CEO Pay. The Rich Get Richer

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On April 24th, 2021, the New York Times reported that many CEO’s of American companies hit by fallout from the Covid crisis, received huge salaries and bonuses anyway. Here’s their list of the top twenty highest paid CEO’s in America, put to a beguiling tune by the Flying Lizards.

When an average CEO’s salary is compared to a typical worker’s, a steep upward trend is obvious. In the sixties, people were outraged by a ratio of 21-to-1. By 1989 the gap tripled to 61-to-1—but they were just picking up steam. In 2019, it went to 320-to-1!

Put another way, from 1978 to 2019, inflation adjusted compensation for the typical worker grew 14 percent, and for CEO’s: 1,167 percent. Good work if you can get it, but no one seems to care.

You seldom see people picketing company headquarters or loudly denouncing the self-dealing that leads to these remuneration travesties. Instead, more outrage is directed at how Mr. Potato Head will no longer be called “Mr.,” and the discontinuation of a couple of unpopular Dr. Seuss books. That the rich don’t seem able to get enough, well, that’s something that just can’t be helped.

An oft repeated lament is: The rich get richer, and the statistics bear it out. In 1968, the top-earning 20% of households brought in 43% of the nation’s income. In 2018, the same group was getting 52%.

In 2019, the top 1% of Americans had a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion, which is about a third of all household wealth in the U.S. Conversely, the bottom half of the population holds just $2.1 trillion, or 1.9%.

What’s Good for General Motors

In 1950, Charles E. Wilson, who was president of General Motors Corp., received the highest compensation paid by any public U.S. company. In total, he received $626,300, comprised of a salary of $201,300, $61,205 in GM stock, and cash payments totaling $363,795 to be paid out over the subsequent five years. In today’s dollars, that would be about $ 7 million, which at the time was an absolutely outrageous sum. Not so much when compared to today’s glutinous excesses.

Charlie’s pay took into account the income tax rates of 1950, which for pay over $200,000 was 91%, of which only $1,300 would be taxed at the maximum rate ($201,300 – $200,000 = $1,300). GM deferred another $363,795 in pay over the next five years, and whether or not that was a successful tax avoidance strategy would depend on future earnings or changes in tax law.

Beginning in the fifties, the federal government gave beneficial treatment to stock awards, which is reflected in Mr. Wilson’s $61,205 worth of GM stock. By the end of the decade, such awards and options would account for about half of all executive compensation.

In 1953, Mr. Wilson joined the Eisenhower administration as Secretary of Defense. During his confirmation hearing, his ownership of $2.5 million in GM stock prompted someone to ask if he could make a decision as Secretary of Defense that would be adverse to the interests of General Motors. Wilson said he could and added that he’d always believed that what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.

In popular culture, the quip was shortened to “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country,” which he thought mischaracterized his original, more nuanced meaning, but it was the shortened version of the quote that stuck. Ultimately, Mr. Wilson was forced to divest the stock.

Stock awards and options continued through the fifties and sixties, but fell out of favor during the seventies (due to a soft stock market). Stock options came back in the eighties, as a way—the theory went—to make CEO’s act more like entrepreneurs, i.e., tie rewards and penalties to performance.

Pay via stock options was further boosted in 1994 when the Federal government capped the deduction for cash pay to executives at $1 million, with no such limitations on performance-linked compensation. Companies quickly restructured pay plans, which resulted in large and ongoing increases in option grants to CEO’s.

These grants provided incentive for the executives to improve stock prices, which for the nation led to all kinds of adverse, unintended consequences. The worst of these was the closing of thousands of US factories and the exportation of millions of American jobs to China and other low labor-cost nations.

While American CEO’s pocketed enormous amounts of coin, and stockholders saw their net worth climb, the gains were paid for by low-skill, working class Americans who could no longer earn a living wage at the local mill because the factory had been sacrificed on the alter of higher stock prices.

It’s always been said that a corporation’s executives had to answer to only one audience, and that was its stockholders. That is pretty much how it’s been, but in the days before low-cost ocean freight and instantaneous, world-wide communications, cost cutting meant moving a plant from New York to Wichita—or maybe decreasing how much cereal came in the box.

The advent of globalization however, gave the captains of many American industries new options that foreseeably wouldn’t result in positive outcomes for the nation. Companies no longer had to deal with stubborn labor unions who always wanted more. High-cost factories could be closed, and expensive labor could be replaced by workers making a tenth as much—and who knew if they had healthcare or decent working conditions. That was somebody else’s problem.

Nonsense was spun that the march of globalization was inexorable and would ultimately be a net positive for the country. Terms like creative destruction were bandied about as gospel, and people who should’ve known better nodded their heads. It was said that low-skill jobs would somehow be magically replaced by better, high-skill and more fulfilling occupations, as company towns all over the country died and turned into places of despair and hopelessness.

Another quick way of driving up profits was booking profits in other, low-tax countries. If that didn’t goose the stock price enough, the entire company could be uprooted and moved overseas, eradicating more American jobs and profits that were once viewed as foundational to the country.

In the seventy years since Charles E. Wilson expressed his heartfelt opinion that what was good for American business couldn’t help but be good for America, it’s clear that it’s no longer the case.

