The Way We Were The 1973 film by that name starring Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand was impactful to me for many reasons. To begin with, the author of the script and the book on which the movie is based, Arthur Laurents, was a Cornell University graduate who was a contemporary of my mother. He was born about 10 months after my mother, so he was probably not Class of 1937, but he wrote his…
Hope Is Making a Comeback They say that the best political campaigns are those that appeal to change for the future. While people are generally fearful of change, they also want it because it gives them something to look forward to and few of us are ever totally content with the status quo. Normal modeling would suggest that there should be 20% of the population that likes what it has and is more worried about…
DNC Denouement Today starts two gatherings of great interest to many Americans. In Flushing Meadow we have the start of the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament, and in Chicago we have the start of the four days of the Democratic National Convention. I first went to the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament in 1977, the last year it was played at The West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills. That was a small, but grand venue with…
Turning The Page On this, the first day of the DNC, the big talk is about the speech tonight by Joe Biden, who will be introduced by his wife, Jill, and will give both him and the audience of loyal Democrats at the convention his final say and give him their final farewell. The questions that are most prolific today in the convention hall, outside amongst the protestors and on the air among the pundits…
What’s Up Tiger Lily? Kim is not a fan of Woody Allen. That is mostly a position she has taken due to his personal life choices, like marrying his wife’s adopted daughter, Soon-Yi. One might think she would get over it as Woody and Soon-Yi have now been married for over 30 years, but I guess once a child molester to her, always a child molester. I, on the other hand, always think of Woody…
Economizing I have often said that if and when I write my definitive autobiography, there is only one title that I can use. I will call it The Hole in My Pocket. That title suits me because I have lived life without much budgetary concern. Attribute this in a good way to my mother. Despite that she was a product of the Great Depression, it does not seem to have affected her the way it…
Out And About Again I woke up today with absolutely nothing to do on my calendar. That should be a good thing, but I am programmed to think that I should always have an agenda for the day, so its a little off-putting. Kim’s cabaret friend, Lenny, is here for a week of vacation and they are planning to go to his favorite San Diego attraction, which for some inexplicable reason is Old Town. I…
Why Don’t He Write? We started learning to write to family and friends when we went off to summer camp. I went to summer camp, and probably did write letters home, but at age eight, I went off for the summer to California (we were living in Wisconsin at the time) to meet and spend some time with my father. I still have a copy of the letter I wrote to my mother that summer…
The Doldrums The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone is a band of weather where the Northern Hemisphered winds meet the Southern Hemisphere winds in an area that approximates five degrees on either side of the Equator. Because of the heat in that zone, it is typical that the air is driven straight up, leaving a noticeable lack of surface wind and thus creating a becalming situation for sailors. The doldrums are thus characterized as a time of…
Burn, Baby, Burn Like every other homeowner in the western United States, I am going through a crisis of homeowner’s insurance. I know I am not alone and, in fact, the rising tide of catastrophic losses from natural disasters combined with the escalation in the value of homes and the replacement cost of homes have all contributed to a steep rise in the cost of homeowner protection insurance. I often quote my friend Joe, who…