean ones where they parade their missiles down "Lil Kim" boulevard for all to see and fear.
Who's the "Perv" who took this shot?

When I became a teacher in New York City, many of my students were first generation American.  I assumed that they would eat turkey and stuffing, and pumpkin pie, the usual suspects.  But instead, what I learned from these students who were from Jamaica, Haiti, Egypt, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam etc...was that they did eat turkey on Thanksgiving, but they also ate food from their own ethnic culture.  It was really America at its best, the melding of cultures, but still celebrating that most American of holidays.  I don't know why I was so surprised though.  My family had been serving "kugel" for as long as I could remember.  "Kugel", for those of you who aren't familiar is a fried concoction made up of mushrooms, onions, and something called "U-Need-a-Biscuits".  What are "U-Need-a-Biscuits" you ask?  Well, for starters they look like this:

The name comes from an early attempt by the National Biscuit Company to market their product so it stood out.  Hence the name "Uneeda", as in "You-Need-A", and while they were at it, they changed their name to the more palatable "Nabisco".  As for Kugel, it had mass and a density comparable to the ocean depths where the wreckage of the Titanic can be found.  I believe the formula could be calculated by C=MC2, or Cramps = movement/constipation to the 2nd power.  Kugel's look like this:
Soooo very dense!

Perhaps the best thing about Thanksgiving is that it begins the entire holiday season.  Once its Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, and New Year's are just around the corner.  Once it's Thanksgiving you can listen to Christmas music, you can eat as much as you want since the calories don't count, and you can watch all the good Christmas movies.  But best of all, you can take time to reflect on all you have in your life that you can truly be thankful for.  In another shared slice of Americana, many have found a way to demonstrate their thanks:
Black Friday!!!!

Where have you gone Tom Terrific?

I saw something very disturbing today.  My favorite all-time athlete, the great Tom Seaver just turned 70.  It seems just like yesterday I was watching him on my black and white television in my room.  That great delivery where his right knee would scrape the ground and be all brown by the end of the game made him one of the most recognizable sports stars in history.   Seaver was the all-American boy, and he was to Met fans what Mickey Mantle had been to a generation of Yankee fans, someone to aspire to.  It was Seaver who changed the Mets culture from that of lovable losers to a competitive team that would one day win the World Series.


Maybe that's whyit's more than a little depressing when our heroes get old.  In fact, it's a little depressing when anybody gets old.  It's even worse when a beautiful actress gets old.  I know that sounds horribly sexist, but the way I see it, if Linda Carter or Raquel Welch can "hit the wall", what chance do I have?  When the famous from our youth get old, it reminds us all too painfully of our own mortality.  Whenever we see someone who used to be beautiful suddenly get old, we always think the same thing, "what the hell happened to them"?  But what we're really thinking is, "What the hell happened to me"?  Watching our heroes age marks the passing of time in our own lives.  It also reminds us of simpler times as well.

I'm not sure why, but there was something calming and reassuring knowing that you could always find the Mets on WOR,  Channel 9 in New York City.  The "Meet the Mets" jingle would cue up, and then, filled with enthusiasm and endless childlike optimism, Bob Murphy, Lindsay Nelson, and Ralph Kiner would let you know that it was a "Beautiful day for Baseball"!  Then the Mets would go on to lose 3-2 pretty much every night.

Fashionistas, all of them!

WOR was a step above a College Television station.  They had the crappiest cartoons, reruns of shows like "Ironside", bad horror movies, and one of the worst programs ever produced, "Bowling for Dollars".  Bob Murphy hosted bowling for dollars, (It must have been some sort of Community Service requirement) and he would proceed to bring on the contestant,  usually some office troll or factory worker  who would appear with his wife and co-workers cheering him on.  Before bowling he would pull a letter out of a fishbowl, and that person selected would be his "Pin-Pal".  They would then split his earnings.  So for example, if he bowled a "9", it would be $4.50 for the bowler, and $4.50 for his "Pin Pal".  The jackpot was usually around $2000, and they had to bowl a strike to get that, and the person almost never got one.  (I often thought that they really didn't have the money to pay them, sort of like a menu in a diner where they claim to have 5000 items on the available, but in reality, they  only have breakfast and burgers, the rest is a giant game of bluff, daring you to order the Twin Lobster tails at market price).



Check out the production values!

As lame as all this sounds, there is something about simplifying our lives that seems to have some appeal on some level.  For most of the past 200 years, Americans have been attempting to escape the hustle and bustle of the modern world with all of its technological advancements.  As far back as the 1830s, people like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau spoke of going back to a simpler time.  It appears the constant buzzing of the Telegraph and the rushed pace of life brought on by the "Iron-Horse" which traveled at breakneck speeds up to and exceeding 30 mph was causing them to stress out.  Emerson would be at his kitchen table, his wife and he trying to enjoy some quality time, perhaps discussing that hussy who Andrew Jackson married who wasn't even legally divorced, and then, you guessed it, the incessant rat-a-tat-tat of the Telegraph causing Emerson to be distracted from his beautiful wife, Mrs. Emerson, who would then, sigh in exasperation, turning to Ralphie, finally saying, "go ahead, see who it is".  "Thanks baby, you're the greatest!"