Before these CEO’s cost-save the United States into third-world status, America’s policy makers need to acknowledge this reality so work can begin to repair the damage done to the nation’s economic engine.

Cheers!

Joe Nolan

Go Another Documentary Film

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In 2006, my older brother Phil C. Nolan ran for the position of Islip Town Supervisor, which is akin to being Mayor. It would be his third try.

Beginning with my father, Phil J. Nolan, the Nolan family had waged many political campaigns in Islip N.Y., and as Democrats in a heavily Republican area, we were defeated more often than not.

As we geared up for the race, I feared that it might be the last time my father would campaign with us and decided to document my brother’s somewhat quixotic pursuit. It resulted in my movie: Go Another.

Unfortunately, the feeling I had turned out to be prescient, and Philip J. died shortly after his son was sworn in. As the race recedes further into the past, I see this movie as a pretty good object lesson in the benefits of never giving up. At the same time, the movie is a tribute to my father—and mother—who built a family that stuck together and won a few—quite a few—along the way.

Cheers,

Joe

Chris Christie’s Colossal Infrastructure Blunder

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Over ten years ago, New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie cancelled what at the time would have been the biggest public works project in America. It was called “Access to the Region’s Core,” or ARC. For the first time in over a hundred years two new commuter rail tunnels would be dug under the Hudson River.

When the newly elected Governor Chris Christie cancelled it, he claimed that it was because the state of New Jersey couldn’t afford it—even though New Jersey was only paying for about 15% of the total, and the preceding governor had put in place funding for the state’s share. Almost immediately, public transportation advocates and political opponents challenged his explanation.

As a follower of the project and the fifteen years it took to get it started, I came to believe a major opportunity had been missed—and not for the right reasons. This documentary is my take on what happened to the project and the long term negative impact it’s cancellation had on the region and the environment. It’s effect on Christie’s Political career is examined, as well as his new role as a talk-show pundit who still has designs on the White House.

With a new pro-public transportation and infrastructure Administration in Washington, it now looks like some version of ARC will be built. That is a good thing.

For any prior readers of this blog, you might have noticed that I’ve dropped the tagline: “Everything Reminds Me Of Something Else” from the header. Everything still reminds me of something else, but I decided to make these posts about just one thing at a time. Who knows, maybe I’ll be moved to create more of them.

Joe

Village Halloween Parade, Skeletons and Yogi Bear

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The Halloween Parade in New York City has been called by Festivals International, the best October 31st event in the world. It was started in Greenwich Village in 1974 by mask maker and puppeteer Ralph Lee. The parade began as a house-to-house walk in his neighborhood for his children and their friends.

Today the parade attracts 60,000 costumed marchers and about 2 million spectators.

I became aware of the parade beginning in the early ’80s, which by then was getting covered by the local New York television stations. During those years I’d watched the parade from my living room, probably with one or more of my children in my lap. The idea of dragging everyone into the City to see it seemed daunting, but I added it to my to-do list.

As the years progressed and those kids grew up, each year the thought of going flitted in and out of consideration. It couldn’t have been too high a priority because when the holiday arrived, I would again find myself seeing it on T.V.

I’d resolve to go “next year,” which brought back memories of my father telling me that Tomorrow Never Comes, which I now know is true and that Next Year arrives on exactly the same schedule, i.e. never.

But This Year does, and so it was in 2016 that on Halloween afternoon I drove to New York, parked at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and took the Subway down to the Village. Here are some of the sights and sounds I recorded—but make sure to come back and read about a mask my little brother Matty wore on Halloween a rather long time ago:

This parade is an amazing work of art—exactly as its organizers intend it.

Everything Reminds Me of Something Else

Hardly a Halloween passes anymore without my brother Matt regaling our family and his friends with the story of a hilariously absurd and stupendously incongruous Halloween costume donned long ago.

It happened when Matt was ten, which puts the year at 1965. We had moved to the Town of Islip, N.Y., which is on Long Island. Throughout the ’60s, Long Island and lots of other places underwent enormous development to accommodate the growing families of G.I.’s piecing their lives together after WWII.

This boom consisted of hundreds of single family housing developments, which were carved out of the Oak and Pine forests that covered much of the island. Ours was called Northwood Village, and was originally comprised of eight parallel streets that ended in cul-de-sacs. On each street were between 20 and 40 houses, with a choice of three floor plans built on lots of a little less than a fifth acre.

There were plenty of woods nearby to explore. There was a brook at the end of the street that had fish in it! Behind us was a swampy area that was habitat for frogs, turtles and other wildlife. You could ride your bike to the beach and swim in the Great South Bay. For kids from the five boroughs of New York—which most of us were—we felt like we were living in a gigantic wilderness playground .

One of the best things about being a kid back then was the presence of so many other kids. It was the height of the Baby Boom years and when we went out to play there were always other children around, usually enough to organize a game or join in some kind of adventure.

On Halloween all of us kids rushed home after school to put on our costumes and get to work collecting as much candy as possible. Kids back then did not go out Trick or Treating with their parents—they went with their friends! (If you were a baby you did not go Trick or Treating. You were a baby for Christ’s sake? What did you know from Trick or Treating?)

