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I like to stay up late at night, watching movies, reading, or whatever.  Why not?  I don’t have to get up in the morning anymore.  I’m retired.  So, to get the 8-9 hours of sleep that I require, I usually sleep until noon.  This week put a serious crimp in my style.  The new landlord is making the repairs, which were neglected by the previous owner.  This week he replaced the roof.

A crew of Amish workers showed up at daybreak and needed to go through my apartment to bring ladders, tools, and supplies into the backyard.  So, I was up at 7 a.m. all week.  I then proceeded to go back to bed, but it was almost impossible with all the hammering noises they were making.  Still, I tried, and I did manage to doze off occasionally.  Eventually, I just had to get up.  All these Amish guys were swarming all over the house like bees in a hive removing the old roof and installing the new one.  Except one guy.  Duane was more or less just directing traffic, so I thought he was the boss.

I was wrong.  One of the hardworking Amish guys was the boss.  Duane drove the truck and made phone calls.  That was his job.  The Amish don’t drive trucks.  When they have to go to town, they just hook up the horse and buggy.  So, for big construction projects, where a truck is a necessity, they hire a non-Amish guy to drive the truck.

It reminded me of many years ago when I worked as a manager at Miriam’s Stationary and Book Store on the Amtrak level in Penn Station.  My boss, Moishe, was an Orthodox Jew and forbidden to work or run a business on the Sabbath.  The Sabbath, however, was the busiest day in Penn Station.  So, he worked out a deal with his Rabbi.  He owned and operated the store six days a week.  Then, come sundown Friday, until sundown Saturday, I magically became the “owner.”  I couldn’t do outrageous things like sell the business, but I did have all the other privileges of an owner.  Best of all, I had no supervision, as Moishe had to stay away from the business for those 24 hours.

My friends and I had a great time.  Most of them commuted to work by the Long Island Railroad, one level below the Amtrak level in Penn Station.  So, after work on Friday they would come to the store.  We cranked up the music in the store and we would rock the place.  Plus, I always had plenty of beer in the refrigerator in my office.  My friends and I enjoyed our own private happy hour before they hopped on the Long Island Railroad to go home for the weekend.

It worked for us, because it worked for everyone.  Since the store was predominately a book store, our biggest customers were Amtrak riders who wanted to pick up a book to read on the train.  Normally, they would hang out in the store for a long time, like it was a library, browsing the books until it was time for their train.  The large volume of browsers made it possible for the “boosters” who worked the area to easily steal books.  On Friday night, though, the music was so loud that it was not conducive to browsing.  People would come in, quickly buy a book, and head to the relative quiet of the Amtrak waiting room to begin reading it.  Business was brisk, but there wasn’t a big crowd in the store, so the boosters couldn’t hide in a crowd.  So, business was up, theft was down, and good times were had by all.

It took the Amish roofers four days to complete the new roof, and now things are finally back to normal around here, and I can sleep until noon again.  Ahhh!  To sleep, perchance to dream of all the fun we had in Penn Station when the real boss was away, and the understudy took the stage.

 Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl

 

“They did the Mash…They did the Monster Mash.”

-Bobby “Boris” Pickett

Last Saturday night The Dutchland Rollers defeated Keystone Roller Derby in Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby action. The highlight of the evening for me, though, was the bonus game, a mixer called Monster Mashup. It has become an October Halloween treat for the local players and fans.

Two teams were chosen from the 30 ladies who paid the entry fee to participate in the exciting event. Most of them skate regularly with the Dutchland Rollers, but there were some players from other area teams. Condolezza Slice from Keystone skated for the Purple Team, and Russian Bayou from Philadelphia skated for the Green team. Some of my favorites were on both teams, but I decided to root for the Green team, because my friend Mama Moscato was on that team, and because Russian Bayou had the best Halloween make-up of all the skaters. The picture of her above was taken after the game, after one hour of skating, sweating, and being pummeled by the Purple team. I saw her before the game and her make-up job would have impressed Boris Karloff.

