Manners

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The children now love luxury, they have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect for elders …. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, and gobble up dainties at the table….*

I am astounded by the total lack of manners some people show today. Everywhere I look, I am surrounded by rude people with absolutely no respect for others and it makes me wonder about their upbringing. Sadly, this world has become a very impolite place to live in.

I would like to remind people of some fairly basic manners. Here are some of the most forgotten customs that I see that need to be brought back into today’s society.

I think the first set of manners that I was taught as a child was to always say “please” and “thank you.” Saying please and thank you shows good upbringing and is respectful. The one you are saying this to is a person and they are worthy of respect just like you are. Combine this with a “You’re welcome”, and you have a trifecta of good etiquette.

My parents instructed me that you are supposed to hold the door for anyone. It does not matter who they are, male, female, young, old, someone you love or someone you hate. You show respect to someone anyways and you hold the door open for them. I will do the same for you.

Excuse me, but I do not understand why we have forgotten how to say “excuse me” when we are trying to go past another person or when we accidentally bump into them. Since when did it become okay to bump into someone and act like it did not matter to you? Oh yeah, it never has.

According to gotquestions.org, saying “bless you” to someone could have begun in several different places. The most prevalent line of thought is it originated from illness. In 590 AD, Italy underwent a terrible plague and the Pope decreed that whenever someone sneezed, people were to say “God bless you” and make the sign of the cross over their mouths, to try to keep the individual from becoming infected with the plague.

Because a sneeze was a symptom of the plague, people who heard another sneeze and said “God bless you” took interest in the person’s life. So now, when someone sneezes, and someone else says “bless you,” they are displaying manners from a long time ago. This might seem like a trivial act, but it is something that can show someone you care.

It might just be me, but something that can tick me off faster than getting cut off in traffic is when someone you are talking to does not make eye contact with me while we are having a conversation. Eye contact is one of the keys to having a good conversation. People now days stare at their phones while talking to each other. When someone does this to me I just stop talking. Obviously what is happening on their small screen is more important than having a real conversation with me. When you are talking with someone, look them in the eyes to let them know they are important to you and you are listening to what they have to say.

Interrupting and talking over each other seems to be a national pastime. Watch one episode of “Jerry Springer” and you will see what I mean. There are a few acceptable times when it is OK to interrupt, like when the building is on fire or saying “Watch out” to prevent someone from getting hurt.

You don’t monopolize a conversation. I know your life is interesting, but so is mine. I have things in my life that I want to share with you. However if you are talking so much and I can’t get a word in edgewise or you don’t listen to me I feel you are disrespecting me.

If you are over the age of five, you should know proper table manners. You don’t chew with your mouth open, you keep your elbows off the table, you don’t reach in front of others’ plates, ask to have things passed to you. You don’t talk with your mouth full and you ask to be excused from the table when you are done eating. I learned these things via the “wooden spoon” method. My mother had a wooden spoon at the dinner table and if you transgressed…………………… well, you know what happened.

I believe in good old fashioned manners. I believe that a man should pay for dinner on a date. I believe that a man should come to the door when he picks up a lady, not sit on the street honking his horn. I believe that a man should open a woman’s car door and hold doors open for her.

* FYI The opening paragraph in this article is taken from a statement made by the philosopher Socrates (469–399 B.C.). I guess some things never change.

Norb is a freelance journalist from Lockport.

Surviving childhood in the 50’s and 60’s

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If you grew up during the 50s or 60s, then you are familiar with how laissez-faire things used to be. We didn’t have very many “low calorie” foods, ate what we wanted, and we were afforded much more leeway than we should have had. There’s a pretty good reason why kids today aren’t allowed to do half the things that we did, but maybe, that’s a good thing.

Parents then were much less worried about what they gave us to play with. I’m referring to toys with choking hazards, lead paints and sharp metal pieces. I remember playing mumblypeg. This is a game kids (mostly boys) used to play on the playground where they stand with their feet shoulder width apart while throwing a pocket knife between their own feet. The boy who gets closest to his own foot wins. Getting the knife in your foot was an automatic win. It’s a surprise that we made it out of childhood intact. Why more kids weren’t injured playing Jarts or using easy bake ovens I’ll never know

We were never forced to wear seatbelts by your parents. Hell, most vehicles didn’t have more than lap belts in the front seat. The absence of seatbelts indicated that you could sit anyplace you wanted. The most coveted seat was then the middle seat in the front. This is when front seats were bench seats.

