Has Elfster Killed the Economy?

 

Source: http://www.elfster.com

For about 30 years, as father of six, I had to buy myriad Christmas presents.  Thousands of dollars that we could ill-afford to spend went out each Christmas season in order to ensure a big pile of colorful presents under the tree on Christmas morning.  Much went for plastic crap with heavy price tags:  Star Wars toys, My Little Ponies, etc.  Then came all the electronic toys, Ataris, Nintendos, Playstations, etc., and God knows how much software for them all.  Sure, there were some sweaters, shirts and socks included, but the vast majority of the money went for toys that soon were gathering dust in corners of the kids' rooms, or in the "bunk room closet."   Moreover, all the kids, as they grew to be teenagers, felt equally compelled to give gifts to each other, and to us parents.  So the pile under the tree got to be a small mountain.  It was too much.  And then, along came Elfster!

Now, thanks to Elfster, we all have one family member to whom to give a Secret Santa gift!  It makes all the sense in the world!  Christmas is still about giving, and it is far less stressful for us all.

Christmas is no longer the time of year that my credit cards get tapped out, and for which I have to be paying all year long, at 18% interest.  Thank you, Elfster!

And the economy is tanking, and unemployment is at 9 to 16 % (depending on how one measures).

I am but one Dad among millions and millions of Dads in this consumerist country called America.  So, who's still doing the forced consuming that gave us those boom years?  Far fewer of us, thanks to Elfster!  Yep, thanks, Elfster.  (Thanks a bunch!)

La Mulți Ani, Jamie, and Felicitari, JJ & Amy!

Yesterday our strong, handsome, hardworking son Jamie turned 35, and a year ago today we celebrated the wedding of Jamie to the lovely, smart, kind and caring Amy Larkin in Orlando, Florida.  We love you, JJ & Amy!  Keep up the good work!

More from that Tuscan Classic Motorcycle Rally of May, 2010

Triumph Trident 750

 It occurs to me tonight that my fellow aficionados of motorcycling may have been shortchanged by my most-read post, so tonight I shall share more of the photos I took at Piazza Michelangelo that morning late in May of 2010.  Consider this a gallery.  I shall caption all which I can identify.  I encourage all who can to comment with the precise identity of any of these classics.

Moto Perugina 175

Honda CB500 Four (Circa 1970)

Pre-unit construction Triumph Twin (500cc or 650c, Circa 1958, I believe)

Honda CBX1000 Six, Circa 1982

Benelli 250

Suzuki 750cc Two-stroke Triple.  "The water buffalo."

Moto Guzzi Le Mans

Another view of the Le Mans

Ducati Single (Circa 1965?)

Honda CB350 Four  (A jewel)

Ducati Scrambler?

They all felt this way about their mounts.

BMW R69S

Pre-V Moto Guzzi

Moto Guzzi engine detail shot.

Suzuki GSX550ES Circa 1985

MV Agusta 350

MV Sticker

Triumph Engine detail

Triumph gearbox (note right side shifter)

Triumph rear end detail.  Hard tail!

And we close with a lovely Laverda 750

New Trier and Wilmette Recollections Shared by an Old Friend

Message from a classmate:

Duncan,
      I'm still enjoying the reunion.  And I'm very grateful you brought Joseph McCloskey with you.  Also, I enjoyed learning that you dwell in the environs of my alma mater - a wonderful part of our country. 
      We survived Sonnenfeld [our excellent, demanding, fifth grade teacher in Wilmette] together.  You likely may not remember me, as I spent a considerable amount of time in the silent "conference" room working independently with serenity - efforts to manage my behavior.  My solitude was commonly interrupted when Skip Dunham was sent in; he would educate me on the sexuality of the world. 
      Glad you convinced me that nobody was cut from the swimming or diving team.  I was self-centered enough back then to interpret not being "chosen" as a premier as being cut.  At least now I can begin my recovery.
      Anyway it was great to see you and identify that the spirit of your youth still prevails.

  Regards,
  George Brannen

Reply: 

Dear George,

It was good to see you, my friend.  I know what you mean by "still enjoying the reunion."  Me, too.

Interesting to read your story about your interpretation of being put on the "C Squad."  I had the identical reaction when, as an eight year-old, I was told that I was being put on a "farm team" in the Wilmette Little League.  Proud of my ability as a sandlot/Cub Scout League softball player, I was so hurt not to be put in the "majors" that I quit, and never played competitive baseball again. 

