A Healthy Day Ends at 1:00am

By Larry Teren

They say that the early bird gets the worm. Well, I don’t like worms. I’m not saying that all the rest of you eager beavers who get up early, exercise, have a hearty breakfast, read the newspaper, etc., like to eat worms. I’m just beating around the bush to say I don’t get up early. No, sir, Uh-uh. Eight o’clock or later is fine by me. After all, what’s the rush? You in a hurry to go somewhere? Did you take a look outside and see all that traffic? Have you been on the expressway before 9:00am? You get up early- it’s only going to make you ready to retire by 10:00pm. That means going to sleep at such an early hour when there is so much more to experience.
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Global Warming Conspiracy – Rainy Days and Mondays

By Larry Teren

My brother-in-law – no, not the doctor, but the expert in everything, believes that the plethora of hot days we are experiencing this summer is due to global warming. I ask him if he still believes in global warming when his neighborbood out on the east coast gets two 20 inch snowfalls within a month’s time. He says that it is further proof that the climate is changing. After all, don’t I understand that the global warming effect is causing the polar ice caps to melt? That this causes an atmospheric imbalance so that now we should experience more precipitation during the winter?
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Whatever Happened to Greasers?

By Larry Teren

All baby boomers remember that when a stranger didn’t like how we were behaving, he or she would call us a “juvenile delinquent”. It also didn’t help a boy to dress in a weird way or to comb the hair back in a duck-tail. That was the ‘hoodie’ look of the 1950s and early 60s. Normal boys had crew cut hair styles. But, if you looked like a punk, you were a juvenile delinquent or greaser. Clothes make the man. Appearances count. Yada, yada, yada. greaser Continue reading “Whatever Happened to Greasers?”

Is it a Cell Phone, Smart Phone or Mobile Phone?

By Larry Teren

I don’t have a smartphone but my cell phone isn’t dumb. After all, when it is powered on, it displays the day of the week, the date and time. It can also take pictures and make videos of events taking place in my presence. It can  send an email. I’ve been told that if I am willing to pay extra, my bland flip style cell phone can even receive emails. If I didn’t have that doggone carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand, I’d probably even take advantage of text messaging and receiving instant messages.  I even think that a gps system has been burnt into the cell phone so that law enforcement officials can find out where it is hiding if my cell phone tries to run away. Yes, I’d say my little buddy is a pretty electronic smart dude.

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A Man on the Moon

Remember when they used to say, if they can put a man on the moon, why can’t they….”? Most of us baby boomers were either in our teens or early twenties when we finally heard those immortal words spoken by astronaut Neil Armstrong, “one small step for man…”. Supposedly we experienced the ultimate, unless you believed it was faked in some New Mexico studio.

But that was so many years ago. It seems as if we haven’t had a good example of prowess and progress to attach to since then. At least our generation could shout to anyone, “damn it! If we can put a man on the moon, then you can build a car that gives 100 miles to the gallon and make it cheap enough for anyone to own.” Or, “you can build your factory in America and figure out a way to compete economically with the garbage they make in China.”

Our parent’s generation used to tell us at meal time, “eat it all up- there are kids starving in Europe.” How was my eating something I didn’t like help some kid in Yugoslavia feel like he went to bed with a full stomach? After a while, with the threat of the cold war, we figured that half of Europe was full of Commies so who cared if they went to bed hungry?

Our parents also told us about not having a dime during the Depression but they all seemed to come out of it unscathed. We weren’t buying it. We wanted a hula hoop or a gun and holster set with plastic bullets that shot. Our parents’ bragging rights were that they finally had a real refrigerator and not an ice box. Or a washing machine and dryer in the basement instead of going to a laundromat and popping coins into a slot to get the clothes cleaned.

Our grandparent’s could maybe shout, “if they can put sound to movies, why can’t they….?” But somehow that didn’t resonate when they were frustrated with seeing progress in more important areas of life. Besides, I don’t think my grandparents went to a movie theater for years until they were older and my parents took them along.

I remember the moon landing day all too well- July 20, 1969 when the historic event took place. I was watching the Cubs that Sunday on television playing a double header against the Philadelphia Phillies, beating them twice. The broadcast was interrupted by a news bulletin to show the moon landing as it happened. Naturally, I had mixed emotions because I would rather be watching the Cubs and figured that space exploration was something that was gonna happen on a regular basis anyway.

The fact is that there were only a handful more subsequent touchdowns of human feet on the moon’s crust surface. But it signified a solid example of American bragging rights, of our desire and willingness to conquer new heights. No challenge would go unturned. It was progress at its best.

