543 Magazine

Category: Lifestyle

  • The art of the picnic

    The art of the picnic

    Once spring hits and then all through summer, everywhere we go we see people having picnics.

    In movies.

    And on television.

    But in real life — not so much.

    Here, in the actual world, a true picnic sighting is pretty rare. In fact, it’s up there with finding a working payphone or a thriving drive in theatre. I mean, once in a while you will see one. But not all that often.

    Now, we see people eating outside, al fresco, all the time. The office worker driving to a park to eat their Burger King meal #4 on a picnic table with a paperback opened. Sure. And the road crew at a rest stop throwing back a few sandwiches and gallons of store bought ice tea. Yup. But these are what we call — not-picnics. They are just — eating outside. And they don’t count.

    Picnics have been around forever, but they didn’t have an actual word to describe them until the 17th-century. When the French word ‘piquenique’ was formed — which took the verb ‘piquer’, meaning to pick, along with a silly rhyming syllable, ‘nique’. So the alteration of the word followed the same rule and it became — pic-nic.

    Originally, the picnic was a large outside pot luck for the gentry, with each guest expected to bring a dish to share. These were elaborate, society events, which lead to those who were involved in them to be referred to as — the picnic-society.

    From there, the picnic took it’s true form.

    As travel became more common — first with the horse and carriage and later with car — the picnic became a large part of the trip. As you traveled, the need for food on the way would need to be planned in. A trip to visit uncle Earl’s in a neighboring town a few hours away, would require you would to prepare the food — the roads weren’t always paved with drive-through’s and bargain meal deals. So, the picnic became part of the excursion. A piece of the adventure. Halfway through the trip, you find a field or a pond, or a meadow, to spread your blanket out and bring out the basket. The kids would bring a ball, or maybe a kite, and the event, would now have another event in the middle of it. You would stretch your legs, relax and recharge before getting back in the car and continuing.

    And that’s what a picnic is. An event. Not just eating — because we do that all day long while we do something else. We eat while we drive. We eat while checking our phones. We eat while watching television. We eat and don’t even notice that we’re eating.

    So what makes a picnic, a picnic?

    Okay, that’s easy. A picnic has a few fundamental aspects of it.

    1. It has to be outside. An inside picnic is called — lunch. It doesn’t count. And a picnic should be in a unique outside area — a park, a lake, a field and even a picnic area at a rest stop counts.

    2. It is held on a blanket or a picnic table. Period. You can’t have a picnic on camp chairs while setting paper plates on your lap, while leaning against the car, inside a food court, or inside the car. This is called — eating. It’s not a picnic.

    3. It should not contain store-bought food. Picnic food can be extremely simple and easy to prepare, but it has to be yours. It has to have your fingerprint and design on it. The only exception to this rule, is if you bought a rotisserie chicken — not a fast food chicken — and then prepared sides for it. There is something about cold chicken on a picnic that just fits.

    4. It has to be cold food. Cooking a meal over charcoal is incredible, but that’s not a picnic. That’s a cookout. And if you are fussing with the fire and getting burgers to cook just right, then you are missing the very crucial element of the picnic. The people you are with and the area you are at.

    5. And it has to have some recreational aspect to it besides the meal. Picnics are not to be rushed, but to be enjoyed, even if that recreation is just sitting back after the meal and talking, playing cards or a board game, throwing a frisbee or playing a harmonica — which is why free community concerts are ideal places to hold picnics. Because the entertainment aspect is already provided.

    As far as picnic food, you can be as elaborate as you want, but the real aspect of it is to be simple. Simple food to be enjoyed leisurely. Boiled eggs, cheeses, peperoni, hard crusted bread, cold chicken, pickles, olives, pasta salads, grapes, all make amazing and simple picnic food.

    So plan a trip. And a plan a picnic smack dab in the middle of that trip. Make it a priority to skip the eleven-dollar hotdog at the water park and pull the kids over to the picnic area instead and open the basket.

    You heard me.

    Go have a picnic.

  • What your health club — won’t tell you

    What your health club — won’t tell you

    shutterstock_327066863

    Okay, let’s say you open a bakery.

    You are now the proud owner and operator of Tralfaz Bakery.

    Congratulations.

    Which means that you went out found a location, bought equipment, hired some people, opened your doors and you are now in the baked goods business.

    Now the first question is, how do you make your money? How does Tralfaz Bakery operate?

    Well, it’s pretty straight forward. You produce income by selling baked goods to the public. And you do this by purchasing raw materials — flour, sugar, eggs — and then using those raw materials to make sellable goods — breads, cookies and cakes. You mark up these goods accordingly and when you sell them, you can not only cover your overhead and invest back into the business, but pay for more raw materials — to make more sellable goods.

    Boom.

    So, the business model for your bakery is clear and linear. The more goods you sell, the more money you make. And as long as this process is not interrupted, as long as your costs and your customer base don’t change, the bakery will continue on successfully.

    Now, let’s say you get bored with Tralfaz Bakery. You sell it and buy Tralfaz Motors; a car dealership. Which means that you make a profit by selling new cars. True, but in order to sell those new cars, you take in customer’s old cars in trade and resell them. Then, you also make a profit on the extras you sell to the customer; extended warrantees, service plans and rust treatments. And, you make a profit on servicing and repairing the cars that you sell. And, you make a profit on the markup of the parts you stock to repair those cars.

    Your business model is still clear — even though it has multiple income streams — and is still linear. You make money by selling cars, car repair and maintenance services.

    Okay, last one. You wake up one morning and sell Tralfaz Motors and decide to open up — ta-da — Tralfaz Fitness, a full service health club.

    So how do you make your money?

    Well, if you own a health club that means that you went out and leased a building. You stocked it with exercise equipment for both cardio and strength training. You allocated safe areas for fitness classes, as well as shower and locker space for customers. You hired fitness professionals and you priced memberships to cover your costs and build in profit. Then — you determined how many guests you can support at that facility, as well as how many guests you need to come in just to cover your costs.

    And as long as the customers keep coming in, as long as the number of members remains between the base number you need to cover costs and the maximum number you can service from that facility — you’ll continue on successfully.

    And that is what we call — a lie.

    That’s not how health clubs operate.

    At all.

    Not even a little bit.

    Health clubs operate by selling long term memberships to people and — now here comes the good part — then incentivizing them to — never come in.

    Ever.

    A health club makes its money selling annuities – long term financial commitments that produce an ongoing income stream at a 100% profit margin. They sell air.

    What? That’s ridiculous.

    Okay, let’s look at a few things.

    An average corporate gym has about 10,000 paid members. But only 2,000 of those members actually use the facility. One-fifth of the people that purchase these memberships — do not use them.

    Planet Fitness — one of the biggest gym chains in the country — has facilities that can support around 300 members per site. Yet each site signs up in excess of —-  6,000 members per site.

    Okay, but that’s not the gym’s fault. If people aren’t disciplined enough to keep coming, that’s just how people are.

    Well, let’s see if that’s true. And we can do this by looking at how gym workers are incentivized? How do they make money? By the number of pounds the members loose? By the fitness success of the members? By how happy the customer base is?

    Nope. By selling new memberships. In fact, almost all health club employees have a sales quota that they need to meet each month and the high employee turnaround is largely due to individuals who can’t meet these sales goals.

    Here’s a fun one. Track the response you get when you walk in the gym and ask for information on joining. Then track the response when you walk in a week later and ask for a towel.

    The employees are not incentivized to give you towels. Travis, your buddy who signed you up for that great three year deal, doesn’t even remember your name now. In fact, they are actually incentivized to make sure that you stop coming.

    Look at what happens at a gym between the time you sign up and once you stop going. Let’s say you haven’t been there in a month. Two months. Four. What happens?

    Well, that’s easy. Nothing happens. Nothing at all.

    No calls. No email reminders. No encouragement to come back. Because they don’t want you to come back. If you do, you are wearing down their equipment, using their water and towels and cutting into the profit margin. But if you stay away — that’s pure profit.

    And that’s what gyms really are; financial institutions. They sell these long term financial agreements to customers, then they go the bank and show the cash flow. In fact, these gyms then take all this financial billing and sell that to another company. So they aren’t even collecting your money. By the time you are out the door, your payment has been transferred to the finance company and the gym hopes you never come back.

    In fact, these annuities are the entire structure of the business model of a health club. They have a solid cash flow based on the complicated and long term contracts with members, and they have no limit with the number of new members they can sign up. In fact, the only limitation is the demographic of the region where the gym is located. If it could, a health club that can support 300, would gladly take on 10,000 members or more.

    Here is a quick test. Walk into your gym after you’ve signed up and gauge the response you get from the staff.

    Then turnaround and walk into your bank and gauge the response you get from the staff. The bank will be all over you — good morning sir, how are we doing today? Is there anything else I can do for you? Thanks for banking with us.

    Because you can leave your bank. But leaving your gym is a little more complicated. Not only are there serious fees and penalties for cancelling, but the structure itself is  designed to keep you ever from cancelling it.

