ebay

When William Faulkner said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past," he of course didn't know about computers and the emergence of ebay, but the phrase certainly anticipated ebay, where objects of nostalgia go waiting to be plucked off the screen with a mouse click and delivered to your door in a sturdy cardboard box. The past is in my workshop garage.

When I sat down to write the posting about can openers that were called church keys in the '50s I didn't know that by the end of the piece I would be recounting the brown can of Schaefer beer that was in our cellar in Flushing, holding nails.

But when I did remember it, I wanted a picture of it, so of course Google was asked to take me there. And it did. Right to ebay where any number of people were offering cans of Schaefer from all decades, for all kinds of prices.

I once read of the people who collected beer cans as a hobby. The cans were of course empty, opened from the bottom so as not to spoil the aesthetic of the top. The story went that the collectors didn't buy cans from each other, they traded cans, like kids did baseball cards umpteen years ago. The story further said this insured a more democratically created collection. Money couldn't buy you the items you wanted to complete your collection. You had to contact someone and arrange a trade.

ebay and computers of course changed that. Collectors now had a way to cash in on their doubles, or liquidate their collections. Just post a photo on ebay and wait for someone so struck by nostalgia that they were willing to pony up the price you were asking, or win the bid. 

The photo Google took me to for my posting was an ebay offering. I used the photo, but then started to think, why not buy the can. It's not really all that much, and so what, I've done this before. The garage has several examples of signage I've bought over the years and stuck in various crannies of the workshop. A somewhat huge Devoe paint metal advertising piece hangs from an old metal cabinet. For some reason there is a figure of an Indian on the piece. I found out the American Indian was used in their advertising because the paint has been around since 1754, "the first American paint."

1754 puts the paint in use in North America before there was a United States and around the time of the French and Indian War, or the Seven Years War as it is sometimes called.

It would be hard to believe that the American Indian used Devoe paint when they wanted to paint their faces and "go on the war path." All you would need to know then is that if they were stopping by the general store in numbers and stocking up on paint, then someone should be informed. The settlers were in trouble. An early warning system based on the purchase of paint.

The use of the image of an American Indian is reminiscent of the ads for Levy's rye bread that used different ethnic groups in their advertising to assure you, "You Don't Have to be Jewish to Love Levy's."

Devoe paint is still around, and is good paint. My memory for Devoe paint is etched by their being a sponsor for Marv Albert's radio play-by-plays of Ranger games in the '60s that I listened to.

The Schaefer can I ordered from ebay came from PosiTivoli Collectibles out of Brighton, Colorado. The can arrived yesterday, as pictured on ebay. The top is fairly rusted, and the bottom bears the can opener punctures that would have been used to drain the beer, and hopefully for the owner of the can, to drink it.

As I remember cans being opened in that era, a small hole was needed at one end to allow the air to escape, and a larger hole was needed to pour the beer from. This particular can has two large punctures. Works just as well, but shows the person lacked a bit of finesse in opening the can. They were very anxious to get at the beer.

Holding the can and trying to squeeze it shows just what I wrote in the prior posting: you can't crush these cans unless your grip can win you a kewpie doll as the strongman at the carnival. These cans could support a locomotive or a suspension bridge.

eaby and my workshop: Where the past isn't even the past.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Coming Out in Style

It had to happen. The January 20th inauguration of President Biden has spawned a celebrity outbreak.

Consider first Amanda Gorman, the young lady in sunshine yellow that read a time-sensitive poem. She owned the place. There may next be shows on TV where the contestants read poetry rather than dance and sing. Maybe they'll do all three.

Ms. Gorman's outfit outshone the sun, as did her words. I just finished painting an Adirondack chair I built for my daughter Susan. It's the 5th such chair I've built, and this one I painted the yellow she wanted. "Sunshine yellow" by Rust-O-Leum. The chair is awaiting pickup from my "customer" and is so bright it lights up the garage without the lights on. 

I think it was this week it was announced the Ms. Gorman was signed by a modeling agency Her future is so bright she is going to need dark glasses.

And now we hear of Ella Emhoff, the 21 year-old stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris who has just signed a contract with a modeling agency. She was seen at the inauguration smarty dressed, wearing the required mask, but still attracting attention. She is called a style icon, or "influencer."

But just to show that all demographics can be represented by instant celebrity status—young black female, young white female, septuagenarian white male—we have the 79-year-old senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, who as a style icon has them all beat by a long downhill ski run.

It will be a while before the Internet generation ever forgets the image that became a viral sensation ahead of even Covid-19, of Bernie plopped in a folding chair, braced against the cold with a pair of mittens knitted by a Vermont school teacher, Jen Ellis, who becomes a celebrity herself.

But Bernie. Feel the Bern. The image spawned sweatshirts with his image, with the proceeds, now $2 million going to a Vermont Meals on Wheels charity.

Can a modeling gig for L.L.Bean be far behind? Even if L.L. is a Maine company it specializes in outdoor clothing, and Maine and Vermont are much alike. Mittens, ski jackets, shoes, all modeled after Bernie; all modeled by Bernie. Check next year's catalogs. It has to happen.

And for when Bernie might no longer be a U.S. Senator, there are other advertising opportunities. If Tip O'Neil, the then retired Speaker of the House from Massachusetts during the Reagan era can appear popping up out of a suitcase in a motel ad, then Bernie's opportunities are also endless.

Being a 79-year-old white make—perhaps in his 80s by the time the ads come out—makes him eligible to hawk all sorts of medicines, and other over-the-counter remedies. How about Metamucil? A seated Bernie looks like he might be having trouble in that department.  

And how about urinary problems? The pipes are never working well in old homes, so why should you expect them to work well in old men?

Leg pain, knee pain, shoulder pain, finger pain, butt pain, are all ailments that Bernie can pitch a remedy for. If they do another Mount Rushmore his image should be first on the left, since of course Bernie is Left.

Reverse mortgages and Medicare advantage plans are certainly within the grasp of Bernie turned into an advertising icon. Despite his left leanings, Bernie could counsel people deep in debt, in trouble with the IRS, or even online stock trading platforms in the hope that Game Stop is not just a one-off. Certainly a partner in a law firm specializing in skiing and snow-related accidents is where the Bernie masthead can appear.

There is no need to make America Great Again. We already are.

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Post 9/11 in Photos

It was perhaps a week after 9/11 when three of us from the office went back downtown to what they were now calling Ground Zero.  It was only a week before when we escaped from One World Trade Center, 29th floor, while working for Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield when the first plane made its "landing." Although the company lost 13 people, there was no one from our office who was killed.

I met my two colleagues in Penn Station and we took the subway down to Fulton Street. I remember the air was still dusty, and smelled stale. I never could describe what the air smelled like, but it wasn't healthy.