For the most part this unsupervised communion was great, but the downside was that far too many of those kids were judgmental little pugs who were always looking to find fault with someone and, once found, use it to ridicule them as viciously and unremittingly as they could.

Which brings us to Matt’s costume.

While Halloween was a huge holiday for kids back then, it was not one where great sums of money were spent. It was a holiday for kids to wear cheap costumes and eat cheap candy. This owed as much to the limited means of our parents and neighbors as it did to the more constrained mores of the era.

In those days Halloween costumes were sold primarily at Five and Ten’s, like Kresgee’s and Woolworth’s. They consisted of a rigid plastic mask of some character or another, along with a matching “suit” that was made of something like rayon, which was probably highly flammable and could be counted on to came apart at the seams after a single wearing—if you were lucky!

If me or my siblings made it known in advance to our parents that we really wanted to be some character for Halloween, we could count on them—usually Mom—to help us get something together. However, if a special request wasn’t made, you were going to find yourself at the mercy of what Mom could find around the house.

Around the house primarily meant what could be found in a single cardboard box that was kept in the storage room and filled with Halloween stuff left over from prior years (unless you were going to be a hobo, see below). As the contents of the box had not seen daylight for about a year, nobody except my mother had any notion of what might be inside, but it was known that much of it would prove worthless and unusable.

On Halloween ’65, Matt admits to not giving much pre-thought to what he wanted to be for that year, so it was left to Mom to make something happen, which she did. Unfortunately, in the box, Mom was able to piece together but a single costume whose wearing would give Matt an early traumatic experience and the basis for what has become a funny memory and matching story.

The costume started with a black jumpsuit-like garment that you stepped into and tied at the back of your neck so that its front presented a single canvas onto which was printed the decoration, in this case the bones of a human skeleton. So far, so good. Matt was going to be a skeleton, but then…where the heck was the mask? After some digging and double checking in the box, it was determined that it was not there.

I have a vague memory of a search of the house being called, which included looking “everywhere,” but I knew—everyone knew—that if it wasn’t in the box, it wasn’t going to be found. It was gone. What could be done?

Well, there was a mask in the box, it just wasn’t a skeleton mask. What was it? A monster of some kind, or a ghoul? Either of those might have been passably okay, something for which a defense could be mounted should the pairing be challenged by one of those little wiseasses. But it was not a monster. It was this:

Yogi Bear! That mischievous denizen of Jellystone Park, who with his sidekick Boo-Boo poached picnic baskets and antagonized Ranger Smith. (He was smarter than the average bear.)

Matt was terrified at the thought of putting on such a laughably illogical outfit, but he had to get going. He had friends to meet and Trick or Treating to do. A serious negotiation commenced. It was too late to get a new costume. He could opt for the old “bum” or “hobo” standby, which was executed by marking your face with burnt cork to make you look unshaven, and putting on one of Dad’s old suit jackets.

For her part, Mom didn’t think the combination was nearly as heinous as Matt did. After all, with a mask on nobody would know who he was—and even if they did, why would they care?

As time ran out, Matt reluctantly gave way to Mom’s reasoning and donned the Yogi/Skeleton costume. I spoke to him today about what happened when he connected with his posse, and he reaffirmed prior accounts of the total and merciless attack and humiliation. Their reaction to the mismatch was immediate and brutal.

Everyone noticed it, he said. All his friends began laughing at him and making sure everyone around knew it was Matt Nolan in the ridiculous costume. Little kids were pointing and laughing at him, and he soon felt overwhelmed with panic. He said he knew he had “to get off the street,” and decided to make a run for it.

When he arrived home my mother saw that he was shaken and very upset. She set about burning a cork and blackening his face, and replacing the jumpsuit with one of Dad’s old suit jackets and sent him on his way.

As I was talking today about this story today with Matt I mentioned the Village Halloween Parade and how wonderful it is. After some discussion here’s what’s going to happen next year: We’re going to go and march in the parade. I’m not sure what I’ll be, maybe a Hobo, but guess what Matt will be wearing? You got it.

Until next time.

Joe

My Prostate Cancer

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In 2008 I was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. As I educated myself about the disease and later underwent treatments, I decided to share what I learned with the 250,000 men who receive this diagnosis every year — all from a patient’s perspective.

I segmented the documentary into eight episodes of seven or eight minutes each, so total length is just under 60 minutes. The link below will take you to the play list, which will play them in order. They look better in HD.

If you want to watch them over a period of a couple days, just come back to my blog (getjoenolan.com) and after starting the video hit the “YouTube” button at the bottom of the video. This takes you to my channel where you can pick whichever episode you want to watch (and read older posts if you want).

Please share the series with anyone you think might be interested in this subject. If you have a moment and want to comment, feel free.

Everything Reminds me of Something Else

An important part of this documentary is the report that was put out by the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force. This report questioned the necessity for screening for prostate cancer and flew in the face of what was then the conventional wisdom.

This seems to be happening a lot lately. The most recent example of this was the report that Teeth Flossing might be unnecessary. The news broke when the latest dietary guidelines for Americans dropped prior recommendations for flossing. Somebody realized that they’d never fully researched it’s effectiveness.