If people thought life was too fast-paced in 1835, what does that say about our modern world?  One group who seems to have found a way to beat the modern world blues are the Amish.  For those of you who are not familiar with the ways and means of the Amish, let's look back at a simpler time, a time when all a man needed was a loving wife, a jar of pickled corn relish, a beard without a mustache, and a good barn-raising.  Ah, the life of the Amish.  It's not just their rejection of all modern conveniences that I respect, it's the fact that their women are married and buried in the same dress.  There's something metaphoric about that, but I'm not sure what.

We don't need to live amongst the Amish to know what it is to recapture a simpler time.  Whenever the power in the house goes out, we are thrust into the days of yore.  The quiet stillness of a house with no power surging though it is a type of silence that is rarely heard in the modern home.  It gives us a chance to get in touch with our inner being, a chance to sit around with the family for the type of quality time that doesn't exist in our modern bustling world.  No television, phones, computers, video games.  Sometimes, after only three or four minutes, one can begin to feel the stress and strain of the modern world fade away, as they consider a good way to kill themselves.  Ugh, I've considered getting a generator, not because of medical needs, not for heat, not to keep the food fresh, just to make sure the kids can play video games so I don't have to hear how bored they are.  So my hat or bonnet is tipped to the Amish, may all of their barn-raisings be filled with lots of firm wood.

I Want to Rock with You!

There are many people (Particularly many of my old Zeta brothers) who are what I call "concert people".  These are people who love, love, love going to concerts.  "Hey man, Dave Matthews is playing with Bob Weir, Trey Anastaio, Greg Allman, and "Jaimoe" at the Freeway Jam, Mountain Springs, Isle of Wight Festival. They're only playing one song, but it's expected to last four days....man"  While I mock their passion, (to cover up my galling lack) I will admit that going to a rock concert is one of the great rights of passage for a young person.  Your first concert is definitely something that everybody remembers.

For me and my buds, the first concert we attended was at the Nassau Coliseum, home of the New York Islanders, New York Nets, Professional Wrestling, and "Rungling Bros. and Farnum and Daily Circus". (They couldn't afford the real deal, they were over at the "Garden")
What a structure!

My first show, attended with my friends Rob Greenbaum, Scott Erb, Jimmy Barberine, and the legendary  Steve "Toad" Ward was the infamous Jethro Tull/U.K. show from the epic "Storm Watch" tour of 1978.  The tour was made infamous by the fact that the day before "Tull" was supposed to play the Coliseum, Ian Anderson, famed "Tull" front-man, was hit in the eye by the thorn of a wayward rose.  (Snot running down his nose...indeed!)  However, the man who could blow a flute melodically on one leg returned no worse for wear,  (Other than his scratched cornea) and put on a hell of a show.  In one of those, "This would never happen today moments",  we attended this concert at the tender age of 14, fall of our freshman year in High School.   I wonder how many parents today would let their 14 year olds go to a concert 30 minutes away to see a "Progressive Rock" show on a school night, no less?no less?

I was lucky, I was one of those guys who had a cool older brother, my brother David, and he drove us to the show. (I won't say exactly why he was cool, but trust me)  He dropped us off near the parking lot, and may have even stopped the car while we got out, but who can say.  The tickets were all of $15, but we were seeing the immortal Jethro Tull!  (And the less than legendary "U.K.", whose front man, John Wetton would go on to be the lead singer of "Asia" and their drummer Terry Bosio who played for Frank Zappa and "Missing Persons" and their keyboardist and electric violinist, whose name escapes me, but I think I saw him painting the TappenZee Bridge recently)  The first thing I remember doing was looking to buy a concert T-shirt, like all the cool kids had in school.
Guess who gets to hang out at the handball courts now...Bitches!?


My glory however was short lived.  (And by short lived I mean, non-existent) The first time my mother washed and dried it, the t-shirt shrunk down to a concert "bandana" and my glory days at the handball courts evaporated before my watery eyes.

The concert was not without its eye opening learning experiences.  We went into the bathroom and saw one guy throwing  up in the sink.  Another "dude" offered us "acid",  which we politely declined.  This was the way rock concerts used to be, filled with drug pushing and vomit, and that was just the musicians!

My next show was by far my least favorite concert, "The Greatful Dead"  I was not now, nor have I ever been a communist...or a "dead head".  But I have associated with some.  (Dead-heads, not Communists)  The concert seemed to start without warning and end without reason.  They played what seemed like a 4 hour drum solo that sounded like they had never played the drums before, but wanted to see what they sounded like.  There were interesting looking people dancing in the isles without reason or cause (or rhythm).  They looked something like this:

Other than the music, the other lowlight of the night was that I put an upside down open beer in my pocket....for medicinal purposes.

