Rant #3,556: Fun

"I vote.

You vote.

Dad votes.

Mom votes.

We all vote."

That is the very first thing I ever had published, way back in the literary publication that P.S. 165 in Flushing, Queens, put out in 1962 or 1963 or so, so I was all.of five or six years old when I wrote this (or something to the same effect--I don't have a copy of the publication, but I am pretty sure this was, at least, the gist of what I wrote.)

I have always been fascinated with the voting process.

I remember going with my mother when I was just a little older--when me lived in Rochdale Village, Queens--and going behind the curtain as she voted ... I found it pretty exciting.

Now, fast forward to the present time, and I still find the voting process as interesting as ever--

This time around with a twist.

For the 2024 election--where we are voting for president--I, and my family, voted by mail for the very first time.

We decided to do this as part of our move to a new community, and I found it kind of fun.

We applied for the mail ballot a week or two ago, and the ballots came in the mail over this past weekend.

I ended up doing exactly what I said I was going to do--I wrote in a presidential candidate--and I filled in the rest of the ballot, voting for candidates in all parties.

I found this way of voting more relaxing, less pressured, less stressful, and it gave me a chance to really think.out what I was doing.

Voting at the polling place is fine, but I always felt rushed doing it there.

I did not feel rushed at all voting at home.

When I completed my ballot, I followed the instructions of preparing it to be mailed, waited for my wife and son to fill out their ballots, and the three of us sent out our ballots over the weekend.

Doing it this way this time around made it somewhat more exciting to vote again--in fact, my wife voted for maybe the first time since we were married more than 30 years ago.

The three of us voted for whoever we felt would fill the roles we voted for them for, and each of us made our own choices.

I personally stuck to my guns with my presidential choice, and I am proud of who I voted for.

If you live in New York State and want to vote by mail, go to the site listed at the end of this Rant and follow the instructions.

It is really simple to do, and better yet, it was fun to do.

Will I do it again?

I don't know, but this particular experience was so positive, that I will definitely consider doing it again in the future.

https://elections.ny.gov/request-ballot

Rant #3,555: Goodbye, Columbus (NOT)

Happy New Year to everyone, Jew and non-Jew alike.

And happy Columbus Day to all of us--

Don't get me started on Indigenous People's Day, which is not only a bunch of nonsense, but perpetuates the very stereotypes that it seeks to eradicate.

If you believe the portrayal of the indigenous people as being serene, cerebral, spiritual, quiet and less violent than their white counterparts who "stole" their land, than you buy into nothing more than a true stereotype.

Indian tribes dispatched with other Indian tribes with the ferocity of obliteration, and while not all indigenous people were violent and warlike, the stronger groups thought nothing of removing other tribes off the face of the planet for land and for other demonic purposes, so the thinking is that they were truly no better than the white man.

It is just so funny, and ridiculous, how this day is handled today.

Sure, Columbus has become something of a myth, for what he did, what he actually did, and how he has been portrayed.

But in today's over-sensitive, woke world about the past, he is looked at as an evil figure by some, a white imperialist of the worst magnitude.

On the other side, you have generations of people--including those of Hispanic and Italian background--who look at Columbus as a true hero.

Heck, there was a thought a few years ago, and that still comes up every couple of years, that Columbus was actually Jewish, and went on his trip to "America" to get away from Spain and the terrors Jews experienced during the Spanish Inquisition.

Whatever the case, Columbus has become quite a controversial figure in modern times, and any recognition he has received in our country--such as statues and the naming of cities after him--now comes under tremendous scrutiny.

Statues of him come under attack by those so woke that while they truly believe they can change the past, they cannot see the forest for the trees, because their own generation has much to apologize for.

I love how the media handles the day. Kind of straddling between two myths, Columbus as the "discoverer" of America and the "placidness" and "non-violent nature" of indigenous people.

Banks put signs in their windows to alert the public thst they are closed on "Columbus Day," but there is at least one bank that alerts the public thst they are closed on "Indigenous Peoples Day/Columbus Day," I guess so as not to.offend anyone while, in fact, offending everyone.