The aftermath of the buildings being hit, burning, and collapsing was hard to take in. Bruce Springsteen would soon write lyrics that described it as waking up "to an empty sky." The air was visibly dusty. I distinctly remember a female private security guard who was stationed at one of the sawhorses blocking anyone from crossing Church Street. She was visibly upset at being there. She was trying not to cry. This was the downtown atmosphere: empty and dusty.

The businesses in the area were just getting back to being open. They had spent days clearing the dust off their shelves, walls and floors. We had lunch at a favorite Chinese restaurant on Nassau Street which had managed to reopen. The city was coming back and was on one knee after an eight count.

Very soon after this trip downtown I read of a photo exhibit that was being held in a storefront on a street just east of the Trade Center. The exhibit was titled, "Here Is New York: A Democracy of Photographs," and consisted of photographs taken by professional and amateur photographers on 9/11 itself, and shortly thereafter. If the exhibit were held today that way it would be called a pop-up store/exhibit.

Notable, several of the photographers were dead, killed by debris falling from the towers. There were several Magnum photographers on the scene at the time of impact, and they reflexively aimed their lenses at anything they could. It cost some of them their lives.

My oldest daughter Nancy and I were interested in seeing the exhibit. She has just graduated college in 2000 and was working, but still living at home. The younger daughter Susan was away at Geneseo, and was the last to hear on 9/11 that I was okay. She reminds us.

Nancy and I had dinner at a bar/restaurant on Broome Street and found our way to the exhibit. It was open at all hours, and might have even been open 24 hours. It was staffed by volunteers and the walls and clothes lines were filled with 9/11 photos tacked to the walls, unframed

The city was coming back to life a bit and the store front was a bit crowded that evening. The prints had been quickly printed on printer paper and were for sale, with the proceeds going to some 9/11 fund. 

I pointed scenes out to my daughter, explaining where things were, and where I was when I came out. There was a woman working there who obviously overheard my narrative and asked me if I was actually there when the planes hit. I said yes, and explained. I'll never forget he look on her face. Her eyes widened and she said they hadn't yet had anyone come in who had been there. I bought two prints, and one is nicely framed and still hangs in the house.

I was a little behind on reading the papers so I just yesterday got to the obituary for Alice Rose George, 76, a "dream editor for scores of photographers." I had seen the obit on January 13, but hadn't dived into it yet.

Yes, the wall of photos is familiar, and the story, like many obits, more than interesting. And the woman whose eyes widened when I told her I was there is the woman who the obit is about. She put the show together.

The obit mentions how popular the exhibit was. And it was. I forget how long it ran in that store front, but it was there a while. A book of course come about from it.

This September of course marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11. For someone like myself, this is hard to believe. I remember every detail of that day.

As a teenager I was in Paris in August 1964 with an uncle and cousin. The cousin was being treated to a European tour by his father before starting school in Athens. I was asked to tag along.

We stayed at the Scribe Hotel, near the Opera House. The hotel is still there, now a very luxurious 

5-Star hotel. A much older distant cousin who was in the infantry in WW II and passed through Paris remembers the Scribe as a bit of a brothel.

It was August 1964 and one evening there was a tremendous fireworks display to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris on August 19, 1944.

When I think of a 20-year anniversary, I think of that one. And now 20 years removed from WW II is the additional the 57 years removed from 1964. It is hard to fathom

The Trade Center and 9/11 will be 20 years ago this September. It won't be commemorated with fireworks, but it will be acknowledged. My daughter Susan is a college professor whose students are now a crop that was born after 9/11. They have no direct memory of it.

And someday, there will be those who are 57 years from the 20th anniversary of 9/11. How high do the numbers go?

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Pop-Tops

Marilyn Johnson, author of 'Lives in Ruins,' a book on archaeologists, has recently tweeted an image of various pop-tops announcing that the variety of pop- tops helps archaeologists date their findings. Imagine that an artifact introduced maybe 40-50 years ago is used in a pursuit as scientific as archaeology

Ms. Johnson is the author of two other books, one on Librarians and the other on obituary writers. I call her three books her AOL trilogy.

Like any good writer, Ms. Johnson inserted herself in a dig that was unearthing Revolutionary War artifacts in researching her book. This is a period that is hardly digging where the pharaohs slept, but then again, I would suspect you've got to start somewhere in the "dig" minors before making it to the big show.

In keeping with the phenomena of everything reminding me of something else, an array of pop-tops makes me think of a church key.

No, not just a key that opens the door to church, but a church key that opens beer cans. There are undoubtedly a few ways to get to heaven, and popping open a frosty one (or six) on a hot day is surely on the list.

My impressionable ears of growing up in the '50s remember my father and our neighbor Frank, two houses away, asking each other if either of them had the church key. As a kid, I quickly deduced they were referring to a can opener to get the beer they brought out to the backyard open.

Beer cans of the '50s were made of reinforced steel and were as rigid as howitzer shells. You really were showing off your hand strength if you could crush one. Frank was a great neighbor and I played with his son Billy. Frank made corrugated doors at a family business in the Bronx and drove a car and a pickup truck. He once took us to see the tree at Rockefeller Center with Billy and I riding in the road bed of the truck, winging it into Manhattan—the City.

Since this is the 1950s, childhood safety is hardly on anyone's minds as seat belts and car seats were not even on the drawing boards. Billy and I happily bounced around in the back of that truck because even then New York City streets were barely paved.

Opening a beer can of the era required two punctures, a small one that allowed air to escape, as the larger puncture was made to pour the beer from. There was an art to making the small hole, then the larger hole. The contents were then poured into a glass, or slugged straight from the can.

According to Wikipedia the term "church key" evolved in the '50s because some of these can openers had the look of a medieval key used to unlock church doors. Not all that many years ago when as parents we were assembled outside the church in Whitestone to get in and rehearse, I think a communion. the church doors were found to be locked.

One of the parents went over to the rectory and got the key. On returning, I remarked that, "hey, there really is a church key." No one laughed, I suppose because it was an Italian neighborhood and everyone's parents were opening wine bottles in the backyard instead.

New York in those days boasted eight newspapers, and perhaps as many breweries. One of these breweries was Schaefer, a beer brewed in Brooklyn. I will forever remember the cans of Schaefer that once drained of their contents and their lids removed, doubled as holders for the nails my father kept in the cellar. Even without the nails, which gave the cans a pipe bomb look, these things were heavy as hell.

Cans of that era were tough to open. I remember the coffee cans that required you to take your life into your hands and risk slicing an artery, where you had to spin this thin metal strip around the circumference of the can with a metal key at was found on the bottom of the can. The metal strip was sharp as hell and I remember my mother once cutting herself somewhat badly.