My favorite concert event was The Who's "Final" concert tour in 1982.  A bunch of us from E-1 Moreland in Oswego sent in money for the show at the Carrier Dome in December of that year.  The whole thing was a "luck of the draw' contest, and our seats could have literally been anywhere in the "Dome".  We got the letter back a few weeks later telling us that we were 2nd row, right in front of John Entwhistle, "The Who's" awesome,  bass player.

It was a good thing I saw them when I did, they hung it up after this, with only maybe a few thousand shows since.

Interestingly, we almost didn't live to see the show.  That very same night, in the dining hall of Mackin' Complex, after Tom "Hosebag" Murphy set the dining hall record by eating a 100 chicken wings, we drove off to Syracuse in the ice and snow.  We missed the exit, and "the Rat", Greg Rathjen, negotiated an illegal u-turn on 481 as oncoming highway traffic descended upon us.  The tires of Chris Davie's Honda Civic spun on the icy road, and as I sat in the passenger seat watching my short life pass before my eyes,  Tom Murphy moaned in regret over his heroic but ultimately flawed choice in sacrificing all to win a contest that was now leaving him in the unenviable position of probably having to shit his pants, either through fear or colon overload.

I fear now that the concert experience that so many of us grew up on is now long gone.  My wife and I along with my brothers' and their wives went to see Crosby, Stills, and Nash at Jones Beach in the early 1990s.   As the music played on, we noticed people strolling back and forth out of their seats going to the snack bar as if they were at a ball game.  If Jim Morrison were really dead, he would have been rolling over in his grave.

Today, I fear all is lost.  At the risk of offending friends and family, so many people I know now go  to concerts with their kids.  I'm trying to think what it would have been like to see "The Who" with Janet and Seymour.  I'm thinking it would have gone down something like this:

Seymour: "So who are we seeing?  Who?  Who are we seeing"?
Me: "Funny Dad, yeah that's their name..can I get something to eat now"?
Janet: "Why is the one with the big nose jumping all over the place?  Boy is he ugly!"
Seymour:  "Is the drummer throwing up blood"?
Me: "Something small, maybe peanuts, Dad, you love peanuts!"
Janet: "The singer, the one with the curly hair, he keeps throwing his microphone around, how's he supposed to sing like that"?
Janet (again): "And now they're destroying their instruments.  A real musician respects his instrument and doesn't destroy it, that's just silly". (This statement is actually a true one)
Janet (again): "Why didn't we go see that little Paul Simon, he's better.  He's so short though, but I'll tell you what, he's pretty tall when he stands on his money!"
Me: "Ok, um forget the peanuts, just some Hemlock"!

Maybe I'm just stuck in the past.  My oldest son likes "Hip-Hop".  Maybe for ChristmasHanukahQuanzaa I'll take him to see a "Rap" concert.  I'll have to find the right look for such an event.  Perhaps this will do?
Mazel Tov....Boyeeeeee!

There's lots you can do with a Degree in Communications!

It's amazing how many adults including myself get so hung up on what a 17 year old is going to do with the rest of their lives.  I'm "lucky", I get to put that unnecessary pressure on my two children ,(plus my niece who lives with us) as well as my students in school.  It does make me wonder how many people end up in the career that they majored in?  Unless you go in for a specific career like Accounting or Law, or Engineering, it's probably pretty typical to sort of drift from job-to-job until you find a career.

I went to school in the exotic land of Central New York.  Specifically, in Oswego, New York, where I attended SUNY Oswego.  Oswego gets a bad rap due to its weather and radioactive run off from the local Nuclear Power Plant.  But as anyone in Oswego can tell you, "You don't need a 3rd eye to see how great life is on the shores of Lake Ontario, but it does come in handy!"  Many people like to exaggerate about the weather in Oswego, particularly the winter season, which barely lasts from late September thru early June.  I can remember my Junior year in school where it practically didn't snow more than 39 straight days.  In fact,  you'd be surprised how well you can drive when you can't see the front end of your car.


(I should have majored in snow brush manufacturing now that I think of it.)

Weather aside, I went to SUNY Oswego to major in Communications, with the hope that I would move into their Broadcasting school.  (The Broadcasting school wasn't a separate place, just a different title for the classes you'd be taking).  I really wanted to go to Syracuse like the great, Marv Albert, but I had two problems...money and grades.  My father said that if I did well the first two years I could transfer to Syracuse for  my Junior year.  It would of course mean that my parents would have to scrimp and save, but they were willing to allow me to pursue my dream.   My dream was inspired by watching the most popular sports/news anchor in New York City at the time, the great Warner Wolf.  This was when ESPN was in its infancy, and  if you wanted to see sports highlights, you had to watch local news.  Warner would yell, "Let's go to the videotape" and you knew you were going to see something cool.  This is what I wanted to do for a career,  and it looked like a lot of fun, and now my father said we could make it happen.

