July 2005

Don’t be late.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

This is my favorite clock in my school clock collection. It’s from my elementary school and currently resides in the music studio. I love the art deco look of it.

Eat Healthy.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Unfortunately, it’s very blurry but this is a nutrition label from a box of something like “Bubba’s Burgers”, which contains six 1/3 lbs burgers.

If you look carefully, you’ll notice that the percentage of the recommended daily allowance of saturated fat is three digits.

That would be 105%. As in five percent over 100%.

For those that are curious, no, Earl and I did not purchase these burgers. We found something much healthier in our grocer’s freezer.

I feel like I stepped into a time warp today. With my grandfather’s passing yesterday, I took the afternoon off from work and went up to my hometown to see what I could do to support the family. I figured they could use some help while services were planned, etc.

So I worked at the family store today.

It’s been 10 years or so since I last actively worked at the store. Items have been moved around a little bit. Some displays have been freshened up. But many of the same people come in, the procedures are the same and the schedule is the same. Earl has fantasies of me slinging lumber all over the lumber yard (he should have seen me when I was 17!), but I ended up working inside. (I’ll do some pushups tonight to make him happy).

Needless to say, I enjoyed working at the store very much.

I sometimes complain about life in Upstate N.Y., how I’d rather escape to somewhere else… Denver, Nogales, Ariz., Oklahoma City, Emmetsburg, Ia., it doesn’t matter as long as I’m away from here. It’s days like today that makes me realize that yes, I am crazy. It’s not so bad, in fact, it’s all good. Sure, there’s snow six months out of the year. The economy is in the crapper. People do stupid things.

But the grass isn’t necessarily greener on the other side. To paraphrase one of my favorite authors, the grass is always greener right here, over the septic tank.

My grandfather passed away today. He has been bed ridden for the last month or two with various types and flavors of cancer. Having accepted his fate, his last couple of meals a week or so ago consisted of beer and popcorn, of his choosing. The doctors gave him two weeks to live. He showed them, he lived two weeks and a day since their proclamation. He would have turned 90 at the end of August.

My grandfather was an interesting man. As I told my co-workers today, he knew what he wanted and nothing was going to stop him once he set his mind to something. He lived his life balls to the wall and wasn’t afraid to try anything. He rode his motorcycles through last year. He drove home from Florida this past spring in his ’85 Mercedes. He’d probably still have flown his homebuilt airplanes if my father hadn’t taken the engine off one and the wings off another after a few landing mishaps, one involving powerlines.

He grew flowers and a lavish garden, looked at the moon through a giant telescope, took up photography, traveled the country two months out of the year, enjoyed exotic breeds of dogs, built one of the largest egg farms in the county from the ground up, maintained a beef farm later on and built a successful contracting business, lumber yard and hardware store for quite a few decades.

Riding with my grandfather in a car was an interesting experience as he set his own speed limits and followed his own rules of the road. On his commute to the family store (mostly on rural country roads), he often hit three digits while driving.

He was brash and cantankerous. He was loud. He had his opinions and made them known. Ironically, his demeanor taught me not to be afraid of other people and not to be ashamed of my own opinions.

After my grandmother passed away in February ’96 (they were married for 58 years), he dated a couple of women before remarrying in July of that same year. I believe he may have proposed to each one of their first date, he found his second wife in Beulah. He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted to enjoy sex. I hope I inherited his stamina.

I’m going to miss him. Rest in peace, Gramps. Please send my love to Grandma. My love to you both.

With Wal*Mart changing the landscape of America’s retailing forever, I can’t help but long for the good ol’ days. Back when shoppers had a choice of where they shopped. Stores where you could walk from one side to the other without the need for a Service Area. Shopping experiences where you weren’t assaulted by surly greeters trying to supplement their social security or televisions hanging from the ceiling to compliment the noise of the snot nosed brat kicking his mother in the shin.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I go to a department store to pick up things I need, well, from a department store. I don’t go to get my hair styled, I don’t go to get fitted for contacts, I don’t go to do my banking and I don’t go to the department store to get my nails done.

I go to buy clothes or laundry detergent or cat litter or shaving cream.

I blame K-mart. When they went from the big red “K” and little blue “mart” to that stupid “Big K” big block K logo thing, the former S.S. Kresge Company opened the floodgates with their inevitable failure and gave Wally World room to expand. Those Big K’s weren’t any bigger than the old K-marts. Heck, they didn’t even carry appliances like the original K-marts did! And where was the popcorn by the jewelry counter or the K-mart cafeteria in the back? Gone!

If they had done what they’re Australian counterparts did with their K-marts by just updating the logo a little bit, staying true to their original course and keeping up with the times, I bet the retailing landscape would be a little bit different today.

And I bet I could still grab some popcorn near the jewelry counter. Sears Essentials my ass. Popcorn is essential!