Hey Y'All, Don't Read This Column! I Have Used The 'N' Word

As my six year old granddaughter is given to exclaim when something displeases her, “SERIOUSLY?”  Seriously, this country needs a reality check on our obsession with celebrities.  It seems the only thing we like more than idolizing them is ripping them to shreds.

 

 

The swift judgment and public sentencing of Paula Deen has truly been astonishing.  It amazes me what an incredibly harsh, vicious and mean-spirited pack of animals we are as a society as displayed by the media which pushes the envelope every day as it pertains to decency, common sense and bad taste.  The only thing lacking in this lopsided travesty is a burning at the stake.

 

I am not necessarily a fan of some of Paula Deen’s food.  I, like many of you, have watched her show and she comes across as a pretty, plump purveyor of rich, southern foods.  She looks south, talks south and, guess what, she is south.  In short, she has always impressed me as pretty much a ‘what you see is what you get’ type of person.  Now, of course, we all know that TV personalities take on certain personas that may be somewhat different from reality, but it is all acting anyway, ain’t it?  You do not get to where Paul Deen is/was without incredible hard work and being nice to a lot of people.  You certainly don’t as a racist.

 

I was so curious and, frankly, intrigued by this precipitous fall from grace that I took a few minutes to look on the internet to try to understand how something like this could happen.  Apparently, it all began with a civil lawsuit by a former adoring white employee by the name of Lisa T. Jackson who is suing Ms. Deen and her brother, “Bubba”, for discrimination and sexual harassment.  OK, the merits of the case will stand on their own, even though the plaintiff in question, Ms. Jackson, apparently wrote a letter to the two just a few months previous telling them how working for them had changed her life for the better.  She also admitted in her own deposition that she had never seen or heard Paula discriminate or harass anyone. 

 

I guess more of this will come out over time but it seems as if, for some reason, she became disaffected and was suing a rich person for big bucks.  Anyway, her attorney, in a deposition with Ms. Deen, asked if she had ever used the “N” word, to which she truthfully replied, “Yes.”  She explained the circumstances of being a bank teller in 1987 and being robbed by one Eugene Thomas King, Jr., a black man who nervously put a gun to her head for an extended period demanding money be placed into a paper sack.  She went on to explain she probably used the “N” word in describing Mr. King to her husband in the privacy of their home.  She could have lied.  She probably should have lied.  Had she lied, the consequences she is now enduring would never have happened.  Does anyone for a nanosecond think you can become an iconic TV personality with your face on every grocery store magazine and be an overt racist?

 

Now for the big bombshell.  Ms. Deen is 66 and I am 65. She was born in 1947 and I was born in 1948.  She was born in Albany, Georgia and I was born in Miami, Florida.  We both grew up in an era, and I can remember this vividly, where bathrooms and drinking fountains were labeled “Whites Only” and conversely, “Colored Only”.  Schools were segregated.  These were the circumstances and realities in which we both grew up and although both my parents were from Pennsylvania, everyone around us was a long-term south Florida resident and were, for want of a better word, “crackers”.  The “N” word was thrown about casually in front of children without any regard for what that might mean in the future.  They said it, so we said it.  Was it wrong?  Of course!  This is not a defense of the word, but  when you grow up in this atmosphere, ignorance will prevail and injustice will be done.  That is what the civil rights movement was (and is) about and, blessedly, most of us have moved on. 

 

I find nigger to be just as offensive as wop, spic and heimy, along with the entire lexicon of pejorative terms.  For that matter, I don’t like honky, either, although I am a little proud of being a first generation cracker.  I don’t use these terms.  In fact this is the first time I have really had reason to think about them for as long as I can remember and only the second time I have put it in writing (Key West Citizen January 17, 2010 story on Martin Luther King Day).  Maybe we are making progress?  At the same time, it amazes me that Paula Deen can tell the truth about using this word after a traumatic event over 30 years ago, in the privacy of her home, and be pillaried for her honesty, when this word can be heard ubiquitously in the music currently in vogue with our youth, in films and, oddly, by many African Americans themselves in addressing one another in the common course of conversation. 