As for the "C Squad," it had a few remarkable successes.  Mike Doscher was a C-Squad member for three years, then made the State Meet Team as a senior.  He had skipped a grade, and was a year younger than we were.  Once he matured a bit, he got really fast.  I do not remember his event in the State Meet, but I think he may have been our second man in the 200 free, as Dave Robertson had moved David Lyons into the 50 and 100 for the state meet, letting Terry "T-bone" Townsend handle the 200 and the 400, events they had shared all season long in the dual meets.  This left a second slot open in the distance events.  As it happened, Lyons and T-bone brought us four first places in the solo freestyle events.  The last time I saw Mike Doscher, he was swimming in the finals of the NCAA meet at N. C. State in 1963, as a member of Stanford's 400-yard Freestyle Relay team.   ...

Our meeting and conversation were part of the Plan.  There are no coincidences.  That realization has come to me only in the last three years. 

Warmly,

Duncan

A great teacher, and a good friend.

Back a few posts I reported attending my 50th high school reunion in the New Trier Township, near Chicago.  Classmate Gay Weake and I brought our favorite English teacher, Mr. Jopseph W. "Uncle Joe" McCloskey, a WWII B-24 copilot who flew in the Pacific, out of New Guinea among other places, and is now a mere 89 years old, to the event.  He had a wonderful time there, as he was surrounded by admiring former students.  Here is a photo from the Friday bash at the Renaissance Hotel in Northbrook, Illinois.

Uncle Joe and Gay at the Reunion, 14 October 2011 

My A- for "Gross Illiteracy." (Alternate title: "Playing to a Tough Crowd")

There follows a Facebook conversation I have had over the past 18 months with my high school classmate author Lois Borkan Morris. [Posted with Lois' permission.]

May 12, 2010

 I hope this note finds you well and still thrilled with life. You can read about mine at the link below.
 
Your admirer and friend,

Duncan

Da Da Da Da Life Goes On*

dcmcd2.blogspot.com

May 14, 2010

Lois Borkan Morris

Hi. Your present and immediate future life sound exciting, speaking of thrilled with life. After your note last year about your brother (at Penn), I was about to counter with a bit of bragging about my outrageous radical activist criminal attorney sister, Susan Jordan...but then she died. Now, nearly a year later, I'm beginning to research a memoir about her, her career, our relationship. Much about the 60s, 70s, decisions made and life courses taken. Like there we were in Chicago August 1968, where she was in law school and I had returned to be married to my future ex-husband. Comes the day of the Democratic Convention and she's in the riot and I'm at a bridal shower.


And going back just a handful of years from that, to 1963, there I am writing you a letter in code, Jack Kennedy gets killed, life changes. And keeps changing.


Be well and enjoy your journeys. May we all. //L

July 19, 2011

Duncan C. McDougall

• Lois wrote: "And more: Duncan, how does the current government of and younger generation in Romania deal with the, uh, unpleasant realities of the past?"
  
  There are clearly visible scars in the demeanor of older Romanians, who are still quite reserved and formal in their modes of behavior and communication. Younger college-age (and just beyond) Romanians seem to me to be enjoying their European-hood, are ultra-modern users of the Internet and social media, and are doing a lot of travel in Western Europe. But still, they are pretty down on their country. They find that Romania, and Romanians are denigrated by their Italian "cousins," and that hurts their self-images. (I heard reports of beaches in Italy that had banned Romanians. The Romanians blame their expatriate "gypsies" for this image, but suffer nevertheless from the discrimination.)
  
  Male Romanians tend to be pessimistic. "Those in power are the former Communists, and until they die, things will never really change," is an oft-heard remark. The young men seem to buy into this thesis. They have not learned to take charge in a representative democracy, which can be done by a small minority that votes as a swing-vote block. (Witness Youth in electing B.O. here, and the Tea Party today in giving him fits.) The bureaucracy is huge and lacks a service attitude. The people exist to serve the government, rather than vice-versa.
  
  Female Romanians in the university town I lived in (Cluj) seem far better-adjusted then do men. They really take care of themselves, and they like to be noticed and appreciated by men. Of course, their beauty and charm are not lost on us auslanders, and many end up marrying foreigners and moving abroad. In general, the women evince self-confidence to a much greater degree than do Romanian men.

Those are my personal observations/opinions. Nothing more.


Thanks for asking!