And then there was Carnation evaporated milk. Why wasn't there a rim to hook the can opener onto with that can? I swear, manufacturers were out to do the American housewife in,.

Beer cans of course eventually evolved into aluminum containers. In fact, I think the guy who promoted that might have just died. The beer got colder faster, and there on the top was a pop-top that you peeled back that created the small and larger opening at the same time that allowed you to pour the contents, or let the macho guys drink straight from the can. What will they think of next? Just wait.

These pop-tops became the plastic bags of the era. Bad for the environment. Perhaps they weren't showing up in the autopsies of the whales off the coast of Italy, but they were creating a litter problem. The pop-tops were being dropped onto he ground or sand like cigarette butts. They were annoying.

And certainly annoying to that breed of scavengers with metal detectors who kept getting false positives about what was embedded, usually in the sand. Something had to be done. And it was.

The solution made its appearance is what we have today. The pop-top that remains attached to the can. Chug-a-lug, or pour, the pop-top stays with the can.We are a nation of problem solvers. Coffee cans no longer require risking a tetanus shot update, and opening cat food cans no longer require a spin on the electric can opener. Pop the lid. I think even a can of Carnation evaporated milk can now be opened without putting it under a drill press.

I wish I still had that Schaefer beer can full of nails.

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Commonplace Book, Chapter 5

Going through this first installment of the new year, Chapter 5, I'm reminded of the great sports writing that appeared in the NYT under the Red Smith, Ira Berkow, Dave Anderson and Arthur Daley bylines. There was a daily Sports of the Times column by one of those writers. And usually a gem.

There is of course still sports writing but it is briefer, and not reliably present every day. Sports of the Times was always in the lower left of the first sports page. I remember where I was sitting on the Flushing train on my way to work when I read what as Red Smith's last column. The wording struck me as a little odd. It lacked the usual polish and focus. And when it turned out to be his last column, it was understandable. He wasn't feeling well.

Now, photos dominate. HUGE photos in place of words. Things have changed. The scores and game details are available from many online sources. You no longer need to open the paper to know who won. You've already checked your phone.

My contention would be we as people are reading less, but watching more. It's a visual conveyance of news. Telecasts and highlight reels. Controlling cost, the paper doesn't even cover the local home games of New York teams on a regular basis. There are no beat reporters assigned to follow a team throughout the season.

There are of course still good sports writers. Tyler Kepner is someone I will always read, even though I'm not a die-hard baseball person. Horse racing is barely covered these days, but when it is Joe Drape does a great job. At a book signing of his at Saratoga Springs several years ago when he had just finished his book on American Pharoah, the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years, Joe mentioned that he was going to be the paper's last racing writing. He's not even old enough to start thinking about full-time retirement, but he knows the end is near for the craft in the paper.

*****************

There is absolute joy at seeing a piece of information you divined from the arcane values found in the Daily Racing Form lead you to a 20-1 shot who barrels down the stretch and nips the leaders right at the wire.  It is even better if you bet on it.

--Anonymous, July 6, 2002

*****************

At a baseball dinner some years ago, Ted Williams kept squinting at his notes as he spoke, but at the lectern now, Joe DiMaggio put on glasses.

“That’s what I needed,” Williams said. “My glasses.”

“I never thought you’d need glasses,” DiMaggio said.

Those eyes hit .406 in 1941. Those eyes batted .344 over his 19 seasons as the Red Sox left fielder.  Those eyes could supposedly read a license plate 100 yards away.  Those eyes landed a flaming Marine Panther jet fighter in South Korea during his second year of duty as a pilot.  Those eyes flashed when he spit at the Fenway Park fans and sportswriters.

Those eyes narrowed before his first spring training when Bobby Doerr suggested, “Wait until you see this guy Jimmie Foxx hit,”

“Wait until Foxx sees me hit,” he snapped.

But now, Ted Williams’s eyes are closed.

--Dave Anderson, NYT, July 6, 2002

******************

Mr. Christopher Lavery was bound for the edge of the broad Pacific, to lie in the sun and let the girls see what they didn’t necessarily have to go on missing.

--Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake

******************

I have a great future behind me.

--Kris Kristofferson

******************

Duke Dejan, who as head of the Olympia Brass Brand perpetuated a swinging, exuberant tradition from the earliest years of new Orleans jazz, died on July 5 in new Orleans.  He was 93.

“Everything is Lovely” was both the Olympia’s theme song and Mr. Dejan’s answer to most questions.

--Douglas Martin, NYT Obituary, August 12, 2002

******************

A person who sees and bets with confidence a $54 exacta possibility in a four horse field will most likely never be cited as a dictionary’s definition of an artist, but that is only because its editors have probably lead sheltered lives that have never brought them into an off-track betting parlor to be seated next to someone who does this sort of thing.  And to know them personally.

And, after sitting next to such a person for better parts of a day, the only thing left to do in life is to get up and go home richer.

--John DeMetropolis, excerpt from Fourstardave, August 2002

******************

Professor Strunk was a positive man...”Omit needless words!” cries the author on page 23, and into that imperative Will Strunk really put his heart and soul.  In the days when I was siting in his class, he omitted so many needless words, and omitted them so forcibly and with such eagerness and obvious relish, that he often seemed in the position of having shortchanged himself—a man left with nothing more to say yet with time to fill, a radio prophet who had outdistanced the clock.  Will Strunk got out of this predicament by a simple trick: he uttered every sentence three times.  When he delivered his oration on brevity to the class, he leaned forward over his desk, grasped his coat lapels in his hands, and, in a husky, conspiratorial voice said, “Rule Seventeen.  Omit needless words!  Omit needless words!  Omit needless words!”

--E. B. White, Introduction to The Elements of Style

******************

In the hospital of the orphanage—the boys’ division at St. Cloud’s, Maine—two nurses were in charge of naming the new babies and checking that their little penises were healing from their obligatory circumcision.  In those days (in 192__), all boys born at St. Cloud’s were circumcised because the orphanage physician had experienced some difficulty in treating uncircumcised soldiers, for this, and for that, in World War I.  The doctor, who was also the director of the boys’ division, was not a religious man; circumcision was not a rite with him—it was a strictly medical act, performed for hygienic reasons.  His name was Wilbur Larch, which except for the scent of ether that always accompanied him, reminded one of the nurses of the tough, durable wood of the coniferous tree of that name.  She hated, however, the ridiculous name of Wilbur, and took offense at the silliness of combining a word like Wilbur with something as substantial as a tree.

