On the Avenue – 116th Street

Where is Charlie? The past two weeks I have been living in New York City! Generous friends of ours are allowing us to use their condominium on 116^th Street in Harlem while my wife is making daily trips to the hospital for ongoing treatments. My first visit to Harlem was in 1964. I had just graduated from high school in rural upstate New York and was living with my aunt and uncle in Jackson Heights while I worked at Con Edison on 14^th Street for my first summer job. The lure of $64 per week before taxes drew me from the beautiful Catskill Mountains to the pavement of Manhattan. I played on our office softball team where weekly games were scheduled after work on Randall's Island. One of the men on the team was afraid of traveling by automobile, so three of us took the subway up to 125^th Street and then walked across town to the softball field. The evening of one of those games was a night of rioting in Harlem. We actually made it to the game without any incident, but motorphobia or not, we took a car ride home from the game rather than walking back to the station on 125^th Street!

That was forty-five years ago! Since then Harlem has gotten smaller. Gentrification has moved the southern border of Harlem uptown, block by block. It actually penetrates no farther south than 110^th Street today. The upscale building we are staying in is on 116^th Street and although it is in Harlem, the neighborhood is changing. I do believe the current economic downturn will slow down any new gentrification for the next couple of years. So what is the neighborhood like in the eyes of a Bronx boy turned Westchester limousine liberal? On the up side, there is ample on street parking and not much traffic. There is a good supermarket, CVS and Dunkin Donuts right around the corner. The 2 & 3 train station is only a half block away and you can walk four blocks to the Lexington Avenue subway. Malcolm X Boulevard and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevards are wide avenues that make for a pleasant walk. Six blocks away is the north end of Central Park with a duck pond, skating rink/pool and Conservatory Gardens within a pleasant walking distance. To the east the shops and stores become more and more Spanish Caribbean and South American in nature, to the west Caribbean and then French African. Store front churches are everywhere. I have never seen as many barber shops as I have in Harlem. There are the delis of every kind, small restaurants and small soft goods stores everywhere. What are missing are many chain drug stores, fast food mega corporations, Starbucks and bars.

Late yesterday afternoon we were on a number 3 train heading north from Times Square. This train runs from Brooklyn to the northern tip of Manhattan. As the train clanked north the racial mix on the train became more and more homogenous. It was clear that most of the passengers getting off the train at 72^nd Street and 96^th Street were white. By the time we exited the train at 110^th Street, the only passengers left in our subway car were black. Last week we took the same trip on a number 2 train that continues out of Manhattan and into the Bronx. Although the train passengers were mainly black and Hispanic, there remained a mix of races all the way to 110^th Street. This is an observation, nothing more. What is very clear is the people living in the neighborhood are dependent on subways and buses for the majority of their transportation needs. Budget cuts affecting the MTA may inconvenience suburban commuters, but will bring hardships on this Harlem neighborhood.

Well, I need to stretch my legs. Maybe I will walk down to Lexington Avenue and get a mofongo for a light snack. [By the way, I reeked of garlic for four days after this Puerto Rican delicacy.] Enjoy the photographs.

Above was our Harlem "home".

There was no lack of places of worship in the neighborhood. The church above was directly across the street from 40 West 116th Street. Below is another store fromt church nearer to Central Park.

Below are some of stores on the same block where we were living.

Some street signs and transportation options:

Here are some restaurants:

I spent two beautiful afternoons in the north end of Central Park. Spring has sprung!

Why Am I Not Surprised?

I am now very with it! I am part of a social network. I am a Facebook enrollee with my own primary network of ninety-six online friends. I no longer have to read books, watch television, listen to radio (NPR) or read the New York Times to keep informed. That task now belongs to my Facebook friends. Instead of investing four or five hours a day reading, listening and watching the media, I merely spend ten hours at my computer desk or with my iPhone logged into Facebook. I just need my friend's one or two line status updates, a few carefully considered and posted URL links and a smattering of YouTube flicks to provide all the meaningful information I can ever use. I am a liberated man person.

For example, I never was one to watch Fox News. In fact, we inserted a V-chip in our television to prevent the children from watching the station or for Fran or I to accidently scroll to the channel when channel surfing. Today one of my Facebook friends posted this item on Facebook:

Republicans Object to Stimulus Dollars for ACORN - First 100 Days of Presidency - Politics FOXNews.c

Source: www.foxnews.com

Republicans say voter registration and community groups like ACORN could be eligible for funding under the Democrats' economic stimulus bill.