When you sat there, you could control which radio station you listened to. I always flipped it to WKBW, 1520 “The music people.” WKBW dominated the Top 40 radio market in the Western New York area during the 1960’s. You also got the security of mom’s arm flung across your chest if your father stopped quickly. My favorite spot, riding in the car although was the “way back” as I called it. This was the cargo area behind the back seat of my parent’s station wagon.

However the very best place to ride was in the back of a pickup truck. No seat belt, no roof overhead, just sun in your face and the wind in your hair. A friend’s father even had an old school bus seat in the back of his pickup where we could sit.

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Back then, parents really didn’t grasp the need for safety. Kids raced around on their bikes or roller skates without head protection, knee or elbow pads. You learned how to fall so you didn’t land and split your head open, skin your knee or break any bones.

Probably one of the biggest of the “what the hell were we thinking” moments of the ’50s and ’60s was “skitching.” is a combination of SKIing and hITCHING. In its basic form, skitching was as easy as finding a slippery, snow-covered road or parking lot, and a passing car bumper.

The skitcher grabs the bumper, flexes their knees, and skis on the bottom of thier shoes through the snow. The car does the work and the skitcher enjoys the ride. Skitching is believed to have originated in urban areas in northern New York, probably cities like Buffalo with a regular snowfall (http://skiernet.com).

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In the playground in the summer I remember swinging with my buddies so vigorously that the legs of the swing set would come off the ground. We would jump off the moving swing and would be flying through the air. You had to learn how to “tuck and roll” so when you landed, you would not break any bones. We also had the burns that we got going down the blazing hot metal slides during the summer. We would steal our mother’s wax paper and slide on it. Waxing the slide would make it that much faster.

There wasn’t a nice soft rubber landing area in the playgrounds back then, either it was dirt or asphalt. And of course we had the Playground merry go round. That steel disk that went in a circle powered by your legs and could whip you around and around. Hang on tight!

If you had a younger sibling, then you would be given the task of watching them after school. You didn’t require any special training to be able to babysit. As long as you were 13 and could dial the operator, then you could babysit the neighbor’s kids when they went out. It was an acceptable practice during that era.

There weren’t health foods either things like quinoa, tofu or kale weren’t readily available back then. The less time it took your mother to pack your school lunch, the better. A whole generation grew up on Skippy PB&J sandwiches on Wonder Bread, a small bag of Wise potato chips and a pack of Hostess Twinkies,

There was no escape the pervasive cloud of cigarette smoke in the 50’s and the 60’s. From airplanes to restaurants to automobiles. There weren’t any limitations on where you were able to smoke. We most likely breathed in much more secondhand smoke when we were young than most people do today in thier lifetime.

We played stickball in the streets and went swimming in the quarry on East Amherst Street. There were no structured play dates and no cell phones. Yeah, being a kid in the ’50s and ’60s wasn’t without it’s hazards but we managed to survive.

Growing up in the 50’s.

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We had the junkman who would drive down the street in his beat up truck. He would collect your scrap metal to sell at the junk yard. The local cobbler would repair your shoes if the soles wore out or heel broke off. On garbage day, they would send a man ahead of the truck to bring our can to the curb. Then after it was emptied another man would take it back into the yard.

The milk man used to deliver to your house. I can still remember the rattle of the empty bottles in the wire carrier that he used. We had a wooden door in the side of the house by the back door for the milkman to deliver our milk and dairy products. This was called a milk box. If you didn’t have a milk box, your items were left on your porch in an insulated metal box. The milk would have a layer of cream on top that you would pour off to make whipped cream or to use in cooking. I loved the milk in glass bottles. A fixture back then was the “knifeman”, who would drive up and down the street and sharpen your knives, scissors, hedge sheers and the blades of the old reel type, hand pushed lawnmowers.

We had bread delivered to the house and had the rag man as well. Let’s not forget the fruit wagon. He would yell “Apples, peaches, strawberriessssssssssssssssssss.” I recall the popcorn man pushing his cart down our street with that steam powered whistle summoning us to come running. We would bring our precious coins that we had earned by returning bottles to the corner store and get this hot, salty snack. That is, if we had any left after buying our stash of penny candy, ice cream treats, & comic books. My Grandfather was a Fuller Brush man and he used to sell aprons and Fuller Brush products.

Around Christmas, the post office used to deliver a twice a day. We walked to school, coming home for lunch, and played outside till dark, only going home when the street lights came on. We were always playing in the street, roller skating, playing baseball or tag. In the fall, we played football. We used to call “Heads up!” whenever a car was coming.

My father worked every day and drove the only family car. This caused us to walk everywhere, parents just didn’t drive their kids around and you walked if you wanted to go anywhere.