--John Irving, opening to The Cider House Rules

******************

Homer exhibited no mistrust, and certainly no fear, of the Winkles. He felt for them only a detached wariness—he was sure they weren’t dangerous but they were of a slightly altered species.  He fell asleep confusing the Winkles, in his child’s mind, with moose. In the morning he woke up to the sound of what he was sure were moose—only the discover that it was the Winkles in the tent next to his.

The Winkles appeared to greet the morning vigorously. Although Homer had never heard human beings make love, or moose mate, he knew perfectly well that the Winkles were mating.  If Dr. Larch had been present, he might have drawn new conclusions concerning the Winkles’ inability to produce offspring.  He would have concluded that the violent athleticism of their coupling simply destroyed, or scared to death, every available sperm or egg.

--John Irving, excerpt, Chapter 1, The Cider House Rules

******************

How can you consider pregnancy a disability?  It’s a self-inflicted injury.

--William N. O’Keefe, to a pregnant co-worker, 1978

******************

John S. Wilson, the first critic to write regularly about jazz and popular music in

The New York Times, died yesterday at a nursing home in Princeton, N.J.  He was 89 and lived in Princeton.

Through his decades with The Times Mr. Wilson remained a free-lance.  He said that he turned down offers of a staff position because it would mean having to attend meetings.

--Jon Pareles, NYT Obituary, August 28, 2002

******************

I don’t want to go home early.  If I go home early I might have to go to the store.

I don’t want to go to the store.  I don’t know where anything is.

--Anonymous

******************

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I'm Not Alone

I'm not alone on not knowing how to make a meme (mi:m).

Obviously there is a HUGE segment of the population that does know how to make a meme and right now they're all of Bernie sitting on a folding chair at the inauguration sufficiently bundled against the cold. Coming from Vermont, the only thing missing from Bernie's ensemble is a tattered lift ticket from 1984 dangling from to his jacket zipper. No one in Vermont walks around without a remnant of the last time they went skiing.

My wife and youngest daughter like to meet at Dunkin' Donuts on Fridays for coffee. But since the pandemic, the two local Dunkin' Donuts places have yanked the chairs for inside seating. Despite indoor dining being allowed on L.I. the DD outlets have lifted their chairs. One location has done this because they are near the LIRR train station and some homeless people wander in and take up the little seating there is with a perpetual cup of coffee for hours.

So, yesterday evening they coffee klatched in our kitchen. I do not drink coffee, so I continued to read the paper in the living room, but did start to drift into the kitchen near 7 P.M. to start dinner. On Friday's I cook. Believe me, it is nothing to write home about. But it is edible.

The living room is not so far away from the kitchen that I can't hear what they're talking about. My daughter Susan brought the coffee over and immediately asked my wife what she thought about the Bernie meme. "What meme? What's a meme."

My wife has just finished the day working upstairs where she's been working from home (WFH) now for 45 weeks. She knew nothing about the Bernie meme. This is undoubtedly because she does really work when she's on the computer, but also because when she's not working on the computer she's reading Fox News online. If Fox doesn't report on it, it's not happening. 

I yelled from the living home that "your husband just wrote a blog about the meme." This means nothing to my wife since she has yet to find a way to care less about what I write. Which is a good and bad thing. I have no one who is interested in proofing what I write, but no one who I live with who offers criticism. There is peace in the valley. And two TVs. 

Since the coffee klatch was breaking up, I innocently asked "does anyone know how a meme is made?" My wife quickly said "you superimpose a photo." "Yeah, okay, I know the verb, but what technique is used to do this? Photoshop? Special software. What movements of the mouse would I use?"

My daughter didn't really know, and my wife bristled at my question because she thinks I ask too many questions. Welcome to my world.

This morning my daughter Susan told me she asked her husband "how do you create a meme." He said it was a good question. "Probably photoshop and/or free software." Thank you Greg.

And then this morning, the weekend weathercaster asked the audience if someone could "Instagram her on how to make a meme."

Since the weathercaster is a young female, looking like she's not even as old as my youngest daughter, I hardly felt stupid about my meme ignorance. Yesterday, one of the people I sent my posting to replied I was what is called a "late adopter." Jesus, there's even a term for people like me. Hey, I'm 72 and should get credit for knowing what I do know. Once upon a time I programmed mainframes.

Regardless, my youngest daughter now admits to being addicted to Bernie memes and keeps me supplied with the latest. She's not creating them, but she lives in the universe where this is what you see.

Thus, I've been forwarded Bernie at Carnegie Hall, and Bernie at the bar at Geneseo where my daughter Susan matriculated. Bernie trading cards are next.

I  suspect someone will make a Bernie compilation and post it on the Internet. Bernie in space next. On Mars; on Space-X; at the Space Station. He is everywhere, but in the Oval Office.

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Me and Me Me

If I was a songwriter I'd be trying to compose a song about the Bernie Sanders meme. Something like 'Me and 'Bobby McGee and Me Me' or, 'My Old Dog Blue Me Me.' But since that's not going to happen, I'll just write about my experience with Bernie and his mittens.

I was first alerted to the Bernie meme by my youngest daughter Susan's email that Bernie is everywhere. I had already seen the picture of the Vermont Senator huddled in socially distant isolation at the inauguration, and was now being treated to my daughter attaching the same image of Bernie sitting in front of the Jones Beach obelisk.

Since my daughter was a Jones Beach lifeguard and keeps in touch with those who still are, I figured she knew someone who posed as Bernie in front of the obelisk for shits and giggles. 

Then I scanned the Tweets of @emmagf, Emma Fitszimmons, the former NYT transit reporter and now city Hall Bureau Chief and lo and behold there's Bernie sitting in a subway seat all by his lonesome.

Bernie sitting in Seat No. 3 in his winter coat clearly shows that it is impossible for three New Yorkers. of any gender. wearing padded clothing to fit in those seats carved out for sick, naked, anorexic Asian women.

 

What gives? There's a very good Bernie impersonator riding the system and was captured at what looks like the Nostrand Avenue stop. Since Bernie is originally  from Brooklyn, I'm still trying to get my head around the incredible likeness being portrayed by the "impersonator." Jesus, they even got the shoes and the laces right.

Okay, keep laughing. Obviously I was unaware what a meme is, so I resorted  to the OED dictionary, the old school way. Hardcopy.

 I was aware it was somewhat of an Internet term, but the OED did have a full   definition:

BIOLOGY. An element of a culture or a system of behaviour [sic] that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by non-genetic mean, esp. imitation.

In Bernie's case, the "non-genetic" means is of course the Internet.

Turns our the image of Bernie sitting in socially distant isolation at the inauguration in a church basement folding chair, bundled up against the cold, not wearing a hat but resting his hands in a pair of mittens knitted by a Vermont school teacher (What else? In Vermont you are either a writer, a school teacher, or a diary farmer.) across his crossed legs, wearing sensible rubber soled shoes wearing a good looking thermal coat, has spread faster than Covid-19 in a Trump elevator. Bernie has became a winter fashion icon.