The American Academy of Periodontology acknowledged that most current evidence doesn’t prove much because researchers had not been able to include enough participants or “examine gum health over a significant amount of time.”

Say what? I have never had a dentist that didn’t tell me with 100% sincere confidence that flossing my teeth was going to save me a lot of trouble in the future and only a fool wouldn’t do it. I’ve even read that if you floss you will live longer — a lot longer, like six years!

I do it at least once a day, often twice and on my biannual visits receive compliments on my routine. You can be pretty sure your dentist is still going to encourage it, but it surprised the hell out of me that nobody ever fully checked this out.

Remember how eating eggs was going to kill you because they had a lot of cholesterol in them? Well, the latest information is that it isn’t clear to what extent the cholesterol that you eat raises cholesterol in your blood. For years researchers have attempted to link the two but with very little success.

And then there’s drinking. True, drinking too much will do damage, but recent research shows that lifelong moderate drinking can ward off cognitive decline and improve brain function. This was reported in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease where in a study of 489 women, moderate drinkers scored higher than the abstinent or heavy drinking ones on cognitive function tests. One thing that hasn’t changed though is how hard it is to know what “moderate” is.

Joe

Hangouts, Fighting Old Guys and Schoolyard Games

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The Commack Road School

I grew up on Long Island in Islip Township. When my family arrived in the late fifties the town was still developing, which meant a great deal of building to support the influx of new residents.

One such project was the Commack Road Elementary School, which became a hangout for me and my friends during the mid-to-late-sixties. I recently took a walk through the old school and it touched off a few memories.

Everything Reminds me of Something Else

We used to play a lot of games at the school, all organized by us kids and without adult supervision. Aside from the pick-up baseball and handball, we played a few unique games that probably trace back to NY City. I really liked Johnny on the Pony. One team would form a line, with each member bending forward and grasping the person ahead of them around the waist. The guy at the head of the line would be pinned against a tree or a piece of playground equipment, usually the horizontal ladder, a.k.a. Monkey Bars.

Thusly arranged, each member of the opposing team would take a turn running as fast as they could toward the rear of the formation. As they drew closer, they’d leap as high as they could and slam down onto their opponents’ backs. The guy facing backwards was allowed to push the leapers off the pile. If they were rebuffed, they couldn’t get back on, so that element of the game could get pretty rough. As each player was added to the pile, the idea was to concentrate as much load as possible to the weakest section of the line and ultimately cause its collapse — which meant victory.

Don't believe any of our guys would stand for such inappropriate head placement

Don’t believe any of our guys would have allowed such inappropriate head placement

Then there was The Whip, which was more an activity than a game. Participants formed a line and held hands with the people on each side. The group would then start running across the field and through some dynamic I still don’t get, parts of the line would stop and reverse direction, which created a human whip with enough snap to send the kids at the end of it flying head over heels. Still not sure of its point, but it was a lot of fun, damn it — as long as you weren’t the guy at the end.

Another team sport was Ring-a-levio. One side would hide and the other team had to find them and escort them back to Home Base, which for us was a Jungle Gym that looked like the frame of a space capsule. The seekers would win by finding everyone, but if an uncaptured hider was able to run back to the base and tag it before any of the other team members tagged him, all the captives could escape and go back into hiding.

This game is particularly embedded in my memory because of what happened one night when I was making a move to free my captured teammates. I was able to get to Base unfettered and made the tag. With the other team coming from behind, I ran away as fast as I could but unwisely kept checking over my shoulder to see where my pursuers were coming from.

Just as I turned to see where I was going, my forehead struck a very sturdy steel pole that belonged to the aforementioned vertical ladder, a.k.a. Monkey Bars. I was momentarily knocked out, but for some reason didn’t fall. As the cobwebs cleared, I was aware of people standing around me. As soon as they saw that I was probably not going to die, I heard some laughter, which I wasn’t in the mood for.

“Who’s laughing,” I demanded angrily, which judging by their reaction was the funniest thing I ever said. Someone gleefully declared that my head striking the pole sounded like a church bell, which they found impressive and hilarious. Another observed that the bump on my forehead looked like a stack of about two dollars worth of quarters slipped just below the skin on my forehead. God, it hurt, and for years afterward, I could feel a little bump there. It’s finally gone — I think.

Tip for the day, friends: Watch where you’re going.

‘Till next time.

Joe

Composing Sticks, Pied Type and Despair

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H.B. Rouse and Company’s Composing Stick

This is a photograph of me holding a composing stick, circa 2015. If you know what this is, chances are that you’re…ahem, getting on a bit.

I first held one around 1965. I was thirteen and in seventh grade, and for students that weren’t considered college bound, most high schools offered Industrial Arts classes. The guys called them Shop.

As an introduction, we were offered a sampling of classes that were broken down by quarter. There was Metal Shop, where I made a cool, tear-drop shaped ash tray that I texturized with a ball peen hammer.

In Mechanical Drawing I learned how to develop a three-view drawing, which shows the front, top and right-side view of an object. We drew blocks of wood with holes drilled in them, and a lot of attention was paid to how precise our lettering was.