The two teams were fairly evenly matched and that made for a great seesaw battle, with the Purple team taking a slight advantage into the locker room at half time. The Green team came out ready in the 2^nd half and in one of the jams, Mama Moscato, who is normally a blocker, put on the jamming helmet and scored an incredible 34 points during her 2-minute jam. Somehow she passed every one of her opponents on the track an amazing 7 times within two minutes! That’s some speedy skating, and the most points I’ve ever seen in one jam.  That put the Green team way in the lead, but the Purple team battled back until they were trailing by only 1 point going into the last jam.

Russian Bayou put on the jammer’s helmet for the Green team. Everyone in the stands stood up and cheered as the two jammers took their places at the rear of the pack. With only one point separating the two teams, it was very important to become the lead jammer, the first one to get by all the blockers and break from the pack. The starter’s whistle blew and the last jam was on. Then, almost immediately, the ref’s whistle blew and Russian Bayou was called for a penalty and sent to the “Dutch Oven” for 30 seconds. Her team now had to kill the penalty, and try to prevent the Purple jammer from lapping 2 Green Blockers and winning the game. They held and Russian Bayou burst out of the penalty box. She caught the Purple jammer who was now the lead jammer, the only one allowed to “cut off the jam.” If the Purple jammer scored two points before Bayou was able to score, she could touch both hands to her hips and end the jam and the game. But Bayou scored first giving the Green team a two-point lead, but even though time ran out, the jam would have to go the full 2 minutes. She had to keep Team Green in the lead.

She did, and even scored 10 points in the process. The final score was Green Team 197 and Purple team 194. At the After Party, I asked her what she was thinking while she sat in the penalty box on that last jam. She said that she was confident that she would be able to get back on the track and win the game. She wasn’t nervous, because “it wasn’t a playoff game. It was just a bunch of girls out having a good time.” Maybe, instead of Monster Mash, the theme should have been the Cyndi Lauper song, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” They did have fun, and after competitively bumping, bashing, mashing, and shoving each other for a grueling hour, when it was all over they went right back to just being friends. They had a lot of fun, and so did their fans. I can’t wait until November 3^rd when they play the Susquehanna Valley Derby Vixens in the last League Game of the season.

Roll on Rollers.

Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl

 

 

 

“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Nowadays most of us consider ourselves to be of average intelligence or better, even those of us who aren’t.  It won’t be long, though, before future generations look back, shake their heads, and say to themselves, “what a bunch of idiots they were.”

We do that to previous generations, and future generations will do it to us. We laugh at those primitive people who thought the Earth was flat or that the Earth was the center of the Universe and everything else spun around it. Ha ha. What a bunch of idiots they were.

Many ancient people believed that the stars were gods, especially the sun. Nobody really knows what Gods might exist, so I won’t make fun of the dozens of Norse, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman gods that people worshipped in days of old. However, when I think about the people who thought that human sacrifices to these gods would bring about a good harvest, I have to think, “What a bunch of idiots they were.”

Most of the Native Americans who died after the European colonization of America died as a result of diseases brought here from Europe for which they had no immunity. That was tragic, but when our ancestors purposely gave them smallpox infected blankets to the Native Americans, that was genocide. We can’t deny it. We can’t look back favorably on those actions.

The microscope wasn’t invented until the 16^th century, so I won’t make fun of the early surgeons who had no concept of germ theory and didn’t wash their hands before operating. However, when I think about the practice of bloodletting, I can’t help but think, “What a bunch of idiots they were.”

George Washington, the first President of the United States, woke up at 2 a.m. on Dec. 14, 1799, with a sore throat. After a series of medical procedures, including the draining of nearly 40 percent of his blood, he died. According to Wikipedia, bloodletting is claimed to have been the most common medical practice performed by surgeons from antiquity until the late 19th century, a span of almost 2,000 years. By today’s standards, those doctors were absolute idiots.

