Tag: lessons

Political Signs and ‘Teachable Moments’

note: this is a revision of a first attempt at expressing myself properly. My closing comments are not meant to be political. They are intended to address the tenor of political discourse. I welcome your comments, as well.

Another election season is in the books. I hark back to my first one, the 1956 reelection campaign of Dwight Eisenhower. Summer that year found me in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, where sun, sand and salt water taffy were my highest priorities, not politics. I was 10.

Nevertheless, thanks to the miracle of television, I got exposed to politics with its bombastic politicians, intrusive reporters and zealous conventioneers. It was the quadrennial convention season and every ‘black and white’ TV up and down the narrow cottage lined streets was tuned to politics, or so it seemed.

One week, it was the Democratic convention nominating Illinois’ favorite son, Adlai Stevenson, followed by Eisenhower getting the nod at the Republican convention. Everyone ‘liked Ike’ and Adlai encouraged the electorate to ‘go all the way with Adlai’. Politics seemed fun then with its banners, balloons and bluster, even for a 10 year old watching on television.

That’s how I remember it, anyway. Eisenhower was popular, a famous WWII general. He was well liked and had a winning slogan, ‘I Like Ike’.

Subsequent elections produced new characters; life long politicians, a peanut farmer, an actor, more politicians, and a real estate mogul/reality TV star, all running to be the President of The United States, ‘leader of the free world’. And with each election came new slogans.

John Kennedy in 1960, ‘We Can Do Better’, and his opponent with ‘Nixon’s The One’. In ‘64, Lyndon ‘All The Way With LBJ’ Johnson painted his opponent, Barry Goldwater, as a fringe candidate with this slogan, ‘In Your Gut, You Know He’s Nuts’!

Ronald Reagan won in 1980 with ‘Make America Great, Again’. Sound familiar? Bill Clinton, effectively reminded voters, ‘It’s The Economy, Stupid’ and prevented GHW Bush from serving a second term.

For the most part, slogans and signs have been innocuous, sometimes mildly insulting, but usually more funny than harmful. And the signs that supporters planted in lawns or on street corners, passively urged passersby to vote a certain way.

Not so today. Now, signs have appeared with a message in BIG, BOLD letters suggesting to the public that the current President, and by extension, his supporters, are ‘haters’. Love Trumps HATE!

Politics aside, because I’m not political, I get the message, but not the medium. A lawn sign to protest hate by projecting hate, itself? Explain that one to today’s 10 year old.

There are good places to discuss the role ’hate’ plays in politics, and in life for that matter. I would suggest the home. Discuss it often, with the family, not on a lawn sign. Make it a ‘Teachable Moment’.

Steve (Dec 2020)

For everyone and anyone with just a passing interest or a passion for politics.

The Bar Chronicles: #3, The ‘Pinboy’

Bar Night 2

‘…bowling really blossomed, particularly among blue-collar types, in the 1950′s and 1960′s after the introduction of the automatic pinsetter’ John McDuling

It was ‘bar night’ for three ‘old’ friends at a local pub in Rochester, NY, ‘The Lost Borough’. Our plan, enjoy a couple of signature brews and add another saga to ‘The Bar Chronicles’. The pub was busy, ‘trivia night’, complete with a booming voice emcee, eager crowd and ample beer to encourage gamesmanship. It added up to a rowdy atmosphere with plenty of hootin’ and hollerin’.

We selected an ‘ale’ from a ‘flight’ and forged ahead with our own game of ‘remember when’, parrying back and forth with personal recollections of our earliest work experiences, our first actual paying jobs.

We were delivery boys in pickup trucks and shoeshine boys on Main Street. We were floor sweepers in a haberdashery and washed cars at a used car dealership. And we were pinboys’ in a bowling alley, at least one was.

‘Pinboys’, a romantic word in a nostalgic sort of way. I was too young to remember ‘pinboys’, but one of us was the right age to be one. He was a teenager and his work station was at the end of a bowling lane where he perched himself on a bench above the pit. When the pins exploded off the deck from the impact of 16 pound balls rolled down the lane like fodder shot from a cannon, he quickly jumped into the pit and went into action; rolled the ball back, cleared ‘deadwood’, or reset new pins for another roll.

Generally, a ‘pinboy’, or pinsetter, managed two lanes, hence speed was an asset, and a priority. Younger boys with small hands could handle ‘two pins a hand’ while the older boys managed three. With pins in place, he’d jump back to his seat, step on a pedal to lower the rods, or pin holders, and wait for the next roll. A good day returned 8 or 9 cents a game, and an afternoon of work brought in some extra cash for this young man’s coal mining family in the post-Depression coal mining region of eastern Pennsylvania.

Tell me about your first job. Did you like it? What did you learn? I cleaned metal paint pots for a painting company and abhorred it. But I learned lessons of responsibility and discipline that comes from hard work, and stays with you for life. I got paid, but it wasn’t ‘romantic’ like my friend’s job, a ‘pinboy’.  I wish I could have been a ‘pinboy’…alas, I was too young.

Srbottch
Srbottch.Com

 

“Today, I Shoveled Snow…”

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow…” RW Emerson

Winter Street

Today, I shoveled snow. Yesterday, I shoveled snow. And the day before that, I shoveled snow. It’s winter in western New York and we live with a steady diet of snow

Along the winter shores of Lake Ontario, steady snowfalls are the norm and removing it is more than a daily ritual. It’s a right of passage for youngsters and an absolute necessity for adults who get up, get out and get to work. Commerce doesn’t stop for weather, here.

Growing up in central Massachusetts, where measureable snowfalls also were a common occurrence, kids there learned to shovel at an early age, too. It was not an option in a blue collar neighborhood where dads had to be at work early and on-time.

All able bodied males in the house, young or old, manned shovels, clearing driveways and walks to help get workers on their way. Plow service and snow blowers were an unaffordable luxury for most families.

All that was heard on eerily quiet, ‘three decker’ lined streets the morning after a nor’easter, was the scraping of metal shovels over frozen pavement, and dry, fluffy snow squeaking underfoot with each twist of our black buckled boots. The task of finishing a job fell to the young school boys with nothing but time on their hands. Time and energy.

Snow shoveling is a low skill task, even the tools are simple and aptly named, ‘shovels’.  Bend, scoop, lift, toss, use your legs not your back. But those weren’t instructions my dad gave. He was more direct, knowing that I could figure out the mechanics, myself.

“I expect this driveway and sidewalk shoveled by the time I come home from work”, he announced, without mentioning my name or even looking at me. It was understood whom he was addressing, the skinny kid and the only one left home after he and big brothers went to work.

My dad’s directives were always clear and concise. The fewer the words, the stronger the message. Besides, mother always made sure the work got done, as prescribed.

And when the jobs were done, the neighborhood became a bevy of street hustlers, as I and other like-minded junior entrepreneurs with shovels slung over our shoulders, eagerly slipped and slid through heavy snowdrifts, knocking on doors with wet mittens, competing for whatever snow removal opportunities were left at neighboring houses.

We had no business plan or even understood the value of our labor. Regardless, we would shovel walks clean to the pavement, keeping tempo to imaginary cash registers ringing in our collective minds, totally dependent on the client’s generosity. Sometimes it was good and other times, not so good. But the greater lesson of work and reward was invaluable.

Now, I still find myself taking on the task of snow removal. It rekindles frigid memories of finger and face freezing days under the watchful eyes of my father and the lessons he ‘taught’ me.

One thing is certain…I can’t wait for the return of summer in western New York!

Snow 2

srbottch

Winter