family

Technology; past and present

A few generation gap instances happened during Christmas. There were probably more, but I remember these few.

One of my young nieces received a pink digital camera as a gift. A small hand-held plastic thing where you take pictures then take the chip out and put it into a small printer and print the pictures, or you can just keep them on the camera and see them digitally. It’s funny how she felt that an actual camera was a new invention. I guess what’s old is new again, I’ve read where people are going back to malls and movie theaters, too.

I told her about the “old days” where we would have a limited amount of photos on the film cartridge, usually 12, 24 or 36 and that we would take the pictures and then have to have them developed, waiting a week to see the results.

In time, there were one hour photo processing places and I also explained before the cartridges, that rolls of film had to be inserted into the camera. I explained film, negatives and developing. It all drew a blank stare.

Later, we were talking about the new year and I was telling her about something that happened in the 1980s. That drew a blank stare, too. I guess she only knows the 21st century.

Then there was. MY DVR. Apparently DVR’s are ancient, according to my nephew. I know cable tv is, but so are the DVR’s. He was flabbergasted that I have DVRs connected to my tv. He was flabbergasted that I still have cable tv. So am I at times, I pay too much and watch too little.

I like to do cartoons based on the past, where people thought they were in the most modern of times, which they were, but to look back, it was almost primitive.

I often see old photos online, from the 1890s or 1912 or 1920s and I look at the people in the photo, who think they have it all. And they did for that time period. I’ve seen old photos of NYC in the 1860s, where people dogged big white trolleys and horses around the city. Strange by today’s standards.

Another instance involved a new pen I received as a gift. It’s a beautiful pen I received from another young relative. At first I thought it was a fountain pen for drawing, because she kept talking about the “ink refill.” It turns out, she meant the ballpoint pen ink cartridge that you just slip in when the ink runs out, which you can purchase anywhere. But she made it sound as if I needed to fill the ink from some sort of well.

I think she is so used to throw-away plastic pens, that it was something interesting and new to her that you can just buy an ink cartridge and slip it in the pen without throwing the pen itself out. I almost told her about quill pens, but I didn’t.

Speaking of living in the modern world, one of my nephews helped me set up SoFi, the investing site. I had the app on my phone but I never completed the sign-up process, so I did that, I completed the sign up process and now have a robot making all my stock decisions. He claims the robot makes him 9% on all the trades it chooses, so let’s see how it goes!

Years from now, what we do today will look ancient – the digital photos, the DVRs, tv and stock trading, but for now, I’m living in the moment.

Till next time . . .

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The man without a face

I was in NYC for a bit for my uncle’s funeral. I’m home now.

The wake and funeral were beautiful, if those are the right words. So many people showed up, he really touched so many lives. I knew many of the people from being there so much over the years, so it was nice to see some old faces. But there was one old face that “I knew,” but didn’t know.

This guy, let’s call hm Ricky, was at the wake and the funeral and he was sitting at our table at a restaurant after the funeral. There were many people present at the restaurant, and I didn’t know them all, but since he was sitting with the immediate family, I wondered who he was.

I asked one of my cousins and he said, “Oh, that’s my mother’s old boss.”

His mother, my aunt, passed away a few years back, but for so many years she worked for Ricky. I heard his name 1000 times, she always talked about him. He was much younger than my aunt who was the office manager, so she treated him like a son, she was a mother figure to him. I remember hearing about his exploits and non-exploits from when Ricky was a young guy.

I yelled out to my cousin, “That’s Ricky?” I was excited. I finally saw the man who was talked about so much. It was like a tv show where there is a character mentioned all the time, but you never see them, like Vera, Norms’ wife on “Cheers,” or Niles wife Maris, on “Frasier,” or Ugly Naked Guy on “Friends.”

I ran over to him and another cousin asked if I wanted to be introduced, which of course I did. I told Ricky how I had heard so much about him over the years, all good. I told him how much my aunt loved him and always felt he was one of the family and I went on and on. It was like meeting a favorite rock star or movie star. It was so nice to put a face to a name.

Not surprisingly he was very quiet, and mild-mannered, but he enjoyed our conversation and was very friendly.

I noticed over the long luncheon, that a couple of others did the same thing when they heard that that was Ricky. We all gushed over him! A little gray haired man sitting in the corner.

As he was leaving later on, I went up to him and shook his hand and told him it was a pleasure meeting him. I said I hoped we would meet again soon. He said, “Hopefully, under better circumstances.” I agreed.