There are so many images of Bernie being superimposed in front of so many backdrops my wonder is of course if there is someone who is going to get it right and put Bernie's image at a Jets home game. Because if anyone looks like an ancient-suffering Jets fan, it's Bernie.

Consider that the Jets haven't even been in a Super Bowl since the one they won in 1969, now a solid 52 years ago! They're fast approaching the 54-year drought the Rangers exhibited in not winning the Stanley Cup.

I'd catch meme fever and put Bernie in the stands myself, but I'm not that Internet savvy. Consider the first piece of television news I absorbed this morning is that there will be a Bernie bobble head doll. I kid you not. Perfect. Should be a Jets giveaway at the start of next season. Maybe for two seasons.

Having bought Vermont Teddy Bears over the years, I know they already have a Bernie Sanders one. My guess is this morning (right now probably, since these are dairy farm people) there is a meeting in Shelburne, Vt. where the bears are made to discuss the forthcoming NEW Bernie Sanders teddy bear. Check their website in a few weeks, or get on their email list.

Bernie and Joe Namath are both paired as being concerned about my health care. Bernie of course has been talking up national health care, and Joe, the Jets quarterback in that stunning upset of the Colts in 1969! has been hawking a Medicare Advantage plan that still seems to be seeking enrollment, even after January 1st.

I think Bernie next to Spike Lee at a Knicks game would be good too.

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46/14

It finally got here. All you had to do was wait for enough 24-hour cycles of time and we now have our 46th president, Joe Biden. That doesn't sound like that many, but then again we are quite comparatively a young country, and always will be when compared to some others.

President Biden is my 14th president. As my blog profile points out, I was born during the Truman administration. I don't remember all that, but I do remember Truman being followed by the press after he left office as he was on one of his "constitutional" brisk walks with a cane. They strained to keep up.

I haven't been watching many inaugurations, but I have been watching this one. Why? One, I'm retired and home a good deal, and it is reminding me of the one in 1961 when JFK took office. It was a much colder day then, but just as clear. We had a snow day from school in New York, and my father made sure I watched the inauguration. I really don't know if my father was a Democrat or a Republican. My guess is he never voted, despite being a WW II veteran and a government employee. You didn't have to vote.

My guess is that he believed that registering to vote would put you on the list for jury duty. Many people of that era thought that. And it was true. The jury rolls were plucked from the rolls of registered voters. Until they weren't, and DMV and other databases were relied on to create a jury pool. Even then he ducked it by not even having a driver's license. As did my mother.

I remember JFK in a top hat getting some words from President Eisenhower before JFK came out. The story went Ike warned JFK about Vietnam. Turns out the warning was needed, if not heeded.

Of course we don't have the presence of the outgoing president. Donald Trump. He chose not to attend to make a point, no doubt. But he did give his farewell address at Andrews Air Force base, coincidently where my father worked for a bit when he had to leave the shuttered Brooklyn Navy Yard and take a job in Washington in order to stay with the Department of Defense, Department of Navy.

Fourteen presidents is not that many, but it does indicate some longevity on my part. I read of someone who was alive for 18 presidents. I don't remember who, but a few deaths in office and certainly an assassination will bump the count up. I think the individual did overlap William Henry Harrison and Abraham Lincoln.

One term presidents will advance the count a bit rapidly as well. I've experienced a few of those, and one of course just exited. So far, impeachments haven't resulted in removals. Even impeachment in bunches.

Like Big Julie, the Chicago gangster in the musical 'Guys and Dolls,' who packs a weapon and plays craps with dice with "no spots," who boasts of arrests, "but no convictions." President Trump left town without the Big G. being hung on him. Teflon Don has left the building.

I did the chronology. My father's 1915-1987 earned him 13 presidents. With 14, I'm already one ahead.  Will I witness 15? Only time will tell.

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Kent State

It is not often I write about the Vietnam era, if I've written about it all. I certainly think about it, as my views have now hardened to an unshakable opinion, but that's another story that may someday get written about.

Right now my thoughts drift to what is to me is astoundingly nearly 51 years ago, the Kent State demonstrations and the killing and wounding of protesting students by the National Guard.

One of the wounded students has just passed away at 71, Alan Canfora, who was shot in the wrist and spent a lifetime thereafter researching, lecturing and writing about the day. There were four fatalities that day, plus nine wounded, including Mr. Canfora. Mr. Canfora is the third of the wounded to pass away. When it comes to historic tragedies, the world does tend to keep count. 

Divided country? 1970 was probably the most pronounced division of opinion in the country regarding the war: Doves vs. Hawks. There is barely a newscaster or journalist alive and working today who can report personally on the era. Anything the current crop says about a divided country absolutely pales against the Vietnam 1970s era.

The World Trade Center construction workers who charged into a crowd of anti-war demonstrators was in a few years changed into World Trade Center construction workers who joined the anti-war demonstrators.

Probably like many others my age, the now famous image of the young woman gesturing over the body of a downed student is the one I most associate with Kent State. There are many other images, and the one with Mr. Canfora's obituary shows him carrying a black flag facing a squad of National Guardsmen who are in the kneeling position pointing their rifles at him. Their rifles are all loaded with live ammo, not rubber bullets. And that moved the day further into history.

Katherine Q. Seelye's obituary is a typical gold standard NYT obit. There is historical context. It is a history lesson in itself. 

I distinctly remember my supervisor at work holding up a copy of perhaps the NYT that carried a photo of the young woman gesturing over the downed student, pleading for help. I also remember the mood of the supervisor, and others who were of the opinion that the students got what they deserved.

A divided country indeed.

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Double Down

There is a professional obituary writer I know who calls the phenomena of a bylined obit on a subject being written by someone who has predeceased the subject themselves as a "double down." 

It's rare, but it happens, and happens because many obituaries for noted personalities are pre-written to a great extent by members of the obituary staff. Thus, when appropriate and all things have been corroborated, the pre-written obit gets floated up from the advance pile—perhaps needing some updates by someone else on staff who gets credit— and gets presented as the subject's obituary. When this happens, there is usually a note from the editor informing the reader.

There have been a few "double downs" over the years, most notably when Red Smith's byline appeared over Jack Dempsey's obit and when Mel Gussow's byline appeared over Elizabeth Taylor's. (After several alerts that Liz Taylor was dying—staff, get ready—she finally did pass away in 2011.)

I'm not sure there has ever been someone who earned two obituaries in the NYT, each one a day apart. The first was a paid notice by the Harold Bornstein, M.D. family; the second was a bylined tribute obit by Katherine Q. Seelye. For this occurrence I'm borrowing the phrase "double down."

