Anyone who was just about anywhere in the New York Metropolitan area on the morning of September 11, 2001 will always remember that day, and where they were. I know in our family that's the case. My wife Sue was at work at Hampton Street School in Mineola. Our oldest son Billy was in his second year at Ithaca College, and his brother and sister, Krissi and Kenny, were sophomores at Mineola High School. I was at work at WABC Radio, 17 floors above Penn Station.
I remember it was a great looking, if uneventful, September morning. There was just a touch of fall in the air – it was one of those special kinds of days we get after the humidity of summer leaves. I was, as usual, on the 7:24 LIRR train from Mineola to Penn Station. As I said, a totally uneventful September morning in all respects….but that was soon to change.
Shortly after the first plane hit at 8:46 AM, word started to come into the newsroom that a plane had hit the World Trade Center's North Tower. It was primary day in New York, and there were reporters around the city for the various TV morning shows. Almost immediately, Dick Oliver of channel 5 went on the air from Park Row, just outside of City Hall. They weren't the best shots, but you definitely could see the fire and damage to the tower. Everyone assumed that it was a small plane that had hit and no one could understand how someone could have missed seeing a structure as big as the World Trade Center on a beautiful, clear morning. There was speculation of a student pilot, or someone who had a heart attack – just about anything, but what had really happened, which up until that point was unthinkable to most of us.
By 9 o'clock, better pictures of the damage were available on TV, including long shots of the buildings from further uptown. Just before 9:03 AM,I was standing in studio 17E next to Chief Engineer Kevin Plum, when we noticed a plane flying into the frame of the shot. Assuming we were looking at a small plane trying to get a better view of what was happening, one of us commented, "what the heck is that plane trying to do?" At 9:03 we were shocked when we saw that plane (which we later found out was a Boeing 767) crash into the South Tower and explode in a ball of flames. In that moment, everyone who saw that happen live, knew that life as we had known it up until that moment was over, and that there was a brand new reality.
I remember all hell breaking loose at the station as we all went into high gear. There was an incredible amount of misinformation flying around, and frankly, open fear from some. Everyone tried to act professionally, but since no one knew exactly what was going on, and since we were all working 17 floors above Penn Station and a couple of blocks west of the Empire State Building, many wondered if we might be in the target zone too. The next hour was a blur of news reports, discussion and speculation. Shortly after the first plane hit, our morning anchor George Weber took off downtown armed with a cell phone and a recorder. He phoned in a couple of reports about what he was seeing, but as the cell phone system overloaded, we stopped hearing from him. Then at 9:59 AM, the South Tower collapsed. Faces stared at the TV pictures, and as a group, were almost unable to fathom what we'd seen. Less than 30 minutes later the North Tower collapsed, and these twin buildings, which were so identified with the skyline of New York City, were incredibly gone, along with close to 3,000 of our fellow New Yorkers.
So many questions hit us all at once…who would do this, how did it happen, how could these two huge buildings collapse, and one that was on all our minds at WABC, where was George Weber? The news reports continued, but with all the confusion it was hard to tell what was true and what wasn't. Were there more hijacked planes out there, and had other attacks taken place in Washington and elsewhere around the country? Getting a landline phone call was very hard; cell service was pretty non-existent, communications among families and friends was almost impossible. It was over an hour later when we heard from George. He'd walked for blocks from the WTC site and had waited on a line at a pay phone before he was finally able to check in with the station. Okay, we knew one of our friends and coworkers was alive…but what about everyone else.
The day dragged on, and we watched TV as they tried to figure out what had happened, and what was happening. One of the hardest tasks of the day was getting in touch with friends and family, finding out if they were okay, and assuring them that I was fine. The first response of the city was to shut down, and a lot of us wondered how we'd get home. Being above Penn Station, we kept looking down at the crowds milling around a closed Penn Station. We also kept looking a couple of blocks to the east at the Empire State Building and realizing it was once again the tallest building in New York!
Later that day, the Long Island Rail Road started running and those of us from Long Island headed downstairs, and like every other commuter that day, got on any train as long are it was leaving New York City! As we came out of the tunnel into Queens, everyone looked to the south where the twin towers of the World Trade Center had been on the way in that morning, but now were replaced by smoke. It was very quiet in the train as everyone realized that those two buildings we'd seen every day on our commute into Manhattan were gone, along with all the folks who were working in them.
The days after September 11th were very strange to say the least. The fact that there were absolutely no planes in the sky made for a very eerie quiet that was very unlike the norm. I know that for weeks after the planes started flying again, every time one flew over I would find myself stopping and looking at it. Taking the LIRR into the city in the days after September 11th was also different. There was an uneasy quiet on the trains, that I guess came from a lot of folks who would rather be somewhere else, but who had responsibilities and had to do what they were doing. I remember not seeing people that had been regulars on our trains, and wondering if they were in the towers when they came down, or were they perhaps too scared to venture into Manhattan again. Questions I'd never have the answers to….
One thing that made the post 9/11 strangeness livable was the feeling that we were all in it together. There were American flags on houses, cars, businesses…virtually everywhere! Groups were banding together collecting items for families that were affected, or to help rescue workers at Ground Zero. People were friendlier to each other and more respectful…even politicians! From New York City to Washington, the political discourse had a united front. We weren't Republicans or Democrats, Liberals or Conservatives, we were Americans. There was no finger pointing, just everyone shouldering the load and helping to move forward. If every cloud has to have a silver lining, that was September 11th's. Unfortunately, 9 years later, even that's gone.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
The Box
This is a story about my father, World War II, Italy, the Metropolitan Opera, and my relationship to it all. Let's start at the beginning…..the very beginning!
My father, Frank D'Elia, was born in 1910 on the lower east side of Manhattan. He was one of 13 kids in a typical big Italian family, and like many kids of his generation, never went to high school because he had to go out into the world and earn money to help support his family. My father was different from many folks in those days though, in that his chosen profession was an opera singer. Jobs were hard enough to find, but finding a job as an opera singer was even harder. Long story short, that's why he was very happy when he got to audition and then was offered a job in the chorus of the Metropolitan Opera. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, the Germans and the Japanese were edging the world towards war and this would impact my father's life in a very large way.