In Wood Shop I made a spice rack with a little drawer, which I proudly gave to my Mom even though she did not bake. Still, she thought it was beautiful — and in a way, it was.

But I was especially interested in Print Shop, because a couple of my uncles were printers who worked in New York City and were proud union members who were said to make good livings. I had intentions of following them into the business, so it made sense to learn whatever I could about the trade.

It was there that I learned that a composing stick is used to set type. The Chinese were doing something like it around 1040 A.D., but it is Johannes Gutenberg who is credited with refining the technology and popularizing it in Europe around 1439.

Everything about raised or relief printing is physical and by today’s standards woefully clunky. Each letter is cast from a special, metal alloy, composed primarily of lead with a little tin and antimony mixed in. It is actually this special alloy that was one of Gutenberg’s major contributions. Word and line spaces (called leading) are made from the same material, and are measured in arcane units called ems and ens and picas.

These are arranged in a shallow drawer that is divided into separate compartments for each letter or space, and is called a California Job Case. Everything is arranged in a maddeningly illogical manner. The compartments vary in size (supposedly in relation to how frequently a letter is used), and though we were taught long-forgotten mnemonics to help us remember where everything was, finding each piece of type was tedious and time consuming.

To begin setting type, the column width is first set by adjusting the movable portion of the composing stick. This is the smaller, triangular piece that has a lever that when pressed down, snaps it into the stick. A piece of leading is put at the base and then single pieces of type are placed, one after another, left to right. To insure proper orientation, one has to make sure the notches on the type are always facing upward.

When a line is pretty much filled, it’s time to justify it. This is done by inserting additional spaces between each word until everything is snug between each side of the stick. If it isn’t snug pieces will fall out later, which usually means having to start over.

When a line is justified, another piece of leading is added on top and the process is repeated until the stick is full. At that point, the type is transferred to a flat metal sheet called a galley where ink is rollered onto the raised letters, paper is placed on top of them and a proof is struck. If mistakes are found, tweezers are used to pull out and replace letters that don’t belong.

The slug of type is held together with a hoop of string, so you have to be careful not to knock it over and mix everything up, which is called Piing your type.

After corrections are made, the type is transferred into a cast iron frame called a chase, where blocks of wood or metal are arranged around the type. Devices called coins are added and expanded with keys that look like what was once used to adjust old–time, strap–on roller skates. If properly done everything is locked–up in place, which is what this process is called: Lock Up. The chase is then put into a printing press, which is another big cast iron contraption. Here’s an old one (and you can see California job cases to its left):

Old style Platen Printing Press

Except for mostly small craft printers that do wedding invitations and books that are themselves works of art, none of this is done anymore. Digital technology replaced all of it. The word processor in your laptop usually comes with a hundred or so font styles that easily would have filled a small truck with California Job cases and set you back thousands of dollars.

If you know how to type, it’s an easy matter to create line after line after line of perfectly justified paragraphs without even having to hit the return key.

Beautiful page layouts are easily accessible, coming in the form of templates that were once done by Art Directors who devoted their lives to book and magazine design.

Even the function of printing is handled by digital presses that download digital files and produce hard copies using laser technology. Where once it wouldn’t pay to print a book unless you needed thousands, Amazon and others now gladly take orders for one.

So in many ways, the accessibility of technology has democratized a growing segment of the publishing industry. There are now a 150 million bloggers in the world, churning out god knows how many articles a year. In 2014, about a million books were published in the U.S. — four times as many as there were in 2010.

How can anyone keep all of this straight? The answer is: they can’t. There’s too much content and most of it is crap — just like its always been. The difference is: much of the crap used to be filtered out by the owners of those big, clunky printing presses who hired smart men and women editors who separated much of the wheat from the chaff. They weren’t perfect, but at least somebody was watching.

I guess it’s a good thing that just about anyone can get their ideas into a publishable format (including me), but the trick is still finding someone to read it. With so many voices vying for attention, that’s probably harder than ever.

Everything Reminds Me of Something Else

One of the dirty little secrets about Shop classes is that they were used as dumping grounds for guys with behavior problems — which made for some pretty raucous classroom antics and lots of laughs. Another is that they were used to park guys — and there’s no other way to say this — who had I.Q.’s that resided over on the extreme left-hand side of the bell curve.

One of the first things we were given to do in Print Shop was to set a paragraph of type using the tedious method I described above. It was a gigantic pain in the ass, but I’d say most of us were able to bang it out in three or four regular class periods of about fifty minutes each.

There were exceptions, with most extending the required time by two or three periods. The guy teaching the class continued to move through the course material as some of the slower type-setters stood hunched over their California Job Cases, composing stick in hand, searching for the proper pieces of type.

Even without putting a dunce cap on them, they were exposed to a steady stream of merciless teasing by me and my fellow printers. Over time they would complete their task and get back in with the regular class. This was true of all but one: a nice, hard-working kid named Jimmy, who didn’t belong in any high school class because I’m pretty sure he didn’t know his letters all that well.

But he kept at it, way longer than he should have. Weeks actually. Our teacher could have just had him pull a proof of whatever he had and called the thing complete. What harm could have come from that? None, right, but he didn’t. Maybe somebody should have just done it for him, or given him theirs when they were done, but nobody did.