The two obits couldn't be more different, even accounting that a bylined/tribute obit is a different animal altogether from a paid notice that is taken out by the subject's family, friends. or organization they were associated with. A tribute obit is considered a news item, and the staff at the NYT obituary desk writes these after gleaning information from the family and their own knowledge of the person's life.

All obits vary in length, and the paid notices can he somewhat short, and also incredibly lengthy. Some contain a photo of the subject. Most don't.

Paid is the operative word. They are expensive. Even given what can be a fairly staggering cost, I've seen paid notices take up to 3-4 columns in the section, agate type, with or without a photo. There was one the other day that might have set a record for length.

The paid notice for Dr. Bornstein was in Thursday's, January 14th edition, with a photo that was moderate in length. As is generally the case, the photo is of a younger Dr. Bornstein than one that would be of him at 73, when he passed away.

There are no warts revealed in a paid notice. Since they are written by the family, or someone helping them, they tend to be laudatory biographies, with basic facts thrown in. The paid notice for Dr. Bornstein is no exception. 

We learn Dr. Bornstein "as a lifelong learner, he often spent nights under a lamp reading and annotating Italian language literature." He still made house calls; "was a devoted husband and father" whose children "will miss regular trips to the Giants game with one of their biggest fans." And more. No warts.

A bylined obit is basically a wrestling no holds barred event. Warts emerge. Consider that on the obit for baseball's Tommy Lasorda the obiturist felt the need to include that Lasorda steadfastly denied his son was gay, despite the gay lifestyle and that he died of AIDS. That aspect of Lasorda's life even got further news treatment the next dat in the sports section. How things have changed.

In the bylined obit, Dr. Bornstein is immediately identified as being Donald Trump's physician for years, inheriting the patient's care from his father, also a physician, with whom he was partners with in the same private medical office. The family business.

Donald Trump is not mentioned at all in the paid notice, understandably we learn from the bylined obit because The Donald got pissed off that Dr. Bornstein revealed The Donald was taking finasteride, a drug prescribed for BPH, benign prostatic hypertrophy, but which also has the beneficial side effect of maintaining a man's head of hair. Need more be said? There is.

Since President Trump's term in office started in 2017, it is not beyond most memories that in 2016 when running for office, The Donald flourished a letter from his physician, Dr. Bornstein, that told the world "if elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."

Sound like bluster we've come to know is bluster? Certainly. It took a few years, but Dr. Bornstein finally admitted the letter was dictated by the patient themselves. Can anyone be surprised? 

Reading the complete bylined obit you have to wonder if the death of Dr. Bornstein got promoted from the paid notice section to a bylined obit because it gave the NYT the opportunity to squeeze off another example of President Trump being vain and egotistical about his hair and throwing people out of his circle.

I have to wonder how the Bornstein family feels about going from their portrayal of a genial physician to someone who tangled with The Donald and seemed to lose, despite President Trump emerging like the egotistical boob that he is.

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Fountain Pens

A staple of a complete obituary is where the subject was born and their parents' name (mother's maiden name now in parentheses). Generally you also get what their parents did for a living. Sometimes these occupations are clear indicators of how and why the subject became famous for what they did. Most times not, however.

Mother's who worked in the home are now referred to as "homemakers" with no pejorative connotation meant. The word homemaker might have come in handy when I was called for Federal Grand Jury in Brooklyn years ago. In Federal court, the judge apparently does the voi dire, the questioning of potential jurors. From this, the juror is marked for possible empanelment, or waived through a limited number of pre-emptory challenges the lawyers have.

Questions from the judge are simple, biographical stuff. Occupation of wife, if there is one, is asked. I replied "housewife, she doesn't work." It was 1988, and this was a politically correct reply. Or so I thought.

Judge Ira Glasser didn't think it was a politically correct good reply, and somewhat admonished me that my wife does "work." Well, shit yeah, I know that, but "she doesn't bring home a paycheck" so saying she "doesn't work" seemed highly accurate to me.

The judge went on a bit, having some fun until I got impatient and asked him "if I was going to need a lawyer?" For other reasons, I wasn't selected.

Tanya Roberts, one of the so-called "Bond girls," who once was also cast in 'Charlie's Angels' and other roles that required a sexy female character, passed away recently at 65. You might say she passed away twice, because it was mistakenly reported she had passed away, then after a few more days the news was accurate, and it was reported that yes, she had passed away.

I don't know what it is, but I always find it a bit surprising when a noted subject passes away and they came from one of New York's "outer boroughs," the land masses connected by so many bridges and tunnels to Manhattan the NYT so identifies that the rest of us might call the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, or Staten Island.

Regardless, Ms. Roberts was from the Bronx, born Victoria Leigh Blum. in 1955. There is no description, not even homemaker, for the mother, Dorothy Leigh (Smith) Blum. The father, Maximillian Blum, was a fountain pen salesman. Certainly nothing wrong with that. People of all walks of life have children who get written about in the NYT when they pass away, but "fountain pen salesman" evokes an ancient era.

The Jewish name Blum and the Bronx origins ring so New York City authentic, and they go with someone who is making a living in what I'm sure was some sort of stationery store, or working for a pen company that sold merchandise to stationery stores. Stationery stores were once dominant in New York before the arrival of Staples, to the point that if for some reason you were in need of a fistful of No. 10 envelopes and it was Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah, Jewish high holy days, you were absolutely shit out of luck because all the stationery stores were closed. No envelopes for you.

If you think hard enough, parents are full of misguided theories about what's good for you growing up. My grandmother, with whom I lived for a portion of my life, was usually telling be to eat celery, "It's a gooda for your teeth." 

I had already been exposed to toothpaste and a toothbrush, so I could never fathom what eating celery was going to do for my teeth and gums, but I listened. I was respectful. I always liked celery, still do, but never think of skipping a brushing because I've just chomped down on some stalks. 

My grandmother had rotten teeth, as did my father, who I suspect was brought up on the belief that celery was just as good as brushing your teeth, because I never knew him to set foot in a dentist's office. I never saw him chomp on celery either. So much for dental hygiene theories.

Another one of those parental theories on upbringing was that if I used a fountain pen in high school I would have good penmanship. No, you were going to have good penmanship only if you were schooled by nuns in grammar school and learned to write holding an orange in your hand. The Palmer method? Good luck with that.

My father had atrocious handwriting. Since he and I went to the same high school that was built in 1904, we both sat at varnished wooden desks that had a cutout in the upper right corner where the ink well once was placed. Because when he went to school, the devil of the ball point pen wasn't around and they used fountain pens. The difference was that 30+ years later, there was nothing in the ink well—no bottle of ink.