 

I kind of like Paula Deen but I probably won’t be eating her recipes for fried chicken or peanut butter cheesecake, simply because it is not the kind of food I prefer, but  I have to say that her treatment has been unduly harsh, unfair and out of proportion.  I can tell you one thing.  I believe those companies (Smithfield, Walmart, Target and the Food Network) who have made money based on her hard work, reputation and personality, but bailed on her for this momentary but understandable lapse so many years ago, ought to be ashamed of themselves.  I think, too, the racemongers who are so quick to jump on personalities, such as in this case, had better watch out for this may very well backfire on them in ways they don’t anticipate.  Of course, this is just my opinion.  I may be wrong.

 

Certainly, all of us should remember the wisdom of other words spoken so long ago, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

 

Stumbling Our Way To Liberty, Equality And Justice For All - Happy Fourth Of July

I, like most of you probably, don’t think about it very much.  Maybe because we don’t have to.  I get up in the morning having had a typical night’s sleep without having to worry that some authority figure was going to burst into my house and arrest me without due process.  When I flick on a light switch or turn on the faucet for a shower, I am vaguely confident the light will come on and the water will come out.  I eat my breakfast without a care in the world that it may have been produced with some unknown poisons that will make me sick.  I get in my car, put on my seatbelt and drive safely to my place of business without ever being worried that I will be randomly pulled over to “show my papers”.  In short, as long as I follow some very rudimentary rules, laws and common courtesies, my days are worry free from crime, negligence, unwarranted search and seizure or arrest by an authority power and I can pretty much go, do and eat whenever and whatever I please.  If I really think about it, I am free and enjoy, without a doubt in my mind, an unprecedented sense of independence that probably no other population of any nation before us has achieved. 

 

This freedom and independence is, upon further reflection, certainly one of the things, if not THE thing, that has made our people great in terms of the freedom of thought and expression that has fostered great inventions, literature, art and a collective sense of justice that we have felt compelled to spread around the world, sometimes to our national pride and other times to a deep sense of shame and regret.  We are not perfect.

 

This coming week marks the 237^th celebration of July 4^th, 1776, a day on which some extraordinarily brave people risked everything they owned and their lives in the prescient belief that they would prevail.  The extraordinary experiment conceived in the renaissance mentality of perhaps the wisest and most learned group of individuals of all time, came together at one moment to create a framework for, perhaps, the greatest untried system of community, society and political organization of any other time in history.  Time will tell.

 

On the eve of this annual remembrance, I am bound and a bit ashamed to say that I, probably like most of you, tend not to think very much about the significance of it all.  It is dangerous for us not to remember the horror of our Civil War, the precipice upon which we found ourselves in World War II or the consequences in meddling in other people’s business in more recent conflicts.  In my own very short existence, there have been five wars including Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq.  There have also been moments that, while they cannot be categorized as war, certainly came close and involved boots on the ground, risks and consequences, including the Berlin Crisis, Grenada, the Bay of Pigs, Nicaragua and probably others that happened without our knowledge.  Liberty and freedom, to coin a phrase, are not free and require constant vigilance as well as paying attention to our own government at voting time in order to remember they were elected to serve and protect, not to posture, pontificate or profit.

 

This past week was an extraordinary moment in time to observe how we are still evolving as a nation and a people.  Momentous decisions were made by our supreme legal authority to manifest equality to some who have long been denied it, justice to many who are living without it and to chastise those who feel they are above it all. 

 

This is a great and good nation whose actions, many times, are self-serving, meddlesome and tragic but, on the whole, most of what we do is guided by the invisible hand of a structure and system that was devised almost 250 years ago and still seems to work in all its imperfections today.  There are many in our community who live quietly and do not talk about their service, but each of us knows who they are.  Perhaps the best way to observe the Fourth of July is to thank them for their service and their sacrifice.

 

Best wishes for a happy, safe Fourth of July and may God continue to bless America.

All Aboard The Cootie Cruise And A Hot Stock Tip - Purell!

