Brooklyn Bridge / Genius Marketing

  I have an idea for selling sneakers to girls, what with girl-power and all. But to simply advertise my new product is expensive and time consuming. Wait, I have an idea!  How about if I have a nine-year-old girl with a complicit father write me a letter first and ask why she can't buy the shoes in her size.  I'll bet that will garner loads of free publicity in a matter of hours.  The public loves human interest stories  like that.
   If they were enthralled by the huge cow story, they'll buy into anything. I don't think there was a single media outlet that didn't feature the huge steer. Over 6 feet tall, it was said. A gigantic steer towering over the other cattle, too big to be slaughtered. But why is  a lone Holstein in a field with a herd of lesser brown cows, of a breed known to be small in size.  Where did big cow come from?
   A number of years ago, there was a trailer at the Schaghticoke Fair featuring a giant cow. It cost a dollar or so to go in and view "the largest cow you've ever seen." I remember because to one of my kids that was the year's top attraction. He would hit anyone up for a fistful of quarters so he could run up the ramp into the trailer and see the massive animal.  Of course, there were scores of very large-sized cows  in the regular cattle barns, probably of about the same size. But since everything is relative, a cow standing in a trailer will appear to be of a more impressive size than if standing in a stall among many other similarly sized cows. Just as a single large cow will look immense when pastured with a breed of small cows.  Or puppies.

Private problems. Publicly aired.

    I had so many calls to make today that I haven't even gotten to the only bright spot of my day--the Cryptoquip.
    Call #1 was to John Ray about unwanted fuel delivery. Rep saw there was a Delivery Stop  on March 24.  She doesn't know what to do about it. She'll ask  somebody, who is to Call Me Back.
    Call #2 was to Mirabito.  Why  my online bank check was returned for insufficient information she couldn't say. They will send me a statement, and  I should call the bank and ask.
    Call #3 was to Omnicare Prescription Co. about responsibility for charges, She knows nothing about the source, can't help me. Call the VA, or VVH, anybody but them.
    Call #4 was to VVH about prescription responsibility. She'll have Allison  Call Me Back, but in meantime call Finance Director.
   Call #5 was to VVH Finance Director.   I left message. He is to Call Me Back.
 While I wait, I'll address the Cryptoquip.

Fate

   Bill's close friend during their childhood years in Kingston was his cousin Jim, Jr.  Their lives would separate when Bill entered the military and would settle across the country, where he raised his family, which included 6 children.  His cousin took over the successful family liquor distribution business, and raised his family of 3 children.

    Both cousins' first-born were sons, born within a few years of each other:   Paul and Jay.

    One had the reputation of "not taking very good care of himself," and recently succumbed at the age of 60.

    The other was an avid and driven four-season athlete, a competitive swimmer in his youth.  He was known for 4-hour daily physical workouts and his activities: biking, hiking, kayaking, skiing, mountain climbing, had climbed all 35 Catskill mountain peaks. He regularly rode his bike 125 miles from Woodstock to his summer properties in  Lake George. Four years ago, he died at the age of 54. He'd choked while eating dinner with his father at a restaurant.  

   We who survive attempt to attach consequences for lapses in judgment in taking care of our mortal coils, and statistically with some rationale.  But in the chaotic stream of life, taking control is often only a metaphor for whatever happens.  (Both fathers are now in their 80's, apparently not that committed to any particular regimen.

Scrooge-itis

   I'm watching my first Christmas show of the year. It started off with Pentatonix and has gone steadily downhill since, if that's even possible. Talk about phoning it in. But who likes those old holiday songs anyway? Unless of course Hoda is dancing with Al.
***Today the John  Ray fuel truck stopped and made a delivery. Odd enough, because I'd called them last spring saying to stop deliveries because their price was too high. Polsinello, now Mirabito, filled our tank Nov. 12, and price was $3.179 per gal. Average NYSERDA quote was about $3.14.  John Ray's price today was $4.299 per gal. Tank only took 50 gal. because it was recently filled.  So I'll call John tomorrow---looks like he owes me 50 bucks.
    I could gripe some more--there are issues---but I'll stop and count my blessings. There are some.
    Gotta go---Jingle Bell Rock is on.    O, Lordy, the annoying kid and the puppet, AND, no less than Howie Mandel grotesquely embarrassing people while pimping his show, and John Legend with the worst lip-synching performance in the history of TV.  I wonder if the Christmas Tree will be blood-red.
 

Paul

April 27, 1968

Phillip, Paul, Thomas      (3 little cowboys)                                                                       
 Bottom, Far right--Paul, (Eric) Thomas, (Tammy) Philip   Nov. 22, 2018   
     (Herman F. Schroder April 12, 1908--November 18, 1977   Age 69)                       

What's going on in there?

Turkey bag?

Well yes, please, if such a thing exists. So the check-out person deposited my 24+ lb. turkey into---the turkey bag. And, yes, it made it much easier to carry.

Dorothy's Rose---Thanksgiving Eve

Still here,

Trivia Minutiae

Yesterday, because my packaged  piecrust fell on the floor at the checkout lane, I learned that Walter makes his own piecrusts.  I didn't know anyone did that anymore.  (I told him I didn't mind that the edges might have crumbled a bit.)