July 20

Lois Borkan Morris

• So interesting, and so different from the Chinese, who make no comments about their government in public or private, as far as I can tell (when I'm drunk in China I understand every word). The younger generation is SO techno and Western-cool. And they're so into money. The older (our) generation that I've met--mostly in the arts--seem wistful. The bad old days were better for the artist than the profit-makes-perfect era.
  
  I've never traveled in eastern Europe, though when I was ed-in-chief for Arthur Frommer publishing, I wrote a guide to Romania in one of our newsletters, info culled from the tourist office in NY. I got more kudos from readers for that than for guides to countries I've been to. Hmm.
  
  Are you returning to Romania? //L

July 21

Duncan C. McDougall

• Yes, I will go back to Romania every chance I get. I love many people there, and it is a beautiful country, especially in Transylvania. Have you seen my photos from there, both in FB and in my blog?
  
  Doing Utmost, Never Caving, Always Nimble



July 21

Lois Borkan Morris

• Yes, I've seen the great photos. Are you going back to teach next semester? But you are coming to the reunion, right?
  
  Thanks for the book plug, by the way...



July 22

Duncan C. McDougall

• Dear LBM:
  
  No thanks needed. Tian/Morris is a great book. A page-turner about opera, of all things! (I have long loved a good biography, and this one I could not put down.)
  
  Yes, I am planning to come to the reunion, where I will attempt to give you a belated hug. Gay Weake and I are to be co-hosting the nearly blind and still beloved Uncle Joe McCloskey, if, as he puts it, he is "still around come October."
  
  I am to be teaching for my New Hampshire university in the fall, but only online MBA courses, so I will be free to accept my daughter's invitation to accompany her to Buenos Aires in September [a trip we decided to postpone for a year], and to fly to Budapest for an accreditation visitation scheduled for the week before our reunion. I hope to go to Europe a week or so early so that I can visit friends in Cluj, which is only a six-hour bus ride from Budapest [a trip recently completed].

Finally, I hope you saw my "then" in "seem better-adjusted then do men" as a typo. I would have circled it in a student's paper. ;-)

-DcMcD



July 25

Lois Borkan Morris

• So glad you liked the book, Duncan. What an interesting job to write someone's memoir who didn't remember the context of what was going on around him, because he was a child, and whose childhood I researched, finding details that at first he fought me on, such as the specific actions the Red Guard took against named teachers at the middle schools he went to (oh I do love research).
  
  I remember Mr. McCloskey with great respect and affection. I had him for English senior year, I think it was. Were you in class with me?
  
  Buenos Aires (good opera city, btw), Budapest, Cluj, Chicago--eek, but surely advernturous.
  
  I have given you an A- minus for your then/than mixup--or I would have in junior year English at NT, where Mr. Jensen (who also taught German) had a list of Gross Illiteracies. But since the advent of email and texting and all that, your personal suffering will suffice. 
  
  
   

Class of 1961

Reporting today from Northbrook, Illinois, where I am attending the 50th reunion of the New Trier High School Class of 1961.  We graduated 980-strong, and went our separate ways in a time of optimism and prosperity in America, and from today's perspective, in a less complicated world.  Some 150 from the class have returned to this Chicago suburb to share memories.  Those who are here look remarkably good, and seem to have weathered the years rather well.  Many are retired, but some (including Yours, Truly) are still working.

Gay Weake, Your Blogger, and Ann Rheinstrom, all NT '61

Last night we had a "meet & greet" here at the Renaissance Hotel, where the star turned out to be Mr. Joseph McCloskey, 89, a beloved English teacher whom Gay Weake and I invited to attend.  Scores of his former students kept him surrounded for almost four hours, and he seemed to enjoy the experience greatly.  "Uncle Joe," as he used to ask us to call him, was the sort of teacher who demanded that we read good books, and think about them, that we learn new words, and retain them, that we write good English, and that we express ourselves clearly, but he never told us what to think.  He was among my mentors.  I was thrilled to find him in good spirits, and so clear of mind.  He is now legally blind, and suffering from a "touch" of Parkinson's disease, but last night, you would not have known it.

Today we toured NT, where our class had been the first in the "new" tower building, and the first freshman class to see and use the magnificent auditorium.  We visited the balcony of the swimming pool, where a picture of me with "six-pack abs" still graces a wall of champions from the years that I was diving on the NT Swimming team. 

Now, I must pull on my formal duds and get downstairs, for the ride to the dinner dance leaves soon.