Thomas Jefferson penned the words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.” He campaigned against the evils of slavery, yet, he was the second-largest slave holder in the State of Virginia. He was considered one of the most enlightened men of his generation, but as the years roll by we look back and wonder how a man of his awesome intellect could have possibly missed the terrible irony of his inaction to free his own slaves.

Many people are outraged today when Football players take a knee during the playing of the National anthem. The really outrageous thing, though, is that back when Francis Scott Key wrote his glorious praise for “the land of the free” 20 percent of the population consisted of slaves. Incredibly, 200 years later people are still discriminated against and even killed just because of the color of their skin.

The Englishman Alan Turing, who said, “Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine” broke the German Enigma code. He was very instrumental in beating the Nazis in World War II. It is estimated that his efforts shortened the war by two years and that his code-breaking machine may have saved 12 million lives. The machine he created was also the forerunner of today’s computers. Instead of being heaped with praise by his government, he was threatened with imprisonment when they found out that he was a homosexual. Imagine that. What a bunch of idiots they were.

How many innocent people were executed as witches in Europe and in Salem, Massachusetts? Speaking of witch hunts, we Americans pride ourselves for our Freedom of Speech, yet we allowed McCarthyism to ruin the lives of many Americans who exercised that right. What a bunch of idiots.

Cigarettes! Remember when they were really cool? Just watch any old movie and you’ll see everyone lighting up and enjoying those cancer sticks. What a bunch of idiots.

Remember when the government thought Prohibition was the answer to alcohol problems. Gangsters like Al Capone loved that solution. And how many kids went to prison for simply smoking a marijuana joint? Reefer Madness! The madness was the law that criminalized something that today is prescribed as a medical treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Multiple Sclerosis, Spinal Cord Injury, Cancer, HIV/AIDS, Arthritis, Epilepsy, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Insomnia, and End of Life Care. What bunch of idiots classified it as a narcotic?

Yes, looking back we can see many examples of how our ancestors appeared to be total idiots. But wipe that smug grin off your faces. It won’t be long before future generations look back at us with the same amazement.

The cruelty of the Inquisition was a long time ago, and we no longer believe in human sacrifice to appease the gods, but we do have religious leaders who preach that the killing of infidels will guarantee 71 virgins in heaven. Others preach that the earth is 6000 years old and that dinosaurs co-existed with early man. Mormons preach that Jesus lived for a while in North America, and the Catholic Church has protected many pedophile priests. We talk of religious freedom, but if you say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” some supposed Christians will get extremely irate.

We also have the issue of gun violence in schools. Someday people will look back on that and wonder what a bunch of idiots we were. The families of police and firefighters live with the constant worry that their loved ones will be injured or killed while performing their duty. That is extremely unfortunate, but it is a total abomination that parents of young school children must live with those very same worries.

The Cold War concept of Mutually Assured Destruction with the proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is another head scratcher. We only hope that people will be around to look back at that and wonder how stupid we were to build enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire planet multiple times over. Now we have tons of unused weapons that we don’t know how to safely destroy, yet, the leaders in North Korea and Iran want to build more.

Global Climate Change is another big problem that we refuse to face. Someday, people living inland will probably wonder why we didn’t take steps to avoid that. I think our blindness to the problem is some kind of reaction to the Y2K problem, which was successfully averted by governments and private industry spending billions to prevent it. When planes didn’t fall out of the sky, banks didn’t crash, and government services didn’t collapse on January 1, 2000, many people thought the whole thing was a hoax. They didn’t understand the massive effort that was made to prevent the disaster. So now they look at the impending climate disaster as just another hoax. Hopefully, we will snap out of it before it is too late to do something about the problem.

On top of all that, we also made Donald Trump the leader of the free world. How crazy is that? What will future generations think of that bonehead maneuver?

We are the best educated generation in the history of the world. Through libraries and the Internet, we have access to the greatest thinkers of our time, and the wisdom of the ages. We have replaced widespread illiteracy with almost universal literacy, and yet, when future generations look back upon us they will wonder how we could have been such incredible jerks.

Let’s all try to be just a little smarter and make future generations proud to call us their ancestors.

Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl