Author: genenewman

When I was a boy I asked my mother what our neighbor, old Mr. Pie, did for a living. “He makes antique furniture,” she replied. It took me a while to realize that didn’t make sense.

“But, Mom, antiques are very old, maybe 100 years old. How can he make antiques?”

“There are ways,” she said. “Mrs. Pie explained it to me. You may know, there are worm holes in very old wood. Well Mr. Pie knows how to put them in the furniture he makes and he also knows how to make old-looking varnish.”

I never found out whether Mr. Pie sold antique replicas or counterfeit antiques. He’s long since dead, but just to be safe, I’m not using the nice old gentleman’s real name. If you’ve inherited or bought expensive antique furniture at a New Jersey shop, try to forget you read this.

Years later I discovered I could have been Mr. Pie’s talented journeyman assistant. It seems I have a natural gift for making furniture that looks very old. One day a visitor to our home remarked, “What an interesting rickety old coffee table! Where did you get it? Do you know anything about its history?”

I didn’t want to tell him that I’d made the table two days previously so I said I didn’t know its background and thanked him for admiring it. After he left, my wife exclaimed, ” ‘Rickety’ is right! Coffee and cocktails are going to spill off your wobbly table onto our expensive carpet!”

“As I explained before, Dear,” I said, “I’m going to solve the stability problem by adding a fifth leg and maybe a sixth. You know I enjoy challenges like that.”

Most people recognize the antique resemblance of the furniture I’ve created. One of my spanking new footstools looks like it’s endured a century of neglect and abuse. “What do you think of this bookcase I’ve just made?” I asked my brother-in-law. “I was aiming at Early American.”

“I think you overshot,” he replied. “It looks like it was made before books were invented. I’m thinking ‘Early Iron Age’ or maybe ‘Neanderthal’.” Some brothers-in-law can be quite sarcastic.”

My immediate family members have been more supportive. My son stopped by one day while I was cutting out the components of a Chippendale armoire. Examining my sketch he said something complimentary about my design technique. “Thanks Son,” I said. “But wait till you see the finished assembly. Come back in a couple of hours and I’ll have it all screwed up.”

“I’m sure you will, Dad,” he said.

Remember when we called them “service stations”? That was back in the good old days when service was one of their chief products. I never called them “filling stations”. That seemed more appropriate for dentists’ offices.

You would drive up to the pumps and, while they were topping off your tank at 35 cents per gallon, a team of uniformed attendants swarmed over your car, washing the windshield and checking the oil and antifreeze levels. Before you left you’d get a free monogrammed ice scraper or a ballpoint pen and as many road maps as you needed. Now you can’t even count on getting free air for a sagging tire.

Worse yet, forty-eight states have been duped into allowing self-service gas stations. Only New Jersey and Oregon have seen through the false promise of cheaper gas if we’re willing (Grandmas included) to emerge in all kinds of weather in our Sunday best to wrestle with the stubborn hose, inhale toxic fumes and dispense a very explosive fluid hopefully without spilling any on the ground or on our new wingtips. Oregon has since caved and allowed self-service in rural areas. The New Jersey price per gallon of regular is widely available at less than the recently published average of $2.50 for the 168,000 stations in the USA.

When former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine (2006-2010) suggested we join the ranks of the unenlightened and allow self-service stations, there was a storm of protest and the idea was dropped. ( I’m sure the governor’s chauffer was relieved. ) A 2015 Rutgers University poll revealed that more than 75 percent of New Jersey drivers were against making self-service legal.

But back to the “Good old days”: I remember a golden moment in 1954 when I was trying to survive on my G.I. Bill’s monthly checks while going to college. A buck’s worth of gas would propel my jalopy about 80 miles, and more if I coasted down hills. “One dollar regular please,” I told the pump jockey one day.

“There’s a price war on,” he said. ” It’s down to 18 cents a gallon today. How much do you want?”

“Just a dollar’s worth,” I said, happy to learn my horizon had been widened to 100 miles. Years later during the so-called fuel crisis, I waited in a gas line for an hour, expecting to be gouged – and I was.

If you want to gain some modicum of consumer control, check Google and outfits like GasBuddy.com to find stations with the lowest prices in your area. If most of us patronize them, we might start another price war and maybe even get our windshields washed again.