Sometime in that first year of being a member of the Met chorus, he got his draft notice! After years of struggling and scraping by while supporting his family, he was finally at the point where he had a regular job, and now the US Army was going to change all that. He went to his draft board, looking to get an extension so that he could at least complete the 1940 season before reporting for duty. I remember his story about the man at the draft board telling him that it was people like him that wouldn't want to help if Hitler was marching up 5th Avenue. My father's retort was that, "if Hitler was marching up 5th Avenue, I doubted that a short, fat opera singer is going to make much of a difference!" Well, I guess that was enough to convince them to give him that extension, so he finished out his first season at the Met, and then went off to the army.
Based on the established idea of how the army did business, my Dad was sure that he'd be sent off to some area where his background and experience would have no use to him. That's why he was very surprised to be assigned to Camp Upton, in Yaphank on Long Island, to audition for the Irving Berlin all solder show, "This is the Army". He passed the audition and joined the cast that included Broadway actors, movie stars, musicians from famous orchestras, and one singer from the Metropolitan Opera! For most of my childhood we'd be watching a movie or TV show, and my Dad would point out one of his "army buddies" that he'd traveled the world with in the show.
Well, the show opened on Broadway where it played for 6 months, did a National Tour, spent 6 months in Hollywood making the Warner Brother's movie, "This is the Army" and embarked on a world tour that included famous theaters, and army, navy and marine installations around the world. My Dad made friends and had experiences that he talked about for the rest of his life. Some of the places they performed were regal and some just a thrown together stage in the jungle, and their audiences ranged from Presidents and royalty, to groups of soldiers who had just come out of combat and who would be heading right back into it after the show.
In 1944, after playing for American and Allied troops around England, the cast thought they had reached the end of the road and the show would be disbanded. General Eisenhower, however, thought that the show would be a great moral tool for his troops, and requested from Washington that the show play to Troops at the front. The request was approved and in February of 1944 they sailed for North Africa, and after 2 weeks there, sailed for Naples, Italy. In Naples they were billeted in the partially destroyed palace of Victor Emmanuel, and that's where my story picks up.
This was not my father's first visit to Naples. During the 30s, he had sailed from New York to Naples with his voice teacher Madame Novelli. Madame Novelli was originally from Naples, and they stayed with her family for several months while visiting there. Among the members of the family was a young man about my father's age, and the two of them became fast friends. Turn the clock ahead to 1944 and the American liberation of Naples. As soon as the "This is the Army" company got to Naples, my Dad looked for his old friends and found them living at the same address he'd visited as a young man. The war years had not been kind to his Italian friends, and my father did all he could to get them food and other supplies that they'd been years without. One of the benefits of this was that my Dad got to eat with the family, and had home cooked Italian meals for the first time in several years.
The royal palace in Naples had been German headquarters in the city, and as such was a favorite target of the allied bombings. My Father would tell stories of sleeping in incredibly opulent surroundings with bomb blasted holes in the roof. The doors at the palace were about 10 feet tall and decorated with intricately carved and painted 4 inch by 10 inch panels. In a typical GI move, my Father pried one of these panels off the door as a souvenir. He told his friend about this and even took it with him to dinner one night to show the family. His friend said that he knew a wood carver and how would my father like it if he could get him to carve a box to match the panel, and use the panel as the lid? My Father liked that idea, and a plan was hatched. About a week later at dinner, his friend showed him the box. The wood carver had done an excellent job of matching the lid, and the carving was exquisite. All that was left was to paint the box to
match the lid, and my father's souvenir would be completed. He left them that night and promised to be back for dinner in 2 nights, and in turn, he was promised that the box would be ready for him to take. As they say, best laid plans.
On the afternoon of the second day, the "This is the Army" company was ordered to load their trucks and be ready to leave Naples within 45 minutes. The Allied forces were continuing up the Italian boot and their show was needed closer to the front lines to entertain the troops. There was no time to get to his friends' house and no way to tell them what was happening, so that was the last of his stay in Naples, and of the carved box. That happened in 1944 and was but a brief episode in all the escapades of the "This is the Army" troop, as they continued through Europe and eventually island hopped in the Pacific theater too. Believe me, I heard lots of "This is the Army" stories growing up, but none of them was any more prominent that the story of "The Box"! The stories of "This is the Army" continued, especially every 5 years when the alumni of the company would get together for a reunion.
So now turn the clock forward to the summer of 1971. I've just graduated from college and we've planned a 4 week trip through Europe. It starts at the Ford of Germany plant in Cologne, Germany where we picked up a new Capri. We traveled through Germany, Switzerland and down one side of the Italian boot and up the other side. I very distinctly remember the day we got to Naples. After getting situated in the hotel room, my Dad went down to the lobby and found a phone book. He looked up the last name of his friend's family and found a listing at the exact same address they'd lived at during the war. My Father placed a call and when a young lady answered, he explained who he was and asked for his friend by name. She said that he was looking for her Grandfather and that she'd get him. In a few minutes his friend, who he hadn't seen or talked to in over 25 years, came to the phone. He couldn't believe that this voice from his past was on the phone and was in Naples. One of the first thing he said as they stated the conversation was, "Frank…I've got your box!".
That was almost 40 years ago, and was the culmination of a story I'd heard my Father tell all my life. Now his story of "The Box", the souvenir that got away, had a new, and almost impossible to believe ending! My Dad died in 1983, but I must admit that I have continued to tell the story, and I guess keep him and his "This is the Army" stories alive. My Father was a great story teller, and after growing up on so many of these stories, and then finally seeing the movie in my teens, I feel very connected to this time in my Father's life.
Oh…and the box? It's on my Mother's coffee table in her living room, as it has been since we returned from Europe in 1971, and it completed it's trip started in 1944!
My father, Frank D'Elia, was born in 1910 on the lower east side of Manhattan. He was one of 13 kids in a typical big Italian family, and like many kids of his generation, never went to high school because he had to go out into the world and earn money to help support his family. My father was different from many folks in those days though, in that his chosen profession was an opera singer. Jobs were hard enough to find, but finding a job as an opera singer was even harder. Long story short, that's why he was very happy when he got to audition and then was offered a job in the chorus of the Metropolitan Opera. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, the Germans and the Japanese were edging the world towards war and this would impact my father's life in a very large way.