    Recently, I decided that I didn’t want to spend twenty dollars a month — along with that high yearly fee — for the right to carry the Club Fitness key tag around with me. So after years of membership, I called to cancel.

    I was told that I could not cancel over the phone. I had to come in.

    So I went in. But I was told that I had to cancel with a manager and had to come in when one was on duty.

    So I went back when a manager was on duty. But the manager was tied up. So I made an appointment to meet with the manager the following week.

    When I got there a week later, the manager was tied up again and I waited. But the manager was never free to meet with me.

    So after about four months of this, I called and said that I could not catch a manager and needed to cancel my membership — immediately. I was told that if I mailed in a certified letter stating that I wanted to cancel, that would take care of everything.

    So I wrote a letter and sent it in certified. A few weeks later, the sender receipt came back to me signed.

    There. Done.

    Then I noticed the next month that I was not only billed again — but had the yearly fee billed as well.

    So I made a copy of the certified letter, drove down to the gym to meet with a manager — who of course, wasn’t there. I left the copy of the letter, with a message to call my cell phone — ASAP.

    Three days later, since I did not hear back, I called and asked for a manager. She was tied up. After telling the person on the phone that I would stay on hold —- forever, she suddenly became free.

    The manager looked up my account, saw that they certified letter came in, saw that it was processed and that it was filed. And — congratulations. Done. I had now successfully —- given my one month notice.

    What?

    Yes sir. When you signed up, you agreed to giving us a month written notice if you ever wanted to cancel. So after being billed next month, your membership will end.

    So what does all this mean? That gyms are evil?

    No. But it does mean that they are unethical. That their business model is deceptive and their practices are deigned to get us to pay for something that we don’t use.

    It’s an illusion.

    So what’s the answer?

    Well, just because you go to a health club — doesn’t mean you’re healthy. And just because you don’t go to a health club — doesn’t mean you’re not.

    You are in control of your health.

    And your money.

    So you need to determine what you are going to do — and no prepackaged health club membership can do that for you.

  • How to promote your event — the opposite way that everyone else is

    pole

    In the days before the internet — this is when the earth was still cooling and bread cost a nickel — telephone poles near intersections and on busy streets were often covered with rusting thumb tacks and the gummy residue of old tape. Why? Because this was where people passed by regularly, which meant that this was an ideal area to get information to those people.

    These poles became the holders of cheaply copied signs for garage bands, bake sales and fundraisers, along with the desperate pleas to find lost pets. Some poles held a poster or two, while the prime locations would be so covered with old staples and nails that the surfaces were now more metal than wood. These were the go-to spots for grassroots marketing; when you didn’t have a budget, when you just needed to get information out to a select group of people quickly without cost.

    Now there was no way to track how successful this method actually was — few people at the garage sale passed out how did you hear about us, surveys. But the poster-on-a-pole system was easy, it was free, and it was what everybody else was doing.

    Now occasionally you will see these telephone poles being used this way today, but they are somewhat rare — you’re more likely to see signs in the grassy parts near stoplights offering to get you out of debt quickly or to buy that old unwanted house, but that’s not the same. The garage band and the yard sale have now moved on to social media.

    Social media has become the telephone pole of the internet; a way to get the word out about your stand-up routine at an open mic night, or when the Little League is having a car wash. Why? Because it’s simple, it’s free, and it’s what everybody else is doing.

    Now, all of us eventually will need to do some kind of promotion — whether it’s to get the word out about the church’s Easter play, or to help increase membership in the dart league. At some time in our lives, we all need to promote — something. And it’s very easy to think, hey I am never going to do this again, I just want people to know that we are having a chicken barbecue for The Lions Club — so let me put in on Facebook and be done with it.

    Yup, you can do that. In fact most people do.

    But here is an example.

    Next time you are on Facebook, in the search bar type the words WRITERS GROUP. When you do, many Facebook groups will pop up — some from your area, your region, and others will be large country wide groups — some of these will be large groups of 50,000 members or more.

    Now if you go on one of these groups, this is what you’ll see. There will first be a description for the group that will say something like — this is the Tralfaz Writers Group. We are dedicated to the craft of writing and of supporting each other develop the skill of storytelling.

    Okay, great. Then scroll down and look at the posts. The first one you’ll find will be from a middle aged women showing her face and her book jacket. She will tell you that her book, Vampire School, is now on sale for only .99 on Amazon. The next post will be from a young man talking about his book Space Sylum, and that it’s free all this week with Amazon Prime. The one after that, will be from a college student stating that she is willing to give away a copy of Wispy Danger, to anyone that will give her an online review.

    And so on.

    And so on.

    And so on.

    There will be no discussion on prose, or of storytelling, or of crafting a character. In fact, there will be no discussion of writing at all; it will simply be one message over and over, from everyone there — buy my book, buy my book, buy my book. A message that quickly becomes white noise.

    But it actually goes beyond that because these people are trying to sell books — to people who are trying to sell books. That’s like going up to people at a bus stop and asking for a ride.

    So why do writers to this?

    That’s easy. Because it’s simple, it’s free, and it’s what everybody else is doing.

    It’s like the old joke where a man sees another man under a street light looking for his lost watch. “Where did you lose it?” the man asked.

    “Oh, I lost it way over in that alley. But the light is better here.”

    We tend to promote, the way that is easiest — even if the results will be affected.

    And when it comes to events, the irony of social media is that it’s great to get information out quickly, but it’s more difficult to track a call to action that involves attendance.

    You could have 400 people commit on your Facebook Poetry Reading Event, but that doesn’t mean that 400 will show up, because there is no connection. It’s not a commitment; they just clicked YES on a Facebook page.

    So what’s the answer?

     

       THE FOUR PROMOTION METHODS THAT WORK EVERY TIME

     

          1. Don’t publicize. Promote.

    There are very few things in life that will make you react — just because you know about them. We don’t hear about a new movie coming out and suddenly want to see it — oh, there’s a new movie? Let’s go. No, we need more information; what’s the movie about, who is in it, what type of film is it? The same is true about grassroots events. If there is a yard sale this Saturday, so what. There is a yard sale every Saturday. How big is the yard sale? How close it? How rare are the items? What does this yard sale have that the one closer to my house doesn’t?

    Now that’s a yard sale, what about hearing of events you have no connection to. What if there is an Opera coming to town? So what. I know nothing about Opera and have never been to one — and am probably a little intimidated by then — so hearing about an Opera would have no effect on me.

    However, if a friend had tickets and asked me to go along, I might. If there was a promotion for people who had never been to the Opera, to get a reduced ticket, maybe. If the Opera Company approached my employer and offered a special rate for us, I might go. If a radio station gave me tickets and then was going to interview me right after and ask what my first experience with Opera was like, yeah. Or if I knew more about the Opera itself, if by going I felt connected to something I wasn’t before, then yeah, I might go.

     

         2. Nose-to-nose.

    There was an old phrase in business back when I started thirty years ago. It said, a face to face meeting, is much better than a phone call. That same rule has changed. It’s now — a phone call, is much better than an email.

    We are getting further and further away from our customers. Which means that those marketers that do make a direct connection, have a clear advantage.

    An example here is, how many times have you seen kids outside of Walmart asking for money for their Little League team or their town basketball team? All the time. Those fundraisers have a low cost and bring in a lot of needed money for the group.

    But how many times have those kids or parents — asked you to come watch a game?

    Probably never. They most likely just thank you for your donation and move to capture the next person leaving. They have that great opportunity to market directly to you — to tell you about their organization and get you involved — and they pass it by.

    Even if they invite you and you never go — you are now connected to them, simply because you were asked.

     

          3. Create an event — to promote the event.

    As much as the word stunt can has a negative connotation to it, stand out events work — walk down Broadway in New York anytime and see how many actors in full costumes, hand you a flyer and ask you to come see them later in the show.

    At the Sundance Film Festival, there is a VIP and celebrity shuttling service that actually creates an event in the vehicle on the way to the film. These are sponsored by various companies, so on the way to the film, there will be truth or dare questions and winners are given Ray Ban sunglasses as prizes.

    Why does it work? People want to experience new things, they want to see something cool and tell people about it.

    Don’t believe me? Watch the Macy’s Parade this Thanksgiving. This event has taken this idea to the extreme, in fact the parade itself has become a very small portion of this event — the bulk is dedicated to the promotion of the latest Broadway shows, and singer’s new albums. It’s presented as if it’s all part of the parade, but in reality this is now one long infomercial.

    But one area that actually does a very good job with this concept, are County Fairs. If you go to a fair and go in the areas where nonprofit groups display, they will have interactive events, games, contests, all to tell you about what their organizations do but also getting you quickly involved in it.

    Having a community theatre event? Get the actors in full costume to the mall and hand out flyers. Having a penny social? Have an event to try and guess how many pennies in a jar. Having a bake sale? Create a free class where you make your favorite cookies in front of people and give them the secret recipe.

    The only limit is what you are willing to do.

     

          4. The side push

    Now if there is one method that works better than all the methods combined, it’s the side push.

