Ponderings and Musings

New York Bodega cat as shown in New York Daily News.

My great Aunt Jenn lived in the “urban area” of Syracuse when I was a kid.  We wouldn’t visit her very often at her home outside of picking her up for family gatherings in the suburbs, but when I was in elementary school we’d visit once in a great while.  She’d give us a dollar each to head down to the corner store where we could buy candy or something of that nature.  I always liked the corner store; the owner didn’t know who we were unless we walked in with Aunt Jenn’s grandchildren. On those occasions we were greeted with a smile. The folks at the store spoke with an accent, though I don’t know the origin of it.

Growing up in the country we had two little stores about a mile from our house. Mom would venture there from time to time. One had a butcher in the back, the other store was a milk and bread kind of place. The cashiers at both stores were very friendly. There was something comfortable about having a neighborhood store, whether it was down the block or a mile away. It helped reinforce the whole neighborhood vibe. You knew these people and you wanted their establishment to thrive.

Big chains don’t do that.

Yesterday two ex-Google employees announced their new company, which is unfortunately called Bodega. Their get rich quick scheme is to place oversized vending machine boxes in strategic locations (hotels, condo and apartment building lobbies, gyms, etc) where, through a whiz bang use of cameras, phone apps, and Big Brother style monitoring, you can pick up the items you so desperately want from these impersonal boxes. App metrics will undoubtedly track your every move and someone will fling ads your way based on what you bought. It’s the way of the world, or at least the Silicon Valley.

The name Bodega comes from the convenience stores of New York and Los Angeles. These are neighborhood fixtures where you get what you need from a friendly face that you know and converse with. Chances are there will be an accent along the way somewhere. A curious fixture of New York bodegas is the Bodega cat. Probably not legal but they’re helpful in keeping mice and rats away. They are a fixture of the neighborhood Bodega. People love them.

The Bodega vending machine people went with a cat for their logo.

I briefly wrote about this on Medium in response to the blog entry from this vending machine company, but the biggest failure of this venture, outside of the misappropriation of the name, is the lack of human interaction. The lack of neighborhood.  The lack of community.

Our society can not and will not survive if we strive to be completed disconnected from one another. Internet and other technology based interactions can be a conduit to a more personal means of communication; we have several friends that we would have never met if it hadn’t been for the Internet. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a Gen-Xer or what, but lately communication confined to electronic means only has felt very hollow to me. We feed off the energy of one another. Though some are hesitant to admit it, we need a human connection to thrive. We need a neighborhood. We need a community.

Any technological advances that strive to reduce human connection are not advances at all but a step in the wrong direction. We can make it shiny and beep, but there’s no energy, no life force, in the cold of glass and steel. 

We should strive to support our neighborhoods, our local businesses, our communities and most importantly, each other. 

And don’t forget to greet the cat at your local Bodega.  

So Irma, probably the strongest hurricane ever recorded, is flinging her way through the Caribbean and headed toward Florida. Folks are evacuating key areas and I’m really hoping that the damage will be minimal and lives will be spared. I want everyone to be safe.

I’m noticing a lot of people voicing their prayer activity on various social media outlets. I’m curious as to the reasoning behind this type of prayer. Yes, we all want people and animals to be safe and damage to be minimal. But, praying to the God that allegedly threw this storm onto the face of Earth seems to be a futile effort. If God wants the storm to follow the path that he’s launched this storm along, why would he listen to prayers? Do we think God will reconsider his Irma plan? Was God wrong? Yes, we want people to be safe, but why on Earth would a rational person think God is going to spare someone because of prayer?

Look, I want people to be safe and I want those that are worried to find comfort through any means possible. I would probably do the same thing. But, logically and rationally prayer doesn’t make a lot of sense. Well wishes. Hopeful thoughts. Positive thoughts. Yes, all of those make sense to me. But prayer? OK, I guess….

If you find comfort in prayer then I hope you find comfort in your prayer around Irma. But I have a hard time reconciling rationalization around the effort. But that’s my hang up, I guess.

I have always been fascinated by regional dialects. I never really had a grasp of the concept until I left Central New York for Western New York to attend my first round of college; until then I knew there were accents (most notably a Southern accent) and that the folks downstate spoke differently than the folks where I grew up but in my mind those were accents. In Western New York they spoke much like we did back home but with a slight twist, for example, “pop instead of “soda”. I actually grew up fairly close to the pop/soda line in New York State, which seems to have drifted west a bit since I was a young lad.  When away at college talking with other students from the area there were other subtle differences that caught my attention, for example, folks from Jamestown would say “ming-ya” when they were irritated or for some sort of emphasis, though the folks were hardly Italian. “Ming-ya, that woman is an idiot.” 