Sometime in that first year of being a member of the Met chorus, he got his draft notice! After years of struggling and scraping by while supporting his family, he was finally at the point where he had a regular job, and now the US Army was going to change all that. He went to his draft board, looking to get an extension so that he could at least complete the 1940 season before reporting for duty. I remember his story about the man at the draft board telling him that it was people like him that wouldn't want to help if Hitler was marching up 5th Avenue. My father's retort was that, "if Hitler was marching up 5th Avenue, I doubted that a short, fat opera singer is going to make much of a difference!" Well, I guess that was enough to convince them to give him that extension, so he finished out his first season at the Met, and then went off to the army.
Based on the established idea of how the army did business, my Dad was sure that he'd be sent off to some area where his background and experience would have no use to him. That's why he was very surprised to be assigned to Camp Upton, in Yaphank on Long Island, to audition for the Irving Berlin all solder show, "This is the Army". He passed the audition and joined the cast that included Broadway actors, movie stars, musicians from famous orchestras, and one singer from the Metropolitan Opera! For most of my childhood we'd be watching a movie or TV show, and my Dad would point out one of his "army buddies" that he'd traveled the world with in the show.
Well, the show opened on Broadway where it played for 6 months, did a National Tour, spent 6 months in Hollywood making the Warner Brother's movie, "This is the Army" and embarked on a world tour that included famous theaters, and army, navy and marine installations around the world. My Dad made friends and had experiences that he talked about for the rest of his life. Some of the places they performed were regal and some just a thrown together stage in the jungle, and their audiences ranged from Presidents and royalty, to groups of soldiers who had just come out of combat and who would be heading right back into it after the show.
In 1944, after playing for American and Allied troops around England, the cast thought they had reached the end of the road and the show would be disbanded. General Eisenhower, however, thought that the show would be a great moral tool for his troops, and requested from Washington that the show play to Troops at the front. The request was approved and in February of 1944 they sailed for North Africa, and after 2 weeks there, sailed for Naples, Italy. In Naples they were billeted in the partially destroyed palace of Victor Emmanuel, and that's where my story picks up.
This was not my father's first visit to Naples. During the 30s, he had sailed from New York to Naples with his voice teacher Madame Novelli. Madame Novelli was originally from Naples, and they stayed with her family for several months while visiting there. Among the members of the family was a young man about my father's age, and the two of them became fast friends. Turn the clock ahead to 1944 and the American liberation of Naples. As soon as the "This is the Army" company got to Naples, my Dad looked for his old friends and found them living at the same address he'd visited as a young man. The war years had not been kind to his Italian friends, and my father did all he could to get them food and other supplies that they'd been years without. One of the benefits of this was that my Dad got to eat with the family, and had home cooked Italian meals for the first time in several years.
The royal palace in Naples had been German headquarters in the city, and as such was a favorite target of the allied bombings. My Father would tell stories of sleeping in incredibly opulent surroundings with bomb blasted holes in the roof. The doors at the palace were about 10 feet tall and decorated with intricately carved and painted 4 inch by 10 inch panels. In a typical GI move, my Father pried one of these panels off the door as a souvenir. He told his friend about this and even took it with him to dinner one night to show the family. His friend said that he knew a wood carver and how would my father like it if he could get him to carve a box to match the panel, and use the panel as the lid? My Father liked that idea, and a plan was hatched. About a week later at dinner, his friend showed him the box. The wood carver had done an excellent job of matching the lid, and the carving was exquisite. All that was left was to paint the box to
match the lid, and my father's souvenir would be completed. He left them that night and promised to be back for dinner in 2 nights, and in turn, he was promised that the box would be ready for him to take. As they say, best laid plans.
On the afternoon of the second day, the "This is the Army" company was ordered to load their trucks and be ready to leave Naples within 45 minutes. The Allied forces were continuing up the Italian boot and their show was needed closer to the front lines to entertain the troops. There was no time to get to his friends' house and no way to tell them what was happening, so that was the last of his stay in Naples, and of the carved box. That happened in 1944 and was but a brief episode in all the escapades of the "This is the Army" troop, as they continued through Europe and eventually island hopped in the Pacific theater too. Believe me, I heard lots of "This is the Army" stories growing up, but none of them was any more prominent that the story of "The Box"! The stories of "This is the Army" continued, especially every 5 years when the alumni of the company would get together for a reunion.
So now turn the clock forward to the summer of 1971. I've just graduated from college and we've planned a 4 week trip through Europe. It starts at the Ford of Germany plant in Cologne, Germany where we picked up a new Capri. We traveled through Germany, Switzerland and down one side of the Italian boot and up the other side. I very distinctly remember the day we got to Naples. After getting situated in the hotel room, my Dad went down to the lobby and found a phone book. He looked up the last name of his friend's family and found a listing at the exact same address they'd lived at during the war. My Father placed a call and when a young lady answered, he explained who he was and asked for his friend by name. She said that he was looking for her Grandfather and that she'd get him. In a few minutes his friend, who he hadn't seen or talked to in over 25 years, came to the phone. He couldn't believe that this voice from his past was on the phone and was in Naples. One of the first thing he said as they stated the conversation was, "Frank…I've got your box!".
That was almost 40 years ago, and was the culmination of a story I'd heard my Father tell all my life. Now his story of "The Box", the souvenir that got away, had a new, and almost impossible to believe ending! My Dad died in 1983, but I must admit that I have continued to tell the story, and I guess keep him and his "This is the Army" stories alive. My Father was a great story teller, and after growing up on so many of these stories, and then finally seeing the movie in my teens, I feel very connected to this time in my Father's life.
Oh…and the box? It's on my Mother's coffee table in her living room, as it has been since we returned from Europe in 1971, and it completed it's trip started in 1944!
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Never Let the Facts Get in the Way of a Good Story
Hurricane Earl….boy have we heard a lot about that guy this past week! Thanks to the advances in weather forecasting, we can now follow tropical depressions as they come off the coast of Africa. This gives the weather folks a lot of time to build up their stock of adjectives and to really get to know a storm before it blows itself out somewhere over the Canadian Maritime Provinces! Such was the case with our friend Earl.
Earl came blowing up the coast earlier this week, and about Monday or Tuesday, you could already hear the media start to lick their lips! I'm reminded of the old phrase, "never let the facts get in the way of a good story" when I look back at the way the media treated our friend Earl this week. Earl was a category 4 Hurricane as it headed towards the east coast of the country. That immediately made the media folks start to salivate – forget the fact that it was not over land but warm ocean water which did nothing but help Earl get stronger – as they speculated on where (not if) it would hit the east coast. Coverage plans were already being made and reporters were assigned to do prep work and to start beating the drum.