Who wouldn't idolize such a man, the suit, the tie, and hair!

 Reality settled in quickly when my first semester grades came out.  My parents could now breathe a sigh of relief and go back to their frivolous ways.  Goodbye Syracuse, goodbye school of Broadcasting...hello Happy Hour!

It wasn't just my grades, or lack thereof, I didn't think I was very good, or at least I didn't think I sounded very aesthetically pleasing.  My roommates taped my WOCR broadcast of the heated basketball rivalry between the "Great Lakers" of SUNY Oswego vs. the "Flying Purple Disciples", (Not their real name) otherwise known as Roberts Wesleyan University.  I forget who won, but I remember it looking something like this:


It's not that I didn't have a good time, it was a tremendous amount of fun, although it wasn't as easy as it looked.  Remember, it was radio, if you don't talk, the people at home have no idea what is going on.  But it was the sound of my voice that I hated more than anything.  If I couldn't stand that nasal tone, what were people at home going to think?  I also didn't like the idea that if I was going to have a career in radio, I was probably going to have to move to Kansas, make minimum wage working the graveyard shift putting carts in all night for commercials for "Zeke's Tractors, Guns, and Adult Sex Toy Emporium".  I pictured my experience looking something like this:




Since being a broadcaster was not going to happen, it was time to consider other possibilities.
I tried being a cameraman for WTOP, the school's television station, but that was like watching a soccer game.  Then I tried being a Technical Director, but every time I was supposed to switch shots, the Director would hit me on the top of my head....that got tiresome fast.  It all seemed so stressful, which considering the amount of viewers we had was pretty silly.   Eventually I settled on writing for the school newspaper and looked forward to a career in Public Relations.  There was only one problem, unless you could type 50 words per minute, it was hard to get too many jobs in the field of Communications.

Approximately a month after graduating, on my birthday no less, I went on a job interview right across the street from the "Twin Towers".  I went up stairs into what was a pretty old building and exited the elevator for "Read-More Publications".  The office manager came out to interview me and I was immediately struck by his paralyzing stutter.  It caused him to contort and spit in between probing questions.  I have forever been proud of myself for holding it together during the interview which for a 22 year old going on well,  22, was no easy feat.  He hired me on the spot (Red Flag) for the impressive sum of $13,000.  When I showed up on Monday, I knew something was awry when I didn't have a department, a title, responsibility, or a desk.  One guy took pity on me and gave me one of his desk draws.

Working in the city meant riding the L.I.R.R.  The $125 ride from the Massapequa station to Penn Station, along with the $40 a week for subway tokens to take the subway down to the World Trade Center pretty much ate up my entire paycheck.  The experience did finally help me understand why my father was so tired when he got home.  There was something very tiresome about the L.I.R.R. process.   Even though my father was an Accountant, I really had no idea what he did, and he never, ever spoke about work.  For all I knew, he took the train in, sat on a park bench for 8 hours and then came home.  He never mentioned a name, never told a work story, never spun an anecdote.  "Dad, how was work today", "Eh, work is work".  Try arguing with that.

If you put your ear to the computer, you can just make out the conductor saying, "Tickets Please, Tickets Please".

As for "Read-More", they sold subscriptions to Doctor's offices.  My job was to update Doctor's addresses and the prices for the subscriptions.  I had to jump into people's desks when they weren't there so I could get work done since I didn't have my own desk or computer,  not that it ever seemed to matter.  The work I did didn't seem to resonate with anybody,  and I don't think anyone ever checked it.  The place had bubbles  and tears in the carpet, and a hole in the wall covered by the copier, and the secretary was having an affair with the boss, so she came and went as she pleased.  One day, I noticed that one of my bosses "Yola" and the Office Manager with the unfortunate stutter started getting ready to leave early, and both had black Neil Diamond concert t-shirts on.  Apparently he was doing a 5 night block at the "Garden", and they were going to make sure they caught every one of them.   I tried to engage them with tales regaling the wild energy of Keith Moon, but they seemed unmoved.












After 3 months I went into to the see the Office Manager since he had promised me a review.  When I told him I was getting married soon and I certainly couldn't make it on $13,000, he said, "Well, you're a nice kid, how about we raise you to $13,300".  I left about two weeks later having left the glamorous world of "Subscriptions" behind.  But for three months, I'll always remember the kind man who let me use his draw.

I'mmmm Movin' Out!

As previously mentioned, I'm not a fan of change.  Some change is so traumatic,  that it literally wrecks your life.  Death of a spouse, divorce, twisters, (tornados or nibbies) are of course dreadful for everybody.   But sometimes, we  encounter  change that's supposed to be exciting and fun.  Moving for example is something that most people view as a step towards bigger and better things.  Most people move as a result of a new and better job, or an increase in family members, or being offered a new FEMA Trailer, but to me, moving is simply another unnerving change that has to be negotiated successfully and with as little pain as possible.