It was a real pleasure meeting him after hearing about him and his life for so many years, putting a face to the name.

Till next time . . .

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Turkey in a Tesla

I was in Miami for Thanksgiving, I never made it to New York, which is usually the norm. But I am in NY now for my uncle’s funeral.

I literally made it in one day after finding out the details. I booked the flight and 12 hours later I’m here.

As for Thanksgiving, I had a great time with my family, not everyone was there, some were out of town, which bothered me and I know I have some nerve to feel that way since I am usually the only one who is out of town for Thanksgiving.

But we did have a great time – lots of food and fun. Even though we all live here in Miami, we don’t always see each other often, although every Sunday one of my brothers has Football Sunday, but I never seem to go. There’s a lot of football and food. I need to get there next week.

I’ll see a lot of them during the holidays, but then it sort of drifts off, we are all busy and don’t hang out. At one point, one of my brothers, who lives here in Miami, I would only see in New York! He would happen to be there when I was there and we would hang out there, which was a running joke for awhile.

Not long ago, I had written about one of my snobby neighbors, who was looking for her “Stanley,” and I made a cartoon out of that. She texted the whole building, “Hi everyone. Left my pink Stanley on the table (in the lobby) and went back to look for it but it was gone, maybe someone took it by mistake.”

She couldn’t say, she lost her tumbler, she had to let everyone know she had a Stanley. But again, I did get a great cartoon idea out of it.

Well on Thanksgiving day it rained in Miami for a spell. It was quite a strong rain and caused flooding in some areas. My neighborhood flooded, and on a neighborhood text (not the condo text, this text involves the whole cul-de-sac), which has about 50 people, or so, someone texted that any car parked in the street (rather than on our property or in a driveway) should be moved due to flooding.

Well, the Stanley lady’s husband was the only one to reply out of 50 people receiving the text, and he said, I quote: “Thanks, we moved the Tesla before it floated away!”

Not, “Thanks, I moved my car!” Nope, he had to tell 50 people he had a Tesla.

I saw a neighbor in the building next door have a Rolls Royce delivered last week. He didn’t feel the need to tell anyone about his Rolls. But this name dropping couple had to mention their Stanley and Tesla.

A couple of neighbors texted me or called me to ask if I had seen that. We laughed over it. Insecurity at its best.

Stanley in a Tesla. There’s another cartoon in there somewhere.

Till next time . . .

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An officer and a gentleman

My uncle passed away yesterday. The last of all my uncles is gone. All my aunts are gone and my parents, too; and of course, all my grandparents are gone.

That whole generation and the ones before it are all gone. Gone.

I was probably the closest to him out of all my uncles. I was in NY often and I saw him often. When I was young I would stay at their house for long periods. He was a second father to me.

I saw him last month. I have a photo I took of him at a family BBQ. I didn’t know it would be the last photo I have of him, he looks so great and healthy in the photo.

He left us on my aunt’s birthday, which I guess was a birthday present to her. Now they are together forever.

When he was in the hospital these past few weeks, I was remembering a story he always told. He and my aunt shared an apartment with my parents when they were all young married couples – an apartment in Brooklyn.

My uncle would tell the story of a tilted floor they had in the apartment; he joked that it was like walking up a hill. He would tell of holding me when I was an infant, and walking “up that hill” in the apartment, back and forth to put me to sleep. He would mimic walking sideways, trudging up a hill, as he told the story.

It always made us laugh, no matter how many times he told the story.

He was a New York City Police officer, and I always pictured him in his uniform when he told that story. He was quiet, polite, honest and a gentleman, the type you want every police officer (well, everyone) to be.

Now I picture them all together, on the other side. Back together again, like it was so many years ago – the fearsome foursome.

Till next time . . . .

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Enjoying making them happy

When I’m creating a cartoon, I usually have one or two people in mind. I wonder, “Will they think this is funny? Will they like it?”

I don’t know why them. Probably because they are more vocal about my work and they have sent me cartoon ideas over the years, so I feel they are paying attention, even thought I might use 1 in 100 of their ideas – but they are being involved.

When I was publishing the daily news, there is one person who I would think of, too. I would wonder if she thought I was doing a good job. I wondered if she thought the article I was writing made sense and wondered if she would approve. She was always in my head as I was writing.

This person is gone now, but I always admired her and cared how she felt about issues. I admired her as I was growing up, she was always saying what I was thinking she was a fighter and protester. She cared about life and history. One time I saw her in person and was so excited. I didn’t say anything to her, but it was like seeing one’s favorite movie star in person.