I can still find samples of my high school handwriting, etched out with a fountain pen. It was atrocious and barely legible. As a young adult I noticed that I adopted a style of handwriting that was to use all caps, or small caps in an effort to promote a degree of legibility. When I need to write something these days I still use all caps.  I do not write in script.

And I've also noticed that my print handwriting resembles my father's print handwriting, to the point that certain letters are formed the same way. My Rs for example. I once noticed that in a friend's handwriting when it was compared to his son that there was an incredible similarity. I have no idea if there is a scientific paper on this. I'll ask.

But, even in the '60s, fountain pens were not extinct. I have memories of frequently going to a pen store in the Empire State building and buying fountain pen cartridges, or fountain pens themselves. I always seemed to break them.

There are pretty much no more stationery stores left in NYC. I know of perhaps two, one on 31st Street east of 7th Avenue, and one possibly still around downtown near or on Nassau Street.

There used to be dedicated pen stores. Art Brown, Arts and Letters, and Joon. Gone. Art Brown was my go-to store, just west of 5th Avenue in the mid-40s. For years and years they were in a huge store with a mezzanine with art supplies, then another single level store nearby, having shed the art supplies. They weren't in this second store long before they just disappeared.

The one store left that specializes in pens is appropriately named The Fountain Pen Hospital on Warren Street, not far from City Hall. They produce an extensive catalog and of course take pens in for repair. I usually get my roller, felt tip refills from there, pre-Covid. I've bought several Aurora roller ball pens there.

One time not long ago I saw a woman who I recognized from Art Brown at the Fountain Pen Hospital working there. I never knew her name, or her relationship with Art Brown, but she was usually behind the counter.

Turns out she is the Brown in Art Brown, and she's in her 80s, looking like she's 65. I don't know her first name, and I didn't see her the last time I was at the Fountain Pen Hospital, but when I did see her she looked to be in robust health.

She might just be part of NYC's fountain pen founding families, the link to the era when bottles of ink were just as important as milk.  

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Happy Birthday to Me

Some people as they get older don't want to count the birthdays. They look forward to another birthday as much as they would look forward to a bout of hemorrhoids. Having today reached my 72nd birthday I have to say I'm in a celebratory mood. And I'm thinking that mood is going to stay with me for all successive birthdays.

I am now as old as my father was when he passed away. He fell a few years short of living as long as his father, which shouldn't have happened, but did because of his wholesale disregard for his health.

I was certainly bummed when my cardiologist told me that the heart attack I had on June 6th was "substantial." By all medical measures I've recovered nicely, and the three stents that were inserted and the medicine I take are doing their "thing."

I am always superimposing the historical events that have occurred within a person's life. I think off all the things that happened in the country and the world within the brackets of their years.

When my father started to become sick in 1985 and I was filling out the claim forms, I was very conscious of writing his year of birth, 1915. How long ago 1915 seemed from 1985. The Great Depression, WWII, space flights, Civil Rights demonstrations, Vietnam, landing on the moon, dawn of the computer age—all the events that happened within 1915 and the year of his passing, 1987.

When JFK was inaugurated in 1961 I remember my father feeling a certain contemporary kinship with Kennedy. Jack was born in 1917, and was the youngest person to become elected president. He was two years younger than my father. You'd have to feel you were contemporaries. You remember the same events, the same presidents.

And now, when I tell the pharmacy clerk my birth date, or write it, I'm very conscious that 1949 was a long time ago. I was born when Harry Truman was president, and we had the television on when Elvis's gyrating hips were censored from appearing as he appeared on the Ed Sullivan show. Contrast that era with a Super Bowl halftime show that showed us Janet Jackson's left breast (okay, unplanned by the network, but not by Janet) and you know that as long as you live you will never see everything. Can you top this? You betcha. Just pick up yesterday's paper. How many impeachments have there been?

Billy Joel is not writing songs anymore. He performs, but doesn't create new material. He doesn't really need to create new material, he has so much to lean back on. But when I hear the rapid fire of the events he races through in 'We Didn't Start the Fire' I know I remember all of them.

Billy Joel wrote that song in 1989, forty years after his and my birth in 1949. He could easily update it, or add to it, but chooses not to. He doesn't have to, of course, The events he could add keep happening, whether they're set to lyrics or not.

Each added year gets me closer to what I call "lapping the calendar," becoming 100 years old. The likelihood of achieving 100 when 72 is outlined in a mortality table, and isn't particularly high. But we know, the closer you get, the more likely it is you will get there.

So when I superimpose the events of 1949 onward I of course get all that Billy Joel sang about, all that I can remember from my growing up, and compare them to the events from 1915-1987. They of course are not the same. But they are what I remember.

One of my birthday well-wishers said when we reach a certain plateau we should get do-overs. I sometimes play the game of "what would I do different?" There are plenty of answers to that depending on who you ask, and at what point you ask them.

Right now I would say I should have bought Microsoft and Tesla stocks. And held them. It only counts when you've held them, not cash them in once you've made say $10,000.

Other than that, I am quite happy. I've gotten quite used to missing out in the market. I have absolutely no FOMO. 

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Tommy Lasorda

When it fits the conversation, I tell people that the best any of us can hope for is to be remembered affectionately.

After reading Richard Goldstein's NYT obituary on Tommy Lasorda, the long-time manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, I've come to realize there is a higher ranking one can achieve: "marvelous character." I have a new goal.

Mr Goldstein gives us a paragraph early on in the obit that tells us: "Lasorda, a chubby left-handed pitcher had a brief and forgettable playing career—he threw three wild pitches in the first inning in the only game he started for the Brooklyn Dodgers—but went on to become one of baseball's marvelous characters."

Lasorda was connected with the Brooklyn Dodgers in some capacity virtually every year of his adult life. And he lived to be 93. Tommy's interests were easy to list: baseball and food. He was after all of Italian- immigrant heritage, so the food part was an absolute given.  

I remember one those Baseball of the Week telecasts that revealed that Lasorda was growing tomato plants in the bullpen at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. How many plants there were, and what he did with the tomatoes was not revealed, but you'd clearly expect they went into some sauce.

Lasorda was basically a lifer minor-league player, until he was a lifer major league assistant manager, manager, and executive. He would tell you he bled Dodger Blue. He didn't quote Shakespeare's Shylock, but he expected that if his skin was pricked, the blood would come out blue. 

And he could be prickly. Arguing with umpires in that lovable fashion that baseball managers used to display when they disagreed, to wrestling with the other team's furry mascot when something set him off.  Boston's Pedro Martinez fighting the Yankee bench coach Don Zimmer was scary; Tommy rolling around with a sort of Disney character was nothing but funny.