The first big move of my life (not counting being born) was when my family moved from New York CIty to Long Island.  More specifically, from upper Manhattan's Washington Heights to Long Island's North Massapequa.  If you want to be really specific, from Bogardus Place to Banbury Road.
Banbury RoadBogardus Place

Our move to North Massapequa was not without its struggles.  It was 1966, and Americans were rocking out to the sounds of "Revolver", Sgt. Barry Sadler's "Ballad of the Green Beret's", and "96 Tears" by "?".  Many Americans were on the move as a result of a phenomena called "Urban Flight".  Washington Heights had been a working class neighborhood in the most upper part of Manhattan, and it had been populated mostly by Jews, Italians, Germans, and Irish.  By the mid-1960s many people of Dominican ethnicity began to move in, and things began to change.   Out went the old fashioned "Candy Store" and Kosher Deli, and in came the bodegas.  The handwriting was on the wall.   My parents decided we should move, and while it didn't bother me much considering I was two, my oldest brother who was 14 didn't take it in stride.  The low point might have occurred when we were closing in on exit 29 on the Southern State Parkway, and we saw the sign for  "North Massapequa, Hicksville Road", and my brother who loved city living exclaimed, "HICKSVILLE!!! You're moving me to "HICKSVILLE"?!?!?!  Though I am not a religious man, I believe we all witnessed a true miracle that day,  in that my father did not toss my "lithe" brother out the car window.  (They were open since it was about 100 degrees) I should mention, it wasn't just any car, but our 1962 Royal Blue Chevy Impala, our first new car.  We called her "Rosey", which was my mother's mothers' name, which gives new meaning to the old Television show, "My Mother the Car"!

Ironically, several years later, my brother was driving "Rosey" and the tire blew out and he dove out of the now out-of-control automobile, a-la Mannix:



My father, ever the understanding "Ward Cleaver" type, was quick to accuse my brother of ruining his beloved "Rosey", the car not his mother-in-law.  He definitely liked the car better.

For my parents, who knew nothing about suburban living, moving to North Massapequa was truly a learning experience.  Not only did they have to deal with my brother's intense unhappiness, (which to be fair only lasted until his wedding day) but the purchase as well as the move had pretty much cost them every last dime.  It was a nice house to be sure,  purchased for the princely sum of $20,500.  My father's commute went from a 20 minute subway ride to the (at that time) un-air-conditioned L.I.R.R. which took over an hour.  As an investment by the way, the house paid off big time seeing that my parents sold it in 1998 for over 10 times that amount.  But we could have hit the mother lode.  My father confessed to me years later that we could have bought one of those houses on the canals in Massapequa Park for only $500 dollars more.  Eventually, the payoffs on those homes would have dwarfed what they eventually made from the house on Banbury Road.   However, my mother put the kibosh on it.  She was worried I would leave the house, open the gate, walk down the block, fall into the canal and drown.  Considering I was raised like milk-fed veal, the odds of me being alone and unattended for that long seems remote, but if you've ever wondered where my paralyzing stockpile of caution comes from....

At any rate, the move from city to suburb only got trickier for my parents.  When you live in the city, every building has a Superintendent, or "Super", who fixes everything.  Many city dwellers grow up without ever needing to learn basic handyman skills.  So when my parents moved to Long Island, they had to buy everything including a  lawnmower, hoses, garbage cans, tools etc...The garbage became a particular source of consternation for my father.  In the city, you simply take your trash and throw it down the incinerator.  In Long Island, there's garbage pick-up.  One time, when our  extended family visited from the city, we ordered in Chinese food, (Probably from Kwong Ming, which, health inspections aside is still my all-time favorite Chinese restaurant).  My father filled a big "Waldbaums Paper-Bag" and handed it to my cousin to take back to the city.  My cousin was all excited thinking he had Chinese leftovers, instead it was filled with garbage.  My father wanted him to dump it down the incinerator, just like the good old days.
Ah, what to give for a "Pu Pu Platter"?

There were other adjustments as well, such as shoveling snow, termites, the infamous playroom flood of 1967,  our trees getting toilet papered,  and of course, our next door neighbors, the Gallaghers.  The Gallaghers were somewhere between 70 and a 1000, and they hated the new "Jews" who had just moved in.  When my brothers or I would have a catch between our two houses, the Gallaghers could often be heard telling us to knock it off, since after-all, "This isn't the Polo Grounds"!  There was also the tried and true, "What do you think this is, Ebbets Field"?  Eventually though,  my mother discovered a new "Mah-jong" crew and we were on our way.