Remote control devices may be modern accomplishments, but remote control itself has been with us since marriage was invented. Women have been using it from Day One. Eve probably said to young Cain and Abel, “Your father’s out by the apple tree. Go tell him it’s time to reset the serpent traps.”

Cleopatra surely sent off many a billet doux on scented papyrus that brought Julius Caesar, and later Marc Antony, racing to her in galleys and chariots with chests full of precious gems.

We can’t blame women for being remote controllers. When it gets right down to it, they’re the ones in charge and they’re usually very busy and can’t be every place at once for goodness sake. They’ve got to get their instructions out somehow.

It was a lot tougher for them in the old days when they had to send messengers scurrying in all directions, but modern technology advances, most likely invented by men, have helped women streamline their communications and solidfy their control of us guys.

Go into any supermarket and you’re sure to find a man in one of the aisles pushing a cart with one hand and holding a cell phone to his ear with the other while apologizing to his wife that he can’t find the exotic spice she needs for her new recipe. He’s also promising to stick to her grocery list and not bring home any more kielbasa or potato chips and dip. The poor guy will have to return the kielbasa and dip and eat a whole bag of chips while driving home.

What happened to my friend Frank, a vice president of a prestigious newspaper, might be entitled “Stop the Meeting, I Have to Get Off”. Frank was presiding over a high level strategy session one afternoon when his secretary came in and said, “Your wife’s on line one.”

“Tell her I’ll call her back after the meeting,” Frank said, looking apologetically at the six execs sitting around the conference table.

“She said it’s an emergency,” the secretary replied, trying to keep her voice down below a shout.”

Frank picked up the phone and the six execs leaned toward him to get in on the excitement. It was a very important meeting but even those can get boring after 15 minutes.

“Frank, you have to come home right away!” his wife cried.

“What’s happening, Diane?” Frank asked, frantic with fear and the six execs leaned in further while exchanging worried glances.

“There’s a mouse in the laundry room! A BIG mouse!”

“Oh, a mouse,” Frank said, greatly relieved. “Just shut the door and I’ll take care of him when I get home.”

“Frank, you have to come home NOW!”

“Dear, I’ll be home in an hour. Can’t it wait? I’m at a very important meeting.”

“Come home now, Frank! I’m not going to sit here on this washing machine for an hour. What if he leaps up at me?”

“She’s calling from on top of the washing machine,” Frank told the execs and then added to the editorial chief who was taking notes, “This is off the record.”

They took a vote and it was unanimous. The execs were all married men and understood the situation. Frank left immediately. He’d suggested they reconvene in his laundry room later, but they voted that down. Being late for dinner would get them in trouble, wifewise.

My big brother Sonny was the best shooter in town. I mean marble shooter. Kids used to come over from other neighborhoods to challenge him and always left with empty pockets. He cleaned me out regularly, but I would insist later that it was a practice game and we’d been playing “for lends”, a term we sore losers used to get our lost marbles back. You’d get a sharp punch in the arm instead of marbles if the winner wasn’t your big brother and your mom wasn’t your court of appeals.

He was only ten years old then. We called him “Sonny” until he was 18 and wrote us from France not to use that nickname in writing but use his real name, Jim, since his buddies would razz him if they found one of our letters he’d left in a foxhole. What a thing to worry about when angry Germans were aiming machine guns and cannons at him. Jim was shooting in Normandy then, but not marbles.

Ten-year old Sonny kept his marbles in a tin cigar box and every night he counted his winnings and his total inventory. (Click, ping, ping, click, click, ping!). I got used to it watching from my side of the bed. We were learning numbers in the first grade then so I always checked my silent count against his.

One night the tally was very high and it was getting late. We’d already had two warnings from Mom that it was past lights-out and all the clicks and pings were driving her crazy in the next room. Sonny increased his pace but he wasn’t fast enough for Mom. She came in with a stern look on her face, grabbed the loaded cigar box and flung it out the open window. The box and marbles landed silently on the lawn two stories below, but were pretty well scattered. Sonny looked out into the darkness and began to sniffle. I could tell Mom already regretted what she’d done. “Well, that will teach you a lesson,” she said softly. “Tomorrow you can pick them up before you go to school.”

“There won’t be enough time,” Sonny sighed. “There’re 259 marbles spread all over.” (Actually it was 258. I’d snatched a bright green cat’s eye beauty when he wasn’t looking.) “A lot of them will be lost or stolen,” he said.