Every day he’d pull out his galley and carefully transfer the type into the composing stick and set about the arduous task of hunting every compartment of the job case until he found a letter that matched the one on his sheet. Many of us began thinking that he might never finish, but he did — sort of.

The day it happened most of us were working on other projects, maybe cutting silk screens or learning how to strip artwork into pieces of goldenrod paper for burning lithographic plates (don’t ask). I guess he was transferring the block of type to the proofing machine when it happened. I remember becoming aware of someone softly whimpering, and by the time I looked for its source, it had already given way to full-throated sobbing.

Our teacher had already gone to his side and was looking down on the bed of the proof press. He might have had his hand on his shoulder — I think he did. “It’s alright, Jimmy,” he said while patting his shoulder. “It’s alright.”

We were all straining to see what had happened, and a couple of the guys were asking Jimmy what was wrong. At first he didn’t respond, he was crying too hard, but he wanted to tell us. “What is it, Jimmy?” “You Okay?”

And then he got it out: “I pied it. I pied it,” he said with such heartbreaking sadness and regret that no one rolled out any of the derisive mockery that customarily greeted anyone baring such genuine emotion. He was inconsolable. I felt bad for him. We all did.

Sometimes I think about this, usually when working on something where a wrong move can result in ruin. Don’t Pi it, I whisper to myself. Don’t Pi it. I can almost hear Jimmy cry.

Till next time patient reader

Joe

Senior Train Rides, Speonk, and Discrimination

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My sister Margaret sent me a nice article by Newsday Guest Columnist, Tony Smolenski, who was reminiscing about commuting on the Long Island Railroad, and how his train was often delayed to allow the train from Speonk to “clear.”

Margaret sent me the article because it mentions the LIRR train station in Speonk, which figures prominently in an event that happened in June of 1970, which was when I graduated from Islip High School.

Even though everything was changing in the sixties, Islip tried to keep alive its long observed traditions. One that didn’t quite make it was Moving Up Day. Every spring we were marched onto the football field and corralled into separate class sections (freshmen, sophomores, etc.), where we were led in a goofy sort of Call and Response song, as each class Wove in and out the rows, physically Moving Up to the next class. I can imagine kids from the forties and fifties happily participating in such inspired silliness, but it was caput by nineteen sixty-seven or so.

By the time I was graduating, they were still sponsoring senior class trips. There was the winter daytrip to a Catskill resort (a separate caper), a trip to Washington D.C. (didn’t go), and as a final group activity, an entire train was let from the Long Island Railroad for an all–night excursion to and from Montauk Point.

We left at midnight, and it was widely known (and almost expected) that most passengers would already be fully intoxicated upon arrival. Furthermore, most were secreting enough contraband to last the night, which guaranteed there’d be a train full of drunken teenagers teetering between cars — which in those days were wide open.

The accommodations were impressive. There were club cars that were furnished with upholstered chairs, love seats and couches — but not what you would expect to see on a train; more like in a nicely appointed, though somewhat out of style house. There were cloth curtains on the windows, and tables were set up with a pretty decent buffet.

A freight car housed a live band, in which there was dancing.

My high school classmates were generally a nice group of kids who enjoyed having fun — but they weren’t particularly unruly or destructive. But soon after pulling out of Islip station, I had revealed to me a side of many that hitherto had gone unobserved.

Remember those curtains? Studious, college–bound kids from good families were ripping them off the walls. That nice furniture? Torn open, upended and I swear to God, literally getting its legs broken off!

This went on for a little while, maybe an hour, when the train slowed and finally stopped. A couple of Suffolk County Policemen came on board and after some hushed discussion with the chaperones, they walked through the train giving kids a suspicious onceover.

I figured they were just trying to scare everyone into behaving better, but if one of them had given me his badge and gun and put me in charge of keeping the peace, I would not have been more surprised than by what happened next.

The policemen came back to where me and a few other guys were sitting — and they didn’t look like they had good news. This was confirmed when we were told that we would have to leave!

Oh, God. How embarrassing! There must be a mistake. Did you say we have to leave? The train? Is there some reason for this? Did someone accuse us of something? Who? What did we do? Why are we being singled out?

The questions weren’t answered, but it was suggested that resisting wasn’t wise. I was sure we were being arrested—and for nothing! I hadn’t broken anything and I don’t think any of my comrades had either. Even so, seemed to me that further protestations would only prolong our humiliation. We stood and disembarked and alighted onto the tarmac of, yes, the Speonk train station. Here is what it looks like today:

It was maybe one A.M., and the early summer night was getting pretty cool. As the train chugged merrily out of the station and I wondered how I was going to explain this to my father, I realized the policemen were starting for their car.

“Excuse me, Sir. Are you leaving?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not taking us in?”

“For what?”

“But you took us off the train?”

“We had to take somebody off.”

“What are we supposed to do?”

“Take the first train home in the morning.”

“When’s that?”

“Five-thirty.”

Okay. So what had happened was that we had been made an example of for the rest of the senior class. You’re welcome Class of Seventy!

The police cruiser rolled off, leaving us utterly alone under the few dim lights that illuminated the exterior of the small, then desolate station, which was locked tight.