On Wednesday night, a local TV news station led off their 10 PM newscast with a reporter standing on the side of the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn holding a sand bag telling us that the Belt Parkway could be under water! Then he was at a beach in Queens talking about the devastation that would take place there. Finally he was at a sea wall in Brooklyn talking about how the flood surge would wash over at this area and flood the house behind him. Only after all this hype, at the end of the report, did he very quietly say something to the effect, "and that's what could happen to this part of southern Brooklyn and Queens were it to suffer a direct hit from a category 4 hurricane like Earl." Even then ALL the computer models showed that Earl would most likely travel off the coast, and at, best would be a wind and rain storm for us! Never let the facts get in the way of a good story….
I think the problem stems from the fact that east coast meteorologists – both government and private – are very jealous of their mid-west counterparts. I have the feeling that they think that these folks get a lot more respect than they do because they work in an area that spawns tornadoes! When a weather forecaster says that there are conditions in the area that are ripe for a tornado to develop, people listen. When a forecaster reports that a tornado has been spotted and that the projected path is heading right at you, you take cover. When an east coast meteorologist tells us on Tuesday that a big storm will be here on Thursday most people say, "Hey, they can't tell me if it's going to rain this afternoon and I'm supposed to believe them about something happening in 48 hours??" Like an old Rodney Dangerfield routine, they just get no respect!
So when a hurricane heads up the coast or a big snow storm looks like it's on the way, they always seem to go overboard. I know they would tell you that they are more comfortable to err on the side of caution and give us the worst case scenario, but frankly, I think they see it as a way to finally get even. I think they are secretly happy! "Now they'll listen to us", they think, and so the storm projection or the severity of the impact on us gets ramped up just a bit. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story….
The rest of the media is only too happy to join in and pulls out all stops. You know news directors all over the region are thinking, "will this be the big one?" "Will this be the Katrina of the North East?" And thinking that, they send reporters out to every beach and shore spot they can find – even when those same reporters end up doing reports with a backdrop that looks more appropriate for a Fourth of July story than a Hurricane Devastation story! "Hey, we're just trying to make sure the public is aware of what could happen if Earl should turn towards the coast!", I'm sure my fictitious news director would say if questioned. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story….
One meteorologist that I have a lot of respect for is Craig Allen of Newsradio 88, WCBS in New York. Craig has been at it for over 30 years and to me seems to be much more reasonable, and therefore much more accurate than a lot of his fellow forecasters. On Wednesday evening, when all the computer models had the storm off the coast, and the only variable seemed to be how far off the coast, Craig was on the air giving an honest forecast of what he saw. He even showed a bit a skepticism regarding a change the National Weather Service had made in watches and warnings for the area saying he just didn't see what they obviously were seeing. I trust Craig because over the years, he, in my opinion, has developed a track record of accuracy that has earned him my trust.
So another storm passes amid much hype that didn't turn out as the media expected. Another false warning given to the area that may have dissuaded folks from heading to the beach for the last weekend of the summer. Another over the top representation of the conditions that may have hurt shore businesses in their last money making weekend of the summer. I know I may sound a bit like the Mayor in the movie Jaws, but really, what advantage is there in constantly crying wolf? Is it because folks were pretty tired of the Ground Zero Mosque story and the coming of Earl gave us something else to talk about? I just wonder what's going to happen one of these days when the real warning comes about the real hurricane or snow storm or Nor'easter, and no one listens! There'll be a hell of a story to report on then, and a lot of finger pointing as to what led to the disaster, but somehow I doubt they'll assess any blame on themselves. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story….
Earl came blowing up the coast earlier this week, and about Monday or Tuesday, you could already hear the media start to lick their lips! I'm reminded of the old phrase, "never let the facts get in the way of a good story" when I look back at the way the media treated our friend Earl this week. Earl was a category 4 Hurricane as it headed towards the east coast of the country. That immediately made the media folks start to salivate – forget the fact that it was not over land but warm ocean water which did nothing but help Earl get stronger – as they speculated on where (not if) it would hit the east coast. Coverage plans were already being made and reporters were assigned to do prep work and to start beating the drum.
On Wednesday night, a local TV news station led off their 10 PM newscast with a reporter standing on the side of the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn holding a sand bag telling us that the Belt Parkway could be under water! Then he was at a beach in Queens talking about the devastation that would take place there. Finally he was at a sea wall in Brooklyn talking about how the flood surge would wash over at this area and flood the house behind him. Only after all this hype, at the end of the report, did he very quietly say something to the effect, "and that's what could happen to this part of southern Brooklyn and Queens were it to suffer a direct hit from a category 4 hurricane like Earl." Even then ALL the computer models showed that Earl would most likely travel off the coast, and at, best would be a wind and rain storm for us! Never let the facts get in the way of a good story….
I think the problem stems from the fact that east coast meteorologists – both government and private – are very jealous of their mid-west counterparts. I have the feeling that they think that these folks get a lot more respect than they do because they work in an area that spawns tornadoes! When a weather forecaster says that there are conditions in the area that are ripe for a tornado to develop, people listen. When a forecaster reports that a tornado has been spotted and that the projected path is heading right at you, you take cover. When an east coast meteorologist tells us on Tuesday that a big storm will be here on Thursday most people say, "Hey, they can't tell me if it's going to rain this afternoon and I'm supposed to believe them about something happening in 48 hours??" Like an old Rodney Dangerfield routine, they just get no respect!
So when a hurricane heads up the coast or a big snow storm looks like it's on the way, they always seem to go overboard. I know they would tell you that they are more comfortable to err on the side of caution and give us the worst case scenario, but frankly, I think they see it as a way to finally get even. I think they are secretly happy! "Now they'll listen to us", they think, and so the storm projection or the severity of the impact on us gets ramped up just a bit. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story….
The rest of the media is only too happy to join in and pulls out all stops. You know news directors all over the region are thinking, "will this be the big one?" "Will this be the Katrina of the North East?" And thinking that, they send reporters out to every beach and shore spot they can find – even when those same reporters end up doing reports with a backdrop that looks more appropriate for a Fourth of July story than a Hurricane Devastation story! "Hey, we're just trying to make sure the public is aware of what could happen if Earl should turn towards the coast!", I'm sure my fictitious news director would say if questioned. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story….