Fifteen minutes later, Sonny and I in our pajamas and bathrobes and Mom with a flashlight, were down on the lawn running our fingers through the grass. Sonny insisted on keeping count, but we ended when he reached 200. Unbeknownst to him it was really 203. I had three neato purees in my bathrobe pocket. That was my finder’s fee.

Our laws can be confusing. It sometimes takes a squadron of different judges, juries and lawyers several years to decide beyond a reasonable doubt if someone broke a particular law. Even when a suspect is caught red-handed he might just admit to a “mistake of judgment”. Then there are those who are adept at bending the laws and forming loopholes.

Most of us are occasionally guilty of trying to get around an inconvenient rule or regulation. A friend told me his doctor ordered him to walk two miles a day to get back in shape. “Two miles! It was very difficult,” he told me. “I was exhausted at the end of those forced marches, but then, luckily, I found a shortcut. I could tell the doctor I was still doing three laps in the local mall, but I didn’t mention I was cutting through the food court every time.

I admit to bending a rule back in high school when the dress code mandated neckties for boys. We weren’t used to neckties and felt like we were being strangled. My voice actually went to a higher pitch, approaching falsetto. We boys had a meeting and decided on a solution. We word neckties at half staff beneath turtleneck sweaters.

Before that I was one of the many kids avoiding the 25-cent admission fee to our beloved Palisades Amusement Park. That was during the Depression and a quarter was a lot of money. A kid could spend an enjoyable afternoon in the Park’s Fun House for a dime. I’ve heard since that the Park’s owner realized the fee was a hardship for kids so he left a small opening in the back fence. All we had to do was scale twenty feet of rocky cliff high above the Hudson River to reach the breach. We considered it part of the adventure of a Park visit.

Around that time I was talked into trying to scheme my way into the local movie house. Kids’ admission was ten cents, but I had only a nickel so I asked my older brother to lend me the difference. “That won’t be necessary,” he said. “Just tell the manager if he’ll let you in at half price, you’ll watch the movie with one eye closed.”

I was young enough and dumb enough to believe that might work, but the manager just laughed out loud and said, “Okay, kid, but if I see you opening that other eye during the movie I’ll have you arrested.” I left for home. I would have enjoyed seeing Laurel and Hardy even with only one eye, but I didn’t want to risk going to jail. The next week I showed up wearing an eye patch, but that didn’t work either.

Before the invention of TV remotes and cable there was no such thing as a couch potato sports fan. Watching a New York Giants football game, a guy could get more exercise than some of the special teams players and there was an actual risk of injury if the watcher’s field of play was not properly cleared of obstructions.

Back then the only way to mute an annoying commercial was to trot across the living room and turn the knob. Another round trip trot was necessary when play action resumed. If you were simultaneously watching a New York Jets game and a post season baseball playoff contest you might do a mile and a half of broken field running while changing channels.

Without a roof antenna things were even more complicated and aerobic as you made frequent trips to adjust the rabbit ears atop the set to get the clearest picture. Some days there was no combination of ears extension and location and cuss words that worked and you had to become part of the apparatus by grasping each ear and facing the general direction of the transmitter on top of the Empire State Building 25 miles to the east.

There was also the possibility of electronic failure. TV sets weren’t as durable as they are today. While watching an important Giants-Redskins game one Sunday afternoon, I was appalled to see Y.A. Tittle overthrow a pass into the Redskins’ end zone and I shouted a few abusive remarks. It was probably a coincidence, but Tittle turned and gave me such a withering look that it blew out my vertical oscillator tube.

Fortunately I had a spare, but I had to lift and rotate my heavy RCA console, unscrew the back and replace the dead tube in time to see Tittle throw a TD pass. I’d used my last spare tube so I kept my mouth shut until the game ended.

Even before the cable companies decided what we could watch, there were sometimes unmerciful TV blackouts. Once when a Giants game at Yankee Stadium with the Philadelphia Eagles was not a sell-out, the TV broadcast of the game was blacked out in the Metro area. However, I knew if there was a favorable combination of sun spots, wind chill and humidity, I could pick up a low grade picture from Philadelphia. I phoned my brother-in-law Don, a die-hard Giants fan, and invited him over to watch the game. He immediately drove from Fort Lee and rushed into my living room.