We had a few chores, but then it was outdoors in the summer. In the winter we would go to a friends’ house or they would come to mine to play board games. You would walk to a friend’s house and see if they could play. Calling our friends by their name to come out to play didn’t involve texting. We would walk over to a friend’s house and yell “Oh (insert friend’s name here) can you come out to play?” We never rang a bell. If somebody was calling you, you would ask permission from your mother to go outside. It was a simple yes or no and no one got angry if the answer was no. Neighbors got along better than today.

Women were outside & visible around their houses hanging wash or doing yard work, watching their kids in the yards. Our basement contained a wringer washing machine for washing our clothes, our dryer was a clothes line in the back yard and our dishwasher was my mother. When I got older, the kids were in charge of washing and drying the dishes, setting and clearing the table.

The doctors made house calls if you were too sick to come in, or very contagious. Our family doctor visited me when I had the Chicken Pox and the Measles.

We would go home for lunch from school every day and we had a bank day at school on Mondays where we would take our money and get it posted to our bank book.

Every Wednesday we would get out of school early so we could walk to church for religious instructions. I used to stop at the local five and dime and get a small bag of Spanish peanuts for the trip. Speaking of school, there were air raid drills in school. We crouched on our hands & knees, in the hall ways, up against the wall, or under our desks, hoping the Russians didn’t bomb us.

We played with homemade toys such as kites, scooters made out of fruit crates decorated with pop bottle caps, scrap 2x4s, pieces of scrap wood for handle bars and discarded metal roller skates. I made a car out of a large crate and the wheels from an old wagon. You steered using a rope that was attached to the front axle.

There was also the “rubber band” gun. A long narrow piece of wood used as a rifle that we would put a notch at the top of to hold a rubber band made out of a used tire tube cut into 1/2 inch wide trips. You knew when someone shot you because of the sting that you felt.

I have memories of Fel’s Naptha soap that was used for anything from washing clothes, floors and taking baths. Sponge baths all week were the norm then when Saturday night was the night for a real bath in a claw foot, cast iron bathtub.

It was good being a kid in the 50s.

I tend to write much more than I need to

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I tend to write much more than I need to, but when I can’t write or get published it’s a very distressing feeling. A good day is when I get articles published in multiple places. My mind tends to become dependent on writing and seems to build up a tolerance to being published.

I find myself writing all day, late into the night and sometimes get up at five in the morning so I can write again. But I do catch myself nodding off in my recliner with my laptop in my well…. lap in the afternoon and early evening. Go figure.

I was nominated for the “Survivor of the Year” for the “Relay for Life” one year and accepted. One of my duties was to give a speech. I started out by writing a speech about my personal involvement with cancer and it was exciting. I felt I needed a hook to engage the audience so I started with humor.

I read my speech out loud for a week so I could get the cadence, mannerisms and inflection down and the day of Relay I was ready.

I went onstage with a thick pile of paper and thought I could feel the unarticulated groan from the people there. At this point I felt I was my plan was working. I dropped the papers on the floor and with great flourish and picked them all up clumsily.

At this point I heard a few muffled giggles. Nobody really knew at this point if I was doing stichk or not. After I composed myself I looked down at the papers and said “I wish to thank the academy, the Hollywood foreign press……” by now there was more quiet laughter but everybody was trying to be polite at this point, still not knowing if this was a comedy routine or a bumbling idiot.

I knew I had had set the hook and I was now ready to reel them in. I then looked up and scanned the crowd and said “Oops wrong speech” and everybody laughed. At that point I had their attention and I read the piece I had written for the occasion. A few people came up to me later and told me that it was the best speech they had ever heard. The heart pounding feeling this gave me made me want more and I thought to myself “I can do this”.

Up until then, I hated writing. Ninety percent of the things I had to write for a school assignment were written on the school bus on the day they were due. No sense in wasting time if we were going to have a snow day and school was going to be closed that day.

I started writing shortly after Relay I would write about about personal experiences, marriage and my thoughts on driving safety, volunteering and mandatory retirement. I would then submit them to local newspapers, hoping to get published.

After a few of them picked up my work, I started writing about more “hot ticket” issues. Issues that affect us as a city, a state and as a country. These included things that are driving us apart like education, the Vietnam War, the border wall and nuclear power. I got some fans and had some very passionate adversaries complaining about these columns. We all have opinions but I felt I had at least opened the lines of communication.

But writing isn’t successful unless someone is actually reading what you write. I know that it is important in America that we talk to one another about the walls that divide us as a country. That even if we disagree we must have civil discussions about that which comes between us. Any attempt to prevent this is censorship, pure and simple.

I am now being published regularly in three print newspapers, in three online magazines and have had my work published in at least 10 other places.