    Here is a perfect example. My publisher recently sold the film rights to a novel I wrote to a film company that is packaging the book as a feature film. The novel is set in 1992 and the story is presented as if the events really happened; the book is only the journals that finally tell that story. In fact, Amazon called the book — the novel that you have to Google to see if it really happened.

    The film company wanted to capitalize on this and set out to have a small companion book written; documenting the events as if they were facts  — sort of the way that The Blair Witch Project promoted that film. They went out to get some bids from writers on getting a small companion book made that they could give out to potential investors, as well as used to market the film.

    So what happened?

    Book sales went up. Drastically.

    Why?

    Because all the writers that wanted to be a part of this project, went out and bought the book to familiarize themselves with it — they didn’t do it because they were told to, but for research. But once they did, they felt a connection to it because they wanted to be the writer chosen. Now their creative work — the companion book — was connected to the novel itself. There was a bond and they not only bought it and read it, they began promoting it — writing reviews and telling others.

    So how can you create this effect that happened by accident?

    Let’s say that your Garage Band is playing an event you’re trying to promote. Post that you need a new logo designed — don’t go to a logo company, post on social media and craigslist that you want to find a local artist that can capture the music in that perfect image, and that you want to have the logo in place for this specific event.

    Now promote your new logo search. Post on social media, ask people to give their opinion, give certain designers a plug and provide links to their work and ask for feedback.

    What will happen is, that there the artists will first research your music to get an idea of who you are — promotion — then they will go to work and their creative efforts are now tied to your creative work.

    Having a community theatre event? Post for a singer to perform at the intermission. Offer to promote that singer on the website and the playbill, and then do the same thing — promote the search.

    The key is to choose something slightly different than the event you are promoting. For the garage band, promoting for a singer may not work, because of the competition between musicians. But a graphic artist would want to help the band to help himself.

    So however you promote — your yard sale, your band, or your community car wash — do it differently then you have ever done it before. Different is remembered.

    And different works.

    Why?

    Because it’s smart, it’s low cost, and no one else is doing it.

  • Two good men

    john

    On Saturday, two men that I knew, died.

    They didn’t know each other. They lived in different towns in different states and they probably never would have met. But they both died within an hour of each other — one after battling cancer and the other completely without warning.

    These were both good men. Great men. Men who left this world the same way that they lived it — John, while helping out a friend, and Kirk, while being surrounded by his family.

    And these two people who had never met — these solid Christians who were rooted in their beliefs and demonstrated it in all ways — arrived in heaven on the same day.

    I know that they are in heaven and I know that heaven is real because Jesus said it is. In John 14, Christ said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?”

    And this is what John and Kirk both knew to be true.

    John Risner was probably one of the most giving men that I had ever met. He was the guy behind the scenes, the ghost that was always carrying away a paint brush or loading a lawnmower up just minutes before you got there. One that never sought attention and who’s humble sweat just got stuff done.

    John donated hundreds of hours to the church, he and his wife were in charge of the kids AWANA program and John was the church properties director. And they both had taken vacation time to go on a mission’s trip to The Dominican Republic.

    John Risner died, while giving up a Saturday to help a young couple from the church. They had just bought a house and were fixing it up and John was on a ladder pulling the last piece of aluminum siding off. He lost his footing and fell.

    John did everything right — he had people holding the ladder from below, he had the right angle and wasn’t reaching too far. No one could have predicted it. Which meant that John didn’t have the time from the top of the ladder to the bottom, to think about his life. He didn’t lay in his deathbed for days to contemplate his mortality and consider whether to make a commitment.

    kirk

    And Kirk Darville had that time, but he didn’t need it. He had made that decision decades earlier. It showed all around him, while he was the pastor of his small church and during his career as a school teacher. He was fun and happy and was always there to patch something up, or fix something at my elderly mother’s house — accepting pennies on the dollar from what the work really should have cost.

    Kirk’s faith was solid and although he didn’t want to leave this world and fought to stay with the people he loved, he knew there was a better place waiting for him.

    I know these two men are in heaven. And I know that I will see them again. But I am still sad.

    Sad for the people that they have left and sad for the hole that now remains without them.

    A big empty place that was vivid and fun and full — just because they used to be there.

  • The bomb shelter diet

    The bomb shelter diet

    bomb

    Klaus Fuchs was extremely smart.

    He was born in 1911, in Rüsselsheim, Germany, and from a very young age demonstrated a clear gift in mathematics and the sciences; breezing through his primary education and then being accepted into The University of Leipzig.

    Klaus studied mathematics and physics at the University, and this is where he first became involved in student politics; joining both the Social Democratic Party of Germany, as well as the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, the Communist Party’s paramilitary arm.

    Now, while Klaus was still in school, on February, 27, 1933, a Berlin fire station received an alarm for the German Parliament. They quickly responded and found that the entire Chamber of Deputies was engulfed in flames — and because of the size of the fire as well as its political location, arson was suspected. So fireman fought the fire, while the police surrounded the complex to look for evidence.

    What they found, was Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch Communist, inside one of the buildings. Lubbe was arrested and confessed to being involved in the arson. Soon three other men were arrested — Georgi Dimitrov, Blagoi Popov and Vasil Tanev — all Communist Party members and all confessed to the crime. They were tried and later executed.

    The event became known as, The Reichstag Fire, and here is where things really get interesting. Only a month before this, a man named Adolf Hitler had been sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Hitler was outraged at this attack, and saw the fire as solid evidence that communists were plotting against the German government. Hitler urged President Paul von Hindenburg to pass an emergency decree that would suspend all civil liberties in order to counter this ruthless hostility. He did. And when this occurred — Nazi Germany was born. Almost overnight, the Nazi Party went from a political entity, to a dictatorship. With Adolf Hitler at the wheel.

    So the question is, did Hitler orchestrate The Reichstag Fire?

    Well historians have been trying to prove this for decades without much luck. It’s very possible that he did. And it’s also possible that he only took advantage of this opportunistic moment — to use fear as a vehicle to seize control of the government. But either way, Germany quickly become a Nazi controlled country, as well as one where being a card carrying Communist, could be extremely dangerous. So Klaus Fuchs went into hiding until he could get out of the country later that year.

    In September of 1933, Fuchs fled to England where he worked as a physics research assistant at the University of Bristol, and in 1937 he received his Ph.D. in physics. After this, he worked at the University of Edinburgh, where he earned a second Ph.D. in Science.

    Then World War II broke out.

    After spending some time in Canada, Fuchs returned to England where he began working on The Tube Alloys Project — England’s covert atomic bomb group. And this is where Fuchs began his career as a spy. He immediately began passing detailed information on the project, directly to The Soviet Union.

    In 1943 Fuchs went to New York City, to work on the Manhattan Project and then in  1944 to the Los Alamos Laboratory — where he developed the calculations relating to the first nuclear weapons as well as early models of the hydrogen bomb.

    Then came Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of the war. Klaus returned to the UK and worked at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment as the head of the Theoretical Physics Division.

    Five years later, on January 31, 1950, President Harry Truman announced his decision to develop The Superbomb. A hydrogen weapon that would be one hundred times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — with Klaus Fuchs having a front row seat to the project. And on November 1, 1952, the United States successfully detonated Mike, the world’s first hydrogen bomb. This ten megaton thermonuclear device, was detonated the Pacific Marshall Islands — it vaporized the entire island and left a mile long crater behind.

    Fuchs’ luck ran out later that year.

    While passing some sensitive information to a Soviet contact, American intelligence followed and arrested him. He was questioned and confessed; which led to his trial and eventually lead to him being sentenced to fourteen years in prison. But the damage had already been done — the Soviet Union now knew everything we knew, about the hydrogen bomb.

    On November 22, 1955, the Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb; based on the same principle of radiation implosion as Mike —- with the same results.

    Which meant that both superpowers were now in possession of what had been called — the hell bomb.

    Two of the most powerful nations in the world, both had a weapon that could kill millions on both sides. And they didn’t like each other very much.

    The US announced that it would use massive retaliation to any Communist aggression, and for the first time in history, the world lived under the threat of thermonuclear war.

    Movies, films, books, television, newspapers — all echoed the fear of nuclear obliteration. And on October 6, 1961, President John F. Kennedy addresses the American people, and asked them to — build bomb shelters to protect themselves and their families against nuclear fallout.

    The President of the United States — one of the most powerful men in the world — asked his people to — dig a hole and get ready to hide in it.

    It wasn’t now a question of — if it would happen — it was now — when would it happen.

    Bomb shelters began to pop up everywhere. These ranged from a corner of the basement, built up with sandbags and food and water, to elaborate underground rooms with ventilation and water purification systems.

    Civil Defense agencies provided canned drinking water and water packaged in milk cartons, to citizens. Fallout drills were exercised in schools and public buildings. We were preparing.

    We had a plan and we knew where to hide and wait it out. And we had a stockpile of the basics — canned goods, dried goods, food stuffs, water. We just wanted to survive. That’s all. Nothing fancy. We just wanted to — live.

    And we waited.

    And we watched.

    And the bombs — never came.

    And that was good.

    And the bomb shelters remained unused. And then they became root sellers and playhouses and storage. And that was good too.