(Just as an aside, this bank.is a foreign-headquarted bank, has a manifesto that is clearly anti-white when it comes to hiring and promotion of executives, and was just cited by federal authorities, and heavily fined, for money laundering.)

So today is Columbus Day, has been a holiday for generations, and no matter what these woke imbeciles say, will always be Columbus Day.

Look, any holiday celebrating a major figure is going to be filled with lots of facts and lots of myths--Washington's Birthday, Lincoln's Birthday, and yes, even though we might not like to.admit it, Martin Luther King Day too--so the best way to handle these days is to go with the flow, take these days for what they are and--

Enjoy the day off.

We don't get too many of these in the calendar, so enjoy them when they come.

Happy Columbus Day to all!

And to those who wish to disparage the day and Columbus himself--

Chill out!

Rant #3,554: Wishin' and Hopin'

Yes, I have taken a breath from yesterday's Rant, and now, I have to move on from it ... nit totally forget about it, but continue to try to learn from it.

Tonight, at sundown, begins the holiest holiday on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur.

The best way to talk about it here is to put up what I wrote about it more than a dozen years ago, in Rant #811, dated September 25, 2012.

So here it is, in edited form.

"Yom Kippur begins tonight at sundown.

For Jews around the world, this is the holiest time of the year, the time where we pause to reflect on what we did the past year and how we can begin anew in the new year.

Even many non-observant Jews follow this holiday, and this is the only time that they venture into a synagogue during the entire calendar year.

Prayer and reflection are paramount here, as is refraining from drinking or eating anything for the duration of the holiday.

Some Jews don't even bathe, watch television, drive cars or do anything but pray and fast during this period, which ends tomorrow night at sundown, or when the shofar is blown at Yom Kippur services.

I, personally, don't go to that extreme. I do not go to synagogue but again this year, I will be fasting.

From my personal experience, fasting is not hard to do. Sure, it takes you out of your routine, but it really isn't that difficult to do for a day.

What is difficult is doing it while you are in synagogue. The constant getting up and sitting down--when the Torah is displayed--makes it very difficult.

I remember in the old days, you would hear women crying in the back of the synagogue. Not eating can do that to you.

As far as my family, my wife has tried and can't do it, my son the same, my daughter, I know she has tried but she can't do it, either..

I have to tell you, after I fast I feel very, very good. It is almost as if everything bad in my body has been cleansed out of it by fasting. I might have a little buzz headache, but this is something I have been doing continually since I was 12 or 13, so I am pretty much used to it.

So to all my Jewish friends, and to all of those people I know who aren't, Happy New Year to everyone."

But this year, things are different.

Jews around the world have had a horrible year, with the Israel-Hamas War showing no end, and the resultant spikes in anti-Semitism reaching historic--and reprehensible--numbers.

We--and the world--should hope for a better new year, a year when peace is the goal, but the way the world is today, this will be a goal that is going to be difficult to accomplish.

The new year brings new hope, and let's hope that this hope comes to fruition.

May the war come to an end, may all the hostages be released and come home, and may there be a lasting peace in thst part of the world, and throughout our world in its entirety.

Happy new year to all!

Have a great weekend, an easy fast, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Rant #3,553: Emotional Rescue

As I have told you in the past, October is absolutely the worst month, at least for myself and my family.

Today is anniversary of an incident that will irk me for the rest of my life--

October 10, 2024 is the fifth anniversary of the day that the company I worked for for nearly a quarter of a century went out of business, leaving its remaining six employees out on our butts with little to show for our years of work and dedication to this company.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but I knew that once the hammer dropped, at least for me, this was the beginning of the end for me as a full-time salaried worker.

Not that I was necessarily old, but in the business world, age 62 might as well as be age 102, because I was, and still am, considered to be unemployable due to my age.

Five years ago today was the beginning of a downward spiral, one which I am just now getting my head out of, but while I knew finding another job would be difficult, I truly had no idea what awaited me.

First of all, in early October 2019, no one on this planet could have any idea about what was just around the corner, meaning the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whether you bought into it lock, stock and barrel or not, it changed this world forever, and as for me, trying to find a new job during late 2019 and into 2020 was the proverbial finding a needle in a haystack, and to this day, no one has found my needle.