We just returned from a glorious vacation in Europe.  The vacation started with an eleven day Adriatic cruise.  My wife was excited because she finally got to take a cruise that was not work related and wasn’t stopping in Key West.  We started the cruise in Piraeus, or in cruise marketing ship lingo, Athens.  We joined the cruise on the second leg of a 33 day itinerary that had started in Istanbul, Turkey.  Of course, we still prefer to call it Constantinople.  It sounds more mysterious.  The last port of call before the ship arrived in Athens was Alexandria, Egypt.  And that's where the Cruise Cooties joined the cruise.  From everything we heard, we are going to wait a while to visit the land of the Nile.

Cruise Cooties are also called the Norovirus.  Norovirus has been getting a lot of press lately on cruise ships because when you have 5000 people living in rather close quarters, germs are bound to be shared. Except in the casino where you touch the chips once and they disappear.  Since it is Sunday morning, I will spare you the symptoms of the Norovirus.  Trust me. Not pretty.  When the ship has an outbreak of Norovirus, it is called Code Red.   I remember watching the Love Boat on Saturday nights and watching folks being greeted by Gopher, Julie and Capt. Stubing.  Not once did I ever see an episode where the passengers were greeted with Code Red,  Purell and barf bags.

So what was cruising with Cruise Cooties like?  Each morning our stoic Dutch sounding captain would come on the loudspeaker and give us a body count of new Cruise Cootie victims and how they were trying to contain this “pesky little bug.” And how we all had to participate in efforts to eradicate it.  Truth be told, our hands have never been cleaner and am surprised there is still skin on them.   I wish I had bought stock in Energizer Holdings, the company that owns Wet Ones, because my wife brought two cases of them with her on the trip.  We could not touch any food or drinks, which caused a huge bottleneck in the tea and coffee line at the buffet, but other than that we hardly noticed (except, of course, in the casino as I already mentioned). There were signs all over the gift shop not to touch the merchandise, which did not see to effect sales one bit.  The hot tubs and the thermo spa were shut down which was fine since I had left my Speedo at home anyway. 

Even with Cruise Cooties, we still managed to have a splendid time.  It was a very educational experience for us since our business works as a vendor with the cruise industry.  With the exception of Split, Croatia our ship was never docked with less than a 20 minute taxi, ferry, walk away from the center of town we were visiting. Ever heard of Katakolon, Greece? Me neither.  In cruise ship marketing lingo it’s Olympia, Greece, the home of the original Olympic Games.  It’s also a $100 cab ride and takes 45 minutes to get there. In Venice, a city we have spent quite a bit of time in, the ship was parked in Padua.  Not really, but sure seemed like it and to get to St. Marks took us nearly an hour.  My point is that I never realized how fortunate guests to Key West are by either being dropped off in a 50 yard location to the city or being provided transportation, at no charge to them, from the outer mole to downtown, a luxury that we did not have in Santorini, Dubrovnik, Corfu, Venice or Katakolon. 

Would we do it again?  You bet.  We only had to unpack once and saw some marvelous places.  Not unlike Key West, we would have liked to have had more time to explore.  Six or seven hours was just not enough. But that is one of the great things about cruising.  It’s like one big hors d’oeuvres tray.  You get to try out a lot of different places.  Some places, like Split, were nice but I don’t think I need to go back.  Others, like the countryside in the Peloponnese of Greece we saw on our 45 minute cab ride to Olympia, were spectacular and exceeded my expectations.  The one place I will definitely be returning to is Corfu, Greece, an island in the Ionian Sea that is filled with history, tavernas and castles where I promise you I will bring my Speedo.

More updates coming on the food, people and places.  It is a new day in the old world!

Happy Father's Day! The Day That Almost Wasn't

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!  THE DAY THAT ALMOST WASN’T

Many things cross my mind when I think about the ultimate outcome of becoming a father.  At the top of the list was the comedy, How To Murder Your Wife, starring Jack Lemmon, Terry Thomas and Virna Lisi.  It is the story of a wealthy New York cartoonist (the character of Jack Lemmon) who is living a wonderful, carefree bachelor’s life until he wakes up one morning with a naked woman in his bed which turns out to be his new wife.  Previous to this excruciatingly funny scene, at the beginning of the movie, Terry Thomas, you remember him, he was the gap-toothed comedian from England, takes you on a tour of Lemmon’s apartment with all the bachelor toys, walk-in closet with neatly arranged suits, ties and shirts and then he turns and leers to the camera saying to the audience, “And all this could have been yours … if only you hadn’t gotten married”.  When Lemmon sees Virna Lisi come out of a cake at a bachelor party, it is pretty much game over, hence the new wife in his bed scene later on.