    But along with all that good —- came one bad thing —.

     

    WHAT IS A BOMB SHELTER?

     

    A bomb shelter is a safety net. It’s a place where the basics can be taken care of. It’s the fallback plan. The retreat point. It’s a ready area  where you and the people you care about, can go to get the basics taken care of and to be safe.

    Talk of bomb shelters today are rare, unless you are referring to the trend of Doomsday Prepping or simply Prepping.

    Prepping is similar to the movement of bomb shelters in the 1950’s and 1960’s, in that it is the preparing for a particular disaster to occur — a governmental collapse, massive chemical warfare, an electromagnetic pulse that will wipe out all electronics — but there are two main differences between preppers and those who built bomb shelters during the cold war.

    The first is, that modern prepping is more individualistic and less community based. You see evidence of this in that during the cold war, the list of items to include in your shelter contained many things, but weapons were never one of them. With modern preppers, weapons and ammunition are high on the list — in fact, many preppers have small arsenals set aside to protect their stockpiles.

    And the second difference is, that the modern day preppers are almost hoping that the disasters they are preparing for will occur. They are highly invested in them. So when the government does collapse, when modern currency no longer has value, when the world is left unprotected and vulnerable, then we will be on top of the food chain — simply because we will have the most food, water and guns.

    So bad things can’t happen?

    Oh absolutely they can — and probably will. But you are much more likely to lose your job, than you are of having your home attacked by a biological weapon.

    You are much more likely to be in a car accident, be hurt at work, or have a major health issue, than you are of experiencing a governmental collapse.

    And you are much more likely to go through a career downsizing or industrial shift where your current skill set is worth far less than it once was, than you are of experiencing a nuclear attack.

    But all of these things are life altering — a layoff is not as sexy as an asteroid, but it can still do some damage if you’re not ready for it.

    It was good that cold war didn’t escalate to something far worse. But the casualty of that time period is that sense of preparation didn’t migrate forward. That sense of simplicity, of basic need, didn’t trickle down through the decades.

     

    MISSIONARIES

     

    Many years ago, a missionary couple from Africa was traveling through my hometown and was going to speak at our church. While they were there, my parents had them stay with them and while giving them a quick tour of the area, my mother stopped at the small grocery store to pick a few things up. In one of the aisles, the man just stopped talking. He froze.

    “What —?” he asked, pointing at all the colored jars. “Is this?”

    My mother looked to where he was pointing and answered. “Jelly,” she said. “And jams.”

    He stood there. Unable to take his eyes off all the different flavors, styles and sizes of jellies and jams.

    “Why,” he asked. “Would anyone need — twelve flavors of jelly?”

    And he wasn’t mocking her, he wasn’t judging her. He was only asking a question — to something that he couldn’t understand.

    Why would something as luxurious as jelly, something as rare as jam —- not a necessity but a true delicacy — why would you care, what flavor it was?

    But we do. We do care what flavor it is. And we care how much if it we have. And we care what brand it is. And what it looks like and how we look holding it.

    In Africa — food is survival.

    In Europe — food is social.

    In the US, food — has become something so much more.

     

    FOOD IRONIES

     

    • 32% of all homeless people, are obese. (Boston Health Care Study, 2008).

     

    • In a 2012 study, 42% of the time that we eat, was done because we are — afraid of being hungry later

     

    • 27% of all the food we buy, we end up throwing away — 160 Billion pounds of food each year in the US alone. And still, 75% of us are overweight and 36% of us are obese.

     

    • The average American spends three hours a month, staring into a refrigerator; trying to determine if he is hungry or not. And during peak times, we average fifteen to twenty minutes wait time to get into a restaurant. Yet — ‘not having enough time’ is listed as the key issue for most Americans.

     

    • A dinner in France averages two hours, and a dinner in the US averages forty minutes. Yet the obesity level in the US is twice of that in France.

     

    • A 2011 University of Michigan study asked, how long could a person live without food? The most common belief was — 37 hours. (With water a person can live three weeks or more without food).

     

    • The cost of eating one (1) lunch out, is equivalent to the cost of six (6) packed lunches from home. Yet the most common reason listed for people that don’t bring lunch to work is, — I don’t want to look poor.

     

    • A Cliff energy bar has 280 calories. A Snickers candy bar has 215.

     

    • 23% of all high income homes, eat at a restaurant once a day. 78% of all low income homes eat at a restaurant once a day.

     

    • The average food markup at a restaurant is 300% — for a meal priced at twenty dollars or less. The average food markup for fast food is 400% — for a meal priced at six dollars or less.

     

    • We are seven times as likely to eat at a restaurant, then we are of inviting someone to our home for a meal, or to going to someone’s home for one.

     

     THE BOMB SHELTER DIET

    A bomb shelter is safety. It is a vessel that contains the basic needs — food, shelter, water, medical supplies.

    The food in a bomb shelter will have several things in common.

     

    • It will be able to be stored for a long time — rice, pasta, oats, dried beans, can all be stored for thirty years or more.

     

    • It will require no refrigeration.

     

    • It will be able to be cooked in a creative and unique way.

     

    • Each meal will cost pennies.

     

    • It will contain little chemicals and preservatives since it will contain the basic food groups.

     

    STEP ONE: The Bombs fall

     

    The alarms sound. The bombs are coming. This is it.

    When crisis occurs — when something bad happens — we react. We get the people we care about to safety and we get out of danger. At that point we are focused on survival and protection and we will allow nothing to get in our way.

    Think of a time when a crisis unexpectedly occurred to you — the sudden death of someone close to you, a fire, a car accident, a layoff; any catastrophe that happened s quickly and without warning. When this happens — in the heat of the battle — were you thinking about food?

    You could be starving only a minute before the truck veers into your lane — thinking you can barely wait until you get to the drive thru — and then wham. Six hours later you remember that you haven’t eaten.

    What happens when you realize that you haven’t eaten? You are suddenly hungry again. Starving.

    How many times do you see photos of people outside of their burning building with a cheeseburger in their hands? Or being treated by paramedics as they grab the last of their fries? Never. Because at that point, food is not important. At all.

     

    • Make a list of ten (10) things you are worried about, trying to get to, concerned with or trying to achieve. These can be work goals, financial worries, family situations, or aspirations. When you have this list, keep it close to you; on your phone, in your bag — so you can get to it quickly, review, edit and add to it.

     

    • When between meal hunger hits, take thirty minutes — this will seem like a lot at first, but it will fly by later — and work only on this list. Make phone calls, contact whoever you need to, create options, but for thirty minutes you are only focusing on these bombs; these goals, these little issues that could become large, or these large issues that you have been avoiding.

     

    • Don’t set a timer — because you want to keep this flexible — and allow your focus to shift to what is truly important. But don’t stop until you have done at least one thing, one action, towards everything on that list.

     

    •  A few things are going to happen here. First, you are forcing yourself to see what is important, as well as what isn’t — getting food quickly into your mouth. The second is that you are reducing your appetite — which gives you freedom, which takes away the anxiety, which diffuses the food bomb.

     

    Now this goes directly against what many nutrition experts recommend — suggesting five or more little meals a day as opposed to three larger ones. But we’re not focused on nutrition, we are looking at why we do things. And the majority of time we overeat, we do it out of reflex or boredom.

    Sure there is the Thanksgiving dinner that we push ourselves back from the table and vow to never, ever eat again. But more often there are the dozens of times we finish an entire bag of potato chips in the car and not only don’t remember eating it, but are still hungry.

    We have made food important in our lives. We have made it more important than our families, than our homes, than our careers and then our goals. We need to analyze things every now and then, so we can prioritize.

     

    STEP TWO: Protein pack

     

    In a bomb shelter you will see a lot of rice, grains and pasta. That’s true. These are inexpensive, easy to store and last forever. But you will also see plenty of dried beans,   canned tuna and Salmon — because you need the protein. The starches are largely there to stretch out the meal — to make it last and to fill you up.

    Sugars and starches are cheap — that’s why they are in everything. These are the foods that stimulate insulin, which sends the signal to store fat in the body. The more starches and sugars you take in, the more fat that gets produced. And when insulin levels goes down — when we take in less sugars and starches — then more fat gets burned than is stored.

    The irony here is, sugars and starches make you hungry and proteins make you full. So you can actually eat less protein and feel better.

    We have bought into the fact that we need to stretch meals — to add in the majority of pasta, rice or grains to make it last. We feel like we are spending too much money if at least half of the meal isn’t a starch.

    So reverse the trend. Instead of the majority of the meal being starches or rice, make the majority of them the beans, eggs, fish or chicken. Eat more protein than you eat anything else.

     

    STEP THREE: Bomb shelters are for many

     

    The majority of time that we eat — we eat alone. Even if we’re in a separate room in a house full of people, we are still eating alone. And eating should always be a communal event.

    Add to that that we eat less — when we eat with others. European meals last for hours, with the majority of this time is spent laughing, visiting, talking and having fun. The smallest part is actually the eating part.

    So don’t eat alone. And I mean — ever.

    That may seem crazy, but think about it.