“Where’s the picture?” he demanded, looking at my screen which seemed to be showing a scene from a blinding snowstorm. “You have to concentrate,” I said. “Those moving dark gray shadows are the Giants. The lighter ones are the Eagles. Here, take the rabbit ears for a while. My arms are getting tired. You’ll do better standing on that footstool and holding the ears above your head. I’ll take over in the second half.”

Listening to Marty Glickman’s colorful radio account of the game we followed the action quite well and after a few beers the picture seemed to improve.

Glass was invented by an anonymous volcano many centuries before we had calendars so there’s no specific date. Anyway, some molten rock flowed down the side of that mountain, was cooled when it entered a nearby ocean, and a crude type of glass called obsidian was formed. That process was never patented so you can make your own crude glass now if you live near an active volcano with an ocean view. But please be careful. Use potholders.

We should thank God for giving us that volcanic hint. Who would have thought of making something transparent out of rocks? And if the Egyptians and Romans hadn’t improved the recipe later, the world would be a different place today. For instance, if we didn’t have glass windows our electric light bills would be sky high and what would the light bulbs be made out of ? And if there weren’t any drinking glasses we might have to sip our beer directly from the keg. I tried that once in my youth. It’s quite strenuous and messy.

Glass has become part of our vocabulary. Webster lists crown glass, cut glass, Depression glass, lead glass, looking glass, safety glass and glass ceilings. There was much more but I had to stop. I was getting glassy-eyed. There are also old sayings about glass like “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw tantrums.” Maybe I got that wrong.

After our creative ancestors perfected glass they started to work on mirrors. Can you imagine a world without mirrors? Stone Age people got glimpses of themselves looking into rivers on calm days. They must have wondered who that was looking up at them from the depths. Eventually they got the idea and maybe brought shells full of water into their caves that they looked into while shaving or putting on lipstick. Much later others made hand-held mirrors out of polished metal. Modern glass mirrors were invented 200 years ago in Germany.

Today we take the miracle of mirrors for granted and we shouldn’t. They give us live pictures of outselves without requiring wires, batteries, monthly fees or passwords. Take a moment and think about the wonders of glass and mirrors. Please reflect on it.

We senior citizens are members of a minority that is not protected by the nitpicking rules of political correctness. Brash young comedians do not tread lightly when they’re telling jokes about the foibles of the superannuated. And that’s the way it should be for oldness sake!

Actually, we’re a very big minority with about 50 million members in the USA. That’s almost one out of seven Americans who are older than 65 and the census experts predict by 2035 we’ll outnumber children under 18 for the first time in our history.

Maybe by 2035 the joke about the 80-year old movie-goer won’t work. He’d seen the ad about seniors being admitted to the theater free of charge on Wednesdays, but the cashier explained that, according to the fine print of the ad, he had to be accompanied by his parents. That might be possible by then, but of course his parents would have to pay the full price unless their parents were also on hand.

We oldtimers don’t complain to our Congressmen that we’re being mocked. We don’t mind it if we’re told our brain cells are getting down to a manageable quantity and we’re subject to less peer pressure every day because our peers are passing away by the thousands.

And there’s some truth in the claim that seniors read the Bible more than any other group because we’re cramming for the finals. I enjoy these knee-slapper jokes up to a point. My knees are getting very tender and they can’t take a lot of slapping.

Most of us are still young at heart with all the instincts and urges of youth, simmered down of course, but still there. There’s the report of the old fellow sitting on his front porch watching a pretty young thing run buy in a nifty jogging outfit and suddenly his pacemaker goes wild and opens his garage door.

Talking about urges, there’s the doddering playboy sitting at the cocktail bar who winks at a pretty young blond sitting nearby. “Tell me, Honey,” he says, “do I come here often?”

There must be hundreds of jokes about our forgetfulness. Our memory banks are so crammed after decades of collecting, it takes a while sometimes to come up with even everyday words . Lunching at the senior center recently I sat near enough to hear a husband using endearing terms while talking to his wife. She was “Sweetheart”, “Darling” , “Dearest” and “Honey” throughout the meal.

I met the old guy later and asked, “I happened to overhear your lunch conversation with all the loving terms. Are you two on your honeymoon? “

“No, we’ve been married over 50 years,” he said. “It’s embarrassing to admit it, but I haven’t been able to remember her name today.”