The First Amendment guarantees “Freedom of the Press” which is the right to circulate opinions in print without censorship by the government. Private entities however can censor the hell out of anything you write and you have, as a reader, the right to read and comment on a piece or just not read it at all. It’s no wonder I love this country.

In closing let me say,
Free Speech – Good.
Censorship – Bad.

We all have our own view points but please let us just discuss them respectfully.

Western New Yorkers know how to party.

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With all the thrilling things happening in Western New York all year, you will never run out of things to here. From the Taste of Buffalo which is the largest two-day food festival in the United States, Art Festivals, Garden Walks the National Buffalo Wing Festival to free outdoor music concerts and ethnic food festivals, our night life and festivals bring visitors to our area from all over the world. Last call in Buffalo bars is 4 a.m. and I’ve closed a few myself. Yes, Western New Yorkers know a thing or two about having a good time. From old-school working man, corner bars to, casinos and live music, Western New York parties from dusk to dawn.

We also have sports teams. There is a sport for everyone in Buffalo from Football to hockey to Baseball. We even have the Buffalo Bandits, a professional lacrosse team and a win by any one of them is cause for celebration.

Cities struggle for their own identification and often point to their growing food experience and talented chefs. But people are probably not coming to Western New York for the avant-garde of American food. I never did understand “small plates” anyway, where you get just a little food for an exorbitant price and have to stop at Mighty Taco on your way home for dinner.

That’s not to say there aren’t many great new restaurants here. It’s just that when you are in Western New York, eat what Western New York does best. Even when the fashionable food writers come into town, they don’t want to go to those new, innovative restaurants. They want to go to places that serve our local favorites.

That’s fine with me because nothing says Western New York to me like beef on weck, chicken wings and grease filled, Pepperoni cup, pizza, the best comfort food in America. Restaurants here are quite happy to just serve these regional hits. Things that they just don’t do right elsewhere.

Locals debate who serves the best wings until the bars all close, but Duff’s seems to be the number one pick. But who can forget the Anchor Bar, the birthplace of what the rest of the world calls “Buffalo wings.” This is what passes for a tourist trap in Buffalo

When every American city begins to seem the same, when Boston looks like Dallas looks like Chicago, Western New York feels one hundred percent like Western New York. It doesn’t have sky scrapers but it does have grain silos and every block has corner taverns that stay open until 4 in the morning.

You’ll find nightspots to party at all over the Nickle City, from Elmwood Avenue and Hertel Avenue to the Chippewa Entertainment District right in downtown Buffalo. Dance the night away at many of the local clubs like the Club Marcella, 67 West, Bottoms Up in Buffalo and The Vault or Nfusion Night Club in Niagara Falls.

To comprehend why Western New York is such a great area to live in, you need to know where it came from. It is situated on one of the world’s greatest inland waterways and as such it brought great wealth with it. Today, 70 years after its populace has hit it’s highest point, Western New York still has the Albright-Knox art gallery, the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, Many churches and world-class architecture from Frederick Law Olmsted and Frank Lloyd Wright.

The people here are real, hardworking folks. They’ve repurposed beautiful old architecture without any hint of pretentiousness. They party harder, eat much better, and make many more new buddies in one weekend than any other place in the country. This is truly the best area to live in.

Recently Western New York is being called upon to produce new opportunities. Instead of endeavoring to attract old industries back into town, Western New York has looked into technology and life sciences to boost itself. When young workers came here to find jobs, they found affordable housing and a rich cultural diversity parties and Festivals. Not a week goes by without several options to get turnt, one that is lit.

Buffalo has witnessed an uptick in residents aged 18-34 of over 10%. This is one of the largest rates in the country. And these new, young residents have modified the great things about old Buffalo and have turned Western New York into a hard-partying museum of this areas industrial past.

At The Old Pink, a sticky-floored, graffiti-walled, cheap beer watering hole, located in Allentown there is a view of everything that’s awesome about Buffalo. Here you will find college kids tossing back tallboys next to senior citizens. No one ever worries about what you do. In Buffalo, friendliness means pouring you shots of Jägermeister at 1:45 and telling you, “In Buffalo, this is how we get the party started.”

“Going out in Buffalo between 3 and 4am is one of the most unique drinking experiences in America. Crazy things that can happen,” says city planner Chris Hawley “The best nights in Buffalo are the ones you don’t remember.”

Make as many jokes about Western New York as you want, and there have been many but the people here know they’ve living in an amazing place. Spend a little time here, and you’ll understand it, too.

Christmas traditions

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I have written about family traditions before, this time I would like to share a few Christmas traditions from my past and a few that my children, grandchildren and I practice today.