So, what do the kids of today hang their hat on? I-pods? I-pads? The Internet? “If I can chat with someone in Kabul, why can’t they…” Or, maybe kids don’t get frustrated. They are so spoiled and coddled. They don’t have to memorize multiplication tables- they use calculators in the classroom. They get all that they want. They don’t get challenged to thinking to demand more fuel-efficient cars or food that doesn’t make you fat but satisfies your taste buds.

I guess I’m beginning to sound like the man on the moon.

You Take The High Road, I’ll Take The No Road

There gets to a point in life when I say, “why bother?” Especially if it means traveling. I hate getting into the car and going onto the expressway, fighting to not be outmaneuvered by other drivers traveling 10 to 15 miles an hour over the speed limit. No, I’m not that old a fuddy-duddy who drives 10 miles an hour under the limit. I cheat, too, but not as much. Sometimes I get the feeling as if I’m in competition with a whole bunch of Mario Andretti’s.

My (precious) car is kept in an underground heated garage in the condo where I reside. To get to it, I either take an elevator down 4 floors or walk to one of the stairways and trek down the same 4 levels (and it beats walking up those same four flights, let me tell you). Then I get to the car, back out of my assigned stall, press the garage door opener and hope no one is flying down the entrance/exit ramp. Continue reading “You Take The High Road, I’ll Take The No Road”

The Insurance Thing

By Larry Teren

Let’s talk about life insurance. No, I’m not trying to sell you any. But, if Dad were still alive and in his working years, he would attempt to sell you into buying an insurance policy. He tried to get me to sell life insurance just as he did for more than thirty-five years. I would always tell him, “I’d rather buy than sell the stuff.” Continue reading “The Insurance Thing”

Going Postal

Here we go again. The U.S. Postal Service is threatening dire actions unless the U.S. taxpayer bails them out for the umpteenth time. This time they say they will close many processing centers around the country. This will result in no longer promising to deliver the mail the next day in the same postal zone after it is put in a mailbox but adding a day or two to the length of time. Like that has been a lock for the past several years until now, right?

The Post Office complains that businesses have cut down on the amount of junk mail they send out. Yah, sure. They also say that our use of email has killed their business model. Well, whoopee do!
That’s life. Do you think that the president of the buggy whip association back in 1905 went to Congress and demanded that we all continue to buy accessories for no-longer-existent horses in the backyard barn?

As a society, we are paying our bills more than ever online. Let’s face it. It is faster and a better chance of getting delivered than by the Post Office. And you can tell the bank when to remit the payment rather than releasing the funds immediately.

Those of us who are baby boomers in our 50’s (ahem) can faintly remember that yet in the late 1950’s the Post Office delivered the mail to businesses in Chicago’s downtown area as well as other key locations twice a day . Postage stamps back then cost a mere 3 cents. A new car about $2000, a newspaper 7 cents for a weekday edition, a new house about $20,000, and a movie ticket about 75 cents for an adult.

Today, everything listed about is most likely more than ten times that amount but with all except mail delivery you get the same product or even more for the higher price than back then. Today, a single postage stamp of first class delivery is 44 cents. But, delivery has become less often and shakier. And heaven help you when your mailman (well, at least mine is a guy) goes on vacation and they send out a substitute. Email and electronic transfer of financial data is a good thing. Hey, it’s called progress.

When we first moved into our current office building after the turn of the century (this one- hey, watch it!), we immediately recognized that it had a very important amenity- a mail box pickup location inside.
A sticker posted on the lid you open to drop in the mail listed two pickup times. One around 10am and the other 4:45pm. This made sense as it gave us a chance to compose important business communications, run it through the postage meter and as we went home and dropped it in the mail chute, we knew that by the next morning it would already be on its way to getting processed.

This is no longer the fact. Last year- in a cost-cutting action, the post office decided to reduce pickup to once a day. Fine. No problem. Doable. However, the geniuses decided to make the pickup at 10am and dropped the more beneficial 4:45pm. Presumably because it was beneficial for the paying customer but not their pampered employees who loathed making a pickup late in the day when they preferred to be heading home. What this means is that if I get to the office after the 10am pickup, I have to advance the date in the postage meter before I slide an envelope through. Why? I am a firm believer that the next morning when the mail is brought to the processing plant that a postal employee will see the previous day’s date on the metered envelope and put it on the side to teach me a lesson in ruining that person’s karma.

The U.S. Postal Service has not raised stamp fees from 3 to 44 cents and dropped delivery from twice a day to barely once only because the cost of living that has skyrocketed in 50 years.. It is out-of-control pension plans, vacation and personal leave benefits that our “all types of weather” letter carriers get. But, hey- that’s progress. I tell you what- I quit when my computer starts asking me for the same considerations.