T

A sleazy contractor is pressing you for full payment for his inferior work. He’s showing you the document you signed and reading the six lines of very fine print that you didn’t pay much attention to before, especially since he’d said, “Oh, that’s just routine legalese.” Now he says, trying to make his sneer look like a sincere smile, that you’re legally bound by those lines to cough up the cash.

It looks hopeless, but then you remember you have an influential cousin who might be of some help. He’s imaginary, but he can still be very influential. “Okay, you’ve got me,” you say. “I’ll pay up by the end of the week. I have to borrow the money from my Cousin Rocco and he’s out of town right now on some kind of contract . ” At this point you’ll notice an arched eyebrow and a jittery look. “He’s out on a contract?” he’ll say.

“I’ve got your office address and Rocco might want to call you at home. But he knows how to get anybody’s number. He’s very resourceful.” The sneer is gone now. It’s not possible to sneer when your jaw has dropped open.

You give him a look of concern. “Don’t worry, you’re going to get what’s coming to you. Rocco is pretty well fixed. He’s a sought after police consultant, you know, like Sherlock Holmes and Monk. They’re always calling him down to the station to help out on a case. “Questions, questions, questions!’ Rocco complains. He’s at the top of his profession and he’s revered. The police have more than once given him the title of ‘a person of interest’.

“Rocco is a perfectionist, though and he’ll want to look over your work before he parts with the money. That’s just his routine. It’s not like Angie’s List, it’s Rocco’s list, ha ha! So rest assured, Rocco is a big softee, he’s a good fellow and he’s very fair, a straight shooter.

At this point Mr. Sleazy will be nervously trying to open the front door to escape. “There’s no rush on the payment,” he’ll say. “I’ll be around in a few days to inspect and correct any imperfections I find and I’ll probably throw in a few upgrades here and there.”

In my case it wouldn’t be a complete fabrication. I actually do have an Italian cousin. Her name is Dolores.

I’m home alone tonight as I write this. I’d dozed off after watching yet another Christmas fantasy movie which probably brought on my weird dream. My pepperoni pizza supper might have had something to do with it also.

I dreamt I heard the doorbell ring, but it sounded different, more like a jingle. I opened the door but didn’t see anyone out there in the snowfall. Then a high-pitched voice from below said, “Genie Newman?”

Looking down I saw a short white-bearded fellow in a green suit, furry tassled hat and pointy red shoes. “Genie Newman?” He repeated the question.

“Gene Newman,” I said. “Nobody’s called me ‘Genie’ since my last schoolyard fist fight about that in the third grade.”

“Did you write this letter?” he asked and handed me a wrinkled sheet of yellowed notebook paper filled with writing and ink blots. The handwriting looked familiar and then I noticed the P.S.. “Santa, I live on the top floor of the red house on 9th Street. You kant misit.”

“Hey, this is my letter! Where’d you get it?” I asked. “I wrote that back in….back in….let me see.”

“1937”, the little man said. “That year a bundle of letters got tossed behind a workshop cabinet and wasn’t discovered till a month ago when we were renovating. Sorry about that.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” I said. “Thanks for returning it. It’ll be fun to read to my grandkids. Did you notice the nice handwriting? I got the Palmer Penmanship medal that year.”

“And you probaqbly also got a C minus in spelling,” the little guy quipped. “But I’m here because you asked for a lot of things. Your Mom and Dad must have read the letter and bought you what they could afford, but not everything.” I couldn’t recall everything that was on my list, but I did remember Christmas that year was typically joyful. I’d had no complaints.

I started to explain that, but he waved me off. “We had a meeting about the lost letters and decided to do what we could to make up for the foul-up. So now I’ve taken care of you and have dozens of other calls to make tonight, so please initial this letter and I’ll be on my way. Merry Christmas!”

“Wait a minute,” I called as he climbed onto a sled that had pulled up at the bottom of my front stoop. “What do you mean you’ve taken care of me?”

“Your pony is tied up in the back yard,” he said and disappeared like the down on a thistle.

I think it was a dream I hope it was a dream. That was an hour ago and I still haven’t looked in the back yard, but I’ll have to investigate. I can’t leave a pony out on a night like this. I guess he could sleep in the guest room.