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CAT 5

Irma, a category 5 hurricane out in the Atlantic is headed for Florida - or thereabouts.  When the hurricane season began in Florida (about the same month that I moved to Florida) friends advised me to put together a hurricane kit.  So I did.  Flashlight, battery operated radio, extra batteries, enough water and non-perishable food to last a week, can opener (corkscrew too), extra paper toilet etc. Now Irma is on her way, but not expected to arrive in the Tampa Bay area until Sunday night (if it arrives here at all).  She is currently a category 5 hurricane - the worst.  I went to Walmart yesterday to get a flu shot. It took me over 30 minutes to find a parking spot - on a weekday when children should be in school and most people should be at work. The lines at the checkout counters ran through the store aisles. People were buying what looked to me years supplies of water, peanut butter by the case, every loaf of bread they could fit into their shopping carts,...
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Grumpy Old Man? Not me!

I would never consider myself to be a “grumpy old man”.   I believe I try to be pleasant to everyone (except to mean or rude people.   I have no tolerance for them).   But then again, I am from New York.   Now New Yorkers are actually friendly people.   Hollywood might have convinced the rest of the country that we are rude and competitive and would knock our own mother down if she got in our way.   But that is just not true at all.   Still, I realize that the adjustments I need to make for the overly friendly culture of Florida is happening too sloooowly for me. I will give you a typical example:   When I lived on Long Island, if I needed to pick up a quart of milk at the grocery store, I was able to drive there, park, enter the store, find the dairy section, grab a quart container of milk, get in line at the check-out counter, pay for it when the cashier announced the total I owed, slip the quart into my grocery bag and leave the store – wi...
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The Great Three (now The Great Four)

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Today I watched "Never on Sunday", a 1960 film starring Melina Mercouri and Jules Dassin.  It reminded me of something I saw in Athens years ago. I have been to Athens three times.  The first time was in the late 1970s.  At that time, long before the 2004 Summer Olympic Games and before EU membership for Greece, Athens was a dirty, smog-filled, dusty city with not much to recommend it.  The trek up to the Acropolis to see the Parthenon and other monuments was difficult.  The tourist sights of importance could all be seen in one or one-and-a-half days.  Athens was a city rich in history but not rich in much else.  I remember my hotel was just off one of the main avenues in Athens, Leoforos Syngrou.  At the bus stop on this avenue there was a small pedestrian plaza that prominently displayed large busts of Greece's BIG THREE philosophers: Aristotle, Plato and Socrates.  Of course I felt I needed to purchase souvenir copies of these busts and ...
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Home Lines

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Every year during the 1950s and 1960s my Aunt Palma took a cruise to the Bahamas on a Home Lines ships.  Her favorite of their ships was the original Homeric.  This ship sailed from New York to Nassau in the Bahamas.  She took the same cruise every year, and usually the same ship and destination.  It was not a particularly beautiful ship, but it had a huge Lido Deck with a pool and hundreds of deck chairs.  My parents thought of it as a luxury they could not yet afford.  But once my brothers and I were old enough to be left alone for a week - they too started cruising, inspired by Aunt Palma .  Whenever Aunt Palma left on a cruise we would travel into Manhattan to see her off, check out her tiny cabin, sit on the Lido Deck for awhile, leave the ship when the announcement came for all visitors to leave, and then throw confetti streamers at the ship as it left the dock.  It was a big event for us.  Now, for security reasons, these traditio...
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History always repeats itself

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When I moved into my old Long Island township 30 years ago garbage collection was privately run. You had to contract with a private company to pick up your garbage.   The township did not take care of it.  I had not moved into my new house 2 days when I got a pounding on my front door from some Italian goombah trying to shake me down for $100 to get my garbage collected.  Either that or I would have to drive 12 miles every week to personally dispose of my trash in the town;s waste management dump.  I refused to pay this guy unless he provided me with a contract and an invoice.  That came in the mail 2 days later.  And then, after signing their contract, they started picking up my trash.  No more than 3 or 4 months later there was a shootout in the street about 6 blocks north of my house.  Three trash collectors were gunned down in the early morning while picking up trash.  One of them was killed. 1987. It was the top story in Newsda...
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The dire situation with North Korea

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North Korea's July 4th launch/test of an intercontinental ballistic  missile further endangers peace and safety in Asia and in the U.S.  The situation is now critical. All the pundits keep stating that we need China to intervene with North Korea and that nothing will be accomplished without Chinese intervention.  But what possible incentive does China have for resolving the tensions created by Kim Jong-un?  As far as I can see, Xi Jinping is sitting back enjoying these tensions created by Kim with the USA, with a huge smile on his face  The pudgy little guy has thrown the big guy off balance.  Is Xi Jinping interested in humanitarian ideals?  Is he interested in world peace?  Is he interested in achieving a Nobel Peace Prize by resolving this situation?  NO!  He cares nothing about these things.  The only thing Xi really cares about is keeping the United States far away from mainland Asia and furthering his own goal of Chinese wor...
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The Trials and Tribulations of Moving

I moved to Florida.  A sunnier, healthier climate. No more shoveling snow. Lower taxes and lower cost of living. The only downside is I am further away from family and friends than I have ever been before.  But I will do my best to stay in touch with them, will visit them often, and will make new friends along the way.  I do believe I have made a good decision.  I was ready for the change. I packed all my things in about 100 small boxes and loaded them, with the help of friends, into two U-Haul UBoxes.  I also loaded my bedroom furniture and a couple of other pieces of furniture, but no living room or dining furniture.  I want to buy new things for my new home.  But the bedroom furniture is in good condition and looks good in my new bedroom.  As careful as I was with the packing, inevitably there were a few items that broke.  A broken wooden rocking chair, a bent floor lamp, a couple of smashed glass and ceramic items, two CD storage towers...
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