My memories of Christmas as a young boy took place at 496 Berkshire Avenue, Buffalo. About a week before Christmas, we would go shopping for a tree. It had to be a long needle fir tree and it had to be symmetrical without any bare spots, nothing else would do. We would sometimes have to go to several Christmas tree lots that popped up on every vacant piece of land in the city. We would then tie it on the roof of our car and take it home like some kind of hunting trophy and I guess it was. It would spend a few days trussed up like a bird being prepared for cooking by on our front porch awaiting it’s role in our house.

The dining room table was disassembled and put in my sister’s room to make room for the Christmas tree. Once the Christmas tree lights were untangled, which sometimes took quite a bit of time, they had to be tested. My father was the only person allowed to put these on the tree. My mother would supervise and my father would have to swap bulbs until no two adjacent bulbs were the same color. We would then decorate the tree with all kinds of ornaments, both store bought and homemade. The final decoration would be “icicles” made of thin ribbons of lead.

On Christmas Eve my brother and I would retire to our bedroom on the second floor where we would have a hard time falling asleep in anticipation of Santa Claus paying us a visit. For some reason or other Santa would wrap our presents in the Sunday comic pages. I always thought he had run out of wrapping paper and was surprised that he got the Buffalo Courier Express. I think my favorite toy that Santa ever brought me was a battery operated, walking robot with flashing lights and “sound effects” that I received one year.

Many years later, after I got married, Donna and I moved to Massachusetts while I was in the Navy. We had a small tree but we couldn’t afford many ornaments. We made do with what we had and what people gave us. One thing I did was affix a starfish to the top of our tree that a buddy Ed and I collected from a local beach and had dried in the basement of my apartment.

That was fifty years ago. We still have that starfish adorning our tree. This has developed into a family tradition. All of my children have a starfish of their own now that sit atop their tree. A few years ago I gave all of our grandchildren a starfish so when they are on their own they will remember us with this tradition.

According to an old German legend, if you find a bird’s nest in your Christmas tree you and your family will experience health, wealth and happiness in the coming year. Who can’t use some good luck like this? We always have a bird’s nest in our tree and my daughter Liz has one in her tree also.

Other Christmas traditions our family has involve food. Every grandchildren gets to select, as part of their present a “Christmas” food from Nana and Papa. They have picked things like Ramen noodles, potato chips and whipped cream as some of their choices.

My son, Erik and his wife, Heidi also host a Christmas Eve dinner that starts with snacks during the afternoon, Olives and Pickles, Chips and dip, Buffalo chicken wing dip etc. Actually you could graze your way thru the afternoon and not need anything more. But then they have a full blown meal in the evening. We can choose from a cold cut platter and rolls, Beef on weck, Beans, macaroni and pasta salads, regular salad and many other dishes. They also set out Christmas cookies and various other sweets. One year they offered us homemade marshmallows.

Just in case you didn’t have enough to eat, the following morning my oldest daughter, Liz had a Christmas day brunch at her house. We have Stuffed French toast, Breakfast sausage links, Potatoes, Muffins, Eggs, and many more things to eat. With all this food, I was ready for a nap.

After Brunch we would all settle into the living room with me in a recliner in front of her roaring fireplace to open presents. I love watching the eyes of Ian and Kaelen, the younger grandchildren, light up as they rip open the colorful wrapping paper and see what gifts they have received. What starts as a controlled afternoon quickly turns into chaos. It is wonderful having all our children and grandchildren under one roof on this day.

This year unfortunately, her house has been sold and she is temporarily staying with us. My youngest daughter, Dawn has offered up her house for Christmas brunch as long as in her words “I don’t have to cook”. Dawn serves a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner so I don’t blame her not wanting to also do Christmas, so I guess Liz will be spending time at her house cooking our meal.

It really doesn’t matter where we hold our holiday celebrations though, they could be held in my garage or a storage shed on Transit Road. It’s the people and the food, the conversation and the laughter that make this season important to me.

Norb is a writer from Lockport that has also lived in Buffalo and Massachusetts.

The Gambler

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My name is Norb and I’m a gambler. (Muted response, Hi Norb.) I don’t bet on the ponies or play poker. I don’t play the over/under on sports games but I gamble every day.

When my alarm goes off and, at seventy, when I swing my legs over the edge of my bed, I gamble on the fact that when I stand up, my legs won’t collapse. I’ve been to the hospital a few times when I “melted” as I call it. I don’t fall, just slowly collapse to the ground because my legs can’t support me.