Never in a million years would I have been aware of this insightful article. But thanks to my informative Facebook community I read the article this afternoon. All in all, the article raises some very valid points about how we could be addressing the next round of "stimulus" dollars. I am not writing to justify how this money is spent, I just thought I might interject how my mind digests, disassembles and reassembles thoughts as I read. So bear with my reflection and try to put aside mine or your political views!

Let's run through some of the lines in the article. My mind at work will be in bold italics.

"Republican lawmakers are raising concerns that ACORN, the low-income advocacy group under investigation for voter registration fraud, could be eligible for billions in aid from the economic stimulus proposal working its way through the House."

Good start to the article. I do remember ACORN from some of the campaign ads and news commentary (pre Facebook, I had to rely on conventional media!). Somewhere my mind links ACORN with Bill Ayers. This same mind of mine, is preparing itself for the Republicans to be not in favor of this section of the stimulus package proposal. Under investigation sounds a lot like under indictment like so many of our current politicians. I know that that is not good.

"House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement over the weekend noting that the stimulus bill wending its way through Congress provides $4.19 billion for "neighborhood stabilization activities.""

Hmmm, $4.19 billion is a lot of money, even when compared to the $700,000,000,000 already spent on economic recovery the past few months. "Neighborhood stabilization activities" is in quotes. This sounds like a good activity, but this mind of mine thinks the article is going elsewhere with this.

"He said the money was previously limited to state and local governments, but that Democrats now want part of it to be available to non-profit entities. That means groups like ACORN would be eligible for a portion of the funds."

Didn't the first stimulus package passed by the previous Congress give funds to non-profit organizations? No, that was not the case at all, I am not thinking straight! Congress and the administration gave money to large corporations that formerly were profitable, but now were experiencing no profits due to some minor lapses in business judgment.

"Sen. David Vitter, R-La., told FOX News Tuesday that the money could be seen as "payoff" for groups' political activities in the last election. ACORN generally supports Democratic candidates and actively backed President Obama last year. But he said the funding is just one example of frivolous spending items in the $825 billion package."

Payoffs for political favors, this is something new! Thank goodness giving billions, multibillions to the banking, brokerage, insurance and automotive industries could never be construed as payback for favors received or payoffs for future support. I can just imagine future Democratic congressmen, congressional staffers and administration staffers getting high paying volunteer jobs with organizations like ACORN when they move back into the quasi private sector. My mind wonders why I have not been following the career and wisdom of Senator Vitter more closely! To be able to see the dark side of an organization like ACORN that openly supported Senator Obama. Senator Vitter's penetrating insight about political payoffs is a gift. My mind is just assuming that Senator Vitter is a new senator and was not in Washington during the last few months of 2008 when we bailed out AIG, Bank of America, Wachovia, Citicorp, Ford, General Motors, Merrill Lynch et al. No chance of any payoff from these outstanding organizations!

"Obama plans to meet with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill Tuesday to hear some their input on the package. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama is open to suggestions. "If there are good ideas -- and I think he assumes there will be -- we will look at those ideas," he said Monday."

My mind is shooting all sorts of confusing electrical impulses across the synapses in my brain. Would a retroactive $40 billion dollar grant to ENRON be one of those good ideas Obama might hear? How about redoubling bonuses to Countywide brokers who made subprime mortgage loans to people who did not have enough money to play the Pick Four lottery game? Perhaps we can also give bonuses to the Wall Street geniuses if they can successfully sell banks packages of subprime mortgages and Confederate Treasury Bills. Perhaps a blank check for all CEO's to redecorate their offices in order to improve their spirits.

I really do not know what needs or could be done to stimulate our US economy. From what I gather, the first $700,000,000,000 did not seem to do the trick. (Please review my blog article Buddy Can You Spare Me $700,000,000,000? to get an idea of how much money this is!). Better get back on Facebook to see what is going on.

Holt Family Christmas Tree: First Forty Years

Fran and I spent our first Christmas with our families. This was 1967 and we had only been married for one week. Since then we have had children or grandchildren at our home each and every year. A significant portion of our limited garage storage area is dedicated to our indoor Christmas decorations. This includes lights, candles, knick knacks, over twenty nativity scenes, ornaments, a Christmas village, candles, animated dolls, wreaths – everything we have acquired and saved that are part of Christmas in our home. We have always had a cut Christmas tree in our home. For many years we traveled up north to select and chop down our tree at Whalen's Tree Farm near Millbrook, NY. This event with as many children and grandchildren that were around, usually took place the Friday after Thanksgiving and more times than not included the Purcell family. A lunch at a diner always followed this trek.