Lasorda was not from Brooklyn, but he did play briefly for the Dodgers when they were in Brooklyn and before they re-enacted Original Sin and moved to the West Coast after the 1957 season. There are people still alive who will never forget, or ever forgive that transition.

There's no mention if Tommy ever got to Rao's restaurant in East Harlem when he was in town, or if he and Joe Torre ever made it down to Ponte's for a plate of pasta. But I'm sure he never left New York hungry.

Baseball was hard to pay attention to this year, with a severely shortened season due to Covid-19 restrictions. Lost in the blur of daily news was the fact that the Dodgers did win the 2020 World Series, played in the so-called bubble, and that Tommy Lasorda attended the winning game, popping up from his wheelchair in a private box at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas as the Dodgers clinched the series and exclaimed his patented acknowledgment of victory: "Oh yeah!"

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Deceased Aristocrat

For the hardcore reader of obituaries, there is nothing better than a deceased British aristocrat. It may not be good for the deceased or their family and friends, but for those of us who like to read obits, little in the English language tops reading about the death of a British aristocrat.

And that's generally reading about them in the NYT, never mind the polished sendoff they might get from the British press.

Take the recent passing of Stella Tennant, 50, described as an aristocrat British model who inspired designers. 

We learn she was none other than the granddaughter of the youngest of the Mitford sisters, that sextet of women that dominated British intelligentsia in the early part of the 20th century. Putting names to the relationship, Stella was the granddaughter of Andrew Cavendish, the 11th Duke of Devonshire, and Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, the youngest of the Mitford sisters.

Going back further, the obiturist Guy Trebay tells us "Ms. Tennant was directly descended from Bess of Hardwick, the builder of the opulent Elizabethan manor Hardwick Hall, who was once reputed to be the richest woman in England."

Stella apparently played down her aristocratic heritage as best she could, by having a three-decade run in fashion "during which she walked the runways for most of the major fashion designers."  She was on more magazine covers than Elvis or the Beatles.

Stella's parents were no less titled than her grandparents, her mother being Lady Emma Cavendish and her father the Honorable Tobias William Tennant, the son of the second Baron Glenconner, who himself was the younger half brother of Colin Tennant, "the rakehell favorite of Princess Margaret and the force behind the development of the Caribbean island of Mustique."

Knowing that the late Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth's sister, was a unrepentant party girl, I have to assume a "rakehell" is the male equivalent.

But just to be sure, I did look up the word "rakehell," a word I'm sure I would have never read if I wasn't reading about a deceased British aristocrat.

And sure enough, rakehell gets the definition of a "fashionable or wealthy man of immoral or promiscuous habits." If you can't name at least three American equivalents of a rakehell your television hasn't been on since this morning.

And that's the beauty of reading about a deceased British aristocrat. You come across words like rakehell, and a Mitford sister grandchild that a designer Anna Sui said, "was so elegant and had the prettiness and androgyny of an Elizabeth Peyton drawing. Plus, there was that posh accent and the defiance of the nose ring." Gone at 50.

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E Pluribus Unum

The title is pretty much the extent of what Latin I know: E Pluribus Unum; Out of Many, One, seen on U.S. coins. It is probably seen in other contexts, but that's the one I know best.

The advance obits that Margalit Fox had been assigned to write for the NYT when she wasn't on deadline have been bobbing up to the obit page as the subjects reach their final resting place. When the tide goes out on a subject's life, the tide comes in with a Margalit advance obit.

How many advance obits there are that Ms. Fox wrote is unknown to us. We're still getting Robert McFadden's advance obits, usually when the subject passes the 80 or 90 year-old mark. Mr. McFadden is still with us, and to the best of my knowledge is still with the NYT in some capacity. So he still might be churning out copy that we later see. Ms. Fox has left the NYT, so we're only going to eventually see what she left behind.

And it is a delight to read when it happens. The subject might not appreciate it is their death that gets us a post-employment Margalit obit, but that's the way it goes.

My knowledge of Latin pales compared to what Ms. Fox reveals her knowledge to be as she tells us the story of Reginald Foster, a priest for whom Latin was a living language, who just passed away at 81.

And his knowledge of Latin makes anyone else's knowledge look only large enough to fill a thimble. He was considered "the foremost Latinist in Rome, and quite possibly the world.

Ms. Fox's lede evokes Robert McG. Thomas Jr.'s memorable 1998 obit on Charles McCartney, who was known for his travels with goats: "You take a fellow who looks like a goat, travels around with goats, eats with goats, lies down among goats and smells like a goat and it won't be long before people will be calling him the Goat Man."  

"Father Foster dreamed in Latin, cursed in Latin, banked in Latin and ultimately tweeted in Latin," and was connected with the language in so many other ways that it was truly fitting that Ms. Fox stated his age at his demise as LXXXI. 

In the liveliest of obits, Ms. Fox tells us how Father Foster contributed to providing the Latin translation on A.T.M.s in the Vatican. I really doubt I'll ever return to the Vatican, having been there when I was 15 when touring Europe one summer. But for shits and giggles, I think I'd love to face the challenge of selecting the prompts in Latin.

I do have to say I chicken out when locally I'm asked if I want to proceed in Spanish. I'm afraid of messing up and holding up the line, if there is one.

I once asked a woman I worked with who was bilingual with Spanish if she selected the Spanish prompts when using an A.T.M.  She looked at me funny and said no, she always used the English prompts. I was just asking.

Apparently Father Foster acquired Latin fever at a very early age and loved the declining and conjugation of words. I remember the son of our upstairs tenant who was only slightly older than I was who went to Catholic grammar school in the 50s, who spent time on homework assignments declining nouns and conjugating verbs. To me it looked like he was solving cryptograms.

Ms. Fox tells us Father Foster served four popes and had an appearance that completely belied what you might expect of a clergy scholar: "He looked like a stevedore, dressed like a janitor, swore like a sailor (usually in Latin) and spoke Latin with the riverine fluency of a roman orator." (Who was there to understand him?)

Father Foster also liked to drink. Imagine being set upon by Father Foster in a Blarney Stone when for some reason you started arguing with him over something and he started to insult your looks and your mother, in Latin. You wouldn't know what the fuck to do or say. I wonder if Father Foster's nose was ever broken. The obit doesn't say.

Father Foster's path through life was more pre-ordained than anyone could guess. His father, and his grandfather were plumbers in Milwaukee. As a lad, Reginald apprenticed with his father.

The word plumber is derived from the Latin word for lead, plumbum. Historically, lead was a metal used heavily in the manufacture of pipes for plumbing. The periodic symbol for lead is Pb. 

As soon as young Reginald picked up a wrench to pass to his father he was engaged in learning Latin.

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