There were six or seven of us castaways, but we were no close-knit group. We were from the same side of the tracks (wrong), but I was tight with just a couple. In a nod to good old fashion racism, the only black member of our class was also ejected.

It was too chilly to sit outside all night, and we noticed that a couple of hundred yards up-track there were some rail sidings where a westbound train sat idling. We decided to go and see if we could get on and maybe ride it back in the morning.

We climbed a ladder near the front of the engine and crept along a catwalk toward the cabin. As we neared it, a very fearful and ready-to-fight trainman leapt out from around the corner. In his shaking hands he held a large, cast iron wrench, cocked over his shoulder like a baseball bat.

Our hands sprang up and we stepped backward, assuring him that we meant no harm. After some tense moments we explained our predicament and nice guy that he was, he agreed to let us sleep in the next car. Not long after laying down, I heard someone grunt in pain. At first it was somewhat soft, but it slowly grew in intensity. Who could it be?

It was our Black friend, and it became clear that this was no case of indigestion. Something had to be done, so we went back to the engineer (very carefully), who after checking out the patient, called an ambulance which came and carted him away. He was having an appendicitis attack.

The next morning, we were jarred awake by the train beginning its run to New York. I’m not sure why, but the conductor didn’t ask us for tickets. Within an hour, we were back in Islip. All of us were tired, dirty and angry over our unfair treatment. Still, we ended up with a good story which made the injustice a little easier to bear — but just a little. I’m pretty sure ours was the final Senior Train Trip.

Everything Reminds Me of Something Else

I once had a parish priest, Fr. Jim McKenna, whose sermons I found particularly engaging. One of them dealt with discrimination and he recounted that he never realized how painful it was until he found himself on the receiving end. While making the rounds of a hospital and wearing his collar, members of another religious group literally turned their backs to him.

He asked if anyone had ever felt the sting of discrimination, and without any introspection on my part, the Speonk debacle leapt to mind. I was surprised because by then it was ancient history and not something I ever felt too bothered by. I’d told the story without bitterness dozens of times and usually received plenty of laughs. Still, I guess it left a little scar; funny how things like that work.

When Fr. McKenna retired, the parish had a going-away tea that I attended. We chatted and he told me that in seminary school he’d learned a little trick for speaking to congregations. They told him to identify a few people in the audience that seemed to be interested and to talk to them like it’s just the two of you. He said that I had been one of his guys over the years and thanked me for playing that role.

I said that it was me who should be thanking him. Thoughtful, relevant sermons are rare enough, but getting them with eye contact is especially uncommon. He was a good priest and I miss him.

‘Till next time patient reader.

Joe

Polar Bear Plunge 2015 and Catch 22

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I went to Coney Island last year and watched a large group of people go swimming on New Year’s Day — but I didn’t go in. I blogged that I might return and get wet in 2015, but the odds were against it. Subsequently, a few friends said they if I did go back they wanted to come with me. One of them — Nan, who is an unheralded photo-mixologist and former next-door neighbor — said she’d always wanted to swim with the polar bears. In a flash of poor judgment, I said that if she went in, I would too.

That was last spring, when warm weather makes such commitments easy. As summer passed, and fall gave way to the chill of winter, doubts started creeping in. I wasn’t the kind of person who went swimming in cold water. Hell, I’m not even much of a swimmer in warm water! Still, I’d committed and knew I would never hear the end of it if I backed out – even if everyone else did — which was pretty much what happened.

But Nan didn’t, and my wife Dixie said she’d go, but not swimming. Same for my daughter, Sarah, who’s plan was to sit up on the boardwalk with her mother, maybe enjoy a bloody Mary and watch as I made an fool of myself.

Here’s a little movie I made about the day’s outing:

Everything reminds me of something else

When I first waded into the water, it brought to mind Joseph Heller’s great book Catch 22. If you haven’t read it, go get a copy. It’s acclaimed by some as one of the twentieth century’s most significant literarily works.

The book follows bombardier John Yossarian and his fellow airmen, who are deployed on an island in the Mediterranean Sea during WWII. The book is filled with quirky characters and many events are told from varying points of view and unfold out of sequence. In other words, it’s not easy to follow.

It’s an antiwar novel, but deals with broader themes, like the abuse of power and the hypocrisy of bureaucracies rationalizing absurd policies and practices. During the sixties it was embraced by young people who saw it as a reflection of their feelings about Vietnam. I was one of those kids and tried reading it, but had a hard time. I took another swipe at it in college and did better, but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I read it again and got a better grasp. I’ll probably have to read it again — which I look forward to.

The first two thirds are funny. Yossarian’s observations of the insanity of the situation he and his fellow airmen find themselves in are spot-on. But as the book moves into the later chapters it gets dark. Many of Yossarian’s friends are killed or disappear, and then there’s the total destruction of a hilltop village, among other terrible things.

As I waded into the cold water of Coney Island, I found myself thinking of the scene where the full details of Snowden’s death are revealed. The young man is horribly injured and Yossarian doesn’t realize it. Snowden keeps saying, “I’m cold. I’m cold,” and Yossarian keeps assuring him that he’s going to be fine. “There, there,” he keeps repeating. “I’m cold, I’m cold,” Snowden repeats, over and over. “There, there,” Yossarian replies again and again.