Even the two years we spent in Puerto Rico did not stop Fran from finding a "fresh" cut tree. She would go to the docks in Cataño and find a container ship that had unloaded fresh (sort of frozen) trees shipped down from Maine. Our present home at Valeria has fourteen foot ceilings. This year we have a nine foot tree, but we have had trees up to twelve feet tall the past few years. We had to sign an insurance waiver when we went to decorate the taller trees!

This year we had friends over to help us decorate the tree. I unwrapped and handed out the ornaments to our invited elves. As I handled each ornaments, the memory and/or story of each came to mind. I will take you on a picture tour of some of our forty years of Christmas tree ornaments.

Some of the ornaments were purchased while on vacations.

Jim and Susan are former neighbors and they now have their home on Grand Cayman Island.

This Saint Bridget's cross is from Galway.

We have two ceramic figures from Puerto Rico, one for Debbie and one for Jackie.

Here is a cable car we picked up in San Francisco.

This one is from a cruise we took to Halifax, Nova Scotia.


From a solo shopping trip by Fran while we visited London.

We stayed a week in Nevada near Lake Tahoe.

This shell came from a trip to Hawaii to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

This is from the Biltmore Estate near Asheville, NC.

This pineapple ornament is from Colonial Williamsburg.

This ornament is from Ruté in Spain – the anis capital of Europe.

Most prominent on our tree are homemade ornaments. Some of these are from friends, but most from relatives.

Margarine tops were favorites at nursery school!

This purple bell from Circle School keeps making it to the front center of our tree each year. That is the only down side to having your children help with the decorating.

A popscicle sled made by one of Fran's former bosses.


Simulated stained glass ornaments made by Debbie and Jackie at least twenty-five years ago!

Here are some lace stars and linen angels.

These angels are made from macaroni. They are some of the many homemade ornaments made by my sister Dorothy. So is the macaroni wreath.

The glass fired Santa Claus came from the kiln of the mother of dear friends.

Fran's stepmother crocheted several of these ornaments.

The felt angel is from a young woman we have know since she was a small child.

There are several other ornaments with small stories and big memories.

This is an ornament with pictures of the Croton Dam.

Fran and I played more than our share of mixed doubles. These were good times.

My father was very serious about keeping birds fed during the winter months. I have inherited this but with slightly less commitment.

Did I mention that my father lived on a golf course for several years and scavanged about 10,000 golf balls.

We have one child with a super hero fetish.


This is the wedding at Cana. A reminder of our December wedding anniverary.

What is Christmas without a football ornament. Go Giants!

Twenty years vacationing in Vermont and we did not see one moose!

The bird's nest is supposed to bring good luck. We could use some.

We have over twenty years of Christmas silver bells that my mom and dad gave us each year.

Here is the finished project. Another year with the "perfect" tree! Merry Christmas everyone!

Can’t I just Jiggle it?

My wife and I have had a six month affair with the Sears repair service. It started in June when our less than two year old Kenmore dishwasher stopped its only task in life, washing dishes. That evening I took out the product manual and, concentrating on the English version, went through the list of trouble shooting recommendations. The entire manual is sixty-seven pages. There was a long section titled, "Food left on the dishes." Since the dishes we had loaded were indeed not clean, I read that carefully. After testing the hardness of our water and switching to a detergent with a phosphorus content of 8.7% as recommended, the dishes were no cleaner. I purchased a water pressure gauge to assure our home water pressure was the required 120 psi (138 to 828 kPa). I made sure the hot water temperature was 120 ⁰F (49⁰C), although the only thermometer I had was a rectal thermometer and it did not quite make it to 120 ⁰F. It finally occurred to me that the instructions in this section of the manual were dependent on the dishwasher actually working. In our case, the dishwasher was mortally wounded. There was not a hint of power to the dishwasher anywhere.