I had four interviews during this time, two in person--just before everything shut down--and two over the phone, and that was it.

I also had one supposed interview early on where I was told about five minutes before I left to drive to the company that the interview was canceled, without a reason given, and I have never heard from the company again.

I sent out more than 1,000 resumes from October 2019 to October 2020, and other than these four potential employers and the near potential employer --again, all.of these coming before the pandemic hit--I never heard back from a single employer ... not a one.

Quite simply, I could not get arrested ... and I applied for jobs both in and out of my field--and as you know, I still do--but no one is interested, not t age 62, and certainly not at age 67.

I have certainly been a victim of age-related bias ... but go prove it.

In the midst of all of this, I was immediately denied unemployment due to a glitch in my file with New York State, where a case I filed against the unemployment division 25 years before--and which was officially settled not in my favor--was never formally closed.

So for the first several weeks of my unemployment, I could not get any money coming in, until an enterprising unemployment department executive in the state capitol of Albany listened to me, and put things in motion for that mistake on their part to be taken care of--

I finally received unemployment, a lifeline that kept me solvent during this very difficult time.

Also during this time, I won a judgment against what I call "The McDonald's of Physical Therapy," where I was grossly overcharged, and taken advantage of, when I used them for physical therapy a few months prior.

In both cases, I was minutes away from getting a lawyer and suing, but happily, neither case got that far.

And yes, many other things happened to myself and my family, of varying degrees, to make 2020 about the worst year of my life.

My father passed away, and dementia began its three-year path to take my mom away from us.

My son also lost his job, doing so during the pandemic, so during 2020, the only person working in my household was my wife.

I was working in a different way--trying to find work each and every day and keeping an eye on my parents and for that matter, my son.

The only good thing that happened during the year is that right before I was to lose my unemployment, I got the job I have now, as a remote editor/writer, and the only reason I got it was because certain people with this Washington, D.C.-based trade organization knew my work from my previous 23 and a half years, and I fit exactly what they needed.

My son was later rehired by his former company--at my urging--and that was also a good thing.

2020 turned into 2021 and then 2022 and then 2023, but things were really spiraling into the abyss.

My nine-year-old car died in the middle of the street in June 2023, and this was an omen of things to come ... none of which were very good.

My mother's health had worsened, and she ended up going into a coma when I was on a cruise with my family and other family members.

It was impossible to get home from where we were, so I stuck it out, counting the hours until I was able to get home when the cruise ended.

She somehow managed to hold out, and passed away just a few days after I arrived home.

Her death, as painstaking as it was, dovetailed into a mess that only subsided early this year.

We put our house--my home of 50 years--onto the market, because the Town of Oyster Bay caught wind of my mother's passing, and with her out of the picture, it wasn't a legal mother/daughter house anymore--

And thus, we were breaking the law by living there.

We got the best price we could on the house, but due to situations beyond my or my sister's control, the two of us received little from the sale.

In the meantime, we thought the town meant business, so we literally cleaned out the house top to bottom, and my wife and I found a small apartment nearby to set up shop again.

It is nice, but it is about 30 leaps down from residing in a house.

(Little did we know that the town lost our paperwork, and we could have stayed in the house longer than we did, as there ended up being no rush to vacate, as the buyer also dragged his feet, too.)

We finally sold the house early this year, and it is still hard to believe that we don't live there anymore.

But the evil forces were not yet done with us, not by a long shot.

Bringing a bag of garbage down the house's stairway, I somehow--I still can't figure it out--missed stepping on the next-to-last stair of the stairway, and my left knee T-boned a box of photo albums that we were in the process of moving.

My leg buckled, I was rushed to the hospital, and eventually, they found that i had a torn quad muscle in my left leg.

Surgery ensued, and I was bed-bound for months, and could not help my wife and son at all when we moved into our new dwelling.

But it was only the beginning ...

In the new dwelling, I somehow got to a closet door, opened it, and the contents of the closet fell directly on me, tearing my quad for the second time in a month.

Another surgery ensued, and while I was even more bed-bound than before, I soon began a 10-month program of physical therapy, which ends today.