My friend Matt lives in Central Pennsylvania and I noticed that he says “slippy” instead of “slippery”, which I think it kind of cool. I’ve picked up on “slippy” in other parts in that general vicinity. “Slippy” seems to have its roots in Pittsburgh which makes sense to me, because Pittsburgh has it’s own take on the English language and I find it quite endearing.

One of the things that I like about Chicago is that the dialect is fairly close to what I grew up with, albeit with a few twists and indications of local slang. The flat “a” sound reigns supreme, just like back home on the shores of Lake Ontario. Mary, marry, and merry all sound alike. It feels very comfortable. I think it’s the result of growing up at the opposite end of the “Great Lakes Accent” from Chicago. For example, I’ve heard plenty of people say “sammich” instead of “sandwich”. I’ve also picked up on “washroom” instead of “rest room”, which reminds me of Toronto and Kingston, Ontario. (I hardly ever rest in the washroom, my diet doesn’t really allow for a restful experience in there). There’s also slang like “Jewels”, referring to the local grocery chain, Jewel-Osco (though ours is just a Jewel). Sneakers are now gym shoes and apparently we’ll be entertaining in the frunchroom. 

Tonight I might of had a couple two three drinks while we were out and about in Boystown. I like the idea of having a vague count like that. It fits the mood.

Here’s a couple other articles on “Chicago slang”:

http://www.metroseeker.com/chicago/slang

https://giordanos.com/slang-words-used-in-chicago/

Many of my early memories involve cars. I can easily remember sitting in the front seat of a mid 1960s Chevy Caprice with my maternal grandparents. The ignition key was directly in front of me and I remember reaching for the ring of keys. Grandpa City gave me a ring of keys to play with as he sat in the driver’s seat, “are you gonna drive with me?” I can still hear his voice as plain as day. Grandma City sat to my right and off we went. I want to say the car was a dark blue.

I remember walking in the driveway of my paternal grandparents towards my father’s VW Beetle, which was parked along the barn (which was actually called ‘the hen house’). Everyone was happy that I was walking. It wasn’t long after that the Beetle was gone and he had a green muscle car sitting in the same spot. I remember Mom not being happy about the new car. “We should have talked about it first.”  A non-auto related memory from around the same era was when our mobile home was moved from a trailer park in town to the lot next to my grandparents’ farm. Grandma Country and I looked out the bedroom window at the lot where the mobile home would be parked. Shortly afterward Dad started building an addition onto the mobile home to add a bedroom, half a laundry room (dryer only), and a living room. I’m a little hazy on this but I think it was right before my sister was born. 

Earl and I constantly go on road trips. It is a very relaxing and grounding activity for me and I’m sure that’s because of the memories I have surrounding cars. As we drive along, chatting,  I’m always reminded of the excitement and awe I felt on our first family road trip in 1976, when we took Grandma City’s oldest sister, my great-Aunt Ruby, back to Blackstone, Virginia after the annual family reunion. We took the 14 hour trek from the shores of Lake Ontario to Blackstone in my grandparent’s 1973 Buick Electra 225. It was a boat of a car and my sister, Aunt Ruby and I were easily able to sit in the back seat together. Aunt Ruby nodded off. I looked out the window in all directions. I remember spotting an exit sign for “P.A. 106” and I was confused as to why Pennsylvania was abbreviated that way. (Many years later I discovered it used to be “U.S. 106” and they changed out the letters but left the periods in place when the route designation was changed). I remember being excited about passing through Maryland on Interstate 81 in less than 10 minutes. We ate at a truck-stop diner just inside Virginia before finishing out trek to Blackstone. Aunt Ruby and Uncle Archie lived on a big farm in the woods with no electricity, aside from some car batteries wired together. She cooked on a wood-fired stove. There was a cuckoo clock in every room. They were very friendly. We ate a late supper after the farm chores were done for the day. Aunt Ruby talked to her vegetables on the stove as they cooked. “C’mon little peas. Let’s get cooking.”

When we pass cars on our road trips and I see children in the back seat watching a monitor or playing a game, or I see parents in the front seat intent on their phones, oblivious to the world whizzing by, I can’t help but wonder if they’re being robbed of future memories. I have watched the world around me for nearly half a century. I have no intention of stopping.

I will keeping adding to the memory bank and smiling as I watch the world around me.

Jamie and Chris hold hands in public like it’s nobody’s business. If you think about it, it really is nobody’s business. I admire them both for being so open about their relationship.