Table

   I don't know where it came from. It may have been left in a house we moved into, as was a frequent occurrence then. People moved and with only a passenger car and a few relatives to help them out, they frequently abandoned large items that were not necessities. I don't know how long we were in possession of the table either, but I know we owned  it in Valley Falls until my mother gave it away. She had little fondness for old pieces of furniture or appliances, as she spent most of her life with old hand-me-down stuff that no one else needed or wanted.
   The first house I remember the presence of the table was the Schmidt house we rented in Melrose.  I think now the table  would be referred to in the antique furniture description as a library table. It was dark wood with a shallow drawer in front and a built-in magazine rack on either side. There was a shelf or narrow platform across the bottom of the table, maybe for additional storage or a place to rest your feet. But to me, at three years old, the table was a secure hiding place, and the bottom shelf a sort of cot.  I remember crawling into that space when I felt sad and alone. I think I felt that way because our mother, though always at home, was so busy trying to keep everything together, she didn't have a lot of time to nurture her kids'  sensitivities. She was busy dawn to dusk with endless chores that would be unfathomable in today's world.
     The house had no electricity, no telephone service, no running water, no central heat. All water for laundry, (done by hand) had to be carried into the house, heated on top of a wood stove, which she needed to replenish by toting the wood into the house, starting the fire, not to mention shaking the stove down and carrying out the ashes. There were tools for that---pokers and ash buckets, scuttles.  And used water had to be carried out in buckets also. To say nothing of the toileting facilities, also based outside. Wash days meant pumping and heating water, scrubbing clothing etc. on a washboard in a tub and then discarding the water outside. Almost everything needed to be ironed back then, in the days before wrinkle-free fabrics. The iron had to be heated on top of the stove, handled with great care, and re-heated regularly, unless you owned a second flatiron, which she didn't. Clothes had to be dried on an outside  clothesline though in harsh winter weather they were often hung on a line strung around the stove.
      There was an icebox, and the drip-pan for the melted water had to be emptied regularly before it overflowed onto the floor. The floors needed sweeping regularly too, remember no electricity, no vacuums. And my mother had to cook for a family of five, with very little access to grocery stores.
   In addition, my mother had outside chores to attend to ---chickens, a garden, other animals from time to time, including a milk cow which was bought when she observed the milking on a prosperous dairy farm we once lived on. She saw that the milk was strained for flies, and she couldn't stand to give that milk to her kids.
   So we kids were on our own a lot of the time. I would feel sad and sorry for myself, thinking nobody cared about me. And I would crawl into my secret  space under the table and cry.  Of course I never complained out loud or told anybody; none of us kids ever did. I would cry in private, hidden away from everybody, invisible.  Or so I thought.
    Then one morning, my sadness was outed. Uncle Joe, passing by, stopped, asked me what was wrong, and without waiting for an answer, handed me a box of Freihofer's chocolate doughnuts, which meant the bread man had just stopped by.  I remember running to my mother and giving her the box of doughnuts. She seemed glad to get them, so I was comforted and the  day got better.
    As I said, my mother got rid of that table; it's long gone, as are Uncle Joe and Freihofer's deliveries, but I don't suppose I could fit in that space now anyway.

A Million Little Things

   During the mid-term elections campaign this year, I received a great number of mailings asking for votes, many  of them duplicates or repeat mailings. I don't mind because campaigning is part of the democratic process, so I would look at them and discard them. But this campaign card is still  on my kitchen table. I put it there when I saw that Tistrya Houghtling was wearing a dress remarkably similar to one I wore in 1969. Now that's not an earthshaking announcement, but it just struck me. I remember that dress.
   The point is that if someone had been here, I would have said,"Look, Tistrya is wearing my old dress," And then thrown the card away. But having  no one to comment to, the card remains a stark reminder of the solitary life.
    Not that I ever read the newspaper to anyone in the house, but often there would be a comment or two, on a mutual basis. Same with television--watching TV shows alone is akin to doomsday, with no venue for incidental or frivolous remarks.  It is probable that any prospective listener would not be interested anyway, but when you live with someone, there is no choice, is there? Who would have guessed that a reluctant audience still served the purpose.
    Humans are social beings, and human interaction a necessity. That is why research is now showing that people can remain healthier if they avoid isolation. And not just through organized and scheduled visits by someone from the outside world. Recent studies showed that it is healthier, for those who are able, to live in a community where there are neighbors and regular occasions for even incidental contacts. Worth thinking about.
 

Dinosaur in the Waiting Room

   The other day I was in a medical office, having driven patients there for their appointments. Anticipating a wait of more than a few minutes, I found the magazine rack and picked up a copy of one of the selections. There was not a great variety to choose from, but at least the issues were current.
   When I resumed my seat in the waiting room, I noticed that I was the only person who was in possession of a magazine. All the others, except for very young children, were occupied with their phones. Every single one.  The office was fairly busy, and I, waiting for 2 separate appointments, waited for a considerable length of time. The percentage of phone users remained constant for each and every patient.  No one even looked at the magazine rack.
    No wonder it's now possible to pay pennies per copy for magazine subscriptions. You just need to assume the risk the publishers may go bankrupt before your subscription runs out.

Words of the Day

From pathos to bathos

Bud and Bug, November 7, 2018