Years later, I ran into her at a protest, and she knew my name. She literally knew who I was, she approached me and introduced herself and said my name! We eventually became friendly over the years. She wrote a book on Miami history one time and included me!

Are there people who you try to impress? But I think impress is not the right word, I don’t know what the word would be. Make happy? Entertain? Not sure.

One of my favs from quarantine time. Via TomFalco.com

I think in my cases, I just admired these people and the way they felt about things, so I wanted to try to entertain them with my work and put a smile on their faces when they see my cartoons and writings. I don’t want to lose them as an audience.

To be honest, I don’t think I ever changed an article or cartoon because “they” wouldn’t approve, but I just hoped they would enjoy what I was doing.

Does any of this make sense?

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So many things can wait

I saw this video by Bethenny Frankel online somewhere. She keeps popping up on my social media apps and she is engaging at times. She eats a lot of strange and new things and reviews them in real time, which I find interesting. But the other day she was talking about how we get cheated out of summers – especially kids. An interesting thing to think about as summer winds down.

Bethenny who calls it a “summer disruption,” was saying that schools, camps, clubs and sports chip into summer months and kids have to practice for these things – mostly football team, baseball, band, cheerleading, etc.

“As soon as summer starts, you’re planning for the summer to end,” says Bethenny. Her reel about all this is here.

And this affects the whole family – people have to shuttle the kids and cancel vacations and things like that.

I used to own a company that printed school newspapers. I remember many times the school wanted that year’s first newspaper out on the first day of school, so it had to be prepared and done during part of the summer. The kids had to get the stories, write the stories and put the newspaper together.

I had to meet with them, discuss the project and have the job printed and delivered, so it affected me, too. I canceled so many Thanksgiving trips due to this, too, but that’s another story.

To be honest, I needed the money and since there wasn’t much business in the summer, I appreciated the jobs coming in, even in the summer, but still, what if I wanted to travel and go away for that part of the summer? I couldn’t, and neither could the teacher (the newspaper sponsor), the kids and their families. We were all being cheated out of part of the short summer which was being chipped away.

It’s just something to think about. So many things can wait – including the school newspaper on the first day of school.

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The best of summer

The Lake House was the best part of the whole trip. A dream realized.

I haven’t been writing here because it’s been a slow second half of the summer. I’m grateful for that.

Was all over New York State from late June into July – flew into Albany, then ended up at a wedding in Hudson, NY; was at a lake house across the Hudson River in Athens (on Tommy Trail!), which my brother obtained through Airbnb, then we all drove down to NYC and spent time in The Hamptons, too. Sort of a letter “L” shape for the early summer.

I felt sick at the wedding, not sure why, I think it was the heat – it was brutal from upstate all the way to the Hamptons – hot and humid.

One of my cousins feels that I was making it up because I didn’t want to be there – at the wedding – which makes no sense. I took two planes to get there, took an hour Uber ride to the house from the Albany airport, sent in two RSVPs (paper and online), made a special trip to get a gift card at Macy’s before I left home, had to lose a couple of pounds to fit into my suit pants, which was a joke with my friends and me for a month or so until I actually fit into the pants.

I bought a train ticket down to the city – arranged to be in the lake house with my family, originally I was going to get a hotel room and at the wedding, I did not touch any food or drink, until the end of the night when I had some ice cream, because who can pass u a big set-up of desserts anchored by a bar of ice cream sundaes?

I never ended up taking the train down the city, because I drove down with another couple of cousins, so that worked out well.

The wedding ceremony upstate in Hudson, was on the Hudson River and then across the street at the Basilica, an old factory that is an event venue now. I do regret not spending time on the river – I didn’t notice, but I am sure some of the guests grabbed a drink and took it across to the river and spent time there, where it looked like they had docks and boats – right there on the Hudson. Something I love.

I thought the Basilica was an old train station/depot, but I read that it was a factory in the late 1800s. Either way, a very impressive structure.

Just that should prove I was sick, for me to miss the Hudson River, which is right out my window, is a non-starter. That’s one of my favorite places.

Seeing Madame X, almost seeing Manhattanhenge (it was a bit cloudy), Mister Softee, MOMA, Brooklyn adventures and so much more. We did a lot.

Now I’m home, where it’s quiet – easing into autumn, which is my favorite season – where we will visit the Hudson Valley again, for pumpkin and apple picking! And ComicCon, can’t forget NY ComicCon!

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