I’ve never been a public displays of affection kind of guy. This is because I’m an old gay and I’ve always been terrified that the people with pitchforks and torches would descend from the heavens and throw stones at us like that poor woman in the lottery, simply because my husband and I stole a whimsical glance that made us seem, well, gay. I know this is my own problem and that I am riddled with some sort of internal homophobia and quite frankly, I know it’s a big fault of mine, it’s a big hang up of mine and I’m desperately trying to get past it. There’s a lot of things I’m working on getting beyond, like eating scrambled eggs, but the open displays of affection is a biggie for me.

Tonight we attended a wedding reception populated with a lot of military folks. The son of one of my best friends married his bride. The son is in the Air Force, comes from an Air Force family and subsequently there were a lot of military uniforms with people wearing them and folks that looked obviously retired military. The ceremony was beautiful. The reception was lovely and when the DJ called for all the married couples to get on the floor I froze, I hesitated and I withdrew until several people convinced me to slow dance with my husband amongst all this brass.

Once I held Earl and danced with him, as the DJ weeded down the dancing crowd by the number of years of marriage, I was in heaven. The predictable fireworks flew around in my head and I fell in love with him all over again. It happens everyday and this time it happened in public.

No pitchforks. No torches. Not even a tiki lamp.

The world did not end. My eyes were opened and I felt like I stepped into a whole new existence.

One of the things I found encouraging when we were talking about moving to Chicago was the obvious signs of tolerance, acceptance of all kinds of love, and the shunning of hate in any form. Before moving here I walked through several neighborhoods exploring the vibe of the area. Many of the churches, of many differing denominations, would feature messages such as the one shown in the photo I snapped last night. A good share of the signs would feature a gay pride flag. Rogers Park, Albany Park, Wrigleyville, North Center: I found these hopeful displays of acceptance in all of the areas that I explored.

Many homes and businesses within a one mile radius of our home have a gay pride flag displayed in their window. Many more have signs of “Hate Has No Home Here” and “All People Are Equal”.

These displayed have helped me find hope in these turbulent times in our society. When Trump was elected president I pretty much lost all hope in society. I am still quite worried about the future of these United States, because hate has been validated by the very hateful leader that was elected by a minority of our population. But as a few have been quick to remind me, sometimes it takes a giant swing of the pendulum to get it to swing back in the other direction. Having moved away from a very red part of a blue state and into a bluer area of the map has opened my eyes to a future that is once again attainable.

We just need to continue to stand up, speak out, and more importantly, have hope.

So tonight I unpacked the last box for my office. It took a few notes from work to get the mortgage company to understand that my job and office were moving with me when we relocated to Chicago. The setup has been wonderful.

We had to take down one of the shelves the previous owner had installed to accommodate my Thunderbolt Display when my desk is in its standing position. Yes, I’m one of those guys that spends a good chunk of the day standing at my desk. I find that it makes me more productive and actually helps my back. I used to make DJs stand in the booth at the radio station when I was the Director of Operations back in my radio days. I always liked standing but some would get cranky.

There’s no standing for cranky in my outfit.

I’ve combined my work-at-home office with my pilot storage area. In the old house these were in two different locations but in our condo my office doubles as a man cave. 

I am without complaint.

So I’ve had a TV theme song going through my head most of the day. It’s from the early 1970s, is very marching band worthy and is instantly recognizable once you hear it.
I’ve been humming the original theme of “The Bob Newhart Show” all day.

I really miss the days when television shows had actual credits and accompanying music and visuals to set the mood for what the viewer was about to experience for the next 30 or 60 seconds. I think the only thing that really comes close to that is the new version of “Hawaii Five-0”, and when that series was retooled their original theme (which was a guitar riffed version of the original from the 60s) was shot down by test audiences so they went with the more familiar fanfare when the series finally made it to CBS.

Back in the late 90s and early 00s “Judging Amy” had a full blown theme song and that really help set the mood for that wonderful series. It’s a shame it’s never made it to DVD or digital download.

Back to “The Bob Newhart Show”. Since hunting down the theme this afternoon I discovered that the series is available on Hulu and I’ve been watching it on and off this evening. I was too young to watch it when it was originally on in the 70s. I remember finding Suzanne Pleshette as very pretty and wanting to watch the show in one of its later seasons but Mom told me it was an adult show and I had to go to bed. I loved the 70s independent woman in Emily Hartley. I also really enjoyed Bob Newhart’s deadpan delivery and comedic timing that he’s so famous for. The man is an artist. Watching a few episodes of the first season this evening has garnered a new appreciation for the humor. Yeah, it looks very dated but it’s still a very funny show. Of course, the later “Newhart” series turned out to be just a dream of Bob Hartley’s character in “The Bob Newhart Show”, as shown in what is probably the best series finale of all time.