One meteorologist that I have a lot of respect for is Craig Allen of Newsradio 88, WCBS in New York. Craig has been at it for over 30 years and to me seems to be much more reasonable, and therefore much more accurate than a lot of his fellow forecasters. On Wednesday evening, when all the computer models had the storm off the coast, and the only variable seemed to be how far off the coast, Craig was on the air giving an honest forecast of what he saw. He even showed a bit a skepticism regarding a change the National Weather Service had made in watches and warnings for the area saying he just didn't see what they obviously were seeing. I trust Craig because over the years, he, in my opinion, has developed a track record of accuracy that has earned him my trust.
So another storm passes amid much hype that didn't turn out as the media expected. Another false warning given to the area that may have dissuaded folks from heading to the beach for the last weekend of the summer. Another over the top representation of the conditions that may have hurt shore businesses in their last money making weekend of the summer. I know I may sound a bit like the Mayor in the movie Jaws, but really, what advantage is there in constantly crying wolf? Is it because folks were pretty tired of the Ground Zero Mosque story and the coming of Earl gave us something else to talk about? I just wonder what's going to happen one of these days when the real warning comes about the real hurricane or snow storm or Nor'easter, and no one listens! There'll be a hell of a story to report on then, and a lot of finger pointing as to what led to the disaster, but somehow I doubt they'll assess any blame on themselves. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story….
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Facebook
Wikipedia says, "Facebook is a social networking website launched in February 2004…with more than 500 million active users in July 2010. Users can add people as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. ….Facebook allows anyone who declares themselves to be aged 13 or older to become a member of the website….Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade 'best-of' list, saying, "How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabble before Facebook?" Social Networking, huh? Well, I guess that's a nice way to put it!
I became part of the Facebook community kind of through the back door. There was a picture that someone at WABC showed me of a much younger me sitting at the board in the old WABC studios at 1330 Avenue of the Americas (in fact, it's this very same picture that graces my profile on this blog). He told me that Phil on the WPLJ side of the floor had found it on the internet. When I asked Phil where he'd gotten it, he emailed me a web address. Turned out it was from someone's Facebook page, and the only way I was able to get the picture was to register for Facebook…so I did!
Now let me stop this narrative and give you a little background. I had been strictly forbidden by my 3 children (Bill 27, Krissi and Kenny 23) from joining Facebook. They felt that this was something that belonged to them, if you will, and that they didn't think it was a place for their folks. I honestly understood that, as I really didn't want to know every little detail of their young adult lives, so Facebook wasn't even something on my radar…till this picture came up.
Well, I completed the sign up, signed in, found the picture, downloaded it, signed off, and thought no more about Facebook….until the first person found me a couple of months later! Out of the blue there was a notification from Facebook sitting in my email inbox that I had a "friend request". A friend request??? What the heck is that, I thought. So I followed the link and signed into Facebook. I don't remember who that first "friend" was, but I know they were someone from my past who I never in a million years thought I'd ever hear from again. WOW, I thought, this could be cool! So they had the hook in!
I spent some time and filled in some of the background information that they wanted. Told them school names, where I'd worked, etcetera. - No, I didn't give them a lot of info, so don't worry that I committed the Facebook sin of telling too much – and signed off. The next thing I know, my inbox is full of notifications of friend requests from folks. They were people I use to work with at WABC, WHN or WOR, people from high school, people from college, the sister of my best friend, and lots more! There were people I hadn't heard from in years, and people I see every day at work. Even Gloria who I went to first grade, with and who played Mrs. Clause to my Santa in our first grade Christmas play at Garden School!
I tried to be very conservative at first and didn't seek out friends, but rather let them find me. I didn't want to be one of those folks who worried about how many friends they had, and who seemed to need to win the numbers game, but eventually I too started looking for folks from my past. I am still conservative and won't accept friend requests from people I don't know (why would you…what are they, your audience??) and only have about 150 friends. In the couple of months I have been involved in Facebook, I have discovered some interesting things about my "friends", and I bet these same types exist on everyone's friend list!
The first Facebook member is the person that has to tell you EVERYTHING that is gong on in their life! I mean the ones that say things like, "taking a nap now, then out to dinner with family" or "rotten day at work…stopping at the bar in Penn on the way home." These folks also seem to be the ones with a smart phone and manage to give you up to the minute updates on their every situation. "WOW…long line of traffic to get into the parking lot at Jones Beach" or "I'm really wasted..hope I can make it back to the bar from the men's room". The more obsessive ones also seem to have a camera with them at all times, and there is almost always a photo tagged to the update!
The second type of member is the one that seems to be on 24 hours a day! Sign on at 7:30 in the morning and they're there. Sign in at noon…yep, there too. 3PM…you got it…still on! 10 at night…ditto. Can't sleep and you're cruising at 3 AM and they are still on! Now, perhaps this is a case of folks that never sign off, but it's really strange when they always seem to be on line! This person is also bound to be the one signed on via their office computer and sometimes even the ones that bitch about their boss or work load!
Then there are the ones that post links to anything and everything you can think of! These folks obviously spend lots of time everyday on the internet looking for things to link to their Facebook wall for the enjoyment of the rest of us. I want to grab some of them and say, "Hey…I can use Google too"…but I don't.
Then there are the game players. You can read about their crops and pigs in Farmville, cheer along with them as the get gems, and God knows what else! I suffered through these friends till I realized you could tell Facebook not to show them. Thank you Facebook!
I hear a lot of people my age bemoaning what the younger generation shares with the world on Facebook, and the amount of time they spend on line. You know those inappropriate posts we've all seen…like the picture of you doing a keg stand last weekend, or the obviously drunken pictures from the strip club, or the bitching about your boss, workmates, family, or whatever else you can imagine. "These kids today, (him…sounds like a line from Bye Bye Birdie) this living on the internet is going to come back and bite them in the ass!" Well, I do believe that, but it seems to me that there are lots of folks of an older demographic doing the exact same thing! I see posts every day from people who's 20s are but a dim memory posting complaints about their boss or work load (and during the hours they're at work), putting up pictures that are at best of a questionable nature, posting hundreds of times a week, telling me intimate details of their life, and just sharing too much information! I heard two people complaining recently about a mutual Facebook friend who was doing exactly that. I had to laugh when one of them said to the other, "Well what do you expect from a 65 year old man who spends all day on Facebook!"
So Facebook…wonderful tool or curse? I can see how it can go both ways and I guess a lot of it is your choice of friends, kind of like in real life! Did you know that there is a Facebook command that allows you to ignore your "friends" without them knowing? I tell you…gotta hand it to those 4 Harvard students who put Facebook together. Geniuses!!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
What am I doing here?