But in the meantime, I went through mental things related to my situation that no one could ever foresee.

I always knew I would get better; that wasn't the problem.

I could not sleep, and being almost entirely bed-bound made my sleep in my own bed impossible, so whatever sleep I got was on the living room sofa.

Through a lot of determination--and a lot of help from others--I overcame that, and once I was able to drive my car again after a six-month hiatus, just about everything returned to normal with myself and my family.

Things are better now, but quite frankly, they will never be the same.

When you are forced to retire rather than to make that choice on your own, nothing can be what it once was.

I don't like being forcibly retired, and I don't like that no employer would take a chance on me, presumably due to my age.

Again, go prove it.

And going back to October 10, 2019, I have spoken to a few of my former fellow employees, and it seems that nothing came easy for any of us 

We all had difficult times finding work--our ages ranged from the mid-40s to the 60s--and if we did eventually find a job, none of us are getting paid what we were making five years ago.

In fact, one person only got a job because I vouched for her, portraying myself as her supervisor during the hiring pricess when I was only her co-worker in a different department.

That is what people do when they are desperate for work, as the six of us were, and probably, still are.

I could help her, but no one--not any of my fellow co-workers, other former co-workers, contacts, others--no one could help me ... but at least I could help someone else.

So here I am, five years later.

Things have started to get back to normal, but I don't think it will ever get back to normal for me.

Sorry for the length of today's Rant--i know it is a bit long-winded--but unless you have walked in my shoes, you have absolutely no idea, none at all, about what has gone on since October 10, 2019, and how it has affected myself and my family.

Five years is a longer time than you might think it is ... on the other hand, it hasn't been quite enough time for me to fully heal from my wounds, both figuratively and literally, and also mentally.

But I do believe that I am up to the task, and continue to work each and every day to make sure that whatever demons I have don't come back--

EVER.

Rant #3,552: We Gotta Get Out of This Place

Good luck to all of those in Florida.

Hurricane Milton looks like the real deal, making Hurricane Helene look like a weak sister in comparison.

And with a good portion of the state decimated by the prior storm, this newst storm could not have come at a worse time.

Tampa, Orlando and several other prime spots are almost certain to be hit, and what makes it even worse is that the hurricane is set to begin its wrath in the middle of the night.

It reminds me of Hurricane Charley, which hit Orlando head on in 2009.

The reason I remember that hurricane so well is that my family and I were on vacation--yes, in the outskirts of Orlando--when the storm hit that August.

And I remember that it was terrifying.

We were at our time share that we had at the time. 

We were told to bring in all the outdoor furniture that was on our patio, and to lock our doors and stay in.

My family prepared pretty well.

Our car had plenty of gas--the lines were outrageous--and we had plenty of food in our villa.

So we stayed in and prepared fir the worst.

I remember that not only was it dark out when Charley came, but the Hurricane literally made it pitch black outside, the darkest black I have ever seen.

We completely lost power, so we were in the pitch black, and I used a fully-charged DVD player for light.

And when Charley hit, it was loud, so loud that there was no way you could sleep through it; in fact, I stayed in the living room that night, just to make sure nothing was blown out by the ferocity of the storm, and my wife and son stayed in the bedroom.

I only hoped that the next morning, my car would still be where I parked it and wouldn't be damaged.

Happily, somehow, the three of us got to sleep for an hour or two, and when the morning came, my car had a lot of displaced shrubbery around it and on top of it, but nothing more.

We were located just out of Orlando, so we were spared the worst of the storm ... but Orlando did get hit head on.

We drove around, and the decimation was quite apparent.

I remember the only thing opened the next morning was Burger King, and the lines we waited on to get inside the restaurant were blocks long--

Made up of New Yorkers on vacation, just like us.

But we survived, as did the state.

Milton appears to be another matter altogether, and I hope Florida can pull through once again.

With so many family and friends there, I wish everyone good luck ...

And the faster Milton exits, the better.

Rant #3,551: Every Day I Write the Book

I had a test done at my doctor first thing in the morning yesterday, and it came out quite well, so my day started off pretty nicely.