    If food goes back to being a communal event, something we do with others, then a major shift occurs. Instead of saying — what do I want to eat? We begin saying — who do I want to eat with?

    And remember, a meal is simply food shared with others. It doesn’t have to be a five course meal on Waterford china, it can be a few tuna sandwiches on paper plates.

    Take two weeks and vow to eat every single meal with someone else — and this includes eating in front of a TV alone, in your car alone, or picking out of a refrigerator alone.

    If you can’t find someone to share a meal with — then don’t eat until you do.

     

    STEP FOUR: Stock the bomb shelter

     

    When the bombs of life do fall — health issues, layoffs, downsizing, family crisis — having a stockpile of basic foods takes a financial and time burden off of you. For less than a hundred dollars, you can have a several months’ supply of dry goods stored and ready.

    The basics would include:

    • Dried beans — lots and lots of them. These are extremely inexpensive, easy to make and loaded with protein.

     

    • Canned tuna

     

    • Canned salmon

     

    • Canned chicken

     

    • Pasta

     

    • Rice

     

    • Cornmeal

     

    • Flour

     

    • Canned vegetables

     

    • Canned fruit

     

    Stock these things and leave them. Use them when the end of the month rolls around and you’re creeping up on your budget, or when the bombs fall.

     

    AND REMEMBER …

     

    A bomb shelter is a plan. This plan can take any form; a room, a group of people or an idea. But it’s a plan to give you freedom and allow you to think while the basics are taken care of.

    Food is not our bomb shelter.

    Food is just one of the many things we put in it.

  • How to build a fire.

    How to build a fire.

    fire

    Barbara Streisand, Ricky Gervaise, Daniel Radcliffe, Tina Fey and Barbara Walters. What do they all have in common?

    Well, they are all successful, recognizable names in their own fields but there is something else that binds them together.

    Ready?

    None of them can drive a car.

    These are very prosperous, highly motivated people that have achieved so much in their lives but have never mastered one of the skills that most of us learn at 16 years old — now some of this has to do with living in places like London or New York where driving is actually a detriment, but for others it has to do with simply not having an interest in driving.

    So, can you be successful without learning to drive a car? Yup. Sure. You can work around it.

    And can you go through life without knowing how to build a fire? Yup. Sure. You can work around that too.

    But there will come a time — whether in the woods, in a cabin , or even in a survival situation — where you’ll need to. And knowing how means that you don’t have to ask someone for a ride.

    THE GOLDEN RULE OF BUILDING A FIRE.

    There is one thing —- one single entity — that is the single most important part of  building a fire and the one that has the most impact. It’s also the first rule that’s ignored. It’s that you are building a fire. Not starting one, arranging one or finding one. But building one.

    I’ve been on camping trips where I’ve seen guys throw a pile of sticks on the ground and light it and then get frustrated when a fire doesn’t magically appear.

    You are building a fire. Constructing it. You are creating layer of light material that can be lit easily that will then light other slightly larger material which will then light slightly larger material in a precise manner so heat is created and larger pieces of wood can be burned. This is a constructing project not cooking.

    Don’t be in a hurry. Take your time and get the foundation done and the fire will happen.

    Years ago I was on a two day survival weekend with a group of people on Hiawatha Island in New York and one of our challenges was to build a fire with a battery and steel wool and then get a can of water to boil. Now as soon as the timer began — we were all racing against each other — we all scrambled to get materials. Now the guy who lit the fire last, the one who spent the most time on the construction of the fire, is the one who succeeded first. His fire went up quickly and efficiently and he actually worked less on the maintenance of the fire because his foundation was so solid.

    BUILDING A FIRE

    Whether your building a fire in a fireplace, a pit, a stove or a camp the rules are all the same. You will need three types of wood:

    1. Tinder — pine needles, paper, dry leaves, dried grass, birch bark
    2. Kindling — small sticks under 1″, pine cones, bark, wood shavings.
    3. Fuel — sticks larger than 1” in diameter.

    So your tinder goes in the basement of your construction project, the kindling above it and then the fuel either above that or added on once the fire gets going.

    1. Loosely pile the tinder in the center of fire pit or on yoru firegrate/stove. Be sure there is air around it for fuel.
    2. Add the kindling around the tinder so it catches. The two ways to do this are in a teepee — best for camp fires — or a frame, where you have large pieces off to the side and the kindling in the center. You can place the fuel on the edge but don’t rush it, you can always add the fuel when the kindling is hot.
    3. Light the tinder.
    4. Add more tinder as the fire grows — you want the flame to be high at first so it catches
    5. Then add more kindling — rule of thumb is get twice as much as you think you need. Remember kindling is more important that fuel. Getting the fire hot means you can add larger and ever wetter pieces later but not getting it hot means it has a chance of going out.
    6. Add fuel.

    Experiment and play around. Building a fire should be something you’re confident in doing and may come in pretty handy someday.

  • You Choose

    You Choose

    chose

    In Oneonta, New York, on the corner of Main and Church Street, there once sat a bar called Red’s Filling Station. Now this was a great place. The outside was covered in red painted stone. The inside had walls and ceilings filled with vintage gas pumps, motorcycles, and license plates — this was long before the TGI Friday style became so common. Red’s wasn’t named for the color but for the owner, a crotchety upstater who breezed in once a week to complain about the ice usage and sign our paychecks. It was the most loud, crazy, and popular watering hole in that part of the Catskills, and was where several of my friends and I worked as bartenders one summer.

    Now one night — this would have been somewhere in July or August of 1985 — my roommate Kurt and I realized that, well, not only was our rent due the next day, but collectively we were $84 short. So we came up with a plan — a quick and creative plan that had only one moving part. We would make all the money we needed that night in tips. And we would do this by simply telling the customers what we wanted them to tip us.

    The doors opened, our shift began, and soon the bar was two feet deep with summer college kids and townies, all clamoring to get drinks.

    I went first.

    “Okay, two beers,” I sat the drinks down on the bar in front of a guy in the Sammy Hagar t-shirt. “That’ll be a buck-fifty for the beer and a dollar tip. So two-fifty total.”

    And Sammy Hagar dropped the cash and made way for the next customer.

    “Okay,” Kurt yelled out. “Here ya go. Two vodka cranberries and a Molson. Four-fifty and with the tip that will be six bucks.”

    And it went on like this. For an hour. Until we had made the $84 we needed — then we went back to allowing the customers to decide what to tip us and the remainder of the night wasn’t as prosperous.

    What’s interesting is that no one, not one single person, questioned us. No one complained. And no one tipped less or more than we told them to.

    Now this is just a story told at barbecues and over lunches, but it’s important here because it frames the next story — the important one.

    Fast forward about fifteen years. I was now married, we had bought our first house, and we were raising our two small sons in a town called Vestal, NY. And for ten years I made a living in industrial computer electronics — which is a fancy way to say that I befriended corporate buyers and tried to talk them into buying more from me and less from my competition. And life was good.

    Then, as the electronics industry began to shift heavily offshore, the pinch was felt. And in May of 1999 I received my first of two career layoffs.

    I wasn’t really concerned about this layoff because I had received job offers from competitors fairly often, so I contacted them. But the shift was being felt by all, and these very contacts were scrambling for their own jobs.

    With the severance I received, along with unemployment, we could just take care of the essentials if we tightened our belts a bit. So we did. And I made the job hunt my full-time position, leaving early and coming home late.

    During this time one company made me an interesting proposal. They, like everyone, had a hiring freeze. But if I could work for commission only — covering my own hotel, gas, and expenses and receiving a commission on new business — I could start right away.

    It wasn’t ideal. Money would go out before it came back in and even if I sold something that first day, it would be months before a commission followed. But it kept me in front of customers, making new contacts, and in the industry, so I agreed.

    A few months went by and a little money was trickling in, but not much. Then, the Vice President of Sales was retiring and had hired his replacement. They were both flying into Rochester to introduce the new VP to one of our largest customers. My job was to make the three-hour drive to pick them up at the airport, go to the meeting, and then get them back to the airport. And I could tell by the coolness of the past week that our relationship would soon end.

    When the plane landed I was there to pick them up.

    “Well, we should probably start with the real reason you’re here and get that out of the way first,” I said, in a friendly tone.

    But they both laughed this off. I was wrong. They had no interest in making any changes like that, and in fact I was doing a great job. And the hour and a half drive from the airport to the meeting was light and friendly.

    We had our meeting. It went well, as did the working lunch after. Then we began the long drive back to the airport.

    When we had reached the halfway mark, with about forty minutes left to the airport, the mood changed. They started talking about how their expectations were higher than I was hitting. Was I really giving this my full attention? The new customers I had set up were not as many as they were hoping. They weren’t sure that this was working for them. So, they were canceling our agreement — which would have been fine, except they then started to get angry. The mood started to intensify and even become threatening.

    As the anger built up on their end, I felt myself move into defense mode — to listen and apologize, to brainstorm, to offer to work harder, to make sacrifices and…

    Then something clicked. In one of those brief moments of clarity, everything snapped into place and became absolutely clear.