So why have I started this blog? Good question...lets see if I can answer it.
Ever since I was a kid there has been something that fascinated me about being a writer. Perhaps it was because of books I read by authors like John Steinbeck that moved me, or perhaps it was because putting words on paper seemed somewhat easy for me when it wasn't for others, or perhaps it was from watching the Dick Van Dyke Show and seeing how much fun Rob, Sally and Buddy had in the Writers' Room on the Allan Brady Show! For whatever reason, I have been a closet writer for a number of years (no...I don't write about or in closets) and have even sold a couple of items to magazines. I have come up with some great ideas for articles and even written "pitch letters", started short stories, written some kid's stories that got my own kids' seal of approval when they were young, thought about book plots, and even committed some actual words to paper. I started on a Royal Portable typewriter in the last century, moved on to a huge IBM desk top computer and dot matrix printer, and now am on a small laptop. Through the years I've had bursts of activity and turned out the beginnings of some things that seemed to me to be going in the right direction. So why haven't I done more? If I had to be honest, I'd say it's because I'm just not committed enough to turn the idea into reality!
In reading books by authors about the craft of writing you read over and over again about how you must treat it has a job. You must be committed to spending time at your craft. You need to set aside time every day to write. You must write every day! I even saved the following quote in my Kindle from Sue Grafton's novel, U is for Undertow, "Writing's hard. It's a skill you attain by practicing. You don't just dash off good work in your off hours. You can't be halfhearted. It takes time. You want to be a concert pianist, you don't slog your way through Five Easy Pieces and expect to be booked in Carnegie Hall. You have to sit down and write. As much as you can. Everyday of your life."
So there's the rub as they say. Am I committed enough make the transition from thinking about doing it to really doing it? As I've said, I have always written to some extent. Bless the love of my life, my wife Susie, she is my biggest cheerleader and has always told me I am a writer (and volunteered the information to whoever would listen). So the encouragement is there. Through the years lots of folks have taken advantage of whatever ability I have with the written word and have asked me to "ghost write" speeches, college application essays, complaint letters, job resumes, newspaper articles, and even award nominations and recommendation letters. I've had friends say to me, "Can you help me with this...you're the writer", so there are others beyond my loving wife who admit I have some ability to string written words together. So we come back to the word commitment. Am I willing to make the commitment to spend some time on a consistent basis and work at this?
That's where this blog comes into play. A germ of an idea started running around my brain when I found a blog of a favorite writer of mine a couple of months ago. He's the kind of writer I love to read. One who fills his work with believable stories of people you care about. They are not great novels in the Steinbeck, Hemingway or Fitzgerald style, but rather short stories of real people and of important, funny or interesting events in their lives. His name is Ed Lowe and for many years he was a columnist for Long Island's Newsday. I was a faithful reader and even went so far as to write a letter to Mr. Lowe on a column that particularly moved me back in 1986 shortly after our twins Kenny and Krissi were born. I'd missed his work and was happy to find a new way to connect with him and his stories (if you are not familiar with Mr. Lowe's work or if you are and you too would like to re-connect with him, I suggest you check out his blog, Ed Lowe, Himself at http://edlowehimself@blogger.com).
Anyway, I am reading Mr. Lowes' blog entries and I am loving it! Rather than having to wait hours or days or weeks for the next installment, here I had a compendium of his writing. Much like having the entire series of an author's novels on hand so you can end one and start the next, I can finish one column and start the next (Mr. Lowe is at a very interesting place in his life and along with the stories of others, you also get a very good look at what he is going through. Rather than even attempt to share that with you, I suggest you sit back and let him take you along with him. He will do it with much more humor and insight than I could ever provide.). So while I am in the middle of becoming reacquainted with Ed Lowe and his work, an idea hits me...why don't I get one of these blogs and see if I can find the commitment to write something on a regular basis?
Ever since I was a kid there has been something that fascinated me about being a writer. Perhaps it was because of books I read by authors like John Steinbeck that moved me, or perhaps it was because putting words on paper seemed somewhat easy for me when it wasn't for others, or perhaps it was from watching the Dick Van Dyke Show and seeing how much fun Rob, Sally and Buddy had in the Writers' Room on the Allan Brady Show! For whatever reason, I have been a closet writer for a number of years (no...I don't write about or in closets) and have even sold a couple of items to magazines. I have come up with some great ideas for articles and even written "pitch letters", started short stories, written some kid's stories that got my own kids' seal of approval when they were young, thought about book plots, and even committed some actual words to paper. I started on a Royal Portable typewriter in the last century, moved on to a huge IBM desk top computer and dot matrix printer, and now am on a small laptop. Through the years I've had bursts of activity and turned out the beginnings of some things that seemed to me to be going in the right direction. So why haven't I done more? If I had to be honest, I'd say it's because I'm just not committed enough to turn the idea into reality!
In reading books by authors about the craft of writing you read over and over again about how you must treat it has a job. You must be committed to spending time at your craft. You need to set aside time every day to write. You must write every day! I even saved the following quote in my Kindle from Sue Grafton's novel, U is for Undertow, "Writing's hard. It's a skill you attain by practicing. You don't just dash off good work in your off hours. You can't be halfhearted. It takes time. You want to be a concert pianist, you don't slog your way through Five Easy Pieces and expect to be booked in Carnegie Hall. You have to sit down and write. As much as you can. Everyday of your life."
So there's the rub as they say. Am I committed enough make the transition from thinking about doing it to really doing it? As I've said, I have always written to some extent. Bless the love of my life, my wife Susie, she is my biggest cheerleader and has always told me I am a writer (and volunteered the information to whoever would listen). So the encouragement is there. Through the years lots of folks have taken advantage of whatever ability I have with the written word and have asked me to "ghost write" speeches, college application essays, complaint letters, job resumes, newspaper articles, and even award nominations and recommendation letters. I've had friends say to me, "Can you help me with this...you're the writer", so there are others beyond my loving wife who admit I have some ability to string written words together. So we come back to the word commitment. Am I willing to make the commitment to spend some time on a consistent basis and work at this?