There is certainly a special relationship between mothers and children for obvious reasons.  Mothers Day was a holiday begun after the Civil War and, promoted by eager-to-sell merchants, it was pretty much an instant success when it began in Spokane, Washington in 1910 and made official by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914.  Father’s Day was an entirely different matter.  Several attempts were made to create a Father’s Day but they, the fathers, being the squinty-eyed realists, eschewed it as an unmanly celebration and disdained it from the point of view that many of the gifts would be paid for by the father in any event.  In the 20s and 30s, they even tried to scrap Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in favor of a single holiday, Parents Day.  That didn’t work either.  Finally, in 1972, Richard Nixon signed a proclamation making Father’s Day a federal holiday.  So, we fathers have our day whether we want one or not.

Personally, I am glad of it.  While there is a fairly clear and sentimental feeling for Mother’s Day, the poor dads need some recognition, too, for giving up their sports cars and, many times, the opportunity to sleep in, leave the dishes unwashed in the sink and wear their underwear two days in a row.  It is a tough job but somebody has to do it. 

Much has changed in recent decades when women are now as much or more the breadwinners than fathers used to be.  I can remember the day when most of my friends’ mothers stayed at home and the fathers went off to work. 

Today, you are just as likely to find a stay-at-home dad, or even a single dad, bringing up his kids.  The last time they were counted, there were a tad over 70 million fathers in the nation (2008) and in 2012 there were almost 2 million single fathers in our country. 

Although the feelings for mothers are perhaps more sentimental, the role of fathers in general is certainly worthy of examination and respect.  Perhaps it is because of the sacrifice of their bachelorhood and other things they gave up that they deserve their due, but I think it is more the fact that as the traditional, titular head of the family and the lessons of working to put food on the table and clothes on the backs of a family, it is perhaps one of the most sacred roles in society. 

Fathers, as much as mothers, determine how their children grow and what kind of adults they become.  A father, more than any other person in a child’s life, can make a difference by leading by example.  Then again, as the old saying goes, you can always tell who a father is.  He’s the guy who has pictures of kids in his wallet where his money used to be.

On this day, I would like to dedicate these thoughts and a well-earned happy Father’s Day to my own son who is the best father I have ever known and to his friend, the son of my business partner, who is about to become one as well.  Happy Father’s day boys and all of you other fathers out there who are eating burnt toast and drinking warm orange juice in bed.  This is your day, enjoy it.

School's Out! Oh Boy! Wow! Great! I Made It! Er ... Now What?

I always watch with great interest what people say who are invited to speak at commencements.  I find their points, sometimes outrageous but always interesting.  Most are invited because they have some particular slant on things.  I have never given a commencement speech, but if I were to have given one this year, I think this is something along the lines of what I would have said.

 

Welcome to the world!  Now get to work!  You are leaving probably the last place on earth where you will be protected and had the privilege to work or not work, as you saw fit.  Now, some of you are off to college and some of you are off to the workplace.  Both have pretty much the same particulars as far as that pertains to the rules of engagement.  Here are some you might find of interest.

 

First of all, nobody owes you anything.  Most of you have been self-absorbed, privileged “takers” for the past eighteen years.  While there have been some notable exceptions, for the large part, you are a very selfish group indeed.  Good for you!  It has been handed to you and as a very wise man once told me, “When they pass a plate of cookies, take one, you never know if it will come around again”.  Going to school and graduating was set before you as an obligation but if you didn’t see it as a great privilege, then you really missed something.