Mike Nichols made an excellent movie out of Heller’s book back in 1970. It’s worth watching. (Mr. Nichols is one of just a few who won a Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony award.)

Here’s the trailer for Catch 22.

‘Till next time gentle readers.

Joe

Artie Kornfeld, Flower Girls and Blackjack

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For quite awhile now, I’ve been returning to Bethel, New York for the anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair. When I first started going back, we camped out on the original grounds — which were privately owned — and a few times managed to have an impromptu and totally illegal music festival. It was definitely low rent — and wonderful.

One of the stops I make every year is Hector’s Inn, which was where the bus from Port Authority dropped off me and Jimmy Barnett back in 1969. There really was a Hector, who was kind of famous for buying several truckloads of beer and selling it to Hippies at reasonable prices. Many years later I met him and told him that one of the first things I did when I got to Woodstock was buy one of those six packs. By then he was in poor health, but my story brought a little smile to his lips.

Across the street from Hectors is my Friend Larry Houman’s place, who married Hector’s daughter, Carol. They had set up a little shop that sells Woodstock memorabilia — which surprisingly is one of only a few in the area.

On Anniversary weekend, a lot of people show up at Larry’s and Hector’s, and this year that group included Arty Kornfeld, one of the two promoters who conceived of Woodstock and are most closely associate with it. I made a little movie about his visit. When you’re done watching, come back to this post to see what our little chat reminded me of.

Everything Reminds Me of Something Else

Artie helped write the Cowsill’s hit: The Rain, the Park and Other Things, and you probably heard the guy in the video getting sentimental over how much he loved the song. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the song (and flower girls), but the melody reminds me of when I was about fifteen years old and working as a Caddy at the Timber Point Country Club on Long Island. One of the kids who caddied there was a guy from Central Islip named Mousy.

Jimmy and I used to get up early and walk a couple of miles to Main Street and catch an eastbound bus on Montauk Highway, which dropped us pretty close to Great River road. All the caddies congregated there to wait for the “rich guys” in their Cadillacs to give us a ride to the country club — and they always did.

I met a lot of interesting men who belonged to that country club, and for the most part they were decent guys. The really interesting people were the caddies — which were kind of a mid-sixties cross between the Little Rascals and the Dead End Kids — even though a few of them were grown men.

There was Mister Turtle, who had to be in his sixties and as one might guess, made his way up the fairway at an exceeding slow pace. Another was Glub-Glub, so named for a speech impediment that clearly was the result of some kind of mental impairment — we Caddies were not know for our sensibilities.

There were a few local kids from the somewhat tony town of Great River, who showed up to earn a little spending money, but most of the other kids were from locals that were a few rungs lower on the socio-economic ladder. Some had already dropped out of high school — or soon would.

There was a “pen” where caddies would do what my mother called Shaping Up, which meant waiting for a job assignment — which didn’t always come. Carrying one golfer’s bag paid five dollars and twice that if you carried two. If the guy was worth a damn, he’d buy you a hot dog at the turn and usually tipped a buck or two on top of the rate. It could take five or so hours to get a round in, but back then, five or ten dollars went a pretty long way.

Sometimes you waited a good long time to Get Out, and being the good juvenile delinquents in the making that we were, we passed the time smoking cigarettes and playing Blackjack, which was where I was first exposed to high stakes gambling, which is a relative thing.

In the morning — before anyone got paid — you bet a quarter a hand. In the afternoon — after everyone collected their pay — the minimum shot up to a buck. It was entirely possible to lose in five minutes the money that took you a day to make, something I did once and will never forget.

At any given time there might have been eight or nine kids crowded around the small table we played on, with a another row or two behind them waiting to play. This was when the guys who bankrolled the house and dealt the cards got serious. After all, separating teenager punks from their hard earned cash paid better than carrying golf bags.

They dealt fast, and were on the lookout for anyone swapping cards. One day the dealer — a guy named George who had to be in his thirties and had a bump on the crown of his forehead that was way too similar in size to a golf ball — declared that no one could look at their cards until it was time to play them.

But Mousy fond this restriction an outrage, and refused to observe it. I can still remember him protesting: “We can look at our cards, Man,” and George answering just as insistently that if he did, he would not be allowed to play. Mousy would not give in, and after awhile a couple of the other players sided with him and George relented.

I was pretty sure Mousy was doing some card swapping or cheating in some other way, but I can remember his look of satisfaction as he peered at his cards and considered whether to hit or stay – as he began to softly sing Artie’s song.

Suddenly the sun broke through
(see the sun)
I turned around, she was gone
(where did she go)
and all I had left, was one little flower in my hair

But I knew
(I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew)
she had made me happy
(happy, happy…she had made me very happy)
Flowers in her hair, Flowers everywhere

I love the flower girl (I love the flower girl)
was she reality or just a dream to me
I love the flower girl (I love the flower girl)
well love show’d me the way to find a sunny day
(sunny day, sunny day, sunny day)

I love the flower girl (I love the flower girl)
was she reality or just a dream to me

‘Till next time friendly reader.