In marching band we played a bunch of television theme songs of the era. “Magnum P.I.” and “Dallas” were both quite popular and the marching band won some competitions playing these songs in parades. I don’t know what high school marching bands play these days. Before we moved to Chicago we hadn’t been to a parade in a number of years. We’ll have to find a parade to watch in Chicago before the end of the summer.

Another nifty thing about the opening credits of “The Bob Newhart Show” is that as he’s walking around Chicago in 1972 I still recognize some of the landmarks from my short adventures thus far around the Loop. I love the old style ‘L’ train! A little research online confirmed that he was on the Ravenswood Line, which is known as the Brown Line today. I thought about making my own version in present-day Chicago, but that’s been well done by others on YouTube. 

It’s still fun to hum the theme song.

So I’ve been taking my little morning and afternoon walks during work around the neighborhood a bit. I don’t have my timing quite worked out yet. Back in Central New York I knew where I could walk in 20 minutes and be back at my desk right on time, every time. Here in Chicago I’m still figuring out how many blocks I can walk and get back to my desk right on time, every time. Walk too little, not enough calories are burned. Walk to much and someone is probably sending me a Skype message wondering where I disappeared to.

One of the many things I love about Chicago is the residential neighborhoods that I have been able to explore. With Jamie living here the last four years or so I’ve had the opportunity to visit the north side of the city and do some exploring and the residential area around our condo are quite similar to what I explored around Jamie’s place over the years. I love how you kind of lose the city a little bit when you venture into the tree-lined streets of these parts. I also love the architecture of the homes in the area.

Back when we lived in Central New York I would remark to Earl that all the houses in our area were wood framed houses with shingles or siding. There wasn’t a lot of brick. In Chicago I’m finding a lot of brick. New brick, old brick, lots of brick. And stone. Stone on the front of old brick, stone on the front of new brick.

All of the lots seem to be the same size here. Once in a while you’ll find that a homeowner has purchased an adjacent lot, subsequently doubling the size of the lot, but otherwise everything seems divided up in equal chunks. The majority of the houses in the area are square and take up nearly the width of the lot. There’s a lot of homes from the early 20th century with new homes interspersed in between. These new homes fit into the harmony of the neighborhood fairly well; brick, square and not overly pretentious (but still pretentiously priced).

I’m loving the brick. 

I lived in New York State for 46 of my 49 years in this life. The other three years were spent in eastern Massachusetts. Back when I lived in Massachusetts I would find differences in how things out in society worked when compared to New York, for example, the grocery stores in Mass. carried wine whereas New York grocery stores only carries beer, wine coolers and things like hard cider and Zima.

Walking through the local Target store today I discovered that in Illinois one can easily purchase wine just about anywhere. In New York you have to go to a liquor store. A walk through our neighborhood CVS Pharmacy a little while ago revealed that in Illinois one can also purchase rum and vodka (in addition to beer and wine and the like) at a drug store. New York State politicians would be clutching their pearls about this state of affairs. In Illinois it just is.

I like that.

Not to harp on drinking, but New York State’s laws on when bars close vary from county to county and sometime city to city. 2 a.m. is the common closing time, but Buffalo and New York are 4:00 a.m., some cities are as early as 1 a.m. I grew up near a “dry” town, a township where no alcohol was sold. There isn’t much to do there.

In Illinois it varies by municipality, but as I understand it, during the week last call is at 2 a.m. and on the weekend it’s 3 a.m. unless the establishment has a license that extends additional two hours. So on Saturday, some bars in Chicago can be closing as late as 5 a.m.

Now that’s a party.

Even though we’ve lived in Illinois for only four days I’m finding myself quite comfortable here. I spent some of the weekend driving to different places with Earl so that we could get some things for the condo that aren’t really accessible by train. Driving around the city streets isn’t awful. The grid system in Chicago makes it relatively easy to navigate. For me, driving in Boston back in the day was always a nightmare. While Chicago drivers are aggressive, and there can be some hollering and the like, the drivers seem to be fairly predictable. In Massachusetts you never knew what was going to happen. And don’t even get me started about Utica, New York where we used to live. When the traffic light turns green you must wait for three or four more cars to go barreling through the light before even thinking about doing what the green light says to do. And god help you if you’re in the left turn lane trying to make a left turn. The person turning left from your right will do everything they can to nearly clip the front of your car. People have no idea how to turn left in Utica, N.Y. Don’t go there.

I’m quite aware that Earl and I are still in the honeymoon phase of our move to Chicago but I don’t care. I’m loving it and I’m embracing it. It feels comfortable.

I’m already used to this.