 

No, nobody owes you anything.  In fact, you owe an enormous debt of gratitude to teachers who were paid less than they were worth or could have made somewhere else, who tried to instill in you perhaps a love of the written word, a physical talent or the tools by which you could learn at a higher level to attain your intended career.  As your parents did to their parents, you now owe a debt of gratitude to them for allowing you this privilege of pretty much eighteen years of uninterrupted free time.  If you do not think it was free time, then you are in for the greatest shock of your life.  Oh yes, you perhaps thought you had to make good grades but if you missed the point that in earning good grades you also attained the princely reward of knowledge then, again, you missed a great deal. 

 

Now is the perfect time to reflect on the past Act One of your life.  Are you interesting and interested in anything?  Are you a giving or empathetic person?  Do you do things for other people as payment or obligation or do you do it for the simple joy of being human?  And, finally, if you missed the importance of these lessons, then you missed something yet again because there are laws of the universe in dealing with other people that you had better learn and learn very quickly.

 

The world outside of these walls is not a world where somebody makes sure you are up and dressed in clean clothes for school or that you have a meal before you leave or is willing to stay after school on their own time to help you catch up or work a job so you do not have to.  It is a world where, if you sleep in, do not take care of your health and are not appreciative of those who help you, you will find yourself, sooner or later, alone and bitter that you have not achieved what you thought you should.  You will only achieve anything worthwhile by recognizing the true secrets of the universe in human relations and by the sweat of your brow.

 

What are the secrets of the universe?  They are very simple tenets in this world that, if done, will get you everything in life that you desire.  They are not really secrets, but the rules by which all successful people grow and prosper.  They are not new, they have been around since the beginning of time.  They are simply this.  Do more than people expect you to do and get more of what you want by helping others get what they want.

 

Of course, doing more than people expect entails many things.  It has to do with being either a lady or a gentleman, as the case may be.  It means showing up early and staying late.  It means not asking how much am I going to get paid, but what can I do to help.  It means building your life and your career on a foundation of truth and integrity.  Do not kid yourself, either.  Integrity is not so much doing the right thing when someone is watching.  It is doing it when nobody is around.  Clearly say what you mean and mean what you say and live up to your words.

 

Life if not as complicated as we make it out to be.  We all want to be treated a certain way so doesn’t it make sense for us to treat people the way they want to be treated.  Please note, I did not say, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, though it is a good corollary.  Everybody is different.  Recognize that people are more interested in themselves than they are in you until you demonstrate that you are interested in them.  In addition to the most powerful words in the English language of “please” and “thank you”, I would also add, “how can I help you?” and “I need your help”.  People always appreciate when another extends a sincere hand of friendship and they never feel so important as when somebody asks for their help and are more invested when they give it.

 

Old people are not just old people.  At one time, they were just like you are now and like you will be some day if you are lucky.  They have life experiences that, if you are smart, you will ask about and listen to with a naïve sense of acceptance.  In the bargain, you will get the very special gifts of hard won insight and appreciation.  As I said before, people want to help you and sometimes the only thing that older people can do at some point in their life is tell their stories and offer advice.

 

You are stepping off into terra incognita.  For this one time, I will not burden you with telling you to look it up.  Terra incognita means unknown lands and on the maps of the old explorers, it was where they were not sure whether, if they continued sailing, they might fall off the end of the earth.  The world before you is a vast unknown full of great wonder and disappointment, successes and failures, triumphs and tragedies.  Whatever you do, it is not so important what happens to you, it is only important how you react.

 

There has never been a time in history when so much will change over the next few years.  In the early years of human existence, change came very slowly, almost glacially.  Only recently, in the past hundred years or so has change begun to accelerate.  It is the nature of knowledge that it builds on itself and increases the rate of acceleration of change.  If you think we live in the most modern, technically advanced state, you are right … for the moment.  You will look back from the perspective of twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or even sixty years and remember these as the quaint, good old days.  What is about to happen in the human world is going to happen at a rate never before seen by humans.  Much of the consequences of these changes will be due, in large part, to you and your contemporaries.  In this regard, if you feel you have squandered the past eighteen years, then perhaps you can learn from it and make sure the coming years granted to you are years of which you make the most.  Good luck!