That's where this blog comes into play. A germ of an idea started running around my brain when I found a blog of a favorite writer of mine a couple of months ago. He's the kind of writer I love to read. One who fills his work with believable stories of people you care about. They are not great novels in the Steinbeck, Hemingway or Fitzgerald style, but rather short stories of real people and of important, funny or interesting events in their lives. His name is Ed Lowe and for many years he was a columnist for Long Island's Newsday. I was a faithful reader and even went so far as to write a letter to Mr. Lowe on a column that particularly moved me back in 1986 shortly after our twins Kenny and Krissi were born. I'd missed his work and was happy to find a new way to connect with him and his stories (if you are not familiar with Mr. Lowe's work or if you are and you too would like to re-connect with him, I suggest you check out his blog, Ed Lowe, Himself at http://edlowehimself@blogger.com).
Anyway, I am reading Mr. Lowes' blog entries and I am loving it! Rather than having to wait hours or days or weeks for the next installment, here I had a compendium of his writing. Much like having the entire series of an author's novels on hand so you can end one and start the next, I can finish one column and start the next (Mr. Lowe is at a very interesting place in his life and along with the stories of others, you also get a very good look at what he is going through. Rather than even attempt to share that with you, I suggest you sit back and let him take you along with him. He will do it with much more humor and insight than I could ever provide.). So while I am in the middle of becoming reacquainted with Ed Lowe and his work, an idea hits me...why don't I get one of these blogs and see if I can find the commitment to write something on a regular basis?
That's where I am now. I started this back in July when we were on vacation in Ocean City, NJ. A topic would hit me or something would happen that inspired me and I'd write an essay (I guess that's what you'd call it...my ego isn't so large that I could call it a column). As you can see from the history of my blog, this has been, at best, a random and occasional endeavor on my part. Back to that word commitment. I guess the point of this particular entry in my blog is an agreement between me and well, me to try and do this on a more regular basis. If I am successful at that I guess the next step will be to see if I can get someone other than Susie to read this. Perhaps I'll be one of those folks who share things with "friends" via Facebook (hey...if you can hear about someone getting a new pink pig or fertilizing their Farmville crops, you can put up with my sharing too). Perhaps if I have the feeling that I have responsibility to others I will find the commitment I need to do this on a regular basis. Perhaps I am just blowing smoke and nothing will change...time will tell!
Monday, August 30, 2010
Where does the time go? (or time flys when you're having fun!)
Ever stop and look at where you are in life and wonder how the hell you got there? If you are of a certain age, I know you know exactly what I'm talking about. It didn't seem long ago that you were a kid, or you were in college, or your kids were babies, or you were the new kid on the job, or you were a newlywed. You remember things that happened years ago as if they were yesterday and then there are other things that you should clearly remember, but you don't!
It's hard for me to believe that it was 34 years ago earlier this month that I started working at WABC Radio. Now I know I have had a lifetime of experiences there, worked with hundreds of folks over the years, been to some incredible places because of the radio station or the people I've worked with and have probably forgotten as many of my experiences as I remember, but 34 years?? No way I'd say except I can clearly look at my ABC ID card and see a hire date of 8/7/76. Wow...where did the time go?
Then there's the luckiest day of my life! Late next month, Susie and I will celebrate 31 years of married bliss. 31 years since that fateful day in September, 1979 that we both said, "I do" and started on life's greatest adventure. It's really hard to believe that we have been married for more than half our lives (well, way more in Susie's case) but we have. The houses we've lived in, the cars we've owned, the places we've vacationed, the people we've met and the things we've both forgotten are all a testament to the years we've been together. It's still hard to get my head around being married for 31 years. On one hand it seems like an unfathomable length of time, on the other it seems like a blink of the eye!
Lets not even talk about the kids! Seems like just yesterday that our first born Billy was less than 24 hours old and thought my nose was something to suck on for nourishment. Well, it may seem like yesterday, but early in November it will be 28 years! How did this little baby grow into the man he is today? Where did the years go from the days we stood out at soccer games, or traveled Long Island for Marching Band Competitions, or journeyed to Parents Weekends at college? And then there are the twins, Krissi and Kenny. From 2 tiny preemies who spent weeks in neonatal intensive care to the two 23 year old adults they are today happened in a flash. There are lots of moments you remember along the way (little league and soccer games, school plays, more marching band competitions, softball games, and lots of chauffeuring) but overall the years have disappeared. We've been very fortunate to share so many wonderful moments of their lives with the 3 of them, but still the years flew by and sometimes you just have to look at your adult children to believe how many years have passed!
I remember talking to a good friend a number of years ago about what the future held for us Baby Boomers. We were both about the same age and had parents who were the same generation and I made the point that we would never be as old as our parents, no matter what age we lived to be. That was because there was a huge gap between the way our parents grew up and the way we grew up and that difference made them grow up a lot sooner than we had. I felt that we Baby Boomers would always feel like kids, no matter how old we were! So far, I think my theory is true and as we get older I think we are indeed younger than our parents' generation were at our age. Perhaps that might partially explain why we still feel like teenagers even though the calendar, our driver's license, our childrens' drivers licenses, and our life experiences say otherwise. My point was that in our head, we'll always feel like we are 18 years old, even though intellectually we know we are anything but.
I remember talking to a friend at work a couple of years ago who was born in the same year as I was. His complaint was that he was always the youngest guy at work until he woke up one day and discovered he was the oldest! Oh boy, did I understand what he was talking about. Look, they never discovered the fountain of youth and there is no way to stop the clock on life. We are all going to grow older and the only thing we can all do is sit back and enjoy the ride. However long we end up living, life is a short ride that goes way too fast. So take each day as it comes and try to enjoy all of them. Love your family and friends, have as many experiences as you can and never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. No regrets is the way to live every day. It won't make them pass any slower, but life is too short to worry about the little things! Time does indeed fly when your having fun!
It's hard for me to believe that it was 34 years ago earlier this month that I started working at WABC Radio. Now I know I have had a lifetime of experiences there, worked with hundreds of folks over the years, been to some incredible places because of the radio station or the people I've worked with and have probably forgotten as many of my experiences as I remember, but 34 years?? No way I'd say except I can clearly look at my ABC ID card and see a hire date of 8/7/76. Wow...where did the time go?
Then there's the luckiest day of my life! Late next month, Susie and I will celebrate 31 years of married bliss. 31 years since that fateful day in September, 1979 that we both said, "I do" and started on life's greatest adventure. It's really hard to believe that we have been married for more than half our lives (well, way more in Susie's case) but we have. The houses we've lived in, the cars we've owned, the places we've vacationed, the people we've met and the things we've both forgotten are all a testament to the years we've been together. It's still hard to get my head around being married for 31 years. On one hand it seems like an unfathomable length of time, on the other it seems like a blink of the eye!