    I then knew the difference between what I had to do and what I didn’t have to do. Everything stopped and I knew what my options were. And without anger, without emotion, I put my turn signal on and worked the car towards the far right lane.

    “What are you doing?” the VP snapped.

    “I’m going home,” I said. In a calm and almost sleepy tone. “So I’ll let you guys out here.”

    There was a moment of quiet, then a laugh. “Very funny,” he pointed down the road and then gave the new VP in the backseat one of those, don’t worry, I’ve got this under control, kind of looks.

    But I continued to move the car to the right and then to the side of the highway. Then I stopped.

    “Okay, okay,” the new VP joined in from the back. “I can understand you’re upset. So let’s talk about it. Let’s head back to the airport and sit down and…”

    “I’m not upset,” I put the car in park. “I’m not upset at all. This isn’t working for either of us. But I also don’t have to take you to the airport.”

    This idea confused them. What did I mean? Of course I had to take them to the airport. What kind of a lunatic was I? I did have to take them to the airport. Didn’t I see that?

    “You have to…”

    “No, I don’t,” and still there was not a single trace of anger in me. “I don’t have to and I don’t want to. So I’m not going to.”

    Several moments of frustrated silence followed before anyone spoke.

    “Well,” the current VP finally said, with a cocky smirk, “then we have an issue because we’re not getting out of the car.”

    “That’s fine,” I replied. “But I’m turning around at the U-turn spot right up there. And then I’m heading the three hours home, in the opposite direction. So if you want to get to the airport, this is the closest you’ll be.”

    More silence. More looks back and forth. Then I pressed the button that popped the trunk. They both sat there. Quietly. Then the old VP got out and the new one followed. I let them get their bags from the trunk and shut it. Then I pulled out, turned the car around, and headed home and I never saw or heard from either one of them again.

    Now, do I feel bad for leaving a 65-year-old man and an overweight VP on the side of Highway 90 in the middle of the summer?

    Nope. Not at all.

    They both had cell phones, granted back then they were the size of hoagie rolls and cost about three dollars a minute, but they could have called someone. And I have no pride in the act of leaving them, only in clearly seeing what my options were. The point was that I didn’t have to drive them to the airport, and I didn’t want to. So I didn’t. I made a choice instead of followed the momentum.

    And I also have no bitterness or anger towards them — I didn’t then and I don’t now. Because it’s not about anger. It’s about options.

    Because there is nothing in life, and I mean absolutely nothing, that we have to do.

    We don’t have to go to work. We don’t have to make our car payment. We don’t have to pay taxes and we don’t even have to get out of bed in the morning. We choose to do all those things.

    Now are there repercussions if we don’t do them? Yes. Of course there are. But there is a cause and effect in all things.

    There is nothing in life that we have to do. We choose to do it all. And yes we can make bad choices and we all do. Every day. But the challenge is to make sure they are our choices not just our reactions.

    Choose to do it, or choose not to. These are the only options. But never respond simply because the bartender tells you to, or the guy going to the airport needs a lift —it’s not your fault those two idiot bartenders didn’t budget for their rent and neither is it that the two business men didn’t want to spring for a rental car.

    You determine if you want to tip them or give them a ride.

    You decide. And then you choose.

  • Narcissus

    Narcissus

    boston

    For a few months, in 1985, Kirk and I were in Boston. Starving. Well, probably not medically starving, we did have the olives and slices of lemons we stole from the garnish tray whenever we could. Altogether, I’d say we ate every two or three days.

    When we first arrived in Beantown we were eating pretty regularly. This was partially due to the fact that YMCA on Huntington Avenue gave you a breakfast voucher to their cafeteria every day; one egg, any style, toast, and coffee. So every morning, with the $35 room that Kirk and I split, we ate. And it was a great beginning to the day. But you can only stay at the Y for two weeks so we had to move on. Later, when breakfast had to be removed from the budget, we would miss that voucher and would actually taunt each other with the chant — one egg —any style—toast and coffee.

    The shoeboxes of food my mom gave us at the Greyhound bus station in Oneonta, NY, oh man, they were long gone; the ham sandwiches on croissants, the plastic jugs of Kool-Aid, (frozen to keep them cold longer), the apples, the crackers, the pepperoni, the boiled eggs, the cottage cheese containers filled with macaroni salad. All gone.

    Now in Oneonta, yeah it was my idea to leave. I admit it. But it was Kirk’s idea to go to Boston.

    “I’m taking off,” I said as I looked out of his apartment window that looked down on Market Street. “Come with me.”

    “To Binghamton? Why?”

    “Because there’s nothing for me here and there’s nothing for you either.” I said. “C’mon, it’ll be a blast.”

    And I made it sound like the beginning of a film. As if we were two desperados. Two beaten men who would head out to make their fortunes and leave the place that had mocked them behind. Me? I was nursing a seriously broken heart and damaged ego and didn’t want to be around when school started back up again. And Kirk had flunked out last semester and couldn’t re-enroll until the spring semester anyway.

    “I’m taking a semester off. I’m leaving. So come with me.”

    “Maybe,” Kirk flipped the channels until he got to an episode of MASH. “But not to Binghamton. If we’re gonna go, let’s go.”

    And we toyed around with different locales. Chicago. Miami, we even thought of L.A. But once we landed on the idea of Boston, Kirk was sure that this was the place for us.

    “Boston?” I asked.

    “Yup. That’s where we need to go.”

    So, Boston it was.

    We had taken the seven-hour bus ride from Oneonta to Boston a week before, to scope everything out — to see how difficult jobs and apartments were to find — and by mid-morning of that very first day, at our very first interview, we both walked out with two jobs in our pockets. And not just any jobs; for two college kids from the sticks, they were dream jobs.

    Kenmore Square is the intersection of Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue and was the heart of Boston nightlife. It was behind Fenway Park and Boston University and Narcissus was a huge nightclub where students from Harvard and B.U. came to spend all their money. And Kirk and I were hired to be two of their newest employees.

    The place was huge and actually held three clubs in one: Narcissus, Celebration, and Lipstick. But Narcissus was the gleaming, Studio 54 jewel of the crown.

    Since it happened so quickly, Kirk and I went to the club that night to see if the crowds really did bring pockets full of tips for their favorite bartenders, as we were promised. And they were.

    “Well, my friend,” Kirk clinked his beer glass to mine and screamed over the sound of a thousand college kids. “We are gonna to be rich.”

    We were ecstatic. And as soon as we got back to Oneonta we tossed everything into a few bags and jumped the next bus to Boston.

    Finding an apartment was the first challenge. With all the fees added up between first and last month’s rent and the security deposit, we would need to come up with $3,200. Which we didn’t have.

    We were earning a little bit of money, but the challenge was that there was a pecking order at Narcissus and we had not earned the plum bartending slots yet. Because we worked during the day, Juno scheduled us for a lot of corporate parties and band things where we worked the service bar and our tips came from the waitresses who were supposed to give us a percentage. Which they never did.

    And because there were so many bartenders at Narcissus, if we worked a night, Kirk and I would come home with $35 to $45 each — hardly the $100 a night we were hoping for. The good news was that the work was easy and the place was completely mobbed; we only had a few feet of bar space to cover.

    Unfortunately, what money we were earning was going straight into Terry’s hand. He waited behind the door where we lived, and would pop out like a sentry as soon as our feet hit the wooden landing.

    “Well?” Terry scratched his chest through his Talking Heads t-shirt and held out hand — like we had tried to sneak out of a window a thousand times before this. And without words we’d hand over the forty bucks — or however close we could get to it. If Kirk and I were both working that night, our combined tips would make it with a few bucks to spare. But if just one of us was on that night, we’d be short, unless we saved from a night when we did both work.

    Forty dollars would get rid of Terry until the next day, since that’s how much the room cost per night. Thirty-five dollars would lead to a tirade on how he wasn’t a bank and we were the most worthless rags he’d ever met.

    I don’t know if rags was a Terry phrase or a Boston one, but he was the only one that we ever heard use it and he did so  often.

    By October we knew we had lost a lot of weight — each time we got dressed it seemed like we had shrunk a pant size — but when the junkies on Washington Street took interest in our new ultra-thin frames, probably thinking we might have a connection or a hit to share, we knew that food had to become a bigger priority.

    That’s why the envelope was such a big deal.

    The envelope — and I can still see it after all these years — Kirk had found on High Street. It was in the shape of a small paper rectangle and had Asian lettering on it and since we were pretty close to Chinatown, this made sense. Inside the envelope was a bright red foiled liner and a small card. The card had more lettering, stuff we couldn’t read, but inside of the card, pressed between the thick paper folds, were two crisp ten dollar bills.

    Kirk kept punching my shoulder. “We could of walked by it,” and he continued to punch me all the way to a Burger King, where we ordered two Whopper meals. We dove into the burgers and could only finish about half before our shrunken stomach’s gave in.

    “I know what’s for dinner,” Kirk smiled, as he wrapped his leftover sandwich back in the foil. And we sat there for a long time. Happy. Happy because not only did we have a meal, but we actually had the next one covered too.