As an adult, my wife and I reached a crossroads after six years in beautiful Flushing, New York.  It's hard to encapsulate what life in Flushing is like, but imagine the worst aspects of suburbia and city living, and you've captured life in Flushing.  We weren't even near a subway, we had to take a bus to the subway, which is expensive and difficult.  Once our oldest boy Andrew was born, we knew the clock was ticking, so in the summer of 1993, we took the plunge and moved to Clifton Park, New York, somewhere between Albany and Saratoga Springs.  (I don't want to get into any more detail than that for fear of being stalked by my multitudes of "Hoffman Files" fanatics, the  "Hoffmanphiles")  Many people asked us why the Capital region?  Well, I'm from Long Island and my wife is from western New York, Jamestown area to be precise, and this seemed like a fair compromise.  We waited for one of us to get a job, and my wife got one in Human Resources for "Montgomery Ward".  If you're too young to remember "Montgomery Ward", then you know why it's out of business.  They catered to customers too old to watch "Wheel of Fortune".  According to "Hip Replacement Quarterly", many octogenarians feel that "Wheel" has gotten too loud and upsetting, plus when people land on  "Bankruptcy", seniors can find it disconcerting, too much like the "Hoovervilles" of their youth.   Still, they offered to move us for free, and we will be forever grateful to both Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Ward.


Moving day arrived.  It was August, and I say with complete confidence and not a hint of exaggeration it was the hottest day ever recorded on any planet not named Mercury.  The movers put everything we owned on a Mayflower moving truck including my Buick Skyhawk, or as it was known in my "Fast and Furious" days, "The Hawk"!  All of our worldly possessions on one truck, rather humbling.

Moving from our 3 story walk-up with no dishwasher, washing machine or dryer, and one small air-conditioner in our bedroom , to Hollandale Apartments in Clifton Park with its balcony, central air-conditioning, dishwasher, washer-dryer right in our building, plus a pool and tennis courts, it was like being born-again.  Still, the stress of relocating without really knowing anybody, plus taking care of a 2 year old was no day in the park.  Where was the Waldbaums"  No Kosher Deli??  Why aren't people driving faster and more aggressively?  There would be two more moves after Hollandale.  We've been lucky enough to be able to buy two houses.  Since we've left Flushing, we've been able to increase our number of bathrooms with each successive move, and that's helped balance out the stress of moving.  In the end, it all goes back to "Flushing".

Here Whiskers....Heeeere Whiskers!

For those of you who didn't know, November has become a month where men are not supposed to shave.  It is known as "No-shave, No-vember".  It's all part of a disturbing new trend that finds each month now has its own "shtick".  December has the holidays, (I won't name them under fear of offending people, but one of them rhymes with "Shmanza"), February is "Black History Month", June is now associated with Graduation, and March is known for the NCAA Tournament, St. Patrick's Day, and people in the northeast not hanging themselves over the weather.  It bothers me that November needed a new "thing" to get excited about.  It already had Thanksgiving, the best holiday of all, why did men and their faces suddenly get dragged into this tangled web?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-beard.  For at least the last 15 years I've sported either a goatee, or what is probably really known as a "Van Dyke".  Off and on over that time I've sometimes committed to the whole beard.  I've toyed with the idea of shaving the whole thing off, but my wife likes the goatee, although not the beard.  It would appear  that while she doesn't want the whole face covered, she doesn't necessarily wish to see the whole face bared for all to see either.  I guess I don't blame her, and quite frankly, I enjoy having some form of facial hair.  Many times, students ask me perplexing questions such as:

• Mr. Hoffman, can I go to the bathroom?
• Mr. Hoffman, what do you know about area 51?
• Mr. Hoffman, was Hitler Jewish?
• Mr. Hoffman, I still need to go to the bathroom!

It is when asked these endless life-pondering questions when I must be deliberate yet, certain.  A pause before answering can buy one time as well as help find that elusive universal truth that these young minds seek.  This is when an educator must dig deep.  Nothing says thoughtfulness like a gentle but firm stroke of the beard.

Ahhhh, that's better!

Long "show-beards" have become all the rage due to the recent success of "Duck Dynasty" and the 2013 World Champion Boston Red Sox.  The Red Sox victory is especially symbolic of the power of the beard, since the "anti-Red Sox" better known as the New York Yankees don't allow their players to have beards.  In fact, no Yankee player has had a beard since  3rd string catcher Percy Sweetwater tried to cover up his homosexuality on their infamous "Murderer's Row", 1927 World Championship team.  And that was really out of necessity, since the "Bambino' was famously intolerant of alternative lifestyles.   

All of this beard talk got me thinking, who in history were the greatest to sport whiskers? When one wears a beard, one is literally seizing the mantle of leadership.  Several of our Presidents' for example wore beards of various length, although their presidencies didn't exactly match the regal majesty of their facial hair.  For example, Benjamin Harrison had one of the greatest beards to ever inhabit the White House.   His presidency was less impressive.  One critic called him "stoic".  (The problem was, he had been dead for 3 years)  Its been said, that when Grover Cleveland won his rematch with Harrison in 1892, he almost resigned over all of the grey beard hairs in the White House Master Bedroom sink.    

