What Good Neighbors We Have

12/16/2013

Haven't gotten around to decorating the outside.
May not, thanks to John and Mary, Mark and Marisa.
And whoever hung that glowing white ball.

Alan Rubin link

12/19/2013 03:40:38 am

Season’s greetings!

Tastefully decorated Christmas displays always brighten up a neighborhood.

There are several reasons that I always look forward to the holiday season, one being Christmas Eve is my wedding anniversary. However, my enjoyment of the festivities began many years earlier.

My family moved in 1947 from 190th and Fort Washing Avenue in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan to Teaneck, NJ. Although it was only six miles across the George Washington Bridge down route 4, it was a new world. The cultural change from a predominantly Jewish neighborhood (probably greater than 90%) to a Christian community of about 15 Jewish families was quite enlightening. On Ash Wednesday, a close friend explained that his forehead was not dirty so I would not embarrass myself commenting to others.

Every week for a month prior to Christmas, the school met in assembly to learn Christmas carols. These were the old traditional ones, not the annoying variety that is all too common today. Maybe it was my love of folk music, but each year I looked forward to these assemblies.

So, each holiday season, I tune out all the commercialism and just ENJOY.

epalumbo2000@gmail.com

7/23/2015 06:30:47 am

Comments are closed.

QUOTES
Welcome to World Cup 2022, the most absurd thing that the routinely absurd world of sports has ever produced.
Those extreme descriptions were what virtually the entire world, save for those who had walked off with bags of cash from Qatar, called the awarding of soccer’s greatest event to the incredibly tiny, incredibly wealthy country back in 2010.
Twelve years ago, many were convinced this event couldn’t possibly happen: staging the world’s biggest sporting event in a country the size of Connecticut, one with zero soccer culture and even less soccer infrastructure? The tournament couldn’t possibly take place in 120-degree heat, and FIFA, the governing body of soccer, most certainly wouldn’t upend football leagues around the world to change the traditional summer schedule, could it?
And, for God’s sake, what about the beer?
Those were just the logistical concerns. The moral concerns are far more distressing. FIFA, so busy paying lip service to equality, couldn’t possibly expect the world to embrace a country where you could go to prison for being gay, where women’s rights are severely curtailed and female victims of sexual assault could go to prison, charged with engaging in extramarital sex. And all those questions came before the global realization that the World Cup was being built on the backs of migrant labor: modern-day slaves held in Qatar with virtually no rights, low wages and no ability to leave. Migrants make up 90% of Qatar’s stated population of 3 million. The country’s native-born equal about 300,000, or roughly the size of Anaheim.
---Ann Killion, columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.

What Good Neighbors We Have

Categories

Buy the Book