    From the remaining money we bought crackers, peanut butter, and beef jerky — stuff we could easily hide from Terry, since food in the room was forbidden and he checked regularly.

    We had a certain routine, Kirk and I. Northeastern University had bought a huge apartment building near us and was converting it to dorms. We went exploring one day and found that the laundry room was never locked and within the room was an ironing board and iron. So every day that we had to work, we would stop there and iron our black pants and white shirt before getting on the train to Kenmore Square — we didn’t have an iron and had been yelled at a few times for coming in with wrinkled clothes.

    There was this very cute girl in the dorms with red hair that we would see every now and then. She never paid much attention to us but when Kirk went alone to iron his clothes, he would always come back telling me of how she stopped to talk to him and flirt. But then when we went back together, she ignored us again. Kirk was like that. The nights I didn’t work, he would come back with stories of how the owners would buy him shots and pretty bartenders would hit on him. And then when we worked together, we were invisible.

    That’s why the shooting probably didn’t happen. Looking back it doesn’t matter if it did, but it most likely was made up.

    It was the second week of November and I was off for the night but Kirk was working. He came home excited. He told about how there was a robbery and a guy shot one of the bartenders. Then the shooter came back behind the bar, robbed the cash register and then headed out — only to be shot by cops before he hit the street.

    The story probably didn’t happen. But I never had a chance to verify it. The shooting was my excuse. I was going back to New York.

    Kirk was sitting in the chair by the door as I threw my clothes into a bag. He looked at me with a mixture of fear and pain as I said goodbye. From Brookline, I walked to the bus station where I used my last $22 — my half of tomorrow’s rent — to get a ticket to Schenectady where a friend picked me up and took me the remaining two hours to my parents’ house.

    And I left Kirk there. Alone and broke in a city that didn’t want him.

    There are two kinds of bad decisions. There is the mistake. And there is the regret.

    A mistake is a miscalculation. An error. Bad data and bad calculations.

    But a regret is when a moral or ethical line has been crossed. When you have the chance to do the right thing and you don’t. And most regrets come from the wrong answer to one simple question. Do I stick, or do I run?

    A life filled with mistakes is not a bad life at all. It’s one of excitement and energy and fire. But one with regrets will weigh you down because regrets don’t have shelf lives and their backup batteries never run dry.

    I never saw Kirk again. I have no idea what happened to him, since I transferred to Cortland the next semester. I do know that he didn’t have any family — his mom had died when he was young and his father a few years after he graduated High School.

    So here is the question. How hard would it have been to get us both to my parents’ house? To get us both someplace safe until we figured out the next step? How difficult would it have been to have thought of my friend even a fraction of the amount that I thought of myself?

    Probably not very. It most likely would have taken the same energy it took to leave him behind.

    The irony that Narcissus is the Greek god of self-love, isn’t wasted here. And neither is the fact that I have very few good memories of Boston — most likely because it represents the ugly parts of myself that I want to forget. But I would like to think if this happened today, thirty years later, that the man I am now would react differently and show just a little bit of loyalty and grace.

    I’d like to think so. But I’ll never know.

    Because that’s why they call them regrets.

    http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1993/7/6/narcissus-fuit-or-the-death-of/

  • Thieves

    Thieves

    cross

    There was an article posted a few days ago about a church that had the sound equipment stolen for their big Sunrise Easter Service. This service is outside, is attended by over a thousand people and without that equipment there would be no way for the large crowd to hear the music or the pastor. They would have to cancel it. But what was interesting about the story was that when the church discovered the theft, they all got together, discussed what happened, and —  they prayed for the thieves. They forgave them. Then they rented sound equipment and the service went on as scheduled.

    Now, what’s even more fascinating about this story is when you look at it from a different angle — at the people who took the equipment — you can tell a few things about them. See, those thieves did not set out to be thieves. Absolutely not. They didn’t tell their Guidance Counselors that’s what they wanted to do. They didn’t set thief-goals. They didn’t dream about being the greatest thieves ever and they didn’t brag at High School reunions of how one day they would steal sound equipment from churches. It just happened. Stealing became the default. The fall back. And it happened for one simple reason.

    They got desperate.

    We know this as a fact. Because no one — and I mean, no one — steals for the sheer pleasure of it. The idea of the millionaire cat burglar taking jewels for the thrill of the challenge, is fiction. Because nobody has a great day stealing. No thief takes pride in their work. No thief feels good about what they do. They get desperate. Then they get stupid. In fact, every stupid thing we do, have done, and will ever do, is because we got desperate. Which means we got stupid. And then we say those words. I have no choice. We get in a corner and our options seem limited.

    Which is a lie. No matter what — every time — we always have options. We always have choices.

    Why do millions of people fall for internet and e-mail scams every year? That’s easy. Because they are so desperate that they need those cons to be true — wealthy people don’t fall for these things, desperate people do. They are in a dire need for money, their options seem limited and they think: if this were true, it would fix everything.  They switch off their  intelligence because they need it to be true. This has to work because — there is no other choice.

    And when you go even further, when you boil that desperation down what do you have? What is at the core of desperation?

    Fear.

    Desperation is the fear that the alternative, the next step, is so terrible that we have to do this horrible thing to make sure that the other horrible thing doesn’t happen.

    Stealing is less scary then going without that next fix or that next drink. Stealing is less risky than waking up and having to face the world clear headed. Taking this stuff is far less scary than having to face all the bad decisions we’ve made and take different route. So we cross that line. We pop open that church’s storage trailer and fueled by desperation we grab that sound equipment. And what happens then?

    Nothing. Nothing happens. We get that sound equipment and we get it to a pawn shop and we get the money. And when we wake up the next morning there aren’t people pounding on our door. We don’t hear sirens wailing towards us. The world doesn’t end. Nothing happened.

    Not to us anyway. But something always happens.

    Several years ago, my wife’s ninety year old grandmother had her house robbed while she was out. The thieves got away with two old televisions and some costume jewelry. Total take, around four hundred dollars.

    When Beulah — yes, that’s her real name — came home, she was shocked. She called the police and she called her family. A new lock was put on the house and a new television was purchased. But the story didn’t end there.

    Beulah couldn’t sleep after that. She was so worried about the thieves coming back that she became completely preoccupied with this idea. She stopped sleeping and eating altogether. She would call family all hours of the night and tell them that someone was upstairs. And one night a neighbor found Beulah in her driveway in just a nightgown, running from the house because she was convinced the thieves had come back for her.

    Beulah went into a nursing home shortly after that because she was couldn’t focus on anything other than the  thieves. And when she died a few years later she was still obsessed with that break in.

    Now, did those thieves kill Beulah?

    No. Probably not. But they did take the joy and security out of the few years that she had left. No doubt about that. And they did it for four hundred dollars.

    But the good thing for the thieves is, that they will never know that — that’s the only career advantage in being a thief. You steal, you run, you never have to look your victims in the eye and the consequences are kept far, far away from you.

    When we get desperate, we get stupid. We change. And we change the world around us. Every time.

    2,000 years ago two other thieves faced their own last hours on earth. They thought about their lives and they considered all that they had done.

    One became humble.

    And the other one remained desperate.

  • REVIEW: Vacation Spot. Cambridge, Maryland

    REVIEW: Vacation Spot. Cambridge, Maryland

    crab

    My wife and I have never really been vacation people. Not really. I mean, we’ve taken a few vacations over the years. Well — one. We’ve taken one real vacation in twenty-three years. That’s one. We did that, airplane ride, baggage check, reservations through a travel agency, kind of trips when we went to Key West for a week. One time.

    And then when the kids came, we started talking road trips — too many to count actually. We went to museums, water parks, zoos, carnivals, cabins, cities, to visit family, beaches, battlefields. In fact, if it’s within eight or ten hours of us, we’ve been there. And we drove.

    So although we may not be vacation people. We are definitely road trip people. Which I think is just as good.

    And now that the kids are older, Debbie and I try to get away a few times a year, just the two of us. Someplace close — just a quick trip for a few days. And this past weekend — our anniversary — we went to Cambridge, Maryland.

    Now Cambridge, Maryland, is this quaint little, brick paved street, kind of town that sits between the mighty Choptank River — which is the greatest name for a river, ever — and the Chesapeake Bay. It has restaurants, shops, fishing, music, dinner cruises, golf and just about everything you would ever want in the entire quaint little town package.

    But — and this is where it sounds like a bad movie trailer — there is something a little off about the place.

    If you go to Cambridge, the trip will start like this. You’ll drop your things in your room and head downtown — to go to one of the great restaurants, shops or museums that you’ve heard about. And when you get there —.

    You’ll walk into a place that calls itself a wine bar. And you’ll see three bottles of wine sitting towards the back someplace.

    Then you’ll walk through another door that raves about homemade lunches and the lady will have to go and see if they still have a menu.

    Then you’ll decide to try that gastro pub that has such good reviews and you’ll find a dozen college kids drinking around some brewery vats.

    Nothing is how it seems — or how it’s portrayed.