Other bearded Presidents included James Garfield - Assassinated, Abe Lincoln - Assassinated, Ulysses S. Grant - Corrupt White House, Chester Arthur - Wicked Mutton Chops: 

The beard, and facial hair in general have demonstrated great impact in other fields and endeavors as well.  For example, the clean cut "mop-top" version of The Beatles sang about love and made the girls scream in innocent ecstasy, while the bearded grungy looking version of the band asked the populace if they wanted a revolution or commented on the comings and goings of "Mean Mr. Mustard".  (Noted "perv", known for sleeping in the park and shaving in the dark)

As far back as the bible, both Jesus and Moses sported beards.  Noah and Abraham also were known to forgo the "straight-edge".  Did having facial hair bring them closer to God?  Moses brought the 10 plagues to Egypt in order to force the Pharaoh into allowing the Children of Israel to be set free.  One of those plagues cast Egypt into 3 days of complete darkness.  A huge edge for Moses over Pharaoh.  Pharaoh after-all didn't wear a beard, how was he supposed to shave?

Sadly, if understandably, there are many professions and crafts where wearing a beard simply hasn't reached a level of acceptability.  Doctors typically don't keep a beard.  Nobody wants Captain Jack Sparrow performing their Vasectomy.  You rarely see soccer players with beards, although if they were to grow one during a game, it would actually give them something to do.  Broadcasters, particularly newscasters usually avoid growing whiskers, somehow it makes them seem less trustworthy when they're reading the teleprompter.

Are there any real drawbacks to having a beard?  Well, it can get caught in your coat zipper, which can be awfully painful.  You can get food stuck in it.  I've seen many a Rabbi with egg-salad stuck in their facial hair, which I would caution, is not as sexy as it sounds.  Beards can also be beneficial.  For decades, the C.I.A. has theorized that Fidel Castro, former minor league pitcher in the Washington Senators organization was hiding something hideous under his beard.  (In a great "what-if" of history, if Castro had a better curveball, the Cuban Missile Crisis would never have taken place)  In fact, conspiracy enthusiasts have claimed that J.F.K. had a plan to make Castro's beard fall off due to a poison dropped in his soup.  Perhaps Castro, acting through Lee Harvey Oswald acted first?  What do you think....Fidel??

I guess when it comes down to beards, I'm a fan.  So to my son Andrew, my nephew Jake, my brother David (sometimes) and my brother Mark (always) who sport beards, continue letting your "freak-flag" fly, after all as my son Andrew said, in 20 years, the beards, so popular in the early 21st century might become the mullets of the 80s.  Woefully shameful!

I'm "Honest" Rob Hoffman, and I Approve this Message.

"The stakes have never been higher".  You hear that a lot around election time.  I'm not sure I'm buying that premise however.  I mean, World War Two, World War One, The Great Depression, The Great Recession, The 9/11 Attacks, Lindsey Lohan dropping out of rehab, there are countless examples of times and events in American history where the stakes have been higher.  Sometimes the commercials tell us that one of the people running for office, "simply can't be trusted".  They play ominous music and show an unflattering picture of the "untrustworthy" candidate, and you just feel that, well, maybe they can't be trusted

Really, why would Mitt Romney attack Newt Gingrich?  I'm upset just thinking about it.

As a matter of full disclosure, I'm going to admit to being a lifelong Democrat, and on most issues pretty liberal.  How I became a Democrat is pretty simple.  My parents were Democrats, as most New York City Jews were growing up in the 1930s.  Franklin Roosevelt changed the way people voted, converting countless people from Republican to Democrat.  It's a bit ironic that so many jews switched form the Republican party, which had been the party of the north to the Democrats considering that FDR really wasn't much  of a "Jew-Lover".  But I suppose, between the Great Depression,  and the fact that Herbert Hoover wasn't spinning too many dreidels either, seems to have  made Roosevelt an attractive candidate for thousands of Jews.  My father believed that people who were born with less or through circumstance had less,  deserved some help from the government, so he voted Democratic his entire life, and I suppose that rubbed off on my brothers and I.

I would like to say that the Democrats are better than the Republicans when it comes to governing and campaigning, that they take some sort of high road.  But who are we kidding?  In all honesty, both parties are guilty of running these endless, pointless advertisements and making empty statements filled with empty promises in their never ending reach for power.   The endless commercial advertisements are beyond annoying, yet research tells us that they work, especially the negative ones.  By watching these commercials, one can ascertain everything that candidates from both parties either hold dear or find troubling.  For example, candidate "X" is deserved of your vote because he/she supports or believes in:

1. Small Businesses

2. The Military

3. Good Jobs

4. Lower Taxes, and Fairness for Middle Class Families

5. Repealing Common Core

Meanwhile, candidate "Y" can't possibly be trusted, after all, "Y" believes in

1. Tax Breaks for Millionaires

2. Raising Taxes for Middle Class Families, in fact, "Y" voted 64 times to raise taxes

3. Obamacare!!!

4. Shipping Jobs Overseas

5. New York City

You'll notice that they never say how they are going to help Small Businesses, create Good Jobs, aid the Military, Lower Taxes for Middle Class Families, or repeal Common Core, they just "believe in it".  How do I know so much about this process, well, I once ran for public office.  I ran for the Town Board of Clifton Park.  There were two seats up for reelection and three candidates.  I did pretty well too, just not as good as the two people who finished in front of me.   How did I find myself running for office?  Well, since I asked, I think I'll tell you.