I tried another troubleshooting section titled, "The dishwasher does not run". I was asked, "Is there power to the dishwasher?" I searched around for an exposed wire that I could grasp and test to see if I received an electrical shock. Not finding one, I located our magnifying glass and carefully looked around the edges of the dishwasher to try and see if any electrons were making their way from Con Edison to the machine. No luck. I did notice that no lights on the control panel were lit. Power could be an issue. There was another instruction to see "has a household fuse blown". It was very still in the house and barely any wind outside. I do not see how a fuse could have blown away. I must assume this test is meant for Kansas or Oklahoma that are in the country's tornado alley. I did find our circuit breaker and it was not tripped and moved ahead under the assumption that we did in fact have power to the dishwasher. "Has the motor stopped?" Since I was not sure it was running, I made another assumption, that is had stopped. "The motor will reset itself in a few minutes." I went to bed and waited 480 minutes. The motor did not reset. Maybe I should have waited longer. The next instruction was to "call for service".

Call I did. I did have to confirm my address to the customer service representative. I wondered if they were concerned if I was lost or if you actually had to be a certified home owner in order to request and receive repair service. My confirmed address was acceptable to Sears. The representative gave me the next available service appointment; it was ten days away. She also told me the repair person would be at my home Tuesday between 8 AM and 12 PM. I made a huge assumption (which I later regretted) that both the 8AM and 12PM referred to the same date. I registered my dismay at having to wait ten days for a service call. I rationalized the reason for such a long waiting time must be due to a New York City metropolitan area appliance failure plague. I know the drive from Long Island to Westchester is not that long!

The scheduled Tuesday, I worked from home to adjust to the service appointment. The repair person did not arrive until 3 PM. I watched him work. He took the door of the dishwasher apart, tested things with an electrical meter and came to the conclusion that the dishwasher's computer needed to be replaced. That sounded expensive and it was. Whoever knew a dishwasher had a computer? Did it also have a home theater sound system? Next I expected him to walk out to his truck to get a replacement computer. Little did I know! He needed to order the new part. I could expect it delivered to my home in ten to fourteen days. At that time I could make another service appointment. After my blood pressure dropped below 150, I signed the credit card receipt to prepay for the new part. The new part arrived in eight days and I called for another appointment. Good luck, I only had to wait eight days. Again I got the 8AM to 12PM service window and this time confirmed that it pertained to the same date.

I scheduled another day working from home. This time a different service person arrived but at 4PM. He installed the new computer, turned on the machine and nothing happened. There was nothing wrong with the computer; what was needed was a new touch pad. No walk out to the truck to get this part either. This second part was ordered and I again signed a credit card receipt. This time it took ten days for the part to come to my home and I make another call to schedule the installation. That date is set and at this point it is forty-three days since I first called Sears Repair Customer Service (there is an oxymoron if you ever heard one).

Eureka! Seven days later the new touch pad is in and we have a working dishwasher. It is mid August and I expect my dishwater hands will heal by early September. I now had to work from home three days and spent $235 to have the dishwasher repaired. The repair cycle for our Kenmore dishwasher was fifty days. Fast forward to mid October, dishes fully loaded water in dishwasher and no power again! I make another call to Sears Repair and receive another appointment eight days from the call.

This time the 8AM to 12PM arrival time is after 5 PM with my wife and me due at a dinner event thirty minutes away from our home at 6 PM. Dumb and dumber take the machine apart and their diagnosis is a failed internal fuse. Finally a part they must have in the truck. Oh ye of too much faith! The fuse needs to be ordered. I pay the credit card bill and start waiting for the next part delivery. It arrives in nine days and I schedule another appointment for eight days later. A technician arrives only one hour outside the promised arrival time and the dishwasher is working. By the way the fuse cost $30.42 and it was $130 to install. The dishwasher ran for two completed cycles and died once again. This time I asked our condominium superintendent to look at the dishwasher and make sure the power to our home was AOK. He did and all checked out fine. He did find a technicians trouble shooting guide hidden in the electrical parts area in the bottom section of the dishwasher. He suggested I follow this guide. Well, it states, "FOR SERVICE TECHNICIAN'S USE ONLY". I did read it. This is a chart thirty by twenty-four inches including electrical diagrams and symbols. This was not a job for me to tackle. We took the only logical next step – off to Home Depot for a new dishwasher. It comes in one week. I also bought a four year extended warranty on this new dishwasher. I am back to hand washing the dishes and we have been eating off of paper plates for some time now.

I remember the good old days. If the toilet would not stop running, you just needed to jiggle the handle. The problem with the dishwasher is that there is just nothing to jiggle! Apparently since dishwashers have a computer inside, the manufacturers could include a USB port to allow owners to hook the dishwasher to a laptop computer and let the Service Center diagnose any electrical issues back at the repair center. It would then be possible to send the repair person to our home with the required part. I am dreaming… next thing I will be talking about people walking on the moon.