Later on in the day, my family and I--this includes my sister's family--finally closed out the bank account that helped sustain my mother in her final years.

Without going into too much detail, it was the account where we took care of any and all of the bills she accrued during the last years of her life.

There wasn't much left in the account, so we finally closed it down for good.

As I drove to the bank to help get this done, I felt kind of sad about the finality of all of this, but it is something we really had to do, and it was the time to do it.

During my mother's final years, we took care of all of her debts with this account, as well as anything she needed during that time.

Happily, that account was able to provide everything she needed, and she never had to worry about her finances during those last years.

With her dementia, she really couldn't handle her finances, so that account was her financial lifeline as she entered her 90s.

So yes, I was a bit sad while I did what I did in the bank, but there was no sense in keeping the account going.

Another chapter closed ... and it is probably the final chapter.

Otherwise, yesterday was a pretty quiet day, and maybe that is how it should have been.

I miss my mom, and my dad, but life goes on.

Yesterday ended up being a day to reflect on my parents, right in between the holiest days on the Jewish calendar, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

And on the one-year anniversary of the Hamas massacre in Israel.

And as I do every year, later this week, I will be fasting on Yom Kippur. I am the only one in my family who does it, and when I do it, I feel as if I am not just doing it for myself, but I am also doing it for my family.

My parents led the way for me, and they participated in the fast as long as they could.

I am simply picking up the baton from them, and running with it, so the fast not only shows my reverance for God, but also for my parents, and the legacy they left behind on our family.

Everyone has a book of many chapters, and an account, that needs to be rendered each day, month and year.

My father used to say that during Yom Kippur, God is writing in his book the names of those who will make the "cut" to live on for another year, and also those who wouldn't survive, so we fasted because the act demonstrated to God that we were serious about erasing our sins, and we wanted to go on for the new year.

So God had his own rendering to make, to either keep you going or to close the book on you.

And the closing of the account that helped my mom, I could look at it as the "final chapter," as I mentioned earlier, but I guess I can also look at it as the "next chapter," for our family ... and I can look at this year's Yom Kippur in the same exact way.

Yes, I like "next chapter" a bit better.

Rant #3,550: Strength

Today is the one-year anniversary of that horrid day when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel.

Nothing has been the same since that day, and I don't have to go into the why's and wherefores of that day any more than I have during the past 12 months.

You can bet that there will be plenty of protests, worldwide, on this continued conflict.

You will have those supporting Israel and what they have had to do since they were attacked, and on the other side, you will have the terrorists groupies, who support Hamas and Hezbollah and pretty much go against the grain of any semblance of right and wrong.

And you still have at least 100 hostages of all ages being held by terrorists. Many of them are dead, and to demonstrate the babarism of the terrorists, they still retain these dead, lifeless bodies ... for what purpose only they know.

The world dropped the ball when Hamas attacked, raped and pillaged innocent people, and the windows of opportunity closed when Israel found that the world was not jumping to its defense right after October 7 as it should have.

And today, much of the world blames Israel, simply for defending itself against terrorists who have a clear objective: to destroy Israel and wipe out all Jews, period.

Most polls have shown that Americans generally support Israel in its current plight, but you do have factions of our population who do not get it, showing their anti-Semitic colors at the drop of a hat.

Fools they are, fools they will forever be.

On another front, I did something this past weekend that I hadn't done in a while--I applied for a job.

Newsday--yes, the same publication which, just a few months ago, physically kicked me out of their offices--again is advertising for freelance writers and editors for one of its online features, and once again, I have applied for the job.

Yes, I applied for this exact same job months ago, and it led nowhere, and I am sure it will lead nowhere once again ... but at the very least, it gave me the opportunity to update my resume.

In the past, Newsday, i suspect, has discriminated against me because of my age, but I cannot prove it.

For many people my age who have gone through this, age-related job discrimination is nearly impossible to prove, but it exists.

I fit this latest job to a "T," in both skills and background, but being age 67 ... well, even at age 62 I was thought to be "too old," so being 67 just is another notch against me.

So to tie the two subjects on this Rant together, I have to take a wait and see attitude on both of these topics ...

But something tells me the outcome is not going to be very good on either front.