Once I am up, I shuffle to me kitchen where I lay bets on a number of things. I make myself a breakfast sandwich and I gamble several times. I make myself a ham, egg, cheese and kimchee breakfast sandwich in the microwave. According to Consumer Reports, “More than 10,000 people were hurt using microwaves.” I gamble the egg I use won’t give me salmonella or the ham I use won’t give me food poisoning. I’ve had food poisoning, also called foodborne illness, once in my life and it wasn’t fun. As I cut my English muffin I am reminded that lacerations caused by kitchen knives affected more than 900,800 people in 2012, according to the www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. I gamble I don’t cut myself.

After I eat my sandwich, risking choking, I then go down my back steps gambling on the chance they aren’t wet or icy causing me to slip, go ass over tea kettle and doing a face plant on the concrete sidewalk at the bottom. My wife has put non slip strips resembling black sandpaper on the steps to help prevent this.

I then take my biggest gamble of the day. I get into my car, turn on the ignition and ease myself on to the road. According to driverknowledge.com, the average number of car accidents in the U.S. every year is 6 million. I wager on fact that every other driver isn’t DWI or Texting or Chatting on their cell phone and are paying attention to their driving. When you think about it, half the vehicle to vehicle car accidents on the road are caused by the other guy. I may be the best driver in the world but that might not help me if someone is acting unsafe on the roadway.

I also gamble, if it is winter, the road crews have plowed and salted the roadways properly before I drive on them. I have traveled on unplowed roads before and I slid into the ditch.

Other gambles I have taken were asking my wife of 50 years to marry me. This was probably the most important chance I have ever taken. I would have been devastated if she would have said no. I tried to “stack the deck” to favor me when I asked. Knowing how much she loved children I asked her to have mine.

Two children later, I also took a chance when I got out of the navy. The movers were supposed to be at my apartment at 8:00 AM and pack us up for the trip back to Western New York. Donna and I got up early that day and made sandwiches, filled bottles for our two daughters and prepare for our road trip to Western New York. We figured it might take the movers 3 hours or less to load up our merger possessions so we could head home. We packed up our Volkswagen Beetle with what we thought we would need for a few days, filled a cooler and waited for the movers to arrive.

They only missed this appointment by 12 hours showing up at 8 PM. By 11 PM we were sitting in our empty apartment and had a decision to make. Should we start an 8 hour long drive, in the middle of the night, in the ice and snow of January, after being up for 18 hours? Our other choice was to stay in a motel overnight and leave for home in the morning when we had some sleep and were fresh.

Donna, my wife was as anxious as I was to get home so we gambled on option one. She said she would stay awake and keep me awake during the trip. So I went all in. We loaded the kids and the last of our possessions in our car and I started to drive

The first 25 miles went well, Donna and I chatting about how glad we were to be going home, but as soon as we got outside of Providence, Rhode Island, Donna fell asleep. I gambled again and decided to drive straight through. This almost proved fatal. I tried to deploy a few ways to try and stay awake. I turned the radio real loud and opened my window allowing the freezing air in.

I had fallen asleep a few times during that long trip but I would manage to wake up when my tires would hit the shoulder. The last time I fell asleep however I woke up in the median to snow flying over my car as I was plowing it. I jerked my steering wheel to the right and popped back on the roadway like a Jack-in-the-Box. Thank god no one was hurt.

We all are unaware we are gamblers and unknowingly gamble several times a day. Follow Norb at https://whywny.home.blog/

Unsubscribe me, again.

They start early in the morning. A sound wakes me up from a sound sleep and I’m still in a fog. I don’t remember setting my alarm clock for this early in the morning and I slap the top of it several times. The ringing doesn’t stop though. At that point I realize it isn’t my alarm clock at all but the phone on my wife’s nightstand. I roll over and reach for it. In the process I knock her two lotions, her alarm clock and the television remote to the floor.

I stare bleary eyed at the display and the best I can make out is that it is from the 716 area code. Seeing as I don’t know everyone’s home phone and cell phone number by heart, especially that early in the morning, I answer it. It might just be a grandchild calling for help.

I say hello and a sweet sounding voice on the other end introduces herself as Jessica from “credit card services” and she says she has been trying to reach me. This is a surprise to me because I am home, at this number 24/7. She tells me this is my last chance to lower my credit card bill.Oh Jessica, don’t toy with me, I know you will be calling again, 2 or 3 times today.

Sweet sounding Jessica tells me that they have been monitoring my credit card account and can lower my interest rate. This all sounds good but I never pay interest on my credit cards. Just when I thought that we were getting along so well, she passes me off to someone else and this voice says to press 1 to talk to a representative. But I am given another option to be added to their do not call list all I have to do is press 2. I think all this does is verifies that a human answered the phone.