It was the spring of 2005, my father had passed away at the end of 2004 and I think I was looking to fill a void.  It might also have been the fact that the election of 2004 had not gone very well for the Democrats.  They got crushed in the national election, a combination of "9/11", the war in Iraq, and the weak candidacy of John Kerry.  It seemed like the country was becoming forever moved to the far right politically, and I hated the fact that Democrats just seemed so wimpy and afraid to advocate for what they believed in.  So, I joined the local Democratic party and in typical Robert Hoffman fashion was bored out of my freakin' mind after 15 minutes of my first meeting, plus there was nothing to eat.  Finally, it was mentioned by my neighbor who was co-chairman of the Clifton Park Democratic Committee that the Democrats had no candidates to run for town board, I said in a moment of weakness that I would do it, figuring, hey it might be fun, plus I think it's good for a Social Studies Teacher to either have military experience or political experience.  I think we all know I wasn't joining the military anytime soon, so it was with pride and trepidation that I announced my candidacy to a room of about 8 crunchy granola types and leftover hippies from the 60s, aka...the Clifton Park Democratic Party members.

Now,  to say I had an uphill battle would be a very pronounced understatement.  Clifton Park is about as Republican as Kansas.  Plus, the Town Board hadn't had a Democrat on the board since 1994, but if I got enough Democrats out to vote, then who knows?  The other issue I had was money, I didn't have any, neither did the Democrats of Clifton Park.  My two opponents, the incumbents had $15,000 each, I had about a $1000 after soliciting everybody I knew.  Most of my money went to signs, like this one:

  

I went with a red sign hoping that people might think I was a Republican.  I didn't include blue because I couldn't afford a second color on the sign. This was basically my campaign strategy, this and walking door-to-door introducing myself to the good people of Clifton

Park.

Meeting people on the campaign trail was interesting,  partially comical and partially terrifying.  At one house, a guy invited me in saying that if I could clean up his water, I could get his vote.  He then showed me a jar of blackish water that he had been collecting, telling me that this was what his drinking water looked like.  I told him if I was elected I would most certainly look into it.  I wonder if he voted for me?  Then I was invited to a debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters.  It wasn't much of a debate since the other two candidates didn't bother to show.  The good news was that I easily won the debate, even though I was almost thrown for a loop when somebody asked me a question with the phrase "parcel of land".  My confusion centered around the idea that I didn't know what a "parcel" was.    After the debate, I was cornered by the "duck" guy.  He was a man who had a pond in his backyard who had collected dozens of waterfowl.  The town and his neighbors didn't approve.  Maybe it was the quacking and honking, or maybe it was the droppings, either way he was fighting to keep his little sanctuary.  Once he had me cornered, he started yelling at me, explaining how local government was acting like the "Gestapo" in making him close down his impromptu little birdie reserve.  Once he stopped poking me in the chest,  I promised him I would look into it.  My wife and I also attended gatherings at senior citizens houses, where the only positive that seemed to come out of it was that the "old ladies" all agreed that my wife was prettier then the Town Supervisor's wife.

 By far the worst part though was the sleaziness of the whole affair.  You would think that the their wouldn't be too much at stake over a town board election, but local politics is no better than the national variety.

 The Republican Town Chairman must have decided I was some sort of threat to his hold on power, so he put out what is called in politics, a "Hit Piece"!  It was a flyer with a picture of Laurel and Hardy dressed as professors (Since I'm a teacher I suppose) saying it didn't make sense that I would run for anything since I hadn't voted in any town elections previously.  This was partially true.  I didn't even know about the town board until a couple of years before this so I never took any notice or

interest.  I think there was also a picture of a monkey on the other side of

the flyer also dressed in a graduation gown saying all the things that had happened since I last voted.  My wife was appalled, I thought it was kind

of funny, although I thought the Laurel and Hardy reference was a fat joke.

 

Finally, with about two weeks to go before the election, I received a call from one of my two opponents.  This one candidate apparently hated the other candidate they were paired with, and wanted me to win even though I was from another party.  This candidate started telling people to vote for me, and even took me to campaign appearances, all on the "down-low" of course.  Very strange.  I felt like "deep throat", not the porn-star, but the political squealer.  In a way, like the sexier "deep throat", I was about to get fornicated in this election.

In the end, it was probably better that I lost.  Sitting at a weekly meeting listening to people's problems, while noble, really isn't in my wheelhouse.  Sitting home on my comfy seat watching "Monday Night Football", now that's something I can get behind!