Lets not even talk about the kids! Seems like just yesterday that our first born Billy was less than 24 hours old and thought my nose was something to suck on for nourishment. Well, it may seem like yesterday, but early in November it will be 28 years! How did this little baby grow into the man he is today? Where did the years go from the days we stood out at soccer games, or traveled Long Island for Marching Band Competitions, or journeyed to Parents Weekends at college? And then there are the twins, Krissi and Kenny. From 2 tiny preemies who spent weeks in neonatal intensive care to the two 23 year old adults they are today happened in a flash. There are lots of moments you remember along the way (little league and soccer games, school plays, more marching band competitions, softball games, and lots of chauffeuring) but overall the years have disappeared. We've been very fortunate to share so many wonderful moments of their lives with the 3 of them, but still the years flew by and sometimes you just have to look at your adult children to believe how many years have passed!
I remember talking to a good friend a number of years ago about what the future held for us Baby Boomers. We were both about the same age and had parents who were the same generation and I made the point that we would never be as old as our parents, no matter what age we lived to be. That was because there was a huge gap between the way our parents grew up and the way we grew up and that difference made them grow up a lot sooner than we had. I felt that we Baby Boomers would always feel like kids, no matter how old we were! So far, I think my theory is true and as we get older I think we are indeed younger than our parents' generation were at our age. Perhaps that might partially explain why we still feel like teenagers even though the calendar, our driver's license, our childrens' drivers licenses, and our life experiences say otherwise. My point was that in our head, we'll always feel like we are 18 years old, even though intellectually we know we are anything but.
I remember talking to a friend at work a couple of years ago who was born in the same year as I was. His complaint was that he was always the youngest guy at work until he woke up one day and discovered he was the oldest! Oh boy, did I understand what he was talking about. Look, they never discovered the fountain of youth and there is no way to stop the clock on life. We are all going to grow older and the only thing we can all do is sit back and enjoy the ride. However long we end up living, life is a short ride that goes way too fast. So take each day as it comes and try to enjoy all of them. Love your family and friends, have as many experiences as you can and never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. No regrets is the way to live every day. It won't make them pass any slower, but life is too short to worry about the little things! Time does indeed fly when your having fun!
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Escalator Rules...are there such things?
There has been a lot of chatter lately from several of my Facebook friends about escalator incidents. Once the topic is started, there are lots of additional comments as it seems that just about everyone has had some kind of an incident lately on a set of moving stairs! Most of them seem to center around folks (or groups of folks) who get to the top or bottom of an escalator, get off, and proceed to stop dead, totally forgetting for the moment that there are people behind them who will soon be up their collective backsides! Cell phones seem to almost always be part of the mix and the lack of ability to text and walk seems to be at the heart of a lot of the incidents, but that's not all. There are also the groups of people who seem to get off an escalator without a clear idea of where to go next and instead of stepping aside to make that decision, seem to be immobilized!
I myself have had a couple of these recently. One morning, coming up the 3 story escalator from the LIRR level of Penn Station at 8AM a young lady in front of me was too busy texting on her phone to move away from the escalator as she got to the top, forgetting that there was a steady stream of hundreds of people right behind her! She didn't stay there long before she was shoved out of the way. One afternoon I was going down an escalator when two young guys in front of me stepped off and stopped dead so that they both could share a text that one had just received. The gentleman in front of me perfectly expressed my sentiments when he said, "Tell me you two are kidding! Get the hell out of the way your jerks!" He had the size to carry it off!
Then there are escalator walkers. Now, personally I don't think escalators are designed to be walked up or down....something about the relation of the height of the steps to the width, but lots of folks obviously don't share my feelings. So, what do you do?? Do I act like I am the only person in the world or do I acknowledge that others in the world think differently than I do? So here are what I think the bare minimum should be for escalator rules:
1 - If there is a line to get onto an escalator, wait on it. Don't walk ahead of those waiting and push your way in front of someone else. We all have some place to be.
2 - Please make using the escalator your main job not secondary to talking or texting on the phone, talking with your friends, window shopping, daydreaming or whatever else might occupy you.
3 - Step on smartly and if you are one person, stay to the right so others can pass you if they should so choose (and because this is America and not Great Britain, stay to the right not the left so the walkers don't have to be part of an obstacle course).
4 - When you get to the top or the bottom of the escalator, please move off the moving stairs and out of the way if you are unsure of where to go next, or otherwise perplexed.
I think if we all followed these simple rules life would be easier for all escalator users. Who am I kidding...do I really think anyone cares? Oh well, I can dream...right?
I myself have had a couple of these recently. One morning, coming up the 3 story escalator from the LIRR level of Penn Station at 8AM a young lady in front of me was too busy texting on her phone to move away from the escalator as she got to the top, forgetting that there was a steady stream of hundreds of people right behind her! She didn't stay there long before she was shoved out of the way. One afternoon I was going down an escalator when two young guys in front of me stepped off and stopped dead so that they both could share a text that one had just received. The gentleman in front of me perfectly expressed my sentiments when he said, "Tell me you two are kidding! Get the hell out of the way your jerks!" He had the size to carry it off!
Then there are escalator walkers. Now, personally I don't think escalators are designed to be walked up or down....something about the relation of the height of the steps to the width, but lots of folks obviously don't share my feelings. So, what do you do?? Do I act like I am the only person in the world or do I acknowledge that others in the world think differently than I do? So here are what I think the bare minimum should be for escalator rules:
1 - If there is a line to get onto an escalator, wait on it. Don't walk ahead of those waiting and push your way in front of someone else. We all have some place to be.
2 - Please make using the escalator your main job not secondary to talking or texting on the phone, talking with your friends, window shopping, daydreaming or whatever else might occupy you.
3 - Step on smartly and if you are one person, stay to the right so others can pass you if they should so choose (and because this is America and not Great Britain, stay to the right not the left so the walkers don't have to be part of an obstacle course).
4 - When you get to the top or the bottom of the escalator, please move off the moving stairs and out of the way if you are unsure of where to go next, or otherwise perplexed.
I think if we all followed these simple rules life would be easier for all escalator users. Who am I kidding...do I really think anyone cares? Oh well, I can dream...right?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