Honoring Thy Father And Thy Mother Wasn't Exactly A Suggestion

We are approaching June 28^th which is the deadline set by the city to present the City Commission with a financially viable lease for property on Truman Annex to be dedicated for an Assisted Care facility.  In the humble opinion of this writer, the City Commission should embrace this opportunity NOW.  Here is why.

 

It is ironic that our society has abandoned the historic notion that seniors are a valuable resource of a community.  Throughout the thousands of years of human socialization in cultures from Asia to the New World, seniors were held in high esteem for their experience and often times sage advice.  They usually lived with their families and were part of their council of elders who were looked up to and respected by all.

 

Perhaps it is the age of medical miracles that has affected how we think of seniors but, the fact is, they are living longer and are requiring more and more highly specialized care.  Even with that being said, I do not think much else has changed.  I, and we, should feel a strong sense of obligation and responsibility for those in our community who have made Key West the wonderful place it is to live.  They fought our wars, coached our Little League teams, built businesses, drove school buses, kept us safe and generally provided services to us all over the past several decades.  It is a matter of honor and respect for us not to forget their contribution and sacrifices. 

 

It has been ten years since the city set aside a small parcel of land on Truman Annex for an assisted and independent living community.  After much consideration, three years later the Commission put the question out to the citizens of Key West and the referendum was passed with a sixty seven percent approval.  The people want this and for good reason.  Their parents are aging and so are they.  The alternative prospect is not a pretty one.  With no such facilities in our community today, the prospect for working families is to send their elders “somewhere else”, wherever that may be.  Suffice it to say, it will be far enough away so the family ties will be effectively broken.

 

In the process, there have been some questions asked which appear, at least on the surface, to be reasonable but, quite frankly, they are not, both in terms of economics and common sense.  The questions have ranged from this is valuable waterfront land which should not be allocated to such a purpose, to let’s let the Housing Authority take care of it and, of course, why should anybody make money off this enterprise?  Taken separately or together, they just do not hold water.  More recently, a Commissioner has asked for yet another referendum.  Why?  The people have spoken and the Commission was elected to represent the people.  If we dilly dally too long, we will have the same thing happen as happened with the Truman Waterfront.  We will lose it.

 

The land which has been designated for the purpose is the least desirable on Truman Annex that has been given to this community.  This land has not been given for a marina, a resort or an entertainment complex.  It has been given to the community.  If the Housing Authority or anyone else could have done such a project, they probably would have, given the obvious nature of this longstanding problem.  Finally, building such a project is a high risk undertaking and there is not a line of developers.  Anyone so risking their private capital should be reasonably compensated for the effort.

 

The non-profit coalition that has doggedly stayed on the trail of this project, donating countless hours of thankless meetings and planning have done their job.  Now it is time we, as the citizens of Key West, do ours.  The alternative to not approving this long overdue project is that the tax credit financing will soon be lost forever.  The fact is that putting it on Truman Annex puts our seniors within easy commuting distance to their families, shopping, entertainment and the new park, an ideal site.  In addition to the land being identified and available, a qualified developer has been identified and is in place ready to go.  All we need now is for our city leaders to say the word.  Yes, this does require this land be leased at a minimal level, and even though the developer has agreed to front $500,000 to lease the property, my point is, the seniors of our community have already paid for this many times over in their contributions to Key West over the past fifty years.  To paraphrase Hillel:  If not here, where?  If not this developer, who?  If not now, when?

 

I urge all of Key West to support the City Commission by calling your City Commissioner and voicing approval for what you have already voted for.  Then, come to the meeting at City Hall when this subject is to be voted upon.  The time for action is now and it may slip away quickly.

 

On a personal note, I have been here before.  We took care of aging parents and it was not easy, nor was it inexpensive.  We have the opportunity before us to do the right thing, not just for those who can afford it but for many who can afford something and those who can afford very little.  Not to do the right thing is a sinful, shameful thing which I think we will regret for many days to come and perhaps more so when we, too, are forced to leave Key West because no such facility exists.  Imagine a life, theirs or ours, that has been dedicated in some measure to this community.  Imagine getting old and having to leave because there is no place here to live out your life.  To provide a facility so our seniors can “age in place” is a sacred, unspoken covenant within our community.  Break it at our peril.