So I press 1 and am put on hold. A different sweet sounding voice tells me that my call is valuable, that all their representatives are busy helping other customers and my call will be answered in approximately 7 minutes. When my call is finally answered, gone are those sweet sounding voices and someone named Josh answers. He asks if I want to lower my monthly credit card bill. I answer “Actually I just want to be added to your do not call list.”I hang up the phone well knowing that MaryAnn or Sarah will be calling me soon from a different number with the very same offer. If you call back the number listed on your caller ID, you will probably reach a little old lady whose number was“spoofed“.

Later in the day, Bob or John, I forget which, calls me and offers me the deal of a life time on new windows. He says he will be having a crew in my area next week and they can look my job over. I have to press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish. So I press 1 and get a real live salesman. OMG a human!

I tell him we replaced all our windows last year and I don’t need to replace them already. I then ask him to put us on his “do not call”list. I barely get this out when I hear a dial tone. I know in my heart this was an exercise in futility. Bob, John, Fred or Steve will be calling to offer me an “end of the season” discount price on siding, gutters or roofing. I think they are all related. I don’t need any of these things as I have taken care of them within the past few years.

At dinner time I am interrupted by someone that wants to help me pay for my medications. I take a chemo drug that costs over $11, 000 a month. That’s not a typo, eleven thousand dollars a month. This very expensive drug costs me a $20.00 per month copay, out of pocket, with the insurance I have purchased. If I have done my math right, that is a 550% discount. I don’t think they can do better.

I’ll be “relaxing my eyes”, after dinner, in my recliner,when the phone rings. Energy solutions, Pay less for Gas, or some other such name(every day it is a different name but the message is always the same) wants to save me a boat load of money on my utility bills. Right after that someone calls to give me the chance to save money on my phone bill. All I have to do is subscribe to their service and get VOIP. (Voice Over Internet Protocol). If someone you know that has VOIP ever called you it is like talking over a CB radio or a walkie talkie, only one of you can talk at a time.

They usually continue with this barrage of calls until around 8 PM but we have received a few after 10 PM. It’s nice, all these people who want to save me money. They used to just call during the day, during the week, during business hours but they are now calling in the weekends and in the evening. They have even invaded my cell phone. Here’s a hint. If I need your service, I will let you know. This will save us both time.

Don’t call me, I’ll call you.

Norb is a writer from Lockport You can contact him at nrug@juno.com.

Note: This article has also appeared in Buffalo Rising

Thanksgiving

I value the traditions we have around the end of the year but some traditions are set in stone and some are a bit more fluid. We have burgers and fireworks for the Fourth of July, a tree and egg nog for Christmas and a turkey with cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving.

Good conversation, delectable smells and the laid back mood make Thanksgiving one of my favorite meals of the year. I will always have warm feelings about this day.

The planning for Thanksgiving starts shortly after Halloween. Who has the folding chairs? Who is going to bring which dish? My wife and I always bring the turkey and she selects one of the largest ones she can find. She starts thawing it ahead of time so it will be ready for roasting.Then early Thanksgiving my wife starts the long process of cooking the bird soit will be ready for meal time.

We have three generations of Rugs that show up for this holiday. The younger grandchildren shrieking and running is the first sign that the guests have arrived and everyone is greeted at the door by these family members.

With my whole family comfortably gathered around, I can’t help but feel content. The relaxing noise of a house filled with the people I love mingles with the sound of a video game and I can’t think of anything that I would rather hear.

My Daughter’s home is airy, with a large island where she would lay out the appetizers. We used to have a seafood tradition where I would buy shrimp, clams, smoked salmon etc. that we would lay out before dinner along with chips, dips, salsas, pickles, etc. Honestly you could make a meal from the appetizers. I had to quit buying the seafood however as it got too expensive to buy crab legs for a dozen people.

Once the cooking starts, the kitchen seems a bit cramped though, like working on a food truck. The delicious smell of a turkey roasting fills the house with delicious aromas. It’s all worth it though when the aroma of the Brussels sprouts roasting in the oven waft out to fill the house in yet another delightful smell. From the timemy wife starts cooking the turkey until the satisfaction of that last bite,when I am too full to move, Thanksgiving never fails to fulfill my expectations.

When the large assortment of dishes is finally cooked and put on the dining room table, we all sit down and it’s time to dig in to a family style meal. My daughter serves up the best corn dish ever created. It’s creamy, with a smooth texture but she serves many, many more delectable concoctions.But every dish is better than the last and to just sample every dish on the table fills your plate. You need a side plate to hold your dinner roll.