    Now we are all accustomed to businesses, products and shops that exaggerate on what they have to offer — even the old bait and-switch — but here, it seems like the entire town is in on the deal. Every place is smaller, dingier, or in many cases just completely different, then you expect it to be. And the vibe is very odd too.

    In Cambridge, you will see Porsches — and not just any Porsches, models you don’t even recognize — parked next to old Buicks that know people are living in. You’ll see well-dressed tourists and right behind them you’ll see a group of people that spend entirely too much time looking in your car. And there is this extremely strong Stepford Wives kind of feel to the place. As if as soon as you drive out of site, someone will give the signal and they’ll fold it all up and set up shop somewhere else — so when the authorities get there they’ll be harder to find.

    Now if you leave the small downtown area and go the big Hyatt resort a few miles away, everything is clean and pretty and homogenized. Manicured lawns, a luxury golf course and beautiful people — we saw former Eagles player Vince Papale in the hallway. There is nothing strange — or actually interesting — about the place because it’s like all overpriced resorts. Scrubbed of any genuine feel and made safe and clean.

    Now with that said, if you do ever make it to Cambridge, Maryland, one thing that is absolutely a must is to take an hour’s drive from there to a place called Elliot Island. This is a tiny little patch of land — there are only a few homes, a fire station and a church there — but to get to it you’ll need to pass  through hundreds of acres of protected wet lands, and that’s the best part. You will drive for twenty minutes without ever seeing another car — and what few you do see, will wave to you as you pass. We saw bald eagles and huge turtles that sunned themselves on logs and acres and acres of wide open land — which is pretty rare in that part of the world.

    And then, you cross over the tiny bridge to the island. And you see all the little houses that sit next to boats and crab pots. And the GPS shows that large blue area ahead of you that keeps crawling closer.

    Until you roll to a stop.

    At the end of the road.

  • Homesteading

    Homesteading

    homestead

    There is a great quote by Robert Heinlein that goes, “Every generation thinks they invented sex.”

    Yup. We do. And not just sex, every generation thinks they were the first to discover — everything.

    We arrive in the world and we begin to see and experience. And when we see and experience it’s assumed that no one has seen or experienced before us. How could they? We just found out about it ourselves and since we’re the center of it all, how could anything of any importance have occurred before we got here? Or before it involved us?

    It can’t. And since it’s all new to us, therefore it’s all new.

    Makes sense. Except for the fact that — it’s all been done before. And just because we are now experiencing it, doesn’t make it new.

    “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes  1:9

    And there isn’t.

    With the exception of every generations new technological gizmos that are coming out, and will always be coming out, everything important has been done before.

    But this isn’t a bad thing.

    What is a bad thing is when we think that by just renaming it or repackaging it, that we get the discovery credits. Because there aren’t new discoveries, there are only new movements.

    Eating only what food that will go to waste if we don’t eat it, doesn’t get to be freeganism. It’s what people have been doing for centuries and do every day around the world.

    Making use of what materials you have, doesn’t get to be repurposing or even recycling; it’s just plain good sense and what’s been done since — forever.

    Now, there’s another new trend of an old idea that has popped up in the last few years that isn’t new at all, but is still pretty intriguing. And it’s the old concept of homesteading.

    The term homesteading is pretty commonly known and we all have a general idea of what that means. You go someplace where few people live and you live there and farm.

    Sort of.

    The true definition of the term homesteading has to do with subsistence farming or living a self-sufficient lifestyle — more modern terms for old ideas. But what makes this  modern trend and an interesting one is that there is now land out there that developers have no interest in — in every state, probably within two or three hours from where you are right now — that is dirt cheap.

    And I mean dirt cheap. In fact, for less than the cost of a big screen TV you can get a few acres of land — and some plots for even less than that.

    Now, these are homesteading lots — or undeveloped lots. Most don’t have power, or water or much of anything except the land itself. But they are cheap and they are plentiful.

    What is homesteading?

    The pure definition of homesteading dates back to the 1862 and the United States Homestead Act. It is the ability to establish a home in unsettled land and get everything you need from that land. You get your food from your garden, your fruit trees and your livestock. You get what currency you need in the sale of said items, by bartering or other means. You take care of the land and the land takes care of you.

    Now recently homesteading has been placed in a ultra-liberal almost radical box by using such terms as self-sufficiency and living off the grid. But the act of homesteading is simply taking responsibility for yourself through your land.

    Now the reason I’m bringing up all of this is not to promote the idea of homesteading. I think it’s a great concept for the right people but I also think it can be used as an  excuse to pull away from society and the neighbors that need you. So it’s two edged.

    But what I do want to promote — and think that this does apply to everyone — is that there is cheap land out there. It’s probably on a hill, covered in trees and probably will never see a power connection or a water line, but it’s affordable. And the thing about land is that they are not making any more of it.

    There is something in our core — and this goes back further than generations, it’s why our ancestors came here — about the need to own a piece of land. If you own your home that’s great, but it’s not land. It’s not a piece of the earth.

    For a few thousand bucks you can own a few acres of land. And if you only throw a tent there a few times a year, if you only go to it to show your friends, if you only build a shack or a cabin or an a-frame on it, it’s your land. And if you pay the few hundred dollars a year in taxes, it will be yours forever.

    That flat screen will be gone. That vacation will be distant memories. But your land will always be there.

    Your land.

  • 10 old technologies to never throw away

    10 old technologies to never throw away

    tv

    There is one thing about consumer technology that has always confused me. Let’s say you have a toaster. It’s a good toaster. It makes great toast. This toaster looks good on the counter, cleans easily and has been extremely reliable for all the years you’ve had it.

    Now let’s say that you just found out that the new toasters are being released. Your version is Toaster-6.0 and the new Toaster-7.0 are now out and being gobbled up as soon as they roll off the assembly line. If you don’t move fast, there won’t be any left.

    So you grab your wallet and run to the store — dropping that boat anchor of a toaster at the curb on the way out — to get your new, improved; Toaster-7.0. You stand in line as they count off how many toasters are left. You wait and —. You make it. You get the new toaster.

    Whew, that was close. And you get home and display the new toaster on the counter proudly.

    Now, as goofy as that sounds, we are actually doing this to items like toasters — not as rapidly as we do cell phones, but that’s the danger in it. It’s more subtle. More gentle of an erosion. And then one day we wake up and we miss our old toaster because this is the third toaster we’ve had since we’ve tossed it.

    So here are the ten old technology devices that fit in that category. Here are the ten items we should never throw out.

    10. Old cast iron

    Yes, you can still buy cast new iron pots and pans. Sure. But it’s pricy and is not as durable as the old stuff. And the thing about cast iron is that it never, ever dies. You can find a cast iron frying pan in a garage sale that is rusty and flaking and looks like it has been through three wars. And within a week you can have it cleaned up, seasoned and ready for eggs on the campfire. These things are great and should be held on to forever.

     

     

     

    9. Battery operated radios

    In our world of cellular access to everything, battery operated radios are becoming harder and harder to find. But that old boom box in the garage will come in pretty handy if you loose power and cell coverage. These are worth keeping — and keep the batteries out of them so they don’t corrode.

     

     

     

     

     

    8. Coffee pots

    Not coffee makers, but coffee pots, are becoming very rare. If you have one, keep it. If you don’t have one, get one — and I’m not talking about the fancy forty-dollar camping pot, I mean a real stainless steel coffee pot. It will cost you about ten bucks and since it has very few moving parts it will last forever. These are great for camping and fishing trips, if the power goes out, or just when you want to control how strong your coffee is.

     

     

     

     

    7. Metal coffee cans

    These are becoming harder and harder to find since most mainstream coffee comes in plastic containers. But if you have the old metal ones, keep them and use them. Display them proudly because they have hundreds of uses.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    6. Old landline phones

    Again, if you lose power, an old landline phone — one that you can plug into the phone line and doesn’t require power — is a pretty handy thing to have. Keep at least one in your house.

     

     

     

     

     

    5. Old metal fans

    It’s probably too late for these beauties because they have moved from the hard to find to the collectable. But if you find an old metal fan, grab it. They last forever and the motors are much larger than the modern plastic versions.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    4. Turn tables/tape decks 

    Sometime in your life you will come across a collection of cassette tapes from your talent show in 1970 or some of Uncle Walters old 45’s. You’ll need something to play these on. If you have one, display it and use it.

     

     

     

     

     

    3. Small appliances build before 1970

    In my house, I have the milkshake maker from my parents diner in 1956. Besides the constant use it took then, it has been used for decades and still makes amazing milkshakes. These old appliances were replaced by lower quality versions and the old ones will last forever and when they are gone, they are gone.

     

     

     

    2. Old Mason Jars

    You can buy mason jars anywhere but the new design are thinner glass, cheaper fittings and aren’t designed to last as long. If you come across some of the thick old Mason Jars, grab them. They can be used for a thousand different things and they just aren’t making them any more.

     

     

     

     

    1. Metal fishing reels

    I am still in mourning over giving my brother-in-law my old Mitchel 300 fishing reel when I got my new shiny plastic one years ago. He still has mine and I am four reels down the road. The old metal reels last forever, are rugged and can take a beating.