Dinner conversations are lively, with hilarious jokes that have me laughing so hard my eyes are tearing and stories that often revolve around my children’s childhood. The conversations around the table are refreshing change from the chaos of everyday life. When my whole family is at my daughter’s house, we have to split the family into the adult’s table and the kid’s table. This is a poor description though, considering some of my grandchildren are all grown up and living by themselves. In fact one year I ate at the kid’s table and I am the oldest family member, the patriarch of this motley crew.

I promise myself each year that I’m not going to eat too much but it always happens. Just when you have had to open your belt a hole or two and you think you are done, the table gets cleared and the homemade desserts come out. There are usually three to choose from and you have just small piece of each one so you won’t have to unbutton your pants. Every year I feel as if I could just make it to the couch and take a nap, I would be fine.

Once dinner was over we would go back to the living room to watch some grade B horror movies. We used to have a competition to see who can find the worst movie. My son won one year with a movie called “bad taste“. Talk about truth in advertising. Unfortunately this tradition had to change the year that a movie depicted a head rolling across the floor and my grandson took off saying “I’m outta here “.

The hours of work preparing the food are always worth being able to share a meal with others and with all the wonderful people in my family, it’s impossible not to have an enjoyable time. With its easygoing,laid back attitude, Thanksgiving almost tops Christmas as my favorite holiday of the year.

The comfortable attitude is infectious, and for a time we can all forget our worries over a cup of steaming hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows.

From my family to yours, have a happy Thanksgiving.

Note: This article has also appeared in The Union Sun and Journal, Buffalo Rising, The Buffalo Chronicle and Art Voice.

Do children deserve/need an allowance?

money pink coins pig — Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com

As a young child, I got an allowance and spent it unwisely buying my “friends” penny candy and comic books. I found out my “friends” were gone as soon as my money was. Lesson learned.

Allowances are powerful things. Children should be allowed to make unwise purchases, because we all learn from our mistakes. Allowances are most children’s first exposure to the power of personal choice that financial means can bring. It is for this very reason that parents may approach it with fear. Children need to understand the value of money, and will only learn this when they have their own money. Receiving an allowance can teach children the basics of how to be responsible and self-reliant.

Children need the opportunity to spend and save their own money. As I got older and stopped receiving an allowance I went to work. I worked at a stable and then on a chicken farm. I learned that I needed to work for my money and not to be dependent on my parents for everything. I remember buying my first car at 16. I didn’t need any help paying for it. I also had to pay for all my car expenses myself like gas and insurance. I learned true money management this way. Children will learn how to make a budget and spend accordingly. As parents we may be responsible for the basics, but kids who earn money should become responsible for the frills.

Let me tell you how we used to do it. My kids grew up in the era where your popularity depended partially on whose name was embroidered on the seat of your jeans. I believed we, as parents, were responsible to buy them jeans but I balked at paying for a designer name. My girls were working at the time so I proposed the following. I would give them the price of a reasonably priced pair of generic jeans. If they wanted designer jeans, they paid the difference. They quickly decided the designer jeans just weren’t worth the extra money and got the jeans I gave them the money for. I did something else with my children to measure how they were learning fiscal responsibility. I gave them all ten dollars with the stipulation they had to spend it on something totally impractical. At the end of a week they had to give it back if they didn’t spend it. My oldest daughter had to return the money because she just couldn’t spent it foolishly. I was so proud.

You are not going to kill your kids by teaching them how to be responsible with money. Our job as parents is to prepare our kids for adulthood. You won’t rob them of their childhood and you’ll teach them lifetime lessons that our school system does not. By giving them an allowance you will teach the concept of budgeting, how to avoid unnecessary purchases, how to save towards a bigger goal, teach them responsibility and give them independence. An allowance can be a great way to teach kids money management skills and help them learn how to make decisions, deal with limited funds, and understand the benefit of saving. There’s no single correct way to handle giving an allowance. Deciding when to start, how much to give, and whether you want to link the allowance to chores are choices that should fit your family.

No set age is best for every kid, but consider starting an allowance by the time a child is by 10 years old at the latest. By then, most kids have had experience making thoughtful spending decisions but still look to parents for guidance. Regardless of how much you choose, give the allowance regularly and increase the amount as your child gets older. Should an allowance be tied to chores? Again, it’s a personal choice. Some experts think that it’s important to make this connection so that kids learn the relationship between work and pay. Others say that kids should have a responsibility to help with housework, above and beyond any financial incentive. In the end, you must decide what works best for you.

Whatever you decide, be sure that all parties understand the arrangement. If some of the allowance is to go to savings, consider setting up an account at a local bank. This way, your child can keep track of the money. Many banks offer special bank accounts for kids, and yours may enjoy the experience of getting mail and seeing their money grow.